Delicious Recipes to Keep my Family of Four Happy and Full
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© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Email.
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| [source] |
It’s a friend and foe.
I literally get hundreds of emails a day between my day job, this blog and all the other randomness that comes to my inbox. I have a pretty decent management system, including separate emails for different topics {personal, coupons/newsletters/etc, and the blog} for it all which helps keep me from going insane.
Know what has the potential to drive me over the edge though?
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Poorly formatted emails! I’m not talking about grammar issues or things like that. Sure, those types of things aren’t my favorite thing in the world but we all make mistakes. I even know proofreaders who just miss little things from time to time.
It is the supposedly professional newsletters and emails that I get that are just a complete mess. The text doesn’t align properly, images are all jumbled on top of text…I could go on and on.
Email templates, like Mad Mimi newsletter templates, would totally help to eliminate those problems. If email drafters would use templates, gone would be the days of getting {or sending out in some cases} emails where you are worried about how the columns will line up, the text will read and overall how the email will look. I wouldn’t have to play the scrolling the game just to understand the gist of the email.
Do you have any email pet peeves? Get a bunch of newsletter where the drafter clearly needs a little help with the formatting? How is your email management system working for you?
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Does the thought of Wednesday make your mouth water and your tummy grumble? Just me?
Well, let’s check out some delicious looking food anyways. {Then, I bet your stomach starts growling!}
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| [The Wicked Noodle], [The Kitchn], [Framed Cooks], [The Girl Who Ate Everything] |
Sunday: How about a fresh take on shrimp and grits? This looked so delicious with the fresh vegetables that I had to add it to my list. Plus, who doesn’t love gouda in their grits?!
Monday: We’re going meatless again with an arugula, apple and chickpea salad wrap. It sounds like a great meal without a lot of cooking!
Tuesday: Chicken, artichokes and lemon…three ingredients that are so good together. Lemon chicken with artichokes is a one pot dish that capitalizes on that combination!
Wednesday: Maybe because I am posting this on July 4th but I could not get burgers out of my head when recipe hunting. Good thing I found this bun-less fiesta hamburger to satisfy my craving.
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| [Pioneer Woman], [Skinny Taste], [Smitten Kitchen] |
Thursday: Pasta night! We’re going a very creamy with our pasta tonight because I’m choosing pasta carbonara.
Friday: I adore Spanish food and flavors. Spanish chicken and rice sounds like a great way to enjoy some Spanish flavor at home.
Saturday: Our weekends have been busy {and hot}! I’m thinking cold rice noodles with peanut lime chicken is a great option to help us cool down {and maybe slow down!}
Happy eating!
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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If you are interested in joining this fabulous list of sponsors below, please email me at justusfourpartners {at} gmail {dot} com for more information!
Now, let’s check out who was with us for the month of June!
Expressions Vinyl
I showed you my Lost Socks Canvas that I made using some vinyl from Expressions Vinyl this month. AND, Expressions Vinyl was awesome and gave away $25 to spend at their shop to one of our lucky readers!
Stella & Dot 
I’m still obsessed with their stuff and am so excited for the new line to debut on July 6th. But, before then, you can score an extra 20% all of their sale items through the 4th of July! Get shopping!
Layla Grayce
Layla Grace is the ultimate place to find cute summer entertaining essentials! Right now, you can even score 10% off of all red, white and blue entertaining items through July 31st!
Just click the picture above and use promo code: rwb10.
One Kings Lane
My daily routine includes a click over to One King’s Lane at 10:59am each morning to check out their newest sales when they go live at 11:00am. They have so many awesome finds!
I have gotten so many unique and/or useful things from Pick Your Plum! I love seeing their email come through every day to see what is new. Coming soon…Pick Your Plum will also be sponsoring an awesome giveaway for you guys so stay tuned!
Social Spark
Social Spark offers bloggers the ability to connect with advertisers, negotiate a price for content and get paid for their work! It is a win-win for everyone!
Tiny Prints
Need invitations for just about anything? Or maybe you want to design a custom greeting card? Check out Tiny Prints because they have some great invitation options AND, while you are there, you can design your own greeting card too!
eFaucets.com
eFaucets offers a HUGE selection of faucets and other fixtures for the bathroom and kitchen. Right now, select Grohe Kitchen Faucets come with a free soap dispenser through the end of July!
Again, thanks to all of Just Us Four’s amazing sponsors and affiliates!
If you’d like to be one of them and see your name here next month, please email me at justusfourpartners {at} gmail {dot} com. Rates are super reasonable and blog readership is growing every day!
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
It is summer. Not just technically because the calendar says so. Here it is full on 100 degree days summer.
For me, that means flip flops are pretty much all you see on my feet. The only exception is if I am heading to a meeting and, then, I throw on a pair of heels for the duration. In my mind, flip flops = summer!
I wanted to change up some of the decorations on the house for summer and started with the front door. Can you guess where this going?
