Let's get some Z's

You learn a lot when you get married.  One of the first things we learned was that our sacred sleeping space was now to be shared with another person...someone who definitely sleeps very differently than we do!  No one is at fault, we just have different sleeping habits!  I love sheets tucked in on all sides!  I literally fold the top sheet down about a foot, two feet max, and crawl in so that I'm cocooned in as I sleep and during the night, I don't move a muscle!  Kevin doesn't like sheets tucked in at all.  He feels trapped.  He would even be happy without a top sheet!  He moves around quite a bit during the night and because of his height, occasionally ends up sleeping diagonally on the bed!  Very different!

So, what are newlyweds to do, to maintain sleeping in the same bed (because I refuse to start our marriage sleeping in separate rooms)?  We're getting a new bed!  Thank goodness! We have a queen now, which is plenty of room for most people, but with a husband that's 6'4", there's not much room for me!  I think the biggest issue is that his feet hang off, so we need extra length!  And it doesn't hurt to just have more room in general!!

We've decided on a California King to give him the extra length!  Although it's about 4" less on the width, I think we'll still be thankful for the extra room!

I feel like we've been talking about a new bed for a LONG time and we finally went to High Point the day after Christmas and spent the entire day looking at furniture!  We arrived at Furnitureland South around 10am and didn't leave until about 5pm.  We saw A LOT of furniture and did a TON of walking!  We had a few ideas of what we liked and we were about to throw in the towel for the day when we ran into a consultant, to ask her the price on a few of the outlet items, and she encouraged us to go over to another building on a floor we had not yet visited.  And that's when we found the bed that we both just LOVED!

Furnitureland South...Awesome Building!

We have since ordered the bed and the mattress and the last few weekends have been spent removing Kevin's REALLY old bed from the guest bedroom, moving my newer queen bed into the guest bedroom, cleaning our master bedroom (I have a lot of clutter that I'm trying to eliminate!!  Our new bedroom needs to be an oasis!  Clean and no clutter!), and vacuuming everything so that when the bed arrives, the men can assemble it in a clean open room! 

In the guest bedroom, temporarily!

The mattress arrived Monday, so we're getting closer!  Just a few more weeks of us crammed in a queen bed in the guest bedroom and we'll be ready to enjoy the luxury of a HUGE bed in our master bedroom!!  I can't wait to get some z's!

New mattress...sorry there's no before picture and I can't guarantee you'll see the final product either! ;)

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner...

...at least that's what Kevin says about my latest crock-pot meal!  He swears it's a winner!
I got the recipe off Pinterest and tweaked it a little, however before I get into the actual recipe...I have to brag on Kevin a little bit!  He really is the best husband in the world!

So, I woke up Tuesday morning earlier than normal to get the crock-pot meal started.  I walk downstairs and he's already in the kitchen hand-washing the dishes.  This is not unusual.  Kevin hates a dirty kitchen and since I don't particularly love to wash dishes, he does it just to have the reward of the clean kitchen, even though it's not his favorite chore either!  Not only was he washing dishes, but the chicken breasts that I needed for the crock-pot meal were in a bowl of warm water defrosting!  I had placed them in the fridge the night before, but my sweet husband was "on it" speeding up the process.  I had nothing to do, so I ran back upstairs to shower and came back down to help cut onions for the meal!  I cut up my onion and then left the kitchen again with nothing to do because he was using the microwave to further defrost the chicken and putting it all in the crock-pot!  He even started the cooking process and made sure the crock-pot was on low before leaving for work, since I was already on the road to work.  Sweet, sweet man!

There is some debate about how to safely cook chicken in the crock-pot.  I think the general idea is as long as the chicken gets warm enough to cook all the way through and doesn't get under a certain degrees while cooking, then it kills the bacteria, doesn't give them a chance to multiply, and you're safe.  I've read many differing opinions, but here's what I did and we haven't gotten sick yet, so it must work!  I don't recommend putting frozen chicken in the crock-pot, hence the reason Kevin was defrosting in the microwave.  We preheated the crock-pot before adding the ingredients and then cooked on high for an hour before turning it to low and leaving it on all day while we were at work.  The recipe says to cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 7-8 hours.  We cooked on high for the first hour and then cooked on low for 8 hours plus the extra 2.5 hours it took for Kevin to get home (which I alternated between putting it on warm when I got home and then putting it on high just before he arrived home to heat it all up really good) and everything tasted great!  If you are really worried about the chicken, I'd recommend saving this recipe for a Saturday and cooking it on high the entire time, for 3-4 hours.  Then you're there to watch it!

