Oh, Hey There..

Hi! Remember me?! It's been a while.. I've been having the hardest time actually finding time to blog lately. Juggling three kids has proven to be quite the challenge. Once I find my balance though, I should be good to go.

So.. Yesterday was Hubster's birthday. For the most part, it was like any other day. He worked. I woke up, got Veronica and Adri ready for school, then spent the rest of the day with Juli. To celebrate, we went to dinner at what has become one of our favorite restaurants, Monkeypod Kitchen.

As you can see, Juli came along for the fun. For someone who spends the majority of their day crying, she behaved rather well at the restaurant. I did have to pop her on the boob a couple of times, but can you blame her for wanting to eat at this yummy restaurant too..?!

You may remember that finding a favorite local restaurant was on my Hawaiian bucket list. I think it's safe to say that we can scratch that off of the list. Several other items have been accomplished from my list, so it may be time to do a bit of a recap/update post.

Last night I chose a winner for the Dr. Brown's giveaway with the help of Random.org. The winner has been notified.

Thanks for sticking around, friends! I have a feeling that once my parents head back home next week, I might have an easier time updating this blog thing. 

Five Years

It all started at a lunch date with a different guy. As a senior sorority girl, I was on the hunt for a fraternity little brother. One of my actual little brother's high school friends seemed like the perfect choice, so I forced him into getting lunch with me on campus. Lucky for me, he brought a couple of his weirdo fraternity brothers. My sorority had done a bunch of events with this fraternity in the past, but since they were the "nerdy" group, I purposely skipped out on ALL of those events.

Not too long after the lunch date, fraternity rush started. I also happened to be in the running for homecoming queen at the time. In an exchange for bringing girls to the fraternity house, one of the nerdy boys promised votes. Yay for being forced to go rep the loser frat. At one of the rush events, one of the previously mentioned weirdo brothers insisted on chatting with me. He was the big brother of the kid that I also wanted as a little brother. Could this be my way in to big sister land?

It was! I got an amazing little brother along with a random number texting me. I entertained these texts for a while, and started hanging out more at the fraternity house. My best friend insisted that I give the weirdo, who was slightly older than average college age, a chance. It took some serious convincing, but we started hanging out, and he actually wasn't that bad. Eventually, weirdo kid became boyfriend. He was in ROTC, and although I had no idea what that meant, he sure did look sexy in his Soldier uniform.

Fast forward to the spring semester. The boy was set to graduated and commission with orders to Fort Lewis, Washington, while I still had one more painful semester left in Miami. He was literally going to be across the country. While I guess a long distance relationship could have worked, it wasn't something I was overly excited about. So, at the ROTC's end of the year dining out, and only six months into our relationship, John asked me to marry him and leave behind my flip flops and warm weather for Washington. 

Originally, the plan was to wait until after I graduated and get married in December or January. Some how between April 2, when he proposed, and May 1, when we got married, plans changed. I'll be honest. Some of it had to do with benefits and extra pay. Either way, I was going to be in school and living with the parentals until December/January, and we were going to get married anyway, so why not sign some papers a few months early, and then plan a big event for some other time. So romantic, I know.

On May 1, 2009 Johnny and I tied the knot. It was a small-ish ceremony at my parent's house. And by small-ish I mean some family and sorority sisters and an entire fraternity. In the end, it ended up being a drunken frat party, but I would not have had it any other way. Our wedding was far from traditional and I'm quite happy with that.

Five years later and things are still going wonderfully. We have two beautiful little girls with another on the way. I have an amazing husband who loves me no matter what craziness comes out of my mouth. He puts up with my lack of organization and my off the wall ideas like cloth diapering. I'm so happy to have found my love and taken the chance of jumping into marriage. Five down, 75 to go.

I love you Bubby!

