See any resemblance??  I don’t know, but the pasta sure is good!

Start by thawing your chicken thighs if you need to.  Rinse them off and then put them in a bowl.  Pour on some olive oil and sprinkle on your steak seasoning.  Cook up your chicken on the outside grill or the grill pan inside.  When it is done chop it up and set aside.

Next cook up your sausage in a skillet and set aside.  I use mild for my crew but you can go hot if you like that sort of thing.

Next, over medium heat pour 3-4 tablespoons olive oil into a large dutch oven or pot.  Add in your chopped onion and jalapeño and stir around. Cook until tender.

While those are cooking cut up your zucchini and yellow squash.  I made about 1/2 inch slices and then cut those into quarters.  Add those in the pot and stir around.  Cook the squash for about 10 minutes.  Just make sure you don’t overcook it or it will get mushy.

Next chop up your sun-dried tomatoes and add them to the pot when the squash is done.  Then add in your chopped chicken and sausage.  Warm everything up together and then set on low while you make your sauce.

First start boiling your water to cook your pasta.  Then to make you sauce melt a stick of butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  When the butter is melted add in a heaping 1/4 cup flour and whisk around to make your roux.

Slowly add in your milk whisking constantly.  The sauce will start to thicken up.  When the sauce really starts to bubble lower the heat down.  Stir in your cheese and then salt and pepper to taste.  Taste, and then add in more seasoning if needed.

When the sauce is done add your cooked pasta to the pot of meat and vegetables.  If you want the pasta dish to be more saucy don’t add in all your pasta.  I will add in about 3/4 of it to start.  Next pour on your sauce and mix up.  You can add in more pasta at this point if you want.

Serve with bread and salad if desired!

Rattlesnake Pasta

 

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Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

1 hour

Total time

1 hour 30 mins

 

Author: A Fireman's Wife

Recipe type: Chicken, sausage, veggies, and pasta.

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

• 1 pack boneless chicken thighs (about 3 pounds)
• Olive oil
• Steak Seasoning to taste -such as Montreal
• 1 pound ground Italian sausage (mild or hot)
• 1 large yellow onion chopped
• 1 jalapeño (with seeds and membranes removed) diced
• 2 zucchini- about ½ inch slices and then chopped in quarters
• 2 yellow squash- about ½ inch slices then chopped in quarters
• 1 small jar sun-dried tomatoes chopped
• 1 stick butter
• heaping ¼ cup flour
• 4 cups whole milk
• 2-2½ cups shredded parmesan cheese
• salt and coarse ground black pepper to taste
• 1 pound bow-tie pasta cooked according to package

Instructions

1. Thaw your chicken thighs if needed then rinse and put in a bowl.
2. Pour on some olive oil and shake on the steak seasoning. Move the chicken around with a fork to get it all coated.
3. Grill the chicken on the outside grill or inside on a grill pan. Chop up your chicken when done and set aside.
4. In a skillet cook up your sausage and set aside.
5. Heat a large dutch oven or pot to medium heat and then add in 3-4 tablespoons olive oil.
6. Add in your onion and jalapeño. Cook until tender
7. Next add in your zucchini and squash and cook for about 10 min. Don't over cook or it will get all mushy.
8. When the squash is done add in your sun-dried tomatoes, chicken, and sausage to the pot and stir. Let that heat through and then turn to low.
9. Cook up your pasta.
10. To make the sauce melt a stick of butter in a large skillet over medium heat.
11. When the butter is melted add in your flour and whisk around to make a roux.
12. Slowly add in your milk whisking constantly. The sauce will start to thicken up. When it starts to bubble turn down the heat.
13. Stir in your cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Taste and add more seasoning if needed.
14. When your sauce is done add your cooked pasta to the pot of meat and vegetables and stir. (I start by adding about ¾ of my pasta.) You can add in more pasta after you add the sauce if desired. I like mine to be more saucy.
15. Then add the sauce and stir.
16. Serve with bread and salad if desired.

Notes

No rattlesnakes were harmed in the making of this meal!

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My fireman’s diet is still in full swing over here.  I am so proud he is sticking with it and he has already dropped over 5 pounds!  It is kind of funny that I am posting this recipe because to be honest I have never really liked sweet potatoes, and my husband has never really liked sweet potatoes either.  No sweet potato casseroles on Thanksgiving, yams, or sweet potato fries!  So a little over a year or ago when I was on my dairy, soy, and gluten free diet for nursing I was surprised when my husband came home and said he had this awesome sweet potato side dish at the fire station.  He said I had to try it!  Well, because I could hardly eat anything as it was on my restricted diet, I was totally game to try anything new that I could actually eat!  It turns out that I loved them and so far the only way that my husband and I like sweet potatoes.  Unfortunately during the nursing diet year I only had this a few times before we realized my son had a reaction to sweet potatoes so I had to also cut those out of my diet.  It was a rough year and we are so thankful we are past all the crazy diets and now my son can eat anything….except we have not retried sweet potatoes with him yet because he had a FPIES reaction to those so I am in no hurry for him to retry.  So sweet potatoes have been kind of out of our house for awhile.  Well, with my husband doing this diet we remembered these and how much we loved them, so I made this for the rest of us the other night, just didn’t give any to my little guy.  These sweet potatoes, peppers, and onions went so well with pork chops in this marinade that I posted last week.  

To start, in a large skillet melt your butter over medium heat and also add in 3-4 tablespoons olive oil.  (You can just use all olive oil to go dairy free like I used to.)  I was recently informed using butter is the REAL way they make this at the fire station.  Chop up your onion and stir that around and then chop up your peppers and add that to the skillet.  I used two red peppers here because they are my favorite, but you could use a combination of 1 red and 1 green.

Let those cook for about 5-10 minutes while you are chopping up your sweet potatoes.

Add your sweet potatoes to the skillet and then add in the rest of your olive oil.  At this point I turn up the heat to medium high.  I think why my husband and I like this more than other sweet potatoes is because with the olive oil and the high heat you can kind of crisp these up a little.  They are not totally crispy but more than what a sweet potato fry is.  I just make sure I stir them often so they don’t burn.

Next you will add your Steak Seasoning.  I got this one at Costco but it is basically the same as Montreal Steak Seasoning.

I just sprinkle a generous amount over the top, stir it up, and then sprinkle on a little more.

Let them cook for about 20 min and they will slowly start to look like the picture below.  Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my new Lodge Cast Iron Skillet my husband got me for Christmas??   This baby is 15 inches and has been great when I need to cook a large quantity of something.  We have a 10 inch cast iron skillet as well but we felt like it was often too small for our family size.  I love how sturdy and heavy this is and how evenly it cooks.  My husband uses one like this at the station and we have wanted one at our home for awhile.  You can find it here on Amazon.

So I never grew up using cast iron so I have had to learn a few things about how to clean it.  I never knew there was a right and a wrong way but my fireman has me all filled in!  That will have to be on a post soon to come!

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Sweet Potatoes, Peppers, and Onions

 

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Author: A Fireman's Wife

Recipe type: Side Dish

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• ¼ cup butter (you can just use all olive oil to make it dairy free)
• 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion chopped
• 2 bell peppers (red or a combination of red and green)
• 2 large sweet potatoes cut into ½-3/4 inch cubes
• ½ cup olive oil
• Steak Seasoning to taste

Instructions

1. In a large skillet melt your butter over medium heat.
2. Add in your 3-4 tablespoons olive oil.
3. Chop up your onion, add that to the skillet and stir.
4. Chop up your peppers, add them to the skillet and stir. Let those cook while you chop up your sweet potatoes.
5. Add your chopped sweet potatoes to the skillet and stir.
6. Add your additional ½ cup of olive oil and stir. Make sure the potatoes are well coated. If not add some more olive oil.
7. Turn up your heat to medium high.
8. Sprinkle the potatoes with a generous amount of steak seasoning, stir, and then sprinkle on a little more.
9. Cook for about 20 minutes. Just make sure you stir them often so they don't burn.
10. They are done when they start to crisp up a little on the outside.

