Chicken Bruschetta

I'm always looking for new and easy recipes to make for dinner, so I thought I'd share one that I found and really like. I tweaked my recipe a little bit, but you can find the
original on Kraftfoods.com.

Chicken Bruschetta

1 - 1 1/2 pounds chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
2 cans diced tomatoes (I use the Italian flavor kind with garlic and basil)
1 box Stove Top Stuffing Mix for chicken
1 c. mozzarella cheese (I use 2% to save calories)
2 cloves minced garlic (I used dried minced garlic and it's great!)
2 tsp. dried basil

Boil chicken and shred. Place in bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Top with cheese and basil. In a separate bowl combine tomatoes, stuffing mix, and garlic just until moistened. If it's a little dry, add about 1/4 c. water.

Top the chicken mixture with the tomatoes and stuffing. Bake covered at 350 for about 30 minutes - until heated through.

Enjoy!

Welcome 2009!

2009 has been great so far!

J and I rang in the new year with our friends Carrie and Daniel. Don't we look festive?! Carrie fixed my favorite homemade hummus and we had mini-burgers for dinner. All SO good and so much fun!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Baking

I forgot I had these pictures on my camera, so we're backing up about a month here. J and I kept two of our nephews early in December. It was fun and easy (since Brody slept from their arrival time of 7 p.m. on Friday until 9 or so on Saturday morning!:) If you know me, you know I love kiddies, so I was super-pumped to have them and had to bust out the cookie baking with them. Messy, hectic, but fun! We made chocolate chip cookies with pecans and they must've been good because they were almost ALL eaten by that evening!

Brody (5) scoops out his cookie dough...

Mason (2 1/2) plops the dough on the baking sheet...

I just remembered, it was the Saturday of the SEC Championship, hence, the Alabama jerseys. Aren't they cute (in spite of the ugly Crimson color - War Eagle!)

We have a pecan tree in our backyard. I never really thought much of it until I started seeing all these "Pecans for Sale" signs around town. I realized when I had to buy lots of pecans around Christmas just how expensive those suckers can be, so I decided to harvest my own! I now realize why they are so expensive - they are near impossible to get out of the shell and it is hard, time-consuming work! I got enough to fill a quart Ziploc bag, so I felt pretty good about that. They are in the freezer until I need them!

30!!!

So, I turned 30 on the 27th. It hasn't been nearly as traumatic as I thought it might be. The fact that I'm 30 is just a little weird to me and I don't know how to explain it any better than that. A lady at church guessed that I had just turned 23 - she is now my new best friend!

My actual birthday was spent shopping with Jeremy, putting away Christmas decorations and having a yummy dinner with the family. It was great and sadly, I have no pictures from our birthday dinner.

When I arrived at work this morning these footprints met me at the door and read, "Guess who had her 30th birthday?! Come see for yourself!" And led the way to my cubicle....

My lovely cube decorated by one of my most awesome co-workers, Rose. :) Lots of streamers, balloons, mardi gras beads, Hawaiian lays and a couple pictures of J and me. there's also a cute little cake with a big 3-0 on top!

And my fabulous birthday tiara!
Happy birthday to me!

I've Been Bitten

The Twilight obsession finally got me. After a little prodding from Sister Molls (a series of books about vampires, seriously?) I decided to jump on the bandwagon and just read it. And Oh. My. Gosh. It is SO good! I finished Twilight in a matter of days, then read the second, New Moon and am now on the third book, Eclipse.

Yes, it's a tad on the cheesey side, but it's so well-written that I didn't care! They are definitely books that you won't be able to put down. And let's be honest - who doesn't want to find their Edward?? ::swoon::

I haven't seen the movie yet, but if it's still in theaters, that's where I'll be the day after Christmas!

Fall Catch Up

A few pictures from Bama's Homecoming festivities from back on October 31. We took Jeremy's younger brother to the pep rally and bonfire and it was actually lots of fun. It was a cold October night, so the fire felt really good. And it was a HUGE fire! (and p.s. I have no idea why this is underlined. I did not select it!)

Don't we look all cozy and warm??

And just because I'm kind of proud of it, here's a picture of the fall center piece I made for our dining table. Love it!