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Date Night Dinner at Home

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Like I mentioned recently, Hubster and I don't have many chances to go out on date nights. That doesn't mean we don't enjoy having date nights at home. For me, date night usually revolves around a nice dinner. A few of my favorites include Ruth's Chris, The Melting Pot, and Texas de Brazil.

For Valentine's, I though it would be nice to make a nice dinner at home, inspired by Ruth's Chris. I've made it before, and I was surprised by how effortless the process was. I used a few tricks that I learned on the Food Network, and the meal turned out a million times more delicious than I was expecting. The only thing missing from this ritzy dinner was an ultra attentive waiter and a pricey bill at the end. And maybe some creme brûlée, but I might even be attempting that this time around.

So.. On the menu: baked breaded mushrooms, filet mignon, and creamed spinach. The key to getting this dinner to come together at the same time is to be working on all aspects at once. It might sound complicated, but since everything is so simple, it's relatively easy to do all at once.

Baked Breaded Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• 8 oz box of whole mushrooms
• 2 Eggs 
• 1 tbsp Milk
• 3/4 cup Italian Breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Cooking spray

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Lightly spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.
2. Clean and dry your mushrooms.
3. Whisk together eggs and milk in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, and salt & pepper.
4. Dip each mushroom in the egg mixture, then bread crumbs, and coat evenly.  Dip each mushroom a second time in the egg mixture, followed by bread crumbs, and place on baking sheet. 
5. Lightly spray the tops of the mushrooms with cooking spray before placing in the oven.
6. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Filet Mignon

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp Butter
• 2 Filets/Boneless Tenderloin Steaks
• Salt & Pepper

Directions: 

1. Remove steak from refrigerator approximately half an hour before cooking to allow it to come to room temperature.
2. Heat a pan over medium-high heat until hot. Melt butter in pan. 
3. As the butter is melting, pat each steak dry with a paper towel. Season each side liberally with salt and pepper.
4. Once the butter is hot and melted, add your steaks to the pan. DO NOT TOUCH THEM once you place them in the pan.
5. Let each steak cook for approximately 5 minutes on each side without moving them. Depending on the thickness of your steaks, you may need to cook on each side a little longer, but you should only touch them once in order to flip them. Five minutes on each side of an inch(ish) thick steak got me medium rare. Use a meat thermometer to be sure it's done to your liking. 
6. When done cooking, move the steaks to a plate, cover with foil, and allow to rest for 5 minutes.

Creamed Spinach

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp Butter
• 1/2 small Yellow Onion, chopped
• 3 cloves Garlic, minced
• 10 oz. package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• dash Nutmeg
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions: 

1. Melt butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic, and saute until soft, about 2 minutes. 
2. Add spinach to pot and stir, until heat through.
3. Add cream, nutmeg, and salt & pepper. Mix well to combine, and cook until cream has reduced by half, and is thick. 

Our plan is to be glued to Netflix all day catching the new season of House of Cards. I stocked up on Ben & Jerry's when I went grocery shopping this week. They had $1 off 2 coupons, and I couldn't resist.

Hope everyone has a lovely Valentine's day!

Linking up here!

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Dating My Husband

I apologize if you came here thinking this would be a post about how after being married five years, my husband and I go on monthly lovey dovey date nights. To be honest, with two toddlers and no babysitter, the only time we really go on dates is when we're back home. And we don't mind that. Watching TV with some wine and the kids in bed is perfectly acceptable evening for us. Instead, this post is about back in the day, before we were married, and I was actually dating my husband. You know.. For a seven whole months before we were married.

To say that I was bat shit crazy would be an understatement, in my opinion. And actually, I'm pretty sure I still am, but he's probably grown accustomed to it by now. I'm not exactly certain how I managed managed to trick him in to marriage, but he seems to think it was all his idea. Isn't he sweet?!

Just to give you guys an idea, here are some of the crazy things I used to do while dating my husband.  He probably has no idea that half of these things ever happened, but surprise! They did.

