Good Food, Good Meat...

...Good God, Let's eat!  My Dad used to say that when we were growing up sometimes, instead of saying Grace before dinner.  It has stuck with me :)

I wanted to share a couple dinners we've had lately, that are pretty all around pleasing, at least I'd like to think so since I made them. 

Chicken Spinach Alfredo Pizza

 

I like to make a homemade pizza crust, but this pizza would be a SUPER quick fix if you got pre-cooked crusts (usually in the pasta aisle) or the refrigerated crust you get in a tube by the refrigerated biscuits.  I used:

• 1 jar Light Parmesan Alfredo Sauce

• 1 box chopped frozen spinach

• 1 cup chopped or shredded chicken (leftover rotisserie chicken would be perfect)

• 1 8 oz. bag shredded Mozzarella or Pizza cheese

• 1/2 c. shredded Parmesan cheese (optional- it makes it seem a little more gourmet, to me)

• 3-4 slices of bacon, chopped and cooked crisp

1. Prepare your pizza crust if it's not cooked already, it usually needs to cook a bit before adding toppings
2. Microwave unopened box of spinach in a glass bowl for 5 minutes; remove from packaging into a dish towel; wrap with towel and twist ends to wring water out of spinach; combine spinach and alfredo sauce
3. Spread sauce mixture on pizza crust, top with cheeses, then chicken and bacon; bake until desired doneness!

Pork Lo Mein

Get together:

• Your favorite stir-fry veggies (we like sliced bell peppers, sliced onion, shredded carrots, sugar snap peas, and crushed garlic, or sometimes I even just use a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies)
• 1 lb. Pork loin, steak, chops, or you could do chicken breast, too- this needs to be cut into thin strips
• Lo Mein noodles or spaghetti if you can't find lo mein (I have gotten mine from HyVee, they were called Wu-Mu noodles there, and I also have gotten them from an Asian food store and they were called Shang Dong noodles, I think....)
• Canola oil 
• 1/4 to 1/2 c. Soy Sauce

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook noodles- lo mein noodles only take 3-5 minutes to cook, spaghetti would, of course, take a little longer; drain in collander, set aside.
2. Heat a couple tablespoons of oil in a large skillet or wok and stir-fry meat until cook through and no longer pink; remove from pan and reserve
3. Add another couple tablespoons of oil in skillet or wok and stir-fry veggies until desired doneness (we like ours a little softer so the baby gal can eat them with us, so I cook them a wee bit more); add meat and noodles and soy sauce.  Start with 1/4 cup and add more to taste- we LOVE us some lo mein with our soy sauce ;)
4. Enjoy!




And just in case you mostly read to catch peeks at our little rascal- check down below, she cracks me up!

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Boogie Fever

We have boogie fever at the Brown house!  One of our favorite things to do is flip to 90's on 9 through our satellite receiver on our TV and hang out, clean, or DANCE!!  Here's a little video of our girl showing her very best moves....

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Hawkeye Garb- Cyclone Heart

We obviously have no idea which team, if either, Cailyn will prefer, but I like to think since she's a Mama's girl she's rooting for my alma mater when the Cy-Hawk game comes around.  However, I totally forgot to get her Cyclone gear for Friday- though my friend Jamie was happy to donate an ISU toddler jacket she found in a tub of clothes she received for her twins!  I just didn't get a picture of her in it, dang it!!

Not a problem though- so far she's seen two of these games, has worn Hawkeye clothes both times, and the Cyclones have won...both times...so maybe I'll continue to let her wear Iowa stuff...

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The Joy of a Bunk Bed

To the average busy adult, this may just look like 5 kids climbing on a bunk bed.  But to the children playing it is not a bunk bed, and to one another they are not children, they are just themselves.

To a toddler a bunk bed is monkey bar training and a place where only they can fit when standing straight up.  It is a trampoline with a roof.

A bunk bed is a window to play.....PEEK-A-BOO! 

To a first grader and a preschooler a bunk bed is an indoor jungle gym- or the perfect perch for inspecting dust covered fan blades.....and telling your mom's friend she really needs to clean them.

A bunk bed is a place for snuggling and hanging out.  A place to someday stay up late and tell secrets and stories, and then sleep in and smell apple cinnamon pancakes tiptoe under door.

And these children on the bunk bed are not just children.  They are childhood friends- and though their memories may fail them as they grow older, they'll always remember the joy of a bunk bed.

