This blog is about our family, who have dealt with the loss of two sons with Muscular Dystrophy, the adoption of a son diagnosed with Agenesis of Corpus Callosum and the birth our a healthy little girl. It's a crazy life, but we are loving it.
On Saturday, we visited Mark's family in Waco for our Christmas with them.
Ethan after unwrapping gifts.
As a special treat, we brought our niece and the kid's cousin, Angelina home with us. The girls absolutely love each other and always have a blast when they are together.
They laughed and talked and giggled the whole time.
Then a little toenail painting commenced...
On New Year's Eve, Mark decided to get the kids a few fireworks.
This is the first time the kids have done fireworks. They had a few sparklers as well. This was the first time I had ever done firework, too. The kids and I had so much fun. They were non-stop smiles the whole time. I so enjoyed watching them have a blast with the fireworks. It thrilled me to see their smiles and hear their laughs.
I'm not so great with my camera, but here are a few pics from the fireworks.
Emily with her sparklers.
I have been dreaming and craving cinnamon rolls for a while now. So after work on Monday, I decided I was going to make some. They turned out so good.
I've blogged about these before. The recipe is from here. However I used regular powdered sugar and milk for the icing this time instead of making the caramel icing.
Tonight I made these cookies for an upcoming order...
Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies
This is a serious cookie! Seriously, ridiculously, wickedly awesome.
We ate up the extras that were left over. Those Kraft Caramel Bits are the bomb.com!!! YUM!
Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies
Adapted from Diary of Dave's Wife recipe
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups of flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup Kraft Caramel Bits
1/2 cup chopped Pecans
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.
3. Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda & salt.
4. Stir in chocolate chips, caramel bits and pecans.
5. Drop by spoonful onto cookies sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat mat.
6. Sprinkle dough with a pinch of course salt (I used Kosher).
7. Bake 8-10 minutes until just golden brown. Do Not Overbake.
8. Take out of the oven, let cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool.
This post is really random. Nothing specific, just some things here and there.
In my last post I told you that I hurt my hip. In fact, I sprained by left hip. Not sure how, but I did. I went to the chiropractor, he fixed my hip right up and I felt great. But then the muscles in my left leg, from my bottom down were so painful and sore, I was in some serious pain, couldn't (didn't want to) move and I was down for a while. My new chiropractor is now my BFF. Apparently, my muscles over my hip seized up when I sprained it and now I'm working on loosing these muscles up.
Seriously, this pain has made me one cray-cray women. I apologized to my husband, kids and co-workers for any unkind words I may of spoken out of pain in the last two weeks. I think I'm on the mend now.
Ethan had a really rough week this past week with his behavior and home and school. He received an "N" (needs improvement) at school, he got in trouble on the bus and failed his spelling test. *Sigh*
All that to say, my kids school had their fall festival on Friday night. The hub and I discussed it and decided that Ethan would not be able to go, due to his actions and behaviors this week.
I really, really tried to talk Emily out of going. I tried to bribe her with a new Barbie and going to get her toenails painted at a nail salon if we could skip the fall festival. You know, I've been a crazy women in pain this past two weeks and I had worked all day Friday and I was seriously tired. Mark has been suffering from allergies and he's coughing his head off and he didn't feel like going.
No go. Once this child has her mind made up, she does not change. So, I put on my big girl panties and took her. She really did deserve to go. She has been doing really great in school and has such a great attitude towards everything.
I'll spare you the details of the festival. It was just like last year. You can read about that here.
I did grab a few pics of her before we left. I think I earned eleventy hundred cool mom points for going.
Afterwards, I took her to Subway (she loves her some Subway sandwiches), went through McDonald's drive-thru for Ethan and finally took myself home. My bed never felt so good.
In other news, I made a new fall yarn wreath for my door.
Please pay no attention to my ugly door. As I probably mentioned before, I live in the 1970's house from Haides! Everything in this house is brown or harvest gold, and the people who built the house in the 70's never updated anything when we bought it 4 years ago. We're slowly trying to do updates.
Anyway, I found the yarn at Walmart and just made a few flowers out of felt.
My Friday cookies that I make for a local bank this past week were these.
Pumpkin cookies with caramel icing. So good. I mean really really really so good!
You want the recipe, I know you do! Here you go...
Pumpkin Cookies with Caramel Icing
1 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1 c. pumpkin
1 egg
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 ts.\p. salt
Cream shortening and sugar. Blend in pumpkin and egg. Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add to creamed mixture and mix well. Drop by teaspoon on greased cookies sheet. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.
Caramel Icing
3 Tbl. butter
4 Tbl. milk
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. powdered sugar
Cook first 3 ingredients until sugar is melted. Then let this mixture cool. After cooled, add powered sugar and vanilla. Spread a little bit on the cookie and let dry.
I just dipped the tops of the cooled cookies in the caramel icing and placed on a wire rack with wax paper underneath to catch any dripping of the icing. Makes 4 dozen cookies.
