The Chain Gang

I was invited to be a "guest vendor" on The Chain Gang. Since I have so much free time (sensing my sarcasm?) I decided to do it! I've been way too consumed in it the past week or so getting ready for Tuesday, which is the big "stocking" day for it to all go up for sale. It's posted on there just for the month of February. So if February 27th rolls around and you happen to notice it's all still on there...umm...I'm not too prideful to ask for pity purchases. :) ha!

Mr. Handsome

A week or so ago, when we were still at Brandon's parent's house, I took advantage Salem's incredibly happy mood and some awesome light coming in the window. I plopped him up on the dining room table and started rapid firing with my camera. Below are the results! And I know I'm going overboard posting 10 pics, but well, he's just so darn cute that I can't resist posting them all! :)





Discovering the art of zerberts...and experimenting with flying...




ok...so, they're all my favorites. But the next three are really the icing on the cake. I could just eat him up! :)








Isn't he a such a sweetums?! (answer: YES!!!)

Chicken Almondine

Is this my first recipe post? hmmmm...interesting. Is that a testament to my cooking? I hope not.

We're back on the East Coast now. Within the past week we snow-skied (sp?) Taos, flew home on Wednesday, and Brandon has worked 30 hours over just the weekend. I'm feeling exhausted. Even though, really, I've not done much. Maybe part of that is because I've spent the last 3 days trying to get Eden pacifier detoxed...to no avail. Next time, I'm going to make sure Brandon is here with me for every bedtime and naptime because I CAN NOT withstand the screaming by myself.

So I gave in to her screaming during this afternoon's nap. And decided to take advantage of the peace and quiet and get my own coma-nap. But then some kids outside woke up me while playing the 2010 equivalent of Cowboys and Indians.

And now, with not much else to do, I'm passing on the recipe for our lunch today because it was DE-LISH. My awesome sister-in-law made this for us while we were home and I decided to give it a go. It's super easy. Super yummy. And in my mind, totally healthy because it's topped with almonds. (my reasoning on that is yet to be found)

Chicken Almondine

8 Chicken Breasts (I used 6)

8-oz carton sour cream

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 pkg Ritz crackers

2 sticks butter (yikes! I opted for half a stick! you could probably go without)

sliced almonds

cook your chicken. I baked it for 60 minutes at 325 degrees. Then shred it up and place in a 13x9 pan. Pour in sour cream and cream of chicken soup and mix all together. Crush 1 roll of the Ritz crackers and sprinkle them on top. Melt however much butter you decide to use(c'mon, think of your arteries here) and pour it on top of the crackers. Sprinkle sliced almonds on top. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 350.

YUM!

February, oh February

I know, it's still January.

But let me get a little ahead of myself and inform you of one of our new goals for 2010. Well...really just February of 2010.

A few months ago we were convicted about how much money we spend on eating out. Let me defend myself real quick and say that I do cook quite a bit, and we really don't eat out THAT much compared to the average American (I think.) But still, as a challenge to ourselves and in an effort to save money, live more conservatively, and use our resources wisely, we're committing to only eating stuff that we've bought from the grocery store for that week! YIKES! I know, it's going to be tough. Tough for me to steer clear of DQ Blizzards and tough for Brandon to avoid the pull of a vanilla latte at the coffee shop. None the less, we're going to attempt to do this. Granted, we have picked the shortest month of the year for this endeavor AND we're coming off of an eating out high with our families over the past few weeks, but we're sticking to it. And we're hoping to make it a yearly commitment. So look for lots of new recipes posted on here over the next several weeks!

The reason I'm posting this now is to give you an opportunity to say you'll join us! :) Maybe not for the whole month, but just whatever you think you can commit to. So, if you're up for it, join us for a month of meals at home!

Same. Same. But Different.

The Etch A Sketch. One of those classics from the 90s. (I'm just guessing on that...maybe it goes back further?!) We dug it out of the bottom of the toy box at my parent's house this week. Eden was confused why there weren't more colors. She lost interest pretty quick.

