Fajita Bag

Ok, I didn't see this on Pinterest, but it is something I did the other night after I was writing about the smoothie bags.

I am all about homemade dinners but I'm also all about making dinner prep as easy as possible...especially because I'm always trying to keep two kiddos occupied at the same time.  Anything that is a time saver is a friend of mine!

Cole and I love to eat fajitas, but sometimes it seems a bit overwhelming to me because there is a lot of chopping involved.  No, it isn't hard at all, but it can be time consuming when I have Tavian impatiently waiting for me to play with him!

I basically just decided to chop and freeze what I could in advance!  The best part about this too is that I was able to wait for a big sale on peppers which ends up saving me money, instead of planning for fajitas one week but finding out they aren't on sale.  Then my options are spend more then I should that week, or have to figure something else out last minute!

This last week red peppers were on sale 3/$1 and green peppers were on sale .49 cents each.  I bought a lot of them along with some onion and got chopping!

Now I have freezer bags full of onion, red pepper, and green pepper.  When I plan for fajitas I can thaw the chopped veggies and meat at the same time, throw it all in the skillet, and quickly chop a few tomatoes.

I'm pretty excited about it :)

...Maybe you have to be a mom to find these simple time savers exciting...

A Pin Come True: Uncooked Spaghetti

This Pin is so simple, but I had never heard of it before, and I am really excited about it.  It's the little things, ya know?

Let me ask you...

Have you ever thrown out a candle because you had burned it down so far that it was just becoming too hard to light?  Well, maybe you have a hand held lighter for those hard to reach wicks, but I don't!  And it has happened to me a lot.  Or I have been trying to light many candles on a cake and have had to go through like 6 matches, not to mention that it is just a big pain in the butt!

Not anymore, my friends.

Just take a piece of uncooked spaghetti and light it and you are set to light whatever else you need!  I tried it immediately after seeing the Pin, and it worked wonderfully!

Hopefully someone out there thinks this is as cool as I do :)

A Pin Come True: Smoothie Bag

Have you all seen the Pin for freezer smoothies?..(aka smoothies in a bag..that is what I call them!)

It was one of the first Pins I saw when I signed up for Pinterest, and I made some soon after that!  Tavian loves smoothies and I love making them for him, but I don't love that it can be pretty time consuming and that you need to have a lot of ingredients on hand to make it work.

Well, not anymore :)

The best part of the smoothie bag idea is that almost all the ingredients are frozen ahead of time, including the yogurt.  I took regular vanilla yogurt, although you could use any kind, and froze it in an ice cube tray.  I also buy large amounts of fruit when it is on sale.  Then I assembled my bags with the following:

2 cubes of yogurt

handful of blackberries

a few strawberries

handful of blueberries

half a banana

1-2 handfuls of spinach leaves

(you can use pretty much any combination of fruit depending on what you find on sale, but this is a usual combination for us)

Then, whenever we want a smoothie I just empty the frozen bag into my Ninja (which I love, by the way), and add milk.  You could add any juice too and that would taste great, but I like to keep mine really healthy for Tavian.  It is great because if he hasn't eaten as well that day I know I can give him a smoothie and he'll still be getting a good variety of food.  You can also add honey before you blend if you want a little extra sweetness, but I find it still tastes great without it.  The above list of ingredients makes about two sippy cups worth of smoothie, so it would probably only really be enough for one adult.  I usually give Tavian a full sippy cup and then I drink whatever is left over.  If I want a few smoothies for me and Cole then I just add a little more of everything to my smoothie bag.

I can't tell you how handy it is to just grab a bag from the freezer anytime we want a yummy treat.  So easy, I love it.  And Tavian does too :)

Sweet Felicity

I have hardly had a chance to really write about my sweet baby girl.

She is over 3 months old now, and the best thing I can say is that she has been such an absolute blessing.

Cole and I can't stop repeating, "She is the happiest baby."  And she truly is.  I mean it wholeheartedly when I say that if she cries it means one of two things...hungry or tired.  And that is all.  Otherwise she never cries.  She is all smiles and giggles and serves as a day brightener to anyone who crosses her path.  People are randomly stopping and letting me know that my sweet baby was smiling at them!

I wouldn't say that Tavian was the most difficult baby ever, but he was definitely more high maintenance.  If he had a dirty diaper, he let us know.  If he was hungry, he let us know and he wanted that food immediately!  Overall just a more intense kid!  And that wasn't bad, but before Felicity I definitely didn't know a baby could be so naturally happy and easy going.  I suppose it could partly be the difference between boys and girls, but it also could just be personality.

Even though Cole and I have been commenting on her happiness since the beginning, we just recently talked about the coincidence (or not so coincidence) that her name actually means happy.  Looks like it was destined from the start!  I know there will be more difficult times ahead, especially as she becomes more aware and more opinionated, but now she is my sweet, happy girl.  It seems like joy and innocence just exudes out of her...and I love it.

Her face cracks me up in this picture..chubs!

