What's in a name?

So a lot has happened since the last time we posted on here. Lena has now worked for 3, yes 3, different places. The Denver Art Museum for their King Tut exhibition, Hyatt Place Denver Airport Hotel and now is selling homes for KB. We have moved out of Dustin's parents home, (still very thankful for that) and are renting a town home from a friend of ours. Oh yeah...and Lena is pregnant. If you couldn't tell from the picture at the top of this blog ;-)

We're pretty confidant that you aren't finding this out for the first time on here as we've told pretty much everyone we know and as you can see she is pretty far along. It's not like we're keeping it a secret...anymore. We'll get to how we revealed the pregnancy to our families later, that's a fun story, or at least we think so.

So just like we did when we moved to Florida we are going to start this blog back up to keep friends and family that don't live near us up to date with this little one we are expecting in December. (12/19 if you're curious, or 12/28 if you go by the new estimation of how long a human gestation period is...) And of course those of you that are close by are welcome here as well. :)

Which brings me to the post title; "What's in a name?". Do we leave the blog with the same name? Change it? How long are you a "newlywed"? It's only been 3 years since we got married. Some husbands call their wife "my bride" forever so we could stay newlyweds right?

Well there will be more to come so stay tuned!

Too long

Ok, so I suck at keeping up on this blog. It seems that even without a job I don't have time to get on here. Then again what do I really have to say? The last time I blogged on here was my birthday. January 10th. 

I guess nothing is new. We're still living with Dustin's parents. I'm still looking for a job. I've had a few interviews but nothing so far has come from it. I've filled out at least 100 applications. And that is truly no exaggeration. I had a great interview at Children's Hospital, but they too chose someone else. So I'm still working on it. 
I do help Bruce out once in a while with his business when he needs it. Which helps him, gives me something to do and a little extra money to help pay some bills. 

I'll have to come back later and see what else I can update. Hope all is well!

"Brownies with a Surprise" <~~~ Horrible!

 Yeah, the surprise in this is that after all this work and money you spend,...they aren't COOKED! Granted this was our first time making brownies  from scratch, but we followed this recipe to a T and they weren't cooked! I still can't believe it. We made them last night, and as you can see in the directions, it states that the center may still be "soft". So, after the 30 minuets of cooking we stick a tooth pick near the side of the brownie, since the center will be soft. It comes out clean. The directions also say it's best to wait over night before cutting into the brownies for best cutting. Well, Dustin comes home from work today around 3:30, I've been waiting all day to try these, we cut into them...and it's Brownie Batter!  I'm not even kidding. It's disgusting. I can't believe that we wasted so much money and time on these dumb things. I even left a review on the website! It was from foodnetwork.com. Obviously they needed cooked about 15 minutes longer. The recipe is below the pictures. The funny thing is, when I was taking these pictures last night I was saying how Jillian Michaels would kill me if she knew I was eating this and working out to her video lol. I guess she would have gotten her way! This would have been a GREAT brownie.

lol does that look like a lot of butter? Oh and that is a POUND of chocolate!

Have you ever seen so many eggs?!

Yummy

This is pretty much how they came out lol, with an extra layer of uncooked brownie batter on top

Looks cooked right? WRONG!

That runny looking stuff, is runny.

 

• 10 ounces unsalted butter (2 1/2 sticks)
• 1 pound good-quality semisweet chocolate (or bittersweet), chopped
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 8 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 16 chocolate-covered peanut butter cups

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter and chocolate together in a metal bowl over simmering water. Remove from over water and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs and vanilla. Whisk only to blend. Add chocolate mixture and whisk gently. Add flour and salt and use the whisk to stir in until blended. Grease a 12 by 12-inch square pan, and line the bottom with parchment. Pour a scant half of the brownie batter into pan and spread smooth. Place the 16 peanut butter cups upside-down onto the batter, spacing them evenly in 4 rows of 4 (the brownies will be cut into 16 squares, with a peanut butter cup in the center of each.) Push the cups down into the batter slightly. Top with the remaining batter and gently spread smooth. Bake 30 minutes. Center will still be soft. Remove from oven and let cool in pan on wire rack. Cool completely before cutting, or for best cutting results, chill several hours or overnight in refrigerator. Cut into 16 (3-inch) squares

Alfredo Chicken Lasagna

I got this recipe from http://www.tasteofhome.com/. We made this for our 6 month anniversary last night. It came out pretty good. It defiantly needed a little more seasoning. I'm not really sure what it was lacking though. I reheated some today and added a little salt and pepper and that made a good difference. We used fat free cottage cheese too. It was our first time to have and all white lasagna. We would make it again, and add some cut tomatoes and a little more seasoning. Otherwise it was pretty good. This was from the "Cooking For Two" section. It says it makes 3 servings, but we both had some, my MIL had some and I reheated a little this afternoon and there is still about a serving and a half left. If you were to eat this is the portion size it's suggesting you wouldn't be able to move lol. It was fun to make it together. Of course we took some pictures. 

This is backwards but I like the pic.

The chicken with all the alfredo sauce.

The cheese looks so yummy here, and it was!

• 6 ounces boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons chopped onion
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 tablespoon Crisco® Pure Olive Oil
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup Alfredo sauce
• 3/4 cup 2% cottage cheese
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese, divided
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
• 4 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
• 1-1/2 cups (6 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Directions

• In a large skillet, saute the chicken, mushrooms, onion and garlic in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Stir in flour until blended; stir in Alfredo sauce. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. In a small bowl, combine the cottage cheese, 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, egg, Italian seasoning and parsley.
• Spread 1/2 cup Alfredo mixture in an 8-in. x 4-in. loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Layer with two noodles (trimmed to fit pan), half of the cottage cheese mixture, 3/4 cup Alfredo mixture and 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with remaining Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers.
• Cover and bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Uncover; bake 10 minutes longer or until bubbly. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting. Yield: 3 servings.

Nutritional Analysis: 1 piece equals 621 calories, 30 g fat (16 g saturated fat), 173 mg cholesterol, 1,014 mg sodium, 40 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 48 g protein.

Tilapia Fajitas (dinner for 1/8/10)

I wanted to post this last night but didn't get around to it. While grocery shopping we saw a recipe for Tilapia Fajitas on the back of our tilapia back lol. They came out REALLY good.

This makes 4 servings. 

• 4 Tilapia fillets, cut into strips
• 3/4 cup diced fresh pineapple We just used canned pineapple, who has time to tear into a pineapple?
• 2 cups grated jack or mozzarella cheese. Just used the cheese in a bag lol
• 1/2 chopped fresh cilantro Again we went the easy and cheap way and just used the seasoning
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1/2 green pepper, thinly sliced FIL and myself were the only ones that wanted pepper so we used an orange bell pepper and sauteed them. YUUUMMMY
• 1/2 onion, thinly sliced You might know now, when ever a recipe calls for onion we skip it
• 4 flour tortillas

Combine the fish and the pineapple in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper and marinate 30 mins. Heat oil in large skillet over high heat. Saute peppers and onions until soft, about 5 mins. Add fish mixture and saute until just cooked through, about 2 mins. From here dress it up how ever you like. Cheese, sour cream, lettuce. This was DELICIOUS!  Will defiantly make again!