Youtube is King

I did it ya'll! This is DAY 5 of my return to blogging. I've managed to blog every day this week. I don't usually post on the weekends, so this is the official end of my comeback. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with some stuff for next week...

I am looking forward to this weekend. I will be burnt to a crisp golden tan by the end of it. We are headed to heaven the lake today and won't return until we have to Monday.

Before I leave I wanted to give you a gift for welcoming me back to blogging with open arms. Please enjoy the following videos. Thanks to my friend Serena for sending me one of them. She says her husband is the one in the khakis. I'd have to say the Prince is all of them rolled into one, but with slightly better clothes. I would not let him dress like that anymore ever.

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!!

Princess Cooks...for reals ya'll!

Princess is an excellent cook. No seriously! Have ya'll seen pictures of the Prince? He didn't get that Atlas body from TV dinners and Lean Cuisines. He got it from good old home cookin'. His momma gave him a good head start. The Prince comes from a loooong line of good cooks, so it's no wonder he picked me for my mom's cooking.

Today I am hooking up with Think Tank Momma's Share a Spoon for a little recipe sharing. The theme this week is casseroles. What self respecting southerner doesn't have a trunk full of casserole recipes? She asked specifically for Mexican entries. Being the people pleaser agreeable person I am, I was happy to oblige.

I was first introduced to this casserole by my beloved sister-in-law in Texas who served it at a baby shower she threw us. Pssshhhhhhttt....ya'll know how a pregnant woman likes to eat, right? It was yummmmay!

This particular recipe is the version from Southern Living has been passed down for generations in the Prince's family. It's easy peasy and the kids love it too!

King Ranch Chicken Casserole

1 (2 lb) whole chicken from the deli (or cook your own if you are a show off)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, pressed
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 (10 3/4 oz) can cream of mushroom soup
1 (10 3/4 oz) can cream of chicken soup
2 (10 oz) cans of Rotel tomatoes & green chilies, drained
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. Mexican style chili powder (or 1 tsp chili powder and 1/8 tsp ground red pepper)
3 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
3 cups coarsely crushed lime flavored Tostitos


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, and saute 6 to 7 minutes or until tender. Add bell pepper and garlic, and saute 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in 3/4 cup chicken broth, cream of mushroom soup and next five ingredients. Cook, stirring occasionally, 8 minutes.

Skin and bone chicken, shred meat into bite size pieces. Layer half of chicken in a lightly greased 13 x 9 inch baking dish. Top with half of the soup mixture and 1 cup cheddar cheese. cover with half of corn chips. Repeat layers once. Top with remaining 1 cup cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes to 1 hour or until bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

I'm not a huge fan of leftovers so sometimes I put the recipe in two 8 x 8 dishes and freeze one. That works well for all those busy days I don't have time to make a decent meal. I just pop one out of the freezer for those times. I freezes super well!

If you want to reduce the taste fat content, do all that switching around with that reduced fat soup and cheese junk. I'd prefer to just cut my portions and get the full flavor. But to each his own....

Princess Goes Postal...but forgets her gun

This is day 3 of my return to blogging. Aren’t you all giddy? Today I am hooking up with the meme What I Meant to Say or WIMTS for short. 





My momma taught me to be polite and say nice things with a smile. I very rarely churn the waters when someone annoys me. So this meme is PERFECT for me. Let me set the stage...

I love to shop. No matter what age, shape, size I have been in my life I have always enjoyed the “ching ching” of the cash register.

It all began with the toy store and the candy store and eventually graduated to malls and boutiques. The only exception to this rule is my adult abhoration (is that a word?) for the grocery store and World of Wally. And really, the only thing I TRULY hate about “the mart” has more to do with the other idiot patrons and the traffic.

And now, boys and girls, someone is trying to ruin my love of shopping at the mall. There are terrorists at the mall. I’m not trying to profile anyone, but they are typically foreigners. And before you get all “Princess hates foreigners!” let me tell you that is NOT true.

I adore the following (but not limited to) foreigners:

Hugh Jackman

David Beckham

Ghandi

Prince William

Gerard Butler

Zsa Zsa Gabor

Nelson Mandela

Madonna (Shut. Up. Really?)

Manu Ginobili

Carlos Santana

Colin Firth

Dolce and Gabana

Dolce de Luche (What? Oh. My bad.)

Anyway, you get the point.

So picture this. Princess. At the beach. The Prince and the boys drop her off at the mall and go golfing. Only nine holes. Short period of time. Read: Power shopping.

I am FLYING through the racks of summer sales and shoe departments. I make it through the first department store and head out into the open waters looking for more crack sales.

“Excuse me Miss! Can I have one minute?” says one of the aforementioned foreign terrorists.