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For this marinade I just use olive oil, garlic powder, garlic salt, onion powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.  Super simple but it adds good flavor that even the kids like and it is pretty healthy.  So to start thaw your chicken in a bowl of water in the sink if it is frozen.  I always get the big bags of frozen chicken from Costco so I just take out what I need when I need it.  After it is thawed cut off any fat if needed.  I find that when I buy the Costco brand of frozen chicken I hardly have any fat to cut off which is so nice.  Place your thawed chicken right in a gallon size ziplock bag.  For pork chops just thaw them out, rinse them off and then put them in the ziplock bag.

Now to be honest until today I never actually tried to measure out the ingredients for this.  I would just pour on some olive oil to coat the chicken and then dump in the seasonings.  Then I close the bag and get it all mixed up and add more seasonings if I think it needed it.  Today I ended up adding about a teaspoon of all the seasonings except the cayenne pepper.  That one I just did a small dash, or about 1/8 teaspoon, for flavor.  My younger 3 kids won’t eat anything that is at all spicy.  I think then I added a few shakes more of garlic powder, onion powder, and pepper.

Once it looks like the picture above I will pop it in the fridge for about 10 min or until your are ready to cook it.  I have found it really doesn’t need to marinate long.  Then if the fireman is home he will put the chicken on the grill, or if he is working I will usually just put them on the grill pan inside.  Whats nice about this is that you can adjust the seasonings to your liking.  If you make it once and you realize it wasn’t right your can just add more or less of the seasonings next time.

Simple Chicken and Pork Marinade

 

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Recipe type: Marinade

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 4-6 Chicken breasts or pork chops
• ½-1 cup olive oil (amount depends on the amount of meat)
• 1 - 1¼ teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 - 1¼ teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 - 1¼ teaspoons coarse ground black pepper
• ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. Thaw your meat, trim off any fat if using chicken, and place in a gallon size ziplock bag.
2. Add your olive oil and seasonings to the bag.
3. Seal bag and mix around all the seasonings to coat the chicken.
4. Add any more olive oil or seasonings if needed
5. Seal bag and keep in the refrigerator for 10 min or until your are ready to cook.
6. Cook chicken or pork on the outside grill, or inside on the grill pan.

Notes

You can make this with any amount of chicken or pork chops. Just adjust the amount of olive oil or seasonings as needed.

3.5.3226

So one of my favorite New Years Eve traditions is to make a New Years Tree.  Ideally the best thing to do would be to take off all your Christmas ornaments and decorate it up with balloons, beads, party hats, blow horns etc.  For me undoing all the ornaments is at least a two day pack up project and ornaments all over the dining room table, so that just doesn’t happen around here until the week after New Years!  So on New Years Eve morning I just go ahead and put it all right over the ornaments.  This is especially fun if we are having friends over.  The kids all love finding the hats, beads, and horns etc. and pulling them all off the tree.  One year when we had friends over I put little jokes on pieces of paper, rolled them up, and put one joke in every balloon.  Then I blew up the balloons and tied them to the tree with ribbon.   I did all this earlier in the day.  Then at the party the kids had to pop the balloons to get the joke to read.  You could also add New Years wishes, money, or confetti to the balloons.  The kids loved doing this and it was fun for the whole crowd!  My daughter has a joke book where I got some of the ideas, or I am sure you can find some good clean jokes online.

Whether it is just us or a crowd, I always get a table cloth and New Years plates and napkins to make it festive.  All that stuff you can get for cheap at the Party Store or Walmart.  Don’t forget your sparkling cider!  I have a little tree that sits on my kitchen table for the Christmas season and that one is easy to remove the ornaments before it gets decorated for New Years.  Those little stick on mustaches that you see on the table below are also a hit with the kids.

Here are a few things that I just picked up the other day for this years New Years Eve tree and decorations.  The beads and the book I had, but the other stuff usually needs to be replaced every year.  I found the fun photo booth props at Walmart!

