Birthday Madness!

October is the month for birthdays. Drew's mom's birthday is October 9, Drew's brother Ben's birthday is on October 17, and my brother and cousin Josh share a birthday on October 27. Last weekend my family got together with some of our good friends to celebrate my cousins 18th birthday. We had yummy pizza and played a Dice game called greed (which is really fun). We had a great time just hanging out and playing games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed_(dice_game)

Almost the whole gang for Josh's birthday...we have (in order from left to right) Morgan, Drew, Me, Kirstie, Ashton, Tom (behind the balloons), Josh, Kathy, and my mom. (Cindy is taking the picture, and my dad and brother were on a retreat, and my sister was working)

On Monday night we had dinner at Boston's Gourmet pizza to celebrate my brother's 14th birthday. (He's getting so big). We a wonderful time...there were a lot of us there, I think we had a group of 17 people, my brother is loved!

The birthday boy at Bostons

On Tuesday night my brother's actual birthday he had a football game...it was great, his team won! It was a close game too. My brother's team played their big rival, my brother had a couple good plays too. After the game we headed to my parents house for cake and ice cream...such a wonderful time with family and friends. And my grandma made a banana nut cake with cream chease frosting for his birthday...the cake was AMAZING!

My little sister Elizabeth, my little brother James and me...

as you can see I am the smallest of the 3

My mom and I

James blowing out is 14 candles.

Our first house!

Claire this is for you...
Drew and I moved into out first home back in February and I am finally getting pictures posted. I took me a while to unpack everything and I wanted to make sure everything looked perfect before posting pictures (it's the perfectionest in me!) We love are new home and our big back yard for Buttercup to run and play in. I hope you enjoy seeing our new home!

Weekly Menu

After weeks of not posting a weekly menu I am finally back on track and able to, because...Drew is finally home for a week. He had been out of town the past 6 weeks. I have only gotten to see him on weekends (and he always left sunday afternoon)! This week I have him all to myself YAY! This weeks menu...

Monday: Boston's for my brother's birthday dinner

Tuesday: Jason's Deli...cake and ice cream with the family (my brother's actual birthday!)

Wednesday: Mini apple cheddar meatloaf and broccoli

Thursday: Butternut squash ravioli...its date night :)

Friday: Dinner with the Cheshiers (they are having a housewarming paarty)

Saturday: Breakfast- breakfast tacos
Lunch- sandwiches
Dinner- Chicken squares (excellent recipe from our friends the Mader's).

I'll be posting recipes later!!

Date night Fridays!

Friday night was date night for Drew and I. It is so nice to finally have him home, he suprised me by coming home early on Thursday night instead of Friday. I cooked Drew's favorite chili for dinner, it is a recipe that one of our friends came up with...it was the perfect dinner since it was a cold night. Then we headed to the movies and saw the Hangover it was at the dollar theater (that charges 2 dollars on Friday and Saturday night...go figure). We definitely got a few laughs from it. Then we came home and made some yummy mint hot chocolate and played the game of life.

I was so certain that I was going to win because on the first round Drew bought a 200,000 dollar house on a 5,000 dollar salary...for half the game he was in debt (he got to -1,000,000 dollars)! But then he got promotions and started making 2,000,000 dollars and he beat me! Life is so unfair...I was making 1.5 million dollars for half the game and still lost I just can't believe it...I thought for sure I was going to at least beat him once. We had a great time...I am really looking forward to this weeks date night!

A working woman!

It is so great to finally be back in a school full time and in a consistent class room- ohhh how I've missed it. For those of you who don't know, two weeks ago I got a job as an aide at the Early childhood school in Frisco. I am not a teacher yet and don't have my own classroom... but I am working with a great teacher and I absolutely love my Pre-K and PPCD kids. The class that I am in we have kids from 3 years old to 5. It is so nice to be back and loved on by little ones!

Fall Festival

Fall Fun

This weekend we went with my family to a fall festival for my dad's company at Circle R. Ranch. We had a great time. My mom and I carved pumpkins for a pumpkin carving contest while the boys played poker. I difinitely got gross pupmkin guts all over me. We had a great BBQ lunch, there were all kinds of games and activities to do. They had a huge maze set up Drew and I raced my parents we thought we did pretty good getting done in 12 minutes but my parents beat us in 10. My mom and I created a great music video which was definitely out of my comfort zone dancing infront of people I don't know. I would post it if I wasn't so embarassed! We had a great family fun weekend, I can't wait for the next company family event.

