Just like a kid

We recently purchased a wireless printer so that when we wanted to print something we would have to go get the printer from the office and plug all the cords in. It was such a hassel. Now the printer sits in the office closet and prints wirelessly! Cosmo helped me unpack. As you can see he loved the box. He's kind of like a kid. We buy him fancy new toys, and all he wants is the box.

Sunday Lunch Traditions

I like Sunday Lunches. Growing up Glen's family ate Sunday lunch at his Grandmother's house almost every week. It was always a special occassion. Since we have been married we have not done such a thing. We go to church 20 minutes from our house which is not a big deal for us but most people in our church live Lexington while we live in downtown Columbia. I have always felt bad about asking people to drive ALL THE WAY over to our side of town. So we have always just gone out to eat every Sunday after church. Don't get me wrong we will go to lunch with people and still fellowship but there is something different about having people in your own home with a meal that you prepared.

This past Sunday we had our first of hopefully many Sunday Lunches. We will however not host a Sunday Lunch every Sunday. I couldn't do it. My house would certainly be a lot cleaner, but I couldn't do it. We are too busy to plan something like that every week. We hope to have one once a month. I think that is a good balance and maybe we will eventually do it every other week.

I also had planned to take a picture of our lovely bunch (something that Glen's brother and wife did in college), but completely forgot. Sorry guys. We will get you next time and thanks for coming!

Unbelievable

We played disc golf yesterday afternoon with our good friend Travis. Half way through the course there is a Par 3 hole where you cannot see the basket. You have to throw the disc down the hill in hopes that it will land close to or at least in the direction of the basket in my case. Glen was up first.

He throws. A few seconds later we hear the clanking of chains. We look to see if there are any people at the other holes around us, thinking they may have made that sound. We look down the hill and there is a guy standing there with his hands up as if he was calling a touch down. Glen got a hole in one throwing it blindly down the hill. Unbelievable.

I suggested that he should become a professional disc golfer. Wait...I don't think there's any money in that, and I like my cushy only 25 hr/week job. Nevermind. Forget I ever mentioned it.

Multitude Monday, Week 19

214. Cool weather
215. Our first Sunday Lunch
216. Disc Golf
217. Silly youth group games
218. Organic lettuce
219. Dessert receptions
220. A Praying Life
221. A monday afternoon spent at home
222. Left over portobello mushroom sandwhiches
223. Having $50 left for the last week in my grocery budget
224. Fall themed magazines
225. Only 6 weeks till vacation

Week 18

Friday Confessions: Wet Pants

Before we started small group this past week, we somehow got on the topic of peeing in your pants. Well, in second grade I accidently peed in my pants. Apparently second grade was a hard year for me. For whatever reason, I did not like to use the bathrooms at school in second grade. Especially the ones that are in the classroom. I couldn't wait for third grade who's classroom did not have a bethroom in it. So everyday I would hold it until I got home. One day I just couldn't hold it anymore. I ran for the bathroom at the back of the classroom. I made it through the little hallway into the bathroom and when only 1 foot away from the toilet I peed in my pants. It was an utter disappoint because I was so close, but I guess close only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades. Luckily they had a spare bag of clothes for each grade and second graders don't pay to much attention to fashion. From then on I sucked it up and used the school bathrooms.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with the post other than these were my friends in 2nd grade. However the picture is from highschool. Don't we look awesome.

p.s. I tell this story of wetting my pants because I know everyone has a pee story and its funny. I am just letting it out. I hope you now feel more connected to me since we are on common ground.

Little helpers

How cute. They wanted to help me coupon...or maybe they just wanted me to play with them. Who knows?

