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!!!!!

Christmas and New Years!

First of all, I just want say MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEARS to all of you, my readers and followers! I know I am a little late with my seasons greetings but things as always are crazy for me and my fam and I tend to forget about blogging when we are super busy!



I have to say that I truly love this time of year. It's almost as if the whole world stops for just a moment to appreciate life, family, friends, and food. Everyone is a little kinder and more giving this time of year and more willing to help out those in need. I wish the spirit of Christmas would last all year. There is just something so beautiful about the twinkling lights bouncing of the fresh fallen snow and the smell of hot cocoa and melting peppermint sticks that just warms me inside and out!



This year things were a little different for us and I have to say that I actually really enjoyed it. Usually when Christmas rolls around we have to pack up the whole apartment and load everyone up in the car. Then start a six hour drive on snow packed and icy roads. Then we usually only stay for about a week in which we can never fully relax because we are worrying about getting back in time for BJ to finish his homework he forgot to bring and to put the bills in the mail that we forgot to pay before we left! No, this year was different. First of all, BJ and I never have to worry about homework again and when things get crazy and our kids get extra cranky we have our own little place here in Billings very close to both our families where we can go home to put our kids to bed and get re energized for following day events. Not only did we not have to travel but we also got to spend a good almost three weeks with both sides of our family! Plus this time of year is slow for BJ's business so we were able to not even have to worry about too much work and not enough play time! BJ and I were well rested and able to enjoy each and every day! We also had plenty of time to work on our desk work for the business. We even have all our taxes done and have been working really hard on advertisement! Are we on top of thing or what?!!!!





Now on to this seasons fun..................



Photographer Auntie Michelle came up a week and a half or so before Christmas and was able to take some awesome pictures of our little fam. So here is a few for you all to enjoy! It sure was fun getting all dressed up and posing like I was on America's Next Top Model, too bad I am only 5'1 and 1/2''. I don't think I would ever be able to be a real model.

The week before Christmas BJ and I were also able to see BJ's brother Casey and his wife Sarah bless their new little precious baby girl Emme. She is such a little cutie pie! I was so happy to get to spend time with them and hold that little bundle of joy! I am soooo very impressed with these new parents. They are so calm and collected and are really handling things well with their new addition. I wish I could have said the same for myself when I had Penny........

On Christmas Eve BJ, the girls, and I went to my parents house to celebrate with my entire family! It was so crazy, but so good to be with everyone. My whole family has not been home for Christmas in many many years. In total we had 13 adults and 19 grandchildren all there to celebrate! We started off the night with some very simple but great food including chips and homemade guacamole, homemade deer stew, homemade potato cheese soup, french bread, and mixed green salad. For dessert I made an awesome layered chocolate dessert including oreos, cream cheese, chocolate pudding, whipped cream and crushed candy canes........so good!

After a tasty dinner the whole family sat amongst these wonderful Christmas decorations, done by my Mamma to share are talents we have developed throughout the year which always includes the grandchildren participating in the story of Christ's birth.

After sharing our talents all the kids waited and watched for Santa to arrive!

And then after Santa flew over head he ended up at my parents front door bringing a bag full of candy canes for all the good little girls and boys! Here is Cade my brother Brandon's and his wife Jen's new little one with Santa!

This was actually Penny's real first time sitting on Santa's lap, and I don't think she was so sure..

In fact, Grandma had to console Penny after her little visit with Santa.....

On Christmas Eve I was also able to meet my brother Nathan's and his wife Colette's first brand new little sweetheart they named Lilly. I seriously just wanted to gobble her up! What a cutie pie!

I just couldn't get enough of this little dumpling!

After Santa came we all opened up lots of presents but I think the biggest highlight of my family being here was just being able to get the chance to get to bond with each other and letting all the cousins get to know each other better as well. Penny sure had fun playing princesses with her cousins!

When we got back to our place on Christmas Eve we let the girls finish opening presents that we had gotten them and then it was off to bed!

And this is the happy little face I woke up to on Christmas morning!

After we got all ready we headed over to BJ's parents house to spend Christmas day with some of his family

we had a very relaxing day with a lot less children and more down time. We enjoyed a great Christmas dinner including ham, twice baked potatoes, rolls, and salad. So yummy, thanks Debbi!

My girls couldn't have asked for more! Don't you just love the tutus I got them?!!!

So, with these two weeks being so full of fun and family it started to take bit of a toll on my little toddler and the poor thing missed so many naps that we found her asleep all over the place!

She is so cute asleep though, the poor little thing didn't even make it through lunch one day, she just curled up and fell asleep on her chair!

During the week of new years BJ's sister Chere popped up to Billings to visit with her hubby and their kids. We had a great time hanging out with them and staying up late on New Years Eve!

Penny really loves her cousin Elizabeth and I think they will always be great friends!

Here they are playing with some makeup Elizabeth got for Christmas, I think they are going to need a little help when they get older!

I think one of the funnest things we did when Chere and her fam was here was go bowling. It was Penny's first time and she loved it so much! The only problem was she would cry when she had to wait for her turn...............I hate age 2 and 3, they are just so darn needy and whinny!

One other really fun thig we did with Chere's family is we all went to go see Princess anf the Frog. It was such a blast and I definantly recomend it!

So there you have it. This is waht BJ, the girls, and I have been up to these past couple of weeks! So fun!!!!! I just love the holidays and I hope it only gets better every year! I hope all of you had a wonder Christmas and Happy New Year! May you all be thankful and keep you new years resolutions! From are family to all of you GOD BLESS!!!!!

Bath Time!!!!

OK, so this morning while I was giving my girls a bath I just had to take a picture! Sometimes they are soooooo darn cute that I just can't believe their mine!!! Come on, don't you all just want to pinch those cheeks!!!!!!!???? This pic is definitely one I am going to save and embarrass them with when they are older! What fun!!!!