Black and white enchiladas...

This is one of my favorite meals! They are a healthy-ish enchilada (depends on how much cheese you put on top I guess)... not full of cream of whatever. Just beans, chicken, and chili's.

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked black beans (if using canned, drain and rinse well)
1 cup cooked white great northern beans
1-2 chicken breasts cooked and cut into bite sized pieces
1 can diced green chili's with the juice
dash of salt, pepper, and garlic powder
corn or white tortillas
1 can green or red enchilada sauce (I like the green with this one)
shredded cheese for the top

1- Once your chicken is cooked, add beans, chicken and chili's to a pan. Season with pepper, salt, and garlic powder (just a little of each). Cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat to combine all the ingredients together.

2- Prepare a 9 x 13 baking dish with cooking spray. Grab yourself a tortilla and fill the center with a few spoonful's of filling as shown in picture below. Now, if you are using corn tortillas warm them in the microwave or on a pan before using. I prefer this meal with flour tortillas, but have been using corn lately because it's a low GI grain and fits my diet. So if you use corn, prepare them before filling them.Once tortillas are filled, roll them and place them in the baking dish.

3- Continue filling tortillas until your pan is full or you are out of tortilla's and filling. I usually fill one large pan using about 10 flour tortillas (I made a little extra with this). Corn are much smaller and you can make a lot more.

4- Cover tortillas with enchilada sauce and cheese.

5- Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and the edges of the tortillas are starting to get brown and crunchy. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving to cool off a bit.

These are really yummy as left overs too so I usually make more than we can eat in a sitting and save them for lunches. This recipe is easy to adjust for a larger group. Instead of one cup of each bean do 1 1/2 or 2. I'm not really exact on my measurements of everything. I prefer to cook without measuring things if I can get away with it. This is one recipe that it's easy to do that.

This recipe is also very versatile. I like using just black beans with red enchilada sauce, or I will mix the black and white like this for variety. Serve with a side salad for a healthy dinner!

Beans...

 Let's talk about beans shall we? I don't post recipes up here very often, but a few people have been asking me about my bean recipes lately so I figured this would be a good way to share those. So for today I want to share how I cook my beans at home, and then the rest of the week (and probably into next week) I will share a different bean recipe that we love.

We eat a lot of beans around here. Beans are so good for you, and super tasty. There are lots of things you can do with beans. They are inexpensive and easy to make. We mostly eat black beans and white great northern beans... so those are what my recipes call for. One thing that beans are known for and good for is their fiber content. For example, one cup of black beans has 19 grams of fiber in it! That's huge! So unless you are munching on fruits and veggies all day long to get your fiber, you really should be eating beans when you can.

**Little disclaimer time here... I feel silly even saying this, but I think I need to address the whole "you eat beans you get gas" issue here. I just have to say that I have not noticed that we are a super gassy family or anything. I really don't think that eating beans causes you to have more of that going on. That is unless your body is not used to eating them and then you might have an adjustment period.We eat beans a few times a week usually, and we don't have problems with it... at least anymore than I already have living with two boys mind you. Anyway... if you stay away from beans because you are worried about this I say... you just need to eat more beans. Regularly... okay, on with our bean topic. 

I used to buy beans in the cans at the store but soon found that it was much easier and less expensive in the long run to cook hard beans at home. I usually will do a batch of beans on a Sunday night when we are running low and don't have anything else going on. I don't soak my beans over night, it only takes me about 1 hour 40 minutes start to finish to cook a whole batch of beans. I can't remember where I first read about this bean cooking method from, but here is what I do.

1- Get a big pot. Fill it half full of beans (or however many cups you want to do... and bag of hard beans, doesn't have to be exact measurements here). I usually fill my pot halfway because they will double in size and you need to put lots of water in there too.

2- Fill pot with water, covering beans by about 1-2 inches.

3- Put on stove on high and bring beans to a boil. Boil for 15 minutes.

4- Once 15 minutes is up, drain your beans and rinse with water (I've heard this helps with the gassiness factor too by the way).

