Wishing your family a wonderful holiday season and Happy New Year!

With Love, Steve, Sheryl, Makayla, Molly

Can you guess....

Where we took a detour to after our Thanksgiving adventure to St. Augustine?

Don't worry there is more to come I just haven't had time

The winner is......

I wanted everyone to know we picked fair and square and the winner is.....

MELISSA

Since you are coming here next week I will order the cook book of your choice either the 29 minutes to dinner or the It's good for you and have it when you get to Fl. You get to pick! Congratulations and thanks for tip. You all gave great tips and got to read the others so we are all winners. Thanks for entering that was fun!

Tickle Your Taste Buds Tuesday

Blackened Fish Tacos

Did you read the post just below this one? I am having contest to give away a cook book... go there and take a look and leave a comment so you can have a chance to win!

This is a new recipe from the It's good for you cookbook below. We had it last night for dinner and it was delish! It was inexpensive, easy, quick, and yummy. I don't know about you but I like that combination!

Ingredients:

Slaw:

1/4 green onion with the green part --sliced

1 handfull of cilantro (about 1/3 to half of the bunch) chopped

juice from 1 lime

1 tablespoon veg. oil

1 garlic clove finely chopped or pressed

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon Blackened seasoning

1/2 small bag of broccoli slaw

Fish:

2 tilapia fillets about 1 lb

same blackened seasoning

1 avocado sliced

6-8 corn tortillas warmed

a little shredded cheese I use a mix of yellow and white you only need maybe 1/2 a cup

Directions

Preheat oven to 400

for the slaw, combine green onions, cilantro, lime juice, oil, garlic clove, sugar, and seasoning. mix together add in slaw and toss until all coated. Cover and put in the fridge until ready to eat.

Rince the fish and place on your baking pan, sprinkle with the blacking seasoning bake until flakey about 12-18 min.

While the fish is cooking slice the avocado, warm the tortillas and grate the cheese. When the fish is ready plate it all up and serve. We ate 3 small tortillas each. Steve and I both really really like these. They were light, fresh, and filling. I didn't even make any sides.

This is a picture before we ate! Hope you enjoy let me know if you make them and what you though or if you changed anything!

Do you have a recipe you want to share? Email me at slbower(at)gmail(dot)com, or leave me a comment below. I am always looking for new recipe ideas. Did you miss out on a past recipes? Just click on the picture at the top of this post or in the right side bar and you can see them all. Give one a try tonight there are some good ones! Make sure to check back every Tuesday for a new recipe and don't forget to let me know if you try one and what spin you put on to make it your own!

Something New!

This week I started something new to help us stay on budget. One of our biggest expenses is the grocery store so I am trying to find ways to cut back on the bill. So this is what I am trying for a while....

PLANNING A MENU for the week, and only getting what I need for the recipes from the store...along with milk and eggs and the other essentials !

So this week I used these 2 cook books to get some ideas from:

These 2 cook books are from pampered chef I LOVE them because they have a picture to go with EVERY recipe (as all of there cook books do) so you know what you are getting into before you even start, and most recipes are VERY budget friendly. This week my menu is:

Monday: Blackened Fish Tacos

Tuesday: Chipotle Shrimp Scampi

Wednesday: ground beef Ground Turkey, broccoli, mac and cheese bake

Thursday: Cheesy Chicken Chilaquiles

Friday: BBQ Chicken salad pizza

I had a few things for some of these recipes like the standard oil, spices, and things like that, but most of the ingredients I bought today I spent $108.28...I did have 3 coupons though and I bought a few things not for the recipes like yogurt, lunch meat, and Buy 1 get 1 nuts and a few other things. So lets say all 5 recipes cost around $80.00.

That breaks down to $12.00-$16.00 a meal and since I always make enough for Steve to have lunch the next day that 4 portions at about $4.00 a person. Not to bad if I do say so my self.

Our normal weekly grocery bill is most of time close to $200.00 so I feel I cut down at least half.

I will also being doing a recipe review on 2-3 of the meals from this week and I am going to pick one of the recipes for Tickle your Taste buds Tuesday tomorrow. Any picks on which recipe you want me to post?

What are ways you cut back or save? Do you have a inexpensive recipe you want to share?

Leave a comment on this post with either a money saving tip or a budget friendly recipe before 10:00pm on Thursday night and you could win a Pampered Chef Cook book of your very own(i will let Steve randomly pick one entry)....but if you don't win and you still want one you can get 10% of your order if you mention my blog when you place your order with Jenn. (Just click her name to get to her website and all of her information is there. Be sure to CALL her to place your order if you order direct from the website you won't get the 10% off!)

Good Luck and Happy Saving!!!!!

Thanksgiving Weekend part II (Thanksgiving day)

The first night was let's just say MISERABLE! Makayla did not want to sleep. She decided it was play time. I mean why not? She had her Mom, Dad, and Nenny all in the same room with her, she was in a Pack N Play (P-N-P) she could very easily get out of and we were on vacation who needs sleep right! WRONG.

