Dress Up…

“ Want to know a secret?

Promise not to tell?

 

We are standing by a

wishing well!

 

  Make a wish into the well-

that’s all you have to do…

 

 

And if you hear it echoing,

your wish will  soon come

true!”  ~Snow White

Pinterest & Recipes….

I LOVE Pinterest. The online “pin-board” is genius. It’s definitely the go-to site now for inspiration for ANYTHING… parties, recipes, decorating, excercising, and the list goes on…

I’ve had a couple of bad experiences with recipe-pins-gone-wrong, but for the most part, all the new things I’ve tried have been REALLY good!

The biggest flop of all was this Banana-Chocolate smoothie. The pictures looked like the color and texture of a Wendy’s frosty.

(photo via Pinterest)

ANd while I am not even a big banana fan, I thought that if it looked like a Frosty, I might be a fan afterall. I had a bad feeling when I saw how much cocoa this recipe called for, but I followed it anyway.

Here’s what the description/directions read:

“Frozen banana, plus 2 tbsp cocoa powder, and blend until smooth and creamy. Dairy-free, 110 calories!!”

Looked and sounded good. Especially when the person said it was “Delish”…  I froze my banana, added my cocoa, blended and OH MY GOSH- YUCK. It looked like----well, I am not even going to say what it looked like. I will tell you it was dark brown and the texture was not creamy at all. It was more along the lines of runny. Against my better judgment, (and going totally against my normal character) I even TASTED it. Eck. It was TERRIBLE. Total flop.

So girls, I warn you, if you have pinned this one, DON’T try it. :)

I also heard that the Jalapeno Popper stuffed chicken is a flop, too. I had pinned that one, but had a friend post of Facebook that it wasn’t good, so glad I didn’t waste my time on that one, too.

Since I can always use new recipes and ideas for dinner, I thought maybe yall could, too. So I’m going to post some of my Pinterest successes this week.

The first is:

This Parmesan Tilapia recipe. I should pre-face this by saying while I am a seafood lover, I don’t really like FISH. Especially not fishy-fish. If it’s a flaky white fish, I can do it, otherwise, count me out. I hadn’t ever tried tilapia before, but knew it fit in the flaky-white category, so after seeing this recipe, I gave it a try. It was  really pretty good and is a great option for when we’re trying to cook/eat a little healthier. :) 

 

Ingredients
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons paprika
1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley
4 tilapia fillets (about 1 pound total)
1 lemon, cut into wedges
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees . In a shallow dish, combine the cheese with the paprika and parsley and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle the fish with olive oil and dredge in the cheese mixture. Place on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake until the fish is opaque in the thickest part, 10 to 12 minutes. Serve the fish with the lemon wedges.

For all our married life, I have mainly cooked the same things, so DW gets excited when I make something new. This week we will be trying skillet roasted asparagus. We’ll see if he’s still excited to try something new after that one. Ha. :)

~amw~

Birthday Weekend….

This past Friday, we headed to North Georgia to see the family.

Mom, Dad, DW, me and the girls were all packed up and ready for a quick, action packed weekend!

The girls couldn’t have been any better on the trip there or back. Maybree slept almost the entire trip. We stopped every couple of hours to feed and change her and let AB stretch her legs, too. Even stopping several times, we made great time, both ways.

We made it to my brother and sister-in-law’s around 7:00. We ate dinner and made our plan for the next day.

We stayed at my Aunt Kay’s Friday night and met up with Beau and his crew Saturday morning.

We’d decided to spend the day at the Fun Factory.

The trip was planned for and around this birthday boy!

Hard to believe my nephew, Jackson, turns 7 years old in one week! His actual birthday is the 28th, but we went up to celebrate early.

The Fun Factory was paradise for the kids. Pop got them all “Fun cards” with two hours worth of unlimited games, go carts and $20.00 already loaded on them for spending. Jackson spent most of his time at the hunting game. He stuck close to Pop, who was his personal card holder and swiper. Caroline went for the ticket games!

Garrett & AB started off in kiddie land. She surprised us all by getting on the bounce house and slid down twice! Garrett wanted nothing to do with it. After the second time down, neither did she. It was HIGH and FAST.

They played a few games and rides…

Then decided they wanted to “golf.” This was a first for AB, but Garrett was an old pro.

Mamie spent the day being passed back and forth between me and my mom. Grammy & I were doing our best to keep the germs off of her.

The Go-Carts were of course lots of fun for the kids. They only had two double seaters, so we had to go in shifts…Dylan got to ride first, since he was the only one tall enough to drive himself.

The rest of the crew waiting their turn…

Up next was Beau & Jackson and Kristy & Caroline.

If you can’t tell by their excitement, the girls beat the boys!

Last up from our group was DW and AB! She loved it.

I didn’t think DW was going to get in and then out of that tiny car! He looked 10 feet tall folded up in that thing!

After a few hours at the Fun Factory, we were exhausted. I didn’t do a thing, but I was wiped out. I told my Dad I was pretty sure I’d already had three seizures while we were there from all the flashing lights, noise and kids running around. :)

The kids traded in their tickets for their prizes and all got a snow cone.

