pizza friday's

Back in the day when the boys were a little younger, okay more like last summer, we always designated Friday nights as pizza and a movie night. We let the boys pick a movie and we would all pile up on the couch and just hang out as a family. It was great! I loved our Friday nights! I miss our Friday nights. I think they are going to make a come back really soon. 

When we were poor I would always make home made pizza, but then it just got easier to order Dominos (and less messy too!). But then I started to miss making home homemade pizza with the boys. 

Does it make a HUGE mess? Yes, of course it does. But it can be cleaned. 

Do they always eat the ingredients before they make it onto the actual pizzas? Duh! What kid wouldn't?

But it always so much fun to gather in the kitchen and pick out what they want on their own pizzas. I mean look at these happy faces...

(2009)

 (2012)

Now our big thing has been cooking outside. With the weather so nice these past few weeks it makes it really hard to not want to cook outside. Then on Pinterest one day I saw that people were grilling pizza. 

Ya, I know. I thought they were crazy too. 

After seeing several pics of people grilling pizza and doing some more reading into it I thought I would give it a shot. worst thing that could happen is I completely screw it up and we eat takeout that night.

Ingredients:

2 boxes Jiffy pizza crust or you can make your own using the recipe below

Pizza sauce

Mozzarella cheese

Pizza Toppings of Your Choice:

Pepperoni        Ground Beef 

Sausage                  Ham

Chicken               Pesto

Peppers                 Onions

Olives               Jalapeños

Mix and match with whatever you like! 

Directions:

1. Start by making your crust. Either out of a box or from scratch. While your crust is rising, preheat your grill.

2. Once your dough has risen, form a ball and cut in half. 

3. On a piece of wax paper brush on some olive oil.

4. With each half roll out a crust on the oiled wax paper. You don't want to go to thin or it will not work on the grill. 

5. Gather all of your toppings so they will be easily accessible. 

6. Once you are ready to grill your pizza flip your crust over so that the wax paper is facing up. The wax paper will will pull right off. 

7. Let the crust cook with the lid open for 6-8 minutes (mine was on medium)

8. Once cooked flip over and start applying your sauce then toppings.

9. Close lid and let cook another 5 minutes.

10. Remove from grill, let cool and enjoy!

A Mini Vacation and a Graduation

It's sad to say that I am just now getting around to blogging about our little mini family vacay that we took almost two weeks ago! It has been so crazy with the school year coming to a close, me starting school (i'll have to blog about that after my final), kids running around, birthdays and lots of things needing to be done around the house. 

But here I am ready to go into picture overload mode. 

We usually don't take many vacations during the school year, especially if the boys will have to miss any days, but Michael's little brother was graduating with his masters from seminary (we are so proud of him!) so we decided to pull the kids out of school for a couple of days and make a quick road trip to go see him walk the stage. 

We started our trip off a day early so we could take the boys to Great Wolf Lodge and spend a little bit of time together as a family. Work has been crazy for Michael so it was fun to just hang out without the worry of work. Our friends have always told us about Great Wolf, we had just never been ourselves. It was so much fun that now we can't wait to go back! 

If you have never been I would highly reccomend going. The kids will love it!!

The boys loved the 'wolf den' that they got to stay in. They felt special that they had their own little space, even if it was just for one night. 

So perfect for two little boys! 

That night Michael's sister flew in from Missouri so we all met up with his little brother for dinner. We went a mexican food place called Mi Cocina. It wasn't too shabby for mexican food east of here. The crazy part being while we were outside waiting on our table Troy Aikman (Dallas Cowboys Troy Aikman) walks out! I don't watch football but I know who he is and my SIL just loves him and was speechless. The look on her face was priceless. Apparently it is one of his fave restaurants to eat at and is there all the time. Who knew? He was much taller and tanner in person than I would have imagined.

And here we all are...

Since we were at dinner so late we got up bright and early the next morning for a hearty breakfast before we headed down to the water park. 

It was this huge breakfast buffet and Tyler chose cereal. Crazy boy!

Me and my man

Love him to pieces! 

Unlike Tyler, I had an awesome breakfast!

Then went back for more bacon.

Right before putting the phone away so we could go down our first water slide.

(we don't get many family pics so I absolutely love this one) 

The boys are ready! 

One of the many fun play areas that they have for the kids

 

Tyler did not want anymore pictures so I got Jake to take pics with us (: 

He is such a sweet boy.

  

Another family pic! 

Two in one day is just unheard of for us!

After our super fun and exciting day at Great Wolf we headed up the car and headed for the Holiday Inn to get cleaned up and ready for Ethan's graduation. You should see five people in one room trying to shower and get ready in less than two hours. But after all was said and done we met up with Michael's parents and headed for the church. 

It was really weird being in a place with so many well educated people. I felt bad at times because I had no clue what they were talking about. The boys were so exhausted from swimming that they fell asleep within 5 minutes.

WooHoo Ethan! 

We are so proud of Ethan for his hard work and dedication to his education. We pray he finds a pastoral job that he will love grow even more in Christ in. 

The next morning we all gathered for breakfast at Torchy's Tacos (and it was delicious!) before we all went our separate ways. 

We enjoyed the time with family we rarely get to see and missed the ones who couldn't be there with us. 

We hope to get to see everyone again soon! 

I Absolutely LOVE Rainy Days

Happy Saturday Lovelies! 

Hope that you had a fantastic week and that you are enjoying your extended holiday weekend.

This week I worked so hard to make my pool super pretty for this weekend. Happily Mother Nature had other plans. We are supposed to get rain all weekend long. And I couldn't be more excited! We desperately need it. In a really bad way. So the more rain the merrier. Plus, as much as I like laying out in the pool, I love sitting on the porch and listening to the rain even more!

Bring on the rain clouds!!!

The most entertaining part was realizing that Miss Molly had never seen the rain. And talk about excited! She ran around the entire yard trying to catch the rain. 

What I love even more than the rainy weather is the fact that I can make rainy day soups! 

Here is one of m super fave rainy day recipes...

Ingredients:

4 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces

16 ounces chicken stock

3 tsp flour

2 cups of milk (I used 2%)

1 cup heavy cream

Salt & Pepper to taste

Red pepper flakes, optional

Garnish:

Colby jack cheese

Green onion

Bacon 

Directions:

1. Heat your chicken stock in a medium saucepan over high heat.

2. Peel, wash and cut up your potatoes. Add to chicken stock, cover and cook until fall apart tender.

3. While the potatoes are cooking whisk together your flour and milk.

4. Once the potatoes are falling apart and looking kind of mushy add the milk/flour mixture and the heavy cream. With a potato masher mash the potatoes until you get a chunky soup consistancy.

5. Add the heavy cream, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Put on low heat and let thicken.

6. Serve garnished with cheese, green onion and bacon.

boys.

I know I have not posted about my boys in a long while so I thought today would be about them.

This morning they were complete and total hams.

I love seeing there sweet smiles early in the morning.

I really love the 2.3 seconds that they are sweet loving brothers.

Then well all hell breaks loose until bedtime.

(Yes, I know the hair is a bit messy, but we are growing it out so they can have mohawks again this summer. It will only get worse over the next couple of weeks.)

Tyler saw some girl the other day on TV doing the famous 'duck face' that seems to be all the rage, so he thought he would give it his best try. Hilarious! I think he nailed it!