IN MEMORY OF MY COUSIN, JOHNATHON

Yesterday afternoon my family lost a cool little dude with the biggest heart. It was sudden and very unexpected.

This picture was from a few summers ago.

As expected, my family is taking this very hard and the next few weeks will be tough on us all. Please keep my family in your prayers over the next few days, and hug your loved ones tight.

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IN MEMORY OF MY COUSIN, JOHNATHON

I CONFESS V

I confess....our house was already wired for an alarm system when we moved in, but we just started having it monitored and paying for the service, and I am not used to it yet. At all. I set the alarm off last week and frantically called Matthew 1,780 times while he was at the chiropractor. Of course our security company called Matthew and told him the burglary alarm was going off, to which he responded, "that would be my wife." There have also been plenty of times where I opened the door early in the morning, usually checking on my plants lol, and that sets the alarm off. I've gotten the look from Matthew quite often here lately.

I confess...I have been talking in my sleep a lot recently and it's completely freaking Matthew out. The other night he said I was talking about string cheese in my sleep. LOL.

I confess...during the talent show my sister was in I teared up at almost every performance just thinking about how proud their parents must be. Then a whole 2nd grade class performed together and at the end they took their parents a can of Coke with "love" on the side of it and I lost it.

I confess...I like taking pictures of meals that I cook in case I want to post about it on here. I usually make Matthew wait before he can start eating (#instagramhusband) until I have made the perfect picture. To which I get a sigh, eye roll, and that smirky grin of his (I secretly love this smirky grin of his, don't tell him that though.) So I've gotten to where I won't tell him dinner is ready until after I have made all my pictures that I want to take. Boom. Problem solved.
Note: This isn't every meal, most meals, but not every meal. ;) 


I confess....the week before a holiday weekend always seems to be the longest week. It's not just me, I think everyone at the office has been dragging all week, too.


I confess...we started stripping wallpaper the other day. It took me about 45 minutes to strip ALL of the wallpaper in the kitchen and then I went into the dining room where Matthew was working. This took almost an hour and I was in tears by the end (#dramatic). We were using a steamer, but as you can see, it's not helping much. Any suggestions? Or better yet, anyone want to come over and strip the wallpaper in our dining room for us? I'll pay you with food.

I confess....my office chair delivered yesterday and it looks incredible. Matthew was SO excited to put it together for me and started late last night getting my office all set up for me. He is the sweetest. 

If you're following me on snapchat (shelbycoats) then you will see Matthew got my computer all set up! We still have some work to do with hiding the cords, and I still have to paint that room, but it's coming along.

I Confess I

I Confess II

I Confess III

I Confess IV

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I CONFESS V

SUMMER SOIREE | INSPIRATION & INVITATION

As mentioned last week,  we are hosting a cookout at our house in a couple of weeks to kick off summer. As expected, I have put a lot of thought and planning into this, and I am so excited!

After Matthew and I confirmed the date we sent out a group text to our friends asking if they would be able to come. Side note: 95% of the time when we host a dinner party I like to create an invitation to send out (you can see my Friendsgiving one here), but I only do this after almost everyone has confirmed that they can come. I don't see any point in creating an invitation and spending any money (printing, envelopes and stamps) if I'm not 100% sure they can come. My reasoning for sending out invitations then? So they have a reminder hanging up somewhere with the date and time (so I don't get 15 different texts asking the date and time again ;)) and something to get them excited for the event! I also really enjoy creating invitations for these events, so it's not a hassle or burden for me, it's actually pretty enjoyable!

I don't want to share too many details because some of my friends read my blog occasionally and I don't want to spoil anything. So I will share my inspiration that I have found over the past couple of weeks! All of these can be found on my Pinterest board here.

and now for the invitation

As much as I would love to say that I created this invitation all by myself, I didn't. I got the general design and verbiage from one of my favorite bloggers, Christina, over at Carolina Charm. Girl is TALENTED! 

I addressed these bad boys this past weekend and got them in the mail. 

