Crockpot recipe

Southwestern Chicken Nachos

• 1 small bag frozen corn
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 large frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 16-oz jar medium salsa (Medium salsa is a must, mild isn’t flavorful enough)
• 1 8 oz package of cream cheese
• tortilla chips
• Any other additional toppings you desire such as chopped cilantro, diced avocado, diced green onion, sliced olives, etc.

1. Pour bag of frozen corn in bottom of crock pot. (Can corn can be used in place of the frozen. Just drain it and put the chicken in first followed by the corn)
2. Place frozen chicken breasts on top of corn and cover with rinsed and drained black beans and jar of medium salsa.
3. Cook on high for 1 hour, and then on low for 4 hours.
4. Shred chicken with forks and mix in cream cheese until melted and creamy.
5. Serve with tortilla chips and add toppings to individual servings.

Love this!

Picture This

I started a blog to post photo's I've been taking recently. I thought I'd let you all know in case you like to look at that stuff too. I'm learning and want to see progress, so I thought what the heck - make another blog just for that! So I did. It's called Picture This and the address is jennisimmonsphotos.blogspot.com. It's been fun and it motivates me to take more pictures. That's the only way we can improve any skill right?! So I am enjoying the process and trying to be patient because I don't everything yet. :)

Melon Days 2010

We are always excited for Melon Days here in Green River each year because of all the fun activities in town, but mostly because it's pretty much the only time we have family come to visit. This year my sisters and their families were the ones who could make it, all of the Grandparents and my brother had other things already planned on this weekend. Then Tiff wasn't able to make it at the last minute. SAD! Next year. We missed having everyone.

The kids were so excited, the girls sat by the window and waited for a while. It was about three hours before anyone would arrive. I told them it would be a long time, but they didn't care.

Juli and Robyn's families made it and we ate dinner and then started with the fun! We had a watermelon seed spitting contest. Here's the line up. Some of the little ones were a bit confused about this game, but soon caught on. Kennedy thought the game was to eat only the seeds or just get them all out anyway, because when she had gotten them all out she still had a bunch of watermelon left and said she was done. Haha! Mom sent prizes so after each game they got a prize and of course they LOVED that! Thanks mom!

For one of their prizes they got these swords that light up. So I gave them these when it was getting dark outside, it was really cool seeing all of these lights going everywhere in the backyard and on the trampoline. They had a lot of fun with these.
I set the camera on night shot and it made it so you could see the lights in motion. Cool. I should have played around with it more to get a better shot with faces, oh well.
Kaiya and Sophie needed a picture taken. After we did this, Burke started a fire in the firepit and we roasted marshmallows. I thought the kids would love that, but they only lasted a little while and then off to the sword fights they went. Oh well. I thought it was fun. :)
Saturday morning, while waiting to go to the parade they did the watermelon toss. Burke cut this piece of wood out like a watermelon slice and then cut out the holes like seeds. The kids threw the bean bags through them.

Then they got a prize - Woohoo! That was a fun game and it was a nice decoration for the week too.
Here's all the cute cousins - except Katelin! I don't know where she disappeared to. Silly girl.
And everyone got their Sally time. Sally was in Heaven with all of the attention. Her favorite thing though was laying next to Juli on the bed. Juli got sick with the flu or something pretty much while she was driving to our house! She had a fever and everything. Poor thing! We were still so happy to have her and the kiddos though. They just hung out with us and played while she rested. And Sally kept her company - I should have taken a picture of them!

Emily, Hello Kitty and Sally.
Robyn and Sally.

Sophie and Sally.
The parade! LOTS of candy and they even threw out water bottles this year! That was a new one.
They even got necklaces at the parade! Sweet.

Parade is over. We headed back home for lunch and to get out of the sun for a minute. It was a HOT day! Sophie gave our lunch prayer, and in it she prayed for Kaiya to have fun doing her dance at the park. I was SO glad because I then peeked up at the clock and we had to be there in 10 minutes! So off we went with the older girls to see her dance. Thanks Sophie! She would have missed it.
The older girls sitting down were the ones who made up this little dance. It was really short and easy and they even got them each a shirt. They decided they wanted to make up a dance like two weeks before Melon Days. So their moms said go for it and they did. It was nice of them and the little girls loved it. It's always good for them to be able to get up in front of people and perform. Kaiya has really grown from doing it the past three years.
Everyone left Saturday afternoon instead of Sunday so Juli could get home and get to a doctor. It was nice to have company - Thanks so much for coming everyone! We love you. Come again any time!!!

GR Melon Run 5k

My friends and I decided to run the 5k this year. They just started doing this race here last year and it's growing. I'm glad we did it. Juli and Tiffany were going to run it with me, but Tiff ended up not being able to come :( and Juli got sick :(. NEXT YEAR ladies!!!