Most every year, meaning the years that my fireman is home, we get some sparklers and fireworks to set off out front.  We usually break it up throughout the night and go out front for fireworks about 3 separate times.  It is fun because our neighbors across the street and next door are also doing the same thing throughout the night so we get to see lots of little firework shows.  The rest of the night is filled with eating, fun with friends, or if it is just our family lots of games!  For the little ones, or if friends are only staying until 8 or 9, we will do a “mock” countdown to New Years so everyone can be apart to the celebration and noise!  We usually have more fun with our “mock” celebration then the real one because we can all be super loud and crazy and pop balloons.  My girls are at the point where they will usually make it to midnight, but we are all so tired at that point, and it ends up being a quick quiet celebration, so we don’t wake the boys, and then it is off to bed!

I hope that gives you some fun stay at home party ideas!  Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a blessed Christmas and New Year!

Every year we love getting our family pictures taken for Christmas cards, and also to have yearly updated pictures of the kids and family.  We have been using the same photographer for the last several years and she does an amazing job!  We always have the pictures taken with my extended family so we have 11 of us in all.  Our photographer is great at getting all the kids to look and smile and somehow they always turn out….even with 3 year old boys!!  If you live in the Phoenix area you can check out her website here.  I love the setting for our pictures this year, it is a fabulous representation of our state.  With that being said, I don’t think we will do a desert photo shoot again.  We had to brave lots of bees and cactus needles.  Bees don’t go over very well with my group, and there were balls of cactus needles everywhere.  We all had so many stuck in our shoes!  Luckily we made it through with no bee stings and no major injuries!

My Mom had the idea for the olive green and tan/cream color scheme.  I think it went perfect with our desert background.  The colors were great but they were a little hard to find for everyone.  So it was ThredUP to the rescue!  I love having a great online resale place to shop.  They have a huge selection so I was able to grab a few of our outfits from there.  If you have never shopped at ThredUP before you can register here and get $10 off your first order.

What I Wore

Dress- ThredUP

Leggings- Target

Boots- Target

Tree of Life Flexi Hair Clip in XXS- Lilla Rose

So… what’s his schedule like anyway?!?!  I know every department can be a little different but my husband’s schedule is 24 hours on and 48 hours off.  They run on an A, B, or C shift schedule that just constantly rotates.  So some years I feel like it falls that he works almost every holiday and almost all our birthdays, and other years it falls that he has most of them off.  I have just learned to accept that’s part of the job.  That was part of the deal I knew going in.  Now with that said my husband is fortunate and works for a huge department.  So getting time off is usually pretty easy for him.  He can either just take a vacation day or get someone to work for him when he really needs to have a day off.   He is even able to get some time off on holidays usually if he puts in early enough.  If he does end up working a holiday or birthday we will just plan on doing the celebration the next day.  We have had Thanksgiving on Friday before. Or we can always go visit him at the station.  Also, when my husband is home and off shift he is home.  Meaning he does not have a pager where he can get called in at random.  If he chooses to put in for overtime he will get a call first thing in the morning to know if he is going in for a partial, am or pm, or a 24 hour.  His regular shifts go from 8am to 8am the next morning.  He will leave the house at about 6:15 in the morning to get to the station early to check off the truck and relieve the other guy he is taking over for.  So he is usually gone before we get up as we are not morning people around here!

