Cream Cheese, Garlic and Chive Stuffed Bacon Chicken

For those of you who know my husband, he LOVES chicken. For those of you who know me, I LOVE cheese and bacon, so this recipe was the best of both worlds…AND it was easy to boot!
This was another “Pintrest recipe” from allrecipes.com.

Ingredients
•1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
•2 tablespoons dried chives
•1 clove garlic, minced
•4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, butterflied
•4 slices turkey bacon
•2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2.In a bowl, mix the cream cheese, chives, and garlic. Divide the mixture into 4 balls.
3.Place 1 cream cheese ball in the center of each butterflied chicken breast half. Fold the chicken over the cream cheese, wrap with a slice of turkey bacon, and secure with toothpicks. Arrange the chicken in a baking dish. Pour the butter over the chicken.
4.Bake 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the bacon is crisp and the chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear.

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

If you go to the website there are a TON of variations in the comments section and tips for ways to cook the bacon better.
Next time I make this (there will DEFINITLY be a next time) I will cook the bacon a bit before I wrap it around the chicken to bake. I might also substitute half of the cream cheese with mozzarella.

Give Thanks: Day 24 ~ Cell Phones

This Thanksgiving there is plenty to be Thankful for, but I am especially thankful for cell phones so I can call my family and let them know how much they mean to me on this special day!

Give Thanks: Day 23 ~ My In-Laws

You always hear stories about horrible in-laws, but I am pretty thankful that I have great in-laws. My brother's and sister in-law are funny, smart (there are like 7 college or graduate degrees among the 3 of them) adventurous and caring.

My mother and father in-law are considerate, caring, and a wonderful example of a loving, God centered marriage.

I feel really blessed that my kids will be able to grow up with Nana and Papa, Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Pat and Uncle Tony in their lives.

Give Thanks: Day 22 ~ Laughter

The saying goes, "laughter is the best medicine" and I tend to agree. I love hearing laughter and laughing myself. Today I was driving through the neighborhood and saw two neighbor boys (6 and 4) laughing hysterically because they were jumping in a puddle in their school clothes. Their mom was about to be furious, but they loved it. I just had to smile!

I laughed in spite of myself when Emrie grabbed an ornament off the tree and laughed as she ran away from me. She is such a little laugher and such a ham...how can you not laugh when you hear a baby laugh.

BEST SOUND EVER!!!

Striped Guest Room

One of our guest rooms is pretty tight...then we have THIS guest room. It is HUGE! I felt overwhelmed trying to fill all the space in there. Since the room had just been painted a neutral color right before we moved in, I didn't want to REALLY paint it, but I did want to spice up the walls.

I also had to buy all new furniture for the room because we didn't have ANYTHING to go in there. I still like the bedding we received as a gift for our wedding and I had a LOT of black accents. So when picking the furniture I tried to keep in mind the things we were still going to try to use.

Here is what I came up with and I LOVE it!!!

Okay this is before:

Here it is NOW:

Once I find the perfect upholstered chairs for this room, and maybe a rug, then it will be complete:)

Give Thanks: Day 21 ~ Friends

Everybody needs friends! There are all different types of friends for different seasons and situations in life. You have your work friends, your sports friends, your church friends, your childhood friends, school friends, neighborhood friends, etc.

I am thankful for the friends who have gotten me out of a pinch, who have kept a secret when I needed to get something off my chest, who let me cry to them when I was sad or hurt and who laughed, smile and celebrated with me in my moments of joy!

I am thankful that friends make life enjoyable!!!

Room Fit for a Guest

This is definitely the slowest that I have finished putting a house together because I am trying to savor it and not rush through it. However, I just wanted to get the two guest bedrooms done quickly.

Here is one of the guest bedrooms that I finished an a day with a couple quick things.

Before:

After:

I bought a headboard from Target, some picture frames and curtains from walmart, I didn't want to pay for nightstands, so I used $12 shoe racks that we had from our last house and two metal leaves that I had no place else to put.

I literally ran downstairs and cut some leaf shapes out of scrap fabric to frame them. I thought I would just leave them there until I could find something I actually liked to frame, but now I think they work.

Although I really didn't like the bedding, now that I have a few other accents in the room I like it more and for under $300...Pretty happy!

Give Thanks: Day 20 ~ A Home

What turns a house into a home? I believe it is the people you share it with, the memories made there and the love that is shared in it. Being able to put your personal stamp on it also makes it feel more like yours as well.

I enjoy our home so much. I love that people feel comfortable hanging out in the basement, there are enough rooms for guests to stay over and the kitchen invites people to sit down and talk.

Our neighbors also make our house a home. Hearing the doorbell ring after school with kids wanting to play with Emrie, going to get the mail and stopping to talk to the neighbor for well over an hour makes me smile.

