Wordless Wednesday: Can you spot the Porkchop?

New Recipe: Garlic Bread Spaghetti Braid

I found this recipe from Pinterest and with Michael loving bread like he does, I knew this would be a hit and it was! It was super easy too. I didn't include meat in mine like the original recipe did because I was serving this alongside a chicken breast but I think if you put in mini meatballs or crumbled Italian sausage it could definitely be a meal on its own.

Ingredients
1 Loaf Rhodes Bread Dough or Pizza Dough (I used Pizza Dough)
1/3 box of spaghetti, cooked
1 cup thick spaghetti sauce
8 oz brick mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/2 –inch cubes
2 tbsp butter, melted
Parmesan cheese
Garlic Powder
Parsley flakes

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. While preheating, cook your spaghetti and toss with sauce, set aside.

2. Roll out your dough on parchment paper and put spaghetti in 4 inch middle section of dough. Add extra sauce and cubed mozzarella on top.

3. Make cuts 1 ½-inches apart on long sides of dough to within ½-inch of filling.

4. Begin braid by folding top and bottom strips toward filling. Then braid strips left over right, right over left. Finish by pulling last strip over and tucking under braid.

 5. Brush top of braid with melted butter and sprinkle with garlic powder, parsley and Parmesan cheese to your liking.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 - 35 minutes until crispy and golden brown.

7. Slice and enjoy!

Weekend Recap

Another great weekend and lots of family time. On Friday after Michael was done with work we headed over to Tif's parents house for Fantasy Football 2012 draft night. All of the guys have been looking forward to this for a while. Tif, Sandi and I are just going along with the program to keep our men happy! Don't get me wrong, I love football but I don't really get the whole Fantasy thing. I just like watching the Bears every Sunday. But anyways, we all met up to have dinner and do the draft. I made a veggie tray and some chocolate dipped rice krispie treats that were perfect for the occasion! They also ordered some pizzas, everything was yummy.

Rich, Ken and Ray had everything set up and ready to go. Ethan kept an eye on things until the draft was officially open.

Finally it was time to draft, little did I know that it would take hours. I did my first few rounds and then after that Ethan needed to eat and some attention so Michael finished up the rest of my picking.

So Fantasy Football has officially begun. God help Tif and I, our Sundays will now be completely dominated by screaming and swearing at the television and constant trade discussions! 

On Saturday we didn't really have any plans. We went to breakfast at Honey Jam, did grocery shopping, played with the little man and hung out for the most part. I also did some shopping. I found a few cute bracelets and a hat for Fall at Charming Charlie.

 For dinner I tried a new recipe from Pinterest for garlic bread spaghetti braid. It was delicious! I'll post the recipe tomorrow.

On Sunday we headed down to my parent's house to spend the day with my family. My Dad just got back from a fishing trip on Lake Erie so we had a fish fry for dinner. It was such a fun day hanging out and playing with the kids. Lily is everywhere these days so it was fun watching her crawl and walk around all of the furniture. 

Ethan was a good boy and napped really well. He got lots of Grandma and Papa time in too, they were in grandbabies heaven! 

Dinner was delicious as always. Michael and Mom fried up all of the fish and we had fresh sweet corn, make your own baked potato and salad.

For dessert I made my oreo ice cream cake, but didn't take any pictures. All in all, another wonderful weekend. We don't have any big plans for Labor Day next weekend, but I'm just happy to have a 4 day weekend! I hope all of you have a great week!

Our week in pictures: 8/19 - 8/25

Sunday, August 19: Day of family fun at Brookfield Zoo!

Monday, August 20: Look who finally likes his swing!

Tuesday, August 21: Oooo, pretty colors!

Wednesday, August 22: Christmas presents have started to arrive!

Thursday, August 23: I don't want to do tummy time.

Friday, August 24: Fantasy football draft night 2012!

Saturday, August 25: Mommy and baby giraffe Michael bought for me to put in Ethan's room, so cute!

Wordless Wednesday: Look who finally likes their swing!

Weekend Recap

What a beautiful weekend! The weather was amazing and we took advantage of it. On Friday morning we went for a walk and it was almost chilly but it felt kind of nice!

After our walk I headed to the grocery store to pick up some supplies for appetizer night. Michael was making his taco dip and I made smores pops. Friday night we headed to Tif's parents' house for appetizers and the guys were playing poker. Tif, Sandi and I hung out with the kids and talked. Ethan had so much fun watching his cousins play. Pretty soon he'll be down playing with them. Makayla was showing off her walking skills behind her stroller.

On Saturday we got up and went to breakfast and then ran some errands. I needed to return some things at Babies R Us and pick up props for Ethan's next monthly photo shoot. After running around we headed home and I did some things around the house. I had one last closet in the house that hadn't been cleaned out. I wanted to clean out the coat closet and turn it into a gift closet to hold all of my wrapping paper supplies and gifts to wrap. I've already started Christmas shopping so I wanted to have a place to put everything and keep it organized. The two big tubs on the bottom are almost empty and ready to be stocked with gifts!

After cleaning out the closet, Ethan was still sleeping so I kept my organizing going by packing away the first batch of Ethan's clothes. I packed away all of his newborn and 0-3 month clothes. His 3 month clothes will be getting packed away soon too as we move on to 3-6 month clothes. It was a little sad to pack a few of those outfits away since they were so little, but it was fun to organize his new and bigger size clothes too. Our little man is getting so big!

When Ethan woke up we had some fun and played. He is really getting into his toys and he absolutely loves sitting up. He can sit in his chair for a long time now, an hour to an hour and a half.

Saturday night we went out for dinner and came home and just relaxed.

On Sunday we wanted to do something outside since it was going to be so nice out. We've been wanting to get a family pass at the Brookfield Zoo so we figured it would be a perfect day to visit. Arla and Teddy are members too so we thought we'd see if they wanted to meet us up there. They were planning on going to the zoo too so it worked out perfect! We got our membership when we got there so we are officially members for the next year. We are planning on going to Boo at the Zoo and Zoo lights so it made sense to just join. After we got our membership stuff done we headed in and went to the dolphin show to get our tickets to the 11:30 show. Then we walked around and checked out the animals until it was showtime.

After walking around for a couple of hours it was time for the dolphin show. I don't think I've seen the dolphin show in 15 years so it was fun to be back and have our little man with us. They had a cute Olympics theme for the show and it was really good. I was glad we were up high though because they were very splashy!

After the dolphin show we headed to get some lunch. We had to take some family pictures in front of the sign and fountain though first!

For lunch we grabbed some sandwiches and found a shaddy picnic table to eat at. I fed Ethan a bottle and Lily, well Lily fed herself some macaroni and cheese! The following pictures are very....cheesy, HA!

She had a ball eating her mac and cheese, she was so funny to watch! She's doing so well eating like a big girl! After she was done Teddy and Arla cleaned her up and we were on our way again. 

We went to a few more exhibits and went to the gift shop before calling it quits for the day. The kids and the parents needed a nap! It was also getting pretty crowded. It was a fun day and it was just great to be outside enjoying the amazing weather. We came home and Ethan and Daddy took a nap. We had some dinner and just relaxed the rest of the night. It was a great family weekend and we have many more fun family weekends coming up! Here's hoping the week goes by fast so we can do it again!