I'm Engaged :)

I have been gone way too long and I am so sorry. But life has been busy with the new job, and now I get to add wedding planning to my to-do list!! YAY! We went on a family vacation in February to Sun Valley, Idaho for a little skiing, and I came back with something VERY sparkly!

It's about damn time, I must say. We met in college and started dating early of 2005, took a little time apart for a couple years, got back together, found out we were having a baby, gave birth to our beautiful daughter in 2009 and he asked me to marry him the day after Valentine's day of this year!

Here's how it went down - we were skiing in Sun Valley, and there are 2 major mountains to ski on. Dollar Mountain, which is more for beginners or those people who like doing tricks, and then there's Baldy which is normally too icy for me. Adam wanted to spend a day at Baldy so we took a trip over there and Kinsley and I stayed in the lodge while he snowboarded that day. He came down and decided he wanted to take us to lunch at the restaraunt that is up in the mountain and you have to take a gondola to. So we rode the gondola up, and ate lunch with his brother and his brother's fiance and had a couple bottles of champagne. Lunch was over and it was time to go, but we decided to check out the view on the deck when this cutie decided to give me a little white box....

Adam took the easy way out and didn't get down on one knee because he was holding her while she was holding out the ring, and how can you say no to a face like that?! It was all really simple but that's exactly how I wanted it to be, so it was perfect :)

This is the view of where we got engaged....

Breathtaking!

So, that was the highlight of my trip to Idaho... obviously. But here are a couple of random pics from the trip.

Daddy and Kinsley ice skating!

My lil sweetie on Valentine's Day holding her new pink sock monkey, she loves sock monkeys.

She is such a champ! Look at her go! She didn't do so well on the ice though ;)

I had a blast, and now that I have a wedding to plan I will do my best to share all my ideas on here with everyone.


One more thing, I went to try on wedding dresses the other day, just for fun. We went to TWO places, the first one I found a couple ones I liked, but didn't love. And as I was leaving I told my sister and my best friend that I really really wanted a dress that had a lace top with a fun tulle bottom and buttons in the back.... so we made a trip to David's Bridal and I decided I should call my mom to have her come look at dresses with us. And I tried it on. I found my dress in one day, and only had to go to TWO places!!! It is everything I wanted, lace, tulle, buttons... everything. So my dress is ordered and will be here in 6 weeks!! And here is a preview for all of you.... just don't share this with Adam. duh.

Oh Vera... how I love thee!!! 

Life doesn't get much better than this!

Ooops, I did it again!!

Yeah, you heard me.... HEALTHY!!
 I would rate this recipe "difficult" on a scale of easy to difficult, so follow closely.
Here we go....

What you need:

FROZEN banana

Cocoa Powder

Get all your sh*t together then....

PEEL your banana. If it's still super frozen (like mine was) I say just nuke it for like 30 seconds.... maybe doing it in intervals of 10 seconds. It worked for me, so it might work for you.

Take your frozen banana and put it into a blender. 

Add 2 tsp. cocoa powder.

BLEND.

Remove from blender and put into a bowl.

Put a spoon, or straw, or fork, or spatula.... or whatever you have nearby, into the bowl.

EAT  IT.

Did you get all that?? I know that was confusing so I hope you understood everything.

This crap is super yummy if you're a fan of bananas. I love all fruit, except pears, but I try not to discriminate. Also, this is really good kid food. My little turd nugget gobbled this right up.

 Also, you could probably add strawberries and make it like a milkshake but just use all frozen fruit, don't take my word for that because it might not turn out right, it's just an idea. Good luck in all of your endeavors.

This is Bella. She's my cat.

Bella says bye f*ckers, it's time for a nap!!! (and NOOOO, I did not name her after that Twilight bitch, she was born well before those wonderful movies, so I'm not one of those people. Don't worry)

Side note: I don't think Kristen Stewart is a bitch, I do not know her. She's real pretty, sometimes. So good for her.

Strawberry and Banana Chocolate Nachos!!

This might be the most delicious recipe I have ever found in my life. I found the strawberry nachos on pinterest and decided to mix it up and add bananas and HOLY SH*T this is effing amazing!!!

Ingredients:
Flour Tortilla
Butter - melted
Cinnamon
Sugar
Strawberries (aprox 5, chopped up)
Banana (I used half)
Chocolate Chips
Vegetable Oil

Preheat oven to 350.

While the oven is preheating, add some sugar to your strawberries, and then set them aside. I used 2 packets of splenda and it was plenty. So, you only need a little bit, depending on how sweet you like it.

