Quick trip to Kansas City

I just got home from a trip to Kansas City with my dad to go for my aunt's surgery. She had a tumor on her kidney and had to get it removed. She just happened to find it because of some xrays she had because her neck had been hurting from a car wreck. That prompted an MRI, PET scans, etc because of a suspicious spot on her vertebrae. Turned out that spot was just a chip in the bone. But, the scans showed up this place on her kidney, she had no idea. Luckily, it was totally contained, and they removed it fine & didn't have to remove the whole kidney. Its just a blessing she found out about it, because it could've progressed & by the time she had any symptoms, it would be too late. She doesn't need any further treatments or anything. So yay for good news!!

We stayed near the Plaza because the hospital was right there also. Love the Plaza! What a great place! So many good stores. We had a chance to go in a couple today at lunch. I bought this cookbook from Anthropologie (LOVE this store):

I'm kind of on a cupcake/baking kick right now, and the pictures in this were so fun, with some very creative recipes. I am not creative, so this helps me :) The recipes are quite easy also.

We also went in Z Gallerie, only to find out this particular location is closing, so they were basically having their final sale today & this weekend. Not much was left. I did get a cute frame though & my dad actually found a couple things.

We ate at a local BBQ place nearby, Jack Stack. Very nice & quite good. It was nice spending the time with my dad, we hadn't had any type of trip together in a long time, so I'm glad we were able to go and glad my aunt is okay.

It got cold here today, so we may just be staying in tonight, I don't know yet. I'm just happy the weekend is here!

Tasty Tuesday--Happy Mardi Gras!!!

King Ranch Chicken Casserole

1 large onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
2 Tbls. vegetable oil
2 cups chopped cooked chicken (to save time I use the Swanson's canned chicken chunks, drained)
1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 (10-ounce) can diced tomato and green chiles
1 tsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. pepper
12 (6-inch) whole-wheat tortillas
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese, divided

Preheat oven to 350
Saute onion and bell pepper in hot oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until tender. Stir in chicken and next 7 ingredients; remove from heat
Tear tortillas into 1-inch pieces; layer one-third of tortilla pieces in bottom of a lightly greased 13x9 inch baking dish
Top with on-third of chicken mixture and 2/3 cup cheese.
Repeat layers twice
Bake for 30-35 minutes
Serves 6-8

Signs of Spring :)

Eric loves all things winter. I think its from growing up in Tucson where they have no winter. I feel like winter lasts about 9 months out of the year for me because I get cold so easily. So, I have some hope for warmth when the flowers start budding. My grandmother was an avid gardener, and she has LOTS of bulbs planted around here. So its always nice to see what decides to come up each year. Below are the first blooms for this year, Crocus's, which I LOVE and Eric likes them also, this is the first he's seen of them. You plant them in your lawn and they just pop up before the grass starts growing again, so they really stand out and its nice to see some color :)

Here are some shots from today while Eric, Capone & I hung out on our porch after work (with the exception of Capone, he napped all day).

Lauren's 28th Birthday!

My baby sister sister turned 28 today and we had a great time celebrating at my grandmother's house. Mom made her yummy lasagna and I made the cake. I decided to give decorating a shot. Wasn't so easy! I bought the pre-made icing in the tube that you can just put the different tips on. I think it was too thick, because lettering was hard and it was not up to my standards at all! :) The cake part turned out great, but I told her the dog did the decorating! Happy Birthday Lauren!

Valentine Weekend Fun

We had a great weekend! Friday the 13th is not only one of Eric's favorite days, it was our exciting "5 month anniversary", so we went to dinner at one of our favorite local places, Ciao, and then went to see the new Friday the 13th movie, ha! Doesn't sound too romantic, I know, but we thought it would be fun, and it was a hoot!

Saturday, was of course Valentine's, so I got up and met my mom at the Flea Market at the fairgrounds. My mom loves doing this each Saturday and I enjoy it also, its just hard for me to get up sometimes :) There were a lot of vendors this week though, so we had a fun time.