So, here we go:
Ingredients
(4) boneless skinless chicken breasts (mine were the BJs prepackaged 2 breasts to a pack, and were LARGE, so I probably could have gotten away with only using 2 or 3, but I put all 4 of them in there)
(1) large onion, chopped
(1) 8 ounce box of Zatarain's Yellow Rice Mix, cooked according to directions on the box, which include cooking it with 2 tablespoons of butter (so don't forget the butter at the grocery)
(1) cup of cheddar cheese
(1) 10.5 ounce can of cream of chicken soup (regular or fat free)
(1) 15 ounce can of whole kernel corn, drained
(1) 10 ounce package of frozen chopped broccoli

Preparation
Place chicken in the bottom of the warming crock-pot.
Dump the chopped onion on top
Spoon the Cream of Chicken Soup on top of everything

Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours.  No harm in cooking on high for an hour and then putting it on low for the rest of the day. (Don't worry about it being dry!  Mine was so moist and juicy when I got home!  I took two forks and barely touched the chicken...it just broke apart so easily!)

Feel free to cook the yellow rice the night before (I didn't, I cooked it and the broccoli when I got home from work).  About 20 minutes before you plan on serving dinner, stir in the cooked rice, cheddar cheese, yellow corn and cooked broccoli.  And I put the crock-pot back on high for those 20 minutes so the cheese had a chance to melt! 
Enjoy the goodness!

The recipe serves about 6-8 servings, so Kevin had plenty leftovers for lunch the next day and dinner for both of us an additional night!

The original recipe didn't call for broccoli, but it looked like a yellow mess without it!  I like to see a little green in there and get that extra veggie!  And I'd say feel free to add other veggies to the mix and try a different kind of rice if you can't find the yellow rice!  Wild rice might be fun!  I was also against the corn when initially thinking about the recipe, but the corn gave the whole dish an added crunch that I really liked!  I'm glad I stuck with it!

This recipe was fool-proof and a winner for the hubby!  He does favor his cheese, rice and broccoli recipes!  I've got a great recipe from his mom that he grew up eating and just LOVES!  It includes basically the same ingredients, but takes about 2 hours of prep time!  When we make it, we double or triple the recipe, so we'll have lots of leftovers!  I'll have to share that another time!

Wedding Photos!!!

We have all of our wedding photos!  Over 1,000 of them!  They're all amazing!
Feel free to browse and to order any you'd like!
http://www.lusterstudios.com/buyprints/

Thank You!!!

Just wanted to tell all of our friends and family, guests at our wedding, supporters of our honeymoon, that we are still VERY THANKFUL for your generosity!  All Thank You notes have been sent out!  So...that just means if you haven't received one, we didn't receive your gift!  Ooops!  Is this even proper etiquette?  Not sure, but I'd love it, if on a regular basis, I were told yes we got your gift, or no we didn't.  I worry about these things!
My goal from the beginning was to thank folks, by name, on each of the honeymoon blog posts, if they contributed to that event, happening, meal, experience, hotel, etc.  Umm...yeah, I forgot to do that on the first post and it just never happened.  But, we are so grateful and we had a blast!  Memories were made to last our lifetime!  So, once again, THANK YOU!!!
Sadly, we did run out of our custom thank you notes and some received the generic one.  Although pretty, not the same!  So, here's our official note, in case you missed it!  Since we used the chalkboards on our Save the Date, we had to carry them through to the end!

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

And look for a Christmas Card from us next year!  I think Kevin and I, alone, kept the Post Office in business this year, we couldn't bear to mail another thing!  And, we'll actually have an update on life to share with you next year!  Until then, keep checking the blog!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

What a great year 2012 has been!  And not only because of our engagement and wedding, but it's been a year where we've seen God's favor!  I got a new job in July at Saint Mary's School!  And I love it!  And I can't believe I've already been there this long!  It was long overdue and has helped my mental health so much!  We were able to celebrate with family and friends at the many parties we had leading up to the wedding!  Just time with these loved ones is invaluable and we got a good dose of it this year!  Kevin continues to work really hard with Etix and his hard work was acknowledged with a raise!  Which came at the perfect time with my new job!  God is faithful!  And then we declared our love to one another on our wedding day and were blessed to celebrate that love on the most awesome honeymoon ever!  And seriously, if you can't look at those pictures and see God's hand, you're crazy!  From the amazing animals we saw to the gorgeous natural wonders from the Redwoods to the Grand Canyon!  WOW!  I can't wait to see what heaven looks like!
And then we ended the year with my 30th birthday!  A BIG one!  And we celebrated a LOT!
Friday night we drove around to see the Christmas lights in Raleigh.

Saturday, we had a birthday get-together at Spirits Pub and Grub and just enjoyed time with friends! (Unfortunately no photos were taken!)
Sunday, Kevin treated me to lunch at the Angus Barn (a first for both of us and I've never been so stuffed).

On the way to Angus Barn!

 
Then Tuesday was the actual day and we celebrated at our house with mimosas and breakfast and then the evening at my mama's with a full dinner before cake!  It was just a great time!

Merry Christmas from the Brosseaus

Cheers to 2013!  I can't wait to see what God has in store for us!