I thought I'd be done in like an hour maybe 50 min. so I told Burke to meet there at about 7:45 or 8 am. I had no idea, because I had never timed myself running it. I finished in 33 minutes and 50 seconds!!! I was so surprised. And so was Burke and the kids when I was there waiting for them when they arrived to meet me at the finish line. Hahehahe! Now we know it doesn't take that long. Oh well. They showed up and took some pics of Danielle, Annie and myself - in all our sweaty red-face glory.



Hahaha, I just love these girls. So fun!

Fun with bleach - Melon Days Shirts

I wanted the kids to have a Watermelon shirt for Melon Days. So I found a t-shirt for each of them, Katelin didn't have a plain one, so she gets to wear Kaiya's shirt from last year. These turned out so cute.

I learned this bleach trick from Robyn last year when I did the aprons for Christmas. I just love this trick! We did it for a YW activity a couple weeks ago also - they did CTR on their shirts.

I cut out a watermelon shape, and this time we figured out to stick it on with a glue stick! It works great and the glue doesn't harm anything at all. It seals the edges a lot better than tape does and nothing seeps through.
Then you spray the bleach, not too much, but enough. I blotted any excess with a paper towel. Make sure to have something in between the shirt so it doesn't leak onto the back. I set it on the table and had the fan on and then I used my hair dryer to dry it up quick! Last year I let it set over night, I think this works better. And you get to see the final result much sooner - SO COOL!

And Kaleb's - I dripped bleach on the bottom, oops. I try to hold a rag under the nozzle of the spray bottle so that won't happen, but I didn't catch it that time. Oh, well. He still loves it.
They love them. So cute!
Go make one - Halloweeny, Christmasy, a fun saying - anything! FUN!

Splash Park in GR

Our little park got a tiny splash park added to it. We went today with some friends and the kids had a blast. It was SO hot, so it was really nice. There's even a little mister one that I even enjoy.
Kaiya with her friend Belle.
We had barely gotten there and she already needed to warm up for a minute.
The water pours down the sides of this one, so they love to squeeze into the middle to try and not get wet.

Katelin loves to push the buttons and RUN!
Kaleb pretending it's a pool, I think. Whatever he's doing, it's cute.

Crockpot recipe

Chicken Taco Soup

2-4 chicken breast (depending on size, about 1 pound...these can be frozen too!)

1 can corn, drained

1 can black beans

1 can chili beans or light red kidney beans

2 cans diced tomatoes with green chiles

1 8oz can tomato sauce

1 12oz chicken broth

1 1.25 oz packet taco seasoning

Place all the above ingredients into your crock pot and mix well. Set on low for 7-8 hours or high for 3-4. Pull the chicken out, shred, and place back into crock pot.

Serve with tortilla chips, shredded cheese and sour cream.

So Good!

I just LOVE this recipe. It is all stuff that I usually have in the pantry also, so that makes it even better! Give it a try if you're feeling like something new.

I know a while back I put up one similar to this that we had after Kaleb's baptism, but I even like this one better! Mhm, I said it! Y-U-M!

Volleyball Tournament

We left on Friday around 10:30 to go to Blanding for this tournament the Lady Pirates play in every year. It was a two day thing, so we decided to get the kids out of school a little early and go with them. The Assistant Coach, my friend Kristi brought her kids also. Her husband, Keith, drove the bus for this trip. The kids always have a lot of fun together.

While we were waiting for the first game to start, Keith blew bubbles - big bubbles with his gum for the kids. They were SO impressed.
And then they would laugh and laugh when it would pop all over his face. It was so funny to watch the kids crack up!
The kids found these bats outside and Kaleb insisted I take their picture. Oh how cute?

The kids brought their swimsuits. Burke and I didn't bring ours. We didn't think we'd have time at all, because last year we didn't. BUT we were wrong. There was time. So Burke just decided to jump in with them in his shorts. And they just dried over night. What a dad! They had SO much fun.

We didn't bring floaties, of course, but Katelin didn't mind. She just jumped in over and over and then Burke would have her try and swim to him as best she could. She loves the water.
Hahaha!!! I think this one of Kaiya is so funny. She looks like she is just stuck there, and one of her braids is just sticking straight out.
Kaleb would just jump right into the deep end and swim on over to the other side. It just amazed me how far he's come over these past two summers!
Katelin always wanted to play with a ball. She's pretty intense - this is serious play here!

The girls played a bunch of hard teams from big schools. We're just a little place over here, so it was a bit scary for them at times it seemed. But they kept a good attitude. So when they placed them into brackets - we were in the lowest one - C. But in that bracket we took first! Hence, the C 1 hands. We were SO happy for them!!!! Such cute girls. This is our Varsity team - some play on JV also.
GO LADY PIRATES!!! :)