Mocha Cupcakes & Espresso Frosting

Last week I found this recipe for Mocha Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream Frosting. I made them for my small group this week. I was really hoping that I could frost them like they did in the recipe, but I only have a small tip for mini cupcakes. Excuse me while I write "get decorating tips" on my to-do list. Okay, now that that's done. I would DEFINITELY make these again and probably will next week. Maybe next time I will make them in mini form. The frosting was a bit too sweet for me but my small group girls seemed to like them very much. I think mini form will solve my problem with them being a bit too sweet.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Saturday night I was really craving some BBQ Chicken Pizza. We had all the ingredients except pizza dough which I would normally make from scratch, but I was lazy. Plus, I didn't want to get my freshly cleaned counters dirty again, and I make a HUGE mess any time I make any kind of dough. So I picked some up from the grocery store. If you are going to make your own use this recipe. If you are going to buy it then try Publix, Earth Fare, or the Fresh Market . They have bags of ready to go pizza dough. Don't buy the can dough. Its okay, but you will thank me if you use the freshly made dough. I promise.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Pizza Dough

Cornmeal

BBQ Sauce

1 Cooked Chicken breast cut up

1/4-1/2 onion sauted
Feta Cheese

Mozzarella Cheese

Roll out pizza dough on floured surface. Sprinkle Cornmeal on pan and place dough on top. If the dough is thick cook at 400 degrees for five minutes before topping. Otherwise, spread BBQ sauce on dough. If you like saucy pizza make it saucy if not then don't. It's all up to preference. Then top with mozzarella, chicken, and feta. Bake at 400 degrees (15-20 minutes) until cheese is bubbly and crust is golden brown.

Yum!

Multitude Monday, Week 18

203. an ingenuitive husband
204. board games
205. laughing that makes you cry
206. Netflix
207. talkative junior highers
208. God's grace in helping me teach
209. His House
210. the youth praise band
211. the gospel of Mark
212. my fellow jr high volunteer leaders
213. girls night

Week 17

Crab Cakes

On Thursday night we treated ourselves. We had not spent a night at home together in 7 days. Plus I spent 2 1/2 hours that afternoon in an allergy clinic being used as a pin cushion to find out I was unreactive to skin tests. Awesome. 45 scratches and 12 shots too late.

I highly recommend these Crab Cakes.

To make your dinner extra fancy, try adding a spinach salad with goat cheese and green apples.

Memories

I am in the process of cleaning out the office so that we can turn it into an office/guest room and so that we can keep it from becoming a junk room. Pictures to come soon. Hopefully. I found lots of old pictures. This one made me smile a lot!

Channeling Bon Jovi

Friday Confessions: Hair

I grew my hair out for locks of love in highschool. I got almost 11 inches cut off the first time. I had planned to do it a second time, but I caved and cut it right before my wedding. The second time I grew my hair out Glen grew his out too! I think he had 8 inches when he cut it and my was it beautiful hair. If you have never seen Glen with long hair, you wouldn't recognized him. He has beautiful blond ringlet curls. Is it bad that I describe Glen's hair as beautiful? Maybe that's a little girly. His hair was super masculine and ummm...okay it was just pretty. Too bad Locks of Love required 10 inches and he had to cut it due to interviews for real jobs and the whole growing up and becoming an adult thing. I kind of wish I had beautiful blond curls but then again if I had those curls I am sure I would want straight hair.

I am officially planning to grow my hair out again but this time I am donating it to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths, and as of right now I kind of want to go a little crazy when I finally get it cut and get Alice's haircut from Twilight...but we will see.

Glen let me straighten his hair once. Apparently it brings out his goofy side.

7 days

As summer closes you would think that we would finally get a break, but for the past 7 days there has not been 1 night where both Glen and I have stayed home together. I think there was some quick dinners in there somewhere, but no night where we could just be there together. I miss that. I think so many times we just live our lives in a monotonous pattern of activities. I want to stop and be still and just focus on relationships.

So in celebration of spending tonight at home together I plan to make a special dinner including Crab Cakes, Brushetta, Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese, and a glass of wine. I can't wait.

When we are away...

the pets lay on the bed.

p.s. Please disregard the butterfly pillow case. The matching one is in the wash. 

Comfort Meatballs

This is a recipe from the Pioneer Woman's Cookbook, but it can also be found here. These were so yummy. They are kind of like mini meatloafs, but if you don't like meatloaf, don't count them out just yet. Please give them a try. We added in a little more tobasco then what it calls for. We like a little kick. I would DEFINITELY recommend these!

