New Week New Meals!

So last week went pretty well with the meals, we really liked pretty much every meal we had. The Hoedown BBQ Chuckroast was a hit. It was so good and we had it with grilled corn that we added Cayenne pepper to and yum!! Jeff ate so much of that which is always an ego booster for me. The slow Cooker pizza was alright I would rather just make home made pizza it is faster and easier but it was a fun and different way of having pizza.

This week on the menu we have

Monday: Chicken Pasta

Tuesday: THRIVE Vegetable Risotto

Wednesday: Tender Grilled Pork Chops

Thursday: Serve yourself day

Friday: Skillet Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

Saturday: Grilled Island Chicken

I got most of my recipes this week from http://www.melskitchencafe.com/

I still have so many more things to blog about so coming soon I have some pictures that Jeff and I took with Guido and some cute labels I made for my Sugar, Flour, etc.

This week for dinner

So I have seen a lot of blogs where people post what they are having for dinner in the beginning of the week. I am trying to be good at sticking to a dinner schedule so we do not eat out as much and so we do not go to the grocery store every other day. We did it for the last two weeks and we only ate out twice. We had to eat out once because we made turkey burgers and we are not sure what went wrong but they just kept falling apart and they were a mess so we went to barbacoa because we were kind of in a rush. That is pretty good for us because we have busy schedules so it is always easier to go and grab something. I tried 7 new and different recipes and ended up adding 5 of them to my recipe box which is always exciting. I planned our recipes in advance and bought everything I needed so I did not have to cross the path of the grocery store again. I obviously did not need to buy a lot because well if you are reading this then you probably know that I have a lot of food in my home at all times. Here is the list of recipes we tried and loved in the last two weeks so if you want the recipe for any of them then I will for sure give them to you.

The recipes I liked the most were:

Sloppy Joe Tacos

Lemony Pork Primavera Pasta

Roast Beef and Gravy

Adobo Pork Chops (These are healthy for you also which is a bonus)

Lemon Garlic Roast Chicken (the best meal for sure)

This week we are having:

Monday: Honey Soy Glazed Pork Chops (Thanks Mar!)

Tuesday: Balsamic-Glazed Steamed Fish

Wednesday: Breaded Garlic Chicken in Lemon Butter Sauce

Thursday: Serve yourself day we wont be home at the same time

Friday: Hoedown BBQ Chuck Roast

Saturday: Slow Cooker Puffy Pizza Casserole (a little nervous about this one)

I will let you know how they all turn out and let me know if you have any good recipes that we can try.

Family Pictures

Jeffs family recently had family pictures done and here are just a few of my faves. They look a little weird on the blog for some reason but they really turned out great. I am excited to have an updated picture of everyone hanging in my house.The cute nieces. They were not hard to photograph like the boys below. We all stood behind the photographer and made loud noises and funny faces trying to get them to pay attention and they were not having it. I love it though because it is candid and not posed at all.
Jeff siblings and their spouses. He has three brothers and one sister. His sister is the second girl on the left and then the rest are his brothers. I love being apart of this family.

The whole fam!! I bet you can't guess how many time this took us. We did succeed though and I think the pic looks great.

Jeff and I.

Jeff and I later did pics with Guido and my family so I will be posting those pics real soon because they are cute also.

I LOVE KAYLEENE!!

So this is Jeff obviously, and i hacked into kayleenes blog so i could let everyone in world(or at least the handful of people who follow her blog) that i love her so much!!! She is the greatest wife ever!!! And everyone should know that so ya. Love ya hun!!

P.S. You can delete this if you want hun!!

Rock Climbing

So April took me Rock climbing this weekend. I have been once and that was five years ago on a little rock but this one was a little more intense. Rock climbing is rated on a scale of 5.1 being the easiest and 5.12 being the hardest and this one that we did is a 5.9. It was a lot of fun but there was no trail leading to the spot so we had to climb up some fallen rocks that was a little rough because sometimes you would step on a rock and it would roll down the hill to the person below you. We finally got to the spot and it was nice because it was in the shade. We got everything hooked up and first Aprils friend went below is a pic of her coming down and then April went. They both do this a lot so they made it to the top pretty quickly with no problems. Then it was my turn and I was kind of nervous. I got a little more then halfway and then came down because I could not get a good grip anywhere and it was taking way to long and I felt bad making them sit on the bottom waiting for me. Then we had to hike down the rocky mountain and that was hardest part because we were already tired and we tried a different way that was full of trees and the rocks. That was rough for sure. Overall it was a lot of fun and I am excited to go again. April and I had a little photo shoot waiting for her friend to get everything set up on the top.

