Easy Peasy Lime SQUEEZY

Who’s ready to learn how to make the perfect margarita? If you said, "I am", then you must have this lime squeezer to do so.  

10-Minute Honey Garlic Shrimp Recipe

Instagram Brownies!

The only thing better than Instagram, is chocolate peanut butter instagram brownies.

Christmas Dinner - 2018!

On Christmas Day, I always cook for our family of five. It's hard because I'm exhausted, the house is flipped upside down, and my kids go almost 12 hours without eating, from the excitement... so they are starving by dinner time, but truthfully, I don't feel like cooking.  BUT I DO!

This year, I made a one "POT" meal!  I made homemade, chicken parmesan, SNOWMAN lasagna rolls.  Lasagna is always so time consuming to me, but making it in a "roll up" fashion is so much easier.  

First, using a biscuit cutter, cut circles of pasta out of the lasagna noodles.  Layer them in the bottom of a glass dish. Be sure to line the dish with sauce first. I made my homemade marinara. Next, spread a mixture of ricotta cheese, shredded chicken, sauce, and mozzarella cheese. Roll up the lasagna noodle.

Carefully place each roll up into the dish.  Basically, "stand" it up. Place another circle shaped noodle on top.

The second circle noodle helps the final layer of ricotta and mozzarella cheese to rest on top! Spread a little ricotta and mozzarella cheese on top.  

Design a snowman face that is pleasing to you.  Using a straw, pop out enough black olives for the eyes and mouth.  I didn't have enough patience to make a mouth and felt the snowman looked just as cute with just the eyes and nose. The nose is a baby carrot cut in half. Cook at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes.  

I am so tickled with how perfect they came out! I layered our plate with sauce and topped the snowman with sauce once everyone saw the end result. That's ALL I served.  No bread, no salad, nothing else.  It had everything you needed inside: carbs, protein, dairy, and veggies.  LOL!


*From this day forward, I promise to deliver a new blog post daily, so even if that means working out of order, just because that's the post I have time for... I will deliver something to you! I must document and that's why I started blogging in the first place. I will never go two months without posting... EVERY AGAIN!*

Christmas 2017

Christmas morning finally arrived... and BOY was I glad! This holiday tends to be all consuming for me between all of our traditions, the Elf On The Shelf, gift shopping/wrapping and so much more. We always tell the kids they have to wait to come down UNTIL we say.  I think they let me sleep until 7:15 a.m. It's all a blur at this point.  

Despite the fact that their gift piles seem so much smaller...

They still seemed impressed and happy.  

Jax's stack.

Ty was sweet.  He came up to me 2 days before Christmas, after he could sense I felt like their gift piles looked "weak" and he said, "Mom, I am just excited to get anything.  If it wasn't Christmas we wouldn't be getting gifts.  AND BESIDES, I'd rather have 5 good quality gifs than 25 crappy ones."  I felt more relieved.  It's just, as these kids get older, the gifts get more expensive. A pack of stinking socks cost $24.99 these days. SO... give your kid a pack of socks and an iPhone and that's $500.00 already, BEFORE you even start paying the cell phone bill.  

Ty's stack.

Lilah is always so super excited on Christmas morning.  What kid isn't?

Lilah's stack. It looks bigger than the boys' stack doesn't it? Ugh... girls are so much easier to shop for.

 Even Sadie and Simon received Christmas stockings.

 

Darren's stack!

I needed another piece of furniture in our family office and I have been considering a cocktail cart for sometime AND NOT JUST for liquor. Quite honestly, I love the idea of using it for parties, ice cream buffets, candy buffets, and so much more. I plan to dress this cocktail cart up for EACH HOLIDAY! I'll be doing a separate post on this beauty! BUT... if you want to know where it came from, in the meantime, it came from Pier 1.

My stack!

I didn't take too many photos of us opening gifts because I just wanted to enjoy our time together. We started with all of the gifts from the kids.

