Quesadilla...

Ingredients:
1-2 Tortillas
Salsa
Bacon
Chicken (can be leftover chicken-I used shake and bake from last night)
Cheese-shredded

Cook bacon to desired crispy-ness. Use a griddle pan and spray with cooking spray or use butter on medium heat. Place tortilla on pan. Sprinkle amount of cheese (you desire) on tortilla, add bacon bits, chicken cubed, a few spoonfuls of salsa, more cheese on top of it all and either add a tortilla to the top or fold tortilla in half. Make sure you cook quesadilla on both sides. Cook till cheese is all melted and outside is golden brown. (Justin loved this quesadilla and I thought it was pretty tasty too)

You can top with sour cream or more salsa. You can add any fresh veggies you desire or other ingredients like refried beans.

Cheeseburger Casserole

Here's another meal my mom use to make. Zachary, my brother and I loved this meal! This week Justin wanted me to make it. I thought I'd add it to our blog.

1 lb. lean ground beef or ground turkey
3 c. tater tots, baked
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 c. cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 c. milk
salt (optional)
pepper (optional)

In large skillet on medium heat, cook ground beef until thoroughly done. In casserole dish, combine baked tater tots, cream of mushroom soup, 1 cup grated cheese and milk. Drain grease from ground beef and add to casserold dish. Salt and pepper to taster. Mix well. Add remaining cheese to top of casserole and place in oven. Bake at 325 for 25 minutes or until cheese is melted.

You can add canned/ frozen veggies too like corn or peas. Justin and I like corn. You can also add a tsp. of garlic, minced.
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Justin and I are doing great. We set up our Christmas tree this weekend. Someone on Facebook said they put up their tree about a week 1/2 ago and that kind of inspired me to get ours up. Why? Justin and I will be in California for about a week in December and I don't want to put it up and take it down 2 weeks later. I told Justin in advance that I'd like us to put our tree up. He was a good sport about it. Normally both of us are Grinch's around Christmas. We feel like Christmas is very commercialized. It's not longer about spending time with loved ones and enjoying their company. Also our biggest issue is most people don't ever bring up the real meaning- Christ. It's about buying, how much you can spend, I NEED, I NEED and the number of presents under the tree. It's kinda frustrating because we know Christmas is about the birth of our Savior. It's not Justin's birthday or mine. We will exchange gifts with each other and family but we want the holiday season, Christ focused. We want to enjoy spending time with each other and family. Hopefully more people can tune into the real reason why we celebrate Christmas. But we look forward to seeing my grandma, Paul, great grandma Julie, Zachary, mom and Kurt. It we be a nice break from normal life. :)

Justin has been busy working. Finally his hours have been cut to around 10 hours at Sears and he'll be joining a different department this week. That is a good thing! :) His other job is busy and he seems to enjoy it. As I type right now he's working on homework for his class. He's a busy guy and is a little under the weather but he's good.

I've been busy working with the kids I watch, running them to preschool and picking them up. Past few weeks they are in LOVE with hot chocolate so this weekend I got them a huge tube of hot chocolate. They were very excited about that today. Then I've been working at my church on Thursdays and Fridays. It's going well. I've learned a lot of stuff about church things that I never knew. Like all the licenses we need. It's been a good learning experience for me. What do I do? Everyone always asks me that. I do admin/secretary work. www.genesischurchspokane.com I started my photography class last Tuesday. My friend and I learned so much last week. I look forward to it tomorrow. We hope everyone has a great week!!!

Chicken Cacciatore

I wanted to add one of my favorite meals. My mom use to make this for me all the time and now I make it every so often for Justin and I. Very yummy!!!

Chicken Cacciatore:

1 tbsp. butter
1 while chicken, cut up (or legs or breasts)
1 pkg. Liption Onion Soup mix
1 large can tomato sauce
1 large can whole tomatoes
1/2 c. water
1-2 lbs. frest mushrooms, cleaned (or canned)
In large pot on medium-high heat, brown chicken on all sides in butter. Reduce head to medium, remove chicken from pot and combine soup mix, tomato sauce, tomatoes and water. Place chicken in the sauce and add mushrooms. Cover pot and cook for approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Serve over steamed rice or cooked pasta. (I like rice with meal)

Enjoy!

Let's catch up...

Hey Everyone! I haven't been too great about updating this and for the past 2 weeks I keep saying I need to blog.

Justin has been doing online Bible classes. He's in his second term and was taking two classes but ended up dropping one. He wants to learn as much as he can and not just speed through his classes. I think he made a great choice. :) Sears has been a big pain for him. He is only part-time there and wanted to lower his hours to about 8-10 a week and the lady in charge of tools hasn't been very nice about that so he's hoping to switch departments. Insight is good and busy. Justin is an amazing husband! I'm very thankful for all he does. He's the best!

Me- I've been taking photography classes at a local community college. The first class I could have almost taught. I learned maybe 3 things but I loved taking it with my friend, Lisa. Our next photography class starts tomorrow. Pretty excited about this.









Craft Show was this last weekend. Diane and I got pulled in at the last minute so we didn't have time to really be ready. We sold 3 paintings. It was kinda frustrating because so many commented that our paintings were so beautiful or cool and then wouldn't buy them. But we will figure out what direction to go with this. We were more there to help this lady set up her stuff and tear down. She did very well selling jewelery, which was good. Diane and I did get really cool purses. I was very excited about this. I haven't ever spent a lot on a purse and these purses change shells. Its really cool.

Well, that's all I can think about as of now. I promise to update sooner then last time. I hope everyone has a great November. Let's find something to be really thankful for...

Mine

Diane's but we promised to share our shells with each other :)