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Kitchen Cabinets Refinished: Part Dos

So my husband brought it to my attention several times in the last couple weeks that I never provided the conclusion to our kitchen cabinet redo.  Hence, here we are!

So in the Part Uno post I showed you how the upper cabinets looked after being whitewashed.  Now for the lower cabinets which were a little trickier.  We started the lowers a looooong time ago by sanding and painting the backside that is basically one big sheet of wood, a couple drawers at one end.  It was super messy- but after having painted the white cabinets and using the "liquid sand" we decided we really wanted to lower cabinets to be very durable.  After all, they will get bumped and scavenged by tiny hands more so than the uppers. 

So the first thing we did was to remove all the drawers and cupboards from the frames and JB got to work with the orbital sander.

Then came a coat of black paint- later to be followed by a couple coats of polyurethane which really brought out the color (I know- "What color? It's black!" but let me tell you- definitely more black and less charcoal after the poly).  The poly also helps add durability and makes them easier to clean.

 

We bought the same style of shaker doors for the lower cabinets.  They received two coats of black paint and two coats of poly.

 We found that the second coat of poly  went on and dried more smoothly if they were lying down when it was brushed on.  You can kind of see the difference in the the pictures above and below.

The extra job we had for the lower cabinets was replacing all of the drawer fronts.  For this we purchased solid planks of Aspen wood from the hardware store down the road and ripped them to size.  I would venture a guess that this saved us about $175 compared to the alternative of purchasing drawer fronts for about 20 drawers at $15 each.  They got the same treatment as the cupboard doors:

We then measured and installed cabinet hardware and drawer pulls, after which we sat back and enjoyed our hard work.  I think I must have walked into the kitchen at least 20 extra times that night because I was so in love with the finished product!

 This little space houses a cutting board that I haven't quite decided what I'd like to do with....I'm thinking a space for my baby and future babes to help do some cooking since it's a little more their size.

Before

After

Love.  Love.  Love.

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End of Summer Vacation Jubilation!!

 Haha, I'm laughing to myself thinking that my post's title may have given any readers the idea that we had this amazing, spectacular, unforgettable ending to our summer vacay......   Sorry folks!  It was just a regular ending- which was just how we liked it. We spent a lot of time together doing things we love to do- and that's what made it spectacular.  We.....

...went for a walk...

...went for a swing...

 

....shared some snuggles...

...discovered new things...

 

...watched rain bring the earth back to life...

...ate good food...while practicing a new skill...

...canned homemsde spaghetti sauce...

...became book worms...

...played games...

...spent time with friends...

...made seemingly elaborate breakfasts...

...and laughed and loved every minute of it.

We are already excited for another summer together next year, but are ready to cherish and experience all that life has to offer us until then.

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Summer is over..back to the grind

Monday marked our first day back to school, it's usually a bittersweet kind of thing.  Bitter because it means early mornings, missing Cailyn all day, and coming home only to find that it seems like bedtime and the next day come too fast.  But it's sweet in that we get back into a routine, football is around the corner, and our weekends suddenly have so much value again.

I'm just going to update with some photos from the last couple weeks of summer.  We did a lot in the first two weeks of August, but today will just be some pics of our Jolley softball weekend. 

Every year since we've been together Jerod has been acquired to help round out a team for a softball tourney in Jolley, IA.  If you don't know where it is, it's a town about 30 minutes West of Fort Dodge and it's super tiny, the town can't stretch  more than 4-5 blocks in any direction.  Anyway, in the past years they have dominated at the tournament for the most part and always won the championship, so we always come back.

We meet up with my parents the night before in Fort Dodge to hang out and so they can see Cailyn and stuff. 

Hanging out in Grandma and Grandpa's room after swimming in the pool- she LOVED it!

Gnawing on a rib bone at the steak house, this kept her happy for a good ten minutes

Shoulder rides are the best in this gal's opinion

She could not get enough of the long hallways, she ran down them at warp speed- and her feet were so dirty from it, ewww.....

So spoiled- eating M&M pieces

The tournament did not turn out like it has in years past.  The guys barely won their first game, lost their second game, and lost the game they played the next day- which kind of worked out in our favor because Cailyn slept through it and all the way back home, and we were able to get her back on her schedule.  I asked Jerod if Jolley days are over- he said we'll see if they want to play again next year, but if they don't, we'll be entering Melbourne Mousehole Days' co-ed tournament......not sure how I feel about that since I haven't really played since high school.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  I'll leave you with this final picture.  Even though they didn't win the tourney this year, Jerod still got to shine a little with an out of the park homerun!

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