Home Improvement

I'm going to blame it on the wonderful Spring weather we've been having: I've got major home improvement-itis!  The first big project was the removal of the pear trees, which took place this morning (it was delayed earlier this week because of rain).  I don't have a great shot of the yard we inherited upon purchase (unfortunately), but I do have a couple of snapshots for anyone who didn't get the chance to see it:

Mom is standing between our front flower bed and the street. Please notice the ring of pavers (which are the strait kind, never meant to be put in a circle) around the massive red tips.

Behind me you can see the pear trees; the greenery in the middle of the pic is the ring of shrubs. (Please ignore the "I'm a new mom, who just moved to a new house, in a new town attire.")

There was also a "berm" (fancy way for saying a mound that would be ridiculous to mow over) between the house and the ring of shrubs. Nice.

So last year, our goal was to remove the shrubs and berm, and to establish some grass. Accomplished! This year the goal was to remove the trees altogether since they are being a liability in any kind of stormy weather. If you remember, this is what our yard looked like before:

And here is what it looks like now! With a few "in progress" pics.

I also painted the ceiling and walls of my laundry room yesterday; it was such a little space, but the paint is a big improvement!

Why do appliances have to make so much dust??

Before

Fresh, white ceiling!

 dd

After (the lighting in the before and after isn't great, but it looks so much better!)

Easy Quesadillas

Continuing the "it's-too-pretty-to-be-in-the-kitchen-cooking" theme, and in answer to a request made by sister Megan, here's another quick and easy recipe.  Last night we had chicken quesadillas, black beans, and chips and salsa.  I used the super easy, super fast salsa recipe I have mentioned before.  Seriously folks, you need to try it.  You'll love it.  For the quesadillas all you need is 1-2 lbs chicken breasts, tortillas, cheese, and whatever else you might want.

Chicken:  Place large skillet over medium-high heat and coat with nonstick spray.  Once the skillet is hot, arrange chicken breasts evenly and generously coat with cumin, garlic powder, and chili powder.  There are no measurements here just sprinkle each spice til you get a good coat.  Immediately flip and spice the other side.  Sear over medium-high on each side for about 4 minutes (depending on how thick your pieces are).  Remove from heat.  Cut chicken into thin slices and return to pan.  Continue cooking over medium-low heat until chicken is done (about another 8-10 minutes). 

I made this part ahead of time so when Chris got in from work all we had to do was heat the skillet back up, throw in a tortilla, grate the cheese, and add the chicken.  Heat until cheese melts, the chicken is warm, and the tortilla is a nice golden color.  Super simple and yet still pretty tasty!  I make chicken enchiladas quite often in the fall and winter, but again, I don't like to have my oven on for that long on a warm day, so this is a nice alternative.

Enjoy!

Facelift

A big thanks to my sister Megan for redoing my blog.  I love the new background!  Peonies and hydrangeas are my favorite flowers.  And speaking of flowers, things are almost in full bloom over here!  This time last year Rachel was still tiny and Mom and Dad spent a lot of time in Edmond helping out with her and revamping our front yard.  Originally, there was a majorly overgrown planting of Red Tips in the front- placed directly on top of a berm, and in between two overgrown Bradford Pears.  Talk about terrible.  The front flower bed had a nice look at first glance, but I quickly discovered everything in there was dying because it hadn't been planted properly (aka...roots need to be below the surface of dirt people!!)  All this to say that last Spring was dedicated to pulling out lots of things and laying sod in the front yard (and transplanting my beloved peony from Mom and Dad's house!).  We didn't really get around to replanting much until the fall, when yet again Mom and Dad helped me do a quick makeover while Chris was out of town for work.  We added some clearance plants (you should always check to see what's left at the end of the season...you get great deals and it's a perfectly OK time to plant perennials!) and hung shutters.  SO! This is my first Spring to go outside each day and see the changes my little plants have made over night!  My irises (transplanted from MaryBeth's old place in Stillwater...tear!) are blooming a beautiful blue, my pink Knockout Rose (transplanted from Mom's because Dad spotted several of these beauties on a clearance at True Value in Fort Gibson) is completely leafed out and even has a couple of blooms, and the clearance plants from last fall (decorative grasses and azaleas) and doing wonderfully as well!  Of course my pansy border is fading, so it is time for me to decide what to plant in it's place.  I will definitely need to pick something that can handle full-sun because we have an appointment to have the two pear trees out front removed next week. Eeek!  I am SO excited for them to be gone.  They are such a mess to clean up after in both the spring and the fall, and sort of a liability since some of the limbs are dangerously close to the house.  I know I will miss the wonderful shade they provide (we are planting another tree in their place, but obviously it will be a few years before we can expect any shade!) but I think in the long run this is the best choice.

My Free Stillwater Irises and Bargain Ft Gibson Rose

Free Ft Gibson Peony

It's going to be beautiful!

Shot of entire house with massive pear trees. I'll post a new pic when they're gone!

Note: I really shouldn't say some of these plants were free.  Mom and Dad have a lot of time, energy, and (unfortunately) gas money invested in these!

I am so glad Rachel likes to be outside because that it definitely where we have been lately!  She already has a little tan line from her T-shirts, which I think is hilarious!  With all of this outdoor time, dinner plans have been put on the back burner.  This is the hardest time of year for me to make myself cook!  And this is definitely when I would be coercing Chris to run to Braum's so that we could skip kitchen cleanup and just enjoy being outside...except for that little eating-out rule I made at the beginning of the year.  So BLTs to the rescue!  Now, I have to admit that Chris and I are majorly spoiled to Nolechek's bacon.  It's from Wisconsin and it is 10 million times better than anything you can buy here.  We stock up on it when we go up there to visit, and ask relatives to bring us some when they come down our way.  I was saddened to discover I am on my last package from the freezer when I realized that my sister-in-law Michelle's graduation is coming up in about a month, and some of the Wisconsin clan is planning to come down!  Yay!  More bacon (and probably cheese) for us!  If I can talk them into it.  Wish me luck!

