Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

This week Thursday night was mine and Josh's cooking lesson night, and Joey came along to seeing as it was at my parents house this time. Since Josh loves his chicken, we are still making our way through the chicken recipes in my cook book. This week was no different, we decided to conquer the chicken calzone! I gave Josh the arduous task of going to the store all on his own with a shopping list that was the most difficult we have had thus far, I've got to give him props though, he managed pretty well and out of the five things on the list he conquered three of them. Once we had the whole list of ingredients we got started!!

Josh got to take the broccoli, mozzarella, pesto and chicken (which we sauteed in a skillet) and toss them all together making sure they were all covered in the pesto. Then he seasoned the mixture with salt and pepper and we set it aside till later. Next was the crust of the calzone, the cook book suggested that we use a pizza crust, so we found one that you just add water to but once it was all mixed it was still a little sticky, so I taught Josh that you can thicken things up by adding a little bit of flour. It was a nifty trick and he got the dough to just the right consistency, hoorraayy!!

Since our dough was done all we had to do was roll it out to about a 12 inch circle and then take the previous chicken mixture and add it to one side of our dough, leaving a little room on the edges so we can seal it. Then we put it in the oven and 15 minutes later we had the most delicious dinner that literally was easy peasy lemon squeezy!! Thanks again for some wonderful time spent with my wonderful family and a great meal from chef Josh :)

delicious!!

Brinner: Also known as Breakfast for Dinner :)

I have an addiction.. to my husbands waffles!! Seriously they are the most amazing homemade waffles I've ever had, if you haven't had the opportunity to enjoy this warm, syrupy goodness in person then your going to just have to take my word for it. (or you can try to ask Joey to make you some, he just might if you say please really, really nicely)

Saturday morning in the past has usually meant waffles for breakfast, but you know how life happens and things have to get pushed back or taken out for the day. We woke up this morning and Joey showed some people the car he is trying to sell (anyone want a range rover??) and I met up with my mommy for a birthday lunch and get together! All of this fun obviously meant no waffles this morning :(

Once I got home from lunch we decided we wanted to have a little date night and go see a movie, Bountiful 8 cinemark has the cheapest tickets I've seen in a long time!! I mean 8 dollars for two adults to see a movie, SCORE!! But then I had this totally, amazingly, GENIUS.. don't worry, I am a genius on a daily basis so it didn't really surprise Joey when I said, "Lets have WAFFLES for dinner!" Joey agreed and the plan was set, we went to our movie date came home and enjoyed some delicious waffles together. I love my husband (and his waffles, but my husband more..) we have so much fun together and I cannot wait for all the fun adventures we are going to have in our life.. or spending waffle Saturday mornings with our children.. someday :)

Mmm Waffles :)

Oh, what a weekend!!

Weekends in the Williams household are cherished, Joey doesn't have to work so we get to spend a lot more time together, which yes, we still enjoy doing! This weekend started out looking like it was going to be one of our best yet, but sadly, early Thursday morning my tooth (yes my tooth) had other plans for me this weekend. I woke up with the worst toothache I am positive I have ever experienced! It was awful, Joey woke up with me and after finding me some pain relievers he sat on the couch with me till 4:30 in the morning when the pain was finally dying down and I was able to go back to sleep. (only to wake up a mere hour later to get ready for work that day) After making it through a few painful hours at work I was able to come home and relax with Joey a little bit before his hockey game. I chose to stay home due to the pain in my mouth (toothaches really take a lot out of you!!) but it was a good thing that I did because Joey played really well and the Rebels won, again!! 

Friday night meant cooking lessons with Josh, and it was his turn to come over to our place! He brought his swimsuit this time so he got to take advantage of our pool too! Josh really loves chicken, I mean REALLY loves it, it is his favorite food to eat. So we are kind of going through my cook book one chicken recipe at a time :) Friday nights cooking lesson was on homemade chicken fingers, and they were finger lickin' good!! He learned how to cut chicken into strips and then the wonderful, and MESSY process of breading them and he had his first encounter with deep frying things.. which at first didn't turn out to well..they were black! But once we got the oil to the right place they were cooking faster than we could eat them and they were a huge hit with everyone! After dinner we went for a little night swim in the pool since it was so nice outside, and then got ready for the wonderful 24th of July Pioneer Day firework show they were having that night. We all got settled in on our balcony and watched the amazing show with family and friends. Gotta love any excuse to watch fireworks, right? Joey had to work early Saturday morning so he went off to bed and Josh hung around till the traffic died down and we watched the end of a movie we started the last time he was over. All around it was a great day, I love the time I am able to spend with Josh during our cooking lessons and i cant wait till next week when we make chicken calzones, yummmm!!

