Grilled Garlic-Lime Chicken

I found this very simple Garlic Lime Chicken recipe and have to share because its amazing!!

Ingredients:

½ cup soy sauce
¼ cup lime juice
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp dry mustard
½ tsp pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 skinned and boned chicken breasts

 1. Combine first 6 ingredients in a large zip top plastic freezer bag; add chicken. Seal bag; marinate in fridge 20 min, turning bag once.

2. Remove chicken from marinade, discarding marinade.  Grill Chicken until meat thermometer reads 165°.

I served it with some Zatarain's Yellow Rice and Sauteed Asparagus.

Football Cake

So my friend had a recipe for a homemade football cake made from a square cake without a football shaped pan! I was excited to try!

For my first cake I used a yellow cake and for the second I used chocolate. I ended up preferring the yellow because I used Chocolate Icing.   Start by baking your choice cake in a 9" x13" pan (Hint: The best way to get your cake to remove from the pan in one piece is to coat the pan in shortening and drizzle flour then pour the batter in. The cake will pop right out when cooled!).  And once it is cool,  cut the corners as shown below:

I secured my corner by putting icing between them and the sides of the cake. Then coat the cake in a chocolate icing.

Finally, I put some white icing in a decorating bag with a larger Wilton Round tip on the end. I used that to decorate the actual football, but I had to use a knife to flatten it a bit.  Then used a smaller tip to write on the birthday cake. With my first cake, I ran out of chocolate icing, so I used white icing on the side and added Reese's pieces on top of it.

I realized after I wrote day in BIRTHday that I meant to do all caps... oops!

This was a blast to make and didn't take long at all!! Perfect for a football party! :)

Where the Wild Things are

So I finally finished my Max Costume and Wild Things headpiece... It only took 2 weeks and it may have been shorter if I hadn't been doing 20 other things in between!

So I will start with the Max Costume... I got the idea from another blog: Max Costume & Tutorial
But I couldn't download the pattern, so I ended up getting a pattern for a jumpsuit with hood and just adding the ears, buttons, tail, and whiskers as I went along.

The hood before the whiskers were added

I've decided that this looked more like a beaver tail but I was too tired to go back and change it

I forgot to add the tail so I had to go back and do it later

Totally figured out the button hole feature on my sewing machine for this costume!

The Wild Things head wasn't originally in the plan but I stumbled across this Instructable on Instructables.com (which is my new favorite site for craft making): Wild Thing Headpiece
The guy who made it did an awesome job and walks you through the basic steps but gives you freedom with size and style. I loved it!
I decided after this project that I have a love/hate relationship with the glue gun! I love the projects it hold together and hate the blisters on my fingers! 

The base was made out of cardboard and duct tape

Cotton fabric for the main piece

stuffed with polyester filling

The face is made from cream felt and the eyes,nose & horns were fleece

The hair was faux fur and teeth were felt

The lower jaw is foam wrapped in felt and fleece with felt teeth

The shirt was orange and I wrapped it in yellow duct tape, and the pant will have scales once the puff paint dries. I still need to add a tail

 I started this project hoping that I would finish but not totally confident but now I'm soooo excited because if I can do this, what else can I do??!!

Latte Changing Pad & other projects

So I just found a book called One Yard Wonders and bought it because the ideas were too cute to pass up. Well I made my first creation out of it for my friend's baby shower gift and it turned out so good that I had to share!

Another friend gave me the idea to make some burp cloths for baby shower gifts. Gerber cloth diapers make the best burp cloths, so I added some ribbon to make them pretty! It was pretty easy to do!

I will make more fun stuff from the book but first I must complete my Max Costume and Wild Things Headpiece for halloween!  Here's a preview of the mask...

 

 

They grow up so fast...

The other evening, in my backyard; Jackson, Andrew, Tim and I played a riveting game of putting each other in jail.  It consisted of Daddy trying to keep Jackson in jail and mommy trying to get Jackson out. Then it switched, Jackson and I tried to keep Daddy in Jail.  And Andrew just followed us around and went where ever Jackson was.

