Crock Pot Chicken Fajitas Recipe

We tried a crock pot recipe that I had pinned on Pinterest a while ago, and man am I so glad we made it.  It was so easy, and came out very flavorful.  YUM!

Crock Pot Chicken Fajitas  

Ingredients:

1 yellow onion, sliced

3 sweet peppers, sliced

1 ½ pounds boneless chicken breast or thighs

½ cup chicken broth

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons cumin

1 ½ tablespoons chili powder

Squirt of lime juice

Whole Wheat Tortillas

Fajita fixings

Directions:

Combine sliced onion and peppers in the bottom of a greased crockpot. Lay chicken on top of veggies. Pour chicken broth over top. Sprinkle everything with cumin, salt, and chili powder. Give a nice quirt of lime juice over the top. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. When meat is done, shred with two forks and stir back into juices. Serve meat mixture with slotted spoon on tortillas with your choice of fixings.

Wordless Wednesday: Daddy Daughter Time

Computer-less but not Homeless!

We hope y'all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend remembering everyone who fought or is still fighting with the military for our freedom!

Our weekend was BUSY but very productive none-the-less. I guess the biggest news happening around here is that our house is under contract (again!). It's actually the same people and same offer, but a new closing date-- yeah!! If everything goes through this time we'll close on June 20th! We have our inspection this Thursday.

So that meant we were in need of finding a home to rent again. What a frustrating process that can be when you are only interested in renting somewhere for 6 months. After calling and/or emailing 60+ people and getting turned down by every single one of them, we finally found Marilyn! She had posted an ad on Craigslist with her house for rent, which is a little North of our house now but less than a mile from our church! Her and her husband had to move down to Florida suddenly because of his work so the house has been vacant now for a little over a month. They love the idea of a six month lease as that will give them time to get their house ready to sell!

This house is not what most would classify as "perfect" as its very "rustic" but it's going to work perfectly for us. If you can't tell by now Kyle and I love doing projects on our house, and Marilyn has already agreed that she will fund any projects we would like to take on (arranging carpet upstairs to be replaced-- we are doing this one before we move in!, fixing fence in backyard, fixing back deck so it's safe for Emery, installing fans, cleaning roof, power washing porches, etc!) and will take money off the rent for our services! When we drove over to the house to meet her she even had a beany baby all laid out for Emery and warm sugar cookies on the table! She's even leaving some of her furniture with us, and loves animals so not charging us any kind of pet deposit! I could go on and on but we just feel so blessed that God is opening up one door at a time for us and completely providing for our family.

So come June 20th as long as our home sale goes through, this is where we'll be living:

We did empty out our attic this weekend and organizing those totes. It's so hard not to just completely be packing up everything right now!

Emery says "Get me out of here, I don't want to be packed!"

And lastly I just have to share what happened to our computers last week. Mine would only show me the blue screen of death!

I took it to the apple store this weekend and it's my graphic card failing. Luckily this is an issue that happens to 2007 Mac book pros and as long as you catch it in the 4 year window, it'll be under warranty! They are fixing it for free, yeah! So I'll be getting a much needed break from my computer this week!

Kyle's computer on the other hand was sitting right next to a big cup of coffee and Emery decided to grab the mug and push it over onto the laptop :( Luckily, Emery did not get burned but Kyle's computer wouldn't turn back on at all and he hadn't backed up anything that was on it. After IT looked at it this morning everything seems to be dried up and working just fine this morning! Thank heavens!

And that's all the chaos happening around here! Happy Monday!

Lake Rabun

Last weekend, we were able to join Chris, Kathleen, Elise and John up at Chris' Aunt's lake house up on Lake Rabun.  It is less than a 2 hour drive for us, and we couldn't think of anything more relaxing than spending a day on the lake with a view of the Georgia mountains!  It was absolutely beautiful up there and we had so much fun.


We drove up on Saturday morning and immediately changed into our bathing suits to go on a boat ride and explore the lake. Emery loved soaking in the sun, while eating a snack.

We sunbathed on the top deck, took boat rides, went tubing and skiing, and just had fun watching the babies interact.  It's always great to spend time with little Myer and see how big he's getting!  Look at those eyes!

Elise & John's son, Graham, and Emery are only 2 months apart.  It was so funny to see the differences between girl and boy!

Tyson also got to hang out with his bud, Finn, who can now officially beat him fetching sticks in the water:

BUT Tyson showed Finn up by having no fear and jumping into the water from the top deck.   We only let him do it twice, the second time just to take pictures :)  He loved it though.  Here are Kyle and Tyson in action...

