Happy Easter

I decorated for Easter! Here are some photos of our Easter decorations around the house.

Hope you had a wonderful Easter!

Transplanting the Seedlings

Since our little seedlings really took off, we decided to transplant the tomatoes and green peppers to bigger pots before we put them out in the garden. We have been keeping them on a heat mat and under a grow light in our dining room. It's working out really well and the plants keep getting bigger!

Monterey Chicken

I love finding new recipes on Pinterest and this one for Monterey Chicken is definitely a keeper. Even my brother, who stayed with us for a few weeks this year, couldn't stop talking about how delicious the chicken was that night for dinner. It might have been best meal we made while he was there. What do you think Spencer?

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/4 c. bar-b-que sauce ( we use Montgomery Inn, it's the best)

1/4 c. crumbled bacon

1 c. colby and jack cheese, shredded

1 14 oz. can Rotel tomatoes, drained (canned with green chilies added)
sliced green onions
pepper

(I never really measured the ingredients, instead just loaded it up until they looked good)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pound out chicken breasts to flatten. Season with pepper. Grill chicken until no long pink and place on baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Top each chicken breast with bar-b-que sauce, cheese, tomatoes, green onions and bacon. Place in oven and bake until cheese is melted (about 5 minutes).



Recipe from Pinterest via http://kimmccrary.blogspot.com/2010/05/perfect-day.html

Starting our Garden

The time has arrived, we have kicked off the 2012 gardening season with starting some seeds indoors.  Well really we did this two weeks ago but I'm slow at blogging about it. Anyways...here are all the seeds we have to plant this year. Yep, it's alot, we're going to plenty of vegetables and tons of flowers.

Carl started the tomatoes in 2-liter bottle terrariums and some green peppers, jalapenos, broccoli and cabbage in other seedling trays. He had been planning this project for quite awhile and so far everything is growing great. Most of the plants sprouted within a few days, much to our surprise.

Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies

I came across this receipe while playing around on Pinterest and it looked so good. Carl loves anything with peanut butter so I knew these would be a hit and they definitly were.

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup (packed) brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter, peanut butter and vanilla in a large bowl until well blended. Beat in both sugars. Scrape down sides of bowl. Stir half of dry ingredients into mixture. Add eggs one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Mix in remaining dry ingredients.

For each cookie, roll one heaping tablespoonful of dough into 1 3/4-inch-diameter ball. Arrange dough balls 2 1/2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Using the back of a fork, flatten dough balls and form crosshatch design on tops. Bake cookies until dry on top and golden brown on bottom, about 14-16 minutes. Cool cookies on baking sheets 5 minutes. Using spatula, transfer cookies to racks and cool completely.

Original recipe from http://achowlife.com/2009/03/peanut-butter-or-die.html

Decorating the Mudroom

After lots and lots of searching, I finally found a bench for the mudroom. I'm glad this little room is complete now, it looked so bare before.

So here it is...our new modern little bench. It fits perfectly in this space which was one of the difficulties I was having when I started the search for the perfect bench.

And we put a shelf above the bench and I did some decorating. I'm on a decorating spree with birds, owls in particular. We have lots of them all over our house. Carl thinks its a little weird but I can't resist buying all these darn birds.



Happy Belated Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day...a day late. oops.

February 14th is a big day at the Rivir Ranch since it's Carl's birthday too. We celebrated all weekend and this week too. Also, 1 year ago on Feb. 14th is when we started building the Rivir Ranch, which also marks just over year of blogging. Wow, lots of anniversaries, birthday, holiday to celebrate.

I did a little Valentines decorating in the entry way this year.

And we sent out Valentines cards to all of our family too.

We had a great Valentines Day; we ate at one of our favorite local restaurants and then we got each other lots of gifts. And Carl sent a dozen beautiful red roses to me a work yesterday!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines Day!