Brock and Jordan's Wedding

April 20th we drove past Wilson, NC to God's country for Brock and Jordan's Wedding.  Thankfully we had been warned earlier in the day that the wedding would be outside, so we were able to dress a little more appropriately (cue digging out 10-year-old hideous suntan tights and trying to squeeze into them).  The temperature seriously dropped 20 degrees in one day, so it was a bit chilly outside!  The day was beautiful and it was awesome to witness another marriage of two friends!  I especially liked the braiding of the "God's Knot- Cord of Three Strands" in the middle of the ceremony and the meaning of each rope color.  It's always fun to see the traditions people choose for their wedding ceremonies.

Decked out in our Spring colors!

Jordan's dress was GORGEOUS!  I seriously talked Kevin's ear off about it all night.  Can I get married again so I can wear a lace gown like this?  Pretty please?

I also loved the bridesmaids dresses and the colors Jordan and Brock chose!  The whole day screamed sophisticated/classy spring wedding!

The table decorations were amazing and the food and drinks were so good, as was the wedding cake!  My favorite was the strawberry.  Delicious!

Kevin and I wound up admiring the house at one point later in the evening and talked to the owner for about 45 minutes, at least.  When we got back to the party, folks thought we had left.  HA!  The wedding was at Myrtle Grove Plantation, a plantation house that has been decorated with antiques and collectibles throughout.  It was a little cluttered for me, but WOW, what a place!

Congratulations Brock and Jordan! 

DayOCandice-Goodbye Craigs

Candice planned a day for herself to celebrate her birthday March 2th weekend.  She and Paisley were sick, so she had to cancel.  I was happy about this because we were in Charleston and I was going to miss everything.  DayOCandice was then re-scheduled for April 6th and my whole afternoon was free.  Anything Candice wanted to do, Candice would get.
When April 6th came around, I was ready to go!  DayOCandice here I came!  Well...Candice and Todd finally sold their house, so they were packing up shop to be out of Apex and on the way to Texas this weekend.  DayOCandice turned into "pack up the house".  All Candice needed was someone to take Paisley to the park or entertain her while Todd and Candice packed.  Boring DayOCandice for Candice!  But, when your house has been on the market that long and you're just ready to go, even packing can be a celebration!

I was all too happy to help!

First Paisley and I played with her toys and listened to music from her music class.  Then we geared up and we were off to the park.  We swung together.  Paisley swung by herself.  We played in the grass.  We watched other kids (very intently).  Paisley swung again.  Before I knew it over an hour had passed and I didn't want Candice or Todd to worry that I had stolen their baby, so I made my way back to the house to deposit her safely.

Paisley had just perfected the "stank face".

Then it was home to shower and get ready for the NightOCandice dinner at Sushi Thai.  I should have taken a picture of my sushi because I ordered 4 rolls and the presentation was massive, but I forgot in my hurry to dig in!  Here's the whole group for our last "hurrah" in honor of Candice!

Of course my big gourd has to be sticking out in front of everyone! UGH!

Todd LOVES Mexican food, so a fiesta was planned for April 13th.  However, Kevin and I had just traded in some of our Canes season ticket holder vouchers for tickets that same night, so we missed the goodbye fiesta.  Kevin wanted to have time to say goodbye in his own way.  So...we went over to Chez Craig last Friday night, ordered pizza, and had WAY too many laughs!  Storms were rolling through, we were under a tornado warning and the Craig house lost power for about an hour and a half.  We ate pizza in the dark, Candice worried about Paisley sleeping without the monitor and wanted to report the outage, Todd gathered up the electricity bill to prove electricity came from the Town of Apex and not Progress Energy, Candice called the outage line and got the Apex emergency department.  We all laughed hysterically.  Then she and the lady chatted for a bit..on the emergency line.  Maybe you had to be there, it was a riot!  Kevin opened a link that his buddy had sent him on his phone and we heard police scanners from Boston talking about a man in a boat.  That was funny as well until we learned it was the 2nd suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings and we heard the news before CNN reported it once the power came back on.  We had been following the manhunt in Watertown all day, so we knew exactly what was going on.  It was a wild night!  We finally realized we needed to go home, so we said our goodbyes and wished the Craigs a safe trip to Texas.

THEN last Sunday afternoon (two days after our final goodbye), Candice texted me to see if we were available and could we watch Paisley!?!  Of course!  Kevin came with me and we took her to the park to play.  We swung with her, she swung, we went down the slide, we "walked" her around, we played in the grass, she ate veggie sticks and then we walked all over the neighborhood for 45 minutes while she just chilled in the stroller.  Kevin was AWESOME with her!  It was great!  

All smiles for Kevin!

Then we joined the Craigs and Margie, their neighbor, for dinner where we said our last goodbyes AGAIN!

Wishing the Todd, Candice and Paisley a safe trip down to Texas!  We love ya'll so much!  You have no idea how much you will be missed!  We WILL be down to visit!  Maybe for Paisley's 1st birthday?  You just let us know!  Follow the Craigs here for updates on their move and their new life in Texas.

