Happy Birthday Kent!!!

Today was my hubs birthday. He's the type of person that couldn't care less if you even remember to tell him Happy Birthday or not. I've said before, he's not a very social person, so there was no party or get together-Just me and him. He loves cajun food, so I decided to try my hand at making some jambalaya. He would've loved it if I made gumbo, but after reading the recipe, I decided that needed to wait until I had some help. Plus it said that it was better if it chilled over night. Therefore, jambalaya was it. I knew that it was going to take quite a while to make, due to all of the steps, so I started it around 3:30pm. Well, after boiling a whole chicken and chopping onions and peppers until I had tears rolling down my face, I got it in the oven at 5:40pm. Kent had already gotten home and was very hungry since he didn't eat lunch. OOPS!!! He didn't mind though. The recipe said to cook it for 45 minutes, but the rice was still crunchy. So, at 7:15, I fixed our plates with some very tasty jambalaya. (Restaurant quality, if you ask me!) It was really good, thank goodness!!

I had already made a homeade cheesecake, using my springform pan for the first time. It was a recipe from the Southern Living cookbook. Wow!!! It was amazing! I added some strawberries and Redi-Whip and wha la-After we finally finished eating, I wanted to take a pic of us. Then Kent made me take one of our whole family-Isn't that precious!

Muddy Weekend!!!

Kent and his friend Doug have cooked in several BBQ competitions in the past, but this weekend was my first time to join in on the fun! It was in Auburn, so we got to stay with my sister. The forecast for the weekend=thunderstorms!! And boy did it! We got there on Friday night, and all Doug had was an easy up tent for his shelter. Doug is the master chef, Kent and I were the sous chefs that helped with the presentation and ending. Poor Doug sat in his chair with his rain jacket all night and weathered the storm underneath his ez up tent with no sides, while Kent and I snoozed away at Ashley's house. We got back up there around 7:30 and the field was nothing but a big mud pit! I am so glad that I had bought some rain boots before going:

And that was underneath the tent. Nasty!!! Here's a shot of the set up:

Kent kept leaning up against the grill and melting his poncho:

We cooked chicken, ribs, pork, and brisket. Turn in time started at 11:00am and we turned in a box every 30 minutes. You only have a 10 minute window to turn in your boxes. Since this was my first time, I had to learn about all of the rules. For instance, in a competition in Mobile a couple of years back, Kent bought kale to garnish the boxes. The main judge quickly let them know that was an illegal garnish that could not be used. You can only use parsley or green leaf lettuce. Presentation is key! You are judged on presentation, taste and tenderness. Here's our chicken box:

The highest score in each category is 9 and there are 6 judges. There were 39 teams in the competition. We placed highest in the pork category in 13th place. We even got a perfect score from one of the judges! Even though the weather wasn't the best, we had a great time! We plan to do it again soon!
I will leave you with a funny pic. If you've ever seen the movie Anchorman, you will love this:

YUM!!

There is just something about fresh fruit that makes me happy. I just made a humongous bowl of fruit salad with strawberries, grapes, green and red apples, bananas, oranges and raisins. YUMMO!!! I have always loved fruit, but when you combine it with the beginning of Spring, it's just a little different. Today is the first full day this week that I have not really gone anywhere, and have enjoyed being at home. Yesterday, I went to WalMart on my way home from Cullman and bought some new plants and seeds. I just finished planting a blueberry bush, and an ivy vine. I also bought some herb seeds and planted some chives, oregano, and cilantro. I've never grown fresh herbs, so I am anxious to see if they start to sprout. I have dreams of becoming a gardener and hopefully this will be a good start. I grew up on a farm and both of my grandparents had huge gardens with fresh beans, corn, okra, strawberries, tomatoes, etc. I only wish that I had a yard that had space enough to plant of these fruits and veggies! I grew up on canned veggies from the garden and I must say that I miss that terribly! Oh well, when you live in a subdivision with your house 10 ft from the next and your backyard is about 15 ft, growing a big row of corn is kind of out of the question.
Anyway, we are off to Auburn tonight for a BBQ competition. Hopefully it won't storm too bad. I am thinking that I might run up to Target and see if I can find some rainboots. It's out in a field so I'm sure it will be quite messy!

New Giveaway!

Lianna is having another giveaway over at Be Thou a Knight, but this one is HUGE!!! There are 4 prize packages and for every $5 you donate to their IVF fund, you get one entry. If you blog about it and help advertise about it you earn extra entries. These packages are amazing and I will tell you, I would be sooooo excited! There is some great stuff up for grabs! You can learn more about it by visiting the link on the right hand side of my blog. Go check it out and donate if you can!!!

Movies

I've been watching a lot of movies lately, so since I haven't been blogging, I figured I would do a little review. Friday night Kent and I went to see:

I laughed so incredibly hard at this movie! However; this movie was totally inappropriate to take your 10yr old to! Yes, 10 yr old sitting 2 rows in front of me. Parents-have you ever seen any of Jason Segel's movies!?! Sexual inuendos throughout. Have you really explained all of the terminology about these types of things to a 10 yr old!?! CRAZY!!! Also it's rated R!!!! Enough of my rant. I am 26yr old and I laughed throughout and I loved it!

