DWTS: Good-bye to Marissa and Tony!

The results are in and tonight, Marissa and Tony were sent home from Dancing with the Stars. I think that Marissa deserves a lot of credit for the hard work and dedication that she put into her performances. She really did prove that you don't have to be a size zero to dance. Now for the finals... It's between Kristi & Mark, Jason & Edyta and Christian & Cheryl. I've voting for Kristi & Mark! Only one more week to go!

Go Kristi & Mark!!!!!

Reflection on Motherhood

Mother's Day was a very relaxing day for me this year. I came home from work around 7:00am and slept for a good portion of the day. Roger made sure to keep Rylan as quiet as he could be so that I could sleep. We went to dinner at Tio Johnny's house and then I had to work. I was very happy to spend the day with my loving husband and wonderful son. I found this photo of my mom and me back in 1984 that I felt like sharing with everyone. Thanks again to Roger and Rylan for making my mothers day special.

I'm extremely grateful to have three great mothers in my life.
I have my mom who has always been there for me and taught me quite a bit in life. She's always been supportive and understanding. I love you Mom!
I have a stepmother who loves me like I am her own daughter and has taught me many things about life. Ange is so knowledgeable and understanding. I don't know what I would do without her in my life.
I also have a wonderful mother-in-law who is the most caring, understanding and loving mother to her son and has accepted me into the family with open arms. She is great for advise and prayer. I could go on and on... Thanks Mom for being there for us and being such a great mom. We love you!

Delicious Recipes

I absolutely love to look at Martha Stewart's website for recipes and craft ideas. I found some great recipes this morning that I just wanted to share with others because they seem like wonderful spring-summer ideas. So here it goes...

Crispy Mustard Chicken with Carrots

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 3 slices rye bread
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 4 skinless chicken legs, (drumsticks and thighs)
• 2 (about 10 ounces each) bone-in, skinless chicken breast halves
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 5 carrots, sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 6 scallions, cut into 2-inch lengths

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a food processor, pulse bread until coarse crumbs form.
2. In a shallow bowl, combine mustard, lime juice, and garlic. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dip chicken legs (not breast) in mustard mixture, then roll in crumbs, patting to coat. Place legs and breast on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon oil.
3. Check chicken breast after 20 minutes; remove when done. Roast legs another 10 to 15 minutes, until cooked through.
4. While chicken is roasting, toss carrots with remaining tablespoon of oil in a 9-by-13-inch baking pan. Season with salt and pepper. Place on separate rack in oven, and roast 10 minutes. Add scallions to carrots, and roast until tender, about 5 minutes.
5. Serve legs and vegetables together; reserve breast for another day.

Cobb Salad

Ingredients

Serves 6

• 1 boneless and skinless chicken breast half
• 2 large eggs
• 3 slices turkey bacon
• 1 head romaine lettuce, stalk and tough outer leaves removed, sliced crosswise into 3/4-inch-wide strips (about 6 cups)
• 1 cup chopped fresh watercress
• 3 tomatoes, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 1/2 small ripe Hass avocado, peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 1/2 cup)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
• 1 ounce blue cheese, crumbled
• 3 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Directions

1. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Add chicken; cook at a bare simmer until it is cooked through, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a plate, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes; set aside.
2. Place eggs in a small saucepan; fill with enough cold water to cover by 1 inch. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; turn off heat. Cover; let stand 11 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl, and cover with cold water; let cool, and peel. Slice eggs in half lengthwise. Discard one yolk, and pass the other through a fine sieve into a small bowl; set aside. Slice each egg white into six wedges; set aside.
3. Cook bacon in a medium saute pan over medium-low heat until browned and fat is rendered, turning once, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to drain on paper towels. Let cool; roughly chop.
4. Spread lettuce on a serving platter. Arrange chicken, eggs, bacon, watercress, tomatoes, avocado, parsley, and chives in separate rows.
5. Make the vinaigrette: In a small bowl, whisk together cheese, vinegar, and mustard. Slowly whisk in the oil. Season with pepper. Drizzle vinaigrette over salad, and serve immediately.

