Tanner's 1st Dentist Visit

Today Tanner had his first visit with the dentist. He saw Dr. Toby Merriman and it went great!

Here he is, in the chair getting his bib on!

He got to wear cool sunglasses so the bright lights did not hurt his eyes!

Way cool little dude!

The chair laid back and rose up and it was a little scary....but not too bad! Tanner was brave and held on tight!

He got his teeth scraped first.

He just relaxed in the chair and let her clean his teeth!

Water and suction!

Loving that clean teeth feeling!

Clean teeth, x-rayed, and waiting for the dentist!

The dentist counted all his teeth! 10 on top and 10 on the bottom!

Everything looks good!

Got our goodie bag and we are heading home!

Going to the dentist is fun!

Wanna Save Some Money????

This is my new favorite blog! Check it out!

http://discountqueens.blogspot.com/

Rafiki!

There's nothing better than a morning at Rafiki, especially when you run into friends there! Tanner, Carter, and I went to Rafiki this morning and ran into Jack and his Grandparents Phil and Vickie! Tanner and Jack ran wild and even grabbed Phil for a fun ride down the slide!

Everyone hold hands!

Tanner and Jack

Tanner and Jack playing with the "Snow"

Carter can even have fun at Rafiki! He was a little tired, he was up most of the night before pushing through his top 2 teeth! Yay Carter! Total count = 4!

Here's a video of Tanner and Jack going down the slide! http://www.rafikiplay.com

Brisket-lots of different ways!

You know P-Dub? Her blog is one of my favorites! ThePioneerWoman.com

Tyler brought home a 15lb brisket last week. What am I supposed to do with 15lbs of meat? What to do, what to do, what to do?

Luckily, PW has a great brisket recipe that also helps you use all the leftovers that you are most likely going to have when you cook 15lbs of meat at one time!

So I marinated the brisket in a combination of garlic, soy sauce, lemon juice, liquid smoke, and beef broth for 48 hours in a roasting pan in the fridge. I then cooked the brisket at 250 degrees for 40 minutes per pound of meat, which came to 10 hours of cooking on Monday. We ate brisket that night along with some mashed potatoes and it was great.

Tonight, since I had about 14 1/2 lbs of brisket leftover, PW suggests we turn that into Tostados! Yes, we are turning them into Tostados. I took her recipe and mixed it up just a bit. I grilled some onions in a pan and added a pound or so if the leftover brisket to heat it up.

Then, I took corn tortillas and fried them in oil in a pan so they were nice and crispy. I did this 6 times, 3 for each Tostado.

The rest of the ingredients consisted of cheese, refried bean, lettuce, red sauce, and guacamole.

I preheated my oven to 325 degrees and took out a cookie sheet. I placed a tortilla on the cookie sheet and spread beans and cheese and the leftover brisket onion mix.

Then, I placed another tortilla on top of that and spread just beans and cheese on it.

Then, I placed another tortilla on top of that and spread beans and cheese and the meat and onion mixture on top. I placed this in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese melted.

Then, I put the guacamole and shredded lettuce on top and served it with chips. This was even better than last night! Tomorrow night, I am going to be using yet some more of the leftover brisket to make PW's "Cowboy Nachos" so stay tuned!

I am pretty sure we will be eating brisket for a while......the nachos will not be the end of it!

Cougar Cheese

Did you know that WSU had a creamery? Did you know they make and sell cheese?

Did you know that my cousin just earned his PhD at WSU?

This is the coolest thing! You can buy cheese made by the students of WSU, and it is really really good!

It comes in a can, a 1lb can.

It's excellent!
Made by a Cougar!


http://www.wsu.edu/creamery

Chicken Enchilada's

These enchilada's are yummy and easy to do becuase the chicken is already cooked!

Ingredients:
1 Chopped Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
1 Bottle of Salsa
1 Small Block of Cream Cheese
1 Cooked Rotisserie Chicken from Grocery Store
1 Can of Mexicorn
1 Can of Chicken Broth
Corn Tortilla's

Combine the onion, garlic, salsa, and cream cheese in a food processor until smooth. Pour in the Mexicorn, stir. Set aside in a bowl.

Shred the chicken and place it in it's own bowl.

Pour in 1/2 the salsa/cream cheese mixture in with the chicken. Save the remaining half of the salsa/cream cheese mixture and place it aside.

Bring the broth to a simmer in a medium skillet. Working with 1 tortilla at a time, add tortilla to pan; cook about 10 seconds or until moist. Remove tortilla, drain on paper towel, spoon about 1/4 cup of the chicken salsa cream cheese mixture into the tortilla; roll up. Place tortilla seam side down in a 9x13 baking dish coated with cooking spray. Repeat with remaining tortillas and mixture.

Pour remaining salsa mixture over the enchiladas.

Bake at 425 for 20 minutes.

Hill Photography Photo Shoot

Hill Photo Video

That Truck is SOOOOOOO Big!

