The BEST gift I have ever received....like ever

Yesterday was my wedding anniversary.  We've been married 3 years.  Almost 4 years ago, we met in the midst of starting our lives over.  I had been married for almost 13 years, and he had been in a long term relationship that had just turned into a marriage.  But both our lives came crashing down, and we had to start over.  If you so desire, you can read my descent into madness at that point in this blog.  (I've considered deleting it off my blog, but I feel like this record of my life should stay, even though it is probably the lowest point I've ever been in my life.)

We met, fell in love, introduced my children into the mix, got married, had an adorable baby, and the rest is history.  This is the man I will grow old with, and I love that.  He is my soul mate, my rock, and my best friend.  I could live on the silliness he emits that bring me to a fit of giggles.  I feel so very lucky to have found someone like him.  Now, our family is a happy one, and I love that other people can see that, too.

This jar was what I woke up to yesterday.  His gift for me.  He spent all morning working on it.  I love that he was tooling around in my crafty things making something for me. He found an old jar I had been saving, painted the lid and glued a note to it.  Then tied ribbons around it.  But...the best part is what's inside.  He wrote countless little notes of why he loves me.  Gosh, I just tear up writing this.  He even folded each one into a tiny envelope.  Where did I find such a wonderful guy? I'm savoring opening them.  I've only looked at a few so far. 

And, we had a date night!  DH had taken the past couple days off.  He even cleaned the carpets today!  We got a little dressed up, and my mom came over to babysit, and we went to dinner at this wonderful Italian restaurant called Guiseppe's.  It's in a quaint old house right next to a bed & breakfast off the square in Denton.  It was delicious!  We had never been there before, but every time we've driven by we kept saying we needed to go.  So, we thought our anniversary was the perfect time.

It was a candle light dinner (with no kids!), and on a Tuesday there was hardly anyone in the entire restaurant.  We had the room we were in to ourselves.  The service was amazing.  I can't remember having such good service -- when the waiter is attentive, but knows just the perfect time to come back. I had this dish called Capellini Rustico, it's pasta in this delicious champagne marinara sauce.  It does not taste like typical marinara sauce.  Even my sweet husband liked it, and he's not a fan of tomato sauces.  Then, we shared a plate of canoli.  My meal tasted more and more delicious the more I ate.  It was such a wonderful night.  Then, we stopped for groceries (with no kids!), and topped the night off with a couple of episodes of Breaking Bad on Netflix before my hardworking hubby had to head to bed for a day of work tomorrow, while I attempt to get the ready-to-party toddler into bed. 

Etsy Handmade Harvest - this weekend

I'm going to have my first ever booth at a craft fair this weekend.  I'm excited and terrified at the same time.  Thankfully, my darling sweet husband is coming with me.  He's my secret weapon because he is such a flirt and loves talking to women, which make him a great salesman. 

If you're local to the DFW area, it's with Etsy Denton for the Handmade Harvest.  It's Saturday from 10-4 pm at the Center for Visual Arts. 

You can find all the info needed here. 

Delicious Taco Soup with Turkey

Sorry I've been gone for awhile.  Between the kids' school work, dh's in college and needing math tutoring, and sewing for my first craft fair, I decided the blog would take a back seat for awhile.

I hadn 't told you guys, but it's so exciting! My first craft fair!  I was selected to be apart of this Handmade Harvest Etsy craft fair in about 4 weeks.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to blogging regularly.  We go all out for Halloween around here, and we have decided to go as an entire family of zombies for Halloween.  So...I've got costumes to zombie-fy in addition to all my other duties.   

On to the soup!

This weekend was our first big cold front.  It dropped into the 50s for the highs, and we're in Texas, so that's seriously cold weather in these parts.  I was getting that hankering for a warm soup or stew to fill our bellies for dinner tonight.  A taco soup recipe caught my eye a few weeks ago, and I wondered how well something like that would go over with the whole family.  Em hates Mexican food.  The baby eats 2 bites of anything and spits out most of it, and Mr. E and dh are essentially human garbage cans.  Those two will eat anything, I think, lol.

I whipped up my own recipe from things I had on hand, and OMG it was so darn good.  Everyone, including the baby, cleaned their bowl.   So I thought I'd share.  This recipe is super easy and super quick.  You can be serving it in 20 minutes.

Taco Soup

3/4 lb ground turkey (or beef)
1 cup of crushed tomatoes
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 pkg of Knorr's taco rice
6 cups of water 
1/2 pkg of taco seasoning
crushed tortilla chips
shredded cheddar cheese
Opt. sour cream

Brown the turkey.  Heat up the dutch oven on high and add crushed tomatoes and both cans of beans.  Add the meat and stir.  Next, add the package of rice.  Add the water.  When it starts boiling, add the taco seasoning and stir until it's all well blended.  Simmer on medium until rice is tender.

I topped each bowl with crushed tortilla chips and a sprinkling of shredded cheddar cheese.  I was out of sour cream, or I would have added it as well.

Mr E and dh both added taco sauce and jalapenos to their bowls for extra spiciness. 

I served it with corn muffins I made from this recipe. 
It was a perfect balance of spicy from the soup and sweet from the cornbread.

Two things for the cornbread recipe:
   1.  I didn't have buttermilk, so I added 1 tbs of lemon juice and filled up the rest of the measuring cup to 1 cup with milk.
   2.  Since I made muffins, it only took 15 minutes for baking while the soup was simmering (the recipe calls for 30 minutes for a pan of cornbread).

This served 5 with a bowl or two to spare for leftovers.