 The boys chipped in with their own money and bought their daddy a Buffalo Bills hat!

Ty bought Lilah some new squishes!

Ty also bought Jax a large piece of Dallas Cowboys' fabric from Walmart.  He even had the lady cut it ALL.ON.HIS.OWN.  He thought it was a blanket. LOL. So we will turn it into one of those "no sew" blankets.  The other side will be footballs. Jax was THRILLED.

Liley got her daddy a pound of coffee.  

Next up... stockings.  Ugh... ignore my ugly morningness.  I did have on lipsense & browsense though, so my lips and eyebrows were on point.  My family knows me well. Isn't that little dog "frame" cute!?

 I also received this adorable shirt from Altar'd State.  

ALL of the kids received AMAZON echo dots!!!! Ty received the accessories that assist him, via voice command, to turn on his ceiling fan and bedroom lights.  SO fun and so cool!

We had our typical and delicious breakfast.  COFFEE, OJ, egg casserole, creme brûlée french toast, and applewood bacon!  I also made Darren and I mimosas.  Those were fabulous.  

The french toast doesn't even look pretty right? Well... when you turn it upside-down... that's where the beauty and deliciousness is.  It's all kinds of melted brown sugar, butter, and yummy BAD corn syrup.

After we open the gifts that mommy and daddy give, we head downstairs to see what Santa brought.  

We always let Santa use the basement for his gifts.  These photos are beyond precious to me.  Here are their reactions after seeing what Santa brought them.  

I'd say it was a happy Christmas!!

Ty came down like "Joe Cool"!

But his reaction was so mature and so appreciative.  I'm really loving this stage. Maturity fits him well (most days).  

What did Santa bring?

Jax received a Dak Prescott jersey, a Nintendo Switch + games and accessories.  The craziest story behind that jersey... he was asking for it for weeks.  IT was sold out EVERYWHERE, even ON-LINE.  We went to see Santa, at the Tanglewood Mall on the Saturday before Christmas, AND GUESS what?! In the crappiest MALL ever, we found it! Darren and I were FREAKING OUT and so excited.

Lilah received a gymnastics bar, a mat, and some gymnastics clothing.  What's in the wrapped box? "Everything Unicorn", as she requested.  I will share those items in another post, but let's just say... she truly has a unicorn obsession.

Ty received an IPhone 8 Plus, a new case, a screen protector, AND UNLIMITED data. The unlimited data was HUGE because Ty has been on a 5 gig plan for almost two years now. His unlimited data gift note was in a set of (3) nesting blocks.  So he had to dig for it!

The rest of the day, we kind of let the kids just enjoy their gifts.  Darren and I, the OCD crew, began cleaning, organizing, and breaking down boxes.  We even took a trip to Starbucks and a big dumpster to get rid of excess trash!

I made a homemade marinara sauce with some yummy calamari for a "starter".  

I usually set up the Christmas dinner table so fancy... using my snowman plates and fancy candy cane glasses, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it this year.  We just had fancy napkins and used the black, wine glasses that I inherited from my mother-in-law.  No one even noticed.  LOL!  Everyone, but Darren was still in their pjs.  LOL! Suits me.

We had HAM!

Mac & Cheese.

Broccoli. 

& Rolls.  

It made for a colorful plate.

Dessert was our traditional, and TY's favorite, "Not Your Momma Banana Pudding", made with Pepperidge Farms Christmas Cookies, homemade oreo bark, and Happy Birthday Jesus cake!

This was so yummy!!!  We even sang to Jesus.  

I usually use a 9x13 dish for the pudding, but I ran out of glass dishes.  I thought this truffle dish was a perfect substitute.  

Can I count this as my fruit serving?

We began our day and ended our day celebrating our Savior! 

There is SO MUCH MORE to share.  I am hoping to get back to 2-3 posts PER day, until I am ALL caught up.  This post took a while, so check back around 4:00 p.m. for another post. I pray you all had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!