So there you go. A really random post. So Random!
Speaking of random, do your kids watch the show So Random! on the Disney Channel? It's a cute show and reminds me of a kid version of Saturday Night Live, where they do different skits, songs and fake commercials. Here is one of my favorite songs from the show. I'm not sure if it's just sad I like this song and am putting it on my blog or if it earns me more cool mom points.
I think I like this song because back in the day, I totally rocked this look... enjoy.
I'm back in the swing of things at work after our vacation. Just one week ago we were in Branson. Our vacation absolutely flew by.
Well, I did find a few things I'm thankful for to help me through my first week back at work.
Added a few of these babies to my ice cream.
My new favorite gum.
I found this the other day! Heaven...
Thin Mint Nestle Crunch!!
So, since I'm on this chocolate mint kick, the only logical cookies I could make for cookie Friday are these...
Chocolate Mint Cookies!!!!!!!!!!!
Here's a picture of Emily's Popsicle she wanted to show you...
Anyway, I'm thankful for a good week back at work. I'm thankful for the job I have, (even though I'd drop it in a minute to be a SAH mom, if I could!!), and that I found all these wonderful things in chocolate mint.
Oh yeah, I'm sharing my recipe for these wonderful cookies. I hope you like chocolate mint and enjoy!
Chocolate Mint Cookies
Adapted from allrecipes.com
I was able to get about 4 dozen cookies.
6 tbl butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbl water
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup mint chocolate chips (I used Andes baking mints)
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp peppermint extract
More Andes baking mint chips for melting on top of cookies
1. Heat the butter, sugar and water in a small pot over medium heat; stir occasionally until melted. Remove from heat and pour in both semisweet & mint chips. Stir until melted. Set the mixture aside to cool for 10 minutes.
2. Pour the chocolate into a mixing bowl and beat in the egg. In separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir into the chocolate mixture. Add the extract and stir again. Put the dough into the fridge for 1 hour to chill.
3. Preheat oven to 350. Grease the cookie sheets.
4. Roll the dough into 1-inch sized balls and place the cookies about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Do no overbake.
5. When cookies are removed from the oven, sprinkle some of the baking mint chips on each cookies. Let the chips melt slightly and spread the chocolate with a knife or back of spoon to cover the top of the cookies. Cool completely and enjoy!
Last time I was at Hobby Lobby, I found these cute little Chinese food containers.
So, I wondered how hard it would be make fortune cookies. I found this recipe. They were really easy and turned out so cute.
I put a little slip inside the cookie that said Happy Father's Day, wrapped them in cello bags and put them in the little containers. I then added a tag to the outside of the container that said "We're Fortunate Your Here.". They were a big hit.
My husband loves, loves, loves chocolate meringue pie. One of his favorite childhood memories is going to his grandmother's house and seeing the pies sitting on her dryer in her garage cooling.
I think I've heard this story a billion times. He brought it up again the other day. I thought, why don't I make him a chocolate meringue pie?
I know why. I'm intimidated. Intimidated by meringue. I always heard that you have to use a clean glass bowl, clean beaters, exactly room temperature egg whites and then maybe you might get a good meringue. Maybe not.
Well, I turned to my BFF, YouTube, and watched several videos on making meringue. Again, intimidated. Then I got a genius idea, meringue powder. I use meringue powder all the time when making royal icing. Couldn't I use it to make meringue. Yes.
Here's the low down.
Bake your pie shell. I used a frozen one. Just thaw it, prick it with a fork and bake it according to the directions. Then, let it cool.
Make your chocolate filling. I used pudding from a box. Just make the pudding according to the pie filling directions and poor into the pie filling.
For the meringue, I used 1/2 cup hot water and 1/4 cup of sugar. Get out your electric mixer and beat until mixed. Then I added 1/4 cup of meringue powder and beat, beat, beat, beat & beat the mixture. Then I turned the mixer on high and beat it some more. Finally, it started coming together.
Beat until the mixture gets stiff and can make peaks if you pull at it. Spread on the pie.
Bake for 30 minutes at 150 degrees. Meringue will be harder.
Then I broiled it for just a few minutes until the top browned.
It didn't take long and I was so happy with how it turned out.
This has kinda been a hard week with Ethan and his behavior. It seems that it has been constant disciplining. I'm just worn out. But, I'm going to praise my Lord anyway. So, here goes this weeks Thankful Thursday.
#1. Holy Smokes! Have you tried these? If you've read my blog for any length of time, you would see I love all things chocolate mint. These are really good. I want to lick the tubs when I'm done. I may or may not have done that behind my office door. I'm truly thankful I found these babies!!!
#2. When Ethan was in kindergarten, at the beginning of the year his teacher asked the parents of each student to send $5 so she could purchase snacks for the class for the whole year. This year, Emily's kindergarten teacher does it differently. She sends home the "Snack Bag". If your child comes home with the "Snack Bag", you have to fill it up with snacks and send it the next day with your child.
