Date #2...sort of

So our second date night didn't come from the date box but it did come in the fun form of a dinner party with one of my best friends Pam and her husband Yuri. Pam and I go way back from our days at Urban and our husbands have bonded over their love for talking about anything to do with God, and for all of you ladies out there, you know how important it is for your husband/boyfriend to bond with your friends husband/boyfriend. So Pam and I get to relax and totally enjoy each other because we don't have to entertain the husbands. At one point Pam and I even stopped talking and looked over at the husbands and said how cute they were, it took them a few minutes to realize that we were talking about them and not my kids before they started man blushing.

Well all of it was going great until in the middle of cooking the sweet potatoes the oven starts doing this crazy beeping sound, won't work anymore and I haven't even gotten to cook my pasta or shrimp (enter panic mode), luckily the stove top still worked but for those of you who know my patience level I was about to throw that stove out the window. It's amazing how one little sound like a low beep can grate on my nerves so badly you would think I was a mad woman. After it was all cooked we were able to relax, enjoy my boys being angels (ha only when people are around), eat some yummy food and have some great wine along with great conversations.

one of my favorite meals ever!

Our dinner was a nice lemon shrimp pasta (so clean tasting not too greasy) with some spicy sweet potatoes. I love love love sweet potatoes but sometimes I get so sick of eating them with the same thing, a little bit of cinnamon and brown sugar. These have a great spice to them and taste just perfect so here are my recipes:

Lemon Shrimp

• 1 lb of large shrimp
• 2 tbs of lemon juice
• 1tbs of extra-virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 box of whole wheat or multi grain angel hair pasta
• 3 or 4 of the small sweet tomatoes diced (they are called camprini I think)
• 1/2 cup of pesto sauce

I combine the shrimp, lemon juice and olive oil in a bowl and let them sit for about 30 mins. After that I then add some salt and pepper and saute them until they are all opaque, put them on a plate to keep them warm. At the same time I cook my pasta, when that is done I drain it and add to a large bowl, throw in the shrimp, diced tomatoes and pesto, mix it up and it is done. It takes about 30 minutes to prep and 10 to all cook.

Chipotle Sweet Potatoes

• 2 large sweet potatoes peeled and cut into smaller cubes
• 1 cup balsamic vinaigrette
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 of fresh cilantro (I used the freeze dried kind so that I am not wasting what I don't need and can save the rest for later)
• 3 tablespoons of honey
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce minced (these come in a can so I take the rest of them and put them in a baggie and freeze them so I am not wasting and will have more for later)

Depending on how well your oven cooks you might want to spread out your sweet potatoes in two smaller cooking dishes but one large one will work. My oven doesn't do the best so I have to use two and cook them longer (or in the case of last night finish them in the microwave, luckily they were almost ready). In a bowl combine sweet potatoes and a half of cup of your balsamic vinaigrette and some salt and pepper (I say to taste because I rarely use salt but I know some people love it). Preheat oven to 400, and add the sweet potatoes in to your greased baking dish. Bake for about 30-40 minutes (again depends on your oven) until they are tender and stir them midway. In a smaller bowl whisk together your remaining vinaigrette, cilantro, honey, and chipotle peppers. Take out your sweet potatoes and drizzle the mixture on to them stirring some to get it all over them and serve. Prep time is about 20 minutes and the cooking time is about 30-40.

I promise you guys will love these recipes and they really did work good together. Enjoy!

Peace

I am not one of those people who just going around talking about my faith to everybody. And its not because I am ashamed by any means or any large reason in general, I really like to show Christ's love through me by how I act. Even then I know I get it wrong a lot of times but I do try really hard.

Today I want to tell everyone about this incredible experience that I am having. I would like to start with saying that I have a group of friends that are my "prayer warriors" and I know that whatever troubles I am having they will be there with me praying. Last night I had something that was really simple happen but I totally let it worry me. Before going to bed I asked my husband to pray for me as well but I let it bother me so bad that I did not sleep good. And what little sleep I did have was filled with stupid dreams.

This morning I got up said a quick prayer and even though the worry was still there I had two little boys to take care of and I did my best to not think of it. All of the sudden out of nowhere I felt this incredible peace, I can't even describe it, but I don't think I have ever felt this way before. Even throughout today when I have even thought about the situation I can just stop and feel all my worries wash away and that wonderful peace surrounding me.

What a great feeling to know that I serve an amazing God and even though this worry was so little on the grand scheme of things He was still there to make sure I felt His presence. So thank you friends that pray for me, and thank you God for being there I love you.

