Date Night In

One of my Christmas gifts to Brandon was a cooking date night.  One night after the kids went down we were going to try and recreate one of our new favorite dishes.  The Kung Pao Chicken from P.F. Chang's is SO yummy and we were wanting some more.

So I searched online and found a recipe that claimed to taste like the restaurant version.

Half of the fun was us getting in the kitchen together and cooking.

We ate it over rice and it was YUMMY!!!  We will definitely be eating this again very soon.

Update from Charleston 5k

I was so proud of myself.  We hit our goal of finishing the race but we surpassed another goal.  I wanted to run 1 of the miles and walk 2 miles.  Instead I ran more than 2 miles and walked less than one.  I was so proud.  My next goal is to run/walk the Cooper River Bridge Run which is a 10k.  Wish me luck.

BBQ Chicken Nachos

Okay, so I've read lots of recipes on Pinterest that talked about Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce.

I had never heard of it, so when it went on sale 2 for 1 at Publix a few weeks ago I grabbed it quickly.  I bought the Honey Barbecue Sauce because one of my husband's favorite things to eat is the Boneless Honey BBQ wings at Applebees- they are gross to me.  This was a sacrifice! I put chicken breasts in the crockpot and covered them with sauce (about 1/3 of the bottle).  The chicken just fell apart.  It was so yummy!
A few weeks ago we had gone on a date to Sesame, a great local restaurant that is known for their burgers and beer.  I LOVE a good burger...theirs are great; served only with grass-fed beef and house made condiments.  For an appetizer we decided to try their BBQ pork nachos.  They were so good we both wished we would've each ordered our own and just had that for dinner.
So a few days ago when I made this BBQ chicken again I saved two of the chicken breasts for our Super Bowl get together to try my own version of nachos.
I used my favorite wedding gifts, some of my Wilton Armetale platters.

I love these because they can go from oven to grill to freezer to the table.  So I put Tostitos, Hint of Lime chips on the platter, 

topped with the shredded bbq chicken, covered with sharp cheddar cheese and put it in the oven on broil, just until the cheese melted.  Then I topped with shredded spinach, taco sauce, and spicy ranch dressing.  It was so good with made two batches.  So, you've been warned, they're addicting!

Family Pictures

Brandon's cousin, Katie, has an awesome camera and she was sweet enough to take pictures of our family the day after Christmas.  My favorite thing at the time that I was so excited for her to catch was Mackey's smile.  At the time he only had 3 teeth and they were all on the bottom = precious priceless smile.

This is the first picture we've had made of Brandon's parents, sister and the four of us.  I love how Mackey has his little arm propped on Brandon's shoulder.

I'm super impressed that Katie was able to get a great one of the four of us.  Look at these funny ones...

I mean honestly...now that you've seen those you'll be surprised at how great these three are.  Well, Katie is just really talented too.

During this photo shoot I found myself so thankful to be catching these moments on film (well technically not film I guess).