Let the fun begin

For those of you that follow my blog, I said I was trying a new recipe last night, "Sour Cream Noodle Bake"  from The Pioneer Woman Website Found here.  It was delicious and the kids even loved it, which is rare in our household these days.  I read the reviews and most said that they liked it with cream cheese instead of cottage cheese so we tried it this way.  So the recipe is as follows:

• 1-1/4 pound Ground Chuck
• 1 can 15-ounces Tomato Sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper
• 8 ounces, weight Egg Noodles (I made the whole bag and had extra noodles for the kids)
• 1/2 cup Sour Cream
• 1-1/4 cup Small Curd Cottage Cheese  (We used 8oz. Cream Cheese Instead)
• 1/2 cup Sliced Green Onions (less To Taste)
• 1 cup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Brown ground chuck in a large skillet. Drain fat, then add tomato sauce. 1/2 teaspoon salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Stir, then simmer while you prepare the other ingredients.

Cook egg noodles until al dente. Drain and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine sour cream and cottage cheese. Add plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Add to noodles and stir. Add green onions and stir.

To assemble, add half of the noodles to a baking dish. Top with half the meat mixture, then sprinkle on half the grated cheddar. Repeat with noodles, meat, then a final layer of cheese. Bake for 20 minutes, or until all cheese is melted.

And Viola,  an easy casserole bake thats great for a week night meal! 

Then tonight, as planned,  I helped finish up last minute things for the bridal shower/bachelorette party tomorrow! Us girls had a lot of fun and so did Carson! 

My plan was to take the kids along but after their first day at Miss Chris's house today, they were worn out and quite crabby.  So they stayed home with dad.  I was able to get a few cute pictures of the kids this morning! 

Tomorrow is a busy day for us as the kids will go to Grandma and Grandpa's in the morning while Daddy works and Mommy has a fun girls night!  Have a great weekend! 

Fire Safety

Christian had fire safety week at school and we have been hearing all about firetrucks lately.  The class had a visit from a firefighter and his fire truck and he keeps talking about the firetruck. Christian was so sweet and brought home a fire hat for Bryleigh too. So the too of them have been fighting fires!

Also, if you look closely, Christian likes the strap under his nose!  Silly boy:)

The purple glove is also from the fire fighter in honor of "purple"day at school!

Perfect timing as we are almost to Halloween and Christian picked to be a fire fighter this year!

On another note,  Bryan started work on Tuesday and the kids are loving going to Grandma's while we are working!  Christian wakes up super early every morning and the first thing he says, " Do I get to go to Grandma's today?"  And tomorrow, Christian and Bryleigh will be going to Miss Chris's house!  They also love it there!  I'm so thankful that we have great people to care for our kiddos! 
Our busy week continues as we head into the weekend.  I will be helping set up for the my friend's bridal shower and bachelorette party on Saturday.  Bryan will be working all weekend since Andy's Bachelor Party was moved to a different weekend. So the kids will still get to spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house this weekend!

Off subject here, but I have to share one of Bryleigh's funny moments!  She most recently started copying everything we do.  One of those being yawning!  So I had to catch her on video. This is actually a short "yawn."  The first time we caught her doing it, she pretended to yawn for about a minute!  It was quite exaggerated and so funny :)

Don't worry, the car was stopped at the time of this video :)

Now off to cook some dinner! I'm trying a new recipe, Sour Cream Noodle Bake, from Pioneer Woman so we will see how it goes. 

Busy Week

It was a lazy Sunday as expected for us!  As planned, I went to Walmart to purchase a new 32 inch Vizio TV for our downstairs family room after ours took its last breath yesterday.  Definitely not a welcomed $300 to spend today but we needed to.

Bryan and his dad finished up on another coat of mud on our drywall.  So now they have to sand and then I can primer and paint!  I'll be so happy when its finished and we can have our main living room back!  Having no TV upstairs is not what's bothering me,  its the chaos of the house.  That's what my Type A personality does for me :)

I also finished up the kids Christmas shopping!  I'm so excited to see their smiling faces on Christmas!  And another highlight of my day, I found Ivory dress shoes for Bryleigh for the wedding coming up.  I was very worried that we were going to have to pay an arm and a leg to find shoes to match her Miniature Bride dress but we lucked out and Payless had 2 pairs to choose from in her size!  And I also got her a tiny cross necklace to wear!  She's going to be so beautiful!

This week is going to be quite busy. Our agenda for the week is chaotic.  Tuesday, Bryan starts cranberry harvest so that means early mornings for me of dropping the kids off at either the in laws or daycare.  And also we have Bryleigh's dress fitting on Tuesday evening.  Wednesday is church night.  Thursday is last minute planning for the Jenna's Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Party.  Friday, I have a training for work that I can't miss so I have to work my first Friday in over a year :( Then Friday evening I will be baking and decorating for the Jenna's shower and party.  Saturday is Bridal Fun Day and Bryan has Andy's Bachelor party in the Dells so the kids are hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa.  And Sunday will be a day relaxation, hopefully!

