I have always been picky about what kind of Hummus I will eat. Most Greek restaurants serve good hummus but when it comes to store bought, I always go with Sabra Hummus  (spicy or roasted red pepper are my two favorites.) I recently tried out a new recipe for homemade hummus and it is probably some of the best I have ever had and super easy to make.

Hummus 2 cans chick peas (one drained and one with liquid)

1/4 cup sesame seeds

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 cup lime juice (or lemon)

1 garlic clove peeled

1 teaspoon cumin

salt

Simply put all ingredients in food processor as directed (except for salt) and mix together until the texture looks like the hummus you are accustomed to. Taste and add salt as needed.

 I like to top with a spicy olive oil. I love the Private Selection brand from Kroger but other people make different dipping oils that will work as well. They would also be easy to make by adding in your favorite spices to olive oil. One trick I have found works well is to add olive oil to my seasoned olive oil as it gets low. There is still plenty of spice in the bottle and it make it last much longer.

Enjoy!

Sara Beth

With me and two of my close friends being pregnant, babies have been on the brain and topic of conversation lately. Last night, I went to my first “gender reveal” party for our friends Matthew and Lauren. It was the cutest party EVER and no detail was left out! The whole theme was bees and they included everything from beehives to honeycomb cereal.

 

 

As everyone came in they had to vote weather it was going to be a  boy or girl and then pin on a pink or blue bee.

All of the grandparents had embroidered shirts with what they will “bee” called. Even the daddy-to-bee wore one!

To go along with the bee theme, they had a Bar-”Bee”-Que dinner.

I loved the lantern centerpieces that they had turned into beehives!

After everyone indulged in the wonderful dinner, we gathered around for a little Q &A with Lauren and Matthew to try to figure out if it was a boy or girl based on old wives’ tales. According to the answers she would have a boy… (oh the suspense!)

Everyone was gathered around waiting for the big reveal!

They had an adorable cake topper that either had a pink or blue center. Lauren and Matthew had dropped off a sealed envelope from the doctor to the bakery so they found out what they were having when everyone else did. That added to the excitement!

What is it going to bee?????

It’s a GIRL!!!!!

Next, they had everyone who had picked a pink bee at the beginning to look on the back for a number. Matthew picked a number and had that person come up and open a wrapped gift. Inside was an embroidered onesie with the  girl name they had chosen!

Alexis Kate will be here in July and we all can’t wait to meet her!!!!

And when I say they didn’t miss a detail, I am not joking! As everyone left they had a Bit-O-Honey bar for the road.

And here are a few other pictures from the night…

Congrats to Lauren & Matthew and thank you for such a wonderful night!

XOXO,

Sara Beth

When you think about elementary school, lunch time has to come to mind. Whether it was the square pizza, little milk cartons, fun with friends or sitting next to a boy that would make all sorts of concoctions with his food that made you want to gag!   I started at a little school down the road from my house. I was the last one to be picked up by the bus and the first one off. A couple of years ago, I ran into one of the ladies who use to work in the cafeteria. I was telling her how I loved the Peanut Butter Bars they would make and wished I had the recipe. The next day she had called our house and had the recipe out of a 1963 school lunch cook book! She even took the time to break out the recipe into a family portion instead of making it for 100!

Last week I started thinking about them and decided to make a batch. (I guess I was having a craving ) They turned out like I remember and I will keep them in my favorite recipes. I especially loved the peanut butter glaze. It would be great on a cake or chocolate bars.

Peanut Butter Bars

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup + 2 tsp. creamy peanut butter (I use Skippy)

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cup flour

1 cup minute oats

6 oz package chocolate chips (optional- I didn’t use)

Glaze: 

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/8 cup evaportated milk. (I used 3/4 of a small can to make it creamier)

Instructions:

Cream butter and sugars

 Blend in egg, peanut butter, soda, salt and vanilla

Stir in flour and oats

Spread in greased 9×13 baking sheet

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes

Combine the confectioner’s sugar, peanut butter and evaporated milk. Drizzle over the bars.  Let cool and eat. (I ate one when it was still warm and it wasn’t as good as when they are cool.)

I don’t even drink milk but it made me want a glass.

Enjoy!

Sara Beth

Wow, it has been a long time since my last post! Being pregnant and with the holidays I have just not found the time. One of my New Year’s goals is to get back to writing. I have truly missed it!

