The Taco Ring!

This is a Pampered Chef recipe:

3/4-1 lb. ground meat or turkey
1 package of taco seasoning mix
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp. water

2 packages of refrigerated crescent rolls

*Preheat oven to 375
*Brown meat and drain
*In a medium size bowl mix the meat, taco seasoning, cheese and water

*Unroll the crescent rolls
*Separate into the triangles and arrange the triangles on a round stone with the wide ends overlapping in center. You should have about 5-8 inch wide diameter opening in the center.
(if you do not have a round stone, then I will explain another way to arrange them on a cookie sheet at the end).
*Scoop about two tablespoon full-size of meat evenly onto th ewidest end of the each triangle (the part that you overlapped).
*Bring the points of the triangles up over the filling and tuck under the wide ends of dough at the center of the ring.
*Bake for 20-25 minutes.. check at 20 minutes though..until golden brown.

It is really good with shredded lettuce, tomato, more shredded cheese, sour cream and avacado.

** Now if you don't have a stone than you can do this instead of the ring: THE BRAID
*Unroll the 2 packages of roll
*Lay them flat with the longest sides of the rectangles across the width of the sheet. Roll dough to seal seams.
*starting on the longest sides of the baking stone, cut side of dough into eight strips, about 1/12 inches wide and 3 inches long.. then fill in the middle with the meat mixture.
*Starting at one end, lift one strip of dough; twist one turn and lay across top of filling. Prepeat, alternating sides of dough to form a braid. Fold bottom edges of dough up at ends of braid.
*Bake for same amount of time.

I hope those of you who try it will like it..don't worry if your rings or braids don't come out the way you think they should.. it is good no matter what it looks like! ENJOY!

Izzy has a new shirt!

She wasn't too excited about taking this picture, but I had to take it anyways. We are very excited about having another baby. We will be due mid-April; I am almost 7 weeks. I am starting to feel sick some of the time which is not fun with a toddler running around. I hope to get to the doctor in another two weeks or so; I'll make sure to post then when we hear that everything is going ok. We are praying that is the case and this time around we think we are going to find out what it is; we'll see.

NC videos

Here are two videos that I took at Gran's house: The one with her playing the piano is really funny. If you pay attention you see her taking bow and saying "thank you." Gran taught her that.. it is really funny.

Back from NC

Izzy and I got to go visit my family in NC last week for 9 days and it was so nice to be back there.
We had not seen my brother and his family since early November of last year. ...way to long.
All of the cousins had such a fun time together. Brantley (9) and Palmer (6) played so well with Izzy; it was so fun to hear and watch them play.



Pops and Isabella


Cousin Gibson--him and Izzy are almost the same size and they are a year apart.

Gran and Isabella.

Newness

well, as you can see I have changed the blog a little bit. I am still not sure about it, but I am trying out new things. We will see where it takes me in the coming weeks.
It is refreshing to me at this time.. so, I think I shall keep it like this for a little while.

Exploring our surroundings

We are finally getting a little settled into our home. We love our house and where we are located! I am a few blocks away from Panera Bread Co. Oh, how I have missed those bagels. We did not have bagels in southern TX..only tortillas. It has also been nice having sidewalks again to be able to walk on around the neighborhood. Did I mention all of the beautiful architecture? All of the stone and old buildings are beautiful to look at.
Here are some pics from a recent outing we made to a local park where we found a little pond and fountain.



Ooppss... this picture was taken when we were taking all of our Christmas pictures.. sorry about that. I kept it though thinking it was nice to see Rocco again. He is staying with our good friends in Harlingen for the year. They are taking very good care of him and we know he is in good hangs...thank you Coopers!

Her favorite past time

The pics above were just for fun..she looks so cute! Her hair is a little crazy in the second one--it was right after a nap. Isabella loves to swim. When we were at the apartment she would wake up everyday saying "fweeiming." It was really cute, until she would ask for it all day long everyday. Here are some pics from our last week there at the pool with her Pops.


She is just a little fish. She loves the water and to jump in. She even loves to go under already! Hopefully that will stick and she won't have trouble when the lessons start.