Mmm, Mmm, Good...

I interrupt my vacation recap to bring you a recipe I just prepped, cooked, enjoyed, and cleaned up in under an hour... and it was WONDERFUL! In my book that's a keeper!

Paprika Chicken - 20 min. start to finish!

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp paprika
1tsp each: salt, black pepper, garlic powder, cayenne pepper
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cup butter
1 can 98% fat free cream of chicken soup
8 oz of sour cream

MIX flour and seasonings. Coat chicken.

MELT butter in skillet. Add chicken and cook until browned on both sides.

ADD soup. Cover and cook over low-medium heat until done (about 10 min). Remove chicken and stir in sour cream, put chicken back in until ready to serve.

I served this with wild rice and steamed cauliflower and broccoli. It was a quick meal and very very tasty! A new favorite for sure!

Tybee Trip - Day 1

Day 1 includes actually 2 days! We arrived on Tybee late Friday night, but of course we went straight to bed. So I am considering Day 1 to actually be Saturday! Lily woke up raring to go to the beach! So Chris and I got up and got ourselves and her ready and we headed out! We drove instead of walking and parked down by a condo that I enjoy staying at so we could have lunch at their beach side restaurant! Lily played in the sand and the surf and then we enjoyed lunch together on a deck overlooking the ocean. After lunch we went back to the beach house and rested a bit. Chris was all about basketball, of course, so we had no problem leaving him at the beach house to enjoy the games while Lily and walked back over to the beach! Patrick and Beckett even walked over with us! It was Beckett's first ever trip to the beach! :-)




This is our friend Patrick and his son Beckett! Beckett was taking it all in - his first glimpse of the ocean!

It was a really nice, sunny day, but it was still a tad too cool to be just in bathing suits with the wind blowing. You see, however, this didn't bother Lily one bit! :-) She was tentative at first, but by the time we headed back she was covered head to toe in sand and sopping wet!

She might be the most beautiful child on the planet... I'm just sayin'!

And you all know my addiction to little feet! lol. Nothing like little sandy toes! She LOVED playing in the sand and I LOVED the pure joy on her face as she danced, pranced, ran, jumped, and dug!

Before we left to go back and clean up for dinner I had a nice European woman with the most beautiful accent take a quick picture of Lily and I! After all, this was the first of hopefully many trips we'll make to the beach together! Chris has already determined that Lily and I are beach bums and he is not! lol. :-) He's not a big beach person, but his two favorite girls could live in the sand and the sun!

St. Patty's Day Fun!

The wifi at our beach house was having issues, so I didn't bother trying to blog in the few moments I was able to connect.... so we're going back to St. Patty's day and beach posts will come soon!

The Junior League of Murfreesboro hosted its 3rd annual "Luck 'O' the 'Boro" fund raising event this year and for the second time I was on the committee! This time was so much fun because we really changed things from last year and made it a great event! It didn't hurt that La, Moo, and myself were all on a committee together!! :-) Here is the whole committee with our favorite Indian Hills contact!!

It was a great night with food from Jim and Nicks that was SO yummy! I strongly encourage everyone to consider them for your catering needs.... they do it all (dishes, silverware, drinks, set up, clean up.... everything!) and they do it well and they were very affordable!

We also had dancing... LOTS of dancing! Magnolia - a great band - played the night away while we danced the night away! They played such fun music and did such a good job as well! We were very pleased!

We had to, of course get the three amigo shot! :-) There was a silent auction as well! We were proud of all the items we were able to get and very proud of the money it raised!

At the end of the night we all felt like the evening was a smashing success! We had a great time and everyone else had complimented us several times on what a fun evening it was! SO, the committee decided to have a little lemon-drop in celebration! (I have no idea who the dude is in our picture, lol!!)

Over the weekend we also had a school project to work on. Lily goes to a magnet school, so she has LOTS of those and Chris just loves it! She usually has homework 3 or 4 nights a week too, but it doesn't take her long! She is SO smart and already reading SO SO well, it amazes me! She can pick up just about anything and read it! Her teacher says she'll be reading at a 2nd graded level by year end! (Sorry for the tangent, can you tell I am proud???) Anyway, her project this week was to make a leprechaun trap! :-) So here are her and her daddy working diligently to make a trap that would certainly catch a leprechaun!

