Oh Life.

Life is busy around our neck of the woods.  Busy jobs, busy toddlers, and busy lives.  We miss blogging and hope to return soon.  In the meantime (if you're still reading - and thank you if you are still reading), check out this post from a momma blog that I just stumbled across this morning, but I already love.  She gets real.  Be back soon...we promise.

2 Year Anniversary (E + JW)...6/26/12

We had an awesome anniversary (on June 26th...which explains how on top of our game we are in regard to posting...annnnnyway).

I'm pretty sure the traditional 2nd anniversary gift is cotton, but we didn't want new sheets or socks, so we decided to throw that out the window.  I'm also pretty sure that you're supposed to go out for a romantic dinner and buy flowers and cards and all that stuff.  Consider that tossed out the window as well.  We wanted to do something fun for our anniversary and buy gifts we could use forever.  That's why we bought each other....

Because I know you're curious, the orange one is mine; blue = JW's

KAYAKS!   Totally what you were going to guess, right?  Ok, well let me explain.  JW and I wanted something we could use forever and kayaks are seriously that.  The early evening of our anniversary we took them up to the lake, dropped them in, and headed north to the sandbar with a few beers and a bottle of bubbly from our wedding in a mini-cooler strapped to the kayak.  Did I mention we had no idea whether or not the champagne would even be any good?  It was 2 years old.  But since I was preggo and we couldn't drink it on our first anniversary, we figured it was worth a shot.  {side note: 2 year old champagne = delicious.}

JW & E

The kayak cruise was awesome.  The weather was beautiful and the lake was calm enough for us to cruise down to the sandbar and paddle right on back.  We had tons of laughs, reminisced about the fun times we had when we lived in Lansing, and enjoyed spending time just the two of us.  Therefore, the kayaks were perfect.

Photo taken using the Paper Camera iPhone/iPad app!

We've taken them out a few more times since buying them and one thing is for sure - they are calming.  When you step (carefully, mind you) into a kayak, life slows down.  It can only move as fast as you can paddle.  The physical and rhythmic paddling lets your mind drift off and it's a wonderful feeling.

As a busy working momma, this is key: find time to relax.

Anybody else have totally non-traditional anniversary gifts?  Because clearly leather (is that even the gift for 3 years?) is out and we'll be in need of something fun and relaxing :)

Wednesday Loves!

It's Wednesday and after a rejuvenating lunch, we decided we should throw together a quick post, so here's what we're loving this busy, busy week:

[1] Our babes and hubbies.  obvi.

[2] Time to eat lunch.  with a bff.  outside.  with delicious sandwiches.  and brownies.  always need brownies.

What are you loving this week?

Are you a working momma?  What are you loving and can't live without??

p.s. we promise to post more soon and actually host this giveaway.  things are crazy-busy in the real-world.  

A few favorite wedding pics, 5 years later!

A happy anniversary to B. We had a great weekend celebrating with friends at the cottage-- 5 babies under 16 months! More on that later, in a meantime a few pics from that special day 5 years ago....

CSA Recipe Day: Chicken Nachos with Garden Salsa

Whew....we just got done with Operation Weed the Garden.  It was getting gross in there.  Once we cleared out many of the weeds though, we were excited to see more summer squash and zucchini, plenty of tomatoes, beets, and even a few baby jalapeños!!  Between our CSA and our garden we have had a plethora of awesome veggies the past few weeks.

Super-squash & guard dog, Whitney!

Oh hey Jalapeño!

For this week's recipe, I opted to go for a quick meal using some garden salsa I had already whipped up compliments of PW's recipe (PW = Pioneer Woman who I adore).  We had onions, cilantro, and jalapeños in our CSA and a few tomatoes from our farmer's market.  I zipped it through the food processor for a snack over the weekend and it was still lingering in the fridge.

Then there was the rotisserie chicken.  It's been too hot to cook much, so we picked up a chicken at the store the other night.  We all loved it - Liza included.  Our fridge was also filled with this week's CSA: corn, tomatoes, peppers, onions and more jalapeños (aka toppings).  There's no super-secret recipe to these, but they were delicious and I loved that the salsa/sauce was homemade.

So, here's what we did:

[1] Mix said leftover chicken with salsa and a bit of chicken stock in a saucepan over medium heat.  I let it simmer for awhile (maybe 15 minutes) and 'pushed' on the chicken with a spoon to help it breakdown a bit more and absorb some of the flavors from the salsa.  For about the last 5 minutes, I tossed in a can of black beans to help the mixture go a little further (I frequently mix this up during the school year and freeze it).

[2] Line a baking sheet with tin foil and preheat the oven to 350.  Scatter tortilla chips over top of the tin foil.  Then load up with the good stuff - chicken mixture, peppers, tomatoes, jalapeños, corn, olives, and cheese.  Bake for 10-15 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.

[3] Top with more goodness - we used avocado, salsa, hot sauce, and some plain yogurt (we ran out of sour cream).

Anybody else have some great recipes to use with all the goodness coming from the garden?  We'd love some more ideas!