the firework show

one of my faves :)

watching the fireworks

Saturday rolled around and Joey worked all morning, so I slept in :) Once I woke up and saw how beautiful it was outside I decided on spending a little time by our pool, catching a little of those nice sunshine rays, possibly getting a little tan. Once little London saw that I had my swimsuit on she just had to get hers on to! So she met me downstairs and we enjoyed a nice hour in the pool, she was princess Ariel and I went back and forth from being the evil sea witch or the handsome prince, I don't think I resemble either of them, do I? Once pool time was over I had to hurry to get ready and race down to my favorite craft store to pick up ANOTHER present for my mom's birthday.. I kinda, unintentionally, ruined the first one :( so I hollered at Kerri to come with since she had never seen the store, we all jumped in the car and raced towards the store (literally raced, I'm pretty sure Kerri was going 90 mph at one point, don't judge we were on a time constraint the store closed at four!) Kerri fell in love with everything but came home with a cute love is all you need project and I got a replacement BYU football for my mom's birthday, hopefully round two works out better than round one did. I don't want to get knocked out again! When we got back I changed my clothes and made sure Joey was awake from his nap and we ran off to meet up with Josh for the HELLOGOODBYE concert!! I was lucky enough to have seen them in March when they came around the first time, but Josh had to miss it because of work. He definitely wasn't going to miss it this time! The show was awesome, there were a lot of bands that played, not all of them were good however it was still lots of fun. I got a new hellogoodbye shirt and I got to meet the bands keyboardist :) They were AH-MAZ-ING live and put on a great show, what a wonderful way to end a stupendous (like that word Joey?) weekend!!

waiting for the concert to start!

at the complex in SLC :)

..our shoes..

taking a break in between bands

Joey and Joel Pack

Me and Joseph Marro, the keyboardist for Hellogoodbye :)

HELOOGOODBYE!!

dont you love Forrest's shorts??

Missionary Cookie Coupons!!

Before Dustin left on his mission I made him some pretty sweet MISSIONARY COOKIE COUPONS!! (I mean they are sweeeeeet!!) But there is a catch, in order for him to receive a package full of goodies he has to send me a letter AND the cookie coupon specifying what type of cookie he wants back in the mail!! (I just scored myself guaranteed letters anytime he wants cookies! I'm a genius!!) I sent him off to the MTC with 24 cookie coupons. That's enough for one package of cookies once a month for the WHOLE two years he is gone.. man this is one spoiled missionary :)

So the other day I get home from work and to my wonderment  and surprise I have a letter from Elder Alameda, I know what that means.. someone wants COOKIES!! I tear open the letter and this is what happens next:

•  I immediately see the blue paper I printed the cookie coupons on, but I save that for later

• I grab for the more important paper in the envelope, the letter

• As I read a weird thing begins to happen, yep I'm crying..

• Through the tears I finish the letter and finally check the coupon to see that he would like some snickerdoodles :)

So now I have a mission of my own.. make the BEST MISSIONARY EVER (no, that is not a biased opinion, he is the best) the most wonderful snickerdoodle cookies any missionary has ever received...

The goal was set, the cookies have been made, and now finally sent off in the mail for same day MTC delivery (gotta love Utah!) hopefully he agrees that they are pretty darn tasty and if not, I've got quite a few family members who will vouch for the deliciousness of this cookie :)

anxiously awaiting my next letter and cookie coupon!! Its a good thing I like to bake :)

The Cookie Coupon :)





Cooking lessons :)

I am by no means a master chef, but I do really enjoy cooking even though I don't do it very much right now. So when Josh came up with this genius idea to receive cooking lessons from me I jumped on the cooking lesson train CHOO-CHOO!! (really how could I not? Every cooking success he has from now on I can somehow magically credit back to me!) So the fun begins..

His first lesson he came over to my place and he picked a recipe out of one of my favorite cookbooks, The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook! (if your not sure how to cook, or just need some really great new recipes that are super easy, pick up this book you will love it!) So lesson one began with chicken fajitas and they turned out amazing!! I think we kinda went all in for round one but Josh really took to the cooking like a champ (its not to hard) Before he knew it he was dicing onions, chopping bell peppers, cutting chicken into strips, becoming familiar with some seasonings he had never before heard of and sauteing everything in a skillet! Throw a few corn tortillas in the microwave and you've got yourself a delicious chicken fajita party ready to go!

It's a really bad picture but you get the idea!