While the girls headed inside to get the kiddos fed, bathed and down to sleep, the guys went out to ski one more time.  They came back in like this... John and Kyle being pulled by Chris!  Too funny.

Elyse and John made a delicious dinner for all of us, and then we called it a night!  Chris and Kyle of course opted to sleep out on the boat dock with the dogs!  This is how they looked when Emery and I went out to wake them up on Sunday morning...

A picture of the boat dock:

So peaceful:

Oh and here's a picture of the lake house.  It's the 6th oldest house on the lake!

After cleaning up we all headed back home Sunday morning.  Thank y'all again for inviting us up.  We had a great time!!

Banana Bread Recipe

Oh man this Banana Bread recipe is absolutely delicious.  It comes from a fellow church member of my sister's, and goodness it's yummy!  I had to make it this past weekend and re-post it on our blog just so I could have it on hand to make again!  Enjoy!

Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups self-rising flour

1 stick butter, melted

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 bananas, mashed

Directions:

Just mix all the ingredients together and pour into a loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

*In the picture above I made one large loaf and 3 mini loaves just by doubling the recipe.*

Wordless Wednesday: Daddy take me with you!

Boone for Mother's Day

Since we were already in Shelby on Saturday it worked out perfectly to drive up to Boone for the night to see my family and celebrate Mother's Day that morning with them.  It was such a quick trip I didn't take any photos, so I'm stealing them from my Mom's post!

On Saturday night, we got to visit with my Uncle David and his wife, Shannon.  Always great to see you two!

 
So excited to see Grandma!

 
Had to get in a horsie ride on Grandpa before bed!

Emery loves Grandpa, and was having so much fun playing with him.  I love this video and the conversation they have in the middle... so typical Emery!

The next morning we made Monkey Bread and just relaxed a couple hours before we had to head back to Atlanta.

4 generations on Mother's Day!

 
Cuddling with Grandma on the swing:

Before we left, we had to get our traditional swing picture of Emery and Kyle.  She's getting so big!  (I think this was the last one we took)

Although this is more like it, these days...

Happy Mother's Day!

Merrin turns ONE!

On Saturday of Mother's Day weekend, we headed to Shelby, NC to celebrate Merrin's 1st Birthday! The weather could not have been more perfect for an outside party, with delicious food and cute decorations! 

We really enjoyed talking to everyone in their families and looking at all the pictures of Merrin this past year.

Next was time for cake!  Merrin was pretty hesitant at first but then got the hang of it and loved her home made butter cream frosting. 

I think she has a sweet tooth! 

For all the guests they ordered some of their favorite cupcakes from a bakery in Chapel Hill.  YUM!

And we had to take a couple pictures of our cutie too!

Merrin had a great time opening all of her gifts too.  One thing I haven't mentioned on here yet is that she has a broken leg.  It's actually the top of her femur, near her hip, but she was a great sport and acted like it was no big deal.  Luckily she doesn't need surgery and will only have a hard splint on for 3 weeks.  It's too funny that Lauren had a broken leg at her first birthday party too... like mother like daughter!

Before we knew it, it was time for us to go.  Merrin wanted to give Emery a hug though before we left :)

Still can't believe our girls are ONE!  Happy Birthday Merrin!

Whirlwind

There has been so much going on these last few weeks. Trying to write it all down in a blog post is not only time consuming but a little intimidating to use the correct words. But I just have to share, if only to show God's grace & provision for our family!

I shared how Kyle took a new job with Rubbermaid on our blog, but I left out one teeny-tiny super exciting part ;)  With this job, in 6-9 months we are able to transfer to Charlotte, North Carolina! (Probably start looking in December with the plans to be there in January).  Charlotte is where Kyle and I lived when we first got married, and we are so pumped to get back there and be closer to some of our best friends and family.  We immediately put our town home up on the market, trying to be proactive in selling it so that when we do move we won't have to deal with the burden of two mortgages next year.  

Well it was up for 10 days, and after 5 showings we got an offer!  We were "under contract" for about 4 days (4 craziest days ever as the couple wanted to move in by May 31st -- so lots of driving around the city & looking online for homes to rent).  On Wednesday of this week though, the news came that the contract had been canceled due to the buyers not being able to get financing.  Kyle and I both agree this was a blessing in disguise as packing up our house (with a toddler) and finding a new place to rent in less than 2 weeks was going to be insane.  Either way, our house is now back on the market as of yesterday and hopefully we'll have some more people interested in it over the next couple months!