Does he have to work a side job or do overtime??  Yes and yes!  I guess you could say this to be a sort of “con” about the job.  While a “pro” of the job is that it is very stable with good insurance and benefits, we don’t  have the fear of him loosing his job or him getting laid off, but the con would be that he has had to either carry a side job or make sure he does overtime a few times a month.  Some guys don’t have to if their wife works or if it is just them, but for our “large-esk”, is that even a word, family of 6 where I stay home we need it!  In the past he has done a few side jobs, and will still occasionally work for a couple of them, but now we mostly feel like it is more beneficial for us as a family to just have him do more overtime for extra money as it will actually pay better.  Being in a big department he is lucky to usually get it when needed especially if he is not too picky about the days.  Like willing to go in on a weekend day or night.  Not having his own company, as many fire fighters do for their side jobs, we found a side job to just take him away so much from the family on his off days.  Not that overtime won’t take him away but financially it is more worth it when we really need the money.  He will often like to go in for a PM overtime rescue shift the night before his normal shift because we are all just going to bed anyway and that way he is not missing out on family activities.  Win win because he is getting paid, but an extra job is not taking him away all day.  The last 3 years he has also started doing wildland fires in the summer.  He goes as a medic for the people fighting the fires.  This is tough as it is a little more unpredictable with the schedule.  During wildland season, roughly end of May through September, that is where he can get the call to be at the shed in an hour!  This is with a different company then his normal fire job, but it has been very worth it for the sacrifice in the summer.  I say sacrifice as he can be gone 3 days all the way to 3 weeks at a time!  We never know how long and just have to take it day by day.  Of course this is by choice, he does not have to do this, but for us we decided right now it was financially worth it for him to do this in the summer time.  He is always able to turn the call down when it comes in, or say when he is done with wildland fires for the season. We are fortunate he works for a fire department where he can get the time off from them needed to go on these wildland fires.

So, what is all this like for me??  My role as a fireman’s wife has evolved throughout the years.  In 10 years I have gone from having  one child when my husband was first hired and me still working full time, to me staying home, to having another child, no kids in school or one just in preschool, to two kids in school, to a third child, to homeschooling, and now having a fourth child.  Whew!  So what do I do when my husband is gone for 24 hours, 48 hours, or 26 days in the summer?  Schedule, and just keep doing the same thing I did yesterday.  Ha!  Sounds pretty exciting right??  With having little ones and homeschooling, scheduling has been my life saver!  First I will take a step back though.  Like I said in the way beginning of my husband being on the fire department I still worked.  I thought it would be really hard with him being gone for the entire 24 hours, and him having to miss some holidays and gone on some weekends, but I think I adjusted pretty quickly.  I think when we decided that being a fire fighter was the career that my husband wanted to go for, God gave me a peace about him being gone and handling the schedule. By the time I became a stay at home mom I had baby #2 on the way so life was busy and I had no time to be bored with him gone.  When the girls were little I actually started to enjoy the day when he was gone, not that I didn’t miss him, but I was able to use that as a day to catch up on stuff I wanted to do whether it was chores, yes I got a lot of cleaning done, or blogging or a project, and I had the whole evening after the girls were in bed to get it done!  So I was able to find the positive in it that way.  When I had baby #3 life just got so busy that my day was dictated for me and their hasn’t been a dull moment since!  As I mentioned above, when I began homeschooling 2 years ago, I started scheduling my day and that has been a huge lifesaver to make sure all the school, chores, meals, baby feedings when baby #4 came, was accomplished.  Otherwise trying to do it all myself, when my husband was gone all day, or multiple days in a row, would have been too overwhelming.  When he comes home the next morning I always ask him how his night went.  He will usually fill me in on everything or if he had any calls he wants to talk about.  I am very lucky that even if he had a bad night he just has more coffee!  I don’t think he has ever said in 10 years, unless he comes home sick, that he just needs to go lay down right now.  I don’t ask him to stay up, I am usually just doing school with the kids anyway, but he also often has stuff he wants to accomplish in the morning too, and the kids are excited to see him.  We pretty much have a standard nap/quiet time in our house every day from 2pm-4pm.  My girls have reading/quiet time, my 4 year old has quiet time, or can nap if he will actually fall asleep, and my 1 year old naps.  During that time I have chores and computer time, rest or blog time etc. and my husband will nap then.

So, did or do I ever struggle with any of this??  Yes!  As I said above my husband works 24 hours on and 48 hours off, and that is if he is not doing any overtime or side jobs….and then it is more.  Yes I have learned to adjust to the schedule and go with the flow with him being gone a lot, but it doesn’t mean that some days are just hard!  And if they are hard I don’t have my husband coming home in the evening to help.  I just have to keep pushing on and get through the day.  I have learned throughout the years that if it is going to happen….it will happen on shift day.  That’s just the way it is!  I have also struggled in the past with the fact that just to make it and pay the bills he has to work SO much.  Things have gotten a little easier as the years have gone by, but some times in the beginning were tough and I would find myself doing the comparing game with other people.  God has really grown me in this area of learning to be content with where we are at.  I also would then struggle with him being gone all the time and feeling like I hardly had a husband.  I feel it was an answer to prayer with God bringing him the wildland fires in the summer.  It kind of sounds crazy, but with wildland he is gone for a concentrated time for a small part of the year, and now we feel like he can be home for more of the rest of the year with maybe just overtime 1-2 times a month versus all the time like before.  So for now that seems to be working and we are always praying God can open up a great side job that he can do at home.  He recently has been trying something out but it is still too soon to tell if it will take off.

What are my expectations for the day?  On shift day usually not too high.  So for a normal school day if I follow my schedule usually things go pretty smooth.  Like I said some days are harder than others and I just learn to push through.  During wildland season I keep a very low expectation and realize I am probably not going to get much accomplished other than just surviving while he is gone.  I have learned that I just can’t do everything that comes up on some days,  especially when I have a baby at the time.  Sometimes, depending on what it is, it would just be too hard to take or bring 4 kids to the activity without help.  As the kids get older that will get easier but right now with a 4 and 1 year old boy, some things I just have to say no to.  I have learned to be okay with that.

So what are the positives?  I thought it would be good to end on a positive.  He is a fireman!  I think that is a pretty cool job.  He is a hero and saves lives.  He gets to drive a fire truck and we can visit him and ride in the truck whenever we want.  The uniforms look pretty good too!  He LOVES his job!  Not every husband loves their job and I love that he loves going to work.  Makes it so nice that he is not miserable with what he does.  The shift schedule may be a little abnormal compared to what most people do, but this means he has days off during the week when most husbands work all day Monday through Friday.  This allows him to be free to join us on field trips or activities when they happen during the weekdays and he is home.  That also makes it nice when scheduling appointments.  I always schedule them when he is home so I don’t have to bring all the kids or find someone to watch them.  He is so wonderful and does the grocery shopping for us on weekday mornings so I can run homeschool and not have to spend all day Saturday at the grocery store.  Every night I look forward to his call.  I think in almost 10 years we have only not talked 2 shift nights, and it was just from missing each others calls and then him being on a call when I would call him back.  I love how every shift morning he leaves a note to me and the kids.  If he takes one shift day off he will have 5 days off to be at home…or be free to go on a quick vacation.  If we need extra money for something he can just do extra overtime and it is like giving himself a raise.  Not many people can do that.  We often don’t even know what day of the week it is around here.  Instead of asking each other is it Monday, or Tuesday etc. we will ask, is it B shift or C shift?  If he is working we know it is A shift.  Or if we have an activity to go to he will first ask what shift is it on?  I’m sure other fire wives can totally relate!

I hope that gives you all a little more insight on what’s it like to be a fireman’s wife!

Start with a 4-5 pound beef brisket or chuck roast.  Cube the meat and sear in a hot, medium high heat pan to brown the outside .  Probably need to do this in a few batches.

When done put the meat in a large pot.  Chop up a white onion and add that in.

Stir it up and add your red chili sauce.  I use these right here:

Season to taste with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.  Bring to a low boil and then cover and cook on low for 6 hours or more stirring occasionally .

When you are close to eating cook up your white rice and chop up your cilantro.

Add your chopped cilantro and lime juice to the cooked white rice and stir up.

To assemble your red chili get the large burrito sized tortillas.  Put down some cheese and then meat, more cheese if you want, and some sour cream.

Fold it up by folding in the sides first and then the bottom and then rolling it up.

Add your rice and then sprinkle on some more cilantro.  I actually liked eating bites of the red chili with the rice, or just adding some rice in the burrito.  This makes a lot so it is good for a big crowd!