Do this, and set it aside.

NEXT, get your tortillas out and butter them. Like so...

THEN, get that cinnamon and sugar and cover that baby. My advice - go overboard. Too much is never a bad thing in this scenario.

Cut it up like a pizza.

Toss it on a baking sheet and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes. While your "Nacho chips" are baking, start melting your chocolate. Add a little bit of vegetable oil to make it drizzable.

You're chips should be getting close to done now, so you can go ahead and pull it out... (that's what she said)

Now that my strawberries are nice and sweet I chopped up some bananners and added them into the mix.

This is the easy part. Put your fruit on the chips.

Now you can add the chocolate. Drizzle it EVERYWHERE. The more the merrier, I say.

Now, go grab a fork and about 50 napkins, unbutton your pants, and ENJOY!!

DIPS!!!!

Okay, so I said I would give you guys some amazing dip recipes a while back and here I am, like 8 million days later finally doing this. We have been sick since Christmas and I just haven't been motivated to do a whole lot, so I apologize. But I'm here now, so don't be sad!!


Oh, and FYI these are all crock pot dips. You can make them in the oven if you prefer, but the way I have the recipes set up is to just dump the food straight into the crock pot and heat it up.

And FYI again, these dips are the brain children of my good friend Angela, so I can't really take credit for any of these but they were SOOOO good that I had to share. I DID assist her in making these dips, so I can take like 1/8 of the credit. If you make it and really like it, just remember to thank me for all of my hard work :) hahahah

THANK YOU ANGELA!!

Let's get this sh*t started shall we?!


#1 - BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP!!

Oooooh.... sounds so yummy doesn't it!?

Ingredients:
3 boneless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
1 8 oz. cream cheese
1 cup of ranch dressing
1 cup hot sauce (we prefer Frank's Red Hot Sauce)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Dump it all into a crock pot on either HIGH or about 400 until it gets nice and hot. Make sure to stir every so often. When it's all done, set it on a low temp to keep warm.

Soooo.... since I am such a crappy blogger, I took pictures of all the food BEFORE it started cooking and then forgot to take the AFTER pictures And those are the most important ones... I am being a total failure, I really need to get my sh*t together! But I got too hungry and forgot, then started drinking champagne. Ooopsy! So, all of my AFTER photos have been borrowed from www.allrecipes.com which, by the way, is one of my absolute most favorite places to find recipes ever. So... THANK YOU allrecipes.com :)

I would say tortilla chips are the best for dipping in this sauce. You can try whatever the heck you want, but that's what you should use. Because I said so.




#2 - 3-2-1 DIP!

So, the name of the dip differs from person to person. I have heard 3-2-1 and white trash dip, I am sure there are a bazillion other names but we'll go with 3-2-1 here.

Ingredients:
3 - 8 oz. blocks of cream cheese
2 - 10 oz. cans of rotel
1 lb of sausage, cooked

Do you see where the 3-2-1 comes from now? Super easy. So dump all of your ingredients into your crock pot and cook til it gets warm. Doesn't take a genius to figure this out.

BEFORE

AFTER (thanks to allrecipes.com)

Serve with tortilla chips also. Or Frito Scoops. Same difference.



#3 - PIZZA DIP

Disclaimer: This dip is AMAZING. Make sure to make a crap-ton of it. You might be sorry you didn't.

Ingredients:
1 - 14 oz. jar of pizza sauce
2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
1 - 8 oz. block of cream cheese
2 - 6 oz. packages of diced pepperoni

Now, with this dip you can get as wild as you want. You can add black olives, onions, peppers, bacon, Italian sausage, ham, pineapple.... pretty much ANYTHING your heart desires can go into this dip. We kept it simple with just pepperoni because, well... who doesn't love pepperoni? And it was a hit.

BEFORE

AFTER (allrecipes.com - hence the vegetables in the dip, NOT MINE!!) yuck.

 So, with this dip we bought a dough for thin crust pizza, and just baked it with nothing on top and used it to dip. It was DELISH! Now, you can use garlic bread, Italian bread, bruschetta, pita bread.... it doesn't really matter. Use all of them for all I care.

Now, remember these next time you throw a party or small get together, and if you have one of these....

... you can make all 3 dips at one time! Holy balls, it is amazing. Thanks for coming back and reading this after I have been gone for so long. My bad. I will do my best to not make you wait that long ever again. Hope you all had a fantastic New Years and may this year bring you everything you have ever wanted and more. Peace out!!


Special thanks to Dip Master Angela for helping make all of these dips, couldn't have done it without you!!!