One thing you don't see, our address stamp. My BIL gave me an address stamp with our new address on it for Christmas this past year, and it is hands down, one of my favorite gifts. I didn't mention it back around Christmas time because we were still in the process of buying our house at that time and I didn't want to say a word about any of it until we had the keys in our hands. I love it and just want to send mail out everyday now so I can use it all the time. I stamped them after I took this picture so I don't share our address with the internet :)

Linking up with Amanda.

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SUMMER SOIREE | INSPIRATION & INVITATION

WEEKENDING

Our weekend was so good and of course, went by too quickly! We were able to get a lot done and relax a bit....the perfect combination!

Friday I picked up the groceries on my way home from work. I made philly cheesesteak sandwiches and we were able to enjoy dinner on the patio since it hasn't been very hot lately.

Patio dinners = some of my favorite!

and yes, I leave for the beach in less than a month...my diet is going real well ;) 

Saturday started out slow for us. Lounging around, watching TV, and eating our favorite breakfast, again. I had some laundry going and cleaned a good bit. I always feel SO much better when our house is clean. I decided it was time to clean our new comforter! We got it back in January or February, I can't remember, but it's white with some navy detailing in it. I knew I would need to wash it every few months to keep it that way and so far it hasn't been that bad, thankfully! I washed it on a delicate cycle and then let it air dry over out stairway all day. When we went to bed it was perfectly clean and dry! 

We finally got motivated to get out Saturday and went to look at furniture. If you follow me on snapchat then you have been able to see a few snaps from the past few weeks of us in and out of furniture stores. We finally decided on some furniture, and we bit the bullet. We lucked up and were able to get the Memorial day sale, too! We had been looking at a consignment furniture store close to our house that sells Ashley's Furniture pieces at a huge discount. They didn't have everything on the floor so we decided to go to Ashley's Furniture to see it all in person.

 Well Matthew, being the negotiator that he is, went back and forth with the sales rep there and ended up getting them to PRICE MATCH the consignment store prices, plus get the insurance on all of the furniture knocked in half, and FREE shipping. LOVE that negotiating man of mine! We also get the furniture A LOT sooner than the consignment store and they will come in and set it all up for us. As a matter of fact the furniture will be here NEXT Tuesday (sorry for all the caps, we are just way too excited about this!) which works out perfect because our summer soiree will be the following weekend...perfect timing! I'll share pictures once we have everything set up. We are taking Matthew's twin bed from his college apartment and putting it in my office. We are slowly but surely filling up our home, and we are so excited! Here is a small peak at the guest bedroom furniture:

Sunday we went to church with Matthew's parents and then to lunch. We hung out with them for most of the afternoon. Matthew helped his dad hang up some stuff on the wall in their living room and it ended up looking so good! Sadly, I didn't get a picture of any of it.

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WEEKENDING

FRIDAY NO. 18

Matthew had to work out of town at the beginning of the week, so my sister came and stayed with me a couple of nights. She's on summer break and doesn't have to be at work some days until 1:00...so jealous. So Monday I got this snap from her...

In response, I sent her this meme...

 #sisterlylove

Monday night I went to my younger sisters softball game....in the cold and rain. There is a covering over the bleachers but the misty rain was coming down sideways..lovely. My sweet dad held the umbrella over us most of the game lol.

Seriously it has felt like early spring all week with the exception of yesterday, it FINALLY warmed up a bit and the sun came out (!!!!!)

In an attempt to make plans for a cookout coming up I text my two best friends and asked if they were planning on going to an even in our hometown but didn't get a response...for 15 HOURS. Literally drove me up the wall lol. So after a couple of hours of sending them the first text I sent this meme (I spend too much time looking up memes.)

I finally got a response 15 hours later and then my best friend shamed my lack of patience on good ole social media...too funny, Kat, not. ;)

Speaking of cookout...Matthew and I are hosting our 1st annual 'Summer Soiree' soon. I am so excited and have been looking up the cutest ideas on Pinterest all week. We thought it would be a good way to kick off summer in a couple of weeks with all of our friends! I'll be sharing more about it next week, but for now, here is a sneak peak of the top half of the invitations I made this week...

