Baconated Green Beans

I have a pretty good handle on main dishes come dinner time. I can whip up a bunch of frozen chicken breasts with gusto. Give me some pork chops and I can wow you. That being said my side dish repertoire is a little lacking. I am working on it though!  Hence this recipe. Now I like to think that this is healthy but really it isn't. I use a lot of bacon in it. The amounts are just suggestions. You can reduce the amount of bacon. It is crazy good like this though!

Baconated Green Beans

24 oz fresh green beans prepared for cooking

12 oz bacon

1 med onion, diced 

Boil six quarts of water in medium pot. Throw in green beans and bring back to boil for 4-5 minutes. Take green beans out and immediately cool down in an ice bath. Cook and crumble bacon. Remove bacon from skillet and all but 1 tbsp bacon grease. Saute onion until translucent. Mix green beans, bacon and onion in serving dish. Enjoy! 

You want to cool the beans down immediately after they are cooked. That helps them keep that bright green color. I cheated a little too! I bought onion that was already chopped. It is a little more expensive but the time and effort it saves is worth it in my eyes. It makes getting dinner on the table that much easier.  

Key Lime Pie

My hubby loves lime! So to be the good wife I aspire to be, I am always looking for ways to deliver the limey goodness he enjoys! 

Welcome to Key Lime Pie! 

Easy and delish! 

I must say when I use the term easy that does NOT include attempting to juice a bag o key limes. Those yummy sweethearts each gave about a tsp of juice a piece and with this recipe calling for 3/4 C of lime juice I would suggest:

A)have some lime juice on hand so when you get tired of juicing you can make up the difference and get on with it  

B) recruiting help (my dear hubs was and angel and did the juicing)  

C) pop a half a lime into a garlic press and squeeze for the quickest results.

OR if you aren't too concerned with having actual fresh key lime juice just buy enough key limes for the zest and use all bottled lime juice.

KEY LIME PIE

1 nine inch graham cracker crust

2 cans sweetened condensed milk

1/2 C sour cream

3/4 C lime juice

1 TBS lime zest

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl combine sweetened condensed milk, sour cream, lime juice and lime zest. Mix well. Pour into crust. Bake for 5-8 min until little pin sized bubbles pop on the surface of the pie. DO NOT BROWN. Chill and serve. Adding whipped cream is a lovely touch too I might add!! :)

Disposable Camera Challenge

I love photos. When I was a kid I loved looking through our piles of pictures. It was so fun to have a tangible snapshot of a memory. I feel like I have lost that in this digital world. It is so easy and convenient to take a million pictures. But then we have them just sit on our hard drive. That is so sad! Nick bought me a polaroid 300 in 2012 and it has been crazy fun! We have enjoyed having the instant photos. The kids love going through our jar of instants and remembering things from the good old days when they were little kids. HA! That is my favorite thing that they say. When I was a little kid.... Over on the skunkboy blog Katie has issued a fun challenge to combat this problem. The challenge is to carry around a disposable camera and take a couple snapshots here and there. Fill that baby on up with memories. Then comes the hard part! Developing them. HAHA! I have already bought my camera. It wasn't easy to find- I went to three places. You can find them on Amazon however. Disposable cameras are so fun! It is great that the haze and light leaks are part of what makes them fun and unique. I am so excited to get started! 

These pictures below are from a while ago. I forgot about them. That is the problem! They need to be printed and put in a box for my family to look through as we grow and change. 

I need to get this picture printed of Nicco! He looks so different now. Sometimes I forget how he looked with his crazy long hair. Handsome!

Babies! 

I actually got this one printed of Lola. And I am so glad I did!

I may just have to give myself another small challenge of printing 2-3 digital photos a week. They will accumulate quickly and will be something we will always love.

What about you? Are you up for the challenge? I can't wait to show off the disposable camera photos here on ze blog!

A kids dream summer activity and only a buck a kid!!

Shaving Cream WAR!!

Are you looking for something super fun to do this summer that won't break the bank? Why not a shaving cream war?? At only a dollar a can (we just do one per kid) it doesn't get much less expensive than that. We have been doing this since the summer of 2005 and only let the kids do it once a year to welcome in the summer. For good reason too it does a number on the hair but....they love it so its totally worth it!! 

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking....:)

BEFORE

AFTER

What do you do for inexpensive family fun??

Comment and let us know! 

We love to hear from nice people!

Summer Reading Program

Have you made your summer bucket list yet? After Emily posted hers our family jumped on the bandwagon. On our bucket list is to join our libraries summer reading program. They have a program for children AND adults. I am so excited! The kids? Not so much. But they are excited about the goodies. The children's program is science based and every week that they read 20 minutes a day they get a prize. Then at the end they are entered into a drawing to get an even bigger prize. I am all for positive bribery. I am definitely not above it!

These kids LOVE the library! 

The kids signing their name on their pledge! Lola has been working so hard to learn her name and she is kicking butt.

Hearing this boy read makes me swell with pride! He had a really hard time learning to read. It has been a long row to hoe but we are on the better side of it now. 

Free books are the best books! Happy little faces.

Head on over to your local library and sign up for the summer reading program. It is a great way to hang on to some of the kids schooling over the summer. Plus it is free! Win-win.