Bean, Avocado and Tortilla Salad

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 1 (15.5 ounces) pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (10 ounces) frozen corn kernels, (2 cups)
• 1/4 cup prepared medium tomato salsa, plus more for serving
• 1 scallions, thinly sliced (1 cup)
• 1 ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, and cubed
• 3 plum tomatoes, thickly sliced
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 (12 ounces) romaine hearts, cut into bite-size pieces
• 3 cups (3 ounces) broken baked tortilla chips
• 3/4 cup coarsely grated pepper Jack cheese

Directions

1. In a medium microwave-safe bowl, combine beans, corn, and salsa. Microwave just until warmed through, 1 minute. Stir in scallions, avocado, and tomatoes; season with salt and pepper. Set bean mixture aside.
2. In a large bowl, toss lettuce and chips together. Divide evenly among plates; top with bean mixture and cheese. Serve immediately, topped with additional salsa, if desired.

Martha's Favorite Tuna Salad Sandwich

Ingredients

12 ounces good-quality tuna, packed in oil, drained
2 stalks celery, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 apple, such as McIntosh or Gala, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4-inch pieces
3 tablespoons light mayonnaise, preferably Ojai Cook's Lemonaise Light
2 tablespoons freshly chopped basil leaves
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
8 slices best-quality sourdough

Cooking Directions

In a medium bowl, combine tuna, celery, apple, mayonnaise, basil, and lemon juice; mix well. Season with salt and pepper.
On a work surface, divide tuna salad among 4 slices bread; top with remaining 4 slices bread. Serve.

All Recipes and photos are from www.marthastewart.com.

Rylan's new haircut

Rylan's hair grows like crazy and was getting really long on the top and hard for me to cut so we decided to give him a buzz cut. I was so proud of him. He tolerated us shaving his head fairly well for an 18 month old. I just think he looks so adorable. With the photo below, I can't help but think that he is saying "Who me?!?!?"

Here's Rylan in the truck getting ready to take me out to dinner for Mothers Day. He's such a sweet little boy- I am so thankful that I'm his mother.

What is your favorite Holiday meal?

Last night, I made a green bean casserole for Roger to take to a pot-luck dinner they are having at his work today. It smelled Sooo good. I almost made another separate one for us to eat. It made me think about how much I love Thanksgiving dinner and how I love to have this dinner year round. So I felt that I would post my Thanksgiving dinner recipes to share with you all. (My actual favorite holiday meal is the traditional Basque Breakfast that my mother makes but I'm not suppose to share that with anyone. It's a secret like the Bush's Baked Beans recipe- LOL!!! Thanksgiving is my second place holiday meal.)I like to do my turkey "The Michigan Way".

The Michigan Style Turkey

INGREDIENTS

1 (12 pound) whole turkey

6 tablespoons butter

4 cups warm water

3 tablespoons chicken broth

2 tablespoons dried parsley

2 tablespoons dried minced onion

2 tablespoons seasoning salt

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rinse and wash turkey. Discard the giblets or you can add these to pan if these are anyone's favorites.

Place turkey in a Dutch oven or roasting pan. Separate the skin over the breast to make little pockets. Put 3 tablespoons of the butter on both sides between the skin and breast meat. This makes for very juicy breast meat.

Combine the water with the bouillon, and sprinkle in the parsley flakes and minced onion. Pour over the top of the turkey. Sprinkle seasoning salt over the turkey.

Cover with foil and bake in preheated oven for 4 to 5 hours. Or if you are a fan of the oven bags, that can be used as well, just doesn’t turn out as nice with this recipe. For the last 45 minutes or so, remove the foil

so the turkey will brown nicely.

My Green Bean Casserole
(This is a photo of the casserole that I made last night. I use the recipe from French's thats on the can of the fried onions but I do not use the pepper. )

Ingredients:
1 (10 3/4 oz.) can CAMPBELL'S® Cream of Mushroom Soup
3/4 cup milk
2 (9 oz. each) pkgs. frozen cut green beans, thawed*
1 can FRENCH'S® Original or Cheddar French Fried Onions

Directions: 1. MIX soup, milk and pepper in a 1 1/2 -qt. baking dish. Stir in beans and 2/3 cup French Fried Onions.
2. BAKE at 350°F for 30 min. or until hot.
3. STIR. Top with remaining 2/3 cup onions. Bake 5 min. until onions are golden.