Salsa

I love salsa! I could eat it everyday. When we first got married we discovered black bean and corn salsa. I could eat it by the boat load, and it would be okay if it didn't have so much salt. We grilled out this past Friday and made two new kinds of salsa. It was a big deal for me to stray from my beloved black bean and corn salsa. Both were really good. I espcially like the green apple since it was such a unique combination!

Restaurant Style Salsa

Green Apple Salsa

Multitude Monday, Week 17

188. rain
189. cookouts with friends
190. wine from germany
191. goat cheese
192. new-to-us furniture
193. my parents who spent the weekend moving our furniture
194. free fabric
195. lazy Sunday afternoon
196. our 4-yr olds at church and a good last Sunday with them before they move up
197. baby showers
198. wisdom and encouragement when I really need it
199. knowing God is in control
200. coffee
201. girl time
202. memories/pictures from my childhood

Week 16

Drooling.

Today I really want to make these

Mocha Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream Frosting

and I am very excited that I discovered this!

Friday Confessions: Lead by example

I have already shared that I am was super competitive growing up. I also worked at my church's summer camp. The last summer I worked their I actually did an internship with the children's ministry. That meant that I was sort of co-director of the overnight camps. I was in charge of the work crew and head of the counselors. You would think that as a leader you would understand that what you did was watched, but what can I say, I was young. The last day we would have a big to do and this year was my year. I wanted it to be great! So I decided that we would have a mud war. We had done slip and slides before but thats so last summer. As we were preparing the mud pit some kids wandered up and asked if they could slide in it. The rule was no sliding because there might be rocks and other debrit in the mud that we cannot see and I certainly did not want anyone going to the hospital. So after we ushered the kids to go away so that we could finish preparing the mud pit. I decided I was just going to slide once before all the kids got up there. I was an adult not a kid so I didn't have to worry about getting hurt. Wow, that was bad logic. So in front of several of the counselors I went for it. Midslide I caught a large rock that embedded itself in my knee. Thankfully I did not have to get stitches but I couldn't participate in the mud war nor could I swim in the lake the rest of the week. I certainly learned my lesson!

Sprinkler

It has been a hot summer. Numerous days of 100+ degree weather and heat advisories can really wear on you. Abby loves playing with the water hose. So we decided to see how she like the sprinkler. She loved it.

Oh facebook

Facebook can be addicting, and it can definitely be a time waster. I am officially taking a week hiatus from facebook and hopefully making my time more productive. I am writing this here so that I feel like I have to go through with it. Those of you who are on facebook can call me out if you see any activity, but I promise there will not be any!

Chocolate Cobler

My friend Jessica came over again to bake. This was her time to come before school starts back. I hope you had fun! We made Chocolate Cobler and watched Juno. Man do I think that movie is funny! The cobler was good. It was very reminiscent of Chili's Molten lava cake. I just wish it would have had some sort of dark chocolate incorporated in there somewhere. Maybe next time...

Marinated Portobello Sandwich or so I thought

In Augusta, GA (where I grew up) there is an awesome restuarant downtown called the Boll Weevil. It has amazing desserts! Most times that I went there it was for dessert. However, if I was there to eat I would always get the Portobello Sandwich. It was amazing. So I decided that I would try to recreate it with my last two portobellos.

Unfortunately I botched trying to make sandwich bread so we decided to have roasted portobellos marinated in balsamic vinegar and italian dressing. We then used the botched bread to dip in a balsamic vinegar and olive oil mix. I am not posting a picture because its probably the most ugly thing we have ever eaten and yet super delicious. If I was a vegetarian I would be eating balsamic roasted portobello mushrooms every day.

New cookbook

Yesterday after church we had 3 separate people come up to me and congratulate Glen and I on our 3 year anniversary! I feel so loved. Even more than that we received an anniversary present from our good friends (Andrew & Elizabeth). Thanks guys! Elizabeth told me it was more a present for me than for Glen, and it certainly was. It was The Pioneer Woman Cookbook! I am so excited, and Glen should be too because this means a lot of new good recipes for him to eat!

