Apple and Bacon Stuffed Pork Chops with Caramelized Onions and AppleCider Sauce

We don't eat turkey in my house.  We do a ham each year at Thanksgiving so Karly and myself decided rather than take part of the stuff off we'd do our own pork off.  BUT I didn't want to make up a ham so close to Thanksgiving as my husband and I would just be finishing the first ham when Thanksgiving finally rolled around.  So I went scrounging through my porky recipes to try and figure something else out that could be served at Thanksgiving or at least feels like a "fall" dish.  I think I succeeded.  Inspired by my husband's like of the stuffed pork chops from Trader Joe's and my own like of caramelized onions and sauces, I created this dish.  You know it's a winner when my neighbor who is a vegetarian stops by and says dinner smells good and reminds her of fall.  Then I informed her it's a pork dish and she responds, "Might be worth trying it still."  Yup, winner winner!

Yabba Dabba Doo!

Flintstones!  Meet the Flintstones... well just Pebbles and Bam Bamm.  Mr. Viever was a party pooper this year and said he didn't want to dress up so no Fred and Wilma.  This is also the first year that I have made the kids’ costumes so I wanted to do something relatively simple, fun, and themed!

Painting Pumpkins

Hey! I'm here to show off one of our most favorite Halloween traditions. Back in 2010 during October, we were debating how to make our pumpkins. The kids were too young to be allowed to carve and well, carving pumpkins wasn't all that fun. Aevarie didn't like pulling out seeds (it was far too gross) and there isn't much else she could do. So my mother had the brilliant idea to paint our pumpkins instead. Perfect! And a tradition was born!

A Pixie Birthday Party

My little girl V is turning one on the 13th of this month.  It's so hard to believe that she's been with us a year while at the same time it feels like she's aways been with us.  At the end of last month we used part of Mr. Viever's paternity leave to travel to see friends and family and at that time through her birthday party celebrating her first year among our family members in Arizona at my in law's home.  We did the same for S when he turned one and it was so nice spending time with family and being with those who loved us most to celebrate the life of our child so we had to do it again for V.

V is a bit on the small side and I call her a little pixie, so a party theme was born! Now some random background, I'm not a fan of Tinkerbell.  Just plain don't care for her, her sass, or the fact that Pixie Hollow took over what used to be Ariel's Grotto at Disneyland- I know I'm a bit of a freak but Ariel's my favorite!  So when I was on my search for decorations, I wanted fairies but not of the Disney sort.  I found the perfect little cupcake toppers and matching garland on Amazon and suddenly two days before we were to leave for Boston for a week, (we're a little on the nutty side and planned travel to Boston for a week, one day at home, then drive to AZ for the weekend of party fun and a relay triathlon) I was struck with a NEED to make V a party dress to match the fairy decor.