Lesson two we were on to bigger and better things, PASTA!! I ate dinner at a friends house once and she made the most amazing pasta all out of her microwave! It was incredible, and easy! (thank you Emily Logan!) So I figured what a perfect thing to teach a young college student who may or may not have a stove in the future (or even if he did, may not use it..) how to make something super yummy with just a microwave and a couple of easy to find ingredients.

At this point Josh is already getting the hang of things pretty well, we did a lot of measuring with this recipe and kinda added our own touches here and there. Since we were having pasta we decided to add some bread sticks to our meal, but we are not ready for the big leagues quite yet so we went Pillsbury dough boy and taught Josh how to use the oven :) The pasta turned out delicious and my mom was grateful for a cooking night off!!

Josh, getting a little creative with how much chicken he wanted to add :)

Thumbs up to a great & easy meal!!

It has been so much fun getting together with Josh over the past couple of weeks, it is something that we are going to try to do once a week with each other alternating whose house we go to. I know that it is bringing us closer together, and building a lifelong bond between us. It is a wonderful tradition that I hope we will be able to keep going through the years..

 

Can't wait for next week's lesson :)

Crafty, Crafty, Crafty :)

So you see I have this favorite store.. it is a place where I can buy home decor wood items that have not yet been finished.. to say I L.O.V.E. them just does not quite explain how much this store completes my life! (really I will die if this store ever goes out of business...DIE...)

I have a really hard time going into this store and not purchasing something.. it's all just so AH-MA-ZING!!

Almost always I come out with a fun new project to start on, for my dear husbands sake, sanity, and wallet I try to limit my encounters with this store (it works.. sometimes) but I could just not pass up this adorable, and affordable (score!!) fourth of July decoration.

super cute :)

I, for one, think they turned out super cute and I love feeling patriotic every time I see them in our place :)

Dustins Last Day...

Saying that it was easy to let my little brother go into the MTC, would be a vast understatement. I am so proud of the choices he has made leading up to this point in his life and the biggest decision he has made thus far to serve a mission and serve our wonderful church and teach the gospel to the many people of Argentina. But letting him go was a lot harder than I had ever imagined it would be. So to send him out with a bang we Josh and I spent the whole day before he left with him!! Joey came along for a little bowling adventure we had in the morning and was able to say goodbye to him before he had to leave for work. We bowled and bowled and bowled some more!! If you didn't know we love to "ROLL"!! And believe it or not (you have to believe it cuz i have proof) we all broke a hundred the first game we bowled!! For me that is a real accomplishment!! Once we were done with bowling we headed over to the mall, got Dustin some sweet Nike's for his mish and then ate some yummy ice cream :) perfect way to end the day right?? WRONG!! We got home and our wonderful mommy had made Dustin's favorite dinner, almond roast beef, and Courtney came over for what Dustin called his "last supper". Once the food settled and Courtney left the blankets came out of the cupboard and the duct tape came out of the drawer, furniture was moved, chairs were positioned just right... you guessed it we built a FORT!! It goes without saying it was our best one yet! I guess you really do get better at things with age because this fort was massive.. it took up my parents whole basement living room! When we finished the fort we climbed inside got comfortable and sat talking with each other for a while before we all slowly started to fall asleep, for tomorrow was the big day. We took Dustin to the MTC around 12, hung out at the Provo temple and took some pictures before actually dropping him off. Once we got to the MTC we had as much time to say goodbye as we had time to pull his luggage out of the trunk :( everyone got hugs and kisses and a wave goodbye then he was gone. Best of luck to you little bro, see you in two years. Enjoy Argentina, and remember your always in my prayers...

at the bowling alley

SEEEEEEE!!!

Josh got a strike!

The beginning of the fort

MTC picture :)

Mom, Dustin, & Dad

are you ready??

saying goodbye one last time...

Guess what!! We really did get married :)

I know it has been a while, but Joey and I really did get married and here is our proof!! We finally got our wedding pictures back and I am so excited to put some up! In case you didn't know Joey moved to Utah in Februaury and we dated for a few months before Joey called me at work on a friday night in April and asked me if I wanted to get married!! So obviously I said yes and what do you know we got married the next day!! It was just a small ceremony with only our family members and it was the best day of our lives so far. We got to spend a night up in park city as sort of a mini honeymoon because I had to work the next day! Having all of our loved ones there to spend the day with us was a wonderful way to start our lives :)

Joey :)

Bri

one of my faves <3

first kiss :)

love these boys so much! best brothers out there!!

gorgeous sister <3

sweetest people I know, thanks for throwing this all together in less than SIX hours!!

Alameda Family

love these girls <3

the rings