Accidental Jalapeno Poppers

Kevin and I are members of PapaSpuds.  It's a service that delivers fresh vegetables, fruits, grains, cheeses, meats, etc. to your doorstep once a week.  You don't HAVE to receive it each week, you can opt out.  We've been going to the grocery store recently in lieu of using PapaSpuds and needing the produce to go straight to the house.  Well, over the Easter weekend, I was sent an e-mail reminding me that I would be receiving a delivery because I hadn't put it on hold.  Since I was off work on Friday and again on Monday, I never made time to go in to the system and put our order on hold.  I also never went into the portal to chose what we'd receive....so, we received a box the following Thursday with random items that I had not chosen.

One of those items was Jalapeno Peppers.  I had NO clue what I was going to do with those things.  I knew they were too hot for me to eat, but I thought Kevin might be able to eat them.  He asked me to look for a recipe that included the Jalapenos and cream cheese.

And then it hit me!  We bring a snack to Bible Study each week, since we meet at 6:30pm and don't get dinner, and I could use the Jalapenos to make something for Bible Study.  I've found that many of our group members like spicy things, so I knew this was a winning plan.

So, I gathered my gloves (I read horror stories on the web about people that didn't wear gloves while cutting jalapenos and had burning hands for days) and got to work.

Here's the recipe:

 Ingredients:
1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese, softened
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 (1 ounce) package dry ranch salad dressing mix
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
20 large jalapeno peppers, halved and seeded (we had 20 small)
1 pound sliced bacon, cut in half
toothpicks

Directions:
Wash, half and seed the jalapenos (wearing gloves and being very careful with the hot juices)...this took a lot of time!  Wearing gloves does not make things go fast!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Stir together the cream cheese, Cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, ranch dressing mix, and garlic powder in a mixing bowl until evenly blended.

Yummy mixture!

Spoon some of the cheese mixture into each jalapeno half, wrap with half a bacon strip, and secure with a toothpick.

Arrange the wrapped jalapeno halves onto a broiler pan (or cookie sheet in my case)

Bake in the preheated oven until the bacon is no longer pink and beginning to brown, about 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

WOW!  Bacon makes anything good taste even better!

The jalapenos we got were so small that we couldn't wrap all of them in bacon.  That was fine, they were good both ways.  When I googled how to cut jalapenos, it said to cut off an inch from the top, cut in half and seed.  Some of my jalapenos were only an inch long in total, so that didn't work for me.  There must be some freaking huge jalapenos out there!

Also, because of our small jalapenos, we had lots of the stuffing mixture left over.  We just stuck it in the fridge and enjoyed it on club crackers the next day.  It was GREAT!

If you ever have a load of jalapenos you don't know what to do with, try this recipe out!  They were delish!

Happy Easter!!

Our Easter weekend was SUPER busy with the new bed on Saturday and cleaning.
Sunday morning, I woke up bright and early to put the ham and potatoes in the oven and it was off to my mama's church, Holy Trinity Lutheran, where we got married, for Easter service at 8:15am.

Happy Easter from the Brosseaus!

Then we stopped back at the house to finish the food and load everything up!  Lunch was at mama's!  Look at that spread!!  YUMMY!

Deviled Eggs, Bread, Salad, Peas, Ham, Roasted Potatoes, Yams, Greens, Crockpot Chicken

Sunday afternoon Kevin and I were at Hope (our church) parking cars for the 5pm service.  We attended church again, so we got double Easter.

I had Monday off, which was filled with dropping my car to the shop to be fixed, picking up the rental and running errands.  I cleaned the entire house and got a little more settled downstairs with all of the changes upstairs.  It was a busy weekend!

Happy Easter!  Christ is Risen!

OUR BED IS HERE!

**I'm late posting...it arrived March 30th**
Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!  The (new and more competent) men from Furnitureland South showed up last Saturday and did, in fact, have the replacement and missing pieces for our bed.  They very quickly put it together.  We shared a few laughs.  It was a grand ole time!

Kevin insisted that we would sleep in it that night, so the race was on to prepare it for sleeping!  Because the mattress sits on the (now complete) slat of wood, we wanted something to protect it from the wood.  So, it was off to Target.  We purchased that slightly sticky, meshy, drawer liner, as the men from Furnitureland suggested, and went home to cut it and put it in place.  Then it was lifting the mattress into place and putting the sheets on.  

I went out in search for a mattress cover.  I just like to be protected from dust mites and other allergens.  Of course, stores don't carry California King anything in the actual store, so it warranted us ordering it.  Since Kevin wasn't with me, I didn't go through with the order.  Just something we'll need to do soon!

Next came the massive cleaning of the entire upstairs of the house.  Since we've been sleeping in the guest bedroom, everything was moved back to the master bedroom and the guest bedroom was tidied up for, well guests, whenever we have them!

OUR NEW BED!!!

The bed is so tall...partly because our mattress is an extra tall pillow-top.  I basically need a stool to get into bed and I literally have to slide or jump off.  It's crazy!  Stay tuned for updates of artwork in the bedroom!  I've purchased it, I just haven't had a chance to put it up!

I LOVE our bed!  I haven't slept better in my entire life!  I'd like to say it was worth the wait.  It was worth it!  I just have issue with the waiting part! :)

I can confidently say that even two weeks later, I'm sleeping so much better!  LOVE IT!