5- Put beans back in pot and cover with water again, covering beans by 1-2 inches of water.

6- Bring beans to a boil and once boiling, cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes on medium/low (I still like mine to have a little boil going on, but you don't need it to be on high still). KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR BEANS... meaning don't let the water run out and burn your beans. If the water starts to get low add more water. Also, I've noticed that while cooking white beans they don't need this long, so check them after 1 hour.

7- When the time is up, check beans to make sure they are firm but soft... not soggy and mushy. Drain about half of the water, leaving water in the bottom section of your beans (I hope that makes sense).

8- Now I like to season my beans. I add 1 TBSP of cumin, garlic powder, and chili powder to the beans. Stir in and let sit until beans cool down and can soak in the seasoning (I usually leave them 30 mins to 1 hour).

9- When beans are cooled, put them in freezer safe Tupperware containers and put them in the freezer or refrigerator for future use. I only put the beans we will use in the next few days in the fridge, and freeze the rest.

Pretty simple I think! If I need to use beans for a meal I will just move a container into the fridge and let it thaw out in there. I like that cooking them this way doesn't take too much time, and I'm able to control the salt content in our beans which is important for health reasons. And they really are super tasty with the seasonings.

Tomorrow... my favorite black and white enchiladas. Yum!

Wendover + a memorial...

We went out to Wendover last night to celebrate the would be 61st birthday of my mother in law. She passed away 11 years ago to lung cancer and left behind a great legacy with her 11 children.

She loved doing things with her family. One of the things that she loved to do was drive out to Wendover and eat at the seafood buffet. This was actually the last outing that she did with her family before she passed away. They had gone out to the buffet on a Friday night, and she died a day and a half later on Sunday morning. One of her kids said last night that it was a good example of who their mom was, that even though she was feeling awful and was so close to dying she still wanted to go and have a good time with her kids.

Trent and I sent out a text to all his siblings a few weeks ago with the idea to go to the buffet for her birthday and all of her kids but one (who lives far, far away) were able to come! One had to drive a crossed the state to be there and another flew in from Colorado... but they made it. I think that's amazing!  So 16 of us piled in vans and made it out to the buffet.

I'm so grateful for this family. I'm grateful that I get to be a part of it. Something that I really love and appreciate about my in laws is that even though they are all soooooo different, have very different personalities, beliefs, ideals about life, priorities... the still get along and love each other. I think it's a rare thing for 11 siblings to still be all friends, and to be accepting and loving of each other even though they have grown up and changed as adults. They have taught me a lot about love and acceptance, and have been great examples to me on this. Sure they argue and fight and butt heads from time to time... but they forgive and that is a true gift.

 Here are the boys... minus my husband who had already disappeared to go gambling...

 The girls... seven sisters plus me!

Here are my 7 sister in laws, minus Sarah who couldn't come. I love these girls. I'm so grateful for them. They have been good friends to me and I appreciate that. There are times that it's been hard for me to hang out with these girls... I'm just going to come out and be honest and say that I'm not perfect and I have a hard time being around girls swimming in babies sometimes. And well... I married into the most fertile family in the world (aside from the Duggars... seriously!). In the past 3 1/2 years since we've lost Clayton there have been 10 babies born in Trents family with a set of twins and a set of triplets in there. That's a lot of babies!!! I know that there have been times when I have not been a real peach to be around, and I appreciate that they have been patient with me, and understanding and have waited for me to come around on my terms. I love them, and all their babies, and I'm grateful that they are in my life. These girls have become my best friends and I am happy to be a part of their lives.

I have to say that the few hours we spent in the casino made me not miss this side of Vegas very much ;). Funny that anytime we went to a movie, bowling, out to a good restaurant we had to go through a casino. It was just a part of life out there, and one that I am fine without! But we did have fun playing the penny slots, and only lost $3 total by the time we made it out the door. I think that's pretty good odds!

Someone got a little lucky with this roll... oh the excitement!

