Happy Birthday Party Jared!

First i'll start with the night before. Jared got this wheat grinder from his parents for his birthday. The night before i wanted to try it out. So we did!

Wheat

Flour!!

lol good times. Then the day of Jared's party i woke up and made him wheat waffles. They were delicious if i do say so myself.

Then we cleaned and got ready for people to come over. We made hot dogs and baked beans and had chips and watermelon.

Eithan enjoyed it and ate lots!

I got Jared a DQ ice cream cake. something my family really enjoys that surprisingly a lot of people haven't had before! Everyone enjoyed it.

After Ethan and Jen and Micheal left to put Ethan to bed and we broke out twister! notice Madelyn doing it on her head lol she makes me laugh.

Happy Birthday Jared! Sorry i wasn't there for the real thing but i hope this made up for it!

Thank you Jen and Ryan and Jen and Micheal for coming we love you! It made it way more fun to have all of you there.

6 months.... and 5 days.

Jared and I celebrated our 6 month anniversary Friday the 19th. Jared had to work that day but we went out to lunch to one of our favorite places we don't get to go to very much, Zupas. We love it. Its a cute little gourmet soup, salad and sandwich place.

Its been a crazy 6 months. Its crazy that it's been 6 months but we are happy and still very much in love. I think one of the most things i heard when i was engaged is that marriage is hard and the first year is the hardest. In my head i would think "yeah yeah i know". I knew it would be hard... of coarse it would be! lol I'm not stupid but I was kinda blinded while in that blissful planning my wedding-being engaged state. My eyes have been open and we've most definitely have had our ups and downs but every time we come back up we know and understand each other better and even love each other more because we have worked something out together and are improving together. I expect it will be this way for the most of the rest of our lives... I'm just hoping our downs won't be as often.

Happy Birthday Jared... sorry its late.

I left Jared all alone on his birthday. He was so kind and let me go to tucson and let me visit my family even though it was over his birthday. One thing he wanted for his birthday was a computer desk for his future desk top computer and to study at when he goes back to school. He's been hunting non stop for a desk and while i was gone he got one that came with a dresser thing that was so useful as a TV stand! so heres the new additions to our second bedroom...

Good job Jared! I think it looks pretty good. So happy birthday Jared! I hope you enjoy and get good use out of this desk.

we are planning on actually celebrating his birthday soon... as soon as he has a night off work.

yummy healthy food

So this diet has been fun in the way of trying new and cooking new recipes. A sad thing about it is Jared is working a TON nowadays and I'm usually only cooking for me. Here are a few of my favorite things to eat at dinner time on my diet.

This is a Campbell's soup recipe! I'm not sure how healthy it is so i just don't eat that much of it. Its like an easier chicken divan. its all made in one skillet and it doesn't make as much as chicken divan too. Just so you know it is made with 94% fat free Campbell's broccoli cheese soup!

my usual meal that i always eat because its yummy and easy is a piece of chicken with Italian seasonings with wild rice (shown above) and veggies. Recently i have found these steam fresh for one that are broccoli and carrots with Italian seasonings. So good!! sorry i don't have a picture of this one.


This is one that i just barely tried. I got these garden burgers at Costco because Jared has been grilling burgers a lot and I'm sure lots of burgers is not on diet rules. So i got these garden burgers that i sampled at Costco and they were really good. well I made one for dinner one night and just ate is as a patty and it got really boring really fast. I ate it as a burger and it was just weird. When i bite into something that looks like a burger I'm expecting a burger so i didn't like that. Well i have about 8 more of these burgers and Jared's not going to eat them. This recipe was on the box so i decided to try it. It is a wrap. It has 2 tbs of cream cheese. I used garden vegetable cream cheese. Then there is cucumber slices, bell pepper strips, grated carrots and i added olives. Then you just crumble the patty and roll it up. It says to use a garden herb tortilla rap thing but i just used a normal tortilla.

Another good one is Kristen's Not so cheesy enchiladas. I have made that twice now. I put it in two pans and freeze one for later. its perfect and very good.

I love pasta. Who doesn't? Spaghetti and tortellini were a regular dinner for Jared and I. I have switched to wheat pasta and i don't eat it much. Wheat pasta is really very good. You can't even tell the difference. Everyone should eat wheat pasta. unfortunately its more expensive.

This is my dear roommates recipe called Yummy oatmeal bars! They really are yummy. Plus they don't have as much sugar or as much butter or Crisco as yummy chocolate chip cookies. So i say they are healthy! You can also mix it up too. The optional things you can put in them are chocolate chips, coconut, walnuts, cranberries or raisins! My roommate always did nuts, coconut, and cranberries. I did chocolate chips and coconut. Mmm mm good.

Reiner Cherries

Funny thing happened yesterday. I read Kristen's blog about the new pool at the Y and eating Rainer cherries. Rainer cherries is kind of like a tradition in my family. Whenever we would visit Grandma and Grandpa Townsend in Washington in the summer time we would always get Rainer cherries. They are delicious. So i read Kristen's blog and was jealous they had cherries and a pool to have fun in. i miss having a pool near. We have one at home and Cinnamon tree apartments had a nice pool that was fun to hang out by. Anyway the funny thing was Jared came home from work yesterday with a box of Rainer cherries! and some roses. lol both were very suprising and very nice but i was thinking about having these cherries all day and he didn't even know!

Happy Memorial Day!

At home during the summer my family would BBQ a lot well... i guess not a ton... but we would do it for every holiday such as memorial day. Mom would make potato salad, fruit salad and baked beans. While dad would grill hamburgers and sometimes brauts or hot dogs. In Arizona it definitely is hot enough to swim so we would swim and eat outside too.

I tried to recreate this in my home with just Jared and i. When i went to walmart today blackberries and grapes were on sale so i got those and we already had strawberries so i threw a little fruit salad together. Corn on the cob was 20 cents each so i got two of those and that was it our own little memorial day BBQ.

The corn wasn't ready when everything else was so imagin it in the empty spot...

Blooming

Here it is! My flowers are blooming and growing. They are supposed to attract hummingbirds...