April is intense!

Me, not so much!

There are no pictures of me going up the mountain because they are on aprils camera so this is all you get.

B-day and a New Ride!!

Jeff had a pretty good week, he got a new car and turned 24. Jeff has had his parents old car for a little while and even though we were so grateful for it we were glad to get rid of it. It did not have air conditioning and you had to open the trunk before you got in it or the alarm would go off. Jeff was such a good sport driving it to UVU every other day in 90 degree weather but we knew he could not do it for long. We started looking for new cars on KSL but for some reason we just could not commit to anything. We were nervous about having another payment and we did not want to buy a car that we would have to spend a ton of money fixing up. Well we kind of put the car shopping on hold and forgot about it when we were at Sunday dinner and my brother in law told Jeff that he was getting a new truck and selling his. His is a truck just like Jeff wanted and we knew that it had been taken care of. My brother in law has had it since 1999 and it only has 70,000 miles on it. We were so excited and we knew we could not pass it up so we told him we would take it. The only thing was that it is a manual and Jeff has never driven one before. That made him a little nervous but I encouraged him that he would love it. So we took it and he could not be more excited. I love seeing Jeff happy about something like this. He is like a little kid with a new toy it is so fun.

Jeff also had a birthday this week. It is kind of fun having our birthdays within a week of each other because we get to celebrate for two weeks. I woke up a little early for work on his birthday and made this little banner for him to see when he got up for school. I also bought him a new video game that he has been wanting. I wanted to hide the gift and then when he was done with school I was going to text him to find and open it so he would not be anxious during class to play it but I could not wait till then so I let him open it when he woke up. Here is a pic of him happy with his new game and our baby. Guidos eyes look a little creepy. That night we went to dinner at Ruby River which is Jeffs favorite place and then we went and played miniature golf. It was a lot of fun just hanging just the two of us.

Jeff takes this game pretty serious and of course he always wins.
We both had great birthdays and thank you everyone that made it that much better. We also took family pictures a couple weeks ago that turned out great so I will post those soon.

Fourth of July

Jeff and I decided in June that we wanted to run in the 5k right before the parade. Keep in mind I am not a runner at all. When I get to the gym I do not even look at the treadmills I head straight for the elliptical or the bikes. I hate running with a passion but I just feel that it is something that I should take on because it is so good for you. So about two weeks before the race I started running on the treadmill to see if I could handle it and I found that if I am watching the doctors or Ellen then it is rather easy. A couple nights before the race Jeff, my nephew Devin and my sister in law Nikki all decided to do a practice run of the race just so we would not make fools of ourselves on the day of the race. I thought that I was gonna die and even though I finished that night I just kept thinking to myself this running crap sucks. I really did not want to do the race at all but somehow I talked myself back into it. So Jeff and I get there bright and early and we were running a little late of course so we decided not to pay because that is lame to pay $30 a person just to kill yourself. So I decide that my bra is a safe place to put my money even though Jeff insisted that his pocket was better. So we were running the race and let me tell you while you are in the moment with everyone else it is not as bad as you think. My goal the whole time was to just finish at the 30 minute mark because I did not want to be kicked off for the parade starting and I did not want to miss any of it. So Nikki and I came strolling in at....drum roll please.....29 minutes. For you crazy runners that is weak but for me that is fantastic. I was so excited that I actually finished it and under the time that I wanted. So I go to find Jeff because of course he finished before me with 27 minutes and reach into my bra to get the money and to my surprise there was no money to be found. I looked and looked and still there was no money. I guess that's what I get for thinking I am better then just paying the money. Overall it was fun and I am excited to do more races and build up to the Ragnar next year.Our little family with our matching outfits. Guido was way mad that we made him wear these shorts for the picture but I could not resist they were so cute.Mars family and Jeffs family always sit by each other in the parade so we got a picture together with our festive shirts from American Eagle.This is not the best pic of Jeff and I but please notice my creeper nephew in the background. Can you say Chester the Molester. Ha Ha.

The fourth of July is one of my fave holidays and I am always so sad to see it go but I am excited for next year already.