Recipe Club - July and a little catch up

Last got away from me a little bit as we had an impromptu road trip for a family funeral and then some catch up time with family.  So I have a favorite recipe for Andrea's monthly recipe club and few fun pictures to share.

 

First up I have my new favorite go-to dinner recipe.  Smothered Chile Colorado Burritos from Chef in Training.  These bad boys are delicious, easy to make and only require a few ingredients.  Plus nothing crazy unusual goes into them - I like this for easy grocery shopping!  The meat is cooked in the crockpot all day and then just assembled and broiled for 5 minutes before serving.  Great for a quick, delicious dinner.  Not to mention the left overs are great for lunch the next day!  :)

Second, I have to share a recipe that changed my life.  Seriously - change my life.  I'm not sure if I am the only one but I do not understand sugar cookies.  Especially hard sugar cookies...yuck.  Not wasting calories on a cookie that does not have chocolate in it.  No way!  So when I found Sally's Baking Addiction's recipe for Chewy Brown Sugar Cookies I thought they looked good enough to pin (and it had chewy in the title) but I didn't make them right away. 

Then came 4th of July and I thought a chewy cinnamon sugar cookie would be a festive treat.  The cookies are rolled in sugar before baking and I had blue and red sugar on hand.  Cute, right?  Well, due to my history of not loving sugar cookies I knew I had to pre-make a batch in case I needed a Plan B. 

My Plan B ended up being a second batch since I devoured the first batch.  #oops

These cookies are so easy to make, ridiculously chewy and DELICIOUS!  Seriously I don't know if it is the brown sugar or cinnamon or something else entirely but these cookies are one of my new favorites to make.  I can just picture them rolled in green and red sugar for Christmas cookies! 

Hope you all enjoy these recipes as much as we do!

Time to catch up on life lately...

My boys hanging at the pool

 

 Checking out the dam that is near our river property

 

Yes, that is a bowling ball she is using as a swing.  I didn't think much about it until someone made a Miley Cyrus reference.  #notawesome #parentingfail

But girlfriend sure thought it was fun!  :)

 I drove up to Wisconsin with my cousin and her little girls.  (Chase stayed home with Daddy and spent some quality time with Grandma Deb)

Natalie and Olivia are 6 months apart and had the best time together! 

 

 Spending some quality time meeting their extended family and learning about bocce ball.

 

 Natalie asked our waitress at breakfast for a bowl of Fruit Loops and this is what they brought her.  You know when you can tell when your waitress doesn't have kids?!?  Yeah, this would be one of those times.  ;) 

Lucky for us we didn't have any spills and she actually ate most of it!  Way to go Natalie!

 

 Since we were right by Lake Michigan in Milwaukee we decided to show the girls the riverfront and let them run off some energy before our 7 hour car ride home.

 

Love this picture of Natalie and my dad checking out the marina.

 

3 generations.

 

 She was a great little traveling buddy - especially when her grandpa spoiled her with ice cream!