I have gotten the beloved bag twice and I was giddy and excited each time to make something extra special to send for snacks. However, I didn't notice that I was pretty lucky to get the bags on a Friday, so I had the whole weekend to come up with a snack.
Tuesday night, around 6:30, I opened Emily's back pack and look what I found.
Here's me with said bag. Smiling of all things.
So I rummaged around and remembered that I bought ingredients to try a new recipe I found for Applesauce Muffins. I had to double the recipe and luckily I had everything. They turned out wonderful. I even got a note home from the teacher thanking me for the yummy muffins. I did manage to keep one and have it the next day for a snack at work. They were pretty good if I say so myself.
#3. My Hubby picked up his new tailored suits he bought a couple of weeks ago. It was such a blessing to me to see him happy and confident in a new suite.
#4. Last but not least, we have decided to take a family vacation this year! A real, let's pack up the car and drive the family somewhere that's not around here, vacation. Yeah! First time, since, well before we had kids. So excited. We're thinking Branson!
I've read a couple of blogs who do the Photo A Day Challenge. Looks like fun. Let's see how far I'll go with it before I get lazy and just stop. I didn't start this until the 16th, so here it goes...
Flower - Emily picks me flowers all the time.
Something you don't like - that would be sweeping and mopping. I loathe this job.
Hair - Emily's crazy up do before jumping in the tub.
Orange - My highlighter.
Something I drew.
Bottle - Our medicine basket sitting in my kitchen with my vitamins, Ethan's meds and our allergy meds.
The last thing I bought - Mark got two new suits yesterday.
We also had a banana bread bake-off at work. I won!!!! Me and two other ladies baked some banana bread and we had 5 judges taste them. 4 out of 5 judges picked mine! I was totally excited. The other ladies were telling what their secret ingredient was. One said buttermilk and the other said whole wheat flower and nutmeg. They looked at me and I was like, I have no secret ingredient. Straight forward banana bread, baby!!
So I'm including my award winning recipe below. So fun to say that! Enjoy!
Award Winning Banana Bread
4 Large Ripe Bananas
3/4 c. White Sugar
1 Egg
1/3 c. Melted Butter
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
Mash bananas; add sugar and slightly beaten egg, then melted butter. Add baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour. Lastly add walnuts.
Pour into well greased large bread pan or two smaller bread pans. Bake 375 for 1 hour or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.
On Saturday morning, I decided I was going to get up early and hit some garage sales in town.
First of all, I planned on getting out of the house early, but by the time I got up, showered got dressed, the kids were up and wanting stuff from me (feed me, clothe me, blah, blah, blah)!
So I didn't really get out of the house till almost 10am. You have to get out earlier than that if you want to get the good stuff from yard sales, but it wasn't to be. The only thing I did find, after about the 4th house was one of these.
I got a slap chop for $2. The only prize I found. Oh well.
While on my quest for garage sales, I happen to drive by our old house, where my families land is (where I grew up) and saw my dad out mowing by my grandma's old house. Emily and I stopped by and chatted awhile.
Emily had fun running around, picking flowers and chasing butterflies.
My dad.
Tree with beautiful orange flowers.
Emily picked me one of the orange flowers.
I have such great memories growing up there. We lived on the same land as my grandma. I loved playing at her house and watching her wash clothes on an old fashioned washing machine in which she used a hand cranked ringer to ring clothes from the wash, only to hang them up on a clothes line. I watched her make pies from scratch and can jars of veggies and make jellies and work, work, work! I loved playing outside and running around in the pasture with my cousins who also lived on the same land as us. Good memories.
After striking out of the garage sale scene, I called home to see what the boys were doing. Mark said that Ethan was invited by one of his friends and their family to a car show. He had lots of fun, by the way.
So, Emily and I went to the local Farmers Market, where the only thing I bought were some turnips for $1.
Then we went to McDonalds for a while.
After McDonalds, we went grocery shopping and then went to Sonic to pick up some lunch for Daddy.
Waiting for by babe's chili cheese dog.
I came home and made some awesome cookies.
Homemade Nutter Butter cookies. These are officially the bomb.com. Seriously. So good. Recipe here.
I also made some more sugar cookies. A girl at work is resigning, so I made her some cookies also.
Lastly, after church today I went back to the grocery store to get Emily some allergy medicine. As I was walking down an aisle, I came across this couple standing at the end of the aisle. She looked like she was in her late 30's and the man looked to be mid 40's-ish. The lady was holding a little girl about 2 or 3. And I got closer, the man goes over to the lady and they start kissing. Not just a peck, but KISSING! And they keep kissing and then it's just plain making out! It was like a car wreck, I wanted to look away but couldn't! Finally, by the time I got up to them they came up for air, thank goodness, but by then I was grossed out.
I love my husband I definitely kiss him on the lips in public, but just a simple kiss. A peck. I'm not 16 anymore and want to show the world what I can do. A simple kiss. That's it! Making out amongst the toilet paper isn't my bag! Is it just me, or is that just plain weird?