Eric & I made a mutual decision Saturday, that instead of getting the individual Valentine gifts for each other we had planned on, that we would get a Wii for our mutual gift! Eric had been trying to find games on Xbox that we could play together besides Rock Band/Guitar Hero, but I wasn't a fan of any of them. So we thought the Wii had more options for both of us. He bought it & got Mario Kart as well :)

We met for lunch at the Blue Moon Bakery, one of our favorites, and we split a very cute Red Velvet cupcake they had :)

We ran some errands, then got home & Eric set up the Wii, he couldn't wait to test it out! I took a nap, and then we played a couple of games on it! Its so fun and the technology is pretty amazing. We downloaded the original Mario Brothers, which was hilarious to play again, since neither of us had played since about 1990! And I spent many hours mastering all three of them back then!

Next we got ready and went to our Valentine dinner at The Chalkboard. We love this place and had a gift certificate to use that Eric's mom & stepdad gave us. It was just lovely and a great meal! We then came home and played Mario Kart---I was Toad and a very bad driver, I got 12 th place (last) in almost every race. Oh well, room for improvement!

Today we went to church and lunch with my dad, sister, Jayson, and Connie at Chimi's. We are doing a major house cleaning & laundry extravaganza today! And I am looking fwd to the new episode of Desparate Housewives tonight! :)

Tasty Tuesday

Thanks to Lindsay for the logo & idea!

Crusty Ranch Chicken

Preheat oven to 350
6-8 Chicken Breasts
3/4 cup Crushed Corn Flakes
3/4 cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese
1/2 cup melted butter
1 Packet Ranch Dressing mix

Mix together corn flakes, cheese and ranch mix in a medium size bowl and set aside.
In a separate bowl melt butter.
Dip chicken breasts in melted butter then into dry mixture.
Place in greased baking dish and cook, uncovered for 45 minutes

Yum!

New newlywed purchases

As most people know, we are living in my grandmother's house for a while until we save up money for a 20% down payment on a house for us. Its an older home, and there is limited storage space. So we have a lot of wedding gifts in storage, and when we move eventually we will have all this new stuff to open! We are very excited about that moment :)

So in the past couple weeks we just made two purchases that we weren't planning on doing until we got our next house. New bedding and the dresser that goes with Eric's bedroom set. I had been looking at bedding, just to get an idea of what we liked, etc. We get the Restoration Hardware catalog & I was looking through it & found exactly what I've been wanting! It was perfect, but a little expensive. So I forgot about it for a while. Then it went on sale after Christmas, and we had a gift card we got for a wedding gift that we could put towards it. So we ordered it & I love it! It will stay in its packaging though until the next house.

The dresser we knew we would get eventually, but Eric was worried about them discontinuing the set. I just randomly got online to look it up & what the price was, and it was on closeout! All the pieces were about 65% off and we had everything but the dresser. We didn't want to wait & then have a dresser that didn't match everything else, so we bit the bullet and got it and the mirror. We have to do some rearranging to fit it in the bedroom, but hopefully we can get it. Otherwise, I'm not sure where we will put it?

Anyway, we are very excited to have bought two very nice, pretty items to go towards our future home! :)

Tasty Tuesday

Thanks to Lindsay for the logo & idea!


Oreo Balls

1 Package regular Oreos
1 8 oz package softened cream cheese
1 lb Chocolate Almond Bark
½ lb White Almond Bark

Place all of the Oreos in a food processor or Ziploc bag and crush until they are fine and you can see no icing. Beat in the cream cheese until it is well blended. The mixture will look wet. Line a cookie sheet with wax paper and roll the mixture into balls. You can make them as little or big as you want. Place the Oreo balls in the freezer for 45 minutes. Just before they are ready to come out melt the chocolate almond bark using the instructions on the package. Roll the Oreo balls in the chocolate and place them back on the cookie sheet to harden. When you are done melt the white almond bark and use a fork to drizzle it over the chocolate.

Superbowl 2009

So first of all, we were super excited Arizona made it to the Superbowl! Eric is from AZ, as most of you know, and so are several of his friends that we work with. We went to a party in a hotel suite with all of our friends from work. Lots of yummy food and everyone brought their kiddos, so there was alot going on! Needless to say we were all disappointed they lost, but it was close & a good game! We are just happy they made it this year!