For our Anniversary (I know, waaay back in July), we decided to do the “traditional” gifts. So, year 1 was paper. John was very creative and showed me that he HAD been listening to me all year. I had been hounding casually mentioning to him that I wanted to get family pictures taken together. So, he surprised me with a gift card to get them done! We got them done a month ago and her are some of my favorite pictures!
Okay, I want to get one of these framed to go over the mantle, but I’m having a hard time deciding which one. So, let me know in a comment which one should be framed. (I also added a poll to vote on.)
A.
B.
C.
Here are just some fun ones.
John and Zerbie
Me and Zerbie (the pink boa was John’s idea)
Silly Hands Picture
Zerbie was very interested in the Studio’s kitten. The photographers thought it would be so cute to see the size difference up close.
I haven’t posted about Zerbie in quite sometime, so I thought I’d dedicate this post to her. 
She really is such a funny dog. Alot of her mannerisms are almost “human”. Such as:
Her like of “pillows”
Even laundry will double as a pillow for her.
Her need to be loved and the center of attention.
Always wanting to know what’s going on around her. (Yea, we don’t have this couch anymore, we recently upgrade to the 2 recliners in the above picture.)
Looking out the window for visitors.
John and his “baby”
“If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Tends to be the popular saying… but I think it also works for the men in our lives too. When John is really happy (which he is most times), it just makes everything go better.
Here is the most recent explanation for his happiness.
Yes, his beloved Xbox 360 is working once again. It broke sometime in the early Spring (again… for like the 3rd time), we called and they said it would be $150 to fix it! Cra-zy!! So, we just let it gather dust in the back room. A few weeks ago, John really started wanting to play his NCAA Football (as if we don’t have enough football at our house right now… lol), so we called and they said they’d fix it for FREE! Yippee!
Me, being the good wife I am , surprised John with the NEW NCAA Football 2009 when his Xbox came back.
Filed under: Uncategorized
In case you are thinking I have fallen off the face of the Earth, I really haven’t. My allergies have been really really bad this year and I found out yesterday that it has developed into a severe sinus infection… so I probably won’t be cooking for a few days. I’ll be back soon though…. promise!
Filed under: CEiMB - Craving Ellie in My Bellie, Entrees, Grilling, Healthy Foods, John, Zerbie
So, you may be wondering, what exactly CEiMB is…. Did Nina loose her mind and is talking jibberish you may ask yourself… The answer is no! CEiMB – Craving Ellie in My Bellie is a new weekly bloggy even for creating healthy dishes from Ellie Krieger’s The Food You Crave cookbook. I saw CB participate in the first week last week, and I immediatly knew I wanted to join. So, I ordered the cookbook on Monday, and it arrived last night… just in the nick of time!
Steak Tacos with Cucumber-Avocado Salsa
1 TB Chili powder
2 Cloves garlic, minced
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t salt
Pinch of Cayenne pepper
1 1/4 pounds of Top Sirloin steaks
12 6-inch-diameter Corn tortillas
3 cups shredded red cabbage (I cheated, and just got coleslaw mix. It’s basically all cabbage, but cheaper than head cabbage.)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 lime, cut into wedges
Cucumber Avocado Salsa (recipe follows)
In a small bowl stir together chili powder, garlic, cinnamon, salt and cayenne pepper. Rub spice mixture on both sides of steaks.
Grill or broil steaks for 5 to 6 minutes on each side for medium rare, turning once. Remove from grill and let meat sit for 10 to 15 minutes. Carve into thin slices.
Warm tortillas by placing them on the grill, for about 30 seconds, turning once. Or place 6 tortillas at a time between 2 moist paper towels and microwave for 45 seconds. Wrap in cloth napkin or place in a tortilla warmer to keep warm. Place the carved steak, warm tortillas, cabbage, cilantro, lime and Avocado Lime Salsa in serving dishes and let diners make their own tacos at the table.
Avocado Lime Salsa:
1 large cucumber peeled, seeded and cut into chunks (about 2 cups)
2 avocados, cut into chunks
1/2 red onion, diced (I’m not a huge fan of raw onion, so I only used probably 1/4 cup, then John added more to the portions he ate)
2 limes, juiced (about 1/4 cup)
Salt
1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves
2 jalapeno peppers, chopped and seeded, plus more to taste (I omitted these)
Combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl and toss gently to combine.
Serve within an hour of preparing.
The tacos were wonderful! It was a very good change from the beef fajitas we normally make when we want steak and tacos. John loved them also! I was unsure what he would like about the cabbage and salsa, so I told him he had to make the tacos as directed (in the recipe) at least once. So, we did….. for all 3 tacos! As he was eating and throughout the night he kept saying, “Wow. these are really good. These or really really good.” I think it was a success!!
A couple of changes we talked about were adding a bunch more seasoning to the steaks, once they were cooked, you couldn’t taste many of the flavors. That could be my fault though, I was a little shy, since I don’t like spicy food, I didn’t want them to be too hot.
You may have noticed a few extra pieces of meat on the grill, we figured we might as well cook some other stuff to have in the fridge for lunches since we had the grill “light up” (I don’t really know what the correct terminology for that would be…. “turned on” sounds funny, since it’s a charcol grill and doesn’t have an on button….. hmmm, readers?). So we cooked 2 pork tenderloins… my favorite! One is cooked ina spice rub and the other with barbeque sauce.
