Hawaiian Chicken

2-3 Chicken breasts 1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup vinegar

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tbs soy sauce

1/2 can large pineapple chunks

1/2 cup pineapple juice (from the can of pineapples)

Cook on low 6 hours and serve with rice (make sure your bag is thawed before adding to the crockpot)

This is one of the cheaper recipes and it is SO good, really really love this one!

Potato Soup o.m.g

Guys, if you like potato soup you HAVE to make this one.. I found it on facebook and it is by far the most delicious soup, I love it SO much. I found a chicken pot pie soup that I'm dying to try too... Jasons Deli has an amazing chicken pot pie soup and I want to find a dupe!

Slow Cooker Potato Soup

4 Cups potatoes peeled and chopped

3/4 cup onions (we used yellow, but you can use whatever you like)

4 cups chicken broth (2 15oz. cans)

1/2 tbsp salt

1/2 tbsp pepper

Cook in crockpot High 4 hours or Low 6 hours.

When the soup is done in the slow cooker (you'll know because the potatoes will be soft), combine the following ingredients in a saucepan until thick and well combined:

4 tbsp butter

1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup sour cream

Once thick, add to crockpot and give it a stir, put the lid on and cook for another 30 mins. Eat with some delicious bread (we like french bread), add some cheese if you like and enjoy! :D mmmmmm.

I did NOT do this as a freezer meal, I put potatoes in another freezer meal and they turned brown/black and it totally freaked me out, they tasted fine but I'd rather just do this day of instead. If I was quicker with closing my bag after adding the potatoes and freezing, I'm sure they would have been fine. If anyone tries it the freezer route, let me know how it turns out. :)

Beef Tips & Gravy

This one was a hit! Even Dustin liked this one :) I'd add carrots on my next one and I think you could honestly even add some sliced red potatoes to this one, dependent on if you wanted gravy on the potatoes or not.

Beef Tips & Gravy

1 packet of dry onion soup mix

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

1 14 oz. can beef broth or stock

salt & pepper for the meat

Make sure if youre freezing this one in a bag that it's completely thawed in the refrigerator before putting it in the crockpot.. cook low 6-8 hours (this took 6 hours for me) and serve with your choice of potatoes. :)

Dump crockpot dinners!

Since I've had quite a few people asking for the recipes I chose to do my dump dinners with, I decided to throw them on the ol' blog ;) We're still on trial and error to decide which dinners we like. I have spent a long time on pinterest searching for dinners that sounded yummy, so now before I make huge batches, we have to eat each one to see if it's delicious or not-so-delicious. The idea behind all this is to try to save money on my grocery bill, we sacrifice a lot so that I can stay home with Dustin and of course our health insurance just went up $150 more a month, which is absolutely insane and it makes our already crazy tight budget even tighter. I figure if I can get this meal dump thing down I can try to make 30 days worth of dinners and buy all at once without wasting anything, so we'll see if it'll work. I'll post the recipes I love as I make them.

Make sure you thaw all of these in the fridge the night before! :)

(costs are in red and this is all for feeding 2 people or 2 people and a mini)

Cilantro Lime Chicken (I felt like this one needed something more, guacamole maybe?)

2 chicken breasts $2

juice from 2 limes (definitely could do 3, or maybe just have lime juice on hand to put on the tacos) $1

1 bunch of cilantro chopped $1

1 16oz bag of frozen corn $1

2 garlic cloves minced .25 (since you aren't using the entire thing of garlic)

1/2 red onion chopped .50 (cheaper if you're utilizing the other half in another dish)

1 can of black beans drained and rinsed .80

1 tsp cumin (on hand)

salt & pepper

cook on low for 8 hours, serve with tortillas and rice (tortilla cost will vary since you aren't using the entire bag, same with rice.. invest in a large bag of rice to go with all of your meals)

Approximate total for entire meal: $4.55 and you will have left overs

Teriyaki Chicken

(with this one I felt like it needed veggies to accompany it, I used a steamable bag of broccoli, so maybe add your choice of veggie. This recipe was a fave)

2-3 chicken breasts cut into pieces $2 (if using 2 breasts)

1 cup teriyaki sauce $2 (will vary depending on sauce you choose)

1 cup water

2/3 cup brown sugar (have this on hand)

3 cloves garlic minced .25

a few sprinkles of ginger powder (on hand)

cook on low 4-6 hours and serve with rice

Approximate total for entire meal: $4.25 and you will have left overs, cost will go up depending on if you decide to add veggies, most steam bags are only $1

Pork Chops with Sweet Potatoes & Apples

(this one was REALLY good, Dustin ate his entire meal and he never does that.. our pork chops came out a little dry but my crock pot was broken and cooking on high I think, so hoping next batch wont be dry)

4 pork chops (salt & peppered)

2-3 sweet potatoes peeled and quartered

3 apples peeled and sliced

1/2 onion diced

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Cook on high for 6 hours or low for 8 hours

recipe says to serve with rice, we didn't and I didn't feel like rice was really necessary for this dish

(I got my pork for free from my Mom so I can't give an accurate price on this)

Mexican Chili with Cornbread topping (FAVE!)

