Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Sometimes a gym membership just isn't enough. With Joey traveling and Bryce hating the kids club at the gym I decided I needed to take advantage of Joey's BIG birthday present this year...his man-weekend to Vegas (previous post), and get myself something BIG!!!!

Nutritious and Delicious

I recently came up with my own way of making the yummy Mango Chicken Salad that I get whenever I go to Costa Vida (Cafe Rio). I have seen so many Cafe Rio recipes on other people's blogs that I decided to try some. So, I made the pork and rice for Easter dinner last Sunday. Then last night I made the chicken and threw it on top of some lettuce along with this awesome Mango salsa (thanks Christine Fisher for that recipe many years ago). This salad is awesome for many reasons, but the most important ones being 1) it is DELICIOUS and 2)TOTALLY HEALTHY. I put enough Mango Salsa on top that I don't need any kind of dressing. I didn't add the rice and black beans, but let me know if you do because I'm sure it would be even better.

(For the chicken I actually threw in frozen chicken breasts in the morning and they were done in plenty of time for dinner.)

Cafe Rio Chicken

1 small bottle Kraft Zesty Italian Dressing
1 T chili powder
1 T cumin
3 cloves garlic—minced
5 lbs chicken breast

Cook all together in a crock pot for 4 hours, shred meat and cook 1 additional hour.


Mango Salsa

1 c. diced yellow onion
3 red tomatoes (seeded)
2 cans mango, diced
1 c. crushed pineapple (drained)
2 T. lime juice
1 tsp. ginger, minced
1 tsp. crushed garlic
1/2 green and/or red bell pepper
1 bunch cilantro

Try it.....You won't be sorry!!

Easter

Rather than deciding which pictures to post (especially when none of them seemed to turn out) I decided to just post most of them in a slide show for your viewing pleasure. The pictures though, are from a few different events. We went with our neighbors to their church's egg hunt at a nearby park. There are also some of Easter morning where I failed to get just one good photo of my children and didn't even attempt a family one. Then, we had the Kaity Zollinger Family and the Holgerson family over for dinner and the best egg hunt ever. I decided to mix it up this year and not make the traditional ham and potatoes. Instead I decided to try some of the Cafe Rio recipes I have seen on other people's blogs. So, I made the pork and rice. It turned out really yummy.

FHE

Maci starts tennis lessons tonight and since we aren't exactly sure what all she knows about tennis we thought it would be fun to go play tennis for family home evening. We had to drive to a couple of different courts, but finally got lucky and found some where we were the only ones. This meant that Bryce could roam free and we could play with Maci. I am excited that Maci seems to really like tennis because she hasn't wanted to do anything but dance and gymnastics up until now.

Spoiled Birthday Boy

Joey has a hard life. He wakes up around 8 am everyday and strolls down to his office to check his email and make a few phone calls. About an hour later he's back upstairs to take a shower and get ready for the day. Now that the weather is nice he is at the driving range or his private golf lessons every other day as well. And for his birthday last week he spent the weekend in Las Vegas with his two girlfriends....I mean buddies, Scott and Tobi, for the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament. I mean really, can't poor Joey just catch a break. And I know this isn't a good picture, but for some reason I only took one and this is it.

Maci behind the camera

Maci has figured out how to use our camera. This means she is always sneaking it and taking random pictures around the house. I'm not sure yet if I would say she has talent, so, I thought I would post some of her pictures and let you all decide.

In the first three photos Maci is trying to take a picture of herself, then I show her that if she extends her arm when she takes the pictures she will get her whole head in the picture instead of the awkward close up of her face. And then the last one of me and Bryce is actually pretty good.

This is what you get when........

you get 9 shots (5 for Maci, 4 for Bryce) in one day at the doctor. I don't recommend getting more than one child vaccinated at a time and this is not how it was originally planned. This is how it unfortunately worked out though. As you can see we all survived...barely...thanks to this yummy banana split!! By the way, Bryce is just 15 months old and is the average height of a 22 month old.

Planet PIzza

I know these places are the dirtiest, germiest places on earth, but.......kids love them. I like this place because it is mostly fun rides and not games that require endless tokens like Chuck E Cheese.

One more round of SNOW!!

I had to post one more picture of our TEXAS-sized snow storm. I think I heard we got 3-4 inches.

Spring Break is two weeks away, so bring on the SNOW?!??!????

Yes, last night we got SNOW!! The first snow of the year. Less than a week ago it was 80 degrees outside and we were at the park and almost breaking a sweat.
Maci woke up this morning at 7am and got on her "snow" gear. Bryce got his on too (clothes over his already warm pajamas). We were out the door and playing in the snow by 7:15. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to do this morning, but I decided to go along with it because we knew it was going to melt quickly. We heard the little neighbor boys across the street in their backyard playing too, so we decided to join them.Just got hit with a snowball!!!

One Week ago at the Park