Today Daddy got to take the Meat Truck out for a delivery and so Tanner tagged along!

They were heading up to "take some meat to some guy" as Tanner put it!

Daddy put Tanners car seat up in the big truck!




This will be a nice quiet day for me!

Working with Daddy!

We decided our patio should be a little bit bigger and that we also want a path from the patio to the gate beside the house. So, Tanner and Daddy started digging out the grass and moving some of the dirt over to our garden. Tanner is in heaven playing in the dirt so this project will be so much fun for him over the next few weekends! The garden should be great summer fun as well! We are hoping to grow some yummy fruits and vegetables! I don't exactly have a green thumb so we'll see what happens!

Breakfast Anyone??

Weekends are so great, aren't they? Everyone is home and you have the whole day to spend together! I love to make breakfast on the weekends. This quiche is my absolute favorite too! It's super easy and delicious!

You"ll need 1 cup of shredded Cheddar cheese and 1 cup of shredded Swiss cheese mixed together.
You'll also need 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of milk. The thicker the milk the better!

Take 1 24 ounce package of frozen hash browns, thaw them out and press all the water out of them in a paper towel. Press them into a greased 9x13 pan and brush 1/3 cup melted butter over the top of them.

Place just this hash brown butter crust in a 450 degree oven for 25 minutes.

Once the crust has cooked for 25 minutes, take it out of the oven. Sprinkle the cheese over the top of the crust. You can also add ham, bacon, chives, olives, tomatoes. Just about anything you want!

In a separate bowl, mix together the milk and eggs and add 1/4 teaspoon of seasoning salt and a dash or so of nutmeg. Pour this mixture over the top of the cheese.

Bake this for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Done! This freezes very well and can be reheated in the microwave! I usually double the recipe and make 2! Enjoy!

Carter's 1st Haircut!

Tanner needed a haircut, badly. Carter, believe it or not, also needed some trimming around the ears. So we went to have haircuts tonight! Carter did great! Tanner did great as well! We left with two handsome little boys!

Carter getting ready for his 1st haircut!

Tanner, the pro!
He loves to get his hair cut and chat it up with the stylist!

Below is a video of Carter's 1st haircut!

Tanner blowing all the grass clippings away for Daddy and then a game of peek-a-boo at the dinner table!

Crazy Happenings!

Carter is awake and wants out of his crib!!!

These are 2 short little videos that are just a glimpse of a day in the life here at the house!

Homemade Gratin Potato's with Steak

This potato recipe is wonderful! But, it makes enough for about 10 people so I used less potato's and put it in an 8x8 instead of a 9x13. I did however, make the full amount of cheese sauce because it is sooo good!

Take a few potato's, peel and slice them up thinly
For the cheese sauce you will need Dijon mustard, butter (the whole cube), Cheddar cheese, Swiss cheese and also a little milk.

To make the sauce, melt 1/2 cup butter over medium heat. Stir in 1/2 cup of flour with a whisk until smooth. Gradually add 2-3 cups of milk. Heat to a boil, reduce heat to low stirring frequently until sauce thickens. Then, add 1 tblsp Dijon mustard, 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese and 1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese. Stir until cheese is all melted.

You'll want to boil the potato slices in water for 5-10 minutes to soften them up a bit before layering them in the pan. Layer half the potato's in a greased pan, season with a little salt and pepper.

Pour half the sauce then add the rest of the potato's and cover with the remaining sauce.

Bake for an hour at 350.

The rib eye steaks have been marinating for 8+ hours in the following marinade;

1/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 tblsp soy sauce, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 3 cloves minced garlic, 1 tblsp sugar.

Grilled and ready to eat!

Brother's great find!

This is a video of Carter! Finally, I know! He thought he was pretty hot stuff when he found Tanner's sippy cup of water. He had never tasted water before either so it was pretty exciting for him!

Easter!

Easter was great! We actually got to sleep in a little bit too! It was 7:00 before Tanner cruised into our bedroom to wake us up! We started the day off at church where Tanner hunted eggs in Sunday School. This is the first Easter where he actually "gets" hunting for eggs. We came home and the Easter Bunny had visited our house. He got to hunt eggs again while Carter took his morning nap. Pretty cool egg hunting basket!
Tanner hunting eggs!

Off egg hunting!

Daddy helping Tanner get the eggs! There were too many eggs for one truck basket so he used Carter's basket and got eggs for him as well.

Tanner and Daddy.

I love this picture! I feel so blessed to have been able to marry my best friend. Tyler is a wonderful husband and a great father. How did I get so lucky to marry him?

Tanner!

In the afternoon, we headed over to my Mom's house along with Cammie, Jill, Cameron, Caden, and Tyler's parents Brent and Kris for Easter dinner and more egg hunting.

Carter and Tanner with their Easter Eggs.

Carter and Tanner!

I wanted to and intended to take more pictures of everyone, but somehow got side tracked and didn't! Dang!