I noticed the umbrellas at our neighborhood pool were put up this week, and then yesterday we got the email....our pool is opening up NEXT weekend!!!!

All other 'Friday No.' posts can be found here. Have a great weekend! :)

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FRIDAY NO. 18

SUMMER BUCKET LIST

As mentioned the other day, Matthew and I made out our summer bucket list. It's warming up (kind of, seriously it has felt like spring all week), things at work are slowing down for the both of us, and we have some free weekends on the calendar (thank goodness!!!!) This is my favorite time of the year, and now I'm just waiting on the pool in our neighborhood to open up ;)

One thing that I left off of our list that I should have probably put on there is house projects. I have a feeling a lot of our free weekends this summer will go to projects around the house, and I am not complaining one bit. We are more than ready to get started on them!!

What's on your summer bucket list?

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SUMMER BUCKET LIST

THE MARRIAGE DIARIES VOL. 10

10 whole months we have been husband and wife. 10 whole months of living together and being #foreverroommates. 10 whole months, and it just keeps getting better.

Matthew is the kind of husband I only dreamed of having. I am so grateful for a husband who can lead me and love me so well. I am overwhelmed daily at how The Lord has worked in our lives, and I pray that this is only the beginning. I know I always say this, but it's so true, time is flying by. I mean we are TWO months away from our one year anniversary. How crazy is that?!?! I want to make the most of our days together, just the two of us. Because one day, there will be babies and lots of responsibilities that move in and it won't be just the two of us. I want to pursue my husband not only today, but everyday, because I'll never get these days back. Time is fleeting!

Lord willing, we have a lot of fun things planned for this summer that we'll get to do, a lot of projects, and a lot of excitement to look forward to. This is a fun season of life for us, and we are enjoying each new day as they come, together. We are dreaming about house projects, binge watching our favorite shows, exploring back roads, listening to our favorite songs in the morning as we get ready for our day, and just enjoying each other's company. I hope I never forget these sweet memories we are making together.

May the way I look at you, the way I speak with you, and the way I treat you reflect the truth that I have loved you since forever.

Here's to 10 months of the sweetest devotion and to Lord willing, forever. 

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THE MARRIAGE DIARIES VOL. 10

THE MARRIAGE DIARIES VOL. 8 & 9

Time is flying by and I have gotten behind on my Marriage Diaries posts. I feel like so much has happened since my last Marriage Diaries post, and well, that's because so much HAS happened.

These past couple of months have been a little rough for us. I hate even saying that because things could be SO much worse, but it hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies over here. We're getting back to that point, fingers crossed, but it's been a little rocky. 5 different hospitals (Hermitage, Murfreesboro, Nashville (x2), and Chattanooga) resulting in 3 nights in the hospital, multiple (and I mean multiple) test and scans, meetings with 3+ different neurologists, so many restless/sleepless nights and we still don't have a a definite answer. When I stop and think of everything that has gone on I still find myself stopping and thinking, lucky us. Lucky us, the tests and scans came back completely clear. Lucky us, we were notified of Matthew's high blood pressure before something awful happened. Lucky us, Matthew was seen by some of the top neurologists in the state of Tennessee. Lucky us, we were taken back minutes after arriving at the ER, both times. Lucky us, the support we have been shown from family and friends was overwhelming. Lucky us, we both have jobs that not only encouraged us to take our time about coming back, but checked in on us to see how we were holding up.  Lucky us, we are working to get past this health scare, together.

Marry your best friend, you won't ever,ever regret it.

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THE MARRIAGE DIARIES VOL. 8 & 9

BEEFY-CHILI MAC - DINNER RECIPE

This recipe is so easy and we had plenty of leftovers for lunches the rest of the week. The best part about it is that you can change it up according to what you like or don't like. 

Beefy-chili Mac

Adapted from Mix and Match Mama

Ingredients 

- 1 lb of elbow noodles

- 1 lb of ground beef

- 2 (6 oz) cans of tomato paste

- 1 (8 oz) can of tomato sauce 

- 1 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese, halved. 

