Our Fun Weekend

We had a fun family weekend!!! I thought I would share some pictures!

On Friday night we took the kids to the Bass Pro Shop. They enjoyed looking at all the goodies in the store.


They were a bit scared of the huge stuffed bear.



They really enjoyed looking at giant catfish!!


Alyssa had fun playing with Daddy at supper.


On Saturday we went to Granny & Papa's to play in their pool.



Also on Saturday Papa brought out the clippers and cut the boys' hair.



Here is Seth's before picture...


here he goes...bye bye hair...


and the after picture


Aaron enjoyed playing with the water hose!


Daddy & Alyssa napping on Sunday!


It was a super nice weekend!

Mommy has been in the kitchen

I have been asked to share some of my recipes...so I thought I would share the two I made last night - A new one and a favorite!!

Sweet 'N Sour Meatball Simmer
This was adapted from the Kraft recipe but I made a couple of changes!!



Ingredients

16-oz. pkg. frozen prepared homestyle meatballs

1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 orange pepper
1 yellow onion

3/4 cup apricot jam

3/4 cup KRAFT CATALINA Dressing

4 Tbsp. soy sauce
3 Tbsp. ground ginger
2 Tbsp. garlic powder

Steps:

COMBINE all ingredients in large skillet; cover.

COOK on medium-high heat 10 min. or until meatballs and vegetables are heated through, stirring occasionally.

SERVE over hot cooked rice or pasta, if desired.

Next time I will add a can of pineapple chunks! This was super easy and super delicious! I will be making this again!!

Now for a favorite!! I have made this a lot!!!

Mom's Banana Bread

adapted from Cooking Light's recipe...but of course I made some changes...beware - with my changes it is not as light of a dish :-)

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 mashed ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 large egg whites
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Cooking spray

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine sugar and butter in a bowl; beat at medium speed of a mixer until well-blended. Add banana, milk, sour cream, and egg whites; beat well, and set aside.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt; stir well. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, beating until blended.

Spoon batter into 4 (5 x 2 1/2-inch) miniature loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pans 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pans. Let cool completely or serve warm with butter!!

Note: To make one 9-inch loaf, spoon batter into a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray; bake at 350º for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Yield: 1 loaf, 20 servings (serving size: 1 slice).

Enjoy!!

A Beautiful Smile

Sometimes you just have to cherish the small moments of life!! Alyssa was being so cute tonight. I thought I would get out the camera and take a few pictures. Everytime I told her to "smile at the camera" these are the smiles I got!! She just melts my heart!!!

Happy Birthday Aaron!!

My baby boy turned 2 today!!! It's hard to believe!! We had a lot of fun celebrating this weekend. We had a fireworks birthday party with the family - complete with popping fireworks on Saturday night.

Here are some picture highlights of the event!

Aaron got a lot of fun presents!!



My little yankee doodle!!



His fireworks cupcakes!!


The funniest picture of all!!


Happy birthday Aaron!! Mommy loves you very much!

She's Growing Fast!

It's hard to believe that she is 10 weeks old! She is growing so fast! She had her 2 month check up last week and weighed in at 12 lb 3 oz and was 23 1/4 inches long! She is in the 95%!!

She is starting to smile a lot and is laughing in her sleep! We haven't gotten her to laugh while she is awake but it is only a matter of time!

She is a very quiet baby and doesn't "talk" much. I have been trying to get her to talk to me. Well yesterday we came home from church and all wanted to take a nap. I mean everyone but Alyssa wanted to take a nap. So I decided that I would just put her on the bed with me and she could just watch me sleep :-) Well she decided to start talking to me. It was the sweetest thing and for some reason I didn't mind that it cut my nap time short :-)

Aaron will be turning 2 next Monday believe it or not!! We decided that as he gets older he is going to want to have a party with all his friends so we are going to have to do birthdays the weekend after the 4th to avoid the holiday weekend...BUT...since he is still young and is not into the friend thing quite yet we are going to take advantage of having his birthday celebration on the 4th!! He is going to have a fireworks birthday party with his family!! Mommy is going to have a busy week getting ready for that!

My Little singer! Seth loves to sing! His favorite song right now is The B-I-B-L-E. He sings it all the time. Last night on the way home from church though he started singing "Who Let The Dogs Out". I really don't know where he heard that song! He was also singing I'll Fly Away with his Daddy yesterday!

Have a great week!

She's 2 Months Old & Other Pictures

It's hard to believe that 2 months ago today I was in a lot of pain fixing to welcome our baby girl into the world! This pic was taken today at the library.



Other Photos
When I had my diaper bag camera out today getting the pictures off of it from the library outing I noticed some "missed" pictures on the camera.

These were taken during our trip to the movies last week!!



These were actually taken by Granny when her and PaPa took the boys to dinner a few Friday nights ago. She saw the camera in the bag and took advantage of some cute moments! I had forgotten that she told me that she took pictures until I saw them on the camera today.

The boys were enjoying an ice cream cone at Dairy Queen.

Mommy has been in the kitchen

Mommy has been in the kitchen!!!

Several people have been wanting me to post some of my recipes so here are two that I did tonight! Both of these are very easy recipes and work well with busy households!

Breakfast Tequitos
Basically this is a breakfast casserole that is wrapped in a tortilla. By doing via a breakfast casserole makes the prep work for preparing these much much easier!

Ingredients:
12 eggs
1 lb ground sausage
1/3 cup milk
12 tablespoons water
cheese
20 flour tortillas
wax paper

Brown your sausage. Grease the bottom of a 13x9 casserole dish. Cover the bottom with your sausage and then top that with cheese. In a large bowl beat the eggs and then stir in the water and milk. Pour that over the sausage and cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until the eggs are set.

After you remove it from the oven cut the casserole into 12 pieces. Place a piece of the casserole on a tortilla and roll up and wrap in wax paper. Put the tequitos in the freezer.

When you are ready to enjoy a tequito just pop one in the microwave for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes and voila! A quick easy breakfast!!














Chicken Alfredo Pasta
You don't have to be a cook at all to be able to make this yummy dinner!

Ingredients:
12 oz of your favorite type of pasta (my fav is penne but they were out of it at the store the other day so I got bowtie)
4 cooked chicken breasts, cubed
16 oz frozen spinach, cooked (I steam my in microwave)
1 jar of your favorite prepared alfredo sauce (you could make your own but that would not make this a quick easy meal)
4 Roma tomatoes chopped
grated Parmesan cheese

Prepare your pasta according to package directions. Heat your alfredo sauce. Mix everything together!

I served it with Pilsbury Garlic Twists - yummy!!