This was by far the best dump meal i've made so far, SO delicious!!

2 chicken breasts $2

1 cup yellow onion chopped .50

1 cup pepper (any color) chopped .50

1 cup frozen corn .50 (since you arent using an entire bag)

2 tablespoon & 1tsp taco seasoning .50

10.75 oz can condensed tomato soup 1.00

1 cup shredded cheese (not sure if this was suppose to go in my bag or on top of the chili at the end, I put it in the bag) on hand

1 box of jiffy corn muffin mix (plus the egg and milk it calls for) 1.00

Everything goes into your bag/crockpot except the jiffy muffin mix, you'll cook all this on low for 4-6 hours (mine took 4) and then you will shred your chicken. After you shred the chicken, you'll combine all the jiffy muffin ingredients in a bowl and then pour over the top of your chili, cover and switch your crockpot to high and cook for 60 minutes.

Total cost of meal: $6.00 that does not include cheese, but if you're buying cheese in bulk (huge bag) it's not going to add much to the cost of this meal, and this one will definitely have left overs.

Mini build your own pizza

I have the link to this one! You can find it on here. They have the Rhodes rolls at winco in the freezer section! Dustin had a ball making his own pizza :)

Happenings

Clearly posting nearly a year later makes total sense, right?

 I don't know why I ever stop using this thing, it's such a great resource to remember things that my terrible memory can't remember, that and the fact that I don't do much, so I never have anything to write about really.

I feel like our lives are finally falling into place. A month ago, we bought (moved in) to our very first home. Exciting, right?! I feel like the one huge puzzle piece I needed to complete was, finding a home that we could plant our feet at and our son could grow up in. We went through so many offers, even got into contract on some houses and none of them worked out. At the time, I was disappointed and frustrated and even started to get depressed. The house we were living in was a nightmare! We had bark scorpions. you had to be super careful and watch where you were stepping, where you were leaving your things and you even had to worry about under the bed sheets. Yes, the one place where you want to feel safe and cozy, could potentially be a new home for a scorpion. We probably found a total of 25+ in and outside of the house, maybe 10 of those were inside. I worried every time Dustin woke up crying, that one had managed to crawl into his crib and sting him (luckily, that never happened). They are relatively harmless to adults, but can actually be fatal to young children and elderly if not noticed quickly. Scary, right? We had a great landlord and aside from the scorpion problem, I really didn't mind the house.. not to mention, our rent was really cheap. 

To be completely honest though, had we not had the scorpion problem in the house we may not have had as much urgency as we did to buy a house. I would go through all the stress again just to get the house that we ended up with.

We ended up buying the perfect home in the city I grew up in. We had to sacrifice a little more to live here since it's a little more costly, but it will be worth it for Dustin to grow up in a smaller town with less crime. You also don't get nice grassy yards in Henderson or Las Vegas, we have a big front and back yard with lots of grass and a huge tree in the front, it's so home-y. 

Aside from the house, Travis ended up full time at his job and he's happy, finally! We have done so much moving around, bouncing from house to house, from job to job, trying to figure out our lives and how we could give our son the life we wanted for him. We've sacrificed a lot, but we're here and we're fortunate to have what we do now. If we didn't struggle who knows where we would be.. but it wouldn't be here, that's for sure. From LA, to Reno back to Las Vegas more than a few times and really shitty jobs to pay the bills. We grew from it and I don't think Travis and I would have the relationship we do now if we hadn't experienced all of that together. Sure, I wanted to kill him at points but I'm so glad that we are still together. I couldn't imagine my life without him, he's my best friend. 

Now we have to decide (at some point) if another baby fits into our life and if we can manage. I go back and fourth all the time on whether or not I want to go through pregnancy again or if I could even deal with two crazy children. I know that I don't want Dustin to be an only child, but I also want to be able to give two children the best life that they can have and the ability to make sure they have the things they need. We have some time ;)

Another question is, job or no job? (part time of course) Sometimes, I get upset thinking about even being away from Dustin for even part time, so I'm not even sure if I'm ready for that yet or if he's ready. I guess if I don't NEED to go back to work, I should enjoy the time with my son. I'll always have the urge to help support my family as well, financially. Plus, I want to be able to put money into our home to really make it ours. I guess that stuff will come over time, but I'm impatient. 

Okay, my fingers hurt.. I haven't typed this much in awhile. So, bye for now! (hopefully not for another year)

(a little incident with the coffee table)

It's fun to pretend.

Something about Dallas Green's voice, just calms me. It brings me back to when I first started seeing my husband and it makes me so incredibly happy. Sometimes, there's certain smells or sights, that bring you back to a particular moment.. City and Colour does that for me. 

Be Happy (: