Thankful for understanding brides… I hope

I know it isn’t Thursday anymore; I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday. But I couldn’t resist sharing this little tid bit. So the two lovely ladies pictured above have asked my sweet sweet Charlot to serve as their flower girl for their weddings. Maria has been Charlot’s swimming lessons instructor since she was about a year old and Meridith well she is Charlot’s aunt. These two ladies are getting married over the next two weekends.


But here’s the deal the flower girl they selected doesn’t really like the concept of being a flower girl, she prefers it be referred to as being a bumble bee. Ok we can do that. Well this is how Wednesday evening went with my lovely child.

Me-“Charlot do you want to put your bumble bee dress on and practice throwing the flowers.”

Charlot- Sigh “I guess”

Me- “Well you don’t have to”

Charlot- “No I will”

At this point we have now put the dress on

Me- “OK so remember when you put this on for the Ria’s (Maria) wedding you’re going to walk down the aisle like a big girl and throw out the petals.”

Charlot- “Hum I don’t think I will do that”

Me- “Sweetie why not?”

Charlot- “Well will there be other people there”

Me- “Yes we have talked about this that everyone will want to look at how pretty you look in your dress”

Charlot- “Oh, well I’ll have to think about this”

Me- “Hum” total loss for words

Charlot- “Maybe tomorrow”

Me- “How about Saturday too”

Charlot- “Ok I’ll stand like this” At this point she is holding her basket and dress over her head, Sophia undies shinning.

Me- laughing uncontrollably thinking about her in front of an entire church “Well that’s an idea, we’ll talk about this more later”

She looks so thrilled!!!

So I am thankful and very hopeful for two very understanding brides…or I pray they will understand. I warned them when they asked me if she would. Maybe I should go ahead and get a REAL nice present for each of them to make up for the performance.

Freezer to Crockpot Fajitas...

Over the weekend I helped host, well I made a veggie tray, a beautiful bridal shower for one of my dearest friends. No I didn’t take any pictures I am an air head I have realized this the quicker you do the better off we both will be. Anyway back to what I was saying about well I am not sure. But because I made a gigantic veggie tray I had a ton of veggies leftover, especially peppers. Peppers don’t really stay that good for a very long period of time so I needed something thing to do with all these peppers.

What you will need!

PINTREST to the rescue!!! I just looked for recipes to freeze peppers, and I stumbled upon this little jewel! Super simple just throw all your ingredients in to a freezer bag stick it in the freezer, when you want to eat them stick the whole frozen chunk into the crock pot to cook for the day. Shred the meat up when you get home and enjoy. These were very flavorful and just the right amount of spice.

All bagged up and ready for the freeze

I had lots of peppers so in the pictures you will see I made several bags. But the recipe is for one bag which will feed four people.

Freezer to Crockpot Fajitas

2 large Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

2 Bell Peppers (sliced in strips)

¼ of an Onion (sliced in strips)

1 clove of Garlic (minced)

1 can of Rotel (I used mild feel free to spice it up)

1 tsp Cumin

1 tsp Chile Powder

1 tsp Black Pepper

½ tsp Salt

Place all ingredients in a gallon size freeze bag, remove the air from the bag and place in the freezer. When you are ready to cook place in crockpot on low for 8 hours, remove the chicken and shred, return the chicken to the pot. Serve with tortillas, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes!

Ham n Mac Casserole

Photography by Lauren

A couple weeks ago the hubs and I went out for a rare evening without our awesome child while we were out my brother and his fiancé cared for her. That’s right I said fiancé my big bro is GETTING MARRIED!!! Anyway back to the point of this post. Lauren (the fiancé) is pretty much a meat and potatoes kind of girl, veggies aren’t really her friend. So when they agreed to watch Charlot, I went to her for what she would like me to prepare for their meal. Yup you volunteer your babysitting services I cook you supper seems fair to me!

I sat the table for a nice dinner for them. My SIL got me these
sweet new placesmats and napkins!

She didn’t say really what she wanted other than she really likes my Mac n Cheese. I knew I needed something I could stick in the oven when I got home that my brother wouldn’t have to fuss with much while they waited for Lauren to get off work and get there. Thus the Ham and Mac Casserole was born.

I even made dessert!

This is super easy and tasty with homemade cheese sauce, chunks of ham, and crunch panko breadcrumbs on top you can’t go wrong. Take some help from the store and have your deli cut you a couple of slices of ham pretty thick then you can just cut it in cubes when you get home. And please don’t pass judgment on me my cheese sauce contains Velveeta cheese, not a fancy blend of 5 or 10 different cheese. But it is delicious and I like it, if you want to use this recipe with your cheese sauce feel free.

