Smoked Paprika Pork

OK well I would have updated this sooner, but over Labor Day we decided to take a nice 6 hour trip up to my sister Holly's house. In my Tahoe was me and the 3 kids, by brother Travis and his wife Tessa, and Jamie. It was a very fun trip and we had lots of fun hitting flea markets, antique stores and of course the Thrift stores. That is our all time favorite new thing to do, and maybe I should post the good deals that we find at these places as well. I will think about that one.

So the pork dinner that I made was another huge success with the family and soooooo easy to make. Here is the recipe and I hope that you enjoy.


Smoked Paprika Pork

3 large garlic cloves, pressed
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 (2lb.) package pork tenderloin
1/2 C. whipping cream
2 (8.8oz) pouches ready-to-serve long-grain and wild rice mix
2 bacon slices, cooked and coarsely crumbled
Chopped fresh chives

1. Combine first 5 ingredients. Stir in oil. Pat tenderloins dry with paper towels. Rub paprika paste over tenderloins. Arrange in a greased 5 or 6 qt. oval slow cooker. Cover and cook on HIGH 1 hour. Reduce heat to LOW and cook 3 1/2 hours or until very tender.
2. Remove pork from slow cooker;cover and keep warm on a serving platter. Pour meat dripping into a large skillet. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add whipping cream; boil until slightly thickened, 6-7 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, microwave rice according to package directions. Spoon on platter, and top with pork. Remove sauce from heat; drizzle over pork. Sprinkle with bacon and chives.

Funny thing is that as I was writing this blog, I realized that I completely did not do step 2. hahahaha Anyways What I did a little different was when I put the pork in the slow cooker I completely covered it in the bacon- by just wrapping bacon all around the pork. Next time I try this I will make the sauce that goes with it and let you know if it is any better or not. Oh and I just used regular white rice and it was still very good. Hope everyone enjoys-I'll have to look over some more recipes that I have done to try. Yeah!!!!

Lets Try This......

Ok- Well since it seems that I can't keep up with posting a blog updating on my life or my kids I figure I will try something different. I know how hard it is to find some good recipes that everyone might like- so I thought that with new recipes I find and try out on my family aka the guinea pigs- I would share with all of you.(The few that actually do look at my blog)

OK so first the update on the family- We are all doing great right now. Summer went by way too fast for me and I can't believe that school has actually started again. Chase is 7 years old and in the second grade. He loves his teacher, but not so thrilled at the amount of homework that 2nd graders are bringing home. Kori is 6 years old and in the 1st grade now. She LOVES school, teacher, homework, and everything that has to do with school. She was soooo beyond ready to go back and didn't even want me to take her to her class. Just told me, "Mom, you can just drop me off." sniff sniff. Reef is 3 years old and let me tell you he is a handful. He needs to be in school all day every day. I don't think I was quite prepared for the handful that he is. He makes Kori look like a very calm, obedient child. lol Clint still works at the car dealership as the financial director. And last but not least I am still at home with Reef and enjoying every minute(well not every minute) And that is basically it- really we are very boring people and lead very boring normal lives which I am fine with. Ok now on to a couple of recipes.

If I can try to get pictures in here of what it looks like I will- but right now its just the recipe:

First one I found in a recipe book at my aunts house when we took the kids to Houston to go to NASA, the Health Museum, and the Museum of Natural Science. (Highly recommend these places to any and everyone even with kids. We all enjoyed this trip.) Anyways so I borrowed(stole) this book from my aunt and have fallen in love with the tons of recipes that i have written down to try. I promise that I will return the book to her.....one day.

Cheesy Chicken Breasts

6-8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
8-10 green onions, chopped (I don't like anything green, but I put these on anyways and even ate them)
2/3 Cup evaporated milk
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. pepper
Flour to dredge
1 stick of butter

Melt butter in the bottom of a 9X13 baking dish. Dip chicken breasts in flour and place in the baking dish. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 425 degrees. Turn chicken breasts over and bake 15 to 20 minutes longer. Remove dish and pour off excess grease. Sprinkle chopped green onions over chicken breasts. Mix evaporated milk, soup, cheese, salt, and pepper; pour over chicken and onions. Cover with foil and bake 15 to 20 minutes at 325 degrees. (When I put it on the plates to serve I top with more cheese just because I like cheese.)

This has become our new once a week dinner, and the kids eat every last bite of this and ask for more. Huge success!!!!!! Tonight I am trying another new recipe called Smoked Paprika Pork. I will let you know how it turns out.