Makayla fell asleep around midnight laying in bed with Steve and I and watching Nemo so I slipped her in her P-N-P. When she woke up at 3:00 AM she freaked out. She didn't know where she was and she kept screaming "NEMO NEMO" so in hopes that she would fall back asleep we turned it on....NOPE no sleep, she watched the whole thing. She finally fell asleep at 6:00am and was back up at 8:00am. Needless to say Steve and I and Nenny were not ready to get up. Since my Mom and Kevin have a bedroom with a door they didn't hear to much of her screaming. So they got up with her and spent the morning exploring the camp grounds, fishing, and playing on the beach, before our 2:00pm Thanksgiving meal reservations!

This is her on the fishing pier. (how cute is this outfit? I love it)

Running around burning off steam.

Carrying Grandpa's fishing pole

Such a big helper

Giving Grandpa Kisses!!!!!

On the beach across from the camp grounds

Oh look who got out of bed..Me finally! See me in the background?

M and I playing in the sand

Makayla finally napped around 1:00 when we took her on a LONG car ride. Then we got dress in our nice Thanksgiving attire and walked across the street for Thanksgiving.... It was so nice not to have to cook, clean, prepare and stress over the meal. We all sat down and let someone else do all the work. ( I forgot the camera by the way...sorry) We had a wonderful afternoon just hanging out with the family....after dinner we played on the beach for a bit went on a walk and just relaxed all in all it was a beautiful day. I am so THANKFUL I had this time to spend with my family, I couldn't ask for more!

Steve, Jenn, Mom and I ended the night with a glass of wine some fancy chocolates we had bought the day before and a game of mexican train...

Makayla and Grandpa ended the day with a glass of milk, cookies and a movie...

Neither of them lasted very long!!!!

(side note Makayla slept perfectly the rest of the nights so we got to stay all 4 days!!!!!)

Day 3 and 4 will be up soon so make sure to check back, we took a fun detour on the way home that I can't wait to tell you about!!!!

Thanksgiving Weekend part I

I thought it was high time I updated this blog and shared our Thanksgiving adventure with you all. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we awoke bright and EARLY and got on the road to St. Augustine.

Some of us were not happy about being awake and refused to have there picture taken!

This is the view the whole 4 hour trip. The guys drove the RV and the Girls drove the Car. It was a very rainy and nasty day but we made the best of the trip and watched lots of Disney movies and sang road songs. The passengers even got a little ZZZZZZZ here and there. (I was driving)

When we finally arrived and got settled, my mom asked if we wanted a little snack before we left to explore downtown St. Augustine. This is what she pulled out!!!! (They went to Sam's before we left...can you tell?) OMG we were cracking up...Maybe you had to be there. LOL
We walked around downtown for most of the cold afternoon enjoy all the little shops and the smell of the past. St. Augustine is one of the oldest cities in the country. You can just smell the history!

Here is a picture and Makayla and Grandpa outside of the Castillo De San Marcos National Monument. She was enjoying a HUGE pretzel from a little german shop.

The outside of the Castillo De San Marcos

Jenn getting ready to walk in

Steve and I inside

Makayla trying really hard to walk on the grass that you are supposed to stay off of.

I should add that Makayla thinks she can do everything on her own now so as she was running around the uneven grounds she trips and scratched up her chin pretty bad. You will notice it in the future pictures. Luckily she was ok after a few tears, and a tooth check. (they are all still there)

At the top of the Monument (what a view)

Makayla playing in the monument lookout towers.

This was our first day. We had a great time exploring downtown and learning a little history. Day II is coming soon so make sure to check back!

HEY

I have alot to update and I am working on it, but for now Makayla just wanted to say HEY!

Birthday Party's and the 1st BOO BOO

The last few weekends Makayla has had birthday parties to attend...The weather has been beautiful here so being outside at the park is always nice. First we had Ally's 2nd birthday party Makayla had a great time running around and playing on the playground. I only got a few pictures as it is hard to chase around a 16 month old take pictures and talk to friends.

The birthday girl getting ready to blow out the candles.

The Cake

Makayla clapping after singing happy birthday

Makayla and Mama

She loved the open field to run in.

This is the poor bird she could not stop chasing...the poor bird just wanted some cake

SOOOOO tired after the party, she could barely hold her eyes open.

The next weekend we went to Alex's 2nd birthday party and had a wonderful time as well. We forgot the camera that day but my friend Kim (Ally's mom) took a few for me. Makayla again had a wonderful time running, playing, and swinging.

That is until she had her first big fall. She was running back to the tent when it was time to sing and eat cake. She tripped and fell on her hands and knees and then rolled and bumped her head. She was pretty upset about her fall. I was so worried about her head I didn't even see her knee until a bit later, she got her first scratch. When she saw it she freaked out a bit I kissed it and it seemed to have made it better for the time being. Until we got in the car where all she could do was point to her knee and say, "owwww Mama ooowwww" It was so sad and so cute. We sprayed a little neo-to-go and put on a band-aid and she is all fixed up. Though for the past 3 nights I have had to kiss her "boo boo" every night and she still says "ooowww Mama oowwww"

Girls what drama!

She.....

Makes me happy.... makes me proud....
is the best thing that has ever happen to me...
makes me laugh...
makes me proud to be called "Mama"
I love her!