Recipe {Taco Pizza}

THIS IS DEFINITELY A FAVORITE!!!

I made this last night and it was a huge hit for Tanner & I, Parker..not so much! She did indulge in the guacamole and chips though. I originally got the idea off Pinterest. I can't get on pinterest at work and I wanted to run to the store on my lunch break so I googled it and this one popped up...easy peasy!

TACO PIZZA

1 lb hamburger meat

1 12in pizza crust

1 bag of Mexican shredded cheese

Taco Bell Seasoning (any taco seasoning you want really)

Toppings! We chose:

shredded lettuce

chopped tomoatoes

avacados

salsa

Brown the hambuger meat and then add the seasoning and 3/4 cup of water and let simmer for about 8-10 minutes. Layer the meat & cheese onto the pizza crust and bake at 400 for 8-10 minutes. Then top with whatever toppings you choose. SOOO GOOD!

Big Girl Bed

Parker slept in her big girl bed for the 1st time last night...we just started the second night. She did AMAZING last night. Cried for about 3 minutes then was out. We have heard way too many stories that started off like this and then got worse so we aren't getting our hopes up quite yet. I don't think she knows she can get off the bed on her own. She still asks us to help her so we aren't telling her just yet :)

She looks so tiny in this big bed...sniff :(

But she was so excited!

She of course had to have all her favorite animals with her  :)

We are still working on her room. Lots done but lots more to do. Her daddy did an amazing job on the stripes! I feel like I go too fast sometimes on her growing up. Now that we did all this room transformation I wonder why I hurried it so much? She still had time but oh well we already came this far :(

Parker also has moved up to the 2 year class at church. Tanner and I start volunteering in there next week so we will get to be with her.

A little picture taking before church this past Sunday.

Parker is also able to sing her ABC's, count to ten and sing all of "Jesus Loves Me". We are slowly working on potty training. I really don't think she is fully ready so we are not pushing her. She has gone 3 times in potty the past 2 weeks..haha...little progress right? :)

Stella & Dot

In a couple weeks I will be hosting a Stella & Dot party at my home. I am so excited because for one they have amazing jewelry and also because I love hosting parties though I have never done one of these before.

http://home.stelladot.com/

Check out their amazing pieces. I will put another post that you can order from for my party once we get it set  up if you can't make it.

Here are some of the fabulous pieces I have bought recently and LOVE!

I got these little beauties just for signing up to host a party! I have a silver pair that I wear about 6 days out of the week. They go with everything even when you are dressing very casual.

Just got these in the mail, haven't got to wear them yet!

Love the new wrap bracelets! I got the silver one and sporting it today!

Recipe {Swiss Chicken}

I will only make simple recipes. If they require more than 6 main ingredients then I usually don't make it. I have never been a cook but I do try hard sometimes to make meals and eat at home. I made this last night and it was delish!! And it was so simple ;)

SWISS CHICKEN

5 boneless chicken breasts

1 cup milk

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 stick of butter

6 slices swiss cheese

1 box of stouffers chicken

Cut thawed chicken breasts and lay at bottom of 9x13 baking pan. Mix together the milk and soup and pour over chicken. Lay the slices of cheese over that. Then pour the box of stuffing on the top. Melt your butter and drizzle it over the top. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. I made green beans to go with it.

GARLIC GREEN BEANS

1 bag whole frozen green beans

1/2 stick butter

garlic salt

pepper

Put your green beans into a small baking dish (8x8). Melt your butter and pour over green beans. Put as much garlic salt and pepper as you want. Bake beside your chicken at 350 for 45 minutes.

Easy Peasy!

Luckily Tanner & I both had a free lunch at work today, free dinner with work tonight and another free lunch at work tomorrow. I don't have to cook for a couple days :)

my sweet girl..

I gave myself and Parker pedicures the day we got back last week from our trip. She was so proud of her painted finger nails and toe nails.

She got new My Little Pony underwear and she loved unfolding them and folding them back up.

She is really into her babies lately. A few days ago she came running into the kitchen saying "baby...spill...waderrrrr". I went to see and she had tried giving her baby some of her ice and water and it went everywhere. She then said "No baby, that's Parpoo's waderrrr"

Punta Cana, DR

This was probably my favorite vacation! I am usually not a big fan of food in other places but the food here was great (I'm a picky eater)!! The friends we went with were so much fun and the hotel was huge and gorgeous. The people there weren't the friendliest though. We got to do parasailing, I can now mark it off the bucket list but I can't say I would do it again. We stayed in the pool most of the time but did enjoy the beach, casino and buffets too! Tanner and I got massages on our last day there while the rest of the group with snuba diving. It was a perfect vacation to end our Summer with.

Leaving Charlotte headed for DR!

Our jacuzzi bath

View from our balcony.

First night there we hit up the pool & bar :)

Headed to our steakhouse dinner

The gorgeous Punta Cana beach

First time to parasail!

I'm not going to lie, I was freaking out!

Walking the beach of our resort

Josh's 30th birthday dinner!

Our last night we ate at the Japanese Restaurant and it was amazing!!

I left all the crazy photos out from our trip to save embarassment from all of us :)

I'm sad all of our trips are over with but I'm excited for the Fall with our family and all the holidays!!

Funny Pics

It all started down hill from here..

This one is hilarious of me!

I had to post these sweet ones...

Big Girl Room

I have been obsessed lately trying to find different ideas for Parker's big girl room. She is still good in her crib so that leaves me with plenty of time. Before she was born we were trying to sell our old house so I couldn't really paint or put much on the walls. So this time around I feel likegoing all out.

Her crib turns into a full size bed with a headboard and footboard. Luckily we already have a full size matress. Her furniture is black right now so I will have to spraypaint it all white. Her headboard has bars going down so I am going to cover it with fabric. I haven't found the exact fabric I want but I do want it to closely resemble this but in a lighter pink.

Next up...the bedding!! I searched and searched for the perfect bedding and I finally found it on laurenslinens.com and for a great price. I can only imagine how many times I will be washing it with a 2 year old that isn't potty trained yet. So I went for cheap :)

I chose the mint green color.

I have been eyeing some really cute lamp shades from Hobby Lobby. Tanner is off for a few days so he was nice enough to go buy them for me!

I keep going back and forth on the walls. I know I want 3 walls just a basic white/creme color. Too much pink/color freaks me out after awhile. The main wall, where her bed is at, I want either painted stripes or a stencil. I just don't want it too busy.

I love the big horizontal stripes on this wall.

  Stencil with light pink.

 I can't get on pinterest at work so I have to resort to my blog for idea posting :)

Family Pics {Angela Pregler Photography}

We got Parker's 2 years pics made awhile back by my friend Angela. We decided to wait and do family pics until our lives slowed down a little bit. Well that never happen so we went ahead and got a few taken this past Sunday morning. Parker was a terd most of the time but we did manage to get a couple smiles. I have some more hilarious ones that I will post later off the CD I have at home.



Bittersweet

This morning has been tough...I had to give a 2 weeks notice to the wonderful ladies that have taken precious care of Parker every day for the last 2 years. Parker loves her current daycare. She goes to Animal Krackers and I highly reccomend it. The ladies there are wonderful and Parker gets so excited to go every morning. She especially loves her "Benda"! Brenda loves her like her own child. Parker has even learned all her letters by referring them to kids in her class...that's how much she loves this place.

Well, why are we switching her? Tanner got a new job! Praise God!! He will be the new Economist Planner here at ConocoPhillips and we will be on the same team though I am sure we will maybe see eachother once a week at work. He interviewed a few days before our Rome trip and my boss Mike was nice enough to call us the day we were leaving to offer the job to Tanner so we didn't have to stress on our trip!! Have I mentioned I have the most awesome boss ever?? I work for Mike directly but Tanner will be working for another guy directly. He happens to be my really good friends husband. And he reports to Mike so we are all connected :) We couldn't be any more excited about this new chapter!!!! God is so good all the time!!

