I posted a picture of our empty casserole dish one night after dinner on Instagram and a few of you requested the recipe so here it goes…

We had a similar dish made for us by Robb’s cousins after Sadler was born and I loved it so much I had to attempt to recreate it! So thanks, Stacey for the inspiration!

I’ve made a coupe different variations of the dish, with or without chicken if you’re looking for a meatless option.

I started adding it now b/c it makes the dish go a little further since my guys love it to much! And you can use plain cheese or spinach cheese tortellini, or both, whatever you prefer or can find at your grocery store! I find this in the refrigerated section at Aldi.

Here’s the cast:

grilled chicken strips, these were pre-cooked from the frozen section, you could cook your own chicken too and cut it into strips.

olive oil

fresh mushrooms, sliced

pesto sauce, store bought or homemade

a medium onion, diced

and a package of tortellini

Almost forgot him:

If you’re chicken strips are frozen, throw those into a hot skillet with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, after a couple minutes add the onion and mushroom. Once those cook to your liking *I like the onion to be pretty tender, so maybe about 5 minutes*, stir in a tablespoon of the minced garlic.

Meanwhile, cook the tortellini according to the package directions.

Once everything is cooked, combine it all into your casserole dish and stir in a couple tablespoons of pesto

My guys add parmesan cheese to the top, but that’s of course optional :)

Its a big hit here!

hope you like it!

Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. In honor of our firstborn son, Brenham, we will light a candle in his memory at 7pm as part of the "worldwide wave of light". If you, or someone you know has experienced the loss of a child, please join me in prayer for them today.
Psalms 139:16 "..all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Friday night we made last minute plans to do some family pictures, a friend of mine and I decided to trade our amateur photography skills and take pictures for each other! You might be thinking “didn’t they just have pictures taken?”, if so , then you would be correct! We had photos taken for our church directory, and while they did turn out nice, they wouldn’t something I would order and just aren’t ‘us’!

So we ventured out to an old building I found in Zeeland and spent sometime snapping some pictures!

Heidi has an adorable family! I just love this one!

Ours our under lock and key until I decide which one(s) I’m using for Christmas cards, I like it to be a surprise!

But here’s an idea on how Gray handled the photo shoot:

Such a stinker!

After pictures we had dinner at pizza hut and rented October Baby, it was so good! I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a good movie to watch!

We had a lazy, and relaxing Saturday morning! We stayed in all day and just vegged.

At night Robb and I went out to dinner to celebrate our Anniversary. The boys had fun playing with Aunt Mindy and Uncle Kyle and the girls!

Sunday was our 7th wedding anniversary, we went to church and Sunday school in the morning. We came home, put the boys down for naps and Robb and I made lunch together.

After lunch I tried on my wedding dress, I was happy to find out it still fits again!

Grayden was still awake so I had to pop into his room to show him, he had a huge smile, his eyes just lit up and said my dress was so pretty! It made me melt, thinking of him looking at his own bride like that someday! Tear!

Later in the afternoon we had MORE pictures taken, this time of the extended Lubbers family. We went to church right afterwards and then had dinner by Robb’s parents!

Hope you all had nice weekends too!

I skipped a couple weeks of ‘insta.friday’  so, to catch up here’s all my instgram photos dumped on the blog on this Wednesday, hump day.

starting where we left off on Tuesday, Sept. 25, the day after we got back from our Mayo trip.

this boy got even cuter while we were away!

the boys keeping themselves entertained before I headed out to my friend Heather’s jewelry party

Wednesday was a beautiful day, we enjoyed a donut at the farmer’s market and shopped a little bit downtown

on the way home we stopped at the park, we had it all to ourselves

grayden was trying to be like aunt Alyssa on ‘crunches’ love his imagination

Thursday

Sadler's been getting a lot of time-outs lately!

nap time for the boys=reading time for me

it was written just for me,

Friday,

daddy’s big helper with the dishes!

Monday i took the boys to the mall with me to break up our day at home, we didn’t last long at the ‘tree house’ sadler would RUN down the slippery slide and gave me, and all the other mom’s mini heart attacks!

I got this new candle at Marshall’s, its so, so good!

Gray napping in his ‘tent’

Monday night dinner via Pioneer Woman

he wasn’t sure what to do with himself when he got a time out while we were outside, looks like he’s mimicking mommy’s yoga moves!