But Brandon was transformed into a 6 year old for several minutes today and was taken back to 1991 while etch a sketching (?) a masterpiece. After a serious several minutes spent turning the creaky white wheels back and forth, he turned it towards me and said, "LOOK! I drew you!"


Really?! That's supposed to be me?! Well, I'll give him a little credit. The Etch A Sketch doesn't really allow for a whole lot of creativity.
But really, what's your first thought when you see his Etchy Sketchy Masterpiece?
My first thought was this:


I know, I know. DaVinci's Vitruvian Man doesn't normally have a black square over the middle of it, but for G rated blogging purposes, I'm including it. :)
And granted, it's pretty far fetched to compare Brandon's squiggely lined Etch a Sketch weirdo to the Vitruvian Man, but can you at least see some similarities?
Maybe not.
Maybe I really am the squiggely lined weirdo.

Winter Wonderland

First off...I'm apologizing for all these picture/caption blogs I've been posting lately. I know you're just dying :) for a good read, but apparently living with family for the past 3 weeks leaves me very little time for creative blog thought. It also drains my wit (in a very good way!) and anything I'd try to write that would be remotely interesting might leave you drooling while sleeping on your keyboard.

So wake up! More pictures!


We had a white Christmas this year and loved getting to take Eden on her first very short-lived sledding adventure.
She started off as this, eager and ready:


Braved a few extremely short slopey hills, and really enjoyed it despite what her face is telling you...


Watched mommy and daddy enjoy the short slopey hills too...



About five minutes later and after deciding gloves are for weenies, with only racking up 3 sled trips total, she ended up as this...


That's one bitterly cold little girl being forced to try her very first snow angel. As you can tell, it didn't go over well.
Maybe next time she'll keep the gloves on and spending 30 minutes bundling up to go outside won't seem quite so futile. :)

We'll see next weekend! We're headed to Taos!

Merrrrrry Christmas!

I'm a week late getting pictures up...but maybe that's a testament to how busy we've been and how much fun we've had! :)
Here's a photo recap...

Gingerbread house building with BonBon and Pops. Pops is a Jedi caulker, so he was in charge of icing decor!



Our tradition of the Christmas Cookie Tree decorating with my (april) mom's side of the fam!



Look at those sweet smiles of Avery and Eden! Don't be fooled though...they were both secretly contemplating eating all of their m&ms instead of putting them on the tree.

Decorating the tree...notice Eden, the m&m thief, taking full advantage of Avery being ever so careful in m&m placement.





Handsome mini-man getting bigger and bigger every day:



After eating too much food and decorating even more food, we paused to worship our King's birth and celebrate his arrival in a small stable in Bethlehem. Thank you sweet Jesus for coming to earth as perfectly and humbly as you did! (is it odd that the story was read while my brother wore a Santa hat?!)


We were blessed with amazing gifts this year! Brandon's favorite has been his new iPhone and I've thoroughly enjoyed a shopping spree with my mom! The kids have whole new wardrobes and too many toys to play with! We are BLESSED!
One of our favorite gifts to the kiddos was Bekah and Kevin's present to them. Since Eden and Salem both have names of Hebrew origin, and Kevin is in Hebrew studies up to his elbows this year at SEBTS, Bekah painted their names in Hebrew on canvas. SO COOL! We love it!






We've had an amazing Christmas season with lots and lots of family (that I wish I had more pictures of to post on here!) and we're looking forward to a few more weeks with all of them!

With all the hustle and bustle going on through this time of year though, we pray that all of you blog readers out there took time to reflect on Christ's birth and his coming as a precious baby, our Savior! Our prayer as a family is that we'll never get so overwhelmed with gifts, snow, family time, food, etc...that we forget the importance of this time of year and the reason we enjoy all of those things to begin with, the birth of God's son!