Fun with the Girls!

Yesterday was such a nice sunny day and it was pretty warm so I decided to take the girls to the park. Penny had so much fun, she always does. Penny loves playing outside especially at the park. I feel so bad for her, she was pretty cooped up this last summer because of our newest little addition. I hate taking little tiny newborns out in the heat! The day would have been so much better however if everyone who walks their dogs at the park would learn to pick up their poop! So gross, it was everywhere! oh well, we still had fun and afterward we went and got some ice cream cones. Summer we are waiting for you!!! Please hurry!

I also had to post this video of Hailey, she is standing up all by herself! I think she will be walking soon!

Valentines Day!

As Valentines day rolled around this year I really started to think of how BJ and I, and our little family came to be.

All because two people fell in LOVE....

BJ and I met in the Spring of 2004, at first I wasn't sure if I would like him or if he would even like me. You see, BJ is three years older than me and when he was a senior in high school I was a freshman. I don't think him or me took a second glance at each other. It wasn't until after he served a mission for our church in Brazil and I went off to college for a year that we even noticed each other. Not only was he older than me but I thought that him and his friends were way too cool for me, at least that's how they acted from my point of view. Fortunately, we got set up on a group date and I was soon in love. After that date we were inseparable, spending every moment we could together. We had so much fun, summer love is a blast! We went swimming, hiking, out to dinner, movies, picnics, bowling, walks, you name it we did it! We had a bit of a rocky relationship with us breaking up a time or two, trying the long distance thing, and some indecisiveness on both our parts, but we knew that we would always be together. In fact after being a part for a few months, him living in Utah and me in Idaho, BJ in invited me down to his place for valentines weekend. This was such a special time. I was actually already down in Salt Lake on Culinary arts field trip and BJ came to pick me up rose and gift in hand. My friends almost died at the sight of this perfect gentlemen. That night we had an awesome date, going out to dinner and seeing the Phantom of the Opera that had just been released in the theatre. I didn't want to go back to school after that.......the following month BJ proposed!

We were married for time and all eternity in the Billings Montana Temple. Nine months later I became pregnant with our first little bundle of love and when she was a about 18 months old I became pregnant with our second little bundle of love.

I endured all the stages of pregnancy, sometimes with a smile on my face........

But in the end it was all worth it......

If pregnancy and child birth isn't the ultimate sacrifice for love, I don't know what is......

First with Penelope Eliana

And next with Hailey Marie

And now here is our beautiful family, all because two people fell in LOVE!

And on this Valentines day BJ surprised me with a little gift..........

We were able to get out for a late movie on Saturday night and see this movie.....
Valentines Day

On Sunday morning our little girls woke up to some presents of their own from me and BJ. We got penny a little pink makeup bag that said Princess in rhinestones on the front that we filled with lip gloss. For Hailey we got a cute little pillow in the shape of a heart and a matching soft green and pink blanket.

On Sunday night we had BJ's parents come over for dinner. I made this refreshing salad that included avocado, strawberries, and pecans, with a a homemade honey lemon vinaigrette I whipped up.

We fried up some homemade potato chips

and paired them with a steak sandwich on toasted sour dough bread with caramelized red onion, spinach leaves, swiss cheese, and my homemade chipotle lime mayo.

Delish!!!!!!

We finished off our meal with some chocolate dipped strawberries.

Earlier this weekend I got together with my mom and one of my sisters and we made up these valentine plates. The cupcakes are homemade red velvet with a cream cheese frosting and the cookies are sour cream sugar cookies that we frosted or dipped in chocolate. So much fun!

All in all Valentines was a success in our home and I am so grateful for my loved ones. Most importantly my husband and our beautiful daughters. BJ and I always knew there was something different about our first kiss. We felt fireworks and saw stars and we both knew at that moment that it was true love!!!!!!

