Show & Tell: Gorgeous Glasses

I got these amazing antique juice glasses at Walnut, Iowa's annual antique fair (which is one of the biggest antique fairs in the country...I know, hard to believe, but true).  It's held every year on father's day weekend.  I was so sad that I couldn't make it out this year because we were out of town, but I have gone the past couple years and let me tell you...so many beautiful things that it's hard to choose just a few.  I spotted these right away and it was love at first sight.  I couldn't stop thinking about them as I paraded through the streets lined with tables.  So, once we decided it was time to go, I made a beeline back to the booth to get them.  I even scored a deal.  The seller had them priced at $25 and I got all ten for $20!  I loved them so much that they actually inspired me to host a ladies only luncheon for all my girlfriends last summer and we are doing it again this year!

The pictures really don't do them justice!  They are much more iridescent than they appear.

Recipe Time: Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

This recipe is for my friend Sarah who was asking for an enchilada recipe a couple weeks ago.  I got this one from my aunt Shelly and they are delicious...not exactly good for you, but delicious!  Enjoy!!

Ingredients:

1 tbs. butter or margarine
1 medium onion chopped
1 4.5 oz can green chilis, drained
1 8 oz pkg. cream cheese, softened and cut into cubes
3 1/2 cups of shredded cooked chicken breast
8 8 in. flour tortillas
2 8 oz pkg monterrey jack cheese
2 cups whipping cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook chicken.  I poach my chicken and use Martha Stewart's poaching instructions found here, except I only add salt to the water.  Once cooked, I shred the chicken, but you could also cut it into cubes.

Next, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat, add onion and saute for 5 mins.  Add green chilis, saute 1 min.  Stir in chicken and cream cheese, cook stirring constantly until cream cheese is melted.  Spoon 2-3 tbs chicken mixture down center of each tortilla.  Roll tortilla and place seam side down in a lightly greased 13x9 inch baking dish.  Sprinkle with monterrey jack cheese and drizzle with whipping cream from carton.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

*They make great left overs too and reheat nicely in the microwave.

Pumpkin Update

It's now about 15 feet long!  It may have a cucumber beetle infestation, but I'm not positive.  I guess I'll have to keep a close eye on it for a while.   I wouldn't want anything to happen to it!

Finally Fireproofed

This is something I've been meaning to do since Christmas, or Black Friday, when I bought the safe. 

I finally got around to putting all of our important papers into our fireproof/waterproof safe.  I also added dvds full of all the pictures of Hudson since birth...which took FOREVER! That was my biggest job yesterday and I didn't finish until 8:00 last night! But my pictures mean so much to me that if anything ever happened and I lost them all I would be devastated, so now I don't have to worry about that anymore.

 Hudson was a big help with the safe...all he wanted to do was stand in it, on it and take everything out of it!

12 hours later the dvd's are done!

Here is the safe.  It's small, but we don't have much else to put in it, so it gets the job done!

Summer Lovin'

One of the best things about summer is sweet corn!  And we got some amazing sweet corn this weekend at the farmer's market.  We also got some yummy potatoes, cheddar cheese curds, eggs, and grass fed beef.  I love the farmer's market!

So Adorable

Okay, so this is just too cute not to share!  I walked into the the living room today to find Hudson watching Giada on the new cooking channel.  Like mother, like son!!  Maybe he'll become a chef someday!  He actually really gets into cooking shows for some reason.

Delicious Dish!

I made one of Jeremy's favorite recipes the other night for dinner (it's actually become one of my favorites too!).  It's yet another recipe from my favorite chef on the Food Network, Giada!  She has so many yummy and simple recipes.

This time it's:

Grilled Chicken with Spinach and Pine Nut Pesto

Ingredients

2 boneless chicken breasts

2 cups lightly packed baby spinach leaves (about 2 ounces)

1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 to 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel

1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Directions

Heat a grill pan on medium high heat. Lightly oil the grill pan. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Grill the chicken until cooked through, about 5 minutes per side.

Combine the spinach, pine nuts, lemon juice, and lemon peel in a processor. Lightly pulse. With the machine running, gradually add 1/3 cup of the oil, blending until the mixture is creamy. Add salt and pulse. Put half of the pesto into ice cube trays and store in the freezer for future use.

Transfer the rest of the spinach mixture to a medium bowl. Stir in the Parmesan. Season the pesto with salt and pepper, to taste.

Spread the pesto over each piece of chicken and serve.

As you can see by the picture, my husband loves it so much that I couldn't snap a photo fast enough!

It makes quite a bit of pesto, so it would easily serve 4 people.  It's really simple to make and has so much flavor! I think it would be great on pasta as well.  I also made asparagus with parmesan and bread crumbs, which is recipe from Everyday Food.  It was delicious as well!

A Green Home

Over the past few years we've been doing as much as we can to turn our home into a much greener one.  It's so important to us to do whatever we can to make a difference for the future of our planet.  Here are just a few of the things that we do on a regular basis to be more "green":

1.  Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
We have these in every room in our house.  At first I hated them, but now they don't bother me at all and they save us lots of energy every year.