Tip: You may substitute 2 cans (14 1/2 oz. each) cut green beans, drained or 4 cups fresh, cooked cut green beans.

Mashed Potatoes

INGREDIENTS

6 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1/2 cup warm milk

1/4 cup butter or margarine

3/4 teaspoon salt

Dash pepper

DIRECTIONS

Place potatoes in a saucepan and cover with water. Cover and bring to a boil; cook for 20-25 minutes or until very tender. Drain well. Add milk, butter, salt and pepper; mash until light and fluffy.

Pumpkin Pie

INGREDIENTS

1 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree

1 2/3 cups evaporated milk

2 eggs

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).

Combine the sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, cloves, pumpkin puree, evaporated milk and eggs; blending until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared unbaked pie shell.

Bake at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C) for 15 minutes then lower oven temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue to bake for about another 40 minutes or until pie is firm.

DWTS: Goodbye to Mario & Karina

This week was a very special week on Dancing with the Stars as last nights was the 100th episode that ended with us saying Good-bye to Mario & Karina. Mario was criticized the night before for his "bloody ugly feet" and lack of being a great ballroom dancer. Mario is a top R&B performer and was the shows youngest competitor. It is sad to see them go.
The night started off with the judges Top 10 dances of all times.
Here's their Top 10 dances :
10) Kelly Monaco with her partner Alec with their Freestyle.
9) Sabrina Bryan and her partner Mark with their Paso Doble (I'm sure you all know this is my all time favorite couple- I still think that they should have won.)
8) Emmett Smith with his partner Cheryl with their Cha-Cha.
7) Apollo Anton Ohno with his partner Julianne and their Quickstep (Another of my favorites)
6) Joey Fatone with his partner Kim and their Jive. (Another great dance)
5) Helio Castroneves with Juliane and their Quickstep - known as "Banana Man"
4) Drew Lachey with his partner Cheryl doing their country Freestyle.
3) Stacy Keebler with her partner Tony doing the Samba.
2) Melanie Brown "Scary Spice" with her partner Maxim doing the Paso Doble.
1) Mario Lopez with his partner Karina with the Tango.

I think that the judges were extremely critical this week and the couples may not have deserved the low scores they received. I guess there has to be a episode every season where the audience is shocked about something- hopefully this was it. I hope that Kristi & Mark and Jason & Edyta can manage to raise their scores this next week. I personally want Christian & Cheryl to be the next couple eliminated. We'll just have to see what next week brings...

Tag You're it....Plans for the week

First of all, Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! So here's another tagging game. The objective of this tag is to find a photo to describe atleast 10 things that you plan to do this week. I'm going to tag anyone who would like to do this. Here's mine:

1) Sleeping as much as possible

2) Cleaning House

3)Doing Laundry

4)Grocery shopping

5)Preparing for a garage sale

6)Doing more yardwork

7)Going to take Rylan to the park to play

8)Going to see IronMan the movie

9)Going to try to sneak some photo opportunities in

10)Watching Dancing with the Stars

11) Praying that the IRS will process our taxes and stimulus checks.

Update on Roger

Many of you know that Roger has been dealing with some health issues over the past year. He always felt tired no matter how much sleep he had gotten the night before and it was taking a toll on his work and school life. He would have a hard time falling asleep and would toss and turn a lot throughout the night. A few months ago, he was able to find a doctor that suggested that he may have sleep apnea. He was scheduled for a sleep study where he had to spend the night at the sleep lab for observation. So he went to the sleep study and we prayed that this would be the answer to many of his problems. One day after waiting for the results, the technician called and told him that he needed to come in that afternoon and get a temporary machine. They told him that he does have severe obstructive sleep apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a disorder where the windpipe becomes blocked during sleep. This prevents the lungs from getting enough air. People who have sleep apnea stop breathing on average for 5 to 30 seconds at a time throughout the night. The average person has these episodes 20 to 50 times a night. Roger stopped breathing 92 times per hour when he laid on his side and 126 times per hour when he lays on his back. This is a very severe case. They have him on a CPAP device which will help to keep the airway open. A CPAP device consists of a mask, tubes and a fan.