It was a really fun night with my in laws! Trent's mom passed away after we had been on two dates, so I never met her. But even though I've never met her I feel like I have a good idea of who she is, what she was like, what was important in her life. I think that when the day comes that I get to meet her that I will recognize her and know her, because I've spent my life with her awesome kids! She has left a piece of her with each of her children and they are beautiful people each in their own way.

Wood + White Entertainment Center...

 We finally finished up the project that we've been working on for the past 3+ months. Our TV stand is done!!! We finished it on Monday and I'm still giddy about having it in the living room...

Really, it's better than I thought it would be. It's always scary (for me anyway) to build something yourself. We are amatures at this for sure, but it turned out so great!

I'm still a little shocked that Trent agreed that we could do the white frame with the different colored wood doors. We have very, very different tastes in style. He likes natural colored wood, and is one of those people who thinks it's a sin to paint over nice wood. When I first showed him a picture of what I really wanted (similar to this) he said no way! So when I brought it up again when we got serious about building something and he said, "Sure, why not" I was really surprised. I kept asking if he was sure he was okay with it... and he said he was. So we drew out our plans and made it happen.

We wanted it to be very simple. Two opened slots at the top for the DVD player and current VCR we have (hoping to swap that out for something to play games on at some point here). We also wanted closed cabinets with space to store toys/blankets/games and some hidden drawers for DVD's. 

We've been going out to his dad's about once a week for the past 3 months to work on it. It took longer than I thought it would, but part of what's nice about building things with Trent's dad is that we get to spend lots of good quality time with him.

Trent cut the wood for the cabinet doors and brought them home for me to stain. Can I just say how much I love staining wood? It's kind of an addiction for me. I love it! I love taking something that I sort of like and making it into something I love with just a little stain. I went with Jacobean for the dark, Early American for the lighter brown, and made a homemade stain of steel wool soaked in vinegar for the gray/barn wood color (what I did was put a steel wool pad in a glass bottle and covered it in white vinegar for 24 hours. Then I took out the pad, wrung it out a little, and rubbed the pad onto the wood). 

Let me just show you how cool the vinegar stain turned out. These two panels are both stained with that, but they are two totally different colors because of the type of wood that was used. The wood on the left is a soft pine and the wood on the right is a hard maple. The hardwood came out GRAY! And the soft wood a light/dark brown. It was an awesome science experiment! Pretty sure this is my new favorite stain.

Simple knobs (that can be tied together for future baby-proofing)...

Simple hinges... I really think it's the simplicity of it all that makes it so pretty to me.

Here is our inside storage area.

I still need to fill in those spaces, once the boy decides to quit playing hide and seek in them...

I'm just so happy with how it turned out. We really needed to have some good functional furniture in our livingroom. It's nice to have something that looks great and provides storage that we really need.

 I love working on projects like this with my husband. Building something out of nothing for our family to enjoy.

Valentines...

I'm sticking to my guns about no resolutions this year... but that doesn't mean that I don't have goals I would like to accomplish. I really would like to do a better job at decorating for the holidays... no pressure though! Just one thing/month/holiday at a time and see how it goes, right?

I realized over Christmas that part of the reason I have a hard time decorating for holiday's is because I don't have a lot of flat surface space to decorate on. I really only have this one little window seal.

So I think I need to work on more flat spaces, but until then I will try to fill the window seal up!

I made this heart garland with the boy a few years ago. It's simply just felt hearts all sewn in a row.

We made a few conversation hearts (idea from here) to go by our hugs and kisses block that we have.

I try to plant paper whites in the winter. It's something that my mother in law did and so I try to do it to remind my husband of his mom. We had to go to 4 nurseries to find paper white bulbs this year, but we found some and they are beautiful!!

 The arrow print is from this lovely blog, and I love how simple it is. I know that my yellow honeycomb vase isn't very Valentine-y, but I love it anyway. Plus it matches the centers of my pretty flowers.

I've wanted to make this burlap banner ever since I spied it in the background here.  I think it turned out super cute!

Burlap + typewriter font + sweet little heart... love it!

