Summertime Recipes

I tried two new recipes Saturday Night, Tequila Lime Chicken and Limeade Pie. Both were amazing and will definitely go into regular rotation at our house. Enjoy!

Tequila Lime Chicken (Barefoot Contessa, but passed along to me by my friend Jayne)
Ingredients
1/2 c gold tequila< ( I could only find a regular size bottle of tequila, so we'll be having this recipe a lot!)
1 c fresh lime juice
1/2 c fresh orange juice
1 TBL chili powder<
1 TBL minced fresh jalapeno
1 TBL minced fresh garlic<
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground pepper
3 whole boneless chicken breasts, skin on

Procedure
Combine tequila, lime juice, orange juice, chili powder, jalapeno pepper, garlic, salt and pepper in large bowl. Add chicken and refrigerate overnight
Remove chicken from marinade and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill them skin side down for about 5 minutes until nicely browned. Turn and cook another 10 minutes or until just cooked through. Remove from grill and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Serve hot or room temperature.



Limeade Pie (From Happy Homemaker)

Ingredients
1 tub of Cool Whip
1 can sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk!)
1 small can limeade (in the freezer section)
1 ready-made graham cracker pie crust
a few drops green food coloring if you really want to throw them off!
lime slices to garnish

Procedure
Combine the first three ingredients and pour into the pie shell. Garnish with the lime slices. Refrigerate for at least two hours, preferably longer so it will set up well.

I want these!

Mikasa Antique White dishware! I coulld ask for them as a Christmas present, but I want them to use by Thanksgiving!

Family Traditions

And no, not the Hank Williams Jr. kind. I’m talking about the real family traditions that you observe in your home.

I love holidays. Love, love, love them. For fall we go to the apple farm and the pumpkin patch and decorate the house. Halloween is Boo at the Zoo and Trunk or Treat at church. Thanksgiving we watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and this year we’re going to make turkey cupcakes. And Christmas………… Let’s not even get started on Christmas!

Other than the big holidays, I’m really trying to do something special for even the little ones. For birthdays we do streamers and balloons and the person’s favorite dinner. The 4th of July requires decorations and the annual Flag shirt from Old Navy. Valentine’s Day will be homemade valentines, a pink heart-shaped cake and little gifts for everyone.


These are the things he’ll remember when he grows up, just like I remember that every Christmas we had blueberry muffins for breakfast. Some of these things he might even take on to his own family.

What traditions from when you were growing up have you brought over to your own family? What new traditions have you started? Please share!

VBS Pictures

Here are a few pictures from VBS. I hope to get some more posted soon.

Blog Roll Woes

My poor blog roll desperatley needs to be updated. I'll be doing that sometime this week, hopefully.

Happy Monday!

Finally Friday!

Yes, I’m still here. This week has been kicking my butt! But, today’s Friday! One more day of work and one more night of Vacation Bible School. I know I may have complained a bit about my group and while they are very challenging, there are some great kids in it, too. I’ll be sad to see some of them go tonight!

As for the upcoming weekend, we have a whole lot of NOTHING planned. Tomorrow we’re sleeping in as late as we want, having a big breakfast, Brady’s going to play in his pool and we’re just going to relax. I will need to do some housework as I don’t think I’ve used anything containing bleach once this week and Brady will be getting a haircut. Sunday we have Sunday School and church and that evening we’re having an ice cream social after the evening service. It will be a fun day and I know we’ll be talking about VBS a lot.

Hopefully I’ll have some pictures to post next week from VBS! Have a great weekend!

Hand Motion Impaired

You know how when you were a kid and you’d learn songs at camp or church or school and they all had hand motions to go with them? You’d wiggle your fingers to represent the sea, raise them up to represent the sky, etc. And remember that kid who was always doing the wrong motion at the wrong time? Yeah, I was that kid. Apparently I’m that adult, too.

We’re learning a bunch of songs at VBS and I swear, I’m all over the place. I hope the kids aren’t following me too much!

I can hear it now “I’m sorry, you can’t help with VBS anymore because you can’t do the motions to the songs………………”

Vacation Bible School - Day 1

Vacation Bible School started last night at church. Our theme is Power Lab! It’s science-themed, lots of experiments and teachers running around in lab coats. The kids are loving it. I don’t know about you, but I have some really great memories of VBS when I was a kid. Lots of generic sandwich cookies and kool-aid, learning fun songs, playing tag and red rover and a craft involving blue feathers. Those were the days!

