This is the life...

I don't know if I have mentioned it before... but... I LOVE MY LIFE! I am so blessed to be married to the most wonderful husband who is so patient with me and loves me for me. I also have been blessed with a very very cute little boy! Although right now he seems to have hit the terrible 2 stage! The fits are something I never imagined! BUT one little smile or kiss from him and it just makes it all better! He is growing up so quickly! Still not a whole lot of talking. I am still waiting... His only words are: Uh oh
Hot
Wow
Mama
Da or dada
and then just some blabber.
He has almost all of his teeth now. We are just waiting for 1 more now I think. Oh and along with the terrible 2 stage he is the worst at sharing. The doctor told me at this age they have no idea what sharing even is and to tell all the older kids they need to share. But at some point they have to learn right? Everything right now is Braydens though (he seems to think) and we are still working on teaching him how to share.
He is now my little escape artist too and loves to be outside. He has never escaped without me knowing, yet. But he loves to test me while I'm sitting right here watching him.

At least he sat right on the step.

Brayden telling me to get my booty out there!

I tried another new recipe! It was YUMMY!

Chicken Enchilada Ring:

(ok, so it may not look great... but it was good!) My advice... don't buy generic crescent rolls! I try to buy generic everything and some things you just can't go generic on!
2 C. coarsely chopped chicken
1/4 C. chopped pitted ripe olives
1 C. shredded Monterey Jack/Cheddar blend
1 can (4 oz.) chopped green chilies, undrained
1/2 C. mayonnaise
1 T. Southwestern Seasoning Mix
2 plum tomatoes
1 lime
2/3 cup finely crushed tortilla chips, divided
2 pkgs. crescent rolls
1 C. salsa
1 C. sour cream

Preheat oven to 375° F.
Mix chopped chicken, olives, cheese, green chilies, mayonnaise and seasoning mix in bowl. Seed and chop one tomato. Slice lime in half. Juice one half of lime to measure 1 t. of juice. Reserve remaining lime for garnish. Add chopped tomato and lime juice to chicken mixture. Reserve 2 T. crushed chips and add remaining chips to chicken mixture. Mix well.
Sprinkle reserved crushed chips over flat side of a large cutting board. Place dough onto chips and press down so chips adhere to dough.
Separate dough into triangles. Arrange triangles, chip side down, in a circle on a 13" baking stone. Wide ends should overlap in the center and points should be toward the outside. There should be a 5" diameter opening in the center.
Scoop chicken mixture onto the wide ends of the triangles. Bring points of the triangles up over filling and tuck under wide ends. Do not cover filling completely. It should show in between each triangle.
Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
For garnish, cut remaining tomato into 8 wedges. Cut remaining half of lime into 4 slices, cut in half. Arrange between openings of ring where filling is showing. Serve with salsa and sour cream.
(Oh and I don't have a baking stone so I just used pizza pan! A small one so I didn't have much room to spread the dough out!)

New Recipes

I get so bored eating the same foods over and over for dinner. And I'm sure my husband doesn't appreciate it either. I just got into this funk. We make the same things every week it seems. You know, spaghetti, hamburgers, brats, tacos, steak. And then we start all over the next week with the SAME thing! UGH! Boring!!! So I was reading a friends blog and she has tons of recipes. I have copied her idea and will take pictures and post recipes. Because if your anything like me you need to see a picture with the recipe. I am trying 4 new dinner recipes this week and I am so excited. LOL.. yes I am laughing at myself.

The other night I made Upside Down Pizza:


1 pound beef
1 onion chopped
1 tsp garlic minced
1 16 oz jar marinara sauce -NOT SPAGHETTI SAUCE-
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup mini pepperonis
2 cans crescent rolls

Brown Beef, Onion, Garlic then add 1/2 marinara to mixture.

Open 1 can of crescent rolls and roll them out to one sheet, place on greased 9x13 pan
Add meaty sauce mixture and add cheeses then add pepperoni's.
Top with remaining sauce, then remaining cheese.
Open last can of crescent rolls and roll them out too and place on top.
Sprinkle with Oregano and Parmesan.

Bake for 30 minutes.

I also made some good 'ol Monkey Bread... YUM!:


3 cans Buttermilk biscuits (not the flakey kind) - I used 4 cans!
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon
2 sticks butter


Preheat the oven to 350.