• If we ever happened to spend the night together, I always woke up early to go put some makeup on. I wouldn't go crazy or anything, just some foundation and mascara, to make it look like I woke up looking beautiful. He's lucky if I wear makeup at all these days. It's mostly for special occasions.
• This man has the ability to fall asleep standing up. In college, he lived on campus in a fraternity house which made it all too convenient for him to sleep all the damn time. There would be nights where we had plans, yet I'd get stood up, because sleeping beauty would be passed out in his room. On these nights, I'd drive by just to double check that cars were still in parking lots.

• Anytime we were in the car and a Taylor Swift song came on, I'd turn it up all the way. This was back when Taylor Swift's music actually felt like it applied to my life. You know, You Belong With Me and Love Story... Just for a special added touch, I'd sing certain lyrics extra loud as a sort of hint.
• Once we found out that he had orders to Fort Lewis, I whined a whole lot about how I was going to miss my boyfriend sooooo much. Miami to Tacoma, Washington, is literally across the entire country. I'm pretty sure that was the cherry on top. While I would have missed him tons, I'm fairly confident we would have been just fine. My mom works for an airline, so I got to fly for free all the time, which I took advantage of quite frequently while he was in BOLC.

Now I know I'm not the only crazy out there. Did anyone else do these sort of things?

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A Special Holiday Touch

I was provided with a complimentary Hickory Farms product in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own.

I think it was rather obvious that I was not in the best of moods around Christmas time. Things with our move were not going as planned, and it turned out that our household goods were not going to make it in time for me to decorate the house for the holidays. Instead of focusing on the fact that my family would be celebrating Christmas in Hawaii for the first time, I was lamenting the fact that we had bare walls.

Against my better judgement, we had our friends from Missouri over on Christmas Eve for dinner. Hubs and I love entertaining, but without all of our cool kitchen gadgets, it felt less like entertaining, and something closer to a cafeteria meal. Is that bad? Hehe. I made a frozen lasagna with some frozen garlic bread on the side. Nothing overly fancy for dinner here. I do have to say that Hickory Farms saved us when it came to some pre-meal snacks.

I received the Home for the Holidays Gift Box from Hickory Farms. As cheesy as it sounds, the box actually made our little get together feel like home. Since Hubster was deployed Christmas 2012, I was really looking forward to going all out with Christmas 2013. Without any of our household goods, it simply didn't feel like our celebration had that special touch. The fancy package with it's gourmet sausages and cheese were exactly what we would have had to offer if we had our home all put together. It was the one part of the evening that felt most like home.

Had Hubster been deployed for this last Christmas, Hickory Farms would have had me covered as well. On their website, Hickory Farms has a page that offers gift packages for the military that ship free to APO/FPO addresses. The amazing box that I received being one of them. Inside of the box there were seven different cheeses (the farmhouse cheddar being my favorite), four deployment-friendly sausages, two boxes of crackers, and two yummy spreads. All of which were in perfect condition even after sitting in the Hawaii heat.

I was extremely happy with everything about this wonderful gift box. It'd be perfect for any celebration whether it be for a service member or civilian, and it is something that I will keep in mind as a future gift option.

Have you tried a Hickory Farms product? Is this something you'd send to your deployed service member?

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Tristan and Eve Titanium Ring [Review]

I received this product complimentary for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Anyone who has ever met my husband, knows that he's sort of out there. He likes flashy things and being loud and obnoxious. One of the areas that he spares no expense in, is jewelry. However, if you've been reading this blog for a while, you'd know that we were robbed earlier this year while moving from Fort Stewart to Fort Leonard Wood. All of Hubster's jewelry fell victim to the thieves. 

Since we're not millionaires by any means, we have yet to be able to replace Hubster's missing sparkly items. Insurance only covered up to $1000 in jewelry, which left a huge gap between what was covered and the cost to replace everything.