I have already put the cookbook to use! I have been wanting to make these Gingerbread Pancakes for awhile and decided to make the Cheese Grits from my new cookbook to go along with them! The grits were so creamy and surprisingly easy, and I will now make them this way every time and probably more often now. The gingerbread pancakes tasted like Fall, and I love Fall. I am currently counting down the days until Starbucks has its pumpkin spice latte, and speaking of pumpkin spice lattes- I bet these pancakes would be fantastic with a little pumpkin mixed in!

Multitude Monday, Week 16

177. Our church
178. A week with no real plans
179. Gladiators finale
180. Real conversations
181. A new cookbook
182. Portobello Mushrooms
183. A husband who will eat portobello mushrooms
184. The funny moments our pets bring us
185. Reuniting old friendships
186. Unexpected messages
187. Getting to know new people

Week 15

Shrooms and Sliders

In celebration of our recent mushroom invasion, we decided to try two new dishes that contain mushrooms. Just kidding. I happened to find two recipes with mushrooms in the same week and portabellas were B1G1 at Bi-Lo. So here they are...

Shroom Fries

Shroom and Swiss Sliders

Please make these sliders ASAP! They were AMAZING!

Friday Confessions: I love glee!

I love glee. Seriously. So much that I might have spent all my itunes money (which wasn't that much) on Glee (and a little Ingrid Michaelson). I put this Glee on my Ipod which Glen got me last December for my birthday. The first technological music playing thing I have really had since my walkman. Now I have 8 gigs (I think? Remember- I am not technologically savy) of memory and all I listen to is Glee. I won't normally sing my lungs out in front of people but play me some Glee and you might see another side of me. I am not ashamed- it's my guilty pleasure.

Also, my favorite movie is Enchanted. Okay, I got it all out there.

What we've been cooking

I have been kind of light on my recipe posts lately. So, here is what we have been cooking lately.

Olive Cheese Dip

Make Ahead Muffin Melts

Ranch Style Chicken

...and tonight we plan to make a feast. Well, not really but at least 2 new recipes!

Spidey

Since I posted the mushrooms that have invaded our yard I decided I would share with you another invader. Every spring we get a lot of these black and yellow spiders. It doesn't really bode well for my fear of spiders. However, I actually really like these. They stay on their webs and are really cool looking!

Not pictured is a gaint one that could literally eat Cosmo. Luckily he has nested at an unreachable spot close to our roof.

Failure and a Belated Multitude Monday

I fell down on my duty to post my Multitude Monday list yesterday. I wasn't feeling very thankful. I thought no one would notice. When I think about it I really failed because the reason I was starting this list was to grow my thankfulness by looking at the blessings God provides everyday. So by not posting I am just giving in to my naturally unthankful spirit. Thank you Amber for reminding me to be thankful!

So here it goes...a little belated.

168. accountability from friends
169. loaned books
170. my camera
171. old furniture thats new to us
172. hearing C giggle
173. seeing Glen make C giggle
174. free stuff on the side of the road
175. friends who will listen and pray for you
176. God's abundance of grace

Week 14

Mushrooms Invade

Over night these popped up, and by the afternoon they doubled in size. It's so crazy how fast these grow.

My new favorite combo

We went to a game night on Saturday and made these. Mini funfetti cupcakes with cream cheese icing. I accidently added too much vanilla to the icing due to the fact that I did not want to get my measuring spoon dirty (weird- I know). They turned out awesome. I am also definitely a fan of making mini cupcakes. They are so much lighter and you can eat them in one bite, so less of a mess. The bad thing is you could easily eat 10 without missing a step. So take caution!

Celebrate good times

This past weekend Glen and I went out to dinner at a new place- The Cotton Grill- to celebrate our 3 years! First, Glen got my these alstromeria, my favorite kind of flowers!

Ready to go.

I had the best salad I have had in years at this place. Spinach salad with roasted red peppers, wild mushrooms, goat cheese, and a balsamic dressing. I am still thinking about it!