Fire Station Red Chili with Cilantro Lime Rice

 

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Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

6 hours

Total time

6 hours 20 mins

 

Author: A Firemans Wife

Serves: 10-12

Ingredients

• 3-4 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 4-5 pound beef brisket or chuck roast
• 1 white onion chopped
• 2 (28oz) cans red chili sauce
• garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste
• sour cream for topping
• shredded cheddar cheese for topping
• Large burrito size tortillas
• 2 cups cooked white rice
• ½ bunch of cilantro chopped fine
• 2 limes

Instructions

1. Add oil to a large skillet and heat to medium high heat.
2. Cube your meat and sear in the skillet until the outsides are brown. You may have to do this in a few batches. Add your meat to a large pot.
3. Add your onion and chili sauce and stir up.
4. Season to taste with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
5. Bring to a low boil and then cover and cook on low for 6 hours or more stirring occasionally.
6. When ready to eat cook up your rice.
7. Chop up your cilantro and add to the cooked rice.
8. Juice your limes right into the rice and stir up.
9. Assemble your red chili with a tortilla then add cheese, chili, more cheese, and sour cream. Fold up and eat with the rice.

Notes

I like adding my rice right into the tortilla.

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I thought for this weeks Friday at the Fire Station that I would well, be at the fire station!  We took Wednesday off of school this week so we could have an extra long break for Thanksgiving.  My husband was working so we thought we would pay him a visit!  My kids love the station he is at right now.  It is one of the old brick stations with two fire poles, a rope swing, and a racquetball court.  Can’t get much better then that!

I love this cranberry colored sweater I found at ThredUP.  I think the color is perfect for this time of year and I am so happy it is finally cool enough to wear it.  If you are not familiar with ThredUP it is an online resale shop.  I love shopping resale, but as a busy mom it is hard to find the time to get out to the store very often.  ThredUP has become my new go-to with shopping because I can shop resale right from home.  The site has so much to choose from and it is very easy to navigate.  They will even accept returns if it isn’t just quite right.  If you are a new customer to ThredUP you can register right here and get $10 off your first order!

I love wearing skirts a lot of the time, I like how they are more feminine and girly, but they are not always easy to find that aren’t too short, or too tight.  I think having daughters, that are starting to get older, has given me a heart to want to dress more modestly.  I have to admit, I did not always dress very modest.  I honestly never really thought much about it until a few years ago.  I live in a hot town, literally it is over 100 degrees for about 6 months out of the year.  So, low cut tops and very short shorts or skirts are kind of the norm where I live.  The lord actually pressed on my heart these verses…..likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control 1 Timothy 2a, and Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 1 Corinthians 6:19.  So if my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and the Lord says that women should dress modestly, I have tried to now honor Him with how I choose to dress.  Everyone has a different view point on what is actually “modest” so what your standard is will have to be between you and the Lord and is not for me to judge.  For me it was no longer wearing such low cut tops or spaghetti straps.  Or if the top is lower I just wear a higher tank top underneath.  I try to wear skirts that are at least knee length.  With jeans or leggings I just try to wear a longer top so I am not showing off every curve of my back side or everything from the top of my jeans if I bend over.  I love wearing leggings under skirts in the fall/winter with boots and it is a great way to still wear skirts and stay warm.  I love this skirt that my friend Ruth made.  She has an Etsy shop called SkirtedBlues where she actually makes skirts from jeans!  I love the length and it is one of my new favorite skirts!

I have loved wearing my hair up more lately.  I have a hard time wearing it down as much as I used to because I am loving my Lilla Rose hair accessories!  Most days my hair is pulled all up, or half up, in a flexi clip.  Makes it nice for the busy mom that I am!  I love going to my website to watch the style videos for new fun hair ideas.  Besides flexi clips Lilla Rose also has bobby pins, headbands, u-pins, and hair sticks.  Here I am wearing the November flexi ,and bobby pins, of the month, North Star.

And speaking of Flexi Clips, I’m beyond excited to tell you about an awesome Black Friday sale that is happening at Lilla Rose!!  Right now you can save 20-60% off everything on the entire website, plus get free shipping on orders of $75 or more!  Some new beautiful products were added just for the sale and they brought back some old ones!
The sale starts bright and early Friday morning and goes until 11:59pm Monday!

