december via my iphone

i thought i would steal an idea from my friend brianne and post my phone pix from december. this way i will feel like i covered the high points anyway! :)

the first weekend in december we went to jacksonville to visit auntie jane and uncle bill. sassy joined us and we took a jaunt to the beach!
it was not too cold. for mikey anyway!




we had the whole place to ourselves!!! awesome


we let mikey draw faces on our shadows. i think he was being funny don't you!?

gotta love toes in the sand!!

december 15th we hosted our 2nd annual co-op cookie exchange. everyone brought cookies and munchies. it was such a nice day for the kids to run around and burn off all that sugar!



po is huge. almost as big as mikey. but nice and warm


i love our tree!! and yes it's artificial



mikey being mikey!



pecan pie baker extraordinaire



sassy was here for CHRISTmas and we made the best cookies ever!! instead of oreo truffles, she suggested using nutter butters. OMG!! they were fantastic!!! (note the cute apron she bought)



CHRISTmas eve at Next Level Church!! thank you Jesus for the gift of YOU and for this beautiful sunset!!




looks like Santa was hungry!


Legos from the Beans!


a Banjo from Sassy!



the worst thing about December was the loss of our sweet doggy zoe. she had not been doing well and went fast. it was hard to celebrate the season without her but we know she is in a better place. we love you zoe!



thank goodness we have these two nut jobs to keep our spirits lifted!


HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS!! HOPE IT'S FILLED WITH LOVE AND LAUGHTER!!

it was a pinteresting kind of day...

so my pinterest addiction is slowing down i'm glad to say. (i'm guessing it's b/c of the CHRISTmas season) but i've still had all these ideas running around in my head. yesterday i took advantage of both of the kids having people over to play with to get some of them done.

this year i decided i was not going to buy any wrapping paper. i mean think about it. wrapping paper is trash. literally. you take it off package and throw it away. i have a bit left but i'll save it for my sister when she gets here. she always steals, uh i mean borrows my paper. i have been getting paper bags at the grocery store for a few months now. yesterday i opened them all up so i would be ready. and i bought a snowflake stamp and some green ink. here is the result not too shaby and i have some fun sharpie colors i'll put names on the presents with.

project #2 have you seen these? this is one of the first things i ever pinned. what a great idea. so i gathered my materials. and got to work. i didn't want a super long bookmark so i cut off the top 3 colors. i used a cute heart punch to make the hole for the string and used the extra colors as contrast hearts. looks pretty! but i didn't have any glue! what? so i had to use a glue stick of all things. but still turned out great! can't wait to give them as gifts.
still feeling crafty, i took out the pringles containers i had been saving. and i covered them with wrapping paper. (i had some scraps from last year) they will be used for the next project

ok here's the yummy stuff. (if you don't like peppermint, you won't be impressed) i made peppermint popcorn! oh man this stuff is so good! for 20+ years i have been making white trash for CHRISTmas. but it's kinda expensive to make and we are on a budget this year. so i found this recipe on pinterest and thought i'd try it. gathered my ingredients... and got to work! i have an air-popper and i put it to good use. made two big batches of corn. no added oil or salt. then i poured in half a bag of CHRISTmas m&m's. (that's my own addition) and i had a box of small candy canes. i processed them in the magic bullet type thing i have and made a fine dust with some bigger pieces left for texture and added color. melted one bag of white chocolate chips (i added 1Tbsp of oil to keep it smooth) in the microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each beep. here's where you have to work fast. i used a spoon and drizzled the chocolate over the popcorn/m&m mixture. then i would toss with two spoons and sprinkle with some candy cane dust. repeat until mixture is gone. i had to stick the chocolate back in the microwave once to melt it down again. toss, toss, and toss some more. then spread it on wax paper to dry. oh my so yummy!! i am going to put the peppermint popcorn into the covered pringles cans and give them as gifts!!

i have another project i did, but i can't post it. someone is getting it for CHRISTmas and she reads my blog!

MERRY CHRISTMAS FRIENDS!!

roasted lentils!

oh yum! these turned out wayyy better than i had hoped. trying to get some nutritional foods into mikey. i thought something crunchy. and these are! so so so easy! i had some dried lentils in the cabinet so i just cooked them for 20 minutes. i had brown but i'm sure you can use any color you would like.

i drained them and let them sit in the colander for a few hours. (only b/c i was doing something else. you don't have to let them sit this long) but you do want them dry so the oil will stick to them. put them on a cookie sheet and drizzle oil over them and toss. add some kosher salt and garlic powder. these are just the flavors i wanted, i'm sure you could do many other combo's.
i put them in 300 degree oven and tossed them about every 10 to 15 minutes. i think it took about an hour for them to get dark and crunchy. my oven is a tad off so it may not take you this long. i did add a little more salt while they were cooking.

this is what they looked like when they were done. oh so yummy and crunchy! and here what they look like before and after


i took them to co-op so everyone could try them. they were a HUGE hit! even the kids loved them. one mom (thanks chris) suggested using them on a salad instead of croutons!! let me know if you try them!

