Crock Pot Fever!

There are a lot of things I love about my job, but cooking isn't one of them. Dinner time is usually very stressful for me. I never know what to make, and then I put it off until the last minute so at 5 o'clock I'm stressing out in the kitchen trying to throw something half decent together. I'm usually starving though and fried from my day and the kids are grouchy and hungry too, so most the time I just bag the idea of cooking and call Taber to tell him to bring home take out. Yeah, not good for our diets, or our budget, or poor Taber's sanity. He's had a long day too and I'm sure the last thing he wants to do is wait in line for take out (or eat Ramen, which is the other alternative.)

So anyway, long story short, I went to a fireside where Julie Beck was speaking, and SHE said that she puts her dinner on as soon as she cleans up breakfast. Genius!! Mornings are much more sane than late afternoons. If I could get my dinner on early it would make everything so smooth and easy. So I asked my friends for their crock pot recipes and got to work. We had a fabulous week of tasty meals, and best of all, it was soooo EASY!! And made my afternoons so much more calm and peaceful. I'm going to try some more but here are 4 that I loved from last week.

Savory Whole Chicken:
This chicken was out of this world delicious!! Click here for the recipe. After you make the rub you spread it all over the chicken and then just stick it in the pot, no water or anything. The chicken makes it's own juices as it cooks and OH MAN!! That broth is mouth watering! Next time I'll throw some carrots and potatoes in the broth an hour before it finishes. I also pulled the chicken out of the crock pot and put it in the oven on broil for 5 minutes to crisp the skin. (oh yeah, and I only used half a tsp of cayenne pepper and it still had a little kick)

Chicken in the fabulous broth after cooking all day.

Chicken after crisping the skin in the oven.

Chicken Tortilla Soup:

Another tasty one. I've actually done this one twice it was so good! (also makes GREAT leftovers!)
4 chicken breast halves (mine were still frozen)
2 15 oz cans of black beans, undrained
2 15 oz cans of Mexican stewed tomatoes, or Rotel Tomatoes (I used the mild rotel ones)
1 cup salsa (mild, medium, or hot, whichever you prefer) I used pace picante mild.
4 oz can chopped green chilies
14 1/2 oz can tomato sace
Tortilla chips
2 cups grated cheese

1)combine all ingreidents except chips and cheese in large slow cooker
2)Cover, cook on low 8 hours
3) Just before serving, remove chicken breasts and slice into bite size pieces. Stir into soup.
4) Serve with Chips and cheese on top.

Tortilla soup in the pot and below with chips and cheese.

Nicole's Creamy Chicken
I didn't know what to call this one so I named it after my friend who gave me the recipe! It's super easy. Just combine an 8oz brick of cream cheese, 1 packet of lipton onion soup, and one can of cream of chicken soup (I used a hand mixer to blend them) Then put the mixture on top of 4 frozen chicken breasts in the crock pot and cook on low for about 5 hours. Shred the chicken and serve with rice. The flavor is rich and my KIDS LOVED IT!! Teya had seconds both times I made this and ate the leftovers the next day. Taber loved this too and seriously ate like 5 servings worth.


Salsa Chicken
Another super easy one. Just dump a jar of salsa on top of 3 or 4 frozen chicken breasts. Cook on low for 5 hours or so. Shred the chicken and serve on tortillas with all the fixins!

Salsa chicken in the pot and with the fixin's below!

Hope you enjoy the recipes and that they help make your dinner time a more relaxing part of your day! (p.s. I'm always looking for more crock pot recipes, if you have a good one please send it my way!)

A Favre FHE

A few months ago Taber bought us some tickets to a Vikings game. At the time Brett Favre wasn't even a blip on our radar. Well then of course he signed on to play with the Vikings and suddenly our tickets to the Vikings vs. Packers game became a pretty hot item. We thought about selling them but at the end of the day I thought, "Geez, if people are willing to pay that much to go to this game, it must be worth going to!!" So we held onto the tickets and I'm SO glad we did.

This was my first NFL experience and HOLY COW!! I've never experienced football like that before. I mean, I thought the cougar fans could get intense but those Vikings fans are C-R-A-Z-Y!! Case in point, this guy I'm standing with in the picture below. Notice the NFL tatoo on his bicep. Yeah, these fans are intense!!! The stadium was sold out and the fans were on their feet the whole time, cheering and booing with every play like it was a rock concert. Of course they were all pretty drunk from the tailgating which made for some pretty colorful moments. : )

Here's a pic of the concourse jam packed with all the fans. We went the wrong way to get to our seats and it took us almost 40 minutes to navigate the crowd. Good thing we came early!

Once inside we got pretty excited when we saw that our seats were on the third row. We had an awesome view of the field and in the second picture below you can see good old Favre, number 4, getting ready to make a play.


