Creamy Tomato Chicken Pasta

So I was at the Cheese Cake Factory last week and I had this really yummy creamy marinara sauce and I have been craving it ever since so I decided to see if I could recreate something close to it and this is the result:

Creamy Tomato Chicken Pasta

1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 Tbls. olive oil
1 14.5oz. can diced tomatoes
1 15oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp. italian seasoning
1 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
4 small chicken breast, cubed
1 cup heavy cream
1 pound pasta (I used penne, but would also be good with spaghetti or linguine)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, shredded

Saute onion and garlic in 2 Tbls. olive oil, add can diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, basil, italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes. While the sauce simmers, saute the cubed chicken breast in 2 Tbls. olive oil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. When the sauce is done simmering add the heavy cream and heat for 1 minute. Add the cooked chicken and serve over pasta. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top.

This was a big hit with the family, let me know if you liked it too. Oh, and if any one wants to think of a better name for it, that would be great.

Halloween

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

The kids are still too young to carve up their own pumpkin so we had them use paint and decorate theirs. As you can tell they had fun with the paint. luckily this year more paint ended up on the pumpkin than them. As you can tell in the pictures Quinn was spiderman and Ava was the cutest peacock. We got complements from everyone on her costume. We had a blast taking them trick or treating. This is the first year that Quinn understood Halloween, at least the part about wearing costumes, knocking on doors, saying trick or treat and getting CANDY. They got a ton of candy. Last Saturday was our ward harvest party and trunk or treat, which completely filled up their buckets of course Quinn's bucket was a spiderman head. Then on Halloween they got it over half full before they were wiped out and ready to go home.

Christina did the pirate skull

Matt did the Explorer finding the diamond and on the other side the Scream

Christinas Dads Passing

On Sunday September 16 we found out that Christina's dad died in car accident. It appears that he fell asleep while driving home. Luckily no one else was involved in the accident. The funeral services were on Saturday. The service was very good and uplifting. The church was filled beyond capacity leaving people standing in the back. It has been a hard long week for all of us, but we are grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives and the comfort that it brings letting us know that we will see him again. We want to thank everyone who has prayed for us and shown their love and support.

Yoga Babies

So yesterday I finally did it, I started going to a Yoga/Pilates class. I loved it, but needless to say I am a little sore today, so this morning I decided to do some stretches to hopefully help my sore muscles, and Quinn and Ava decided to join in. It was so funny they were even taking the same deep breaths as me.

Here is Quinn, I mean Spiderman in the cobra pose.

Here is Ava in the downward dog pose.Here is Quinn a sleep with his Spiderman, notice Spiderman has to have his own pillow. The other morning Quinn came and got in bed with me, Quinn took one pillow and when I went to lay on my pillow he said,"No mom that's Spiderman's pillow!" Oh, the things that come out of that kids mouth. My mom once told me that age 3 is her favorite because you never know what's going to come out of their mouths. I think I'm starting to agree.

Too TOUGH for Christina

As most of you know Christina loves to cook and some might consider her a chef, but today she met her match in the kitchen. discouraged by a few big hits Christina figured a way to fight back and win the war with the Onion.

Christina's kitchen comes equipped with everything. Even Onion fight goggles.

On another note Christina and I went out last night ALONE!!!! we went to this new restaurant called Spazzos. Its an Italian restaurant owned by the Swartzs brothers, for any of you from the Seattle area they also own Daniels broiler and Chandlers crab house. All excellent restaurants. Spazzos lived up to the other restaurants and was fabulous. When we sat down a table next to us had ordered a cheese appetizer that they pour brandy over and lit on fire. Christina saw the awesome fire and said yum. that looks good and ordered some for us. The funny thing was that she never really saw the plate of food, just the fire. While we were waiting for our appetizer i asked Christina if it was going to come with crackers or anything or just a slab of cheese. "Oh it'll come with something I'm sure" she said. It came and this is what it was. Christina made sure I got a picture of it for our blog.

A big blob of cheese. $10 worth. The cheese was excellent and very flavorful. we just thought it was funny that we got a big blob of cheese with nothing else. Another favorite moment last night was when i asked the server to tell me about the Orechetti, which in the description was pasta with shrimp, and broccoli in a broth. His responds was, "its noodles (pause) and shrimp (pause) in a bowl." to save him I told him he sold me on the dish. He then said," did you know today is only my third day" which my responds was " No, I didn't know that" then he realized that was a stupid question and responded by " of course you wouldn't". You might have had to been there to find this funny, but it was hilarious just how things played out. After dinner Christina and I went and saw the harry potter movie.

Woodland Park Zoo

Quinn had been asking us to go to the zoo for the past week to see the animals, so we took him. Today was an awesome day to be outside. This whole week has been clear skies and sunny. Today was about 85-90 degrees. All the animals were out and very entertaining to watch. They were all active moving around and making sounds.

our little butterfly.

Quinn got to go feed the giraffes.




We got some good shots of the animals today being active.

This is a sloth bear. can you tell?

QUINN'S 3RD BIRTHDAY!

Yesterday we celebrated Quinn's birthday Spiderman style. The party turned out really good with friends and family present. It would have been nice if Matthew, Jack and Quinn's other friends from Provo could have been able to be here to celebrate. Here are some pictures from the party. Christina made the cake and of course we had a pinata. We also played pin the mask on spiderman. Quinn scored a ton of spiderman stuff from posters, costumes, balls, playing cards, baseball bat, stuffed spidy, sunglasses, lunchbox and there might be more that I'm forgetting, but Quinn absolutely loves spiderman. Quinns costume is reversible so we know what mood hes in by which colors he is wearing out.

This is when we know quinn is going to make bad choices.



This is Quinns tough man look. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Spidy spun his web for Quinns birthday.

Christina made this cake all by herself. Way to go Christina. I think she'll start taking cake orders in the fall.