Ham n Mac Casserole

½ lb Ham (Cubed)

1 lb Elbow Macaroni (I like the Barilla Brand the noodles have ridges which hold more sauce)

4 tbsp butter

2 heaping tsp flour

1-2 cups milk (this all depends on how thick or thin you like your sauce)

Pinch of Red Pepper

Dash of Black Pepper

2 oz Velveeta Cheese

½ cup sour cream

1 cup panko bread crumbs

½ cup grated parmesan cheese

EVOO

Cook noodles just shy of package directions. In a large non-stick skillet brown your cubes of ham in EVOO. In a large sauce pot melt butter sprinkle in flour and seasoning stir over heat for several minutes to allow the flour flavor to cook out. Start with only adding a cup of milk, see how thick your béchamel (look at me with the big cooking term) sauce is too thick add more. Start adding in the Velveeta melt it down add more milk if you want your sauce thinner, at the very end remove from heat and add sour cream. Stir in noodles and three quarters of the ham. Pour into a prepared baking dish. Top with remaining ham. In a small bowl combine panko and parm cheese, moisten with EVOO. Top your noodle ham mix with the panko cover with foil. Bake covered at 350 for 20 minutes uncover and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes until brown. ENJOY!

Allow Me to Introduce Miss Minnie

Yes this blog is called Married with Pigs…and no I don’t post a whole lot about the pigs on here. I really want to but then I have so many recipes I want to share I just can’t handle the pressure! Anyway here is the proof we do have pigs in our life! This is one of the gilts that Charlot will be showing this summer. She has two Minnie and Daisy…she is so creative for a three year old.

Minnie is a registered Hampshire gilt born in February that currently is tipping the scales around two hundred pounds so I am slightly nervous about how large she will be by mid-August when she and Charlot make their debut. But as you can see she is very loveable and quite calm around Charlot.

I have no idea where that stance comes from!





Good Minnie.

Minnie loves walks around the yard, being scratched behind her ears, baths, belly rubs and most of all marshmallows. I feel I am writing her dating profile. She probably wouldn’t be real thrilled with me announcing her weight earlier. This gilt is quite a softy and Charlot loves her. As you can see they are quite a pair Charlot gives her drinks out of the sprayer Minnie rolls over to have her belly petted and desperately needs another marshmallow. And each time Minnie receives a marshmallow Charlot needs one as well. It is a vicious cycle. I believe by the end of the summer I will need to own stock in Jet Puff.

That whole walking pigs and eating marshmallows thing is exhausting!

Stay tuned for pics of Daisy…she isn’t quite as laid back to say the least.

Thankful Thursday’s…For Everyone Being Ok

A bit of a storm hit out small little town earlier this week…ok so it wasn’t just a bit of a storm it was a very scary storm. One that you probably won’t hear about on any news station but it did happen.


The hubs said to me as we were going to bed Tuesday night “there’s some pretty ugly weather out there on the radar (he’s a farmer watching the weather is his life), set your alarm for around 1 a.m. so I can check it again.” My response “sure hun I’d love to be woke up in the middle of the night to wake you up!” Ha said no one ever! Anyway I did what he asked and we both woke up for him to check the weather. He looked and thought we still had a little while, back to sleep I go! Well about a half an hour later I feel him shoving me out to bed to take cover.

At this point it looked like a laser light show outside, our windows were rattling, I heard a pretty big crash outside our window. We needed to get somewhere safe.

After the storm passed we went back to sleep, and morning came a bit too quickly. I headed out to see if we had any damage. Not too much lots of limbs down, a missing gutter, Charlot’s swing was crushed, Charlot’s play set was pinned against the garage by a limb. I thought we really go off pretty easy. Come to find out we did many other homes had much more damage.

The hubs got up we cleaned up what we could before work, Charlot came outside she was crushed because her stuff was ruined. As I was taking her to daycare we saw some other kids cleaning up their toys as well. I said “See Charlot other kids had their toys messed up by the storm too.” Serious as the world she say “Yea mom but why my stuff, it ALWAYS happens to MY STUFF.”

Leave it to my kid!

So this Thankful Thursday I am so thankful that everyone is ok and that I live in the small town I do. I have seen and heard about so many people helping each other clean up after this lovely little storm!