Tuesday's dinner was a hit, gray asked for seconds (which never happens anymore) but it was all gone!

recipe coming soon!

Tuesday, diggin’ my new, comfy, cozy shirt, $7.99 at TJ

Gray’s class picture day at school, how handsome is he?!

speaks for itself…

Wednesday

he keeps himself SO busy

he’s naughty and he knows it!

Thursday

went to mops, this is the cute craft we made the time before, it doubled as our name cards!

again, he finds trouble on a daily basis!

Robb and I went on date night to panera bread, we sat there talking for so long we got a couple of free pastries!

our family picture for the church directory, super impressed with my happy boys!

Monday, sadler was catching up on some much needed sleep from being sick over the weekend, fell asleep in his highchair!

minutes before he was hamming it up in the forward camera!
 

such a handsome boy was feeling much better!

grayden added his personal touch to my decor!

Thursday was grayden’s first class field trip! I signed up to be a parent helper and went along on the nature walk to the park!

that catches me up! hope you’re having a great week!

so thankful

so blessed

God is faithful

This past weekend:

Friday night:

I hosted the freezer meal party here, always a great time!

Saturday morning we went to ‘breakfast on the farm’ at a HUGE local diary farm. we had a pancake breakfast and got a tour of the farm.

For dinner we had a ‘soup night’ at my parents house, i made chicken noodle soup, it was the perfect night for it!

Sunday morning Robb and Grayden went to church and I stayed home with a sick Sadler :(

After church, Grayden went with my parents to visit my grandma and grandpa, while Robb and I took Sadler to urgent care.

We waited for quite awhile to be seen, so Robb got creative keeping Sadler entertained :)

we thought he had another ear infection, he would wake up screaming, inconsolable, multiple times during the night, but it turns out he has a virus and asthma flare up.

we slept the rest of the day away!

*Last weekend

Friday night we hit up art prize, the boys did great and really enjoyed all the cool exhibits

Saturday morning, we had our family picture taken for our church directory.

I spent the rest of the day shopping and spending girl time with my friend, Emily! this is one of my favorite purchases for grayden (and then sadler, someday!) to grow into! I love that everything can be worn by both boys!

Robb and the boys kept busy at the cottage, closing it up until next summer.

Sunday we went to church, my niece, Peyton, was baptized. Such a special occasion!

It was our turn to lead our Sunday school class, we talked about using positive affirmation in our marriages.

After Sunday School we had lunch and a celebration for Peyton at Mindy and Kyle’s house. The boys took naps when we got home and we headed to church again at night.

That about wraps up the last couple weekends!

Blogging has taken a back seat here at the lubbers home. Our days and nights have been FULL, full of fun and other day to day duties. So before these things get pushed further and further back I wanted to do a little house blog keeping around here before I totally forget.

A couple questions to address, I'm saving time here by just paraphrasing instead of going back through the comments for the exact wording, Sadler's nap time is ticking away so I gotta be quick!

A few of you wondered about my new iphone case, the brand is Tech Candy, its from a Home and Co, a local shop, downtown. On that same token, my rose gold necklace is from etsy.

Someone wondered why I continue to go to Mayo even though I’m not seriously sick or diseased anymore. Since my transplant in Oct. 2008 I’ve gone back for check-up at 4 months, 1 year, 2 year and just recently at the 4 year mark. They like to keep close tabs on their patients since their transplant outcomes are reflected upon them and their practice. I am also followed by a local doctor in between my trips to Mayo. People go to Mayo for a number of reasons, they have a department for anything from dermatology to obstetrics to allergists, its an amazing place and I HIGHLY recommend them if you or anyone you know is having concerns with their health.

A sweet reader who works in speech therapy wondered about Sadler’s recent thickening change. At this point we were only told to come back to have him retested in 6 months and see if there is any change. In the meantime, all we are doing is thickening all liquids to a honey consistency. The specialist wasn’t sure why he’s doing this but did say he could grow out of it. I’d love to hear your thoughts or any suggestions you may have, if there is anything additional we could be doing, I would love to hear! You can email me at katielubbers @ hotmail dot com

Also thanks for all the sweet comments on my random acts of kindness/birthday post! Posting about it kinda took the randomness about it away, but I wanted to remember this for years to come and give out some ideas for anyone interested in doing it themselves! The ideas are free for the taking!