- 2 - 1-2 Tablespoon of chili powder

- 1/2 teaspoon of cumin

- 1 Tablespoon of parsley

- 1 teaspoon of garlic powder

- Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions

- Preheat oven to 350

- In a large pot, cook noddles al dente and then drain.

- Meanwhile in another skillet brown your meat and then drain.

- Once meat and noodles are done mix the meat in with the noodles. Then mix in all of the other ingredients listed above. Only mix in half of the shredded cheese. 

- Once everything is mixed together well in the skillet, add to a 9 x 13 baking dish and top with remaining shredded cheese.

- Bake in the oven at 350 for 20-25 minutes. 

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BEEFY-CHILI MAC - DINNER RECIPE

WEEKENDING

Friday night we grabbed a quick dinner and then headed to Target to pick up our new planters. After that we went to Lowe's to get stuff to fill them!! Just getting #TheCoatsHome ready for summer...one plant at a time! 

Saturday we woke up and I made one of our favorites, sausage roll ups! We had a slow start to our Saturday, eating breakfast and watching a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother and then we got up and got to work around the house...

Trimming all of our bushes out front, pulling weeds and putting the planters together! If you look at the bottom left of this picture you can see a small peak at them! I can't wait to share them with you soon. Matthew cut down one of the bushes in the right of this picture and we plan on taking the second one out this coming weekend.

I also cleaned out my office. We put the rest of our unpacked totes in there as well as other stuff we hadn't gotten a chance to put up yet, and it ended up being a huge mess. I haven't had much time to work on that room until this weekend so that was very high on my priority list this past weekend. Here is the 'before' picture...it's bad.

I forgot to take and 'after' picture, but just know EVERYTHING is gone out of that room, except my beautiful desk!! I'm so excited to have it clean and looking like a real room now! I can't wait to get in there and decorate!

Late Saturday afternoon we went over to my aunt and uncle's house for my cousin's graduation party. It was fun to see everyone, and as always, there was a ton of delicious food! The weather this weekend has been very mild...almost chilly. We had the windows open all day Saturday and Sunday and it was great!

Sunday after church we ran to Lowe's to pick up painting supplies...because we got a FIVE gallon bucket of paint. We are so excited to start painting our house. We decided to go with Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams for the whole house. It's a beautiful neutral color and we are very excited! The color on the wall in the picture below is a darker beige. I'll update soon on everything after we get it all painted!

We ended up making 3 Lowe's trips this weekend!

Sunday night for dinner I made meatball subs...SO good but SO messy!

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WEEKENDING

FRIDAY NO. 17

Happy Friday!! I am excited for the weekend and keeping my fingers crossed for nice weather. Matthew and I have a long list of things we want to get done around the house this weekend and we are ready to get started on all of it!

A couple of weeks ago I shared with y'all some lists that Matthew and I made. We have decided to go on weekly date nights. Some weeks it will be smaller, such as an ice cream date and some weeks it will be dinner, or dinner and a movie. We decided to try and check off some of the restaurants on our list, and last night we were able to check one off. We tried Mirko Pasta. It's an Italian restaurant, and it was delicious!

 I had the spaghetti with meatballs and Matthew had cheese ravioli with Alfredo sauce. It was SO good, and we plan on going back, and soon!!

We came home and made our a summer bucket list before the Predator's game. I'm so excited to check things off of this list together! Making lists just make me so stinkin' happy. :)

I have been wanting to put two black planters on each side of our front door. I found these on Amazon but they are just a bit out of our price range right now, so I've been doing some searching and found these at Target! Plus we still have Target gift cards left over from our wedding so they will be F-R-E-E! I'm so excited to pick them up today and work on them this weekend.

Have a great weekend!!

Blog posts from this week:

Cinco De Mayo 2016

May | Goals 

Blanco Queso Dip - Appetizer

I Confess IV 

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FRIDAY NO. 17

I CONFESS IV

I confess...I made beefy chili mac on Monday night and it was pretty good! I was following another recipe and then just kinda went my own way with it and we both really like it! There is some tweaking I need to do next time, but it was still good!

