Wordless Wednesday: Baseball Begins!

Wordless Wednesday: Little Chief's Birthday Party

Have you met Ruby?

Ruby is a show on the Style Network that has me hooked. Ruby is on a quest to lose weight. She has weighed over 550 lbs and has recently lost nearly 100 lbs. The show follows her stuggles to lose weight and it truly inspires me. The thing I love about Ruby is she is not wallowing in self pity. She is funny, free-spirited and adorable. The show is set in her hometown of Savannah, Georgia. She is surrounded by family and friends that love her the way she is, but want to see her healthy and happy. Please go check it out. Just click on her name at the beginning of this paragraph and that should link you up to her website. I promise she will make you smile.

Are you a Ruby fan? If you are honey, sit right down and tell me about your favorite episode.

BBQ Rib Bonanza!

Yesterday my youngest (and last) baby boy turned 8 years old! Talk about hard to believe!! My son LOVES ribs and a local restaurant has "all-you-can-eat" ribs on Thursday nights, sooooo, Little Chief went and ate some scrumptious ribs for his birthday dinner with mom and dad. I ate salad, again.....total bummer!

In this pic he is getting impatient because Chief is taking too long to snap the photo and he just wants to dig in. He is giving daddy a warning look with those tight lips and bug eyes - he totally got that expression from me!

Wet wipes to the rescue!

And of course no birthday dinner is ever complete without a little sweet treat!

Happy Birthday, Pumpkin! Stay tuned, the party is on Saturday!

Tasteful Thursday: Shrimp Quesadilla

Howza 'bout a quick easy recipe for a busy weeknight? This can be low fat too if you use the right ingredients. Here are our cast of characters, at least the ones that made it to rehearsal:

These guys are gonna make a quick side dish:

Now I know some of my friends and family on the Mississippi Gulf Coast will probably cringe in their fishin' boots to see me using frozen shrimps, but hey they were on sale at the Food Lion "buy one get one free", so shush!! If you get home late from work and you forgot to thaw some meat for dinner, pull out a bag of these frozen shrimp and thaw them under cold water in a colander, like I did:

Next take the tails off and cut them up a little. You can skip the cutting up part unless you have a whiney 8-year-old that doesn't like to eat shrimp in big pieces, only little ones. The shrimp are actually fully cooked, so we are just going to warm them in a skillet with a turn or two around the pan of olive oil.

Sprinkle your shrimp generously with this yummy mexican seasoning from Mrs. Dash (for those of us watching our sodium intake) or you can use some Old Bay, yummy!

And since I am committing all sorts of culinary offenses on my way to a quick dinner, spinkle your shrimp with some bottled lime juice; only if you were too lazy to stop at the store for some real limes and fresh cilantro.....uh hum, I admit it, I was too lazy and my pointy-toed black heels were giving me a run for my money!

Sautee on medium high until it is bubbly:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. On a cookie sheet, lay out your tortilla (whole wheat if you love your life) sprinkle with shredded mexican cheese, top with shrimp.

Add some more cheese and jalapenos' (if you love 'em). Top with another torilla.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until cheese melts all that yummy goodness together:

Now for a yummy dipping sauce to compliment our flavors. Remember Low Fat Sour Cream if you are watching your hind quarters. You use equal parts sour cream and cocktail sauce. So if you want a cup of sauce, use 1/2 cup SC and 1/2 cup cocktail sauce:

I could eat this stuff like cake batter, but I'm not because I don't want cake batter or sour cream thighs.

And finally my quick and healthy mexican rice. You can use any rice, but my heart wants me to eat brown rice to keep it strong. So I use the brown rice boil in a bag pouch by Uncle Ben - cook as directed on box.

Combine cooked rice and 1/3 cup of salsa. Stir it all around and there you go:

Add some salad on the side and in less than 15 minutes, you can pull together a healthy, quick meal, no excuses!

Wordless Wednesday: My Nephew Turns 3!

Bakugan Mania

Chances are, if you have a boy between the ages of 5 and 12, you know about Bakugan Mania. If you do not have a boy in that age range, you may be saying Baku-who?? At least that is what the nice Cake Lady said when I called to order Little Chief's Birthday Cake. Thank the Good Lord for Google, because that is where the Cake Lady is headed to find inspiration for the cake decorating to commence.

So after running here, there and over yonder hill this weekend to find Bakugan party favors and invites - because NO OTHER theme would do - I found some at Party City, though their supply was looking slim. We loaded up on invites, and cheap party favors (the kind that never make it to the end of the party without breaking) and then $30 later - we were set for the Bakugan Brawling to begin!



Brawling is the technical term for playing the Bakugan Game. I am no Bakugan expert, but Little Chief is ('cuz he told me so) - but basically each player throws out their little ball and the one with the most power wins. That's all I need to know personally, but apparently the game has many intricacies and can be played with a finesse that only little boys can possess.

Any who, I want you to know that after addressing all the invites and packaging them up and stratigically locating them in the back pack for optimal viewing, Little Chief ended up dropping the package of invites somewhere between the bus and school!! So none of his little friends received their invite to the Brawl!! So guess what I had to do after school and work and in the rain and even in high heels? You guessed it, I had to march my hot (hot as in fired up mad, not hot as in Hawt!) patootie right back to Party City. So let's see if he can make it to school with his second set of invites!! I will take lots of photos this coming weekend at his party to share with y'all. There is either going to be some brawling or some bawling going on, maybe a little of both!



Try stepping on one of these fellas in the middle of the night - make ya say words you never even thought of before!