Sharing is NOT Caring

So for those of you who know me know that my favorite title in the whole world right now is that of Aunt.  In fact lately my favorite thing is when my 2.5 year old nephew Clark comes running up to me yelling "Auntie Shay-ell" man I love his little accent.

As with most toddlers his mood is hit or miss, I like to think he is usually a big fan of me, but sometimes he is tired, or sick, or just plain grumpy, so those moments when he is super loving and playful I just eat those up, because I don't know when the next grumpy gills is gonna come out.

This last Sunday we had a celebration for my mom's birthday and we had the whole family (minus my brother Paul's family in Utah).  It was awesome having almost all my nieces and nephews together, I just love my family so much.  Anyways, Clark was in one of his super good moods on Sunday and was hanging all over me the whole night. I was LOVING it.  He would only play with me, he sat on my lap for me to feed him cake, when he got a boo-boo he came to me for comfort, words can't describe how much that warmed my heart!! He also shared a bite of his cookie with me, now if nothing else, that right there is true unconditional love from anyone, but especially a toddler, you just don't share cookies.

However I have since learned that perhaps as cute and loving as it was to share that cookie with me, and all the slobbery kisses I got I probably shouldn't have allowed all of that.  Because now I have a very sore throat and runny nose and overall crappy yucky cold.  So after going to the doctor and making sure I didn't have strep throat, I now have orders to use flonase twice a day for 2 weeks, allegra twice a day, and advil for when I'm in pain... oh and they best part... a salt water gargle.

However after all is said and done, all the snuggles and kisses and loves I got from Clark on Sunday, I'd say all this pain and sickness is totally worth it and I'd do it all over again!! I just love that kid!!!

#Recipefail

So today I tried out a new recipe, I’m far from being a vegetarian, but I’ve been thinking about how I should maybe have “meatless” days so as to just make healthier choices.  I’m making baby steps in this direction, and one of these baby steps was going to be a lentil stew I made today.  My mom comes over on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and I cook her dinner and tonight was going to be the lentil stew option.  As I was prepping the ingredients last night I had a feeling it wouldn’t turn out.  I’m not a great cook, but I know how to follow a recipe and I feel like I’m pretty good a gauging if a recipe is going to turn out well or not.

Well we both took a small bowl to try out the stew, which was more like a soup and it just wasn’t good.  We both agreed it would probably taste better with ground beef, but then that would kind of defeat the purpose of doing a meatless meal.  We were left unsatisfied and I didn’t really have anything else available to whip up real quick so we went out to Hometown Pizza and split a salad and a small pizza.  So we didn’t really stick to the whole healthy meal idea much either… but to try and make up for that I went on a 1.5 mile walk around my neighborhood… that totally evens each other out right?

Prim was very excited to join me on a walk, she loves walks so much, and trots on ahead of me as far as I allow her to the whole time, currently she is passed out on the couch next to me, here’s a photo I took before I was able to take the laptop away from her…

So my question for you guys today is, do you have any really good lentil recipes? I had them a lot on my mission during the winter and they were delicious! I’d love some good meatless meal options, but easy on the beans, because I just don’t like beans much!

That time I won a car....

I don't know about you but I STILL catch myself thinking the 90s were just 10 years ago... will that ever go away?

I had a "Holy crap where did the time go" moment today, one of my Facebook friends who I graduated with posted a graduation picture the other day and today it got me thinking about how it's been 10 years ago since I've graduated high school.  Today was a BIG day for me 10 years ago, no today is not the anniversary of graduating high school, that was yesterday, today marks 10 years since I won a brand new car at project graduation! Yeah you heard that right, I won a brand new car once.  I still can't believe it!! I'm so bummed to report I don't have any digital pictures of me and the car, I know my mom has some that she has printed out, but this was before picture phones and I didn't have a digital camera.  So I'm sorry to say I don't have any photo proof for you here on my blog tonight, but trust me I have a ton of witnesses who will confirm that I won that car.

What did I do with my super hot right yellow brand new dream mustang? I sold it.   Yeah sometimes I think about it and regret the decision, but overall I think I made the best choice, I drove the mustang around for the summer and had my fun, but since I was going to school out west I needed to pack up all my belongs and move across country, and there just wasn't much space in my little buttercup.  So I sold her and bought a toyota avalon and with the left over money I bought a laptop for school and then eventually used it to help fund a study abroad trip to Europe in my sophomore year, all things I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

 So while it would have been fun to drive that hot mustang around, I'm happy with my memories of Europe and the fun times I had in college on the MANY road trips I took in my Avalon (Lexi Sparks Gossie 3rd).

So have you ever won anything? What would you have done with the mustang if you had been in my shoes? I had a lot of different opinions thrown at me at the time, and while I do think about what might have been if I'd kept the car, I still think I would do everything the same :)

And since I don't have photo proof of my Mustang, here are a few pics from my study abroad in Europe :)

Somewhere beautiful in Ireland

 Enjoying a very early morning at stonehenge... how did it get like that? ;)

 A Harry Potter nerd cannot go to London, and NOT visit platform 9 3/4... I went twice in 3 days

Oh the Eiffel Tower, and that's all I'll say about my time in Paris :)

Salsa Chicken

This is not going to be a food blog, but I do like to experiment with different recipes, and make them my own so when I find one that I absolutely love I'll share it with you guys on here :).

Salsa chicken might be the first thing I ever made in my crock pot, it's super easy and can be made in so many different ways.  The first time I made it I simply put in chicken, taco seasoning and salsa.  It was great... My salsa chicken has evolved a lot since then.  Last week I made some and I added corn, and black beans and it was sooo good! I loosely followed this recipe:

http://www.budgetbytes.com/2011/07/taco-chicken-bowls/

This has you making all your own taco seasoning, I just used a taco seasoning packet and it was delicious :).  So easy and when I ate these for dinner I made them into burritos, but then the next day when I ate it for lunch I put the salsa chicken over romaine lettuce and it was amazing! So many different variations for just one dish.  I'll probably end up making this several times a month.  The recipe I linked is for burrito bowls, and I've had it that way and they are good, but the night I made these last week my rice didn't turn out so I didn't use any rice at all. Also I just put in the chicken frozen, it cooks just fine in the crock pot, no need to unthaw it.

And for one good recipe I'll share one that I've made from pinterest that I didn't like as much:

http://www.alattefood.com/crockpot-salsa-verde-honey-lime-chicken-tacos/

This had all the potential, I was so excited to try it, salsa verde, honey and lime how could it get any better? I'm not sure if I did something wrong or what, but while the taste wasn't bad, it was way too soupy, maybe I didn't use enough chicken.  Maybe I used the wrong kind of salsa verde.  It tasted fine, I could taste hints of lime and honey and that was fun.

What's your favorite crockpot recipe?

PS Happy Birthday to my friend Natalie, and one day late Happy 18th to my nephew Austin... lots of great people were born in June!