Can you see the excitement in Taber's eyes? I'm telling you, that stadium was buzzing with energy. The rivalry between the two teams, the legend on the field, it was all the makings for a great game.

Also kind of cool, right below us was a VIP section on the field and a bunch of players from the Minnesota Twins were sitting there. They went on to win a big game tonight in the same Metrodome!

The Vikings had an awesome game with some great plays and emotional moments. We bonded with our seat mates, jumped, cheered, screamed, yelled, sang, danced and just had a really good time. Favorite quote of the night: When we were walking to the stadium, an insanely drunk guy at the tailgating party was staggering around, shouting in heavily slurred speech, "We'll take Brett Favre if they don't want em!" Heck yes we will! I know I haven't been a big NFL fan in the past but things are changing because I've finally found my team! Skol Vikings!!

p.s. Many many thanks to our amazingly kind friends Patrick and Maria for coming to our house to watch the girls all evening! We love you guys!!

Coming Home

Last week Taber was recruiting from the MBA school at BYU. I can't stand for him to go to Utah without me so the girls and I bought some tickets and tagged along on the trip. I have a lot of great memories, wonderful family and many friends in Utah. Every time I go back a little piece of me wishes I could stay, but we love our lives in Minnesota and I couldn't imagine giving that up either. So I guess as long as I can visit a couple times a year I'll be content. : )

I came out a few days early with the girls and thankfully they did really well on the plane. It also helped to have the fabulous Sit and Stand stroller that can double as a Smart Cart for all our luggage. : ) Here are some of the highlights from our trip:

1)Teya and Brinley getting to play with their cousins. They were in kiddie heaven with all the cousins around and the endless entertainment they provided.


2) Meeting my niece Malia for the first time. She was born 5 weeks early in June but didn't spend one day in the NICU because she was already so healthy and strong. She's such a sweet little miracle baby.

3) Watching the kids jump on the tramp with their uncle Tau. He's a pretty big guy so you can imagine the air they got when he bounced around.

4) Taking my mom out for her 52nd birthday. We went to a great Japanese restaurant and had such a nice time chatting and catching up without the kids. Thanks to all those who pitched in to babysit!

5) Going to Living Legends rehearsal and participating in the devotional. My little brother is now the president of Living Legends so it was fun to see him in action and also to catch up with our wonderful director Janielle who we hadn't seen in almost 5 years!

6) Hanging out with old friends. We got to see a few of our friends while we were there (although there were many people we didn't get to see and hope to catch up with next time!) Joseph, one of my best friends from high school, and his sweet wife Melinda, who is pretty much like a professional chef, not only made us an amazing dinner and unbelievably delicious dessert, But they also hooked us up with tickets to the BYU game! Yeah, we love them. : )

7) Which brings us to the next highlight, Going to a Cougars game with some other great friends, Dave and Jodi! Dave and Taber grew up together in Alaska so we've known these guys for a long time. It ended up being one of those "guys night out/girls night out/couples dates" all in one which are pretty much my favorites : ) Good times, good company, and the cougs won!


8) Getting to hang out with Mama and Papa Rigg. Taber's parents live about four hours away in Grand Junction so whenever we go to Utah they drive out to say hello. The girls had so much fun swimming with Grandma Karen at the hotel, and Teya got to show off some of her new swimming skills which I'm happy to say she still has! We also went out to eat at Los Hermanos and relived some good memories of my days as a waitress there : ) (Had to include the classic picture of Papa Rigg taking one of his infamous cat naps ; )

Last night we came home and Teya cried and cried when we left. She kept saying, "I don't wanna go to Minnesota, I want to stay in UTAH!!!" (Which is actually kind of funny because the first night we were there she cried and cried saying the exact opposite! : ) She's happy to be back home now although she keeps telling me that we need to go back to Utah in two weeks. Not sure about two weeks, but I'm sure we'll be back again soon : )

Friday Foto: Moon Face

So this last week we've been in Utah with my family and I've been able to look at a lot of funny old pics of growing up. Here's a little treasure. The chubby moon faced two year old is me, and the chubby squishy baby is my little sister Naomi. I was obviously thrilled to take this picture. I'm gonna have to scan a bunch of the other gems I found and post them in later Friday Foto ops because it's really almost criminal to see some of the hair cuts my parents subjected me to. Anyway, love being with family right now and will be sad when it's time to go. : (

Harvest Tradition

To celebrate the first week of fall Taber and I took the girls to our favorite Apple Orchard this weekend. Apple orchards are the highlight of our fall. The apple donuts, apple cider, fresh apples off the tree and all the fun farm activities make for a perfect family outing. It was also fun to see how different and yet how much the same things are from this year to last. The biggest difference is this little girl:


She's gone from being a squishy little baby to a full grown walking talking toddler. Last year she just sat in the the Snugli the whole time, this year she was fully engaged in all the apple activities. Here are some more fun little comparisons:

Taber and Teya in front of the corn maze. Biggest change for Teya, she's gone refusing to wear her hair down, to wanting her hair down every day so she can look like a princess. Taber's also changed a bit from this picture. Training for a marathon probably has something to do with it!

