What's Cookin' Good Lookin'

If you remember my post from earlier this year, you'll recall that I had a goal to cook dinner more.

While I'll admit we had a brief period where we went back to eating out too much, I am back in FULL force and am LOVING cooking.

I figured to stay on top of my goal and keep cooking, I'd share my menu plan with you all and some tips and tricks along the way.

Here is my menu for last week:

On Monday we had Chicken Crescent Roll Casserole.

I found the recipe via Pinterest and am so glad I did. Here is a link to the actual website too.

Andrew absolutely loved them and they were great as left overs too. He even was upset that I took the leftovers to work for lunch and didn't leave him any; he loved them that much.

We served them with salad and it was a great dinner overall.

On Tuesday we had breakfast for dinner.

We made sausage, scrambled eggs, and waffles; it was delicious.

On Wednesday we had Pigs in a Blanket.

They're always easy and always so yummy. Definitely a good thing to make if you're short on time or have to work late.

On Thursday we had the new Kraft Homestyle Macaroni and Cheese.

I had a coupon and wanted to try something new so I went ahead and bought the Homestyle Macaroni and Cheese when I was at the store. 

I'm glad I did because it was quite delicious and my hubby was able to make it because I worked late.

On Friday I got off early so I wanted to make something nice. 

I decided to make a recipe I found on Pinterest awhile ago that I had made before.

I made Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil Pasta.

This recipe is very lemony and very delicious. 

I'm glad this blog was willing to share her recipe with us all.

Each week I plan for one night out, date night, or time with friends family. 

As a result, on Saturday we went over to my parents' house to watch the UFC fights and have a grand old time.

I enjoyed my day off from cooking and enjoyed the yummy pizza and wings. :]

Last but not least, on Sunday we had White Chicken Enchiladas.

I made them on Christmas so I knew they were good (original recipe found here), but they were even more delicious the second time.

This was the only recipe my hubby didn't LOVE and that's because he hates sour cream. I didn't think he'd notice it but I guess he could...lessons learned in cooking for your husband I guess.

I'm so glad we had such a successful first week in following our menu plan and can't wait for future menus.

Some things I found that make cooking more fun and successful:

-Use Pinterest to find new recipes and actually TRY them. I try to make at least one new thing a week.

-Make your menu ahead of time. It's easier to shop for everything you need and actually stick to your menu if you have a plan.

-Don't be afraid of leftovers. If you cook too much, you just have lunch for the next day.

-Have fun, try new things, and just get cooking!

I hope you enjoyed this week's menu and look forward to next week's!

Please feel free to share your menu with me each week! I think it's easier to make new recipes and get out of a cooking rut if you talk to others.

HAPPY COOKING!

Valentine's Decor for a Killer Deal

Have you guys heard of GroopDealz before? It is AMAZING!

It's a place where cute shops sell their products at a discounted rate and the buyers get to enjoy the items AND save money. WHO WOULDN'T LOVE THAT?! :]

I've bought quite a few things from them before and I've loved everything I've ordered!

In fact, with Valentine's Day coming up, I ordered some really cute pillow covers and I can't wait to get them.

Here is a picture of the beauties:

Aren't they ADORABLE?! They are just what I need to add some cute Valentine's Decor to my front room. In fact, the LOVE pillow cover would be cute for any girl's room.

Since I loved this deal, I wanted to share it with you all. 

You have about 23 hours left to get these pillow covers at 38% off. You can get each pillow cover for $7.50...or be like me and buy one of each.

I hope you like this deal just as much as I do. Or, find something else you love while looking at GroopDealz

HAPPY SHOPPING!

To Earn Your Dessert...

I have recently had the urge to BAKE BAKE BAKE, but that doesn't help me achieve my goals of eating healthier...

In the last few weeks, I've made a couple different types of cookies, been tempted with candy, and even had the urge to make lemon bars. And do these foods sound healthy to you? I didn't think so.

So as a result, tonight we came up with a new way of "earning your dessert" around these parts.

Before I cut myself a piece of these Lemon Bars I had to do one thing:

100 JUMPING JACKS

It's nothing big or too hard, but definitely gets you moving before you get to eat your treat.

I think I'm going to do this from now on so if I do decide to eat a treat (which won't be too often), I will feel more like I earned it.

Sounds like a plan right?!

What do you think? Are you going to start "earning your dessert" too? ;]

THIS is HALLOWEEN!

I've been MIA for almost a month and I'm sorry.

There have been a lot of family events and Halloween planning around here and I just got distracted from the blog. I'll try to do better from now on...ESPECIALLY with so many fun things to show you this month.

This month will include posts about:

Decorations

Parties

Food

and EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN!

For now I'll share with you the "Save the Dates" I made for all of the fun Halloween activities I have in store:

I saw the template on Pinterest and altered it to fit my needs. Here's the original:

You can find an empty template by following the link...just another reason why I LOVE PINTEREST.

And speaking of the events I planned...tonight was the HAUNTED HOUSE DECORATING CONTEST.
My good friend Meagan was willing to host tonight's event and I was so thankful!

Each couple was in charge of bringing their own house and we decided to do an Italian themed potluck.

I decided to bring Fettuccine Alfredo and really cute Frankenstein Brownies.

I can't take credit for thinking these up all on my own. I saw them online a few years ago (Maybe on Betty Crocker?!) and made them for a Linger Longer but decided to make them again tonight! They were quite tasty if I do say so myself.