New Year.....New Commitments

Alright- well first of all Happy New Year to everyone out there. Its the time of year where everyone says that things will start fresh, whether its with diets, to get more accomplished, etc. Well I have made a commitment to my self and also to my husband that I will start a new diet and actually stick with it this time, I have started a cleaning schedule of the house, and plan to stick with that as well, to prepare my kids for Bible Bowl every night before bed, to read more bible stories to Reef during the day and to get back on track with my daily bible studies. Wow!!! Writing that down seems like alot but I am up for doing it, and hopefully writing this down for people to see I can maybe get either help or encouragement from y'all to help me stick with it this time. See that is my downfall is to start something but can never seem to finish it. Alot like this blog, but I am going to work at that as well. One of my first things to do this year is to seriously consider getting off Face book. I am tired of all the drama, seeing people who claim to be Christians posting pics of late night parties with alcohol, immodestly dressed apparel, and the offensive words that they use. And when I sit down and after much thought and prayer to write them a letter of encouragement I sometimes get blasted by not only them but by their family members who think that it is none of my business, and then don't talk to me at all for a whole year. Now I must say that there are those who take what I say and go back and reexamine themselves and the decisions that they are making- which I am so happy for them. But it is just very disheartening to see alot of the times. But I will miss from Face book the people who I am able to sit down and have a bible study with, all the family updates on what everyone is doing in their lives, some friends who I have moved away from and we catch up from time to time. But I think it will be better for me to be off and to just email everyone like back in the day......lol So I figure a new year a new start to things around here. I will try my absolute best to be a better sister, daughter, mother, wife, friend and most importantly a better Christian to myself, those around me and to God. I just ask if there is anything that anyone sees in my life where I am not doing something pleasing to God please I actually insist on you to bring it to my attention. I need all the help that I can get to Heaven and having good strong christian friends around to lift me up will be a big help. So here is to the start of a New Year.....

Summer Recap

Well we have had a busy busy summer so I will just do a quick recap of what we did. On the last day of school we left and went on our yearly family vacation to the river. We had a blast, the river was up and flowing, the kids were exhausted by the time that it was over. Chase lost his very first tooth while we were there and it was very traumatic for him. He doesn't want to lost any of his teeth. He is very attached to them and he was most upset when it just fell out one morning. He has since lost another one and getting a little better about letting them go but does write a note to the tooth fairy to give his teeth back to mommy so that she can keep them and he can look at them whenever he wants. We came home and got to relax, hang out with friends and family all the time, go to the beach and just enjoy the summer. We did a little bit of school everyday this summer mainly for Chase, but I let Kori do some too, just so that he wouldn't forget anything he had learned the past year. They seemed to enjoy it- but I realized that I could never home school my children. We just did about 30-45 minutes a day and some of those days were filled with whining and complaining. And I thought I was going to lose it. So to those that do I give you credit, but its just not for me. I guess if I had to I would but as long as I don't have to I am perfectly happy and content. In July, me and Jamie took the kids up to Dallas to go and visit Holly for a few days. My kids have always been great travelers and I am so thankful for that. I guess all those trips from College Station to Portland almost every month since Chase was born got them used to being in the car for hours at a time. And plus the DVD players don't hurt any as well. We went to dinosaur world again, the kids watched movies, and me and my sisters managed to finish 2 puzzles in the time we were there. Very fun. We came home and got ready for VBS here. That went very well. The kids loved it and I had a great class this year. I have taught 1st and 2ND grade for the past 3 or 4 years now and I like the change from the 2 year olds that I teach every Sunday morning. After VBS we went to the beach some more, went shopping for school clothes, got all of our school supplies(which is getting a little out of control if you ask me.) The last weekend of the summer me and Clint took the kids to the beach for the last time before school started and had a great family day there where Clint fished, and the kids played with the fish that he caught until they had well past died, Reef sat on the boogie board and just let the waves move him around. I went and found shells for Kori, and wrote the kids name in the sand real big and took their picture by it. It was a great day. And finally came the first day of school. Chase started 1st grade, and was actually very excited about starting school, and Kori started Kindergarten. She was very excited as well to start, especially to eat in the cafeteria. They both did great, no one cried when it was time to say goodbye, although Reef asked all day long where Chase and KoKo were. I think he was a little lonely. We finished the first week and Kori got her name on the board the 1st three days of school for talking. What can I say she is my daughter. But these last 3 days she has been very good- so hopefully we can keep this track going on. She lost her first tooth on Sunday evening. The complete opposite of Chase she let Clint pull it out and went around showing any and everyone that she could. So excited about losing her teeth. I have been extra busy since school started I am treasurer of PTO and I really thought that all I was going to be doing was just keeping the books and writing and depositing checks, but I was in for a real surprise. The first week I was up at the school everyday cleaning and organizing the PTO room(which I love to organize), getting all the paperwork and separating checks and making charts, etc. Getting ready for the 1st Friday fun sales that we had on Friday which is a concession stand after school for the kids. They loved it and so did I. Reef thinks he owns the school now since he is up there all the time too. He walks all into the office, going through drawers and so on. So I am a little bit more involved than I wanted but so far am enjoying it b/c I get to be up at the school without my kids knowing and get to keep somewhat of an eye on them. Well hopefully now that I have just 1 child at home now a little extra time I can get into doing this more on a regular basis. So until next time.....

