Walkin' On Sunshine

Normally our red-eyed tree frog, Alfie, sleeps from the minute it is light out in the morning until about 8 or so at night once it's completely dark out. Every once in a while I will find him still awake in the morning, and it's always fun to watch him because his colors are so bright during the day compared to at night when he is much darker in color.

The other morning I noticed that he was awake right after I had opened up the curtains and blinds in the living room to let the sun in. There was a beam of sunlight only about an inch wide gleaming through Alfie's tank. I think he was curious because he crawled his way on over and just sat in the sun for a few minutes until he ended up falling asleep. It was kind of neat because this made his colors extra bright, but his reflection on the glass was kind of fun too :)

Oh how easily entertained I am! :)

Cheesy Potato Soup

It's official. The fall-like weather is here, and with it comes the desires of warm, comforting foods to just add on to the already cozy feeling this time of year brings. So what was the new recipe of choice to fit this 'comfort' category? Cheesy Potato Soup.

This was my first time making this recipe, or potato soup all together for that matter, but the onion and potato chopping were most definitely worth the work. Next time I make this recipe though, I will have to have company over to help eat it all because it turned out to make quite the pot of soup! :)

A New Home

It has been a long time coming as we have discussed our options multiple times. How big we want it to be, and what we wanted it to look like were some big deciding factors while we were looking around. But we finally found what we wanted!

Alfie has a new home!

When we first purchased our red-eyed tree frog a year and a half ago, he lived in a 5.5-gallon aquarium until he grew a little bigger as he was less than an inch in size. But as he grew, we moved him into a 10-gallon tank so he could have more room to jump and climb and it would also be more accommodating for his bigger size of 1.5 inches. While Alfie is still 1.5 inches in size, the 10-gallon aquarium tank wasn't fully suitable for him being a tree frog as he loves to climb. So as of this week, we have finally upgrading his habitat by moving him into a 30-gallon tank that stands tall rather than wide. We added more plants and some vines for him to climb and swing on and so far he absolutely LOVES it.

Can you find Alfie in his new home? :)

Barbeque Chicken Panini

We need to get groceries. Period.

And as most know from personal experience, when the groceries are getting low, the dinner options get quite limited. And when the options are limited, the creativity and brainstorming takes over to prevent starvation.

For our one-year anniversary, we got a panini maker, and even though we have not used it terribly much just yet, it has been absolutely wonderful when we have! Essentially you throw whatever you want between 2 slices of bread, throw it on, and hope that it's enjoyable to your tastebuds.

We had some frozen chicken breast in the freezer, so I decided to thaw one out. I cut it into slices and used the meat tenderizer to flatten them out so they would be more suitable for a sandwich. Once the chicken was fully cooked on the stovetop, I placed a slice of provolone cheese on the bottom slice of bread, spread some barbeque sauce on the cheese, placed the pieces of chicken on, and then topped the chicken with chopped onions. I placed the sandwiches on the panini maker for about 3-4 minutes until the cheese was melted, and then I removed them so I could put the shredded lettuce inside and they were ready to serve.

I have to admit, we WILL be making these again :)

Labor Day Weekend: Kansas City!

Labor Day weekend was definitely a much needed long weekend to just get away for a few days. We chose to spend our time down in Kansas City with some family, and it was a weekend full of fun, many laughs, and new memories together :)

We left Friday evening after work, so it was a late night getting in. Saturday was spent sleeping in, getting some lunch out at Chili;s, watching our niece while it stormed outside that afternoon, getting pizza at The Other Place for dinner, and ending our evening by going to see "The Help" at the theater. Sunday was spent sleeping in [again], eating a late breakfast, grilling out for a late lunch while the dogs ran free in the back yard [something they can't do here at home!], miniature golfing in the freezing cold breeze on a horribly maintained course, consuming some leftovers for dinner, and then spending more time chatting and hanging out to end the evening. Monday came too fast, but we got up to have some breakfast, grabbed some lunch, and then it was already time to head back up to Iowa. It was a quick weekend, but one well-spent with family we do not get to see often enough :)

Some pictures from the photo shoot with the monster during our rainy afternoon stuck inside:

The surprised face
The scary face

The cheesy smile

Pretending to sleep

Cheeseburger Pizza

We were on a mission to find something to make for dinner, and being that "pizza" tends to be a favorite and also a common fall back, we decided to spice things up and make a homemade pizza! But then we had to make the big decision on what kind of homemade pizza to make...

We came to the conclusion that it was time for an experiment because what was the worst that could possibly happen? [minus the possibility neither of us would eat it because it would taste absolutely terrible]

We chose to experiment with Cheeseburger pizza. The ingredients included: pizza crust, mozzarella cheese, hamburger, onion, ketchup, mustard, mayo, and pickles [on Kayla's half] :) Needless to say, it was some of the best cheeseburger pizza we've ever had. A definite success!