Yep, I flip flopped my front door.
Pretty awesome, right? Now, my door is celebrating summer just like I am.
So, you want some deets on how I made this? I’ll warn you that I have very few {actually, zero} in process pictures. I know…bad blogger. This one was just so quick and easy and I was trying to throw it together before we left for vacation.
So, grab your wreath form of choice. I picked up one of the flatter mdf ones from Michaels. Cheap and easy!
Paint it, cover it…do whatever you want as the base. I simply wrapped mine in white ribbon
In addition to all kinds of flops, Michaels also had flip flop decorations. I picked up some cute little curly things {foam I think} and just wrapped them around the toe piece of some of the flops.
Ready to go to the door…
Are you sharing your summer shoes with your door? What are you currently sporting in the hot temps?
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This year, thanks to the ongoing basement reno {you remember that, right?!}, our actual away from home time was shorter so we stuck a little closer to home.
We kicked our vacation with the annual block party that goes on out on our street. We block the street off starting around 4pm and let the kids {and adults} go wild. Each year, the local volunteer Fire Department also stops by with the their truck.
In return, we fill the boot with donations and feed them dinner. Thanks to the Arcola Volunteer Fire Department for always being willing to support our little event.
Next up on our vacation list: Virginia Beach…well, first the 4 hour drive to get there.
We made really great time getting there. So great, in fact, that we couldn’t check in to our hotel for 4+ hours 🙁 Not so great.
We found some lunch and then took the kids to the beach for a little while as a way to kill some time
We spent 2.5 days there enjoying the sand, surf and boardwalk. Having grown up so close, we never really went and stayed in Virginia Beach so it was a lot of fun to discover all it had to offer.
Hailey’s favorite thing might have been the Sweet Frog FroYo
Or maybe the family bike ride
It was definitely not the family picture time
Ethan’s favorite thing was definitely the sand…he took about a pound of it with him after each visit. Oh, and sleeping in the stroller wasn’t too bad either.
I even managed to find a little home away from home at the historic Coast Guard station
On Friday, we headed out of Virginia Beach to meet my parents at the local Children’s Museum
If you are ever in the area (Portsmouth to be exact), it is a great place for kids!
The next day, we headed to our final stop: Busch Gardens.
Well, I guess technically the ferry came first which was definitely an attraction/adventure for the kids {and Mathlete}
We had perfect weather for our trip to Busch Gardens. We started in Sesame Street Forest and visited with a few friends
Followed by a lot of time in the water play area
And then lunch with a show in Germany
And finally…more sleeping in the stroller
And in the car
We finished out our vacation with a trip to the neighborhood pool
Oh, and Mathlete put together our new grill (purchased 2 months ago!)
Now, if only I could have another vacation full of sleep to recover from this one!
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
There, now I can’t be sued right? **blink, blink**
For our recent block party, I wanted to take something a little fun and different as my contribution. Last year’s Cranberry Moonshine punch wasn’t much of a hit because someone knocked it over within the first 10 minutes of it being out there {sorry Mr. and Mrs. Beergarita for your {still} dead grass}.
This year, I chose something spill proof: poptails {a.k.a. boozy Popsicles}
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| [photo source] |
I got the idea while reading The Kitchn one day. Their recipes all sounded ah-mazing but, since this was my first try, I wanted to do something fairly simple. Enter their recipe for Strawberry Basil Margaritas.
Easy peasy…turn a drink recipe into a Popsicle and be done. I do it all the time with V8 V-Fusion for the kids.
So, I grabbed my ingredients and got to poptail making
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| Sliced Strawberries |
I mixed the drink as written and then threw in a few extra strawberry slices into each of the Popsicle molds. I froze them overnight in our big freezer.
Success…as long as you don’t want to actually eat it!
Yep, this first attempt was a total poptail fail. I really should have taken pictures of the faces of my taste testers to illustrate exactly how awful these were.
I guess I now have two things I don’t do well in the kitchen: bake and bar tend.
I was not giving up though and tried to solve the problem. I grabbed a new batch of strawberries, basil, tequila…and a blender!
I cut my strawberries in half and threw them, with the rest of my ingredients, into the blender.
Once they were all mixed up, I poured them into my popsicle mold and back into the freezer they went until the next day.
Yep…actual success this time! These were edible and pretty delicious!
Of course, with all the trial and error, I ran out of time to actually produce enough for the block party. Oh well, there is always next year.
Want to make them yourself?
You will need:
1.25 lbs of strawberries, hulled and halved
1/2 cup tequila
10 basil leaves
1/2 cup granulated sugar (superfine is best)
1 Tbsp lime juice
Blend it all together in the blender. You can then push the mixture through a sieve if you want them to be less seedy {I did half and half}. Pour them into your popsicle mold {leaving room for expansion} and freeze for 24 hours.
Enjoy responsibly.
© 2012 Just Us Four. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