Me and Brinsie. Between this year and last I chopped off 12 inches off my hair, lost a few pounds, and can no longer carry the Brinster around in the snugli.

Teya and her pony lady friend. Not much has changed here. She loved the pony ride and the lady driving it just as much this year as last!

Here's a cute one comparing Teya last year to Brinley this year. I think they really look alike in these pictures.

The family on the tractor ride down to the orchards. Couldn't get either of the girls to smile for the camera but you get the idea. : ) Anyway, we had a great time, picked lots of apples, and took some fun pics to be able to compare to NEXT years harvest! Here are some of my favorites.

Girls in the fall leaves.

Teya and Daddy

Giggly girls (Brinley was laughing so hard that drool was coming out of her mouth) precious moments. ; )

Brinley was way into the apples. The whole time she kept saying. "Appoo, Appoo!" She almost ate a whole one all by herself.

Here's our loot. We went for the honeycrisp, so juicy and sweet!

And I leave you with Taber and our little monkey baby.
It will be fun to see what this munchkin is doing next year when the Harvest tradition continues!

Friday Foto: Who needs Super Nanny?

Behold the hypnotic and calming power of Baby Einstein.

Note: I didn't even set them up like that. Turned on the video, walked out of the room, came back and this is what I found. Entertains all ages!

It's that time again...

Fall is here and apple picking season is upon us! I got to take the girls to an apple farm last week for playgroup. Teya LOVES picking apples so much, I'm sure we'll be back several times before the season is over. When we got there we took the kids to get apple donuts and goodies first but she didn't even want any. All she wanted to do was get out in the orchards and start picking! It was seriously torture for her to wait. We didn't pick a lot since we'll probably get our big load when we go as a family. Still she got a nice bag load and we had some tasty honeycrisp apples to munch for a few days. Here are some pics from the day.

Teya and her playgroup buddies, Ladd and Clayton munching on their spoils.

Cute one of the girls. Teya is really into matching clothes lately. The last two times we've gone to the store she's begged me to buy matching outfits for her and Brinsie.

They had this slide on a haystack and Brinley just sat at the top and didn't move for a long time. I think she was either stuck, or just really enjoying the view!

Love how happy Teya looks in this one

Action jumping shot. Her favorite thing to do on the hay.

They had this really cute cow train but it wasn't running on the weekday. The kids still had a blast climbing around in it though.

Glad the kids had so much fun and grateful for all the farms around here that have given Teya a whole new appreciation and love for fruit!

Run Daddy Run!

There are a lot of things I love and admire about Taber but one thing that I've been especially impressed with is his tenacity. This guy does not give up. When things get hard, or don't work out, he simply keeps trying. Back in June we were supposed to run Grandma's Marathon together. Due to a serious knee injury he had to drop out. I think if that were me I would've thought, "well, I guess my body just wasn't made to run a marathon, my knees aren't strong enough, it just wasn't meant to be."

Not Taber though. He started working with a physical therapist to strengthen his knee. He did his exercises and stretches diligently every night. And then he went out and ran. Slowly but surely, starting with 2 mile runs and working up, he ran and ran. Now, 4 months later he is gearing up to run a full marathon in less than 3 weeks! He had a goal to run a marathon this year and despite some major bumps in the road, he's going to do it!

He's been doing long runs every Saturday since the Ragnar. Last Saturday he did an 18 miler and the girls and I were able to meet up with him around mile 10 and bike the last 8 miles with him. It was fun cheering him on and keeping him company on the trail. Teya even hopped out and ran with him for a bit. It's so great to see her getting excited about running. She saw some tennis shoes the other day and begged me to buy them so she could have "running shoes" like mom and dad. How could I resist?

Following Taber on the bike was a lot of fun and a I got a good work out pulling the girls up some of the hills. Teya and Brinley were great sports too and stayed in there without much complaint. I did have to bribe them a few times. If you look in the picture below, Brinley is holding a chocolate granola bar in her hands.

The next time I looked back to check on them she looked like this. : ) At least she was happy!


During the next 2 1/2 weeks Taber will be tapering down to get ready for his race. It's the Whistlestop Marathon in Ashland, WI and is supposed to be one of the most gorgeous fall marathon routes in the U.S. I'm so excited for him and wish I could be running it with him! One of these days we'll do one together, but for now we'll be cheering, "Run Daddy Run!"