Oddly enough, I didn't take a picture of the finished product, but it was covered in gold coins and shimmery shamrocks and propped up on one end! Under it was a pot of "real" gold coins! CUTE! I hope all of you have a fun and festive St. Patty's day! :-) Ours was wonderful!

Happy Birthday Handsome!

Well, since the computer debacle, I am behind on updates! So you totally missed out on Chris' birthday fun! :-) Chris turned 35 on Friday, February 26 and we, of course, had to celebrate in style! I planned a semi-surprise birthday for him at our usual Friday hang-out!

I say semi-surprise for a few reasons. 1. It's hard to plan a "surprise" birthday on an actual birthday because everyone wants to know what the plan is on their own birthday. 2. We went to the "usual" place we always go, so he knew where we were going and that he'd be the honored party. What he DIDN'T know, was that I had planned a few weeks in advance and gathered way more than the usual Friday crew for this occasion and schemed with Megan to go early to brighten the place up with some balloons and festive touches!

Chris' parents picked up Lily from school and they came by early to say hello and let Lily give her daddy a birthday hug and kiss and gift! :-)

Many, many of our friends from work came to toast the birthday boy and unwind after a day of middle school madness.

...and although they escaped the Camera Lauren, David, and Dawson were there along with Megan, Web, Jack, and Vance of course! It was funny, I think Vance and Dawson must have thought it was a private celebration just for them! The two of them had a BLAST playing together!!

We celebrated there until we were all full and happy and unwound from the day and then headed over to a new place in town for some bowling! Overall the afternoon/evening was a smashing success!

Alabama

As I count the seconds to spring break I find myself a little guilty that I am so anxious to get away considering it was just a week ago that I was away at the lake! Paige (our school counselor) has a family lake house that belongs to her parents and we try to visit at least once a year! Some of my favorite and fabulous ladies from school loaded up weekend before last and headed to ALABAMA!


The house in right on the water in Guntersville, Alabama! It is so incredibly peaceful! I love it because it's big enough that everyone has their own space! There is a long deck and floor to ceiling windows on the back of the house that faces the water!

This is the view that greets you from the kitchen and living/dining room areas and the deck! ALL I did was sit, laugh, talk, read, and sun! It was heaven!

Here are the ladies!

We had a blast playing games and cutting up. I think everyone would say, however, that our favorite part was the relaxing and catching up we all got to do! I am so blessed to work with such wonderful women! I can't wait until our next trip!!

Books...

Without my computer, I have read quite a bit lately! I am not a bit TV watcher! Besides sports (and let's face it, until the tournaments started this week there really hasn't been much on), and my two favorites: Gray's and Private Practice, I rarely even turn the TV on... except for some Saturday morning Food Network. The lack of my computer allowed me to get some reading done and although I missed the computer terribly, I enjoyed catching up on my reading! I finished this book (it was our book group book this month):

This book was phenomenal. I will consider it one of my all time favorites probably for life. A couple of ladies in my book group proclaimed that it was life-changing. It is my firm belief that every woman should read it! It's one of those books that has a different impact depending on the stage of life you are in and therefore I will likely read it again, or maybe even a couple of times. It's a short biography that can be read in just a few days. Must. Read.

After finishing A Year By The Sea, I started this James Patterson book:



I have it on audio and I started it when I left for a little lake trip (more on that in my next post!). I have NEVER been able to successfully complete an audio book. I find my focus wonders when I don't actually have the book in my hand! However, this book has had my full attention (slightly scary since I listen to it while driving, lol). Chris turned me on to James Patterson a few years ago and I love his books. I was on a kick where I read several, but after a while I needed a change. This is the first one I've "read" in a long time and I was reminded of how I love his work! It grabs you from the start and pulls you along! I have even been taking the long way home a lot so I can listen a little bit longer!

It was totally coincidental that both books were set on the east coast on a beach! ...but it did get me ready for this:

In just a matter of days Chris, Lily, and I will join our friends Patrick, Amanda, and their baby Beckett at this lovely beach house on Tybee Island! I have posted on Tybee before as it is one of my favorite places in the world! I have been to Tybee/Savannah many times! As a little girl, a bigger girl, a teenager, a grown up, on girls trips and family trips... I have always loved that place! I am so excited to get to share with Chris and Lily and can't wait to post pictures and tell you all about it!

She's Baaaak!

My computer is back! I am simply beside myself!

Is everyone still out there?

Stay tuned for updates!!! :-)