2.  Recycle
We started recycling when we moved into our house 3 years ago and haven't looked back.  It's such an easy way to do our part and doesn't cost a thing.  We recycle so much now that sometimes we have to empty the bin in our kitchen more than once a week! 

We recycle so much from our bathroom that I even set up a little recycling bin in there.  That way nothing that can be recycled gets thrown away by accident. 

(wow, I didn't realize how dirty our toilet paper holder is until I saw this picture!  yikes!)

3.  Reusable Shopping Bags
I ordered these a little over a year ago from www.chicobag.com/ and love them!  You can get them in all different colors, but I liked them all so much that I had to get one of each except black.  And they fold up into tiny little pouches that can fit into your purse or clip onto your pocket.  We keep them in our car and use them as much as possible.

4.  Green Cleaning Products
We've slowing been switching our regular cleaning products over to "green" products as we run out.  These are just a few in our collection.

5.  Terra Passes

In the past we've purchased these for our cars.  I think we're a little behind this year.  If you want to learn more about them click here.

6.  Buy Local

We try to go to our local farmer's markets every weekend to buy local produce.  We bought eggs for the first time last month and I couldn't believe the difference in freshness!  Yum!  Everything tastes so much better!

photo courtesy of omahafarmersmarket.com

Like I mentioned earlier, these are just a few of the things we do around our home to be more "green".  We are always learning more and trying new things.

Pumpkin Update: GIGANTIC

June was very good to our crop!  It just keeps growing and growing and growing!  I wonder when the actual pumpkins start to grow?  Is it weird that I'm so happy about growing our own pumpkins?!

I can barely fit the whole thing in the frame.

Back To Scrapping

All through high school and college I made scrapbooks to showcase all my memories, well when I got a little older it seemed silly to still be making them just for myself, so I stopped completely.  Although I alway really missed having that creative outlet, I just wasn't into it anymore, until now.  I'm back to it making our little boy his first scrapbook!  It feels so good to be doing it again and I'm loving the outcome!  So I thought I would show you just a few of the pages that I've completed.

One of my maternity pics

Hudson's first time boating

In the pool for the first time on our family staycation

One of the Halloween pages

Valentine's Day

I have more that I'll post a little later this week.

Craft Time: Letter Make-over

I'm in the process of redecorating our son's bedroom.  It's very much like a nursery now and we really want to make it into more of a big boy room and add some personality to it.  Here is where I'm starting:

I originally bought and hung letters to spell out his name on the wall above his crib.  I painted them white and hung them in blue bubbles painted on the wall...well the blue bubbles are now painted over and I no longer liked the white letters.  I felt they needed more color, so I followed a tutorial on how to cover letters with scrapbook paper from Alissa at one of my favorite blogs 33 Shades of Green and here's how they turned out.

Here is the plain white letter that I started with.  I placed it face side down on the back of the scrapbook paper and traced it.  Then cut out the letter.

After that I just used some craft glue mixed with a little water(to thin it out), brushed it on the letter and then attached the paper.

And here is the finished project!  I absolutely love the paper and the letters look great hanging on the wall!

Stay tuned for the reveal of more of from the nursery redesign, and be sure to check out Alissa's blog for lots of great crafting and diy ideas, not to mention her beautiful photography!

Accomplished!!

So I told you last week that my big goal for this weekend was to pressure wash our badly neglected deck.  Well, I did it!  It didn't even take that long, minus an interuption from the baby, and it looks like a brand new deck!  Check it out!

Before:

During:

Isn't it amazing how much cleaner it's getting?!

After:

Beautiful!  Now we just need to stain it and we'll be done!

Recipe Time: Pickle Wrap Dip

If you are like me and LOVE pickle wraps, you'll just love this dip.  I got the recipe from my friend Abbie.  It's about the easiest dip you can make and is great to take to potlucks.  I make it for almost every party we host because so many people request it.  I hope you try it and enjoy as much as I do!

Pickle Wrap Dip

16 oz of cream cheese (whipped or softened)

16 oz of sour cream

2 packages of corned beef cut into small squares

1 jar of baby kosher dill pickles

1 tbsp water

Directions

Mix together sour cream and cream cheese.  Add corned beef.  Chop pickles in food processor and add to sour cream, cream cheese and beef.  Add 1 tbsp of water to loosen.  Mix all ingredients together with a hand mixer.  Chill before serving and serve with tortilla chips or crackers.

Time to Celebrate!

Wishing everyone a very

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you have a delicious food and fun filled holiday weekend!

photo courtesy of gettyimages.com

Weekend Project: Pressure Washin'

I'm so embarrassed that we've let it get this bad...but this weekend my big project is to powerwash the deck.  It hasn't been done since we moved in, which was 3 years ago, so it's gotten really bad!  As you can see in the picture below, the deck is really clean in the area under the roof overhang and then there is a distinct line where it turns extremely dirty.  We have also been talking about staining it since the summer we moved in and somehow it's always been put on the back burner.  However, we are actually going to accomplish that this summer too.

I mean...this is ridiculous...so we've borrowed a high power washer from the hubby's parents in order to get the job done!

I'll be sure to post the after pics on Monday...mostly because I'll be so proud of the improvement.  Just one more thing to cross off the House To Do List!