Open up all three cans of biscuits and cut each biscuit into quarters.

Next, combine the white sugar with 2-3 teaspoons of cinnamon. 3 will be really cinnamon-y. Dump this mix and the biscuits into a gallon size zip lock back and shake it up really well.

Drop all of the biscuit quarters into a bundt pan (or jumbo muffin cups). OR I just used a 9x13 pan.

Melt the butter with the brown sugar in a sauce pan over medium-high heat until combined. Once the brown sugar butter has become one color, pour it over the biscuits.

Bake for 30-40 minutes (or 20 minutes for the muffin cup ones) until the crust is deep brown on the top.

I HATE MOSQUITO'S!!!

We had another fun, scratch that, another weekend of camping. I don't know what was more fun... how hot it was or the thousands of mosquito's! We left Friday evening a little later than planned so we didn't get up to our area until dark. We decided to go to Terryall and it's all first come first serve. We had a large group of us, so we took the chance of campsites even being open. On the actual lake it was of course completely full. So we drove further in and found a large spot that we had all to ourselves. The only bad thing was Gary and I have the only camper without a bathroom and we camped in open space! So every time I had to go to the bathroom I had to drive back to the lake where they had the bathrooms. No bueno! Oh and there was no shade for the HOT weather they were having there! UGH. AND the mosquito's were insanely annoying! I thought I was going to lose my mind. AND Brayden was teething and another eye tooth came through over the weekend. He cried nearly the whole time. Poor kid! Needless to say ... wasn't my favorite camping trip. I think we came home with over 100 bites on us each! BUT I did catch my first fish! I need more practice and can't wait to go fishing again!

We did see the most beautiful sunset ever as we drove into the valley and did some 4 wheeling. Even Brayden got to ride. When he wasn't crying he seemed to just enjoy wandering around camp. That made me not mind not being next to lake so he could just wander around and not have to worry so much.

I was sure glad to be coming home from this trip though. Usually I always want to stay longer ... but the mix of bugs and Brayden's crying I couldn't take it any more!

Digital scrapbooking design made with Smilebox

This other slide show is from my cousins wedding in June. I am so lame and forgot my camera and so my cousin sent me these pictures!

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July 4th Weekend

I think I am still paying for this last weekend. I am exhausted!!! It seemed as though it was nonstop Friday though Tuesday.

Friday we thought we would test Brayden out on watching some fireworks and see how he would do before the big day. Gary, Brayden and I drove down to Coors Field and parked basically under where they let fireworks off. Good spot on a little hidden back road. Brayden did great. As a matter of fact they had really no affect at all on Brayden. He got bored about half way thru and just wanted to play in the back of the car. So I don't know what we were so worried about! :) It made me laugh because I was worried he would get scared from the booms but nope! A few times he would point at the really big loud ones and say, "woa", and then giggle. That was it. I'm so glad.

Saturday we invited ourselves over to my brother-n-laws house. (Thanks guys!!!). Poor Henke's... they had been working out on their deck area all day and we bombarded them with dinner and family. I'm sure they were exhausted! But they put up with all of us and we had so much fun. We brought some of our own fireworks and the kids seemed to enjoy that.

Sunday we met up with the Henke's again and went and walked around Bass Pro Shops, one of our favorite places. We then went over to Toby Keith's Bar and Grill for dinner and after that drove over to the stadium where the Colorado Rapids play and watched their firework show. The boys all had fun playing on the hill and running around and they had a really great firework show. One of the best I have ever seen!

I thought we would never get out on the 4th. Brayden I think had had enough. He was over-exhausted from the whole weekend. Fighting his naps all the way and was throwing major tantrums all day. So we cancelled our plans to go to the Broomfield fireworks. Brayden finally fell asleep about 5pm for his nap and didn't wake up till 730pm. I knew if we tried to go anywhere at that time we would NEVER find parking. Gary's Aunt Shelly and originally invited us over so we called and begged (ok so we didn't have to beg) but asked if we can take our invitation back and still come over. I'm so glad we did. We had so much fun! Their house backs right up to a field and they live right near where they let off fireworks for the City of Thornton. So we got front row seats almost. It was another great show! AND the whole neighborhood was one big party too. Everyone was doing fireworks and having BBQ's. It was great!

We had a great weekend and so much fun! Thank you everyone for celebrating with us!!!

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Sunday