After all that, I needed a sweet tea in a bad way. Thankfully, we stopped at the Chick-fil-A for lunch and birthday cake.

The birthday kids! Since Caroline’s birthday is in February, too, we celebrated both of them.

Jackson was so cute while we were singing, he sang, too, and said, “happy birthday to ME” :)

After our fun day, we made our way to my cousin Krissy’s house, for another birthday party! This time, for her son, Aaron, who turned 13 with an all-out Georgia Bulldog party.

Krissy had all kinds of yummy tailgate type food and everything was UGA themed… even a very special guest. Aaron and his friends were so shocked and excited when a University of Georgia football player showed up! “TK”, who was from Habersham and now plays for UGA, came to the party. I didn’t get a picture of him, but he was there…My cousins thought AB & Maybree (who both have orange & blue in their DNA), needed a signed pennant. Of course they did this just for DW’s benefit. Ha…Too funny… They even had TK put a special message on the back for them. (He has good handwriting, too…unless his girlfriend wrote it for him…she was also at the party and is a soccer player on the UGA Women’s soccer team).

TK stayed at the party for a few hours and signed everything the kids could find for him to sign and even played football in the backyard with them. It was too sweet. He was a good sport, too, when we met him and of course gave him the chomp. :)

It was fun to get to see the rest of the family and visit for a few hours that night.

“Biscuit”, Becky’s new dog, and everyone’s baby!

The kids had the best time playing basketball, on the trampoline and in the tree house…the tree house even has a zip line! Krissy’s house is so fun…I took some pictures, I will have to post soon.

AB & “Gave” – She loves Gabe!

 

A big group picture, before Beau & his crew left, after a LONG day!

We spent the night again with Aunt Kay, and AB and Anna had their first sleep over together! The first of many, I hope!

Sunday morning, we did get to see my Aunt Cindy. We missed seeing Uncle Ricky and my other cousins this trip. Seems like there's never enough time to squeeze it all in. We packed up that morning and headed home.

It was a good (and very quick) trip! :)

~amw~

Valentine’s 2012

Every year, the holidays get more fun for AB. This year she was SO excited about “ValenStine’s” Day!

Two Fridays ago, we met up with Aunt Carrie and Allie Claire (and Whitt) to do our annual BFF Valentine picture. This makes our FOURTH Valentine’s Day picture together! Awwww…

I can’t believe these two were Maybree & Whitt’s age when we took their first Valentine pic together!

Allie Claire & AB - 2009

This year, we were invited to a little Valentine party at cousin Willie’s house. Annabelle asked me every day for a solid week if it was “party day” yet! Tuesday morning when she woke up and I told her it was FINALLY Valentine’s Day she started jumping up and down!

There were 23 kids at the party. It was a little loud, but lots of fun! Stephanie did a great job planning and hosting it. The kids had fun decorating their treat bags, passing out their valentines and playing outside.

AB & Cori decorating their bags

I looked on Pinterest for ideas for AB’s valentines and we decided to make heart shaped crayons this year.

They were super easy to make (after DW helped me figure out the easiest way to get them unwrapped…an exacto knife! Genius!) and they turned out so cute…

AB enjoyed helping and took lots of time deciding exactly which color to put where!

I found the scallop-edged round cards in the dollar bin at Michaels and used that as a backing for the crayons. I also found little note pads at the party shop that we put in each bag with the crayon. I printed off some labels and it was done! :)

We took cupcakes to the party and from the minute we arrived, AB kept asking for one. After she scarfed her pizza down at lunch, it finally hit me WHY she kept asking for a cupcake all morning long…I forgot to feed her breakfast! Yep, that’s me…Mother of the Year. The real kicker is that she hasn’t let me forget it either. For the past two mornings, when she wakes up, she says, “’member that time you forgot to feed me? You gotta ‘member to feed me, mommy.”  As if my mommy-guilt isn’t enough. Ha.

AB having a cupcake on the way home (I guess since it’s February I could take down the Santa decal on her window.) :)

While Big Sister and I were partying it up, Mamie stayed with Nie-Nie for the first time! When I picked her up, my MIL warned me that Mamie’s back might be sore, because she didn’t put her down the whole three hours she had her. :) 

We made some special Valentine treats to take to a few people, so me and the girls delivered those after lunch.

We made stops at DW’s office and Grammy’s office. I made a couple of new recipes that I found on Pinterest. The first was Red Velvet Cookies…they were good, but the best thing I made was the homemade Snickers. They were really good, especially cold. We gave most of them away, and it didn’t take me long to polish off the ones we kept. :)

That evening, when DW came home from work, we gave the girls their Valentines… AB is always fun to buy surprises for. She gets so excited! And everything she opens is her “FAVORITE!”

Helping Mamie open her surprises!

That night, the guys had their monthly men’s dinner and meeting at church, so Lauren and I had a date with the girls at the Chick-fil-A.  :)

Nobody can say there’s ever a lack of love around here!

~amw~