As I was running around my backyard chasing after Tim and Jackson, I realized that Jackson has finally hit that stage, that preschooler stage that comes right after toddler.  He is using his imagination, playing games, pretending, and can almost speak a complete sentence!

Jackson has always had alot to say, even when he was a baby. But we could never get him to stop long enough to say words! So at 3 years old, we put him in Speech Therapy with a recommendation from the pediatrician. He finally started to speak a few words very clearly and the rest of the words were mumbled or nonexistent. I think that was one of my fears about putting him in school was that the kids would make fun of him because they couldn't understand them.  I think I underestimated how smart he really is.  Because that night, when we came inside from playing, he went to daddy and told him a complete recap of what took place outside and we could understand him! I love that we are able to have conversations with him now! I couldn't do without the back talk but I guess you take the good with the bad.

I've also decided that learning to play games and pretending has got to be one of those developmental stages because even just 3 or 4 months ago, I could not get him to play any sort of game with him.  He wanted to do everything on his own or do it exactly his way. Now he is playing with us and pretending to be other people or characters.  He is so much more fun to play with now especially since he doesn't cry every time you do something he doesn't like. 

Watching my babies grow up has to be the most interesting thing I've ever been able to experience! 

My Bread Machine

For my birthday, my parents got me a Oster bread machine. I have never made bread nor have I ever really even thought about bread... it comes in a bag from the grocery store, right?!

Making bread has been an interesting process. Before I got the machine, I tried to make it by hand. I just wanted some yeast rolls, like from Golden Corral, because they are my favorite. Well first time around I killed the yeast because I had no idea what yeast really was. So second time, I didn't even activate it. I had several failed attempts and then I gave up until I got my machine. It heats it to the perfect temperature! I know I should probably learn to do it by hand in case of emergency but I'm being lazy right now. Plus, I can make more bread this way!

My bread machine has a lot of options, I prefer the dough making option so I can shape it and make it the way I want but I will use the cooking feature if I just want a loaf or I'm busy.

I have made an Italian Bread. It goes perfect with my Italian dishes!

I finally made my Dinner Rolls. They were everything I hoped they would be.

I make Honey Wheat Sandwich Rolls for my husband's lunches.
(totally just realized I never took a picture... next time I make it I will update and add one)

Then I wanted to change up his lunch sandwiches, so I made a Sweet Sub-Style Sandwich Bread.

I just needed a loaf of bread for Jackson's lunches, so I found this Honey Wheat Bread Loaf. It was fabulous and he loved it!

I've had a blast with this so I went to the Library and checked out a few books. I got The Bread Bible, which has taught me a lot of particulars of how bread works and rises, and how the conditions of the rising and preparing create the flavor and consistency. Its very interesting.

I also checked out a book on Pies, because my husband requested more pies in the house, so I will write on those soon!

Sauteed Aspargus

So I've never really done a whole lot with fresh vegetables before this summer... a little embarrassing I know but I was a little intimidated by them plus I always thought that can vegetables were fine. But this summer, I got started buying some fresh veggies and playing with them. Now I'm not sure if I can eat can vegetables anymore... I've been spoiled!

My absolute favorite right now is Asparagus! I never really had them before and when I did they were canned and I DID NOT like them! I originally steamed them and they were wonderful but someone suggested I saute them, so I went recipe hunting. I found a few that didn't quite work, so I ended up using the recipes as a guide and made a more simple version.

Ingredients:
1 bunch fresh asparagus
3 tablespoon butter
3 garlic cloves, minced

Directions:

1. Wash and Trim the asparagus

2. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
3. Add the garlic and asparagus
4. Cover and cook for 5 minutes; stirring occasionally (This will make them crisp and tender, any longer on the skillet and they become mushy)

5. Serve and Enjoy!! I personally at a touch of sea salt.