I feel like I've redeemed myself a little bit from my failed Halloween attempts. It feels good in here right now...

White daisies...

When I was a senior in high school I was competing to be the Sterling Scholar in Dance at my school. It was between me and one other girl, and I really wanted to win this. I started thinking about this when I was a sophomore and wanted it so badly. I worked hard on my application, I choreographed my solo routine, this was what I had wanted more than anything at that time in my life. It would look great on my college applications. It would be a complete honor to me to have been chosen and receive this scholarship.

The girl that I was competing against for this was either my good friend or my arch nemeses (it really depended on the day). We were neck in neck so to speak as to who would win the award. We were both on Dance Company, Drill Team, and had danced together for all of our high school days. I remember that I was sitting in my English class when the intercom squeaked on and they were going to announce to the school all of the Sterling Scholar winners for that year.

My name was not called.

I lost. I was not chosen to be the dance Sterling Scholar.

I found out later that the judges were having a hard time deciding who to give the award to. What their final decision came down to was that her GPA was 0.01 points higher than mine. So she won.

I was devastated. I had worked so hard and long for this. I felt like I deserved this award. I sat there in class trying to hold myself together as I felt the pain of the loss. The bell rang and it was lunch time. I knew that once lunch ended the next class was dance and I would have to face her... the girl who had won what I had wanted so badly.

I thought about what I should do. Should I get in my car and drive home and avoid her all together? Should I go but ignore her and be smug? Or should I congratulate her?

I didn't go to lunch that day. Instead I walked across the street to the grocery store and I bought a bouquet of white daisies. I came back to school and I found her sitting by her locker eating lunch. I gave her the flowers and a big hug and told her congratulations. It hurt. I was very happy for her but very sad for me that I was not the one chosen for this. I felt (a little bit) better after this. I was grateful that even though I was so upset about losing, that I was able to think of her and to congratulate her and celebrate her victory with her, even though it was hard for me.

That was 12 years ago. In my adult life I have found that there have been many situations where I've needed to give hugs and congratulations and pass out some white daisies so to speak. Times where I have longed for something so badly, but it doesn't happen for me.

I found myself this week in yet another situation... where it was necessary to put on a smile, say congratulations, give a hug (and an imaginary bouquet of white daisies) and then go along my way. It hurts. It never gets easier, but I know that it is necessary. I gave my congratulations and hug to my dear friend who knew that what she had just told me was a shock and must have hurt. It was a shock to her as well, something that she was not planning either. "Thanks for being brave, I'm trying to be brave too, " she said as our parting words.

As I got into my car I let myself feel the pain. I try to hold it together in front of people but I never deny myself the right to work through my emotions when I feel them. I offered up a prayer of sorts to my Heavenly Father,  Why? Really? Is this some kind of a joke? Why her and not me? Why never me?

As soon as I had offered up the prayer I received my answer. It wasn't the answer that I was expecting, rather it was the answer to a prayer that I had uttered 12 years before.

Why her Heavenly Father? Why not me? I worked so hard for this! Why not me?

This is why. This is why she won and not you.

I had not thought of this situation in years and years yet suddenly it was fresh in my mind. Life moved on from high school and it really didn't matter that I was not chosen to be the Sterling Scholar for Dance. Or did it?

It suddenly made perfect sense to me. This is why I was not chosen for that award. My life has gone in a way that there have been many opportunities where I have had to be told no. Not now. Nope. It's not your turn. And pass out bouquet after bouquet of daisies. I needed to learn back then how to be this type of person. How to be happy for others even when they have what you long to have. This is why.

I was suddenly filled with gratitude for not winning the scholarship I so longed for in high school. I realized that I had won a far greater prize, I had learned a lesson that day at lunch time in a crowded hallway with a simple bouquet of daisies that I have had to use over and over again. Had I won that award, it would have really done nothing that remarkable for my adult life.

But not winning, has made all the difference in the world.

Post written November 2012

Snow!!!