Update....

So I think I will just start doing a quarterly update since I am not so good at posting all that often. So lets see I ended in January so February we had not too much going on but at the end of the month we did celebrate Chase's 6th birthday and Kori's 5th birthday with a combined Wall-E birthday party. We were going to have a big blowup jumper but it rained so we just had everyone over to the house just to play and we watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Most of the kids had already seen it so they just ended up in the kids rooms playing the whole time. I have made everyone of my child's b-day cakes since they turned 1 and this year was no exception so me and Clint ended up making a Wall-E cake and 20 Eva cake pops. They were both fun to make and they actually turned out not to bad. Also at the end of February I helped my aunt with her bi-annual consignment sale and I got the deal of a lifetime. As everyone knows my kids love dinosaurs well a lady had consigned a Kota dinosaur(if you don't know what it is its the biggest dinosaur toy they have that is interactive with kids and they can sit on it) Anyways my kids have always wanted one but with the price tag of $300+ we didn't think that was really something they needed. So as I get to the sale I see one and was very shocked and excited to see that she was only selling it for $40!!!!! I couldn't believe it her son had got it for Christmas and was terrified of it so that was why she sold it. Needless to say my kids from oldest to youngest loves the thing and is in our living room for all to see plus there is no room in the boys room for it to fit.
March brought us soccer games for both Chase and Kori- This was Chase's 2nd year and Kori's 1st. I must admit I was pleasantly shocked by Kori. I think she will be my athlete. She was stealing the ball from everyone, making goals, running up and down the field. She is very aggressive but I already knew that. Chase had improved since last year but he is not at all aggressive. He will kick the ball and then stand back and let everyone else have a turn- but then he will stand back and try to anticipate where the ball is going and try to beat it there. He was the fastest, beating everyone down to the goal to block the ball. So I was quite impressed with him as well. We then had Spring Break which we didn't do alot since the weather didn't cooperate with us, no beach this time.
April started all of the Easter parties at school and egg hunts. Chase and Kori's parties were on the same day so I had to be supermom that day. Kori had her trike-a-thon one day which she did very well and I finally had the kids pictures taken. The last time I went to have them done is when Reef was just 3 months old. Yeah I know bad mom- but I went a couple of weeks ago. Our appt. was at 10 in the morning and we were out of there by 10:15. My kids did awesome, they listen to everything the photographer told them and smiled perfectly. Now I just have to decide on which pics to get b/c literally they all came out great. We had Kori's kindergarten round up last night and went and met the teachers got her registered and got her school supply list and all the rules. She is somewhat excited and somewhat scared about leaving her old school and starting a new one but I know that she will be fine. Chase has 2 loose teeth!!!!! Of course they became loose when he hit them on Kori's head. He is very worried about them(he is my child that doesn't do well with change) he doesn't want loose teeth, he won't pull them out, he will let us look at them for just a second, won't show them to anyone, and there have been alot of tears over kids making fun of him for having loose teeth. We made molds of plaster teeth to keep our teeth in for the tooth fairy so he is coming around to the idea of losing his teeth. So that about rounds up the past 3 months. We have our yearly lectureship coming up next weekend which is going to be great. I am very excited about it. Oh yeah and tomorrow is my 30th birthday!!!! I can't believe it that I will be 30. We went out to eat with friends last night and had a very nice time. Here are some pics of the past 3 months so enjoy!!!

Here are the kids on Easter morning!!!


Here is Reef after eating spaghetti!!


Here is Chase and Kori on their b-day with the cakes!!


Here is Chase and Kori before their 1st soccer games!!


Here is Reef sitting in grass suppose to be hunting eggs.


Here is the kids in the bluebonnets..they were so pretty this year.

Catching Up...