**On a side note, it was really rainy tonight and I had to put a tray on top of these to make sure they didn't get all wet and gross. On the way home there were left overs and I put them on my lap, but without thinking I started to get out of the car and DOWN the brownies went into the gutter. This may be a blessing in disguise though since I won't be tempted to eat these tasty (high calorie) treats, haha.**

Anyways, we ate good food and then decided to decorate our houses.

It was a lot of fun seeing what people decided to do to their houses. I don't have any pictures yet because Meagan took some on her camera, so I'll update this post when I get them.

I do have a picture of our finished house though:

We didn't win 1st place but I think it turned out pretty dang cute! Much better than last years:

Needless to say it was a lot of fun!

To top the night off I made cute favors for people to take home:

I saw an adorable favor idea on Pinterest awhile ago and knew I wanted to incorporate it into the holiday season. Here is the original pin:

CUTE HUH?! While out shopping I made sure I picked up Ghost Peeps, Graham Crackers, Hershey's Chocolate Bars, Ribbon, and clear bags.

I took a clear bag and put 1 graham cracker (broken in half along the line...so two pieces) in the bag, topped it with two Hershey's bars, and topped it with one Ghost Peep.

I tied the bag with black ribbon and knew it was missing a cute tag...

See what I mean? Cute...but missing something.

So I thought up a saying and went to creating. This is what I came up with:

Thank you for HAUNTING by! We can't wait to see you s'more this month at all of our spooktacular events."

Then I just added them to the bags for a very cute result:

I love having favors at events and think these turned out so cute.

I can't wait for the rest of the Halloween events and can't wait to have a great Halloween season. :]

Have you done anything Spooktacular lately?!

I may be a nerd...

I may be a nerd, but I'm SO STOKED TO SAY that you can find THREE of my projects/ideas on Pinterest!

How did I find out you may ask? Well thanks to the lucky "stats" button I talked about a week or so ago.

The stats button can be found right on your homepage and I highly recommend clicking on it to see what you find:

Today when looking at my stats, I noticed that one of the traffic sources was a Pinterest site.

When I clicked on it I found my lump-less pillows tip, which was AWESOME, but in the corner I noticed something that made me even happier...

A link to ALL of my pinned projects:

Isn't that AWESOME?! I feel like I'm famous or something, haha!

With all this excitement, I figured if others want to check out my ideas that you might like to too, so here are some quick links straight to the projects that have been pinned:

Here's the link to my post titled: A Helpful Tip where I talked about how to wash and dry your pillows without leaving them lumpy and deformed.

Also, here is the link to my post titled: The Many Reasons Why I Love You where you will find two projects! One is a present I did for Andrew where I gave him 22 gifts with 22 reasons why I love him:

The second project was Andrew's present this year! I gave him a book that mentioned 24 reasons why I love him that I will add a reason to each year:

I hope that you guys enjoy my projects and ideas! I'm so glad that people enjoyed them enough to pin them and I hope to share more fun projects in the future.

A Helpful Tip

Have you ever tried to wash pillows but once the process was through they ended up completely deformed and lumpy?

Well have I got a SOLUTION for you!

When looking at the care instructions for some of our bedroom pillows, it had a piece of information I would have never thought of.

It said to dry our pillows with some clean TENNIS BALLS!

I was a little skeptical that it would work and was afraid that the green from the tennis ball might rub off on my white pillows, but let me tell you...I WAS WRONG!

After washing my two pillows, I grabbed my three tennis balls I had from when Andrew and I attempted to play tennis (haha) and just threw them right in the dryer along with the pillows. 

My pillows finished drying, and I pulled them out...THEY ARE GOOD AS NEW!

I don't see any green stains and no pillow lumps are there.

I'm so glad that I found this tip and can't wait to see if it works on all our pillows!
The only negative aspect of this is the noise the tennis balls make in the dryer, however I think it's all worth it if

there are no more lumpy pillows for the Lawrences!

One DESIRABLE Husband

So I've recently found out about the STATS button on Blogger.

Maybe you've seen it here?:

This little button is AWESOME and tells you a TON about your blog.

It tells you how many people are visiting your blog, how they are finding your blog, what they are reading, etc.

I LOVE that they have this option because I always thought no one read my blog, but it turns out, people just don't comment!

I know we all love comments, but at least it's nice to know that people are reading, right?!

That's what I keep telling myself.

Anyways, under the stats option you can also find more details about your blog traffic.

If you click "Traffic Sources" and then "All Time," it tells you your "Referring URLs," "Referring Sites," and a very interesting "Search Keywords."

Now I'm not too sure how the last one works... I can only assume that it takes searches through Google and other search engines and tells you what people searched when they found your blog.

Here is where I don't know if I should be flattered I have a HOT husband or worried I have competition.

You see, my top two search keywords are:

That means at least 21 people (and that's only what the site TRACKS) are wondering if Andrew Lawrence is a married man.

Why oh why would someone search this?

Should I be worried?

Either way I guess I have one DESIRABLE man for a husband. ;]

I mean, I already knew that because LOOK at him:

What's not to LOVE?!

I can only assume that many other ladies just want my man as well...that or...

REMEMBER THIS GUY?

Who now looks like this...

I mean I GUESS they may be looking for him?

It's not impossible that they'd want the actor Andrew Lawrence and I guess I shouldn't rule him out...

Either way I know I'm married to one HOT guy and am the luckiest girl in the world, whether they're searching for the hard working roofer, or the child star. ;]

Do you have any funny "search keywords" on your blog?