It uses air pressure to push the tongue down and keep the throat open. With the continuous air pressure, apnea episodes are reduced if not eliminated. The CPAP device also helps prevent snoring. I should have known that there was something wrong when Roger began snoring more often and louder than ever before. I do have to adjust to the sound of the CPAP machine but thankfully it is white noise and doesn't bother me like I thought it would. In fact, I wake up now and check on him because he is so quiet.

At the last doctors appointment, we got a good report. They said that the results of his second sleep study were excellent. He had gone back for the second sleep study after they got him hooked up with the machine. During the second sleep study, he actually wore the CPAP device. The results showed that he only had 15 apnea episodes throughout the night. So his doctor was very happy to see those results. I'm very proud of how well he has adjusted to sleeping with that device on. I'm not sure how I would do if I was in his position.

This also gives us the extra incentive to lose the weight that we both want to lose. When we can afford to get some workout equipment, we will get something. Not sure what yet. Until then, we are going to have to start walking more than we do now and work out in other ways. This will help him to get his body back into the shape that it was in before this disorder took its toll on him. Sleep apnea can cause some people to gain weight very easily.

Hopefully now that we have some control of this situation, maybe we'll actually have time to work on our other goals for 2008. We really want for Roger to be able to work from home and get his computer business going. He's extremely talented and knowledgeable when it comes to computers. He is able to custom build a computer, do upgrades and make repairs. He's taught me so much about computers.

Alittle Bit about us...

(This photo was taken of us on Roger's Birthday. We had only been together for 1 week.)

With our three year wedding anniversary around the corner I thought that I would take advantage of the tagged opportunity and share alittle bit about Roger & I. So here it goes...

How long have you been married? 3 years this month

How long did you date? We knew almost instantly that we wanted to get married. We began some planning within the first two months and were married 11. 5 months after we met.

How old is he? He is 3 years older than I am.

Who eats more? This would depend on what was being eaten. For example, Caesar salad- Roger can eat more than I can. Steak- Roger can eat more than I can. Desserts- I eat more than he does. (L So sad for my hips) Most other foods are about even.

Who said "I love you" first? I did.

Who is taller? Roger

Who is smarter? This would really depend on a lot of factors. Roger is wicked smart about computers, religion, math, etc. I am smart when it comes to creative designs, law, medicine, etc. So I would not say that one is smarter than the other but that our knowledge is equal.

Who does the laundry? I do most of the time.

Who does the dishes? We both do.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Roger.

Who pays the bills? I do.

Who mows the lawn? Definitely Roger. I’m allergic. I am always so thankful that he does this chore. He does a great job!

Who cooks dinner? Roger cooks more than I do but I’m trying to get better. Roger is an excellent cook. It's so sweet because there will be days when I wake up and he already has dinner cooked and ready to eat. He's very considerate of my likes and dislikes and always tries to give me the best.

Who kissed who first? Roger kissed me first. I was wanting him to kiss me and I finally started dropping subtle hints that I wanted him to so he did. It was the most amazing kiss I had ever had.

Who asked who out? We started off talking on the internet, then talking on the phone and then he asked me to go to the movies with him. Our first time meeting one another, my friend Kristina B. was with me. So the three of us went into the movies and that’s how it got started.

Who proposed? Well, we didn’t really have a proposal. We just talked about it one day and then we went to look at rings and started planning from then on.

Who has more siblings? Roger has a brother. He also has some step-siblings. I am an only child from my mother and have a half sister and two half brothers. I also have three stepbrothers.

Who enjoys their job more? I do. I love my job at the sheriff’s office. I work in the Jail Division working with all of the records on all of our inmates. Our jail houses over 1,000 inmates and has a top rating in the Northwest United States. There are times when my job isn’t great but I can say that those times are few and far between. I would recommend the Ada County Sheriffs Office to anyone looking for a great career.

This made my day so much better...

Rylan is just such a happy baby. He was just hanging out in the backseat relaxing.... smiling up a storm! I wish that sometimes I could be a kid again and not have a care in the world..