Good Eats

Quite a few months ago Matt googled Cafe Rio Pork and we've loved cooking this since. The first time we made it we only cooked the pork and the rice, but once we made the beans and dressing, so much better! It's what makes this meal so great!

Brianne and Tom were coming this weekend so I decided to make this for them. My friend Erica came over for a quick visit, so I convinced her to stay for this delicious meal too. It was a hit, so I decided it was about time to post these recipes for all to try. Hope you all enjoy them!

Cafe Rio Pork

5-6 lb Pork Roast

1 Tbls Cumin

1 Cup Brown Sugar

12 oz. La Victoria Taco Sauce (Red)

20 oz. Coke or Dr Pepper

Put pork in crock pot and fill half way with water. Cook 4 hours on high. Drain water, cut the pork in thirds. Mix together sauce and pour on top of pork. Cook another 4 hours on low. Shred the pork. (I usually only use 3 lb pork and it's still great. Also you might want more brown sugar, taste for your own preference.)

Cilantro Lime Rice

In a saucepan, saute:

2 Tbsp Butter

1 Onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

In a large pot, bring to a boil:

6 2/3 cups water

8 tsp chicken buillion

1/2 bunch Cilantro, chopped

2 tsp Cumin

2 sm cans Diced Green Chilies

1 Tbsp Lime Juice

1/2 tsp pepper

3 1/2 cups Rice

Saute onion, garlic with the butter until the onion is soft. Add rice and water and all the other ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover with lid and simmer for about 20 minutes. (This makes a ton of rice. I'm never tried it, but I'm sure you could half it.)

Black Beans

4 Tbsp. Olive Oil

4 cloves Garlic, minced

2 tsp. Cumin

2 cans Black beans, rinsed and drained

2 2/3 cups tomato juice

3 tsp Salt

4 Tbsp. chopped Cilantro

in a nonstick skillet, cook garlic and cumin in olive oil over medium heat until you can smell it. Add beans, tomato juice and salt. Continually stir until heated through. Just before serving stir in the cilantro. (I personally think it is too much salt, so you might want to do less and try it.)

Creamy Tomatillo Salad Dressing

1 cup Sour Cream

1 envelope Ranch salad dressing

1 1/2 envelope Fiesta Ranch Salad dressing

6 tomatillos, husked and cut in half

1 clove garlic, minced

Juice from 2 limes, freshly squeezed

1 1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro

Combine all ingredients in a blender (put the liquieds in first) and blend until smooth. Store in the refridgerator. Can be stored in airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Just One of Those Days

This is just how I feel today! Winston says it all for me. Now off to clean bathrooms, in hopes that it lifts the mood!

The Last Days

Last Thursday was Malcolm's last day of school. These last two weeks they have taken four field trips. The first one was to a retirement community. They've been there before, so I opted to skip that one. The second was to this new pediatric dentist office. This is Malcolm when they were getting off the bus, I think he was a little excited!
It was a great office, in the waiting room there was a huge TV and a counter with 2-3 little TV's with games on them. It was all colorful and fun for the kids. I can't wait to start taking my kids there!! This is the dentist...she was just so cute, and so sweet with the kids.
There was a TV right above the patients chair so that when they were leaning back they could see it. Well they had Spongebob Square Pants playing on it. Malcolm couldn't pay attention to anything but that TV. Finally they had to turn it off, because of him. Only my child!!
The third field trip was to an ice cream parlor called Licks. They showed the kids how they made waffle cones. They smelt soooo good! The kids all got an ice cream cone afterwards.
The last field trip was to a pet store. They only sold fish, but they also groomed dogs. The kids couldn't get enough of looking at all the different kinds of fish.
Friday was Malcolm's preschool graduation. It was one of the cutest things ever. He was so excited about it and the days prior to it, kept singing me the songs they were going to sing and telling me what they were going to do and get. Here he is performing one of the songs.

Right after getting his certificate and goodies!

A proud boy with his certificate.

Best friends forever, Malcolm and Georgey giving each other a high five after the great accomplishment.The four friends all together. Georgey, Malcolm, Hailey and Maddie. All us mom's would walk together everyday, then they would all get on the bus together. Hailey's family recently moved to Spokane, so they let her come back for the graduation. We sure do miss the Huisman's!!

They had to throw their caps of course!!