 Sorry if you've already seen these pictures on Facebook/Instagram, I know I'm being repetitive... but I just can't even believe all of this snow!!!

On Thursday it was a beautiful WARM (44 degrees) day with a blue sky! But the news kept saying that a big winter storm would hit by 3 PM. Sure enough, 3 PM came and the flakes started to fall. All night it snowed and when we woke up the next morning it was a winter wonderland out there!

 I measured the snow that had collected on top of our garbage cans... 21 inches! That's nuts! I don't remember ever getting that much snow in one day before! When I was little I remember it snowing a lot and we were out of school, but that was a long long time ago.

I braved it to get a shot of the root cellar, buried in snow! Up to my knees...

But it didn't stop there! It kept on coming down and by the next morning we had 9 more inches!!!

So yes, we are currently hibernating in this snowy cold place. We live right up by the mountain so I think we get more snow than other parts of Utah does. It's been so long since I've been around snow like this. Part of me is missing Hawaii/Vegas right now and that warm winters that I had gotten used to. But another part of me is like a giddy little kid, sitting by the window for hours watching the snow! It's been fun to see our little boy and the snow. I had forgotten that he has not lived around snow his whole life, so this is a different kind of winter for him. We were here last year but it was a really mild winter and we didn't get much snow at all.

White night gown...

One of the movies that we watched on Christmas Eve was The Odd Life Of Timothy Green. I've been wanting to see this movie for a while but I was a little scared to. Knowing that it was about a couple who couldn't have kids and they end up growing a boy in the garden, etc. I watched it with my little boy and he was so sweet during it. He said, "I know mom, we can write down what we want in a kid and bury it out in our garden! Then maybe we can get a baby!" But I told him that I couldn't do that, because I have already been given the perfect little boy... I'm a lucky mama!

But what I ended up enjoying the most about the movie was the darling farm house that they lived in! Holy cow, I would love to live somewhere like that! The garden that they had outside, what a dream! Okay, I do realize that I live somewhere similar to this, but yes this was right up my alley. But what caught my eye the most was the white night gown that Jennifer Garner wore when the boy showed up.

Oh my, I loved it! Such a pretty night gown. I like the smocked top and how simple it is. I haven't worn a night gown since I was a little girl, but I might have to make me one like this. Best part of the whole movie was the farmhouse and the night gown ;).

I resolve...

to not make any resolutions this year...



WHAT!?!?!?

This is so not like me, to not make any resolutions. I love setting goals, making resolutions, checking things off my to do list, trying to accomplish everything and anything.

Turns out I'm still sort of burned out from the list I made from last year.

The more I think about my life right now and the things that I want to accomplish in life the more I realized that I need to learn to be content with who I am and where I am right now. Not always trying to make things better, make myself better, make my surrounding better, my life better. But to just accept who I am right this second and realize that I don't have to do anything great and wonderful to be of worth. That I don't have to set up unrealistic expectations of myself and then push myself to finish them. I just sort of want to be right now...

So I guess that is my resolution, to not make a resolution. To let January start and not jump on whatever horse I think I should be riding at the time. But to just wake up each morning and breath. Enjoy my boys, enjoy my days, and let them form themselves into whatever they have in store for me. To not rule my life by deadlines or expectations. But to just be happy with who I am and what I have right now. To not always be looking to finish a project or a deadline because I think that's what I'm suppose to do.

Ahhh... I feel better already.

I don't have a great link for this picture. Sorry. I found it here.

Christmas...

 

We had a good Christmas this year. It's always nice to be home with your family at Christmas time, and this was our second Christmas that we have been home since we moved back. It's been good to visit with aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, parents, grandparents, friends. Our lives have been very full this month.

 

Christmas Eve morning the boy woke up with stomach flu. So we had to cancel our plans for our traditional fondu dinner and we spent the day washing every piece of bedding in the house (yes, he managed to puke on both of our beds...). Thankfully we found a laundry mat that was open and we could get the quilts washed and ready to go. Then husband had to work on Christmas Eve night. He actually volunteered to work the grave shift that night so that one of his fellow nurses could be home with her 3 kids on Christmas Eve. I'm glad he is so giving and willing to do stuff like that, but at the same time we missed him. The boy and I snuggled on the couch most of the night watching redbox movies and looking at the beautiful snow outside.