Monday Morning blah

Good morning to everyone out there! If you guys are like me on a Monday, you wake up wondering where your weekend went and if it really is time to get up. Most of us are probably rushing to get ready and the last thing on our minds is breakfast. Well I am going to say what most of us have probably heard our whole lives, BREAKFAST IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY! So please be good to your bodies and eat just a little something, anything is better than nothing. I am going to give you guys my favorite breakfast recipe that will take all of 5 minutes to put together and is extremely healthy for you.

I am becoming a smoothie queen, I really do love them and they help me out on those super busy mornings with my two boys. All you need is:

• about 5ozs of skim milk
• 1/3 cup of greek low fat yogurt (I use plain it has less sugar)
• 1 tablespoon of flax seed
• 1 banana 
• 1/4 cup of blueberries
• 3/4 cup of mixed salad (i know sounds crazy but you can't even taste it)
• 3 or 4 strawberries

Throw all of those in the blender and here is what you have.

so yummy!

Now some of you might like a thicker or thinner smoothie so just play around with the milk and yogurt. And for the sake of your body please try and use organic foods, you might not notice a difference at first but I promise your body will. I hope you guys enjoy this...oh and here are some pictures of my boys to put a smile on your face :)

Date #1

I have been so sick this week and between school, my husbands work, and me going to bed at 9pm every night this past week I was in some major need of husband time. After some negotiations with my mom I was able to talk her into watching the boys and letting Steve and myself try out our date box. We ended up having to go through most of the cards to see what we could actually do in the amount of time that we had.

Our card said to act like we were from opposite sides of town and try and hustle each other in a few games. Easy huh? Well except Steve knows how bad I am at pool and I know how great he is against me, but the hustling part I totally had down. We had also invited some good friends along for some friendly competition, but it was more like we invited them along to kick our butts. But I had a blast, it was so nice to get together and have an adult converstion without two little boys yelling "MOMMY" everytime I started to talk. It was also fun getting to watch the people at other tables trying to be so serious about their playing, and watching the two drunk women trying to pick songs out at the jukebox. After losing about six rounds we called it a night and went home, but I think my favorite part of the night was falling asleep to my husband playing footsie with me. He really is the most amazing man in the world.

my crazy eyes

It's Here!!!

Ok so yesterday I gave you guys a bit of a teaser and told you I had a big announcement to make :) Well I am very excited to say that I got to be a guest blogger today on a super great site called Naptime Diaries (just click on the link it will take you straight there). You have to go check out more of what I had to say about the Date in a Box, and to just check out her website in general. Jessi is a very open person sharing her daily triumphs and struggles with raising three super cute kids and with her faith in God. I know that every single one of you guys can relate to at least one thing she has to write about. So please check out her site and you will get a sneak peak at some of the dates you will get to hear about from the hubbs and me :)

Tomorrow!!!!

I have some exciting news for you guys tomorrow :) Stay tuned and you will see what it is (and no I am not annoucing I am preggos), its more letting you guys in on some of our date box stuff :)

Our Date in a Box

So as I mentioned two days ago I had the best Valentine's Day present ever! At least in my mind, and it will work perfect for my husband and me. I really wanted to do something homemade (I am semi-learning how to become Martha Stewart, I think my big sis Emilie will be so proud), and was racking my mind with what I could do. I then stumbled across a blog from a friend called the Dating Divas. It is an amazing blog you have to look it up. Anyway while reading it I came across one of their guest bloggers who wrote about her date in a box. The light bulb went off in my head and I just knew what my present would be. So with some random items I found around my house our date in a box came together. I started out with an empty oatmeal container, used some random material and bought some scrapbook stickers at Hobby Lobby. Then I looked around to see what else I could use and here is what I found... 

scrapbook scissors and some reversible mat stack paper...and here it is!!!

Our Date in a Box

52 different dates that we get to go on :)

I also googled fun dates, creative dates, cheap dates, you name it I googled and found so many fun ideas about this. My friend Salina blogs about some of her dates as well from their notecards they got called 52 Cheap Dates by Lynn Gordon, so I took a few from there too. Some of the dates online became repetitive, too adventerous for me, or kind of just silly so I came up with a few myself.   

I am more than excited about this, a different date for each week of the year. So I don't want to give away all of the date details yet but I will be writing about them when they happen. And if you guys don't know the story about my husband and myself, we only dated for two weeks before we got married. Let me tell you those two weeks were the most amazing getting to know someone time ever. We were so engrossed on getting to know each other I think we might have only gone on 3 actual dates. Then after a month and a half of being married we found out we were pregnant, so we didn't get to do much in the dating department. Now two sweet boys later we are actually going to get to go on some real dates that will be the time of our life.

P.S. My husband is pretty excited about this as well, he really liked his gift :)