Dinner Plans

So, tomorrow marks the first day that I will be hosting my in-laws for dinner for Steve's birthday. Needless to say, I'm a little stressed about it! I'm frantically trying to clean up the house and figure out the menu. My initial plan was to grill some steaks, but it doesn't look like the weather is going to hold out for it. I had to come up with a back-up plan. Here's what is in store for tomorrow:

Romaine salad with sliced strawberries and poppyseed dressing
Pork Tenderloin with a peach jalepeno glaze
Mashed red potatos
Brown sugar glazed carrots

Sounds yummy, doesn't it?? Besides the salad, which is easy, I haven't made any of it before. I love cooking and am always up for trying something new. Fingers crossed that it all turns out!

Tonight we have another girls night and I am sooo looking forward to it! We've been getting into the habit of planning a night for just girls once a month. We set a theme and everyone brings a healthy dish to share. Tonight is an Italian themed dinner. This is what I am bringing: Mushroom Bruschetta. I had to sample it this afternoon...so good! Can't wait for another wonderful evening. :)

Our kids

Meet Daisy (left) and Checkers (right). Checkers is my kitty. I got him in March of '07 when he was an itty bitty little thing. He doesn't look it in this picture, but he is a big, muscular cat! Daisy is Steve's kitty. He got her in September of '08. We were worried about how well they would get along once we had moved them to the same house but, thankfully, they are little buddies! It's quite often that we see them snuggling together and giving each other lick baths. So cute. :) They are quite the pair...

Our new home

Steve and I had quite the crazy month leading up to our wedding. We were casually looking at houses, thinking about the possiblity of moving sometime in the near future. Well, the near future turned into about 2 weeks before our wedding! It was crazy to say the least. We ended up finding a beautiful home that was a foreclosure, in amazingly good condition, for a price we couldn't pass up. So, we jumped on the opportunity and here we are! This is our dream home, and we plan to be here for many years to come...like 15-20 years to come. It is definitely too big for us right now, but we plan to grow into it. ;) Here's a few snapshots of the house:

It is a 2-story house with an unfinished basement. 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath. So, plenty of room for guests! (hint, hint ;)

Probably my favorite room in the house... When we moved in, there were no appliances at all, so we had the opportunity to start from scratch. It was a lot of fun to go appliance shopping! At least I thought so. :) I've had a lot of fun cooking in here so far.

This is my study room while I am back in school and Steve's office. We ended up finding the furniture online for a steal! We spent a good 6-7 hours putting it all together but, it's all still standing, so I think we did an ok job! :)

Our formal dining room...will get good use this Thanksgiving! :)

Master bedroom...

Master bathroom...

There is more to share, but we have some painting projects (like our IU/Purdue room...) to get done before those will go up. We hope to have a get together here sometime soon once the house gets a little more put together and the summer starts to wind down a bit!

Stuffed Zucchini

I have always LOVED to cook. Now that I have my wonderful kitchen in our new home, I can't help but experiment. I have definitely been trying some new and interesting recipes on Steve...and all very healthy! No complaints from him so far. :) Here is one of my new favorites. This goes well as a side with grilled chicken.

Stuffed Zucchini
5 medium zucchini halved lengthwise
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Scoop out pulp from 8 zucchini halves; set aside. Arrange zucchini halves on baking sheet. Coarsely chop remaining zucchini and pulp. Place olive oil in skillet over medium heat and cook chopped zucchini and onion, stirring occassionally until veggies are tender. Add red pepper, garlic and oregano. Cook, stirring frequently for 1 minute. Evenly spoon veggie mixutre into zucchini halves. Top with cheese. Bake for 30 min or until tender.

**Note: I added a little black pepper along with the cheese for a little extra flavor. :)

Enjoy!

New Beginnings...

I wanted to start this blog to give our family & friends insight into what is going on in our lives... There's so much that has been going on, it's hard to know where to start!

Might as well begin with the biggest news...our wedding. :) July 18, 2009. What can I say? It was such a wonderful event. I have honestly never felt more loved than that day. Having all of our family and friends there with us to celebrate made it even more special. Being engaged over a year, it was a very LONG planning process that we were both ready to be done with. A lot of time, personal touches, and a few tears went into that one day...and I couldn't have asked for anything more. It was simple, yet beautiful. Perfect. :) We don't quite have our pictures back yet, but as soon as we do, expect many photo recaps. For now, I leave you with one of our favorites from the day. As one of my friends put it, it is a wonderful "in the moment" capture of time...

www.mollygphotography.com