We attempted a family shot. It seems these two boys are always throwing in fighting moves during them!
After the little graduation, there was a BBQ. They also had a firetruck and a police car there for the kids to see and play in. Kids like nothing more!!
This is Malcolm with his awesome teacher Ms. Ana. I took this a few weeks ago when she came for the last home visit. Malcolm was acting a little embarrassed to have a picture taken with her. We loved her, she was such a great teacher, who really seems to love the children and her job. I am so thankful that Malcolm was blessed to have her. We sure will miss her!

Mother's Day Weekend!

First off I just have to say Happy Mother's Day to the two greatest mother's in my life, my own Mom, Marion, and my sweet mother-in-law, Cynthia!

I have a wonderful mother that as a little girl I always wanted to be just a like. I wanted everything like her right down to her freckles. Amazingly, I feel that I do have a lot of her traits. All the good ones of course. She's it the greatest mother and always makes me feel like her "Sunshine"! I love you Mommy!

I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful mother-in-law. She is the sweetest, kindest and most thoughtful person. She has done so much for me to make me feel like I'm accepted and a part of their family. I'm the only daughter-in-law right now, but someday will be one of five. I hope that we can always have a close relationship. I love you Cynthia!

We had such a busy weekend. Having so much family in town, and so many things planned, I didn't feel like I had much down time. It was fun, but I didn't feel like it was a long enough visit. I would have liked to have spent more time with Laura while she was in town...maybe I should just make an Arizona trip by myself...with Winston of course!! Hehe.

Friday was such a nice day, we decided to have lunch at a park with Matt's family. The kids, of course, had a great time playing!
Rose loving the hippo. She's such a sweet girl. I wish the kids had some more time to play together.
We've had this hat with all three boys. I just love how it's so little. Since it was so sunny I decided to put it on Winston. He didn't last to long before crashing. He looks so cute!!
I'm so sad that I forgot to shot a before picture. My brother-in-law Rhino (aka Ryan) has this awesome long curly hair. Since his only sister was in town, being the nice sister that she is, she had to straighten it. Doesn't he look like a rock star!?!
Saturday afternoon Cynthia, Laura and I all went to a "Garden Tea Party". We also went last year. It's a fundraiser that is put on with tea (pass), food (bring it!), raffles (never win) and auctions (if ever I was rich!). We had a great time together! I have some great in-laws!! (Thankfully!) I always feel gigantic next to them, since they are both shorter and little. Obviously I'm not really, but in my family, I'm the shortest!
There were 24 tables, and every table has a host. They decorate it with their own decor. Here are a few of my favorites!


This is the table we sat at. It was beautiful. The food was pretty great too. We had scones, a great salad thing, awesome finger sandwiches and some yummy dessert.
This is the great desert. It's a sugar cookie pressed into a cupcake with strawberry filling stuff...yummy!
So right after the tea party we had to book it to a BBQ I planned in honor of Matt graduating and Winston getting blessed. I felt like I spend all Friday and Saturday morning getting prepared for this. Luckily I had tons of help from my Mom. I couldn't have pulled it off without her help Thanks Mom, you truly are the best!
It's Matt's party, but he's still doing the cooking, at least on one of the BBQ, Pop was on the other. Matt chatting it up with brother-in-law Mike, Laura husband!
Lastly on Sunday Winston was blessed. It was a wonderful blessing. I'm so thankful for this sweet, happy little baby in my life. I'm so blessed to have three wonderful kids!! I of course had to take pictures of him after church. He's just so cute! This first one is a little dark (nothing photoshop couldn't fix) but I just love it with his little scowl.

The only one with a smile.


Afterwards he couldn't stop smiling at me. He's got the cutest smile ever. But of course all my babies have!!
My little sis Leisha is home for the summer. So sad that I can't be home with her! So we were able to get 3 out of the 4 new babies together. Aren't they all just the cutest cousins ever!! I'm glad we were able to get some pictures of them together. Hopefully we can get some more soon with all four of them. Now only if we could get a "cousin" picture of all eleven. Wouldn't that be an adventure, 11 kids under age 7. Haha!

FHE Hike

So I'm finally caught up. I did 3 posts all today, so if you want to catch up with us, you'll have to scroll down for more!