Our holiday was full of family, friends, excitement!! When we found out I was expecting, I thought it would be fun to find out if it was a Boy or Girl on Christmas morning because I would be at 18 weeks and they would be able to tell. I always thought that I wouldn’t want to find out what we were having but since we moved into our new house last year and it came with a pale pink nursery, we figured we might as well (and once I was pregnant I was so anxious to know!)  I went for my first ultrasound on December 20th and had them write down what we were having and put it in a sealed envelope. It was hard not to peak but we wanted to find out on Christmas with family. One of my sweet and dear friends, Lauren, offered to make something special for us to unwrap. On Christmas Eve, Lauren and Matthew showed up at my parents house with this huge box that was so beautifully wrapped with the cutest poem on the front.

Once the box was there, it was so hard not to unwrap! We weren’t getting together with family until Christmas day afternoon and it seemed like it was never going to get there.  Zach and I would just walk by the box and look at it in anticipation!

Everyone was gathered around ready for the big reveal.  I had already started crying because I was emotional all day about finding out what it was going to be. I opened the box and it was full of balloons… blue balloons! Zach is color blind and couldn’t tell because they were light blue. I finally yelled “It’s a boy!”  and everyone was so happy!

Lauren had also put lots of blue candy canes, a cute plate and an It’s a Boy ornament inside. My nieces and nephews had so much fun with all of the balloons and the box. We should have just skipped gifts and given them that!

  I have started feeling him move a lot this week. On Thursday night, we were laying down watching TV and I told Zach he might be able to feel him because he was moving around a lot. Right when he put his hand on my stomach he felt him kick or move or something! It is an amazing feeling. On Thursday, Zach’s mom had been gone 10 years, so it was a bitter sweet day thinking about her passing but then being excited about what’s to come. She would have loved being around all of her grandchildren and I know she would have been a wonderful grandmother. Sometimes God has a plan that we just don’t understand but trusting in Him and the fact that we will one day be reunited with the ones that have gone before us makes it easier to cope.

Now that we know that It’s a Boy, it is time to start planning and getting the nursery ready. Those pink walls are going to have to be painted!

Until next time,

Sara Beth

Woo Hoo~ to five days off from work and time to spend with family!  I love Thanksgiving! It is such a relaxing holiday- other than the travel part but once you get to your destination it is worth it! Last year I made these 2 appetizers and thought I would share. The vegetable turkey I had seen on Pinterest, and it was super easy and turned out really cute! It was a great snack that was low calorie to have during the day while waiting on Thanksgiving dinner.  For the turkey’s face, Just cut the end of a green pepper and then with cream cheese, attach two olives for eyes and some yellow and red pepper for the beak.

A friend had given me a pumpkin cheesecake ball mix and once I made it I just turned it into a turkey with apple slices for the feathers, chocolate chips for the eyes and a little red bell pepper for the beak. You could do this with any type of cheese ball recipe. I made a great one last weekend with pineapple and cream cheese. It would work perfect for this and is great served with apple slices or Ritz crackers. The recipe is below.

 

Pineapple Cheese Ball 

2 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese

1 (8 1/2 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained

1/4 cup green pepper, finely chopped

2 tablespoons onion, finely chopped

1 teaspoon seasoned salt

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

3/4 cup chopped pecans

Paprika (optional)

Parsley (optional)

Pimentos (optional)

Combine cream cheese, pineapple, green pepper, onion, salt and garlic salt. Mix well and chill.

Form into ball and roll in pecans. Serve with butter crackers, sliced apples or sliced pears.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family! 

Gobble ’till you wobble!

Sara Beth

We are having a baby!!!!! The past 3 months I have been in hibernation. Literally- I have slept over 12 hours a night and have been absolutely exhausted for at least part of the day!  I can’t complain though because I have not been sick – just sick of being tired! My first trimester is over so I am hoping and praying for more energy! People say you get this burst of energy your second trimester so I am expecting it to come any moment. Zach has been so sweet about cooking and keeping our house somewhat presentable. After sitting at a computer during the day for work, I haven’t had the energy to login and do a post and I have missed my blog! I have so many things to catch up on!

Zach and  I found out on August 16th that I was expecting . I took a test while he was at work and when I saw it was positive I wanted to plan something special to tell him.   I only had about 30 minutes  to get something together so I ran and bought some cupcakes, balloons and flowers.

Our bus was in the backyard so I tied pink and blue polka dot balloons to it and set up a little “surprise” party for when he got home.

 

 

 

We kept it secret until Halloween.  On Halloween night we were going to see a lot of close family friends so we dressed up as parents-in-training. It was a fun night and we were excited to let the cat out of the bag.

 

We are  excited that are friends Matthew and Lauren are expecting too and we are due only a week apart.  (They are expecting twins!!! Double the fun!) Lauren and I have been friends since we were five so it is fun and special to be going through all of this together. We were going to an after Halloween dress-up party and decided to do the parents-in-training costumes together.