boo 2011

ah halloween. that special time of year when my children want to dress up like serial killers. ha like that's gonna happen. so mikey wanted to be pikachu. and he wanted to get one of those cheap plastic costumes. no way jose! so we thought and thought and i came up with the idea of him being a shadow. so off to walmart to get black pants, a black shirt, black hat, black gloves and black face paint. (nice way to get extra clothes for him too).
caleb was a parrot. a friend of his gave him this great hat and he ran with it. he's so clever! :)

the saturday night before halloween we went to a party at the bordeaux's house. all our co-op friends where there and we had a great time! food, fun, dancing! then halloween night we went to the morris' house. the uvegas' were there. hope, tammy and i took the kids trick or treating. even caleb, river and konner went with us.


sorry it's such a bad picture. they all got tons of candy then we came back to tammy's and roasted hot dogs over the camp fire.


here is the decorated house and some pumpkin carving pictures.




this weekend tammy, hope and i took our little kids to the Renaissance festival. i love that place. but boy it's super expensive. the kids got in free (thanks to hope) and i had saved some money so i kinda just spent it all! :) not really but i didn't skimp. and that makes me sooo happy to be able to let mikey get something and then worry about spending the money on it. b/c we are studying the renaissance in co-op there was lots there that they recognized. divinci, and Michelangelo were represented and it was cool to see their eyes light up when they saw or heard about them. they rode some rides, got swords, watched a hypnotist, ate steak on a stake, and saw the jousting. it was a great day!

child of God

don't you just love when you children do something to make you proud?! when you hear from an adult that caleb just did _____ and it was so kind of him. or mikey worked really hard on this lesson and it shows. i know i just radiate with joy and pride and love for them. because it's a reflection of me! i helped push them to do right or to study hard.

so don't you think God who loves us sooo much more than we can imagine is just as proud when we do something good? when we are kind or show his love to others? i see him beaming on us with pride of his own when we reflect him! he helped show us the way by sacrificing his son, his pride and joy, so we could be his child.

ok. we know God loves us. and we have Faith in this and in the death and resurrection of his son Jesus who came to save us from our sins. because of this we will be live forever in heaven with him. HELLO!! this is HUGE!!!! so why don't i "reflect" this in EVERYTHING i do??? why am not living my life to make my father God proud of me all the time!!??!!! it's easy (for me) to have faith, but to live it out is what is hard for me. it's like i'm hiding it. and i'm sure that doesn't make God proud of me. i'm such a failure in this department. (and many others too)

anyway. my goal for today is to make God proud of EVERYTHING i do. i will be kind while driving. i will choose the words i speak to my family with care. i will allow God's will to lead the way today. believe me. i won't get it all right. but He's gonna love me anyway! :)

inspiration

i am so inspired by the youth pastor at our church! not because of what he said (even tho he's awesome at that) but because he jumped back on the blogging wagon and blogged 2 days in a row!! so i thought i would try the same thing.

not tons going on. co-op today. which we always love. but the leitch kids were there which made it even better. oh how we miss them since they have moved to charleston.

sunday night at church is the wifi student night of worship. it should be great! and since caleb is playing, i'm going to go and help out where needed. if you pray, please pray for lives to be changed!

since we're on the subject, let's discuss my life changing. it's really not. as a Christian, i need to be growing. growing in knowing God and wanting to spend more time with him in his word and in prayer. but i don't . i'm sure it's b/c i'm lazy. i do feel nudges from him like, oh you should pick up your bible. or you need to pray for this person. and sometimes i act on it and sometimes i don't. why is that? the world is just in the way. like even right now. i could be reading my bible. but i'm blogging. and later i'll get on facebook. i need to just do it!!! any ideas or suggestions would be a great help! but b/c i'm the only one who reads this blog, i bet i don't get any ideas! :)

it's what's for dinner

one thing i love about fall is big huge pots of soup, chili, or stew. i have been thinking about making this one particular dish my family loves. so i got all the ingredient together and got busy! (of course it's so durn humid here it won't be a cozy meal. poop)

let's call this

Mexican chili with extras

1lb ground beef, very lean or you could use ground turkey or chicken. i've used them all
1 green pepper chopped
2 carrots chopped
1 onion chopped
4 cloves of garlic (we love garlic here) minced
1 jar (medium size) salsa, i got the store brand but use whatever you prefer
1 small can rotel
28oz can diced tomatoes, i used petite
2 cans 16oz (or make your own from dried) black beans
2 cans 16oz hominy
2 cans 16oz re-fried beans (i use fat free)
1 box chicken broth or use your own homemade or bouillon
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
chopped kale (i didn't measure i just grabbed several handfuls and tossed it in)

first i browned the ground beef. i like to take it out of the pan, drain all the grease out, and wipe the pot with a paper towel. then i added some olive oil and put in the peppers, onions, and carrots. let them sweat for about 6 or 7 minutes. then add the garlic for another minute or two. then add the cumin and cinnamon. stir them around so they coat the veggies and start to give off a great smell. about 2 minutes. then add the chicken broth. make sure you stir the good bits off the bottom of the pan. yum!
this is where i start opening cans. i open and drain the black beans and the hominy. then rinse them really well. they can be really salty and i like to control that on my own. add them to the pot. then add the salsa, rotel and tomatoes. stir in the ground beef. mix well. put in the refried beans. make sure you mix them in until they are dissolved. i bought kale to make kale fries for co-op tomorrow but i had too much so i decided to chop it up and put it in too. let it come to a boil, then put the lid on and simmer until you are ready to eat!
this recipe makes A TON so we will eat it all week and possibly freeze some. sometimes i'll add sour cream or shredded cheese. oh and if the kids are not eating it i'll add in pickled jalapenos. makes it nice and spicy!!