A couple of weeks ago we went to see:

Friday the 13th-scary, but totally predictable. Just like every other Jason movie out there.

Jennifer and I went to see this the day that she told me that she was having a boy. We both loved it!! It had multiple story lines and I loved the way that all of them ended. The cast was amazing! It was totally a girly movie though! Kent would've never gone to see it that's for sure!

I've also rented several movies recently.

I loved Michael Cena in Superbad and I really liked this movie! I loved the story line between the two of them and it ended great! I also loved the fact that he drove a yellow Yugo that people thought was a taxi. That was funny!

This was definitely one that I am glad that I had just rented and not gone to see at the movies. It was just okay. It did have a happy ending, but the girl was starting to get on my nerves about how completely ditzy she was.

Working...

Well, I am just going to say TGIS!!! That is thank God it's Sunday!!! That means that tonight will be my last night to work. I must say that this week has been very challenging! Since it's spring break, we have been working short and there has been no break in the patient load. I have to admit that I have been struggling about my job. Sometimes I just think that I want something different. I don't know if that means working somewhere else or maybe just completely going in a different direction with my career. I need your prayers about my attitude! It hasn't been very positive lately and I pray that I will figure out what I truly want soon! Some of my very best friends work with me and are soon going to be changing shifts/locations and it is going to be very difficult for me to work without them. Of course I am happy for them; however, I just wish that I was also moving on. Anyway, enough of my sob story. I am just ready for to be off!!

How Cute!

My sister in law and her family are at Disney World this week for spring break. They left Friday and stopped by to borrow our GPS and we all ate at Olive Garden. Everyone was soooo excited to be going and I really wanted to crawl in the luggage space of their RV and take the trip with them. Alas, I must work this week. Bummer!!! Anyway, Traci called Kent today and told him the cutest story. Carson, our 9 yr old nephew, told Traci that he hoped that Walt Disney was a Christian so that when he gets to Heaven he can tell him Thank You. How sweet is that!?!

Aubrey

It's been a while since I shared pics of my adorable, beautiful, precious niece. So, I figured I would indulge myself in a couple of my faves over the last month. We went to eat lunch at Dairy Queen 2 weeks ago and she decided that she didn't like eating her ice cream with her spoon, so she improvised by using her straw:Another time, she was eating her breakfast-pancakes with syrup. Can you guess what her favorite part of the meal is?:

The syrup-she wanted to make sure that she got all of it. HAHA!! But this one is my favorite!

It's her super cheap blow up car that came with balls to play in. How cute is that!?! It was in her room and she decided to bring it out into the living room by dragging it in there. We had soooo much fun throwing the balls back and forth! It also made her hair stick straight up with all of the static. Super Cute!!!

More Hardwoods!

My last off weekend, we of course worked on more hardwoods. We had gotten the living room done and we decided that our goal was to get the dining room and kitchen done. The hardest part was getting the refrigerator moved. That thing is heavy!!! It took about 2 hours to get it moved into our living room. We had to put it on sliders and then washcloths, leaning it back and forth with a crow bar. It was quite interesting. So, if you would've come to our house last weekend, when you opened the door, this would be your view:
Can I offer you something to drink? Then we had to pull up the linoleum and there were only a couple of spots that looked like they poured the bucket of glue down. We pulled up the floor and the pile looked like a lot more than I thought.

We finally started laying the hardwoods around 12 and finished up at 1am on Saturday, so I was glad that it didn't take up our entire weekend. We did get to go enjoy the snow that fell on Sunday without having to step out in it to cut pieces of hardwood.

Congrats!

Last week, my friend Jennifer from work, had her ultrasound to find out what she is having. Ever since she found out she is pregnant, she had referred to her baby as "he/him." We joked about it because if it turned out to be a girl, we were going to feel really bad for her. Friday, she and I got together for lunch at O'Carrs so that she could tell me the results. Well, it's a....
BOY!!! I guess she had that motherly instinct that she just knew from the beginning. :) I brought 2 small gifts as you can see, set them in front of her and told her to point at which one it was. It was just a little pair of socks that looked liked tennis shoes. So, Bryson Gregory Wolford is coming soon to a crib near you! Congratulations Jennifer!!! I am so happy for you and Clay!
P.S. Now I need to have a friend find out they are having a girl so I can give the ballet shoe socks away. AHEM, you know who you are!

Dinner!

Kent and I tried out a new recipe from our Lulu's cookbook. WOW!!! We made crab melts. When we were in the gift shop, the last time we were there eating, I saw the cookbook. I told Kent, "If the crab melt recipe is in this, it's mine!" Well, it was, so I bought it. We finally made them and they were sooooo good! We also made the fried green tomatoes from the cookbook, but Kent decided to make them like the appetizer at Jubilee Joe's in Hoover. We topped with with sauteed crab meat with garlic and honey mustard. This was probably the best meal that we have ever made! Here Kent is slaving away in the kitchen:

And here is our restaurant quality finished product:

It wasn't a Rachael Ray recipe, but it was YUMMO!!!

