What's for dinner? [Five on Friday]

Lately Matt and I have been on a health kick. It probably has something to do with the fact that we will be on the beaches of Cozumel just one week from today!! After MUCH discussion and literally months of searching for the perfect destination we finally pulled the trigger about 3 weeks ago and now that it is all officially set up I could not be more excited. One of my biggest stipulations for the trip was that it was somewhere our cell phones wouldn't work. I am thinking a week without cell service is going to do us really good. Three weeks isn't ample time to work on our "beach bodies" so we decided to try a paleo diet in addition to our workouts. Last Tuesday we were loaned a copy of Practical Paleo from our Bible study leader and she recommended a few recipes that have been total winners. In addition to the Paleo cook book we have also had some "Pinterest Wins" over the last month. So without further ado, Five on Friday- Food on the Table edition!

 

--One--

I am not a major chicken salad person but man this recipe was DELICIOUS! We have made it several times. I leave out the cranberries (because I am not a huge fan) and I let Matt de-bone the chicken because I find animal bones disturbing- I like to pretend my meat grows on trees. Chicken tree.

--Two--
Zoodles. These have just about been the best discovery ever. I bought my Paderno World Cuisine spiralizer from Amazon almost a year ago and I honestly think I could eat zucchini noodles every day (Matt does not agree). I am a major spaghetti/ pasta lover, so for me, zoodles have been the perfect substitute. Excited to use my spiralizer for some other food projects!




--Three--
Coconut Noodle bowls. Matt and I made these for the first time a little over a month ago and I definitely think they will be making a repeat appearance in the weekly food lineup. I had never used coconut milk in a recipe before and it was kind of strange. The recipe almost seemed to have a cheesiness to it- which is weird because I didn't use any cheese! We sure do love some shrimp. And cheese.

--Four--

Pumpkin Pancakes- above is the book our Bible study leader was so sweet to lend us and also a picture of the pancakes off Pinterest. I am honestly always too hungry to photograph my food before I eat it. I don't know how food photographers do what they do. If food is in front of me, I am going to eat it. Matt and I made "breakfast for dinner" as one of our paleo meals the other night and for a girl who usually isn't a huge fan of breakfast foods (I have been known to order a hamburger at our favorite breakfast spot, The Good Egg) I was a huge fan of that particular meal. Scrambled eggs, jalapeno bacon, and pumpkin pancakes. Nom.

--Five--

The engagement bunny. In a effort to keep it real, I will say paleo week hasn't been without its low moments. The other day I was craving some chocolate and since I had already eaten most every piece in our house we have been pretty good about keeping it out of the house I had to resort to "the engagement bunny". Matt's aunt Patti came to visit during the time Matt and I were engaged. It was actually during a major snowstorm and we had a really fun time "rescuing her" from her hotel and going out to dinner at Outback and making a trip to Walmart so that she could pick up some essentials. While she was here she gave us a card and a large chocolate bunny to congratulate us on our engagement. The bunny, which we probably should have pitched or re-gifted, has been living in the freezer for well over a year and whenever one of us is in desperate need of some chocolate we go chop off another piece of the bunny. The bunny is actually getting pretty small. I think I may be a little sad when it is all gone.

Hope you all had a wonderful week!

Betsy

Five on [this beautiful] Friday

Today has been a good day, and there are lots of reasons why, but I am only going to give you five since it is '5 on Friday', after all :)

One
We started out our day ending a 3 day cleanse (DIY Blueprint Cleanse, I used this guide and this guide) and had amazing omelets at our favorite little breakfast spot. Matt really had wanted to try a "cleanse" and so I apprehensively agreed to do it with him. I was really surprised how well I did. As someone who gets "hangry" on a regular basis, I thought 3 days with no solid food would be torture, but I must be more mentally tough than I thought ;)

Two
We got to watch our sweet niece for my sister today. I love watching Jane on Matt's days off because having two sets of hands around makes hanging with a baby much more fun and enjoyable. Jane looooves being outside and since it was such a beautiful day I took her outside and snapped some cute pics of her in her cheerleading uniform-

 and then her momma came home and she was pretty jazzed :)

her adorable "uniform" brings me to my next point:


Three
My Jayhawks play tonight! I am getting really excited for March Madness and I love that my husband is a complete KU fan convert-- quite the accomplishment since he used to cheer for DUKE growing up. Sooo glad he saw the light and came over to the good side!

Four
Matt and I both grew up playing tennis but somehow in the last 6 years we have been friends/ dating we never played together.

Today was the first time I was able to show off my skills. It was a blast and the best part was seeing the look on Matt's face when he couldn't return some of my shots... he must have had really low expectations for me :)

Five
Tonight we have nothing on our agenda but time together relaxing at home. We are urbanspooning and trying to decide a new place to do dinner. I love a good relaxing Friday night at home with Boo.

