A Pinterest Review or Two

A show of hands please, how many of you are crazy pinners?  
Whoa, that is a lot of hands.

 The top 3 boards I pin the most to:

1. Yum, Yum, Yummy: Recipes.

2. Stuff for baby Blakely Boo.

3. Inspire:  Quotes and such type stuff.

Recently I have been trying quite a few of these recipes.

I have a couple planned out for this week.  Very anxious to try these spicy crab cakes.  Here are some of my faves I have tried so far.    

Pasta With Mascarpone, Chicken, Sun Dried Tomatoes & Spinach

I tend to change things to our families preferences a bit.  We always use whole wheat pasta, it just tastes so much better, so we used whole wheat penne.  Another friend who tried this had mentioned that she added a little red pepper so I followed suit and added some red pepper flakes.  My husband topped it with a spoon of ricotta.  I thought it was pretty amazing.  The sun-dried tomatoes were perfect in this.  The original recipe can be found here.  Be sure to reserve that pasta water as recommended cause it does try out rather quickly.  
★★★★

Basil Pesto Chicken

This was so crazy easy.  You can find the recipe here.  The only place I varied was I kicked it up to broil for a few, after foil before cheese, to give it a good crust, then added cheese and broiled it another 5.  I served it with some whole wheat penne, its my go to pasta, with basil pesto lightly added and some sauteed mushrooms and green onions tossed in it. yum :)
★★★★

Double Crunch Honey Garlic Fried Chicken

I actually made this one for dinner last night.  It was great!  I stuck right to the recipe on this one.  I served it up with some steamed broccoli with lemon juice and grated parmesan.  I wanted to put a balance to how sweet it was with the honey.  My husband said this would be the perfect 'chicken and waffles' style chicken.  He liked it so much he is plotting on the next time I cook it.  
★★★★


So there are a few of the recipes I have tried lately for more stuff I have tried, click here.  

This would not be complete without a lil more from my other top boards so. here are a couple faves.

from my Baby B board:

Adorable right!?!?!  I am so going to be getting some of these super soon for Blakely from FORGET ME KNOTS CROCHET.  Did I mention they are only $10?  Very cute!




from my inspire board:

yup, I have that on my inspirational board, cause, it inspires me ;)  You know cause he does yoga and stuff, check it out here.  That look on his face on the right side, oh my!




Enjoy your day y'all!


xo♥xo♥
lydia

Blank-ity Blank Blank

Hey everyone!  Hope you have had a wonderful week.  

Time for another round of

fill in the blank friday by The Little Things We Do blog.

1.  When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is,   hit the alarm clock and hope sleeping baby B doesn't wake before I can get daddy out the door.  Super hard being half asleep, cooking him breakfast, packing a lunch and holding a baby, but its been done plenty.  

2.   I can hardly wait for     to be living in our new home on our pretty land.

3.  The quickest way to my heart is     with a scalpel     because     it takes me a while to really trust and love people.  

4. A little known fact about me is that      I have no self control.  

5. The best part about my job is          I do not miss anything.  I get to be there for every first moment.  I get to be at every game.   I get to kiss every booboo.  I get to show my children that family is what is most important.  

6. Something I just couldn't live without is     my husband.  He makes me want to be better.  He is intelligent beyond belief and has a way of putting everything into perspective and make this crazy world, that consumes me way to often, make sense.  He keeps me sane and feeling like a woman.   

7.  Something useful that I wish I knew how to do is    oh my goodness, SEW.  As soon as we move it is on!   My stepdad has this old sewing machine built into a table that I want to learn on but was told it would be easier on a new machine.  Boo!  I may just take both    ;)

xo♥xo♥

lydia

not my words, WORDLESS

Source: myboohatesme.tumblr.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Christy on Pinterest

Source: twurl.nl via sharolyn on Pinterest

Wordless Wednesday and the Triple

thats my boy :)

he had a great game Saturday, a triple, double and a homerun.

xo♥xo♥

lydia

My Blank Friday

Yay, I found something to blog about today.  Taking a cue from Lacey in Love and headed over to The Little Things We Do and discovered

 fill in the blank friday.