Back to the daycare. We live really close to my work. I can get to work in less than 5 minutes. Animal Krackers is downtown so it takes me 22 minutes on a good day to get there. I have been timing it because I was really debating whether to switch Parker. Tanner's "old" job was right next to her daycare so he dropped her off and picked her up most days. Well now that he is going to be working with me it would be out of our way to take her everyday to Animal Krackers. Well during the time Tanner was interviewing I got a call from Midland College daycare saying they had a spot for Parker. I called them when I first found out I was pregnant and haven't talked to them since. So out of the blue they call. Well we live right down the road from Midland College, like 2 minutes away if there is traffic. So we can drop her off and get to work within 7 minutes or so.

So all of this is exciting for us but I really want to look out for my baby girl. I pray pray pray this is what God wants for her. Normally my mommy, gut instinct kicks in and I do feel like this will be a great thing for her. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about Midland College. Though Animal Krackers did say we can bring her back anytime if MC doesn't work out ;)

Recipe: Beef Stroganoff

I have been trying new recipes this week...here is another one we really enjoyed!

BEEF STROGANOFF

1 lb hamburger meat

1 can cream of chicken

1 can cream of mushroom

1 8oz sour cream

1 white onion chopped

1 bag egg noodles

1 can crunchy chinese noodles

soy cause

Brown hamburger meat on stove. Add onion in while cooking the meat. Then add in the soups & sour cream. Let that simmer for 10 minutes. Cook egg noddles on stove (these get soft really fast). Once the noodles are done you are ready! Get your plate...first get a scoop of egg noodles, then a scoop of crunchy noodles and then a big spoonful of the meat mixture. Then pour some soy sauce on top (sounds really weird but I promise the soy sauce makes the taste wonderful!)

ENJOY!!!

Compassion's Water for Life

http://www.compassion.com/contribution/water-life-air1.htm?referer=119759

I heard about this all day yesterday while listening to Air 1 and KLOVE. I heard all the real life stories happening to these poor kids. It's sad to think our "drought" that we are going through here in Texas doesn't even come close to their water problems. These children are dying from dehydration but if they drink the water they are getting very sick and having horrible diarreah which then turns into dehydration. They have no hope. With just $55 you can buy a family a water filter system that lasts FOREVER!! If you watch the video on the link provided it shows how the filter works, pretty cool. Just think, instead of going out to eat tonight you could save a whole family!

Weekend

 We had a fun-filled weekend. Friday night I got to have dinner & drinks with sweet friends while daddy & P got an evening together.

Parker loves ice, she always wants it. I know the dentist will not love this ;)

Saturday I helped host a baby shower at my house for my good friend Erica. She is due with baby Lyla in about 5 weeks and she recieved so many cute things at her shower that will definitely give you baby fever!!

The hostesses

My silly girl wanted to play dress up with all of her jewelry!

Sunday we were invited to the new waterpark in Big Spring with our brother & sister and some friends. The kids really enjoyed themselves & parker LOVED the slide! I have more pictures but these were taken by Greathouse Photography :)

10 Days...

In 10 days we are off to the Dominican Republic with 3 other couples! This is the longest we will have ever been away from Parker, we will be gone for 7 days ( a couple of those days in Dallas with friends because of flights). But we are so excited!! Our goals: parasail, get massages and Tanner scuba dive! Isn't this hotel a beauty? It can't come quick enough! We are going for a 30th birthday for one of the guys. These boys do it big for their 30th birthdays! I guess I need to start planning something fabulous for mine in 3 years.

It's called the Majestic Elegance in Punta Cana. As I was looking up pictures it made me a little sad. They have a fun fun splash park for kids that I know Parker would love. But maybe next time :) Last big trip of the Summer!