Menu Planning Monday

Monday: Baked Mostaccioli (this didn't make it to the table last week)

Tuesday: Pancetta and Pesto Stuffed Chicken

Wednesday: Homemade pizza night

Thursday: Honey chicken tenders

Friday: Date night

Weekend Recap

The last snowy weekend of February is in the books. I am hoping that March will bring lots of sunshine and warmer temperatures. We had a really nice weekend. On Friday I worked from home and wrapped up early so we could head up to Michael's Aunt and Uncle's house to celebrate his cousin Paul's birthday. We had some yummy lasagna for dinner and visited with everyone. Jacob didn't get to have lasagna for dinner, he was stuck with some applesauce that he wasn't too sure of! I got some pretty funny pictures of the faces he was making.

After dinner we hung out with everyone for a little while longer and Skyped with Michael's cousin Anthony who is a Marine in San Diego. We headed home and crashed after a long day.

On Saturday we got up and met up Rich, Tif, Baby Jacob, Ken and Michael's parents for breakfast. We had a yummy breakfast and took turns passing Jacob around like a hot potato. Rich got the cutest picture ever of Michael and a sleepy Jacob.

After breakfast, Michael dropped me off at the salon for my hair appointment. I really needed to get my hair colored. I kept putting off and then I had to wait and see if I was pregnant to make sure I didn't dye my hair. Now, I'm good for another 3 months. After the salon, we just hung out for a little bit before heading out to Oak Brook mall to do some shopping. I have had so many gift cards burning a hole in my pocket from Christmas. Now that all the spring items are in the stores, I thought it would be the perfect time to get to spend some of them. I also had some good coupons that were expiring that I wanted to use. I got some kitchen items from Crate and Barrel, some new eyeshadow from MAC, and a beautiful butter colored leather bag from Coach.

After the mall we headed down the street to Lombard and I went to Charming Charlie and Forever21. I picked up a bunch of cute accessories for Spring from Charming Charlie and some cute new Spring tops from Forever 21.

After our shopping extravaganza, we met up with Rich, Tif, Baby Jacob and Ken for dinner at Flattop. We had a yummy dinner as always. Jacob enjoyed eating his place mat, HA!

After dinner we headed home and just snuggled up on the couch for awhile and then headed to bed. Today we got up and went to breakfast and then grocery shopping. We came home and got some things done around the house like cleaning and laundry. I also needed to box up the Valentine's decorations I took down last weekend. I got them all put away and set up a new tablescape.

After finishing up with the cleaning, I headed out to get a manicure/pedicure. It was nice and relaxing.

For Sunday dinner, Michael made his famous bacon wrapped pork tenderloin medallions and they were yummy as always.

We are just enjoying the last few hours of our weekend relaxing before our busy week ahead. The Oscars are on tonight but I'm not sure if we're going to watch. My favorite part is watching the red carpet arrivals! I hope all of you had a great weekend and a good week ahead.

Our week in pictures: 2/20 - 2/26

Sunday, February 20: We had fun cooking up homemade ravioli for Sunday dinner

Monday, February 21: My fertility pill dosage for only 5 days! Michael calls them my crazy pills!

Tuesday, February 22: Michael made us a new yummy chicken recipe for dinner tonight!

Wednesday, February 23: Our photo blocks are finally here, I'm in love!

Thursday, February 24: Another week, another cute Porkchop picture

Friday, February 25: Jacob was not too sure about his applesauce he had for dinner!

Saturday, February 26: We had a really fun day shopping, especially since we had lots of gift cards and coupons!

Thing's I'm loving - February

Breyer's cookie dough ice cream bars

These are my new favorite dessert! For 160 calories they are pretty big and they taste really good. They have a few other flavors but these are the only ones that I like.

American Idol

I had lost hope in American Idol last season. It was a lackluster year with pretty underwhelming talent. I really think they have changed things up for the better this year. I think the addition of JLo and Steven Tyler was brilliant, even though I was skeptical at first. The talent is pretty mind blowing this year too. I don't know who my favorite is!

 My Valentine

Of course February is the love month so I can't have a February favorites list without my hubby. We had a really romantic and low-key Valentine's Day with a candlelit dinner at home. It was perfect.

Photo Blocks

 I first found these photo blocks before Christmas and they had been on my  "most wanted list" for a while. After Christmas I used some of my Christmas money to take the plunge and order them. I am so glad I did. I think they look great on our mantel and I love all of the pictures. I am going to do a full review on the process and working with the seller next week.

Vacation plans

We finally decided this month where we are going on our first vacation this year. We are headed to Florida in just 76 days. I can't wait! We've been through a lot these past few months and getting away seems like the perfect medicine.

This week I'm...

Loving: This week is almost over and so is this round of clomid, I'll be so happy on Saturday!
Disliking: More snow...blah...blah...winter needs to go away

Craving: Those warmer temperatures and sunshine we got teased with last week
Wanting: The release date for the iPad 2 to finally be revealed next Wednesday! 

Reading: This week I'm reading The Baby Trail by Sinéad Moriarty, it is hilarious!

Watching: Way too much tv...there are so many new shows out...our DVR is getting very full!

Listening to: Bruno Mars and Mike Posner are getting the most ear play this week

Looking forward to: Much needed spa time this weekend. I am getting my hair done and a manicure/pedicure!