Sham!

That's what I thought about The Bachelor Season Finale and After the Final Rose Show. I had read and heard many different scenarios about the whole break up/switchero in the past couple of weeks. Of course I don't truly believe that it will ever work out for any of the couples (term used very loosely!) that are together for a minute at the end of the season, but I get sucked into every season and watch every time. Why, I have no I idea!! But, alas, I watched every episode this season and enjoyed gabbing about it every Monday night that I worked with my girls! Of course Heather is the spoiler queen and gave us the heads up on the nightmare of the ending. If you watched, you know that in the end, Melissa got the final rose and huge diamond that he put on her left ring finger, which left Molly crying in the limo on her way home. Blah, Blah, Blah. Same story, what 20th season!?! Anyway, then we come to the after the final rose show. I must admit that I was a little torn on my emotions about the whole episode. I think that it was ridiculous that he "had" to end their relationship on National TV due to contracts and what not, but really, ABC get some integrity!!! That is just tacky! It's bad enough that you all "fell in love" in 6 weeks and expected to live happily ever after. Then Jason decides he made a huge mistake, can't let go of Molly and wants her back-and she takes him back. It's just weird!!
However, did anyone think that some of the dialogue was just a little scripted? Melissa wasn't wearing the ring and already looked ticked off when she walked out on stage. Then she just hands it back to him like it was nothing. Did you see the sparkler!?! Keep that junk! But then again, I'm sure that was in the contract too. So, I am a little torn. It's not like any of them are gonna last anyway!
REALity TV-Whatever!!!

TV Tonight!!!

Tonight, I will be absolutely glued to my TV. I will be watching all 3 hours of:

That's right, I have an insane addiction to The Bachelor. I had originally signed up to work a double to get a little extra $$, but when I realized that it was the finale night, the white out came out! It's a 2 hour show, then a 1 hour after the final rose show. I am very excited about all of the conversations that we are going to have at work tonight after we have all seen it. Last work week, Jennifer, Heather, and I were all enthralled in conversation about all of the gossip that is out there. Heather loves to read all of the spoiler websites and ditch some dirt on what might happen. Supposedly, Jason chooses Melissa, breaks up with her on the after the final rose show and gets together with Molly. Someone else said that Molly is preggo and that's why he dumped Melissa. Who knows what is true, but we will find out TONIGHT!!! Sorry Kent, I will not be watching 24 tonight, I will have to catch that tomorrow!

Shopping Trip

This morning I woke up and decided to organize my shopping trip for the week. I got my sales papers and coupon binder and laid it all out. I started at Target because with our new hardwoods, I wanted to get the swiffer wet jet. Target had it on sale for $17 and I had a $3 coupon. Plus I have a baby shower Sat that I needed to pick a present up for. Anyway, I then went to CVS, Walgreens, and Publix. I got $181.45 (excluding my Target purchases. I can't find that receipt) worth of stuff and spent $95.42 OOP. That's almost half!! I went to CVS first. I only had a $2 ECB and of course left it at home, so I just started from scratch.
My loot:
Carnation Instant Breakfast $4.99 earn $4.99 in ECBs
Vit D $2.99 earn $2.99 in ECBs
I also did the $20 baby products earn $5 ECBs for the rest of the baby gift.
1 pkg pampers
2 Johnson's products
1 pkg Q-tips
1 tube Desitin
My total OOP was $28.08, a little high, but with 0 ECBs not so bad. Plus I ended up getting $12.98 back in ECBs for my next outing.
Then I hit up Walgreens:
24pk Aquafina
1 tube Colgate Maxfresh
1 bottle Infusium 23 shampoo
2 bottles Herbal Essences
2 boxes Fiber One granola bars
1 tube Carmex
3 South Beach Living Meal Bars on clearance $0.50 each (Kent eats these every day for his lunch and will spend about $2 on one at a convenience store. I only wish they would've had more!)
Total OOP: 22.48 Earned $5.50 in Register Rewards for my next purchase. :)
Last stop was Publix:
2 pk broccoli
2-1.25 lb ground chuck
1 pkg Gorton's grilled shrimp scampi
1 pkg frozen cranberries
1 pkg strawberries
1 gal milk
2 boxes shells & cheese
1 box Electrasol tabs
1 box success rice
1 jar salsa
3 cans Hormel ckn
2 cans black beans
6 cans Green Giant veggies
1 pkg Idahoan instant potatoes
1 box swiss miss hot chocolate (penny item)
1 bottle Lysol
1 bottle Swiffer dust & shine
2 Hefty Ovenware casserole pks
1 roll bounty paper towels
1 bottle Cascade rinse aid (free after coupon)
Total OOP: 44.86
Total savings: 51.38
I always love to see that my savings is more than I spent!