Amazing Sugar Cookies

Over the years we have tried a few different sugar cookie recipes.

This recipe is by far the best one we've tried and we will be sticking with it for sure!

I'm not a fan of sugar cookies where the actual cookie doesn't have any flavor, you know, the ones that just taste like flour... 

Maybe that's why I love these cookies, not only are they thick and soft, they are so flavorful!

 My boys request to make these cookies all the time, and one of the things they like best is to pick out random shapes from our cookie cutter stash. This last time when we whipped these up was right before Valentine's Day though, so we decided to go with heart shapes.

BBQ Chicken Marinade

Sometimes in the midst of these winter months, with all of the soups and stews and such, you want something a little lighter, like a taste of summer time.

This chicken is just that, I promise! 

This chicken is made on the stove in a skillet, so no need to go outside in the snow to fire up the grill! (But if it is warm where you are, by all means fire that baby up!)

This chicken is also very versatile and can be the main part of the meal or chopped up and thrown in a salad, which is what I love to do with the leftover pieces.

Mmmmm.

You do want the chicken to marinate for up to about 4 hours, so plan on throwing it together in advance and then just let it be for a while. If you are pressed for time you can let it marinate in as little as 30 min and go from there as well. I try to prepare it in advance and let it sit for the 4 hours.

Preparing for my Hospital stay

I'm one of those people who like to know what's coming.

Mostly because I like to be able to think something through a little bit so I can have a rough plan in my head of how I would handle the situation.
I don't need to always be in-control or have everything figured out, but it's nice to have an idea of what I would like to happen...if that makes sense.

Even though I still have a few weeks until my little guy makes his arrival I've already been keeping a list of the things I want to make sure I grab when we end up heading to the hospital.

I am not going to schedule an induction, I'm planning on just letting my body do it's thing and let me know when our little guy is ready to make his appearance.
The hard thing though, is I obviously have no idea what day, or even time of the day I need to be ready to go.

With my first child, I wasn't really expecting him to come 3 weeks early.
But he did.

FREE Lego Valentine printable

I have to start out by saying I am kind of proud of myself for getting this posted BEFORE the holiday!
Yay!
For the last two years my son has taken a Star Wars themed Valentine to school.
It says 'Yoda Best' and it has Yoda holding a light saber, which is where you put a glow stick, (you can check that FREE printable out here).
Back then when we discussed him taking Valentines to school it basically came down to it being 'boy approved'.
At his school they don't write the name of each person receiving the Valentine, only who it's from, so he wanted something that would apply to everyone.
When we were discussing the Valentines he would take this year it was the same story.
He didn't want to do Star Wars again though, he wanted to try a new theme.
A grocery store near us has a bulk candy section and they have these candy Lego bricks.
My son loves them. so he decided he wanted to give those out with a little Lego saying.
This is what we came up with.
Pretty 'boy approved' if you ask me ;)

He was really excited with how it turned out, and that was good enough for me!

To put these Valentines together we first printed out the printable.

I created these so that you can just print them on a regular 8x11 paper.

There are 15 Valentines on each page, so we printed 2 pages.

No-sew Quiet Book: Faces

I was organizing pictures on my computer the other day and came across these that I never posted from last year! Yes, last January I started making my toddler a few quiet book pages to keep in our church bag to help entertain him at church. I posted the other quiet book pages here on the blog, but somehow this one fell through the cracks.

Even though it's already been a year my toddler still plays with these pages during church. I don't know if it's because he only gets to see them once a week or what, but it's nice to see them still being used!

 This 'Faces' page was really easy to put together, I wasn't worried about perfect shapes and design I just wanted something quick and easy that my little guy could play with, and this is what I came up with.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Every so often I buy some bananas, with every intention of eating them of course, but it doesn't end up happening.

They always sit on my counter and never get touched.

In hopes of never wasting any bananas again, I turned to the internet to find an amazing recipe for banana bread.

I found this recipe from Rachel Ray and decided to give it a try. I did change a few things, and it turned out delicious!

I really like that it only makes 1 loaf of bread since I'm really the only one that eats it, and I end up scarfing it down within a day or two....anyways, on to the recipe!

Cheesy Vegetable Chowder

First post of the new year and it's a yummy, hearty soup for the cold months we still have ahead!

I, along with everyone else I'm sure, have quite a few recipes that are seasonal.

I only want to make them, or even feel like making them, at certain times of the year.

This chowder is a prime example of that.  I actually crave making this soup on cold winter nights.

As soon as the cold weather starts up this recipe is added to our rotations and it usually makes an appearance once every other week.

I love that it's full of veggies, creamy, flavorful, and filling.

I found this recipe last year on Pinterest and changed it up just a little bit to make it my own.

It's one of the ways I can get my kids to willingly eat broccoli ;)