Darn Good Green Beans

I get really tired of trying to come up with new side dishes to serve with meals.  I can only eat so many side salads, roasted potatoes and steamed veggies.  As I was making the Pioneer Woman's BBQ Meatballs the other night, I was craving something new and I had fresh green beans in the refrigerator so I thought I would fix her Spanish Green Beans as well.  However, I decided to make a few adjustments and I must say, I like my twist on the recipe even better!!
Darn Good Green Beans 1(ish) pound of fresh green beans, washed and snapped 4 slices of bacon, chopped 1 can petite diced tomatoes 1 clove garlic, chopped 1/4-1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper 1-2 T. brown sugar
In a large saucepan, saute your bacon until crisp.  Add in the garlic and saute for another minute or two.  Throw in the green beans, tomatoes, cayenne pepper and brown sugar.  Bring to a boil and cook, covered, for 15-20 minutes, depending on how crisp or soft you like your beans (I prefer mine on the crisper side).  
That's it!  Of course, I would prefer to add onion in my beans but someone in my household has an aversion to onions (and green beans for that matter) so I thought the chances of the beans getting eaten would be better if I omitted the onion.  
These beans would be delicious with just about anything -- bbq meatballs, grilled steak/chicken/fish, as a holiday meal side dish (PW's recipe is listed in her Thanksgiving section).
Enjoy!

Soul Food

When I quit my job to stay at home with Mason, one thing I knew I wanted to do was get more involved with our church, and more specifically to get more involved with the women in our church.  I knew once I became a mom, I would want to get to know other moms who have kids around Mason's age who share the same general values.  After all, two of my very best friends are girls I met through our church, so I figure it is a pretty great place to make friends :)  
On top of wanting to meet other women, I just really felt like I needed to dig deeper in the Word, stretch myself a little bit, and figure out how God is going to use me in my "new role".  So, as I began to think about all of this God just opened the doors to a few opportunities.  
First of all, one of my friends mentioned above, wanted to join the "Mom's" group on Friday mornings.  I must admit, I was a little hesitant about signing up because I just wasn't sure how I would fit in.  Call me judgmental, but I guess I had some preconceived ideas about this particular group.  I shared my concerns (if you will) with my other friend that I mentioned above because she has participated in this group before and she assured me I would be just fine and that I should at least try it out.  So, I signed up and we are going into week three and I have really enjoyed the group so far.  I still feel a bit out of place because I'm new, but that is part of that stretching process for me -- I don't really enjoy being in large groups and not knowing many people. 
The Mom's group is a little more of a light-hearted, feel good type of group.  We have a large group breakfast and speaker -- topics range from seasonal decorating ideas to intentional parenting to sex -- and then we split into smaller groups for discussions.  Like I said, we are only going into our third week so we haven't had too much discussion yet, but I'm sure we will get there.  I've already met a handful of people who I've seen around church in the past, so I'm at least getting to know a few more names.
The next opportunity that God presented was another group made up of different generations of women that meets one evening a week for dinner, Bible study and small group discussion.  I was invited to be a part of the group last year, but we were in the midst of our adoption and working on our house and I just knew I did not have the time to devote to the group.  And you know what, I don't think I would have valued the group at that time in my life like I'm anticipating I will now.  Again, God's timing is ALWAYS perfect!  This group is something my soul has craved for some time now.  We had our first meeting last night and I just can't wait to dig into the study.  
I know that in order for me to be a good wife and a good mother, I need to be continually fed by God's word and I need to have an outlet where I can connect with other women who have been in my shoes or who are sharing in the same struggles and joys as me.  I'm so thankful that God has provided for us in a way that allows me to be home and enjoy this time to grow and to influence our little guy's life.  My soul is happy!

Time for an Update

Since the holidays have concluded, we've been busy getting our life in order.  Once I quit work we quickly moved into the holiday season so I never really got too settled into my new role.  Plus, the beginning of the year always causes me to want to get organized, to start fresh, to change things up -- you get the idea.
January also brought about the month of our biggest event for the Aero Club.  So, I spent a lot of Mason's nap times working, but it was kind of fun to have something exciting to work on.  Plus, it gave Brandon and I a reason to get all dressed up for an evening.  It's too bad the zipper on my dress broke towards the beginning of the event...just my luck!  Thankfully, a friend of mine attended the event and graciously lent me her sweater to wear over my dress.  
Mr. Man has also been learning lots of new things that are keeping us on our toes.  He's crawling -- a little unique in style, but he's pretty good at it and he can move quickly!  

He also started to cruise on the furniture shortly after he learned to crawl and now he's even pushing his fun new zebra toy that he got for Christmas.  

Determination is not one of his weaknesses :)  He's also turned into quite the jabber box.  He can say "mama", "dada", "up", "apple", and is beginning to say "bye bye".  He also mimics a lot of our sounds, which is pretty cute.  He gets very excited if we cheer for him and starts flapping his arms up and down at a very rapid pace.  The dog is one of his favorite things in the world, but the feeling isn't so mutual.  Koby generally stays on higher ground if Mason is on the loose.  Needless to say, Koby really likes Mason's nap times too ;)

We started attending the mom's group at our church last week.  I must admit I was a little hesitant at first, but I think I'm really going to enjoy Friday mornings with other women.  It also gives Mason a chance to play with other kids, which I think he enjoys.  This coming week, I will also start another women's Bible study that I'm really excited about.  It is a multi-generational study and I'm looking forward to getting to know more people in our church.  Of course, we're still meeting with our awesome small group each week too.  
Speaking of our small group, I had the girls and their kids over for a Super Bowl party.  Our husbands all had other things to do that evening so we decided it would be fun to hang out together with our kids rather than sit at home alone.  It was so fun to see the kids all playing together -- something that made me smile given that I never thought I'd see that day.  Even though Mason couldn't quite keep up, he hung in the whole evening (which ended shortly after half-time).  
As we move towards the spring, I'm feeling the urge to finish a few projects and get the house in order.  The winter evenings make me want to snuggle up on the couch and watch TV rather than make the most of my time, so as the weather turns nicer I tend to find a little more motivation.  We started painting a little dresser that I bought for Mason's room before he was born (it has been sitting untouched in the garage all this time).  We painted it a cheery apple green (actually, I think the color we picked is "Asparagus", but that does not sound like a very pretty color to me...) and I can't wait to get it finished and up to his room!  

We are also starting to paint our trim upstairs -- a goal we've had for quite some time.  It is hard to get motivated to tackle those projects since we know how much work it is to paint all of the trim.  Unlike last year (when we painted the trim on the entire first floor), we're going taking it room by room this time.
I mentioned I want to get our house in order....One thing I've had a hard time doing since becoming a stay-at-home-mom is to maintain a good cleaning/laundry schedule.  Part of me likes the idea of tackling one room/area per day, but then I think I'd feel like I was cleaning all day everyday.  However, with this approach, I can consistently maintain the house rather than let everything pile up all week and tackling it all at once.  On the other hand, I like cleaning everything in one day so we can enjoy an entire clean house for at least one day.  So, I'm looking for tips and tricks that have worked for other people.  If you have any words of wisdom, leave me a comment!
We are certainly looking forward to the nice weather so we can get outside to play a little more.  Our neighborhood has a nice little playground and we got Mason a new swing for our yard so he can "hang out" while we are outside.    I know Brandon and I are both itching to get into the yard as well -- if only we had a little more rain this fall and winter.  I'm a little nervous our new plants from last year are not going to fair well this spring.  
Well, that's about all for now!  My brain is officially fried :)