 

I feel like I spent so much time working on Christmas presents this year but I really didn't. Part of that is because I put together the presents that my mom gave to me and my sisters (more on that later), and the gifts that I was planning on giving to my friends didn't work out at all. I spent a lot of time trying to make these darling ornaments that I found only to have them all end up in the garbage. It was super frustrating. I could never get the dough to not crack and look awful.

 

I was successful at making a few growth charts for friends and family. These are the two different types that I made.

They turned out super cute! I love giving handmade gifts at Christmas, I just wish that all my efforts would have turned out better this year. Oh well... that's the game of crafting, sometimes things turn out cute and sometimes they don't!

The boy was happy with his lot this year. His two favorite gifts...

A whoopie cushion from the dollar store and a Spiderman costume that I found at the DI for $4. If I had known these two things would have made him so happy I could have stopped there!!

Flaming snowballs...

 I'm not exactly sure who started this tradition, but I surely can't let it die with me! It's too much fun! I think that my grandma came up with this, but I'm not entirely sure. It's called a flaming snowball, and this is what it looks like.

 

Basically it's a ball of vanilla ice cream with coconut on the outside. That's the snowball part. The flame is this innocent looking sugar cube on the top... doused in alcohol (we use lemon extract... it has an 85% alcohol content which makes the flame burn longer than say, vanilla extract). 

 

 

Here are the secret ingredients that make this simple dessert so fun.

 

My mom used to make these with us when we were kids. I always thought she came up with it. Then one day some of my aunts/cousins got into a conversation on facebook about flaming snowballs and I realized that they had all done this too! Kind of fun, I had never done this with my boy before but added it to his advent calendar for something fun to do this month.

We headed over to Trent's sister's house to share our fun snowballs with their kids. Because honestly... the three of us have a rip roaring good time on our own, but some things are just way more fun with other people.

We had a whole lot of snowballs, and a lot of curious kids. I realize that this can be sort of dangerous, so we lined the snowballs down the table and lit them all at once. The kids weren't allowed to touch them until the flame burned out. They only last a few minutes, but the flame gets pretty high when they are burning. It's fun to watch! We turned off the lights and watched the flames flicker until they went out.

The sugar cube caramelizes under the flame and from what I remember they taste pretty good too. The coconut gets a little toasty around the sugar cube, but that's just even better in my book. The whole thing is edible, kind of different, and just a fun experience.

It was really fun and a tradition that I plan on doing each winter. It's funny how different smells can trigger memories. Smelling the lemony burning sugar cubes brought back so many memories of doing this with my siblings when I was a kid. I think my grandma would be proud that the flaming snowball tradition lives on!!!

Tree making with the girls...

We had girls night a few weeks ago with some of my husband's sisters. We wanted to make some festive holiday trees and so I suggested making trees like this gal did. We decided to do five different trees and gathered up our supplies and met one night for some intense glue gunning and girl time.

 



Man these girls know how to work! They are all crafty and talented and there is never a lull in the conversation with them! We had a great night, talking, eating, getting completely covered in feathers... We started by rolling up our saved cereal boxes and then went to town putting our trees together.

We decided to do a book page, pinecone, feather, twine, and white bean tree. It was a very inexpensive craft to make, which I also love. The cereal boxes worked perfectly for our tree cones.

We worked until about 11:30 PM and then called it a night. I got all of mine done except for the bean tree, and finished that one up the next day.

I have to say I loved this craft! You know how crazy I am about trees anyway... these are just perfect for winter! I'm not taking mine down after Christmas, they are staying up until March as far as I'm concerned. They turned out so cute!!!

And here mine are on my little window seal...

I love all the different textures of the trees. They really turned out super cute. I think that I'm going to make a few more for next year. Thanks for the fun night girls!