Avocado Enchiladas

TJ's parents have a knack for always having delicious produce on hand, so when they texted TJ on their way to the airport last week that they had five perfect avocados in the fridge, I asked that TJ make getting those avocados a priority!  They were perfect, which meant I had a great excuse to make avocado enchiladas.  As fair warning, these are not great leftovers, probably because the avocados in the enchiladas just get mushy.

The version I made (imagine a lovely picture here...) was a mash-up of a few recipes (outlined below).  This is not a perfected recipe, but hopefully this is enough of an outline to get you to a great result.

Filling from here (Mountain Mama Cooks)
Sauce from here (Six Sisters)

Ingredients for the enchilada sauce:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp. flour
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 tsp. cumin
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1/2 c. chopped cilantro
• 1 c. salsa verde
• 1/2 c. sour cream

Ingredients for the filling:

• 2 large avocados, diced
• 3/4 c. black beans, drained and rinsed (we just threw in the whole can)
• 1 1/2 c. grated sharp cheddar cheese, divided (we used some pepper jack too)
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 3 green onions, diced
• Shredded (already cooked) chicken (I'd guess we used half a rotisserie chicken)
• Tortillas (corn or flour - we used large flour tortillas and got 8 enchiladas from this)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (NOTE: I always think this should be step 4 or so because my oven heats so quickly, but I'll leave it here so you don't forget).

2. In a medium saucepan, saute the garlic in the butter for about 1 minute on medium high heat.

3. Stir in the flour and let it cook for about 2 more minutes.

4. Stir in the chicken broth, cumin, salt, and pepper and bring to a simmer.

5. Remove from heat and stir in the sour cream, salsa verde, and cilantro until smooth.

6. Spray the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish with nonstick spray.  Add about 1/2 c. sauce to cover the whole bottom of the dish.

7. In a separate bowl, combine all your filling ingredients (except the cheese).   I suggest adding the avocados last and gently folding them in.

8. Set up your assembly line: lay out your tortilla, put some filling in there, sprinkle cheese on top, and roll it up, placing it seal side down in the pan.

9. After filling the dish, pour the rest of your enchilada sauce and some cheese over the top.

10. Bake for about 20 minutes.

Santa Party - Part 1

Growing up, on a Saturday at the beginning of December we always went to Grandma Savage's house for her Tree Trim party.  Dinner was set out in the kitchen and we would eat in the front room or the back room.  I remember there were always deviled eggs and "little hot dogs," cheeseball and jello.  We couldn't all fit in one room so we would just spread throughout the house: sitting by the fireplace in the back room, or near her singing Christmas cowboy by her front portrait window.

After dinner we went to the backroom and decorated her Christmas tree.  It was always so overwhelmed with decorations that you could hardly see the tree.  Some of the older cousins would hold out the bulbs while the younger kids would put them on the tree.  At the end (at least in recent years), Aunt Rose would cover the whole thing in metallic streamers until it looked like it was fairly dripping with love.

In Grandma's back room on the wall there was a leather belt with jingle bells on it that someone would ring when Santa came to give us presents.  What a magical sound those clanging bells made for us!

Grandma Savage passed away two years ago: I still miss her.  My mom has worked her tail off to keep the Santa party going each year, which I so appreciate.  She puts so much work and thought and planning into that thing, coming up with a theme each year and planning everything around it.  This year the theme was "White Christmas."  TJ was too sick to go (I missed him a whole lot) but I was so glad to be there.  I went over early to help decorate (with our big family we have moved to a local church).

My mom's poses crack me up:

She was pretty set on an all-white Christmas tree that she could dress like a snowman:

Lots of snowflakes for all the walls, a craft table (see that cute snowman the kids could make), and a poem about our family.  I'm telling you, this is quite a production.

 Next up, the party itself.  :)  I took so many pictures (and Matt took my camera and doubled the count) it will take me a bit to get through them all!

Telestrations

Our neighbors own this fabulous game called Telestrations.  It's sort of like a mix of Pictionary and the old "telephone" game when you would whisper a message in a circle and see how close the final message is to the original.  This is my favorite game to play with these neighbors.

Recently we convinced Graysen that he could play by himself instead of being on a team and man oh man was that a great decision: we get some humdingers out of him that crack us up (discreetly).

His word in this round is "Kiss."

If you got that picture passed to you I'm sure you'd know exactly what it was, right?  :)  He zoomed in on the lips and everything.

And I probably should've taken a picture of what this one is because I definitely can't guess it now.

This kid is so darn handsome.

Bryce doesn't seem to mind just wandering while we're playing, especially when his beloved "T!" is in the room (he adores TJ).

Grinning at T (the photographer here):

Pretend this isn't blurry, I just love that little grin.

Here he is calling T on the phone.

And entertaining himself by trying to sit in the box (oddly a recurring theme when we play, ha!)

TJ usually wins best artist:

But Mylee is starting to give him a run for his money.  Check out her farmer!

If I remember right, Mylee's guess for this one that Jodi drew was "big fat hairy cat."  :)

A couple weeks later while TJ was in Japan, Jodi had me over for dinner and a couple rounds of Telestrations.  I texted TJ some of my favorites from Graysen.

(Sorry this one is sideways, I don't know how to fix it).  I took a picture of this because I love how he did the letter k.  

"Jail cuffs"

And my favorite of all.  I sent this to TJ to guess what it is and he came up with picture frame BUT if you look closer that is pretty clearly Rapunzel.  I adore this one.  :)

Love this family, love this game.

All the Meat

Since being pregnant it seems like I want all the meat I can get my hands on.  It's a funny change from the pre-pregnancy days when we were having meat every two weeks or so.

