New favorite!

We have a short list of favorite movies that we rotate through very regularly at our house including but not entirely limited to the following -

The Hangover
Old School
All American Pie movies
Knocked Up
Meet the Parents
The Notebook (mostly me)
The Devil Wears Prada (again, mostly me)

We have pretty much memorized all of these movies and they always seem to be the ones we "go to" however, I have a new one to add to the rotation and am pretty pumped about it!!!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this movie!  I saw it in the theater (loved it), watched it with my ladies last night (loved it again) and will be watching it with Ryan tomorrow night (laughing just as hard as I did the first time)!

Beans, beans the magical fruit...

When it gets hot like it has been around here lately the last thing I want to do is cook. This usually means we resort to Chipotle, Cafe Yumm or a delicious homemade salad or two.   I am a huge fan of bean salads so I thought I would share a couple of my favorite recipes!  Not only are these salads easy and delicious but I think they are pretty healthy too, bonus!!!

Corn & Black Bean Salad

1 can whole kernel corn
1 can black beans (drained & rinsed)
2 tomatoes chopped
1/2 of a red onion chopped
1/4 cup minced cilantro
2 cloves minced garlic

Dressing
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tb white vinegar
2 Tb oil
1 1/2 tsp lime juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp pepper

Combine ingredients and toss with the dressing.  Best if chilled for several hours or overnight before serving.
Seriously delicious!!

Cool Beans Salad (Silas loves this one)

3 cups cooked basmati rice
1 can kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 1/2 cups frozen corn (thawed)
4 green onions thinly sliced
1 small sweet red pepper (chopped)
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro

Dressing
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 Tbs sugar
1 clove garlic minced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp pepper

Again, combine ingredients and toss with dressing.  Chill before serving.  So easy!

Totally Together

So I found this book on one of the blogs that I read and unfortunately I can't remember which one...  Anyway, LOVE, Love, love this book!  I have tried making checklists like this for myself but always feel like I never get it quite right.  This book is awesome!  It is half day planner half to do list (in the form of a weekly checklist).  Bonus - it covers all those pesky house maintenance chores that I always seem to forget like changing filters, cleaning the oven, dusting the baseboards etc.  Everything is scheduled and I am assuming that if I stay on top of the weekly checklist my house will be clean, even if it is not apparent because all of the cleanliness is buried under toys...  The book starts on the first week of September and I am getting pretty excited to give it a shot!!!

I picked up a copy on Amazon for like $12!

Bangs...

I have been slowly working on a post to update of my "List of 52" from the beginning of the year but completed a major one last weekend...  I cut bangs!! Not just little wispy bangs, big fat bangs!  I was not too sure about them at first but today I woke up and decided I love them!!

Before & After

Nothing major but a much needed improvement!!!

Before!

Much better!!!
Yep, they are laying on the floor eating nuts this time...

Blast from the Past

So we decided that since we are getting new floors in the kitchen we might as well get rid of the nasty pinkish peach tile counter tops too...  I really loved the brown grout and wood trim and all but the new ones will probably be a little more sanitary, ha!
Anyway, the counter people came to rip off the old tile yesterday in preparation for our new ones to be put on today and it was like opening a time capsule!  You know when things disappear out the back of your drawers and are never to be seen again without seriously pulling things apart...  Well that is what we found yesterday behind all of our drawers and surprisingly none of it was our stuff.  There was a serious stash of  all kinds of interesting things, steak knives, forks, chopsticks, a child's artwork & school papers, lots of paper snowflakes, an apron and a Duck Tales Happy Meal box dated 1985!!  Apparently the little boy that lived here was named Ian and based on the dates and types of school papers he is probably about the same age as me, pretty fun!!

Apparently Ian was a serious Matchbox collector :)

I totally remember having this set when I was little!!!

Seriously loved that show and am singing the
song in my head as I am typing this!!!!

One of my favorite pastimes at my parents house is to sit on the back porch and read my mom's cookbooks. She has LOADS of awesome cookbooks and has taken notes on every recipe she has ever made in the cookbooks.  A few weeks ago I came across an oldie but goodie!  Cookies for Kids by Better Homes and Gardens was a cookbook that Dustin and I had when we were little.  It is from 1983 and is seriously the best cookie cookbook ever!  I think we have made almost every cookie in the entire book.  There are so many crazy and fun cookies I could hardly contain my excitement in finding it.  Of course my mom was not going to part with the book so I made it my mission to find my own copy so the boys can have as much cookie fun as Dustin and I had with it over the years!
I finally found a "like new" used copy on Amazon and now have my very own Cookies for Kids book and could not be more excited.  The boys and I have been baking up a storm!

These are our bump on a log cookies we made the other day!
I can't wait to try some more!!!