Our life is contained in our home and I love it!

Book Wreath

This was one of my Pinterest Projects. I like the way it turned out and for $4 and under 2 hours, it works great in the guest room.

Start with a wreath ($4 at Hobby Lobby). I would have preferred a Styrofoam wreath, but couldn't find one.

Find a book you don't mind tearing apart

Take each page and fold them, pinch the bottom and glue on the wreath

Once the top was covered, I realized I didn't want to fluff the pages all the way around the sides, so I just glued flat pieces of paper around the other three side. Next time I will glue paper around the wreath first, then glue the fluff paper down.

Here is the paper glued around the back

Finished Product in the guest bedroom

New wreath for a new guest room

Give Thanks: Day 19~ Internet

It seems simple, but the invention of the internet is brilliant. There are so many people I have been able to keep in touch with through Facebook and blogs that I would have lost touch with years ago.

Give Thanks: Day 18~ Celebrations

Since as long back as I can remember, I have LOVED celebrations; birthday parties, holidays, 100's day at school...etc. I can decorate for just about any occasion, make wearing a specific outfit a big deal, hold on to some tradition forever! Phil says I am extremely sentimental; I think I am festive:)

Naturally fall/early winter is my favorite time of year because there is Halloween, then Thanksgiving, Christmas (my favorite:) and New Year's. Then we also have Phil's birthday, Our anniversary and THIS YEAR EMRIE'S BIRTHDAY!!!!

We are going to California this year to celebrate with my family and a WHOLE bunch of our extended family and family friends. I can't wait! Phil keeps saying he doesn't want it to be some big thing because she will never remember. But it isn't for her, it is for me and our family celebrating that we have a new member and she survived us for 1 whole year!!!

I just couldn't help but make up some invitations and it was hard for me to pick which picture to use. Here were some contenders:





In the end, here is the one that won!


So thankful for my Emrie Girl and thankful that we get to celebrate her in California for her big first birthday!!!

Give Thanks: Day 17 ~ My Salvation

One man 2,000 years ago was willing to be sacrificed on a cross and endure a horrible death only to raise from the dead 2 days later to fulfill the greatest prophecy all mankind has ever heard.

Jesus willingly took my sin and made me right with God. He opened Heaven's door to me and saved me when I didn't deserve it. He gives my life purpose and meaning and I am thankful that this world is not all I have to live for.

Thank You for my salvation.

Give Thanks: Day 16~ Hugs and Kisses

Hershey's hugs and kisses are great, but so are the hugs and kisses from family. Even though neither Emrie nor Phil are snugglers, when I can pin them down, their snuggles are the BEST!

It is always so sad, but it makes me feel so good when Emrie gets hurt and she puts her arms up for me to pick her up and once I do pick her up, she wraps her little arms around my neck and cries on me. Giving her boo boo kisses is a privilege as her mommy.

Tonight, Phil and I were sitting together and Emrie was playing near us. She wandered over to us and Phil and I kissed. She watched us so closely and then started laughing. We kept doing it because it made her laugh.

I am thankful that my daughter will grow up seeing her parents kiss each other because they love each other!

Give Thanks: Day 15~ Running Water

Taking a hot shower after a workout, at the end of the day, when it is cold outside, early in the morning, really anytime, is WONDERFUL. Turning on the faucet and washing the dishes is a convenience. Having clean, good smelling clothes is pleasant. Placing a glass in the fridge door for drinking water is a luxury.

I can't imagine having to walk MILES to get decent, not even good, water. How blessed we are!

Give Thanks: Day 14 ~ Books

I have always loved books. Like Reading Rainbow says, "take a look, it's in a book"! You could find just about anything you wanted in a book. It is beautiful that words can go on a page and paint pictures and in your mind. Words are powerful things and I am so thankful that people's thoughts are down on pages in books so that we can experience them forever, even long after they are gone.

Books have allowed for very special bonding moments between Emrie and I. She loves to sit on my lap and look through books (mostly barn books right now), and I cherish the time we get to sit together and read!

Give Thanks: Day 13 ~ Grocery Stores

We have all seen the horrific images of starving children. I feel so blessed to have a full pantry and fridge. At the grocery store today I looked down the isle at the ENORMOUS amounts of food; shelf after shelf of cans, jars, bags and boxes of food. It saddens me to think that I have all this food at my fingertips and 100's of thousands of people are dying of hunger around the world.

Here is a story Phil and I heard at church Friday night. The guest speaker told about a molecular biologist who is CONVINCED if the local church wanted to, we could stamp out world hunger in 10 years. Here is a story that he used to analogize this.