I confess...Tuesday night I was trying a new recipe and it was a COMPLETE fail. Fail as in I took one bite and told Matthew I couldn't do it and we went to Burger King for $1.99 chicken nuggets. 

#wifefail 

Matthew was just going to eat it so he wouldn't hurt my feelings lol but it was BAD. I married a good one!

I confess...Our laundry basket it running over. I'm pretty sure the higher it gets the more intimidated I get to start on it. Just kidding, but I did kinda just stand there and stare at it for a few seconds hoping it would magically go away. Spoiler alert: it's still there. 

I confess...We had some really strong storms Tuesday night and I didn't even know we had a chance of rain coming. The wind was really strong and it was hailing like crazy. You realize you are a true adult when you are worried about your car and roof during the hail storm. (Just kidding, again, about being a real adult...see previous confession.) 

I confess...A new Jimmy John's just opened up minutes...MINUTES away from my office. PRAISE.

I confess...We found the most expensive house in our town on Zillow and drove 15 minutes away from our house to see it. Creepy? Nahh...just day dreaming (+ it's public information lol.) One of our favorite things to do is it just drive around and see what all is out there, especially in our new town, and we always end up finding cool spots to go back to. Anyone else do this? Anyways, it was on the lake and we couldn't really get a good look at it because there were a lot of trees, but their backyard was literally the lake. Here are a couple of pictures from Zillow.

Their backyard

aerial view

The yellow line below shows their property line...it's literally like their own little island.

I confess...I pulled up in our driveway the other day and noticed these cute flowers popping up. Of course I know nothing about flower types so I sent my dad a picture and asked what it was. Turns out, it's an iris! We have irises!!!! I am loving them so far...all two of them. Hoping those to the right of it bloom soon, too. ;)

Happy Friday eve!! 

Previous I Confess posts:

I Confess I

I Confess II

I Confess III

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I CONFESS IV

BLANCO QUESO DIP - APPETIZER

Matthew found this cheese dip recipe a long time ago and for years we have been using it. It's our go to recipe when we want restaurant style cheese dip at home and for dinner parties!

(source)

Ingredients

1 1/4 lb block White American Cheese (we usually get ours from the deli)

1/4 cup diced green chiles

 2 pickled jalapenos, chopped

1 ounce pickled jalapeno juice

2/3 cup whole milk

1/2 cup cold water

pinch of cumin (optional)

Instructions 

Toss all ingredients into a large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 5 minutes, stopping

 to stir after every minute. 

The mixture might seem watery during the first few stirs, but should come together as a nice runny dip after all the cheese is melted.

Serve immediately as a dip with tortilla chips or as a sauce over your favorite Mexican dish. To keep warm pour into a crock pot and keep it on warm and stir occasionally.

**Reheat Instructions: Store any leftover cheese dip in the fridge. Reheat in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until creamy and hot.**

A small note in case there is anyone else out there like us. We don't like chunks of jalapenos or chiles in our cheese dip, so we just leave those out and add in extra jalapeno juice to give it that kick it needs! We also go without using the pinch of cumin. Just our preferences, but I thought I would share in case there is someone else out there who doesn't like chunks of stuff in their cheese dip either! ;)

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BLANCO QUESO DIP - APPETIZER

MAY | GOALS

I still don't know how it's already May...or almost the middle of May. Beyond crazy to me!

Here are my April goals:

1.) Work on my office. Didn't even touch it! So a big fat no on this one. 

2.) Host our group of friends from Cookeville for the weekend. We did and we had the best time with everyone! You can read all about that weekend here. I love having our friends over and can't wait for our next dinner party!

3.) Yard Sale prep. Nope. We are hoping to get to that this Saturday morning!

4.) Become more active. I'm marking this one off halfway, because we have been attempting to become more active, I'm hoping this month we can get in a routine of walking every night after dinner! Our Fitbits have motivated us to walk more throughout the day to get our steps in lol.

