Oh Baby!

Goosebumps.  That's what I had when I got a text last week from my oldest friend telling me she was at the hospital in labor.  For the following 10 or so hours I was checking my phone to find out... BOY or GIRL?!  I was convinced Renata was having a girl.  I had dreams about it and the closer she got to her due date I just knew it was a girl.  Well, BOY was I wrong!  She now has a beautiful baby boy, Parker Maxwell.  I cannot express the feelings I had when she called to tell me she was a mommy-ecstatic, proud, psyched, giddy, sentimental.   Going to visit her new little family was definitely the highlight of last week for me.  I went down to meet Parker on Friday and spent 2 hours holding his sweet self.

Renata has always been baby-crazy and I knew she'd be a great mom.  Just days into actual motherhood and she's a natural.  Patrick admitted to me the nerves leading up to Parker's birthday, but said now it's all worth it.  He's doing an amazing job helping out as much as he can... changing diapers, getting Parker to stop crying once I mess with him....

Needless to say, I have one sweet new nephew and he has some great parents!  Love you guys!

Grilled Wings

Okay, so Adam requested wings this week on the new grill.  I was pretty psyched... it's something different from what we normally grill, plus I LOVE wings!  I don't know that I've ever grilled any before and I have to say I was slightly mortified when I pulled them out of the nice neat package and they looked like this:

Gross!  But nothing a couple glasses of Pinot Grigio can't fix...

I sprinkled the wings with just a little salt, pepper, and garlic...just like mom and dad make.  Crossed my fingers and hoped for the best!

This is when they started to look good!  I grilled them on medium/low heat for 20ish minutes... until they looked like this:

Although I had some reservations, these wings turned out delicious!  They were good just like this and also I dipped some in blue cheese and hot sauce.

Grilled Pizza- Whaaaaat?!

My parents got Adam and I an early birthday gift last week- a new grill!  Unfortunately due to our busy schedules, I didn't get to play with the new grill until today.  When creating our menu this week, I wanted to use the grill every night!  The first thing I thought to make was grilled pizza.  Adam looked at me like I was nuts.... suggesting burgers or steak.  I wanted to try the nontraditional route first.  With a little help from Annie's Eats Blog I was ready to test it out!  The great thing about grilling pizza is, it takes 1/2 the time to cook....so our growling tummies didn't have to wait too long to bite into this deliciousness.  I bought fresh dough at Publix, but you could create your own if you want.

First I sprayed the grill with some oil and heated it up.  I cut the dough in half so Adam and I could have our own little pizzas.  In the future I would do this, I think it was easier to manage 2 small pizzas.  Once the grill was heated I put the dough on the oiled rack.

I closed the lid, lowered the heat to medium, and went to prep my toppings.  I was probably gone for 4-5 minutes.  When I returned, look what I found:

I flipped the pies over onto the unheated side of my grill.  If I were using a grill with only one burner I would remove the shells for the next step.  Armed with my toppings, I started decorating the pizza shells and then moved them over to the hot side for another 5 minutes.

Adam wanted a traditional cheese (I use Prego's traditional sauce as pizza sauce, it's way yummy!) and I made an olive oil/garlic/Italian seasoning with mozzarella, parmesan, romano cheeses with fresh tomatoes.  Yum!

Here is the end result:

Needless to say, we BOTH loved my creation!  As usual Adam acted like it was his great idea. 

Getting back into it!

I'm baaaaaack!  I have a new found love: reading blogs!  I mainly read food blogs, but I also like to read about the everyday stuff people encounter.  I looked back at my old posts and think I need to keep up with all this!  So I'm going to start food blogging and everyday blogging once again.  I hope to get better at this whole thing.  Look for a new post this week!