Happy weekend!
Bets

Five on Friday

One
Have you heard of the app for your iPhone called Argus? It is a fitness app that does all kinds of stuff including counting your steps, keeping track of your water/ food intake, and even measuring your blood pressure. I have become obsessed with getting in my "steps" everyday and you can find me pacing the living room most nights before bed trying to reach my goal of 10,000.

Two
Last month Matt and I both caught the flu bug. I haven't been that sick in a while and it wasn't pretty. What was especially rough was that Matt got it the day before he was set to preach at the church. Praise the Lord- he made it through the worst of it before Sunday, and did an excellent job. Here is the link to his sermon if you are interested.

Three
This past Sunday my sister came to town so we could attend the baby shower of an old friend. Before we went she snapped some photos of me, Matt, and Boo dog. I also took some pics of her and Jane baby a.k.a. "cutest niece in the whole world". You can see more at Char's blog, but here are a few of my favorites-

Four
Now that our winter retreat for the high school students is behind us we can start looking forward the next big thing which is the mission trip Matt is leading to Nicaragua. I am going along as a chaperone and am so excited to be going on my first missions trip outside the U.S.! This will also be the first time Matt and I have traveled outside the country together. Seems like it should be a bucket list item for our marriage. We will be spending our time there at Villa Esperanza in Managua, a home for abused and at-risk girls who had previously been living in the dump community.We will be serving alongside a local church and helping with all sorts of projects as well as hanging out with the girls living at the Villa. Matt and I both feel blessed for the opportunity to do this together and alongside some of our really awesome high school students!

 Five
In January Matt and I decided to challenge ourselves to eat at home for every meal. While there were a few exceptions, (meals out with family, etc.) I can say that we were pretty successful. Our month of eating at home inspired me to try to "cook my way through Pinterest" in 2014. While my ever growing food board would be hard to complete in a year, I think trying 100  new recipes is a realistic goal. I was off to a great start in January and when the flu made its way through our house last month cooking (and eating, in general) really lost its appeal. Hoping to get back on track this month.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Bets

One Little Word... 2014

The other night Matt and I were out to dinner with a friend and she was telling us how she had a theme word for this upcoming year and she wanted it to be something that would encourage her to make the most of each day. Her word was enjoy. She wanted to enjoy life more in 2014 than ever before. She wanted to make it a point to enjoy her family, her husband, and God intentionally every day. Apparently this idea of picking a theme word is actually a part of a movement called One Little Word.

After watching my little brother play basketball last Saturday night we were out to dinner with Mike and Kelsey and started recapping the conversation. We had told our friend that if we had to pick a theme word ours would probably have to be celebrate. Late last spring Mike started the search for his first post-grad job. He ended up interviewing at Eastminster and it seems that ever since that happened whenever Mike and Kels have ventured over to Wichita we have found some reason or another to celebrate together. Whether it was an anniversary, an interview that had gone particularly well, or something as big as purchasing a home to something as miniscule as buying a juicer- we sure do love to celebrate. Our celebrations were mostly excuses for us to justify a nice meal out or staying up too late, but whatever the reason or result it has certainly made the past several months so much fun.

Therefore, I dub 2014 the year of celebrations. Some of the fun things that we can already foresee happening include:

• Christmas with Matt's family this weekend. Our crazy schedules made it so that it was easiest to do Christmas two weeks into January... but you better believe I have loooved the excuse it has given me to keep all my Christmas decor up!
• Matt and I will be officially entering our "late twenties" this year.... I suppose it is better to choose to celebrate these events rather than to mourn, ha.
• Me and my Mr. will celebrate a year of marriage in May.
• Both Matt and I will have little brothers participating in the graduation festivities at Sterling College this spring. Looking forward to celebrating that huge accomplishment with those two. 
• At the end of May we will get to celebrate the marriage of one of my best friends from college! So, so looking forward to that wedding.
• We will celebrate the 1st birthday of our sweet little niece, Jane. That precious nugget always knows how to make us smile and I can't wait for all of her milestones that we will get to celebrate along with my sis and Rob over this next year!
• Together Matt and I have been working really hard on saving money and paying off debt and this year (if all goes according to plan) we should be able to knock out 2 of Matt's student loans! This may be my most anticipated celebration of the year!

So there are a few of the fun events that we know will be headed our way this year. I look forward to seeing what other things pop up that will be worthy of celebration!

This morning I surprised Matt with breakfast in bed because I skipped my Body Blitz class realized that it was our 8 month anniversary. When I walked into our room with the tray and said "happy anniversary!!" his face turned to panic mode and I got a good chuckle out of seeing him trying to remember if today was actually our anniversary. 

We usually don't celebrate the monthly anniversary, but every once in a while when we remember it is the 8th we like to use it as an excuse to "celebrate"- surely that doesn't surprise anyone after reading this post :)

Wishing a happy new year to all my readers! AKA my mom, dad, sister, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law!