When I saw that their was an opportunity to review a men's ring, I jumped at the opportunity. Hubster was away in Kansas when this lovely ring arrived. To say that I was anticipating his return and reaction to the ring is an understatement. As soon as he walked in the door the ring and the cute little bag that it came in were in his hand. His first reaction was to say, "What is this?". Like, how did my wife who stays at home with the kids and has no job, afford this.

That was pretty much the reaction I was hoping for. Although the stones in the ring are Cubic Zirconia, there is really no way that the average person could tell. The stones in these rings are optically flawless, and chosen for their sparkle and clarity. The ring itself is made of titanium which is ideal as a wedding band for someone in the military. Titanium is a strong, light metal which is scratch resistant. I think it's safe to say that a ring like this would do just fine out in the field or downrange.

Even though I received this product for free, had I known it existed before this, I would have purchased it myself. The ring retails on Amazon for $99.00, but the current sale price is $18.99. I immediately thought of all the young #MilSO girls on Twitter that are getting married soon, but might not be able to afford diamonds. For the quality and craftsmanship of the ring, you can't beat that price. I can not think of a more perfect piece of jewelry for a service member.

Even though the price of the ring is cheap. It's quality certainly isn't. Trust me, Hubs would not be wearing it if it felt or looked cheap. Another great thing about titanium is that it won't turn your skin green like other metals can, and it's hypoallergenic so there is virtually no chance of skin reactions.

If you're interested in purchasing a ring for the special man in your life, check it out here, for a ridiculously amazing price.




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Our Weekend

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I know we did! Hubster and I were able to get a bunch of things taken care of, mostly house related. His mom was here for a week, which helped us take care of a couple of things that we needed to do and go out on a date.

Thursday night we met with our realtor at a small restaurant here in town. I'm always hearing people talk about the place so I thought it would be great. I wasn't a huge fan and neither was Hubs. Our meeting went well though. He gave us the price point that he thinks our house will rent at, which is wonderful!

When we bought the house we signed a 30-year mortgage. About a year ago we refinanced to a 15-year mortgage. In doing that, our interest rate went down, but our payment went up a couple hundred dollars. No big deal since we're saving around $100,000 in interest. Well, our realtor hopes to rent this place out for just under what our current mortgage is. We'll still have to pay a small amout toward the mortgage, but I really don't mind since the bulk of the mortgage will essentially be paid by someone else.

Savannah Restaurant Week started on Friday, so we used that as an opportunity to get dressed up and have dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Ruth's Chris. During Restaurant Week, several upscale restaurants in Savannah offer a $30 dinner menu which includes a salad, entree and a side, and a dessert. There are just over 20 resaurants that are participating this time, most of which we've been to or heard of, but we'd also like to use this as an opportunity to try some new ones.

As usual, dinner was phenomenal! We ended up not completely sticking to the $30 menu and instead chose the $40 options in order to get more meat. At most restaurants I've started ordering medium-rare to avoid getting a well done burger/steak. At Ruth's Chris you really don't need to do that, but I ordered medium-rare anyway just to see what it was really supposed to be like. Holy crap! I finally know what it feels like to have a steak literally melt in your mouth.

Saturday morning we took the girls to the Ringling Bros. Circus. It's almost the exact same show that I remember seeing probably 15 or more years ago. It was fun though and the girls enjoyed it. Hubs was disappointed by the lack of lions and tigers, but the elephants were impressive!

 

Saturday and Sunday afternoon were spent getting the house renter ready. The yard needed a bunch of grass in the areas where they just laid pinestraw instead of grass. We did some beautification by planting little shrubs and adding a walkway. We still have a decent amount of sod in the driveway that we need to bring to the back yard, but so far I'm very happy with what we've gotten done and how it looks. The sod just needs to be watered in and it should look perfect!

Later this week we'll be headed down to Miami to finally get Baby A baptized and hangout for the rest of block leave. A bunch of the friends that we made up here will be going down as well. Because of them all deploying on opposite schedules of each other, this will be the first time that we're all together in years.