Veggie Burger- Accomplished!

I have tried several veggie burger recipes over the past year and I finally found one we both love. I was trying to copy one that we had at a restaurant so I threw some things together and it worked on the first try! Since this one is so dense it is pretty comparable to a real hamburger with hardly any fat since I didn't need to add eggs. Served up on these pretzel buns from the Zionsville Farmer's Market this was the best one yet.

I will try to share the recipe although I didn't keep track of my measurements but you can just have fun with it.

1 cup of cooked wild rice

~ 1 cup of black beans, drained and rinsed

shredded carrot

shredded kale

1/2 tespoon chia seeds (optional)

bread crumbs

choice of seasonings for flavor

Roughly mash up beans in bowl. Add rice, carrot, kale or any other veggies you choose. Mix well. Add enough bread crumbs so the mixture stays together to form patties. I fried mine in a skillet because I think that helped them stay together better but you can also try baking/ broiling them. Cook with any option until slightly crispy on both sides.

So some of my favorite weeks are when we get to spend quality time with our little kiddos and it's even better when we get to see more than one of them in the same week.

Last Sunday we spent the day in TH and had such a great time with Cameron playing outside and in his pool. It's the best feeling when they are old enough to run up to you when you arrive yelling Uncle Matt, Aunt Manda.

Friday night we got to babysit Gracie. She kept us on our toes showing off how well she can crawl now and she loved playing in the grass with Uncle Matt.

In the Shadows

So this is the latest look for our pergola. We added four angled pieces to give it more of a mediterranean look. The new pieces also made a perfect spot to hang flower baskets off of. Sorry for the shadows but I only seem to remember to take photos at this time of day.

And finally after weeks of waiting for this puppy to go on sale we have our patio set.

To celebrate the ownership of my first ever patio table I made yummy Vegan Zucchini Bread......well not so much to celebrate but because the zucchini was starting to go bad :) Bad zucchini is great for baking though!

Love the You that God Made

Every year around this time I try to be all summery and do my hair in that wet beachy crunchy style......it always fails. For some reason I thought this year would be different because I bought a new blow dryer and it came with one of those diffuser attachments. What was I thinking. It always looks like either I just got out of bed or a bird's nest.

So even though I learned at a young age to accept the long legs I would have to shop for the rest of my life, it took me 20 years to accept that my hair will always be straight! Don't get me wrong I love my straight hair b/c it is so easy to manage but sometimes a girl wants to mix it up. And by the way "perm" is not a word that we talk about. My mother probably learned when I was 8 that a perm would only happen once on my hair.

So straight it is 4-ev-ver!

This is what Cody thought of all my bathroom photo taking nonsense........

Concert of the year...so far!

So even though I had every intention of going to several great concerts this year I just couldn't manage to swallow the price of tickets. It's getting ridiculous. But I couldn't pass on going to see Mr. Brad Paisley and I am so glad I didn't. This is the 6th time I have seen him and it gets better every time. I joined the fan club this year just to see if I could get better seats and these turned out to be the best seats we have ever had! I mean look at them.....you can't get any closer. He did a great show and I felt like we were the only ones there because we were in the second row from the runway. I am definitely renewing the fan club membership next year.

(By the way I did not use the zoom for these photos!)

Memorial weekend with a project on the "side".

Maybe I should say our whole holiday weekend consisted of a project but I'll start with Friday before all the madness kicked in. Although Friday night was cold and drizzling rain I was determined to grill out! So I put on my jacket and fired up the grill. This dinner was delicious! I marinated everything in caribbean jerk seasoning.



Grilled Veggies! Yum!

Ok on to the craziness. The heat really kicked up this weekend and we were outside the whole 3 days building our pergola which we finished thank you very much! We did notice that we were the only crazy people in our neighborhood who were outside yesterday in the 90 degrees...but we are young right??

Here is our plain old yard before:

Ta da!

Yep we did that. Mostly just the two of us but we did have to call in some extra muscle for some of the pieces. Our backyard transformation will probably happen in phases. This was phase 1 and we are not quite done. We are going to add some other "architectural feature" boards hopefully this week. Phase 2 will be purchasing a nice patio set which I have never done before. Super excited about that! I can't wait to eat breakfast outside. Phases 3, 4 and so on I want to spruce up our patio by maybe expanding it or building a deck off to the side. We are not sure what we want to do but we are happy with what we have finished so far.

We've made it to 4!

Thursday was our 4th wedding anniversary and although the weather tried to be similar to our wedding day I don't think we will ever be able to reproduce how awesome that day was for us. This milestone is a fun little one because we've been together twice as long as we've been married, we will never get to say that again. We officially became a couple in May so this is a special month for us. I think I celebrated our 8 years together more than our wedding anniversary......I want credit for the 4 years before marriage....don't those count for something too? It's where you are really feeling out the person to see if they are the one you want for your whole life. It's where you can walk away at any time with no strings attached.......I think it's a critical time in a relationship. Lucky for us I have to say that our whole time together has been pretty easy and the big reason why..........I could go on and on about the things we truly love about each other but I will make it plain and simple.........we both want to live a drama free life together! There can be drama around us all day long but we refuse to let it into our relationship. Plus we just make a really good team.

On thursday night we made homemade gnocchi together and went for a bike ride. Tonight we are going to our favorite Italian restaurant in Zionsville to celebrate more. This restaurant is also special to us because it is the place we went the night we got engaged.

Roses for me is always a nice touch!

For breakfast I made some "anniversary" muffins. My own special recipe.

Loaded Blueberry Streusel Muffins(makes 12)
1 3/4 cups flour, I used whole wheat
1/3 cup sugar or brown rice syrup
2 teasp baking powder
1/4 teasp salt
1 teasp vanilla
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk of choice
1/3 cooking oil
~ 1 cup blueberries

Streusel topping:
3 tblsp flour
3 tblsp brown sugar
1/2 teasp cinnamon
2 tblsp butter


Grease muffin cups. Preheat oven to 400. Combine all muffin ingrediants in a bowl and mix well. Spoon into muffin tins. To prepare topping placing ingrediants in a small bowl and cut the butter into dry ingrediants until it makes a crumble mix. Sprinke topping over each muffin. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool before removing.

Missing Husband

Has anyone seen my husband? He's tall dark and handsome and tends to disappear when the weather is nice.



Oh wait I found him!

This is called "hammock time" and it is what I have lost my husband to. The first day he had it set-up I realized that the time we would spend together would be shorter and shorter each week......just kidding. It's actually really relaxing to be in the hammock under our willow tree and next to the pond. It's a great reading spot.

Also a little update on my second week of saving money at the grocery store.....this visit I only spent $37 so I'm still staying on track!