Week in Review: Shawarma, Smoothies and Stairs

It's Friday the 13th!!  But it's okay because I'm not superstitious, I'm only a little stitious ;)

1)

I made Chicken Shawarma for the 3rd time and it is such a big hit every single time.  All the kids love it, it's healthy baked flavorful chicken on pitas, and we cut up veggies and make rice to go along with it (got lots of skinny active kids that need the extra sustenance!).  I had bought Fried Pickle Ranch dip to spread on my pita and OMG so good!  Here's the recipe (only Phil and I ate the onions, we just kept them separated on the pan):

Oven-Roasted Chicken Shawarma 

We double the amount of chicken thighs but don't need to double the marinade, there's plenty.

2)

I have been doing a diet reset for the past ten days, which included drinking a smoothie for breakfast and lunch (and for dinner the first five days) but today I get to have a "real" lunch and I am so excited for this Beef Barley Soup.  My favorite smoothie, if you're interested was the Apple Pie Smoothie:

3)

Brendan (age 6) asked me the other day to cut some holes in his jeans.  "Why do you want holes?" I asked.  "Because that's what everybody else has" he replied.  Oh, duh.  It reminded me of when JP came home from preschool asking for a G-A-P sweatshirt.  He didn't even know what it spelled, just recited the letters to me.  I told Brendan I wouldn't cut holes in his jeans but if he kept playing really hard outside, eventually his jeans would get holes in the knees naturally ;)

4)

I wish I did not have a personality like this, but alas, it's me:

5)

I'm hoping we can start to tackle one of our house projects on this long weekend.  Our front door entranceway and stairs need to have the carpet removed and some cleaning/organizing/painting.  Neither my parents (who live downstairs) or us (who live upstairs) use the front door, and it has become a bit of a storage space with the original pink carpet from when we bought the house still on the stairs.  I think it could look really nice, and I don't want to keep putting it off just because hardly anyone sees it.  I mean, how hard can removing carpet from stairs and replacing it be?  Asking for a friend.  That friend is Phil.

6)

Oh here's a tip I learned from the customer service lady at Kohl's, where I go to return all of my amazon purchases.  When you return the item on your phone through amazon, take a screenshot of the return code and write on it what you're returning, like so:

This came in so handy after Christmas when we had a bunch of things to return, and all I had to do was scroll through my photos for each item, instead of finding emails with the codes.

7)

Thank you to the people who have taken the time to Ask Me Anything...lots of good questions to keep me writing for awhile and I'm learning I have readers I didn't even know about, so hello to you!!  Please click that link to head over and ask me anything!

Have a wonderful LONG weekend everybody and Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Brendan's Kindergarten portrait of MLK :)