I turn as I scurry past and say “I’m so sorry. I’m in a hurry.” WHICH IS TOTALLY THE TRUTH by the way...not that it should matter.

Foreigner holding flat iron in the air, “It will only take one second.” <--Liar. I’m not stupid.

Princess: “No thanks.”

Two steps and BAM!

Foreigner #2: “HEEEEYYYYYY!!!! Remember me?”

Princess: Blank look as I walk away saying, “No thanks” in a firm(ish) tone.

WIMTS: Nooooooo I don’t. And don’t try that stupid flirting stuff. I might be an old lady and you might think you are some young stud, but....

You are not.

You are too short.

You are too young.

Your wallet is too thin.

Your game is weak.

You couldn’t handle it

The Prince would kick your ever lovin’.........

And I do not want your clothes steamer. I can spritz my shirt and throw it in the dryer for 60 seconds just as easy.

Two more steps...

Foreigner #3: “Excuse me. You dropped something.”

Gullible Princess turns and looks. Sees nothing. Clearly confused.

Idiot Foreigner: “It was your smile.”

Princess: Rolls eyes and keeps walking.

Risky Foreigner: “And apparently you dropped your manners too.”

*Princess with steam coming out of her ears* (but says nothing...typical wussy Princess)

WIMTS:  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Every doggone time I go to the mall I am accosted by people trying to peddle their flat iron / Greek hand lotion / nail buffer / clothes steamer / salt scrub / other unwanted retail items. Do you see the people at Ann Taylor stopping me as I walk by asking if I had a minute to look at their trouser socks? You try to stop me ALL. THE. TIME. With kids, without kids, walking fast, walking slow, smiling, scowling, looking away, pretending to text someone....it really doesn’t matter. 

LET ME TELL YOU WHAT IS RUDE YOUNG MAN........YOU! When I tell you that I don’t have time. I MEAN IT! <--Apparently they don’t have the “No means No campaign overseas.”

And THAT my friends is why I now enjoy online shopping!

Post It Notes: Edition #22 - Stalking and Anniversary Edition

Stay tuned for stalking updates.

I'm Baaaaaaaaaack!

Ok ya'll.....guess what. I'm back. 

Go ahead. I'll wait a moment or two for you to email, facebook, and tweet all your friends and let them know that Princess is in the house.

*filing nails*

*straightening book stack*

*rinsing breakfast dishes and putting them in dishwasher*

*checking computer....nope, not back yet*

*making bed*

*going through mail* <---I have two round trip plane tickets to anywhere in the US waiting for me! I'm SURE it's not a scam! Where should I go?

*checks computer for fun destinations*

.

.

.

.

.

Oh, so sorry! I got distracted. Here you are waiting on me and I was goofing off looking for travel plans.  Not that I need to be going anywhere anytime soon. I mean, this is my first official day off vacation. 

We came back early so the Prince could bush hog cut our field lawn and we could unpack and get stettled before the work week started. Getting back in to the swing of things is so hard. Fortunately, we were able to get the boys off their schedule.....of waking up at the crack of dawn.....while we were at the beach, so things should run a little more smoothly this week than most. 

It may surprise you to learn that Princess is NOT a morning person. At all. The Prince is, however, and it annoys the fool out of me. Luckily, he is generally pretty quite as he showers and dresses and slips out the door to work on summer mornings. Except for this morning..........when he forgot to turn off the house alarm before he opened the door. 

*insert being awakened by a panic attack*

So now, my first day off official vacation begins with a splitting headache. Lovely. But at least I'm not the Prince who has to go to actual WORK. That must be ROUGH. Bless him.

But anydoodle, I just wanted to let you guys know I am back. I know this is not much of a post, but it's a start. I'm going to get back into the swing of things. (I'll try not to set off any alarms.) 

Perhaps I'll do a few of my favorite meme's this week and one that I've never done, but it's right up my alley so I think I must. I'm going to do a book review on a book I read on vacay that I luuuuuurrrved. The author is fan freaking tastic and I have officially begun to cyberstalk her. (I sent her a letter yesterday detailing my intent to stalk. I may need some letters of reference from you guys when if  she gets skittish.)

Well, I'll let you get back to telling everyone that I'm here. See you all tomorrow!

Big Girl Panties and Party Girls

Today is JennFab's birthday! 

*insert party horns and streamers* 

I said streamers...not strippers. <--that was for the wayward dudes who stumble upon this blog post from odd google searches...and Ian...and Ed.

Our theme for JennFab's birthday is "Put your big girl panties on and celebrate Jenn's birthday!" My original intent was to get a really big pair of panties and take a pic of me and my family in them. I'm on vacation right now, but I really didn't think that would be too hard to make it happen. So I went to the mall...... No luck. Apparently, big girls are discriminated against at the mall. Grannies are not, just big girls. I found lots of panties in normal sizes. Like a size 6.......but with enough fabric in one pair of size sixes to make several more pairs of panties. What is up with that?! How big do people wear their panties?! If you are a size 6, there is no reason to have panties that are 2 feet tall. I mean, really. 