5.) Find healthier meals to incorporate into our meal roundup. I wouldn't say that we have been eating really unhealthy, but we've been watching our portions and trying to eat more grilled meats! I've been taking salads for lunch and eating a lot of fruit.

6.) Keep my nails manicured. I didn't do too hot on this one either. We've been so busy I haven't really had time to sit down long enough to paint my nails and let them dry. 

I was able to cross off 3 out of 6 on my April goals. Not terrible, but I'm hoping to cross more off in May!

1. Work on my office. I am determined this will happen this month!! It will also help with goal #2! At least get it cleaned out and organized. Decorating it and getting to how I have

2. Yard sale prep. After we moved in we just kind put the rest of our totes in the 3rd guest bedroom which will serve as my office. I need to clean my office and make a pile of things we don't need anymore! I also need to go through other rooms and purge!

3. Create a 'House to-do list'. Matthew and I have an idea of what all we want done to the house and have talked about it multiple times, but we want to write it all down and then start getting estimates so we can know what to save for, and see what we can do ourselves. I'm really excited about this!

4. Video Tour. I really want to record a video tour of our house. Just as it is right now. I wish I would have done this before we moved in, but things moved so quickly! I want to always remember what it looked like before we start doing some changes and upgrades. I'm a sucker for before and after pictures so having a video will be even better. 

5. Landscaping. We have decided on holding off on planting much this year, but I want to tear out some bushes that we have. They are large and in charge....aaaand gotta go! I also want to find two planters to put on each side of our front door and plant something pretty in them. My dad just got us some peony bulbs and two small hostess plants to plant this year and I'm so excited about them. I've even had a dream about them the other night lol. 

6. Print pictures. This is goal will be one that will be done over time, but we at least want to get started on it. The only wedding pictures we have printed are the ones of us with our grandmothers, and we gave those to them as Christmas presents. So we want to get some wedding pictures printed, put in frames, and hung up! 

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MAY | GOALS

CINCO DE MAYO 2016

A couple of weeks ago I asked Mathew if he wanted to have a small dinner party with some of our friends for Cinco de Mayo. 2 things you should know about my husband: 1.) Boy LOVES him some tacos. 2.) Matthew loves hanging out with his best friends. So of course he was 110% on board with my dinner party idea. I hopped on Pinterest and per usual, found 1001 cute ideas, but I just didn't have the time and since it was going to be a smaller dinner I decided to keep it as low key as possible. I did find a few cute printables to have out, used our blanket we got in Mexico on our honeymoon as a table runner and our fiestaware completed our look! I was pleased with everything, but I'm already looking into cute ideas for next year. ;) Also, Cino de Mayo is on a Friday next year, PRAISE! Now, on to the pictures!

2 dishes of enchiladas, 4 pounds of taco meat, crock pot of queso, and 3 bags of our favorite taco rice! There was plenty of food and we ended up having some taco meat left over that I am freezing for another meal.

and of course Snapchat had the cutest filter!

We pulled our patio table into the kitchen to have more seats, and it worked out perfectly!

For dessert I made cinnamon dessert nachos and paired it with vanilla ice cream! 

I really wanted to make this dessert, but just didn't have the time to. Fingers crossed I can make them next year...or sometime soon because they just look so stinkin' good ;)

We aren't drinkers but I wanted to stay in "theme" so I found an alcohol free strawberry margarita to make! It pretty much tasted like a strawberry limeade from Sonic lol, but it was fun to put it in a fancy glass. I also put sugar around the rim for the last little touch!

 Like I said, we aren't drinkers, so I had to google what a margarita glass actually looked like (lol) and I still don't think this is quite it, but it's the only thing the Dollar Tree had! I stopped by there on my way home from work Thursday afternoon before our dinner and grabbed these bad boys to top off our Mexican theme. We probably won't use them until next year for Cinco de Mayo, but they were only a $1 so I'm not too worried about it!

It was really fun making them and I'm a huge fan of strawberry limeades at Sonic, that's usually what I get to drink there, so I might have to make this drink again! 

I found this frozen virgin strawberry margarita recipe here.

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CINCO DE MAYO 2016