My Beautiful Days

One of my favorite things about summer is the fact that we have so many birthdays to celebrate!  June is Ellis's, July is Monte's and August is Iain's (among other cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, too!).  When a birthday comes around, the birthday king/queen gets to decide what we have for dinner that night as well as what kind of cake they like. It never fails that Iain requests the same dinner each year, as it's one that has been a favorite of my kids' since the first time I made it.  We have made this dinner for friends, we make it when people have babies/surgeries or just need some help - it's delicious for parents and kids alike!  Since we love it so much, I decided it was time to share it with all of you. Recipe courtesy of the "Southern Living at Home" Magazine, January 2011 issue. Baked Smokin' Macaroni and Cheese Makes 8 total servings. Hands on time: 25 minutes - Total time: 1 hour 1 lb. uncooked cellentani (corkscr...

This week I have changed things up a bit at dinner time.  You see, I recently got my March issue of the "Everyday with Rachael Ray" magazine and went through it with my hubby while we were on our mini retreat in Brainerd this past weekend.  Maybe we were just really hungry, or maybe the pictures truly did look that delicious, but whatever the motivation, we decided that we were going to plan this week's menu around the recipes we found in the magazine.   Oh.My.Goodness!  I don't think we've ever had a more phenomenal idea ... food wise, anyway!  Monday we had 'Ginger Noodles with Chicken' (though the recipe in the magazine called for tofu, we decided to substitute and use chicken, as neither of us like tofu even a little bit)!  Tuesday we had steak tacos that surprised me to the extreme!  The picture truly didn't look very good to me, but Monte was excited about it, so I decided to go ahead and make them.  It was a great decision!  They ...

Have you seen this movie? I recently viewed it at the recommendation of my blogging friend, Pennie .  There's not much I can say besides I LOVED IT.  So did Monte, in fact.  He loved it so much that he watched it twice.  Not necessarily by his choice, but more because I fell asleep the first time we tried to watch it (we started the movie at 10pm, I should've known I wouldn't last through it!).  He watched the movie through that night and then he watched it again with me the next night.  It is SO good.  So good, in fact, that I'm bringing it to my mom's house to watch with her soon.  It will be a blast! However, this movie inspired me a little bit.  You see, I have wanted to learn to cook a lot better than what my current capabilities allow.  My family very likely gets extremely sick of the same ol' same ol' that we have week after week.  There is not much variety in our menu because there is not much variety in my cooking abi...