What I Wore

Sweater ThredUP

Shirt- Target

Skirt- SkirtedBlues

Boots- Target

Flexi Clip and Bobby Pins- Lilla Rose

]]> https://afiremanswife.com/2016/11/25/friday-at-the-fire-station-casual-outfit/feed/ 0 344 https://afiremanswife.com/2016/11/18/friday-at-the-fire-station-operation-christmas-child/ https://afiremanswife.com/2016/11/18/friday-at-the-fire-station-operation-christmas-child/#respond Fri, 18 Nov 2016 07:49:13 +0000 http://afiremanswife.com/?p=306 In honor of Operation Christmas Child (OCC) national collection week I thought I would change things up a little. OCC has their national collection week going on right now and ends on the 21st!  So there is still time to pack a shoe box and drop it at one of the drop off locations if you have not already.  We have done this with our kids the last several years and it is such a great time to teach them the joy and the blessing of giving to others.  Each year we talk to our kids about how we are so blessed to live in the country we live in, but not everyone around the world has all the blessings that we have.  So many of the kids that receive these boxes have next to nothing so we hope and pray that by receiving these they will see the love of Jesus and and it will bring a HUGE smile to their faces!

I was so blessed last month at my church to hear a testimony from a woman who was a former shoe box recipient.  She was one of the lucky ones that was adopted out, she was an orphan, and is now grown up and works for Samaritans Purse.  So often we don’t even realize the impact that these boxes can have on the children.  We pack them up, send them off, and that is usually all we ever hear about them.  She said that because of the box she received she learned about Jesus and His love for her and that gave her hope.  She was 5 at the time, living in an orphanage, and she said she still remembers everything she got in her box.  She said she treasured it and for the first time she had stuff that was all hers, and a doll to hold on to and love.  She said she ate the toothpaste thinking it was candy because she didn’t know what it was….we can almost laugh at that, but it can also really make us see how little some of these kids have.

Here is a link on how to pack a shoe box and also a cute link to a video.

We took our kids out a few days ago to pick out stuff for their shoe boxes.  It is fun now that my girls look forward to this every year.  We have always had the kids pick out and make a box for the gender and age group that they currently are.  This way it is more personal for them picking out something for a child close to their age. Yesterday evening the girls and I had fun packing up the boxes.  I love the conversations we had doing this together about the joy of giving to others, Jesus, and the girls’ excitement about the child that would be getting their box.  My 7 year old was loving the little doll we were putting in her box and it was fun to remind her of how much the little girl that is going to receive the box will probably love it even more!  The girls and I all agreed, and pray, that we will be blessed with being able to pack even more boxes next year.

So get out there and pack those boxes and share Christ’s love to the kids!

Here is what you need to start:

Remove chicken from bones and chunk up and put in a large bowl.

Chop up your broccoli, carrots, red apple, and cranberries and add to the bowl.  Add your mayonnaise and stir it all up.

Add some salt and pepper and taste to see if it needs more.  Then try not to stand there and keep eating out of the bowl….(because it’s not like I would ever do something like that!?!? )

Feel free to eat this just as is or you can make a sandwich out of it.

This serves 4 to 6 using 1 chicken so double for a larger group.

Fire Station Chicken Salad

 

Save Print

Prep time

20 mins

Total time

20 mins

 

Author: A Fireman's Wife

Recipe type: Salad

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 ready to eat whole roasted chicken
• 1 small head of broccoli (about ½ - ¾ cup) chopped small
• ½ cup carrots chopped small
• 1 red apple diced
• ½ cup dried cranberries roughly chopped
• ⅔-3/4 cup mayonnaise (amount depends on preference)
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Remove chicken from bones and chunk up and put in a large bowl.
2. Chop up your broccoli, carrots, apple, and cranberries and add to the bowl.
3. Add in your mayonnaise and stir it all up.
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Serve immediately as is or make a sandwich out of it.

Notes

Double or triple for a fire station sized group!

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