I also never really had the chance to express what it has meant to me to have a baby girl.  I would have been happy regardless, but God truly fulfilled the desires of my heart with Felicity.  I seriously look at our future together and I see so much fun and happiness.  I picture all the mother-daughter bonding that I longed for my entire life.  I picture shopping together, and girl get away vacations, and girl talks and heart to hearts.  I know I am painting a picture of rainbows and butterflies, and I know it won't always be like that, but I'm truly excited for all of it.  I look at so many of my friends and the relationships they have with their own mothers, and I am so excited that I will get to be a mother like that to Felicity one day.  How exciting to have grandchildren of my own and help her navigate through motherhood, the way I wish my mother was here to help navigate me!  I look at Felicity and I feel all is good in the world.  She looks so much like I did when I was a baby, as well as my mom's baby pictures.  Finally a baby who looks like me! :)

Sweet baby girl, thank you so much for coming into our lives.  We love you with everything that we have.  You have truly brought an extra peace and happiness to our little family that wasn't here before.  You are our blessing.  We love you baby girl :)

Wow..I am reeeaaally happy in this picture! lol

A Pin Come True: Garlic Cheese Breadsticks

Another Pin, another Recipe!

Cole and I have decided to make one night a week our calzone night (usually friday, saturday or sunday).  We LOVE making the yummiest Calzones.  When I saw this Pin on Pinterest, I knew it would be perfect to make with our calzones.  Who doesn't love cheesy bread sticks? And I think this recipe pretty much nails it!  Because Cole and I have been making our own calzones for awhile, I didn't use the dough recipe that was given, but I followed the rest of the instructions.  In the picture I took below it looks more like a pizza, only because I took the picture before I cut it into the shape of bread sticks!  Once you have the dough this is a super easy and quick recipe to make and I think it is a great appetizer for many different occasions.  YUM!  Don't forget Pizza Sauce for dipping :)  

Below is a picture of our yummy calzones before they have been closed and cooked.  We go all out!  Pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, onion, mushrooms, green pepper, spinach leaves, and our secret ingredient.  I can't even believe I am letting this out of the bag, but trust me, your calzones will never be the same.  Add a few dollops of cream cheese and it takes it to an entirely different level.  Trust me on this one!  I hope someone out there tries it and lets me know what they think!!!  We put them in the oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes (until golden brown) and then just heat up some pizza sauce for dipping.  So good!  And such a fun weekly treat!  As Tavian gets older he'll have more and more fun getting to help make his personal calzone.  Cole and I also pull these out a lot when we have company because everyone can make their own entirely to their liking!

Tried any Pins lately??  Do tell!

*I don't have our dough recipe on hand at the moment, but I will try and get it up here later.  We have been making our own wheat dough lately, but in earlier years used the little "add water" packages at the grocery store which were obviously very easy and we still thought tasted great!

A Pin Come True: Yummy BEC

I made this delicious Bacon Egg and Cheese bagel the other morning.  I worked at Gibs Bagels in Fort Collins when I was in college (if you have never been, stop being a fool and go!) and I have always loved a bagel sandwich.  Cole and I have been making bacon, egg, and cheese bagels for a long time, but I had never thought to put avocado on it before...before Pinterest, that is!

I saw this picture and knew it was something I wanted to try!

So last Saturday morning Cole surprised me and made it for me.  We have had it another time since then too!  It is also a great way to use extra avocados before they go bad.  (although I recently saw a pin about freezing them..but more on that another day!)

Here is my conclusion:  It is good!  The only negative was that you couldn't taste the avocado as much as I would have hoped.  But it was still yummy and I liked being able to have another way of getting Tavian to have avocado!  Let me know if any of you try it!

Looks delish..right?

And don't forget to join in on A Pin Come True and let me know all the pins you are trying!

A Pin Come True: I Love You Because

On this Pin Come True I bring to you one of my Valentines Day gifts that I made for Cole this year.  Some of you may have seen on Pinterest the I Love You Because frame.  If you haven't, it is a pretty wonderful idea and I knew it would be perfect to make for Cole.  We can always use more reminders/inspiration to acknowledge the little things we love about one another.  This is what I came up with:

Mine looks a little more hand crafted, probably because it was!  I had to print the words onto an 8.5 by 11 scrapbook page but had to figure out a way to get other paper surrounding it since my frame is an 11 by 14.  It was overall an easy project but a bit time consuming because I had to figure out how I wanted to go about making it work.  I was also in quite the hurry because I had to make it happen during nap time so that my little rascal wouldn't get into everything!  But it turned out pretty well and Cole LOVES it!  We use it all the time and it hangs on the wall directly across from our bedroom so we see it first thing as we leave our room!  This is a cheap project.  I re-purposed this frame that I got at a garage sale and then bought an expo marker to right on the outside of the glass with.  Perfect!  If you use an 8.5 by 11 frame you could just right the words on any regular sized paper and by the marker and you are finished.  It is as easy or as time consuming as you wish to make it!!!

You may also notice in the picture that I have a heart shaped chocolate candy with a tag that says "I Love You More Than Chocolate! (and that is a lot)".  This was also an inspiration from Pinterest. I found 14 Days of Valentines and it helped me give Cole surprises for days!  Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of any of them except the above.  I probably only did 7 out of the 14 but it was still a lot of fun.  I just printed out the tags, cut them out, and attached them onto gifts for him.  I found a lot of fun packaging at the $1 store and that helped everything look extra cute.  If you need a fun idea for next year, this is definitely one you should try!

Let me know if you have any questions, and let me know if you get around to making the "I Love You Because.." frame!