Date Night

On Saturday night BJ and I got Grandma and Grandpa Chaffin to babysit our girls so that we could go out on a long overdue date night. After we dropped off the kids we headed to one of my favorite restaurants Mackenzie River Pizza. After a lovely adult conversation over cheesy lodge poles, chicken alfredo, a veggie loaded pizza, and a chocolate molten cake we headed off to the movies. Since this was a date night I was totally in the mood to see a romantic flick so we decided to catch a showing of Dear John. I was lucky BJ agreed to this movie, it was a good thing it stared Channing Tatum, from G.I. Joe. Now BJ can enjoy a good romantic comedy every now and then, but fully loaded chick flicks are another story......so thank you honey for letting me choose the movie. Now I would have to say that the movie wasn't the best I have ever seen or even close, but it was very interesting and had a real twist to it. More amusing than the movie however were the people around us who had also come to see the show. When we first got there,a whole half an hour early I might add, the whole theatre was almost full! There were still four or five rows that looked completely empty but as we tried to sit down in almost all of them we kept hearing, "Sorry we are saving these seats!" followed by me saying, "All of them?!" followed by a, "Yes, ALL OF THEM!" I think that it should be a rule that you can't save more than two seats, especially on a busy night and especially when your party arrives 10 minutes after the movie has started! Anywho, we finally found two seats next to each other right beside a gigantic group of teeny boppers........................and I thought I was hormonal............those girls were sobbing the whole way through, but what annoyed me the most was all the giggles during the kissing scenes, etc. Holy crap, like they haven't seen anything like that before, honestly, the movie was pretty darn clean and still the giggles roared. About half way through the movie I was ready to ask the couple who sat behind us for a drink of booze they snuck in, seriously they cracked open like 4 cans of beer! I think they sure enjoyed themselves! All silly things put aside, It was just fun to go out with my hubby for a whole 4 hours of toddler and baby free time. I wish we could do it more often, but we are lucky if we get to go out once a month. We need to make it more of a priority. I just have a hard time leaving my kids. Somehow I feel like I am neglecting them when I think about myself and going out. I just need to let it go. Last weekend I went to dinner with my sister and she explained to me how important it was that I get out more even just by myself and how much better I will feel and be as a mom if I take a break every now and then. By the way, Melissa, if you are reading this I want you to know that I had a blast and I can't wait until we go out again! Funny story about that.......my sister Melissa and I went to Jakes to get some dinner and there was not seating open, so the hostess told us to pull up a stool at the bar, order a drink, and then when a table opened up we could take it. It was already pretty late and my sister's babysitter had another job after watching her kids, so we decided to stay. When we sat down the bartender said, "I have to ask, are you girls 21 or older? You have to be at least 21 to sit at the bar." This made us laugh. Melissa who is 34 asked, "well how old do I look?" The bartender replied,"maybe 23?" Melissa responded by telling her real age and added the fact that she also had six children. After which I asked how old he thought I was to which he replied, "not even 21!" I told him I was 25 and that I also had two kids, to that he said, "I don't don't know what I should say to that, would you guys like a drink?" As most of you know we don't drink so we ordered a Sprite and a Diet Coke and chatted while we ordered some food and waited for an empty table. As soon as we received our food we found an open table and enjoyed some more good conversation. What a fun time I had. Although after how learning how old the bartender thought I was and having some of my parent's friends ask me what year in high school I am in one day while shopping with my mom last week I am beginning to think that people must be really confused when they see me out about with my two kids. Do I really look that young? Oh well, I guess that's a good thing, when I am old I will still look younger.......hopefully I can avoid getting any face lifts when I am old!

This Week At The Chaffin Household......

Penny has been having a few play dates this past week with her cousins and today her best friend and cousin Rachel (Ray Ray) came to play! These two little girls sure love to play dress up! Oh they are cute! Penny and Hailey also love to play together more and more these days. Hailey loves to climb up into little places and under beds and her crib and Penny loves to follow close behind! I hope these sisters always stay the best of friends!