1.  Today is a great day because, I decided to make a goal and run a 'RAD' 5k in July.  More details on this to come later.

2.   Tomorrow I will be hanging out at a baseball field with my Blakely and Bella watching my guy do his thang.

3.  My favorite time of day is     late night       because   after Blakely and Jay go to bed its those moments that I get to just love on the hubby.

4. Sometimes you just have to  sing at the top of my lungs like its a reality show audition.  This is a daily thing.

5. A song that I just can't get enough of lately is  SOJA, here I am.  Something about spring time totally brings out my Rastafarian side.  The sounds just go with warm music.  Btw, happy 420 :)

6. My favorite accessory is  earrings.  I feel like I  look to much like my lil bro if I do not have something shiny on my ear lobes.

7.  My favorite thing about this week was   hanging out in my model home yesterday.  I know that sounds so ridiculous.  It was just so great to see my future home.  2432 square feet!  So much room for activities!

Involuntary Yummy Sound-Smoked Paprika Thighs

So a few days ago as I sat watching some Food Network, as I often do, I saw Alton Brown make this awesome looking chicken recipe you can find here.  I decided to give it a go but change a couple things up too.  Its pretty easy for the most part too.  


My husband loved this!  He said it was the best thing I had made in a while.  The brininess of the olives with the smokey flavor is pretty amazing.  I do not even like olives but wanted to make something I thought my guy would like and was surprised that I liked it as much as I did.  


Ingredient List
Garlic Stuffed Olives
Cherry Tomatoes
Lemon Zest
Garlic Cloves
Smoked Paprika
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
Fresh Ground Pepper
Bone In-Skin On, Chicken Thighs
 Russet Potatoes (its the kind I had on hand)
One Sweet Vidalia Onion

• I chopped a handful of green olives stuffed with garlic, chopped a couple cherry tomatoes and grated a few extra cloves of garlic and added a good bit of some lemon zest. (Sit to the side)

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• Next I took about 5 tablespoons(+/-) of smoked paprika and two tablespoons of olive oil, kosher salt and fresh black pepper to form a paste.  (Sit to the side)
• Time to de-bone.  This is the most difficult part of the whole recipe.  I hate to de-bone stuff.
• Put your chicken skin side down and cut the meat away from the bone and remove.  Next, toss thighs into your paste.

Take some peel on, 1/4 sliced potatoes and french cut sweet onions.   Toss with some salt and pepper and put on a foil lined cookie sheet.  Place a baking rack over your potatoes and onions.  Next take your olive mixture and stuff under the skin of your thighs and place it skin side up on your rack.   I kinda did this roll up, tuck type deal  when I was put them on the rack.

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I lightly dusted the tops of the skin with smoked paprika, garlic salt and pepper.

Put in the oven on 375 for about an hour, depending on the amount of chicken you cook.  I did 11 thighs cause I like to have plenty to pack for my hubbys lunch the next day.  I cooked 11 for about 75 minutes or so.  The house will fill with a pretty awesome smell.

xo♥xo♥

lydia

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Wordless Wednesday and the loophole video

xo♥xo♥

lydia

In a nutshell :)

Hey Y'all.  Time to do some real writing here.  My random few lines of post to try and keep this going have not been doing what I have hoped they would for me and my sanity.

Lets start with the here and now...

Time management is not my strong suit as of late.  When you watch stuff like Property Virgins on HGTV it totally fools you.  I admit I have never seen one about purchasing land and putting a house on it.  That is probably for good reason cause there is no way to edit this process for a 30 minute time slot.  Model homes, land development, surveys, land clearing, well, septic, corp of engineers and wetland development, driveways, burying electric lines, establishing an address, PAPERWORK etc. etc.  It is quite overwhelming.