Well I just realized how long its been since I have posted something. So I guess I will do some catching up where I left off. We had a great Christmas- the kids got what they wanted from "Santa"...Chase asked for a gun and a big boat, Kori asked for a toy horse, and Reef was easy...anything Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I am so glad that my kids are just asking for 1 or 2 things. I know that when they get older their list to Santa will be alot longer and then I will have to choose and pick what they get from that list, but now I am very happy and content with the little things they ask for. Kori actually got several horses(from various people), and of course Chase got dinosaurs(which is always a hit), and Reef would have been fine with the boxes but loves the Mouse. Me and Clint's' presents to each other was Lasik surgery on our eyes. So on the 29th of December we traveled to San Antonio for our procedure...very weird to say the least. We both did great and now have 20/15 vision. Yeah!!!!! Its very weird to be able to see especially at night when I was without any help to see with contacts or glasses. I can see the alarm clock, my room, and even Clint's face...its pretty neat. So we are both very happy with our new vision. The kids are back in school- which them and myself are very happy about. My new years resolution was to make a cleaning schedule of the house so I am not doing all the house cleaning in 1 day but to break it up in the week so I am just cleaning a little everyday. It is working out well so far but I might have to switch some days around. Me and Clint also decided to do a budget on my grocery shopping every week. Apparently alot of our money goes to Walmart and H.E.B., and we wanted to cut down on that and just buy what we need and when we need it. So I have made several spreadsheets of the spending that we do every week at the grocery stores, lists of what all we need (food, household goods, personal hygiene products, etc) and I have been online everyday finding new coupons to print out to take on my weekly trip to the store. We also had to cut down on how many times i went to the store. We are now on a $150.00 a week budget for all the stuff and going to the store just once a week. So my planning a trip to the grocery store is now a new hobby of mine. I have a list that I make all week of the stuff we need from the store, I go and find coupons for all that stuff and then when Monday rolls around - I head off to the store ALONE( so I don't have any distractions) and do my once a week shopping. I am now in my 3rd week and I absolutely am loving it. It makes me feel good that I am saving money, by only going once a week, and also by the coupons that I use. I have made it into a game to try and see how much money in coupons I can save a week. I have made a spreadsheet that shows me every thing I buy that week, the price it was, how many items I bought, what my total was, and how much I saved in coupons. Its very neat to see when you are careful- what all you can buy on $150 that will last a week or more. And how many coupons there are out there. I am having alot of fun. Well that is about all that we have been doing this last month. Hope that everyone else had a great Christmas and New Year.

This is a picture of my kids and Holly's kids at the Aquarium when she came down to visit.


My 3 kids on Christmas

The whole family the Sunday before christmas.

The Difference in Kids.....

Everyday it amazes me so much how different 2 kids can be from each other but come from the same family. Chase and Kori are 12 months and 2 weeks to the day apart. In other words very close. In many ways they are just like twins: they look exactly alike, they are the same height, Kori actually outweighs Chase by about 10 pounds, play very well together, like alot of the same stuff: dinosaurs, spaceships, animals, did I mention dinosaurs. Also did you notice how nothing was girlie at all. Kori is a total tomboy and has said a few times that when she grows up she wants to be a boy. But putting aside all of their similarities that they do have they are so different in how they act is what amazes me. Chase is our sensitive one-Kori is our strong one most of the time. Chase never wants to get into trouble, Kori doesn't care if she gets in trouble. It is worth it to her. Chase wants to please everyone, Kori doesn't care about pleasing anyone but herself and her current boyfriend at church. She will do anything for Reid. ( He is 17.) Her other boyfriend that moved away was 40 something. Not too worried yet. You can convince Chase to do just about anything if we really try hard, well with Kori your not going to convince her to do anything she doesn't want to. (Which I see as a great trait when she gets older with peer pressure.) Chase doesn't care to much about being a leader whereas Kori is a born leader. Chase doesn't like change-Kori is all about change. Chase fights his sleep with all his might- Kori will tell us that she is tired and ready for bed. Chase is very picky about his food and lets just say Kori loves food and will try anything at least once. Chase is afraid of anyone new and Kori knows no stranger. Everyone is her friend. Chase is very nice and sweet and Kori is willing to pick a fight with anyone and everyone if need be. Chase is just takes a about once or twice to mind Kori it is several times and usually ends with a spanking because she still isn't doing it. All and all they are great, wonderful loving kids that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. Oh and lets not forget about Reef. I am anxious to see if he is more like Chase, Kori, or a nice mixture of the both of them. Right now he loves dinosaurs as well, He is like Chase in that he fights his sleep, he does mind at times, but yet he has Kori's temperment, can get very hostile if things don't go his way. He is a cuddle bug and seems to be very bossy to Chase and Kori- even though you can't understand a word he is saying it just sounds very bossy. So as of right now I would say he has a mixture of them both. Thats all for now just thought that I would pass on how alike and different my kids are and wondering how same and different everyone else's children are. It is simply amazing how alike and how different your kids can be from each other being raised in the same house by the same parents. Simply amazing!!!