And then our Bridesmaid's dresses came in so I have to find a time to go to Eau Claire in the next couple weeks to get it fitted!  Phew, I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

But to liven up my stress, I have these two munchkins entertaining me!

 

 The kids were "rockstars."  Sorry I don't know how to rotate the video but I had to share because I love the fake Microphones that they had! 

Saturday Randoms

It has been a busy couple of days. 

*Thursday- I was in my first craft fair! My mom's work held a craft fair for employees and I was able to set up a table for my Bryleigh's Bowtique crafts.  My tutu's and hairbows were a hit and I sold quite a few and even got several custom orders.  We had a great time!  I"m glad that others can enjoy my creations as much Bryleigh and I do :)

*Friday-I had been neglecting my household cleaning these days as I prepared for the craft show so the majority of Friday was spent vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, and lot of loads of laundry.  And then the kids and I got out of the house and went to Grandma's to watch "Dumbo" so that Daddy and Grandpa could work some more on our wall.

*Saturday-Fleet Farm Toy land opened today so Christian and Bryleigh got to spend the day at Great Grandma and Grandpa's while Grandma and I went toy shopping.  I was able to get some great Santa presents!  And then to celebrate "Sweetest Day" Bryan and I had date night and went to the movie, "The Thing."  It was a decent movie, not exactly my favorite type of movie but we still had fun!

We stopped by Sweet Temptations Cupcakerie on our way home from shopping today and I picked the kids each up a cupcake!  So we let the kids indulge before bed time!

Feeding daddy some frosting! 

Sunday plans-Tomorrow Bryan and Grandpa are planning on finishing up the wall! So the kids and I will be off to purchase a TV.  Because as we all know,  things seem to break when you have already spent way to much money :( This TV is a standard definition TV (It even has the huge box in the back from before flat screens) which Bryan and I purchased when we moved into our first apartment together.  Its only 5 years old but I guess it had enough!  It is just for our family room downstairs but I use it every morning to exercise so we definitely need a new one to replace! 

Pumpkin Patch Trip #2

Lucky little boy, Christian, was able to go to the pumpkin patch today for the 2nd time to pick out a pumpkin!  Christian had his 2nd field trip of the year to a family farm.  I was planning on attending this trip with him but unfortunately, dates were miscommunicated and I was unable to make it :(  But lucky for Christian, "Green Grandma"  was able to attend! (For those of you that don't know,  Christian color coded his Grandma's by the color of their shirts long ago and the names stuck :)  Christian (and Grandma) had a great time and Christian didn't stop talking about his trip all night.  He even brought back a tiny pumpkin for Bryleigh!

Grandma brought back pictures for me to enjoy! 

So glad you guys had a good time! 

Pumpkin Carving

I don't know of a better way to get into the fall spirit than by carving pumpkins!  We picked out our pumpkins about 2 weeks ago and Christian has been bugging us to carve them so we decided tonight was a great night!  And probably one of our last beautiful weather days of the year! 

 I wouldn't say that we are the greatest pumpkin carvers but we sure had fun doing it! 

Christian made this today at school! Isn't it just the cutest??? 

We ended the night with a warm bath!

Now I turned on my candle warmer which has my favorite Spiced Cider Bath and Body Works Candle warming, and I'm baking our pumpkin seeds!  Perfect end to a fun night! 

Remodel Underway

I have been wanting to change up our living room decor for quite some time now but for the past 4 years, it has not gone further than talking about it!  Well we got ambitious this weekend and hit up Home Depot for a curtain rod and some drapery!  And then we hung some art work that we recently bought from a friend.   I also bought some cube storage from Target and put that together!  And I guess we didn't think that was ambitious enough, because today, Bryan and his dad got started on finishing off our hideous wall that we have wanted to get rid of since we moved in 4 1/2 years ago!

 

The kids and I needed to get out of the house so we enjoyed the beautiful day by picking up Grandma and doing a little shopping in Wausau, lunch at Olive Garden, ice cream at ColdStone, and playing at the park! 

The boys got a lot done today and hopefully we will have a nice accent wall by the end of the week!  I will post pictures of all of our new decor once its all finished!

And to share some of our fun Fall pictures that we took last night while at Grandma and Grandpa's house! What could be more fun then playing in the leaves in 80 degree weather :)

Playing in Grandpa's El Camino

I promised a vidoe of Bryleigh the other day so I was able to get one of Bryleigh being her usual self!  Always smiling and being goofy!  She is our "handful"  child!

And if you wonder why I asked her to say "Tilapia," its because Bryan was talking about dinner about a month ago and she repeated it we just love how she says it!

So our weekend recap was quite eventful but we got a lot accomplished so it was a success!