Zach was dressed up as a Duck Dynasty- dad. He definitely looked the part!

We met with our midwife on Nov. 1st. and got to hear the heartbeat. What a wow moment when you hear the heartbeat for the first time! I can’t wait to see the little peanut. Our next appointment is in December and we will get to do an ultrasound.

We are so excited (and a little nervous too.) I think it is all of the hormones that has me waking up thinking “Oh my what are we doing.” I feel like we will be good parents but it is just scary bringing something into the world that you are going to love so much and that is all your responsibility but hey, a few people have done it before!  So with A LOT of prayers, I think we will manage.

More to come!

XOXO,

Sara Beth

 

In my opinion, it doesn’t get much better or easier than this! I love this time of year and pumpkin is just a must when it comes to desserts! My mom has been making this for years and it has just become part of the season. It is perfect in the mornings with a cup of coffee.  If you try it out, I think it will become one of your favorite fall recipes.

Mix the below ingredients together:

1 yellow cake mix

1 cup canned pumpkin

¾ cup sugar

½ cup oil

4 eggs

¼ cup water

½ tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

nuts (optional)

Pour the mixture into 2 bread pans and bake at 300 degrees for about an hour .

ENJOY!!!

Another thing I love about this time of year are all of the fall festivals. There are so many to choose from. We went to one a couple of weekends ago and they had this precious stage! I thought it was one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

XOXO,

Sara Beth

A couple of weekends ago we had a little “Meet Tweety”- trailer park party. Lots of friends and family had been watching the progress so we invited them over to see the finished product- trailer park style.

Tweety

Everyone was instructed to wear there best camping gear or trailer park fashions they could find. We were all set with fake tattoos, corn hole, pink flamingos, a bonfire, lanterns, Eazy Cheese, Vienna Sausages, and Spam. What else could you need!?

My dear friend, Lauren showed up in her Gatlinburg wedding chapel shirt with these 2 great themed trays. Who knew there were 3 types of Spam and different types of Vienna Sausages.

 

I made these individual seven layer dips. I love that they are easy to carry around and eat and you don’t have to worry about double dipping. Click here for the recipe. We also had walking tacos with the best chilli ever! You can check out that recipe here.

The kids had a blast and turned Tweety into a play house.

My mom looked classy in her red and white polka dot moo-moo, curlers, blue eye-shadow and fake tattoos. I think she now has her Halloween costume ready to go!

And here are a few other pics from the evening…

 

To see the final pics of Tweety click here.

XOXO,

Sara Beth

 

Well, it has been a long process but Tweety Bird is ready for flight!  We began renovations on this 1973 GMC motorhome back in April and we had hopes to be camping all summer. But as with any project, many things came up along the way like – rebuilding half of an engine, all new plumbing, electrical work and just life in general! At the beginning we had mechanics tell us it wasn’t worth fixing (only because they wanted to sell us another one) but we are glad we stuck with our gut and knew that Tweety Bird had lots of potential. Thankfully, my husband was able to do some of the repair work and we had a lot of other wonderful helpers along this journey. Check out past post about Tweety Bird: Meet Tweety Bird; Tweety Update 1; Tweety Update 2.

The outside didn’t need much work~ just a wash, wax and new tires. Of course I would love to have a new paint job at some point but that is way down the road! The time has come and I am so excited to finally show you “Before & After” pics!

And after lots of painting, new hardwood floors, cabinets removed, chairs steam cleaned, painting, new upholstery, new front carpet…. Drum roll please….

And now on to the kitchen and sleeping area. We were able to really open up the whole RV by painting everything white. The white washed hardwood floors also made the space look much larger.

and another drum roll… 

 

We couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! I love having a vision and seeing it play out. We are looking forward to making many memories in Tweety Bird for years to come.

Thanks for following us on the journey!

XOXO,

Sara Beth Pegg

If you haven’t heard about the new Max Lucado & Randy Frazee book, The Story, you should check it out! It is the Bible in novel form- Genesis to Revelations in 31 chapters and 470 pages. It is a chance for many to read and understand the whole Bible who might not otherwise. Every year I try to read through the entire Bible and usually get stuck in Numbers or one of the other books in the Old Testament. This year I had decided I was just going to read and study just the New Testament and it has been going pretty well but with this book I will be able to read at least all of the key events from the Old Testament. My parents church is all reading this book together and studying it as a congregation. There are also kid and teen versions.  My husband picked it up one day and couldn’t put it down. I have just read the first chapter but am loving the way it reads so far.

Have you heard of this book or ready it yet??? What did you think?

XOXO,

Sara Beth