Hearing buzz about: So many crazy things going on in the world this week - New Zealand's earthquakes, Libyan violence, and protests in Wisconsin

Wordless Wednesday - Blockheads

New recipe: Chicken Stuffing Roll-ups

I found this recipe on my blog roll last week and I really wanted to try it. I had made a turkey dinner on Sunday for our Valentine's celebration so I made extra stuffing knowing I wanted to make this during the week. She used stove top, but homemade is obviously always better! This recipe was as easy as it gets and I will definitely be making it again. I didn't make the gravy she did, but we decided next time we would try it. I think a sauce would really enhance it. Try this, you'll be glad you did!

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup cornflake crumbs
1 cup prepared stuffing

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and spray a baking pan with cooking spray. Slice chicken breasts in half.

Pound the chicken breasts thin being careful not to rip the chicken.

Prepare your chicken for breading. Put your melted butter and cornflake crumbs in bowls for dipping.

Spread a few tablespoons of the stuffing mixture onto the chicken breast. Press the stuffing into the chicken.

Starting at the smaller end, roll the chicken up then dip into the butter followed by the cornflake crumbs.

Bake the chicken approximately 25-30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Menu Planning Monday

Monday: Deviled Chicken (new recipe!)

Tuesday: Sloppy Joes for Michael/Pad Thai for me

Wednesday: Herb crusted pork tenderloin (new recipe!)

Thursday: Baked mostaccioli

Friday: Date night or take out

Weekend Recap - Guns, Roses & Ravioli

Wow, these weeks are flying by, I can't believe it's almost March! We had another weekend of no plans which was nice. We both had a pretty crazy work week so relaxing was the only thing on the agenda. On Friday, I worked from home and got caught up on a lot of work. I had so many meetings this week I really needed to get some work done. After work we headed over to Rich and Tif's. Tif and Jacob finally came home after 2 weeks in Florida, so we were really excited to see them. Michael's parents came over and we had some pizza and just got caught up. I got lots of time with my favorite nephew too. It had been 3 weeks since I had seen him, which was far too long!

He looks very puzzled here

 

There's that smile I missed!

After eating dinner we hung out for a few hours and just talked. We were all really tired so we called it a night. On Saturday, I slept in until Michael decided he didn't want to be the only one up so he came and jumped on top of me to wake me up. At least he woke me up with the promise of breakfast! We were meeting Rich, Tif, Jacob and Ken. We all met up and had a yummy breakfast. Look who joined us at the table!

 

He's such a big boy now! After breakfast Michael and I headed home. I needed to do some things around the house and Michael wanted to go to the gun shooting range with one of his friends. I took down all of my Valentine's Day decorations, worked on our meal plan and grocery list for the week, cleaned up the house and got some blog posts ready for the week. The house looks all barren again with no holiday decor. It's going to be a while too since Easter is so late this year.

Bye-bye Valentine's Day decor

Saturday afternoon pretty much sucked because I got an unwelcome surprise and our baby hopes were crushed this month. But, we are moving on to March and hope it will be the lucky month for us. Michael knew I was having a rough day so on his way home he stopped and got me some beautiful roses and some dark chocolate to cheer me up. He is the best!

I made a new recipe, chicken stuffing rolls for dinner and it turned out really well. I will post the recipe and instructions this week. We had a nice dinner and just relaxed the rest of the night.

Today we got up and went to breakfast and to do our grocery shopping for the week. It was a rainy, crappy day so Michael finally persuaded me to go to the gun range with him. He just started shooting again in the past month or so. He shot a lot of rifles, shotguns, etc. when he was younger in boy scouts and really enjoyed it, so he wanted to take it up again as a hobby. He got his FOID card a couple of months ago and just recently got his first gun.

He has been doing everything in his power to get me to go. I have never shot a gun before and it really scares me. I really had no interest in going, but he finally wore me down. I was starting to get a little excited and then we actually stepped foot in the gun range. It was crazy! I wanted to turn around and go hide in the car. It was so loud and with every shot I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest and I was only watching! We came to find out that my ear muffs were pretty crappy so that is one reason it was more intense.

It took Michael about a half hour for me to even consider shooting. He finally got me to shoot a small rifle which doesn't have any kick back and you don't really feel it shoot. Despite my resistance, I finally shot it and actually did pretty well. He was really trying to get me to shoot his handgun but I really wanted nothing to do with it. It's so loud and you see fire shoot out the front of it when it goes off. I was really scared. Especially when you are surrounded with 8 other people with loud guns going off, it is very intimidating. I was perfectly content going home without shooting it but Michael wanted me to know how to shoot it just in case I ever have to. You know, if the Queen of England decides to invade my house! So, I finally gave in. It was really scary and I was scared to death to pull the trigger the first time, but I did it. I fired off a whole round and I have to admit it was kind of exhilarating and a stress reliever all in one. Michael was so happy I finally went with him and proud that a shot a big boy handgun. It had quite the kick back, but I did really well. I was happy that I conquered one of my fears too. He told me this experience was very "blog worthy" and that I needed to take some pictures of me geared up, looking bad ass with his gun.

After my gun slinging adventure, we headed home. We had planned on  making homemade pasta and ravioli for Sunday dinner, so we got right to work. We made the pasta dough and started pushing it through our pasta roller to make the sheets for our ravioli press.

Long sheet of pasta ready to be put into the ravioli press.

The ravioli came out great and were really yummy. We cleaned up after dinner and now we are just relaxing. This weekend turned out a lot more action packed than I originally thought it would. We found out the disappointing news I'm not pregnant, I faced one of my biggest fears, and we did lots of yummy cooking. I hope this next week goes by fast. I am starting back on my fertility meds on Monday so it's gonna be a little bit rough for me. Especially since we are doubling my dosage. Michael is a little afraid! I hope all of you had a great weekend and have a good week ahead.