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