gorgeous in glasses!

I finally captured Em for a few and snapped some pictures of her...in her new specs!! Yup, the big annoucement is that she has joined the ranks of Mommy and now has reading glasses. Don't they make her look just darn adorable? (Ooops, not sure if teenagers want to be called "adorable" haha?!) She picked out a super fun frame too in brown and blue accents with polka dots and stripes...hopefully you can see the design when you click on the above picture and zoom in!

The Monkeys Hit The Slopes!

One of the best parts of moving to Idaho is the SNOW! And one of the best parts about the snow is SKIING! We got to go up and try out our local ski resort today. We are by no means accomplished skiers...Joshua and I skied as teens. Then we took Em and Trev twice when we lived in Idaho 5 years ago. And Carter's never been. So we are very happy on the bunny hill. And this resort is awesome...it has two magic carpets and one slow lift in their beginner area. So it was the perfect place for our family to hang out!!

Soooo first thing was first. Carter, meet Mr. Ed, ski instructor extraordinaire! Carter got to go to ski school! "Bye, Mom! I'm going with my ski teacher, see you later!!"

And much to my horror, the first thing Mr. Ed did was take Carter up on the CHAIR LIFT...no, not the nice slow safe magic carpet, but the darn chair lift! But as expected, Carter did awesome and Mr. Ed was a great teacher!! He had our littlest monkey sliding down the slope like a pro.

Since our baby was handling the chair lift, we also hopped on and took a few runs. This is Trev and I heading up.

Trevor looking mighty cute. For it having been 5 years since he skied, he did amazing! He was stopping and turning like it was nothing!

And I barely have a picture of Emilee because she was doing so well too. She just took off and acted like she'd been skiing forever.

After ski school was over for Carter, Joshua took him back up the lift and cruised down the hill with him a few times. Applause for Josh, cuz controlling yourself and a crazy little one is HARD!

Three tired and smiley monkeys!!

(I will try to get a couple of the videos I took up tomorrow!)

YUMMY, who knew?!

Things have been pretty quiet around here...we're just settling into our new Idaho routine...so I don't have a ton to share yet. I could post some pictures of me cleanin' this big ole house haha! I'd forgotten a bit how much work it takes to keep up on 2800 sqft of baseboard! Oh, and there IS a post coming about Monkey #1...but I gotta get her to sit still (read--chill out her social life) so I can snap a few pics first.

Anyway, I did want to share an AMAZING recipe we tried last night. Now it should first be said that we are a typical American family...requiring MEAT (and quite a bit of it!) at every dinner. BUTTTTTT, being mindful of health factors and budget, and thinking just a tad outside of the box lately has lended us to considering trying "meatless" meals. Joshua saw a friend share a recipe on Facebook for vegetarian enchiladas and we thought we'd give it a try (and what made me jump was I had ALL of the ingredients on hand!). So here it is...

2 or 3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 small can of diced green chiles
1/4 of a red onion, diced fine
1/2 T cumin
1 T chili powder
14 oz of canned chile verde sauce
8 oz of shredded cheese
10 flour tortillas
sour cream and/or cilantro to garnish

Preheat oven to 350. Cook the sweet potato (place in pot, covered with water, add a pinch of salt, boil until tender 12 mins, drain). In a large bowl place red onion, black beans, green chiles, cumin, chili powder, 1/2 the cheese and cooked sweet potato and mix well. Place about 1/3 of the chile verde sauce in the bottom of a large baking dish. Assemble the enchiladas by placing about 1/2 cup of the filling in a tortilla and roll up. Top with remaining chile verde sauce and remaining cheese. Bake for 20 mins and serve topped with chopped chilantro and sour cream if desired.

You can adjust how spicy they are by playing with the cumin, chili powder and onion (my kids panted a bit last night so I'll be cutting it back some next time). I also made spanish rice to go along with it. We always have three things on our dinner plates...a meat, a carb/starch and a veggie. Last night, there were only two...it looked like we were missing the vegetables. And Joshua joked "guess we can skip the veggies tonight, eh?!"

jammies and recipes

Just sharin' a cute picture of the boy monkeys! I *love* the "Carters" brand...first of all for obvious naming reasons, and second because they have a size span that allows both Carter and Trevor to having matching outfits. This time it was some neat rocket ship jammies (Carters brand is also awesome because they don't have any terrible gory/killing/dark character prints that dominate many of the other clothing lines), in footsie version for Carter and grown up two piece style for Trev!

Now, may I present today's accomplishment...

I made these Pretzel Rolls from scratch today! I got the recipe from this blog *http://fabulesslyfrugal.com/2011/01/pretzel-rolls.html* that I just started reading for local coupon deals. These rolls turned out SOOOO GOOD!! The recipe was a bit outside of my normal easy mix/bake zone...but I went for it and they weren't hard at all!!

Also, I don't have a picture to include, but I wanted to share the following recipe. I have to say I honestly don't recall where I got it from (copy and paste culprit) so I can't give proper credit (insert apology to mysterious cook). I've read for a long time about stretching your budget by doing meatless recipes and lentils sounded like some weird gross thing from some far away place I didn't frequent...but I gave it a try and THIS DISH WAS AMAZING!!! Josh and the kids were equally hesitant, but they all give a HUGE thumbs up to how darned delicious this turned out. You can serve this with a nice baked bread and a salad and call it a meal. I also added the leftovers of this into enchiladas I made a couple of nights later and it was YUMMY!

• 3 cups broth (chicken or vegetable)
• 3/4 cup lentils
• 1/2 cup brown rice
• 3/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon italian seasoning (I just used some rosemary and oregano because that's what I had on hand)
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (I use more)
• 1 cup grated cheese (cheddar or a blend is preferable)

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Mix all ingredients except the cheese in a baking dish (I use an 11 x 7).
3. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes.
4. Then remove the foil, add the cheese, and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

happy birthday!!

Joshua and I celebrated our birthdays the last of December, just like every year lol! Emilee put on her baker's hat and made the cake with JoJo and then did all of the decorating herself...didn't the cake come out amazing?!

Mommy is 34...

I had to run to pick something up at the grocery store on Joshua's birthday and the checker asked me, "so what are you doing for New Years tonight?" I replied, "it's my husband's birthday and he's making us sushi!!" Oh, you should have seen the look of horror on his face that I was forcing my husband to make us his birthday dinner lol!! We are all super lucky that Joshua is so talented in the kitchen and that THAT is how he wants to spend his special day!

And this picture is literally why we were so happy to buy this house. The first thing we said about this kitchen was, this island is perfect for making sushi!!
Digging in for the best bites...

Showing off Joshua's creations on his new birthday sushi plates...

Daddy is 37...