Monday night we hit Kamiak Butte for FHE with the Campbell's and Poteet's. It was lots of fun. Quite the adventure hiking with all these kids. Our boys walked the entire time, and it took about 2 hours to hike the whole thing. We didn't realize it was going to take so long, we took a picnic with us to eat at the end. By the time we were done, it was 8pm. Good thing we had snacks on the hike! Here's Matt and the Campbell's getting ready for the hike.Quinn, Malcolm, Georgey and Maddie must be discussing their game plan!
They all had to climb on the rocks too.
The beautiful fields of the palouse. I just love farm land, the green and brown together!
Just had to throw these last two pictures in here. We found this consignment store downtown of old antique stuff. Matt found this fur coat and had to try it on.
Quinn also tried it on...man he's styling. Merle (Matt's dad) tried it on too, but little did Matt know it was on manual setting and it came out pretty much black! Too bad!

Graduation (Saturday, May 3, 2008)

On Saturday Matthew graduated with his Bachelors in Medical Science from WSU!! I can't believe after all this schooling and changing majors, he's finally done. Well at least with this degree. Matt is planning to still further his education, but I'll let him tell you what he's doing next. Or at least I'll let everyone know when we get into a school! I also just wanted to thank all our family and friends that have helped us get this far! We appreciate all the love and support, whatever that might be!I am so very proud of you Matthew! This is such a huge accomplishment. Even if it's not where you want to be in the end, it's been a long, hard road to get here. I'm so thankful for your commitment to schooling and our family. You amaze me with how easy you make it look, and I can't wait to see you accomplish the goals you have for our future! I'm so proud to call you mine!! I love you!

His graduation started bright and early at 8am. I had to wake up the boys at 6am and we were there by 7am to get good seats. I fed Winston right before it started standing up in a bathroom stall, that's alway fun. Then he decided to have a blow out, and I didn't have an extra onesie. Luckily he didn't get it on his clothes! He was worn out, being all off schedule. He fell asleep before it even started. I thought this was such a cute picture of him and Gramimi! Besides the fact that it's bad lighting. Too bad I didn't know how to custom white balance before this!
The proud parents! Thank you so much for all your support and all that you do to help Matt meet his goals!!

We tried getting a picture of Matt with the boys. After 3 hours of sitting, the boys weren't willing to sit still any longer. The boys were so good during it though. Besides the fact that we sat behind some grumpy people and they made me feel like I'm a terrible parent! I hate people like that!! Merle said a lady came up to him after and told him she was sitting behind us and how well behaved the boys were. Thank you so much for making me feel better!!
We were barely able to take a picture of the family! Why I didn't take off my glasses for it though...I don't know!! I never like pictures of me though, I am not photogenic!
Sunday after my parents left, we decided to take a few pictures on campus. It was such a beautiful day, but a little too sunny. Malcolm has been telling me for months that we need to take a picture of this blue heart sculpture to put on the blog. Well here it is!! Not quite sure what the point of it is, but that's art!Saturday Malcolm also got his stitches out. I stayed home to feed Winston, so I wasn't there. Matt says Malcolm through a bigger fit getting them out, then when he actually cut it. I'm sure it was being scared they were going to cut him again with the scissors. They still had to put steri-stripes on it, so I still haven't seen the end result. They say the stripes will fall off on they're on, so far they're still on. Two weeks without being able to get his finger wet is quite a long time. It seems that he doesn't have much feeling in the tip, I guess time will tell more.

3 Months Old (Friday, May 2, 2008)

Last Friday Winston turned 3 months old. How can this be!?! I seriously can't believe he's this old already. He has been such a joy to this family. I feel like the transition to 3 kids has actually been easier on me then 2. (Besides the extra laundry!) We are so blessed to have this sweet spirit in our home. We love you little Win!!

Here's a little bit about what he's doing right now.

-He's around 14 lbs. when I weigh myself and him.

-He's sleeping through the night, well at least until 6am, that's good enough for me! (Although the last few nights he's been waking up between 2-3am messing his pants. Luckily he's just gone back to sleep after changing him!)

-Smiles at everyone and anything. He has the biggest smile, it's so cute. He is seriously one of the most happy babies.

-Started laughing. Not all the time, but he's very ticklish and we can get him to laugh. He loves his neck kissed.

-Playing with his hands. He's always holding them together, or has them by his mouth.

-Trying to grab for toys. His swing has toys on the side and he will stare at them and get his hands up and hit them.

-Loving the binkie. I'm thinking he's not going to be a thumb sucker.

-Loves his brothers. He'll smile at them across the room!

Here's some cute pictures of him from a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to do some 3 month pictures, but it was such a busy crazy weekend! A family friend from back home sent Winston this adorable blanket. I love that his name is one it, and it matches his bedding. If he ends up being a blanket lover like the other boys, I hope he chooses this blanket!!