Every night the tide would leave hundreds of starfish on the shore. There was a little girl who walked on the beach each morning. As she walked she would pick up starfish and throw them back into the water. A grumpy, old man said to her, "you can't save them all." She replied, "no, but I saved that one." But this is 2011...Now that same little girl can tweet, facebook and blog all her friends to join her on the beach and they can save ALL the starfish!

What if we each did our part to end world hunger....or at least make a difference to one!

Give Thanks: Day 12 ~ Vacations

Weekends, in my mind, are like mini vacations. You are able to sit back and relax and get stuff done if you want or not. Plus you are able to do the most important thing, which is hang out with your family.

While weekends are nice, I also LOVE real vacations. I mean real vacations like the get on a plane, sit by a beach, drink mojitos and get a tan kind.

Phil and I have been super blessed to have been able to take many vacations over the past five years and I can't wait for Emrie to experience vacations with us soon!

Here are a few of my favorite vacations:

Dana Point for Spring Break of our senior year...also on this trip we became engaged:)

Horseback riding in Puerto Vallarta for our honeymoon!
We rode bikes to the Mayan ruins in Tulum. It was about 90 degrees, but had beautiful beaches.
Cancun with Phil's company trip.
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic with Phil's company. This was a funny trip!
Celebrating our 3rd anniversary in Puerto Nuevo right before Christmas.

Super good memories from vacation and always come back rested!

You light up my life!

My latest project has been the large guest bedroom. We started out with nothing in that room, and recently purchased black furnature. I had a lot of random stuff that didn't really match in there, but I love spray paint and I figured I could make some fun accents. Here is my first project.

I have had these lamps since Phil's college house. His mom bought them at an auction for $5 and they were originally gold. In our last house I painted them silver, but I didn't really like the way the silver looked.

After some inspiration from Pinterest here is what I did.

Before:

After:

First I started out by drawing faint pencil lines on the lampshade...In hind sight I might have used tape instead so that you didn't have to erase the pencil after you write on it.

I found a poem that I liked and wrote it out in Sharpie on the shade...I started at the top and wrote around the shade because I didn't want people to really get destracted by trying to read the poem in it's entirerty.

Then I made some flowers out of differnt fabrics with earthy tones and put some pretty jewel buttons in special places and glued the flowers on the shade, not worrying if I covered up words.

Here are each of the finished lampshades.

Finally I finished the project by spray painting the lamps black.

Here is the finished product in the room...but the room isn't close to complete yet!

Give Thanks: Day 10~ The Internet

It might sound silly, but I am so thankful for the Internet. Just this morning I decided I needed to rent a truck, take a load of stuff to a landfill and pick up a dresser. I hopped on the Internet and was able to rent a uhaul, find a landfill in the area and confirm my order for the dresser all in a matter of minutes.

In half and hour Emrie will be able to see her Uncle Travis and Aunt Danee on Skype! 2,000 miles away and Emrie can grow up knowing her extended family...all because of the Internet!

Facebook and e-mail have also made it possible to keep in touch with friends I know I would have long ago lost touch with.

I am so thankful to have this modern technology that has enriched my life!

An Office With a View

One of the things I do love about moving into a new home is getting to decorate it. That also comes with headaches though at times, especially when Phil and I have different visions for a room. One such room in this house is our office.

If it were up to me every room would be floor to ceiling windows with bright yellow paint (not really, but something cheery) and the more 'happy' the better. Phil loves dark woods and trees surrounding the house (until he has to rake leaves). So the trouble with the office was that we had different visions: I wanted it bright and happy, he wanted it dark and 'rich'. Here was our compromise (actually he was out of town and I sort of made it a compromise without him knowing, so I am not sure that is a compromise).

Phil said that he wanted the office dark, like a study, where he can go sit in a chair and sip scotch and smoke a cigar (neither of which he does, he just thinks it would look cool, like in the movies). So we painted the office a dark brown color and bought a dark wood desk and bookcases (both of which I completely agreed to, and then realized how dark it all was together).

It was SO overwhelmingly dark in their that I had to make a compromise. I bought some accent pieces and two cans of white spray paint. Now there are white accents everywhere and I leave the blinds open all the time. I will admit I like it much more than I did, but there are still more ways I would love to make it even brighter (like a cream fabric chair, cream or white curtains, a couple of cream wall sconces...etc.) But this will do for now!

This was the office as the previous homeowners had it (I didn't like the color when we moved in and now I kind of wish we had kept it)

Here is what we had it painted and our furniture before the white decorations

After I got ahold of white spray paint!

I love these, and I had to spray paint the basket they're in

I found this picture frame and the pitcher below at an antique store for $5!

Gotta love Hobby Lobby, especially when they have stuff 50% off!

And the picture that has been in all of our offices since we got married. It reminds us to have fun!