Our good friends came over for dinner and a movie tonight, the kiddos were so excited to see Kenzie and Mr. Red Feather. Our guests were nice enough to bring everyone pizza. The littless had fun creating their own personal pizza's.
Getting ready to make their pizza.
Fun stuff!
Jericho was showing off for Kenzie. He kept doing this, then saying "Kenzie look at me, look at me!" It was awesome LOL.
Dessert was another new one, for us, from Skinny Taste...Hummingbird cupcakes. They were really good, the kids and I loved them, Jason said they were good...but he liked thePina Colada ones much more.
Ingredients: 3/4 cup all-purpose flour 3/4 cup whole wheat flour 1 cup sugar 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp nutmeg 1/4 tsp ground ginger 2 tbsp oil (I used coconut) 2 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla 2 cups mashed ripe bananas 20 oz can crushed pineapple in juice, drained well 1/2 cup chopped pecans
For the Frosting: 8 oz 1/3-less fat Philadelphia Cream Cheese 1 cup powdered sugar 2 tsp vanilla extract 22 pecan halves
Directions: To prepare frosting, beat together cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and spices; stir well with a whisk.
In a medium bowl, combine oil, eggs, and vanilla; stir well. Add banana and pineapple; mix well.
Fold wet ingredients and chopped pecans with the dry ingredients, batter will be stiff and dry but keep folding it and it will all comes together.
Spoon batter into cupcake tin. Bake at 350° for about 20-23 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.
Spread frosting over the cupcakes once they are cooled. Garnish each cupcake with a pecan half on top. 198 calories and 6 1/2 grams of fat each.
My family got to see Frozen for the first time tonight, thanks Auntie Allie...the munchkins LOVE it, so do I. I had heard some negative things about this movie, after watching it I have again come to the conclusion that some people just look for any reason to bitch. Stop doing that people...takes too much energy and time to bitch about everything. Just Let It Go :)
Haddie made a drawing for Jericho, of Jericho. She had a little help with the Superman symbols, but did all the rest herself. Jericho loved it!
Yay I got the photos back from our mini session out puddle jumping...and then some. I took pictures while we were there too, I got some good stuff...here, but of course the pro got better :) I love these...can't wait to work with Jaime at Velouragain!
My good little hand holders :)
I love this one...but am totally kicking myself for not realizing our rainbow is backwards, boo.
She got some great ones of Jericho in the hat with the red umbrella too.
So handsome!
I could eat him up!
The triplets look even older to me in her pictures than they did in mine LOL.
Love these three.
Sister Bond...love it!
This is one of my faves!
This one turned out fabulous too!
LOL Jason the umbrella wrangler.
Ahh a quiet moment together.
Another of my favorites!!! Love it!
And yet another fave. Jason and I don't get many couple pictures these days, love this one :) Love you Babe!!
The photog had a little mishap with her photos remaining full resolution after she did a little editing on them....and deleted the originals, ugh. So unfortunately I am not sure I will be able to get a big canvas done of a couple of these like I wanted to. I am pretty bummed...but she is going to do what she can to get me the canvases I want...we'll see, fingers crossed. That and I couldn't edit myself 5 years younger like I usually do...sucks LOL. I still love these....even if I couldn't fix myself up. Vanity is lame, but it is what it is....and until the hubby agrees to botox, photoshop is all I got Hehehe.
Oh yeah...the boys white shirts totally got ruined LOL.
I am really getting a jump on Xander, Hayden and Lily's birthday party stuff....it is only 3 1/2 months away you know LOL. I am always doing stuff last minute, so I thought I would try to get ahead this time. I'm sure we will still be up until at least midnight the night before...never fails, but I am doing what I can now.
The triplets want a pirate theme, so that is what we are doing. They got to help me with the invites today.
I had to borrow tea and coffee from a neighbor...she was so surprised that we don't drink either LOL. Got the kids armed with paint brushes, gave them a mug of very strong tea and another one of extremely black coffee then turned them loose on 20+ pieces of paper. They had a great time...so did I, the last time I made aged paper was for a project in middle school, crazy.
Jericho stuck with us for quite a while...for him, LOL.
Once the paper was good and covered, even with a little bit of excess fluid standing on the paper, I had the kids sprinkle Sea salt on the papers. I didn't do this step before, but it was supposed to be pretty cool.
Now they dry...it took a good 8 hours.
Next I got started on the sign pointing out the restroom. Hayden helped...thank goodness, I was buried in eyeballs.
Thanks Xander, put it down and help.
I posed for a silly picture.
Oh what have I started...LOL.
Silly girls, so funny!
Too much Hahaha!
The girls picked out "Poop Deck" even though that term doesn't have anything to do with the bathroom, they thought it was funny.
Pirate paraphernalia. Is it lame that I love Oriental Trading Company? Hehehe.
That is a lot of goodie treasure chests...and we are 5 short. Of course Oriental Trading Co only sells stuff in dozen's, or more....did I just say I love them? :(
I drew up an example invite, I wasn't thinking was I....20+ invites, this detailed...good thing I have 3 months to get them all done ugh.
I burnt all the edges of the papers...with a BBQ lighter, ouch. Note to self, just because you quite smoking 8 years ago doesn't mean you can't own some lighters. My fingers are killing me.
I got SIX done, six of the 20+ invites done...oh yeah, this is going to take a minute.
The kids love them, my fingers are sore, my house stinks like coffee and burnt paper, and I still have at least a whole days worth of work to go...but my kids love them! Win...and worth all the headache!
I concocted my own "skinny" recipe tonight...well, I am sure it has been done by someone, everything else has been, but I didn't see this anywhere else.
Lightened up, crock pot, version of Zuppa Toscana soup.
You need:
1 lb Italian chicken sausage 5 potatoes, chopped...I used medium sized Golden's as that is what I had on had, would be good with russet's too. 6 slices of bacon (cooked and broken up) 1 large onion, diced 1 tbsp minced garlic 4 cups chicken broth 4 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese 1 cup skim milk 1 tbsp cornstarch 1/2 bunch of kale, coarsely chopped (could use spinach or Swiss chard) 1 carton of mushrooms
Directions: Brown sausage until done. Drain off all grease, place in a colander and rinse...get as much grease off as possible. Place in the crock pot.
Add broth, onion, potato, cream cheese...chopped up and garlic to crock pot.
Cover and cook on low for 4 hours.
After 4 hours cook the bacon, break it up and add it to the crock pot. Add the mushrooms at the same time.
Let the cup of milk sit out to warm up a little, add the cornstarch and stir. Once combined add the slurry to the crock pot.
Cover and cook for another hour. Half hour before it is time to eat add the chopped kale.
This makes around 17, 1 cup, servings, at 116 calories and 4 grams of fat each. I have never had the Olive Garden version of this soup, or any other version for that matter, but this was awesome...a new fave for the husband even! It is not really creamy like the original version must be but the non-skinny version is 240 calories and 17 grams of fat...I will take a less creamy soup LOL.