All this while my real life is still going on.  Our refrigerator went out.  So that totally sucks.  I hate to have to buy a new one when we already have a stainless steel one as part of our home package.  Even more than that I hate to have to throw away everything in my fridge currently.  I also hate having to wait on delivery guys who from my experiences are never on time.  Let's hope they are today cause I have an appointment with the surveyor.  

Homeschooling has took a major backseat and I am totes not proud of that.  We just finished his science project for the virtual science fair.  Go check it out his project is Juicing Energy.  Give him a few stars.  It does not affect the judging of actual winners but it makes him feel good :)  The Pinewood Derby race for Cub Scouts is this week and we have not even finished his car yet.  We are such procrastinators :(  Would you like to know another example of my procrastinating?  I still have to file my taxes today!

Baseball season is in full effect for my lil guy and consumes most of our evenings and weekends.  Jay has played machine-pitch the last couple years and is having a hard time adjusting to an unpredictable ball flying at him at a fast speed thrown by his inconsistent coach.  Sometimes these practices are the best moments.  No dishes staring me down waiting to be cleaning, no floor begging to mopped, no piles of clothes longing to be out of the basket. When my only job is to sit on a blanket with my honey B and watch bubbalicious practice.    

My kids are seriously phenomenal.  I almost feel bad for as much help as my son gives me.  I could not do anything without him.  He knows how to make bottles, change diapers and feed his baby sister when I need him to.  He has recently started cleaning his own bathroom and unloading the dishwasher.    I realize that I was crazy hormonal when I decided to home school him and but thank the Lord I did cause he makes my life so much easier.  Blakely is pretty fantastic as far as five month olds are concerned.  She is on an excellent routine which makes outings pretty easy to plan for.  She is not a fussy baby at all.  

My hubby has been working overtime and when he is not he is out doing stuff at the land.  We hiked the property this past Sunday and let me tell you, that was a huge reminder on how out of shape I am.  I was so sore Monday morning.  The good part though, when we got home the hubby checked me for ticks, ya know, in that Brad Paisley sorta way ;)  By the way, I had five ticks, so gross right!  It was so great to really get deep in the woods though and get a feel for the plans my hubby has been talking about.  

I cannot wait for us to begin this new phase of our lives.  

xo♥xo♥

lydia

a day to remember...

Five years ago today a young, troubled student walked into classrooms at Virginia Tech, and shot and killed 32 students and teachers. May we remember their lives in honor today.  Today we are all Hokies.

WE REMEMBER.

xo♥xo♥

lydia

Wordless Wednesday- Blue B

this blue eyed beauty constantly amazes me.

xo♥xo♥

lydia

Willow and leather...

Today makes nine years of being married to the most amazing man.

I feel so lucky to be married to this guy.  He was great then but the man he is today has exceeded all I could have ever imagined.  Seriously, my best friend.  

This picture of us was taken at Berkley Plantation, the suppose to be sight of our wedding.  We eloped!  You can read a small beginning of our story here.  I promise I am going to finish part 2 super soon.

The hubs and I are so excited to be going into this ninth year of marriage being at the place in our lives we are now.  It has taken a lot to get here.  I have been seriously slacking on my blog, I know this.  There is a reason though.  I have been spending the last two weeks touring land and model homes.  Doing paperwork. Talking to a ridiculous amount of people.  All whilst caring for my 5 month old beauty and making an awful attempt at homeschooling my super helpful 8 year old.  So glad to say, its been worth it because...

The Thompson Family is officially under contract for 78 acres of land in Disputanta, Virginia.

 I know 78 acres, OhEmGee!  We are hoping to have our house there by the fall.  Lots and lots to do though.  Even better, my mom is purchasing the 14 acres right next to us!  Our family is now complete since the addition of baby B and now we have our land and soon to be growing old in this home, home.  

This year is going to be the best yet.  

So what did I get for our anniversary?  

Not the traditional willow or the modern leather, but I got 78 ACRES!  

I could not be happier.

xo♥xo♥

lydia