One of the biggest reasons we didn't share the moving news on our blog was because of my work.  I didn't know how much longer I would be working and I didn't want word getting back that we were moving quite yet.  I officially have been working from home and taking care of Emery for an entire year now, and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to do both.  But on the other hand, I knew that this was not a long term solution as Emery will be dropping her second nap any day now, and as she has gotten more mobile I don't want us to be tied down at home near my computer everyday.


On Monday April 23rd, I went into the office with the plans of talking to my boss about setting an end date for me, depending on how long it would take to train someone new and/or finish large projects that are going on.  Well God had another plan in mind!  That same morning, my boss called me into her office with tears in her eyes letting me know that my job as well as one other in our marketing department needed to be eliminated based on financial issues that our company is having.  Our department is one that has never been affected by this issue in the past, and unfortunately we had to be this time.  Even though that news is never easy to hear, it could not have worked out better for me and my family.  I can't go into more details on that, but we are so blessed by this outcome.  God is so good.


So, today is actually my last official day working, and this past Monday was my last day going into the office.  It was bittersweet to give everyone hugs and say goodbye, but I have such a peace about it and am SO excited to officially be a stay-at-home mom! Lacey brought in a yummy Panera breakfast, and then a large group of us went out to lunch to celebrate my last day.  I also came home with these beautiful flowers, one delivered from Ky and one from my boss, Donna.  It truly has been a great 4 year run with this company.

We also met Lacey last week for dinner to celebrate and just talk about everything going on.  I feel like it was just yesterday when we were both hired only a couple months apart from each other, and I have been so blessed to get to work with her for the past 4 years.  We are really such a great team, and I will always consider her a best friend. This change is not going to be easy on Lacey as she now will have the work of 2 of her friends added to her plate.  I have agreed to freelance for them during busy times though, so don't worry Lacey I'm still here if you need me. Love you girl!

Alright if you made it to the bottom of this post, that is all of our news, phew!  Kyle, Emery and I are so excited about this new phase happening in our lives and I feel so blessed that my goal of being a stay-at-home mom is happening!  Please keep your fingers crossed that an awesome buyer comes along for us before December... NC here we come!

Wordless Wednesday: Me & Bubby

Chicken Broccoli Supreme Recipe

I had been eying this recipe for a while, and the other week I noticed I had all the ingredients on hand (love it when that happens!).  It was absolutely delicious... I wouldn't say it's the healthiest for you, but hey it has broccoli in it right?  Plus the satisfaction of making cream of chicken soup from scratch always makes me feel like a professional chef in the kitchen too :) 

FRENCH CHICKEN BROCCOLI SUPREME

Ingredients:

1 – lb. fresh broccoli Break in pieces, and steam for 2 minutes.
3 cups cooked chicken breasts  – Break up in small pieces
3 cups Grated Cheddar Cheese divided
2 tubes Ritz Crackers (Kyle and I agreed that it could be less... ours was almost too much topping!)
1  stick melted butter
1 tablespoon poppy seeds

SAUCE:
1/3 cup Butter- melted
1/4 cups Cornstarch, dissolved in 1/2 cup COLD Water
1/3 cup Chicken Broth
1/4 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
2 Cups Milk
1 1/2 cups of the above Cheddar Cheese

Directions:

In greased 13×9 pan, layer the broccoli and chicken, then set aside. In saucepan over medium heat, combine the melted butter, cornstarch dissolved in water, chicken broth, seasonings, and milk. Stir well, and continue stirring until sauce has thickened. Turn heat down to low, and add 1- 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese. Stir until melted. Pour over the chicken and broccoli. Top with 1- 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese.

Melt the butter, and add the poppy seeds, and stir well. Crush Ritz crackers in large zip-lock bag with a rolling pin. Don’t crush too small. Add crumbs to the melted butter. Sprinkle crumbs over the top of the grated cheese.

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until hot & bubbly. Eat and enjoy!

Caleb turns ONE!

While we were home in Raleigh we also got to celebrate our nephew, Caleb, turning 1!  He is so cute and so big, I just can't believe he's already one.  Here is "Mr. One-derful" himself!

 Brad's mom, Julia, made both his smash cake and cake for all the guests.  So cute and delicious!

Singing and blowing out his candle!

He didn't know what to think of the icing!

But then got the hang of it and was so cute sharing with everyone!

Oh and I have to share some sweet cousin moments we caught too.  Here's Caleb hugging Em:

And then Gunney came in for a big hug too.  Still can't believe all our kiddos are so close in age!
Happy Birthday Caleb, we love you!