So since my quest to find an actual pair of panties was foiled, I decided I would steal borrow a pic from the interwebz. Guess what I found out from a google search of "big girl photos"? (yes, I forgot to type in "panties") LOTS OF BIG GIRL PORN! Oh my. Not really what I was going for.....but apparently, many others do. Note to self: Get a porn filter before letting boys use my laptop.

I scratched searching the internet to pirate a picture and decided to make my own. I photoshopped a picture from last year of my family at the beach this week to show us in our big girl panties.....which are orange in honor of Clemson Jenn's favorite team, the University of Texas. Go Tigers! Hook 'em Horns!

Happy Birthday my fabulous friend! I hope you don't don't go postal on your coworkers have an awesome day! 

Now go on over to Jenn's at She Says and leave her some lovin'.

Seriously. Go now. 

There's nothing left here to see.

I'm dropping back off the face of the earth going back on vacation.

So scram.

Actually.......I am going to be hanging out with Shell from Things I Can't Say today unless her husband did that background check on me like he threatened.

That's right. Be jealous. I just wish I had packed my tiara and boa. I'm not sure how she'll recognize me at the pool without them. I guess she'll just have to look for the chick eating Doritos being fanned by the cabana boys.

I'm sure some pictures will surface at some point and ya'll can live vicariously through us....or not. Whatever.

Where in the world is Princess?

The princess is back!! <----total lie. I'm just dropping by.

I'm so sorry guys. I didn't even realize how long it had been since my last post. My life has been an absolute whirlwind the past few months weeks. I appreciate the complaining hearing from lots of you and the requests to put up a new post. Those of you who are from my local area know what slave drivers how busy our school keeps us the last few weeks of the year. And if you live in my neighborhood like KL, you have seen me drive back and forth and to and fro non-stop. (Thanks for the friendly waves......and the diabolical laughter under your breath...you just wait until your kids are a tiny bit older!)

Here's what we have been doing in a nutshell. Both boys finished up their baseball and flag football seasons. Both of their teams played in the flag football championship game. One team won by a landslide, the other lost a heartbreaker in the last second. Literally...the last second.

Baseball was a ton of fun and both boys had some great kids on their teams. It was sad to see it end......though it's really not over, because our youngest made one of the Allstar teams. Sooo.....no break from baseball yet! Other than that, I have been at the school every stinking day a lot. Between field days, race days, water day, awards day, K5 graduation, history day, and whatever other reason they can think of to get parents up there volunteering....I've been busy! Not complaining though ok, maybe a little since I love being involved in my kids school. It's all over now though. Our last day of school was today.

*insert happy dance*


Brag alert....both boys had a fantastic year and were highly decorated on awards day. I could not be any prouder of them. We are so fortunate to live in a school district that has swarms of awesome teachers. We will miss the incredible teachAHs *sobs* we had this year, but are super excited about the two teachers my boys have been assigned for next year. (Even though one of them kills poor defenseless birds with her car...*ahem*.)

So now, summer begins. It's my most favorite time of the year. I the boys get to sleep late. We spend countless hours lounging by the pool or wake boarding on the lake. We stay up late and have absolutely no structure. Maybe our pace will slow down enough that I will be able to fire up the puter and spend some time with you guys as well.

I have missed spewing my thoughts into cyberspace blogging. I hate that I have not been around to read other blogs. I've been absent from Twitter and email as well. While it makes me feel good that you noticed I was gone, I also feel very guilty. One of you even told me that her "life was cold and bleak without my inspiring words of humor and that she would surely cease to exsist if I did not return to blogging soon." Or maybe it was something like, "I checked your blog today and didn't see anything new." Either way, it means the same thing......right? *nod your head and agree here*

So here is what I promise to you from now on:

I, Princess of Sarcasm, do solemnly swear to put my family's needs first and blog when I have time from now on!

I know, it's not much. But it's all I can promise right now. I will make an effort to post and visit you when I can. (If there's anything important going on, please notify me. I'm so out of the loop right now!) I'll even pop by Twitter when I get a chance. But right now, I'm off to make some PB&J's. The sun just peeked out a bit and I think we'll go celebrate the beginning of summer at the pool. If I could see my computer screen in direct sunlight and if I thought it were safe to take my laptop around all that splashing water, I would blog poolside all summer. But there is no way I would ever endanger my lovah, Mac(Book).

So to sum it all up.....I have not quit blogging!

Ya'll can't get that lucky rid of me THAT easy....