A few weeks ago we went to Cubby's and in a moment of (very uncharacteristic) spontaneity, ordered a hamburger to go with our standard salad.  For the record, I think that is the fourth time in my life I have ordered a hamburger at a restaurant...  It took an awful lot of effort to stop eating halfway through so T could have the other half - ha!  I loved it so much that TJ went and bought me another the next day.  I think we're on four straight weeks of having a Cubby's hamburger date night and I cannot get enough: who'd have guessed?

 This is a face of a woman who loves her hamburger:

2016 Grateful Tree

This year I skipped Halloween decorations entirely.  While neighbors and friends were pulling out skeletons and witches, I was putting up my Thanksgiving decorations (which are probably my favorite decorations I own).  On a Sunday in October Mylee and Graysen were here and we got to work on our Grateful Tree: I've wanted to do one in the past and this year we made it happen.  The kids helped me draw branches on a roll of brown paper and then while I spent a whole lot of time cutting that sucker out the kids got busy cutting loads of leaves.  One unforeseen benefit of young cutters is that we got some really awesome leaf shapes that I would never have thought of.

As soon as that tree was taped on the door the kids were writing things they were thankful for and taping them up.  

Check out this concentration:

Over the next couple months Mylee and Graysen would add to the tree whenever they came over.  T and I added a bunch of our own and as we had others over they, too, would add what they were grateful for.  I loved it.  

I took the tree down on Sunday and had to take a few pictures before I deconstructed it.  I think next year we'll try to cover more of those branches.  :)  

I loved Brock and Cooper's contributions: they are more than a little obsessed with their favorite colors.

"Legos" from Graysen - one of my favorites of all:

I just love his "full of effort" handwriting.  This one is "Rachel and TJ," just a bit scrambled:

Check out this leaf shape:

I can't remember what gift prompted this one from T:

I grinned when I saw this from one of TJ's deacons (we had his family for dinner):

Graysen had me spelling out these words for him to write.  He got a little tight on space so I had him put "our" on the top row, which makes me love this leaf even more.  I couldn't throw these last two away: they are taped securely in my journal.

What a great way to be greeted each morning from October - January.  I love the great feelings that gratitude brings.

July 1-4, 2015

We kicked off July this year (okay, every year) with my birthday.  I turned 29!  We celebrated prior to my actual birthday since TJ has class, but I was happy to catch him at home for approximately 6 minutes to have a hug, a kiss, and cookies from Ruby Snap.  I love that boy so very, very much. 

Jenni knew I was flying solo on my birthday so went out of her say (even arranged a babysitter!) to take me out to dinner and dessert that night.  Here we are at the front porch - she decorated my front door with the kids earlier that day (beach theme - she knows me so well).  Note the half-eaten cookie in my right hand as this was during the six minutes TJ was home.

After dinner we stopped for cake bites.  Cute Michelle when she was pregnant - now she's at home with a beautiful newborn!

When I got home from dinner the Merkleys came over with a sign and gift.  I truly feel like we lucked out in a major way with fabulous neighbors.  I told Jodi that the only way I can see things she'll have to just move into a new house on the other side of us when she outgrows her current house.

Love these cute kids so much.

This is exciting: our garden grew!  It ended up growing a bit out of control while also managing to not yield a whole lot, so we're still learning, but at least it grew.  :)

While Sara and Kipp were in town we had our July birthday dinner.  We celebrated my birthday as well as Colette's first birthday.  I can't believe she's already one.  She adds so much fun to our Morris family.

TJ borrowed Papa's new game Kuub to teach everyone. I love summer nights so, so much.

While everyone else played Kuub, Sara and Lettie hung out on the blanket.  Until Lettie learned about the sticks in Kuub.  ;)

Those piercing blue eyes just kill me.

Cake!  I love chocolate and Mom is great - she gives me chocolate cake.  (insert laughing with tears emoji here...)  Cute little cake for Lettie.

Nana got Lettie a dog purse that was a very big hit.

I, shockingly, got her books.

This note from Austin was so sweet I had to take a picture of it.

TJ adores hiking.  I....do not love it as much as he does.  I felt like a very nice wife when I took him on a hike for the 4th of July.  We went up to hike Cecret Lake.  It truly was beautiful.  I am glad we went - it just always seems to take so darn much work to get up there!

I adored the wildflowers all over.

This is Cecret Lake.  Doesn't it look like it could be on a postcard that says "come to Utah"?

We tried to climb to the peak about Cecret Lake but went the wrong way.  So we sat on these boulders and eat our snack.  I had to take a selfie because there was snow right behind me - I made a quick snowball, just to say I celebrated the 4th of July in a unique way.  :)

Instead of taking the shuttle back to the car, we just walked it.  I couldn't stop taking pictures.  So very, very beautiful.  I think Heavenly Father truly has created a beautiful earth for us.

That evening we went to Danny and Tara's to celebrate.  I thought the dessert table was out of this world, so had to snap a picture.

Look at all these fun sisters.  I love each of them so much!

I will try not to rant too much, but I think fireworks make people stupid.  It is like as soon as there are fireworks involved they lose all rational thought.  Here is a picture of some of the fireworks - we had to move to the other side of the cul de sac because I was afraid for my life.  It was not a relaxing celebration for me.  :)  We will have to find a different way to enjoy fireworks in the future, ha!

Can't get enough of these beautiful girls.

I took this picture so we can always remember that Elle put her arms over Mary's shoulder when being held.  So unique and so cute.  (Also, as I write this a few months later, I am shocked by how much she has already grown.)

My collection of birthday cards.  :)  Alice (Jenni's daughter) chose the one on the far left: a real winner!

And that was the first 4 days of July.  :)  More soon!