Post-Dinner Club

Chris and I have had such a busy, but fun weekend!  Saturday was our dinner club, and I think everything went really well!

Side Story:  I found chargers like I had envisioned at Hobby Lobby last Thursday but never found any great napkin rings.  I refuse to pay retail prices for something that is just OK.  So Friday morning Rachel and I went yardsaleing (or as I tell Rachel, "treasure hunting") and I found napkin rings just like I was wanting! It was a bag of 10 new, silver napkin rings with the Dillard's tags still attached.  I got 10 of them for $7! Yay! AND I found them in time for the dinner party! Bonus!

Back to Saturday...Chris wanted to get the yard looking nice before everyone came over, and it has rained to much this past week (to clarify, I am not complaining!) that he had to do it all on Saturday morning.  With a 17-month-old and  Christopher in the house, there's pretty much no point in cleaning ahead of time, so of course I waited until Saturday to do most of that, also.  Then I had to make Pasta Fagioli and Lasagna.  (We had made the tiramisu the night before.) So it was a very busy day, but I think everyone had a good time!  It is so nice to have a break from the usual dinner routine, and we had some excellent company!  Thank the Lord for church families, both new and old.

Sunday we made a short trip to Stillwater.  I always try to think of things to do on the weekends since Chris likes to have plans, but rarely likes to make plans.  So Friday night I called a couple of friends and thankfully they planned to be in town!  I got to eat lunch with one of my oldest friends, Julie Brown.  (Sorry Julie, I still call you Julie Brown!)  We had a good time catching up!  And then I got to spend the rest of the afternoon with my cousin Lydia!  Rachel loved running around campus, but of course she was too busy to take a nap so it made for a long day for her.  Thankfully, we were able to keep her up on the car ride home, and she slept like a baby all night long!  Oh what a difference a good night's sleep makes!

Campus Tour

Rachel has hit the going limp phase. Why do kids do this? And where do they learn it??

Pre-Dinner Club

This Saturday is our chance to host our church dinner group.  I am cleaning, doing laundry, and shopping like a mad lady!  I decided that I wanted chargers for the table recently, so I went on a hunt this morning to find them.  Rachel has wet through onto her PJs, quilt, sheet, mattress pad (you get the idea...) every night this week, which equals a LOT of laundry.  But! In the midst of this, I got my groceries bought yesterday and am really looking forward to our turn to host.  We are having Italian, and I hope everything goes smoothly.  I'll update after Saturday!

Caesar Wraps

We have been BUSY over here! But it's the good, outdoorsy kind of busy! Since the extra daylight and warm weather arrived at the same time, Rachel and I have been cleaning out flower beds this week. It's amazing what some weed-pulling and a dozen bags of mulch will do! I fed my pansies, well basically all the plants in the West bed, a couple of weeks ago, and I cannot believe how much everything has grown! And my peony!!! It's growing so much and so fast; I am super excited!

Watching Mom spread mulch is hard work....I think I'll just sleep while she cooks dinner.

It's this time of year that makes it awfully hard to stay in the kitchen. One of my favorite easy, light dishes to makes is Chicken Caesar Wraps. I use my Parmesan chicken recipe, toss some green lettuce and Romaine together with a bit of dressing, and ta-da! Dinner!

All you do for the chicken is: Melt 3/4 stick butter in a pie plate (or some other shallow dish), stir in 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 tsp salt. Combine 1/2 cup bread crumbs with 1/4 parmesan cheese (in this case, the canned kind is a perfect option!) in a small bowl. Dredge 1 lb chicken tenders in butter mixture, coat with crumb mixture, and place in a 9x13. Sprinkle any remaining butter and crumbs on top. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.
Note: This chicken recipe is so super easy, and so super yummy. It's ridiculous. A lot of times I will make this with potatoes (since the oven is on anyway) and some other veggie, and do Caesar salad with the leftovers. But with weather like this, I just went straight for the "leftovers."

"Frito Chili Pie"

We grew up eating this stuff.  I was the pickiest eater alive as a child, so I took the time to pick out each and every chili bean; I started eating about the time everyone else had finished.  Eventually I decided it wasn't worth the time and that chili beans weren't that bad anyway.  But it wasn't until much later that I realized there were no Fritos in our chili pie.  I remember the first time I saw this on an actual restaurant menu (at Eskimo Joe's in Stillwater) and I told my friends that my mom made that all the time, except without the Fritos.  As it turns out, I like it much better without them. 

I think each of my sisters makes some version of this dish.  It's super easy, quick, and inexpensive- so that makes it pretty popular with all of us!  My oldest sister has actually grown to make fun of it because we all make it once in a while (or maybe a little more often...) so it seems that one of us is always making it. Anyway! To make non-Frito Chili Pie all you need is:

1 lb ground beef
1 pkg mild taco seasoning
2 cans chili beans
1 c. cooked rice
chips or taco shells
any toppings you desire (sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, cilantro, etc)

Brown your meat and drain any excess grease.  Sprinkle with seasoning and add beans.  Simmer while rice is cooking.  That's it.

yummy

I forgot to mention you might need some flour....it keeps tiny hands pretty occupied!