Make sure to check out the other CEiMB member’s delicious tacos too.
Often when we grill, John will grill some meat scaps for Zerbie. He’ll hide them in her food dish so hopefully she’ll eat some of her dog food too. It’s a pretty funny picture when she’s finished.
The food goes everywhere as she looks for any remaining scraps of meat.
But luckily when she does this, she comes back an hour later and eats all the food that she spills, so I don’t worry about. One day when I have kids crawling around, I may think twice about it… but for now, whatever makes her happy.
Hopefully y’all aren’t tired of hearing about my decorating yet. You see, our family’s THANKSGIVING DINNER is going to be at MY HOUSE this year. I know! I think this makes me an official grown-up now. I’m pulling out all the whistles to try and make it great, which includes endless fall decorating. I have these hopes that it’ll look like it came out of a magazine when I finish, but I highy doubt it’ll look that good.
So, after going to the pumpkin patch I decided to put the pumpkins up in the corner shelves in my dining room. I love these two shelves, they look great decorated for any season.
Here is my dining room:
Here’s a close up of the two corner cabinets. I wish I have a few more pumpkins… maybe I can talk John into going back to the pumpkin patch…. hee hee
After seeing my small dining room, you may be wondering where I am going to put the 11-15 people expected? Well, my table fits 8 people, then I’m planning on setting up a long “card table” infront of the table…. We’ll see how it all turns out!!
While looking at some blogs last week, I saw Kelli’s idea for the cutest little acorns. I knew I had to make some for my house too. After much searching, I finally found some huge acorns!
Now, this is not a “quick and easy” project. But it was a blast. The instructions are on her site. The only other tip I have is to either “bake” the acorns for an hour at 200 degrees, or freeze them for 48 hours to kill all the worms. gross!
Oh yea, you might want to warn anyone who doesn’t want glitter on them, to leave the house for a few days, both my hubby and Zerbie have glitter coverings. hee hee.
I made this cake a little more than a month ago, but somehow it didn’t get posted (like evrything else that happened around then also)… This is a cake I made for one of our Student Workers at work, Champayne. Champayne requested a pink zebra cake, and this is what I cam up with. I hope you guys like it!
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I didn’t have time to decorate today, but I thought I’d post some pictures of all the pumpkins we got!
Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go… Okay, we didn’t go hunting for animals, just for “nature-y”. I have these two glass jars on my mantle that need filled with something. One of them is huuge, so I knew anything I would buy would cost a fortune. So, as I began thinking about things I can fill these jars with, I started thinking about “real” things. So, I bribed my little sisters into helping me gather items (since they are only 2 feet from the ground, I figured it’d be easier for them to bend to pick things up 
). We came home with 5 bags full of stuff. (I got to keep 3 bags, and Amanda filled 2 bags with things for her room. ) Here are some fun pictures we took during the evening.
We went to a nature walk and fund a blue and gold (the local high school’s colors) wagon. I’m not real sure why it was there (looks pretty out of place), but I knew it would make for cute pictures, so I had the girls pose for me.
Hannah (the older one with brown hair) was so funny. She was so afraid the bridges would collapse. These weren’t flimsy looking bridges either. But, I finally convinced her it would be okay (after Amanda bounced all the way across to check it’s sturdiness )
The was a huuuge hill that Hannah had fun running up and down.
Amanda wanted to carry ALL of the bags. I wasn’t going to stop her. She kept swinging the bags singin’ “I’ve just been shoppin’, shoppin’.” (Patti, the next time she wants to go shopping, just bring her to the nature walk. )
Patti gave us money to go eat after our gathering. I was soo proud the girls choose to eat at Subway all by theirselves! This picture cracks me up.
So, What did we gather?
The “W” is something we used for wedding decorations on our candy buffet. I thought it matched the “fall theme” perfectly! Here’s a shot of our whole mantle decorated.
The only thing that was bought this year is the bigger glass vase and the two scarecrows in the wreath. Everything else was either from my mom’s fall decoration stash or just things from other parts of my house. Here is the story about the wreath.
Stay tuned for other fall decorations… we’re going to the PUNKIN’ PATCH tonight. (I’m slightly excited, can you tell? )
Blog updates, two days in a row! Aren’t you proud of me!
Oh my, I can not believe it’s been over a month since my last blog update!! I know I’ve said this before, but I really, really am going to try and get back in the habit of blogging more frequently. It just seems like there isn’t enough time in the day for everything. So, how do y’all find time to blog daily? Any tips or ideas for me? Okay, back to the scheduled blog…..
That’s exactly what I thought when my friend Katy said we needed to make this recipe. But I was so glad I agreed. This is one of the best, easiest lasagna’s I’ve ever made. Her mom found the recipe in Krogers? I think. When she was here, I was too lazy to write the recipe down, so I just scanned it into the computer. (If you click on the picture, it’ll get bigger. If you still can’t read it, let me know and I’ll type it up.)
We made the recipe basically as wrote. The only substitution was cottage cheese for ricotta cheese.
A layer of spaghetti sauce, then a layer of the ravioli’s.
A layer of the cheese/spinach mixture, then another layer of ravioli’s.
More cheese/spinach, then a layer of spaghetti sauce, isn’t it so pretty!!
Finish it of with a nice, yummy layer of cheese.
Now, despite the fact that the assembly pictures are so pretty, my “finished” picture, was less then desirable, so just look back at the scanned recipe and pretend like that’s how mine came out.