Betsy

Friendsgiving

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving we were invited to a Friendsgiving celebration at the Kirk household. We were put in charge of bringing dessert and I got super ambitious and decided to make homemade pies from scratch. I had been seeing so many pie pins on Pinterest and not knowing what I was getting myself into I set out to make a pecan pie and an apple pie. I had intended to use Pioneer Woman's recipes, but when I was searching for a homemade crust I came across the blog Gimme Some Oven. The first line when I opened her pecan pie recipe was this:
"My Grandma Ebright was many things…She was the faithful wife of a Kansas wheat farmer for sixty years, proud mother of five, and involved grandmother of thirteen. [...] She was a firecracker. She was thoughtful. She was stubborn. She was giving. She was hilarious. She was creative. She was loyal. She was my grandma.And she was an expert baker of pecan pie."

While I really loved the entire section about her Grandma Ebright, what got me most was her mention of a Kansas wheat farmer. My mom's dad, fondly known as "Poppy", was a doctor in rural western Kansas. While he was a doctor by day [and night] he was also a farmer. He grew up on a farm and was very knowledgeable about crops and everything farm-related. He was actually one of those grandpas who knew a lot about a lot of different stuff. Smart man, my Poppy. When I was younger he had me well trained about the different kinds of crops that grew in Kansas. Whenever I was in the car with him he would point to a field and ask me what crop was growing there. I knew about 99% of the time. However, that skill did not carry over to my adulthood. Back to pie.

I started gathering my supplies for homemade pies and staging them into artsy photos.

I had all these thoughts in my head about how I would take step-by-step photos so people could see my process.

As you can see in the picture below I already have my dough started in my food processor. My food processor was basically the most important part of my operation. Saved me so much time and energy. Love that machine.

About 2 hours and one pie crust into my adventure I realized that for all the time and expense I had put into making these pies I would likely end up picking up a $5 Marie Calendar's frozen pie while en route to the party. Things were not looking good. I had to call in reinforcements.

After sending out an S.O.S. my sweet husband came home from work early to help me sort out my mess. 

Please note the bottle in the sink- for some reason I thought I could do this task while simultaneously watching my 3 month old niece.... She was not a fan of my project, ha.

Pecan pie

Apple pie

The actual baking part was probably our biggest failure. Next time I will definitely invest in a pie shield. The pecan pie was a smidge burnt and the apple pie was a bit undercooked, but overall I thought the pies tasted and looked pretty good.

Hope your week is off to a good start!

Bets

Holiday Recap [on THis THird THursday after THanksgiving]

We made it through our first married holiday. There were no tears. No stress about where to be. No FOMO (feelings of missing out). And that my friends, is something to be extremely thankful for!
We spent Wednesday night hanging out with my Tulsa cousins at my grandparents house in Wichita. Aunt Tierney provided flu shots. Kinda funny story- Matt didn't know that my Aunt Tierney was a nurse. He was a little sketched out when I told him it was his turn to get his shot in the kitchen. Later after we had gone back to our house I said something about the convenience of having an aunt who is a nurse and Matt was all "ohhhhhh, now that makes more sense..." I think he thought he was being initiated.

The next morning we did the Say Grace Thanksgiving Day 5k Race. Matt did really well, finished 167th overall [there were 1,700 runners]. I also did well- I finished my "walk" in less than an hour :) I think that will be a new tradition for us. Good cause, good fun, and it always feels nice to get a little exercise before a big Thanksgiving feast.

Matt's littlest bro, Jak, was in town for the Jaderston sibling spendy and decided to stay with us Wednesday night since Matt's folks were joining my family in Wichita for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday afternoon. It was SO nice to have both our families together for the holiday. I really hope we get lucky enough to do that again.

  Matt asleep in the den at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Wichita :)

  

 This "test shot" from when we were setting up the camera for the Jaderston family photo made me laugh.

 This one too! Cute Kels running to reset the timer :)

 Picture with the pups

Picture without the pups 

:)

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out at home. Matt and I went on a dinner/ movie date. Delicious burgers at Fizz and then saw Catching Fire. 

Sunday we were off to Newton to see our sweet baby Jane be dedicated at church. So blessed by that little nugget. More about her and auntie day care later!

Bets

10 days and counting..

I ordered our first Christmas card. I had good intentions of placing my order at the end of November so that I would have ample time to gather addresses and have the cards labeled, stamped, and in the mailboxes of our loved ones well before the holiday. Unsurprisingly, that did not happen. I placed my order a week ago with the guarantee that our cards would arrive no later than tomorrow. As it turned out, Minted didn't get my cards to FedEx until Friday meaning they wouldn't arrive at our house until Wednesday. Since we leave for Denver Tuesday that just doesn't work. Very disappointing. But that was the only disappointing part of my experience with Minted thus far! Picking a design and using their website was so fun! They had so many awesome templates to choose from. We (yes, we- Matt did help) narrowed it down to 2 designs. A postcard or a card with an envelope. Here is a little preview of the contenders- I will post the whole card we chose after we send ours out.

Also, I am really feeling the Christmas spirit after the cookie exchange party I went to with my sweet high school girls tonight. Love them and can't wait to post pics from our slumber party last month later this week!

Hope you all have been enjoying this holiday season! :)

Bets