I also have been slacking off on posting what I make for dinner. So here are a couple dishes I have made in the past week. I kinda have been doing the Mexican thing lately. I wish I would have taken a picture of the cinnamon and pineapple pork I did though, it was delightful! I'll have to make it again and post a pic. As for now here is my family favorite cheesy enchiladas. Flour tortillas filled with cheese, corn, olives, fire roasted green chilies, red mild enchilada sauce, chicken, and usually I add refried beans but I didn't have any on hand! I love serving this with homemade guacamole and corn chips! So yum!

Here we have some chicken fajitas with red and green bell peppers and onions. We like to spice this dish up with some white rice with Cajun seasoning for a little extra flavor and kick! Yum Yum!

Meatless Friday Night

Friday nights I try to keep dinner simple around here, especially if BJ is not home from work yet to help out, but I also like to try to make it kind of fun too. Tonight was a classic spaghetti dinner, but we do ours with a little twist. First of all, we don't like to use any meat at all in our sauce. I start with caramelizing onions and fresh garlic in a big blob of butter. Then I add some tomato sauce, salt, garlic pepper, crushed red pepper garlic, oregano, and the secret is a dash of sugar. Then I let simmer while I cook up the noodles. Add some fresh french bread from the near by grocery store and some salad tossed in Zesty Italian dressing and some crunchy croutons and there you have it, a tasty dinner made with pretty much everything you store in your pantry!


For dessert tonight I whipped up some quick banana pudding, sliced up a banana, put both in some individual graham cracker crusts and topped with some whip cream! Yum Yum!

Wednesday Night Melt in Your Mouth Boneless Beef Ribs

Okay, so I need to fill you all in on a little something. I know that you all know that I have a degree in culinary arts and BJ has worked as a cook, but that still doesn't mean that we are the greatest cooks in the world and that we always make a great, well balanced and pretty meal each and every night. We probably make about four to five pretty good meals a week and then the rest of the days we have leftovers, get invited to dinner by friends or family, or if we are out and about we just pick up something quick and easy. I also don't always include a vegetable or fruit in every meal. Sad, I know, but to be honest the vegetables I make often go waisted, Penny for sure won't eat them, BJ and I enjoy them but not as much as we probably should, oh well. I would serve salad with every meal, but then when I start serving it too much, then BJ won't eat it anymore.....hmmmm. Oh well, at least I am trying right? Ok, on to tonight's dinner. Tonight I was in charge of the meat portion of dinner and so I made up a quick sauce that I poured over some boneless beef ribs I placed in the crock pot, and then I just let the magic happen.....and magic it was, dinner was a success! Now, I now I have a request to post my recipes, but sometimes, well a lot of times, I don't use a recipe, I just throw in a little of this and a little of that and just hope for the best! But, if any of you would dare to recreate my mouthwatering ribs, I'll let you know what I added. My sauce included thyme, brown sugar, a can of condensed french onion soup, a can of coke, fresh garlic, seasoning salt, and pepper. BJ the master of rice, prepared one of our home's staples, brown rice. He always sautes it up with fresh garlic and onion and butter before he cooks it and it is always so good! Sometimes we even just eat rice for dinner! Penny loves it and gobbles it by the hand fulls! Yum, Yum!

Taco Chili?

Ok, so tonight as I was making dinner I was thinking about a movie that just came out recently to rent in which an ordinary girl decided to learn how to cook everything out of a Julia Child cook book and then write about her experiences in a blog. I really enjoyed the movie and thought about it and decided that I wanted to do the same thing, sort off. BJ and I really enjoy cooking together ever since I graduated with my culinary arts degree and BJ retired from working as a cook at a restaurant where we were both attending college. And because we like to cook we love to try new recipes or make up some of our own. So, I thought it would be fun to include what BJ and I make for dinner in my blog. Who knows, maybe we will inspire one my readers or followers to be adventurous and try something new!

So as my first official dinner post I am going to present tonight's dinner. I call it Taco Chili........it started off as normal chili until I decided to kick it up a notch.......by the time I was done it was more like taco soup, but BJ, Penny, and I thought it was great! I pared it with some nice semi homemade corn bread and topped it off with a glass of milk. Yum, Yum!!!!!