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!

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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

Vacation is never long enough!

We just got back on Monday from such a fun long weekend in Chicago. We had a jam packed weekend of fun! Not only did we celebrate Fathers day there but my cousin also got married. Congrats Ashly and Rob!! It was a beautiful day!

I have been going to Chicago almost yearly now since I was 12 years old. So it's a lot of fun now taking my own son to do some of things I got to do when I was younger. My dad and Lynn packed our days full of fun! We enjoyed every minute of it too! Ok ... maybe not the minutes that Brayden screamed in the car because he wanted to be outside continuing in the fun and how dare he take a nap!

Thursday we got to enjoy a nice day at the Brookfield Zoo. I haven't been in years. I forgot how big it was and how beautiful it is. My cousin Kristen and her family have a membership so they got us all in for free and joined us for the day! We had so much fun. Brayden enjoyed going on the carousel with Nani and Mia. And of course they conveniently put it right at the entrance so when you are coming and going it's what all the kids see... and what kid do you know does not want to go for a ride! We had fun at the zoo and they had really nice exhibits.

After the zoo we went to Salerno's Pizza. This is my very favorite pizza place in all of Chicago. Okay ... so I haven't tried many there... but I am not really willing to. I LOVE IT! I know it definitely is better than any other pizza we have in Colorado... so this is a must when we visit Chicago!

Friday my dad and Lynn took us downtown. We went to the Shedd Aquarium first. I had never been there before even after all these years. So I was looking forward to checking it out. It sits right out on the edge of Michigan Lake. It's huge and there is a lot to see. The only unfortunate part was it was free day for the general area. There was a line wrapped clear around the building. My dad was the smart one though and had purchased our tickets online. So we were able to bypass the line and go right in! Good thinkin' dad! We got to see all sorts of fish, and turtles. They also had dolphins and a whale. We didn't think Brayden would sit thru a show so maybe next summer we can go to the dolphin show. We had a good time regardless. After that we took a water taxi over to Navy Pier. Here we bought tickets to go on the Architecture tour down the Chicago River. Brayden seemed to enjoy all the boat rides. The tour is pretty cool. They talk about all the old and new buildings in the city as you ride by. I guess most buildings aren't any older than 1930 because of the old "famous" Chicago fire that happened back in 1877(?). Pretty interesting.

Leaving the city was a rough one... Brayden cried almost all the way home. It wouldn't have been so bad BUT it's a long ride home from the city. It's not like Denver where you can be home in 20 minutes. Poor kid... no nap and overexhausted. He was screamin at me big time! After maybe 30 or 45 minutes of the scream he finally passed out.

We stopped at Portillos for dinner on the way home. Again... this is another favorite we hit every time we go to Chicago. They have the best italian beef sandwiches EVER! I don't even know where to get it in Denver. So anyone visiting Chicago... stop by!!!

Saturday was my cousin Ashly's big day. It was so pretty. She had picked like a watermelon color for the girls dresses. It was very nice and everyone and especially Ashly looked beautiful. My only regret was forgetting my camera this day! DAMN! So I snapped a few shots off of another camera and as soon as I have them I will post pictures from the wedding. She had a very nice ceremony in a really cute church. Had that cute old wooden church feel. The reception was held at a VFW turned banquet hall. It was very nice. The food was yummy, the dancing was fun and the bride was beaming! We all had a great time! Even Brayden was up till midnight jammin it out on the dance floor with us all!

Sunday we enjoyed a nice Father's day at home. My dad cooked some yummy BBQ. Italian sausage, ribs, hot dogs, and chicken. We had a very nice day and we were able to relax. It was nice. The weather was perfect too!

Monday was our last day. We met up with a good friend for lunch and then headed to the airport. Brayden did really well on both flights in and out. No crying. He did get a little antsy on the plane ride home. The only mishap... he pee'd thru his diaper right on to my lap! So that was fun! LOL... He did sleep for about the last hour on the flight home. Made it nice for me to be able to close my eyes for a few moments too!

We had a great time on our vacation and miss Nani and Papa already! Can't wait to see you again! Love you guys!

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