I carved a Boo ghost pumpkin. You can kind of see it.

Mine and my mom's pumpkins. Her's is the cute little goblin guy.

So Drew and I did the velcro wall, I decided to do a hand stand.

Drew and I were laughing so hard. It was hard to jump

high enough to get up there so he tried throwing me.

Hey we made it up there, you can see Drew is cracking up.



This is the before picture!

Self picture of the two of us!

Friday night lights

We had a pretty eventful weekend. Friday night we went to Drew's brothers game, it was a biggy (their homecoming game!) The team they played was the team that Canyon Creek Christian Academy played last year in the state championship game and beat. So all year Legacy Christian Academy's goal has been to beat creek...the football team always broke huddle saying beat creek and the back of their school t-shirts said "unfinished business." Well... we creamed them again! It was a pretty nerve racking game until the end of the third quarter we were always a touch down behind, we always answered right back when they scored to tie the game again. In the thrid quarter we finally broke free and scored 21 un-answered points. I figured I would post some pictures of the game, it was the first cold game of the season 48 degrees that night :)

Final score of the game!

Drew with his two brothers. Ben (#7) had a 57 yard touch down!

Great game boys!

One of the first couple plays of the game.


Drew's sister and her daughter (our niece) Ashlyn. She did
like the noise of the game. So they didn't stay long.

Me and my hunny! Nice and cozy during the cold game.

Fall

Fall is in full swing in the Gardner house hold. I have thoroughly enjoyed the cooler weather we have had the past couple of days! I have been enjoying starbucks pumpkin spiced lattes and my pumpkin candles. Our house is decorated with all things fall...pumpkins, scarcrows, apples, and colored leaves. Yesterday I had to get my "fall" snack food. So here was my mini grocery list yesterday

Apple cider

Apples

caramel dip

kettle corn

cuties/ clementines

Yay fall...I can't wait til it is actually cold enough to make my friend's tasty chili recipe!

Happy fall :)

Weekly Menu

I won't be doing much for dinner this week. I won't have anyone to cook for until Thursday night. Several months ago Drew and I got a Costco membership and we finally used it today! We stocked up on meat for dinners :) but here is what I have planned from Thursday night on...

Monday- Hanging out with Natalie (teaching her how to be the perfect house wife...so she says)

Tuesday & Wednesday- eating whatever I can find

Thursday- Asian chicken with fried rice.

I got this recipe from my aunt and it is delicious.

2 chicken breasts (just because it is me and Drew)

a couple of TBS of soy sauce and garlic salt (I just eyeball it to my desired amount!)

Merinate the chicken in the soy sauce and garlic salt and a little bit of pepper for about a half hour. Grill chicken.

For the rice-

4 strips of bacon chopped and cooked (keep drippings)

1 cup of white rice

1/2 cup of frozen peas

about 4 Tbs of green onion

soy sauce

1 egg

cook rice according to package. In a pan cook the bacon, then fry the rice in the bacon grease. In a seperate pan scramble the egg. To the rice and bacon add peas, green onion, and eggs. Add desired amount of soy sauce and enjoy!

Friday- Football game, Drew's brothers are playing Legacy Christian Academy, who canyon creek beat last year in the state championship game! Go Cougars!

Saturday-

Breakfast- Pumpkin bread french toast.

I got a box of pumpkin bread mix at costco today so I am going to make the bread and then cook it like french bread. It will be served with awesome maple syrup.

Lunch- Baby shower for the Lovelace's

Dinner- Oven Roasted butternut squash ravioli with Brown butter sage sauce.

I got the ravioli from costco and the sauce recipe was on the back

Sauce:

4 Tbs. butter

4 Tbs. of fresh sage

salt and pepper to taste

grated parmesan

Melt butter in a pan over medium heat. Stir in sage and continue to cook until butter becomes frothy and sage becomes crisp (8-10 minutes). Add salt and pepper to taste. Spoon warm sauce over pasta, sprinkle with paremsan cheese.

Sunday- I'm hoping that we can go to the fair this afternoon...we shall see

Lunch: Out with the family

Dinner: French dip sandwiches