This is my first year to help with VBS and I’m in charge of the 1st and 2nd graders, 20 of them to be exact. 12 boys. My word! I’m hoping the first night is the hardest since I’m still getting to know everyone and figuring out who will need more attention (or supervision) than others. My job is to lead them from music to crafts to games to snack, etc. Thankfully I have two helpers who can make sure we don’t lose anyone along the way.

One boy (not in my group) broke his arm in the gym last night. I felt so badly for him. I also felt badly for our coordinator because I know that’s just how she wanted to start off the week, with an ambulance pulling up to the church. My group was on their way to snack time in the gym, so we had to hold up in the hallway while they tended to the injured. Of course, some of my boys started asking “is his arm going to fall off? Is he dead??” Good grief.

They have a mini-class for the 2’s and 3’s, only if you’re helping with VBS. Brady was having a ball. I’d pass him in the hallway walking with his class and he’d wave at me. He even got his picture up on the screen at the end! It just warms my heart to see my little boy having fun and learning about Jesus and starting to make those memories that I experienced as a child.

Weekend Fun

The Blue Wiggle

You know your child watchs the Wiggles too much when you decide that the Blue Wiggle is the Hot Wiggle! Is that bad?

Oh boy, I may have made a mistake!

Well, I may have made a mistake yesterday. While at Target returning some outdoor chairs, I decided to walk through the aisle containing these:



And it doesn't help that everyone around me is having babies right now either. I’ve been fighting off baby fever for a little while now, but this may have done me in!

I went to a party last night............

Well, we all seem to have recovered from Brady’s birthday party. I still have a few thank you notes to write, but that’s about it. Now I can start planning Christmas! Just kidding! Well, sort of.

Last night I went to a Southern Living at Home party at my friend Margaret’s house. If you’ve never been to one, you need to go! I absolutely adore their products. I had a party about 5 years ago and was able to get a lot of free/50% off items. Here’s what I got last night:

The Southern Sippers Pitcher:





The Rosedale Plant Holders. I actually already have these, but they were a customer special last night for $12.95, so I got them to use as a hostess gift when we go to DH’s sister’s house in August. Oops, I hope she doesn’t read this!



I also scheduled a party for August 19th at my house. There are still things on my wish list I’d like to get!

More party pictures

We played, we ate, we slept

The birthday party was a huge success and we had one tired birthday boy that afternoon:

The countdown is on!

Only 3 more days until Brady’s birthday party! Right now, it appears that everything is moving along smoothly. Monday I got the candles for his cake and his birthday card. I need to get with Pump It Up about the pizza. Friday I have to pick up the cookies and get those wrapped. I also need to get the drinks, since we’re providing those ourselves. I’m thinking sodas, juice boxes and water?

I have to decide what he’s wearing to his big event. He has a cute pair of shorts, but I’m worried they might still be too big. Guess I need him to try those on sometime this week.

I can’t believe he’s almost 3! Wasn’t it just yesterday that he was this itty-bitty baby with a ton of black hair? What happened?

Bible Study

Happy Homemaker was kind enough to ask about the Bible study I do, how it’s set up, the group members, etc., and I am just now responding. I’m so sorry for my tardiness!

My group is through my church. This is third study I’ve done with them and they’ve all been Beth Moore Bible studies. We meet once a week for two hours. The first hour the moderator (is that the right word?) talks about the homework (she doesn’t check it!) and we discuss it as a group. She’s this wonderful woman named Joyce who is in her 60’s. I just love her. Then the second hour is watching the dvd session for the next lesson. The group is made up of ladies from my age (28) to their 60’s or 70’s and everything in between. It’s nice because you get to meet people you wouldn’t normally be around. They have some really great insights, too.

The Bible study lasts between 10 and 12 weeks. The homework can be a challenge to keep up with because they take 30-45 minutes a day. I have learned so much, though. The first two I did was Daniel and A Woman’s Heart: God’s Dwelling Place. This one is Believing God.

I can't tell you how much I've learned and how much closer I feel to God. You really discover things in the Scriptures that you never saw before.

I thoroughly recommend them!

I don't know what is worse

I don’t know what is worse – cleaning out the car after my child has thrown up in it or finding out that while I was cleaning out the car, he dumped an entire box of baking soda in the living room. One good point is now the house will smell fresh for at least the next 20 years.

And that’s how I spent my Friday.