Ack, Nearly 40 Years Old!!!

On June 10th was my hubby's big 36th birthday! Since we love to try new recipes, you maybe wondering what was on the Birthday boy's menu... Well, we made something delicious of course such as two types of skewers, a fruit salad, and coconut lime rice!

 

Herb Sirloin Beef and Italian Vegetable Skewers

Ingredients:

1 pound of beef sirloin 

2 green peppers

1 white onion

1 package of extra large mushrooms

1 bottle of Italian Dressing

Desired amount of rosemary, black pepper, and tarragon seasoning. 

Directions:

Preheat oven 400 degrees. Cut the vegetables into uniformed sizes around 1 inch squared or cubed pieces. A useful tip when you have meat and vegetables about the same size, you will have even cooking. In a large bowl, soak vegetables in Italian Dressing.  Season the meat with the herbs.  Place skewers through meat and vegetables.  Bake for 15 minutes turning at least once or until desired doneness.  We still had some pink in the middle of the sirloin. 

Bacon-Wrapped Teriyaki Chicken Skewers

recipe by Our Best Bites Cookbook on pages 46 and 117.  Our thoughts about this recipe: Wow, what a kid friendly recipe!  Even my picky eater loved this dish!  We enjoyed dipping the pineapple and bacon-wrapped chicken pieces in the extra teriyaki sauce!  We will be making this dish a lot in our household!  Next time we will marinate the chicken in the teriyaki sauce for a few hours before cooking. 

 Sweet and Savory Coconut Rice

recipe by Our Best Bites Cookbook on page 203. Our thoughts about the recipe: We added a little zesty twist by adding some fresh lime juice, lime wedges, and a little half and half.  The kids gobbled this dish up! We loved the creamy richness of the coconut milk flavor, YUM.

Birthday cakes can be so over rated in our household sometimes! Since my husband is a huge fan of sherbet, I was inspired by Make and Takes to make this fabulous watermelon pie instead of birthday cake!  We made it a little different than the website by just layering the sherbet on top of each other.  It was very easy to make and turned out very well!  What a fun and refreshing summer treat!

As you can tell, he loved his watermelon pie!!!

I made a "reel" cool fishing birthday card and bookmarks for my hubby!!

The Fishin' Birthday Card!

The front of the card says the following: "Happy Birthday Fishin' Fool.  The catch of the day of all the fish in the sea we are so glad we caught you!"

The front and inside of the card looks like this from left to right:

On the left inside of the card says: "Reel Women Fish" and on the right says: "We hope your birthday is fin-tastic!"  I left plenty of space on the bottom for us to write birthday wishes to him!  I used some brown twine to make fishing line on the front of the card and a small sewing button as embellishments.  The card turned out cute if I say so myself!  

The Fishin' Bookmarks

Card and Bookmark Credits: The paper and elements are all by Kaye Winiecki @ The Lily Pad  I used the following fonts: CK Fun and Segoe Print.

In the evening of his birthday, we went on a family outing to Highland Glen Park.  John was able to enjoy a little fishing time on the pond even though he didn't catch anything. The girls feed some ducks and played on the playground. John seemed very content spending time with us, eating good food, and looking at his new home-made bookmarks/birthday card!  What a great day well spent!!!!  I love you, babe! XOXO