Cooking Day

Kara and I decided to do a day of cooking meals to freeze for the next month or so.  We have a wonderful friend in our Tuesday morning biblestudy that offered to come cook and coach us through it.  What a huge blessing!  We made it through our first successful day of cooking around 70-ish meals! We froze them and have enough for around 5 weeks. We spent $127 each and have around 25 meals per person.  We bought things like: 24 Pounds of Ground Beef, 60 Chicken Breast, 18 Potatoes, and 24 Pork Chops. Of course there are a whole lot of spices, veggies, sauces, ect...  That's a LOT of food!! It is definitely more cost effective to buy in bulk though. We got a lot of comments and stares from people at Sam's - Everyone wanted to know why in the heck we had so much meat!!

Here is what we made for EACH person:

Chicken Pot pie (4)

Twice Baked Potatoes (12)

Chicken Marinades (6)

Pork Chop Marinade (6)

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce (3 large containers)

Upside down Pizza (3)

Meatloaf (2)

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (28)

That's a TON of meat.

We started at 8:00 in the morning with cooking the potatoes and chicken.  We did all the prep work for the meals that had a cooked meat in it, then went down the list from there.  The chicken and pork chop marinades were easy since we just made the marinades, poured it over the meat and froze them.  We ended around 4:30 with our yummy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and even baked a few for us to enjoy as a reward.  The kids were great all day and took both their naps, so we were able to get a lot of things done without having to watch them. 

I don't make a lot of cookies from scratch because of the extra time it takes than just having to pop some ready made dough in.  So, I will definitely be doing it this way from now on and just freezing the dough.  I can now just take out as many as I need to cook!  It's just as much effort to make 12 cookies as it is to make 48, so I wanted to share the recipe if you would like to make them and freeze them for later use.  They are delicious!!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

(yields 4 dozen cookies)

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 T. vanilla

2 cups flour

2 1/2 cups oatmeal, powdered (i will explain this)

1/2 t. salt

1 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

12 oz. chocolate chips

4 oz. Hershey chocolate bar, grated

Cream together butter and sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla. Powder oatmeal by placing in a blender or food processor. Combine flour, powdered oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Add to butter and sugar mixture and mix well.  Add in chocolate chips and grated Hershey bar. Form into golf ball -size balls and "flash freeze" (ab 15 min), and then put into freezer bags for whenever you are ready to use them. 

When ready to cook: Thaw and Bake at 350 degrees on ungreased cookie sheet for 9-11 minutes.

I bought the great value brand of old fashioned oats at wal-mart.

It was worth it all!!! It was so easy and fun to do with a friend.  It was even worth grocery shopping for 3 hours the day before Easter. :)

If you can grab one or two friends and have never done this before, I highly encourage you to do it!  Its very cost effective and I'll be glad to answer any questions!

Easter 2012

We had a wonderful Easter! This was the first year in all 5 years of our marriage that we did not travel to Little Rock to be with our families. I missed them very much, but we did enjoy the holiday with good family time and friend time. We ate lunch with two other couples in our community group who also stayed in town. We attempted a few family pictures as well as kid pictures. Pictures these days are almost impossible. I try to at least grab a few even if he is walking around. And trying to get 3 kids to look at the camera and into the sunshine...well, so much for that!  Here are a few pictures from our day:

Ellery, Cooper, and Asa. Ellery was busy playing "He loves me, he loves me not" with a flower and the boys were waiting to see who won!!

Ohh...the hair!!  I just don't know what to do with it.  I brush it and it goes crazy.  He has hair where its bald looking, but it just doesn't show up on pictures. :)  Haha!

Our best attempts at family pictures...

Happy Easter!!

Gotta go!

17 Month Update

 17 Months Old!

 This little cutie is getting so big!  He is so busy, joyful, and sweet.  We snapped a few pictures while we were outside a lot this past weekend.  Here is an update of Asa:

-Weighs 27 Pounds (Yikes! This momma is almost unable to pick him up and carry him around!)

Not sure on Height...haven't been to our 18 month check up yet.

-Size 4 diapers

-Wears 18-24 month, 24 month, and 2T clothes. Size 5-6 shoe

- Eats a TON, and will eat almost anything.  Except bananas, avocados..or anything mushy like that.

-LOVES to be outside.  Most of our fits come from me not allowing him to go outside.  He knocks on the front door or bangs on the backdoor to let me know he wants to go out.

-Talks ALL day, most of which I can't understand.  But..he does understand almost everything I ask him.  He knows how to say "Thank you", some body parts (ears, nose, ect), and how to say "MOOO" for cow.  He has never seen a speech therapist since he was premature, but he still might be behind on the word thing a bit...

-LOVES to sit and read books.  This is where he does most of his talking.  He wants me to read and let him turn the pages.  If its quiet in the house, and I have stepped away for a minute, I usually come around the corner to find him sitting on the floor and reading books.  I hope this stays around!

-Every day his little mind is learning something new!

Our most recent event was an asthma attack.  We went down to Little Rock a couple of weekends ago, and when I loaded him into the car, I noticed his breathing was wheezy and shallow.  He had a cold, so I didn't think much of it.  When we got to Little Rock, it didn't take long for his breathing to get a little worse and I called a doctor in town (who is a family friend), and he was able to get him in right away.  Come to find out, 60-70% of his airway was closed.  We had to get a chest x-ray and breathing treatment immediately. My sweet friend, Katherine, was the nurse and helped us out that day.  This has happened before back in December, but turned into Pneumonia. He was prescribed an inhaler then, but we stopped after a few days.  He was put on a steroid and the same inhaler this time around, but because they still heard rattling in his chest. So...for the next 6 months he will be on a daily maintenance inhaler twice a day. Here's the good news:  I guess because of his prematurity, he lungs are constantly inflamed and that's why he catches a cold so often which leads to an asthma attack.  Hopefully, with the inhaler, this will keeps his lungs healthier and he will not get sick as often. So far (praise the Lord), he hasn't been sick since his asthma stuff. A miracle!!

We went to a birthday party for my friends little boy, Shepherd. (Who is also Asa's friend)  He is so adorable!  Aubrey did such a good job with the food and location that I had to share. I don't have many pictures, but it was by a really pretty pond/lake in a neighborhood.  It was perfect!

This is Shepherd.  He is a cutie!!

And this little man, Porter, belongs to my friend Haley. Watch out girls, he's already taken by me!

That's all for now!

Bedroom Re-do

I have never been happy with our guest bedroom.  I keep buying different pillows and bedspreads and haven't been happy with it usually.  Before we got married, I had this white bed and black furniture.  So, trying to get bedding to go with both has been rather challenging. Unless I replace the entire Duvet/quilt, I have just been looking for some pillows to tie it all in. I found bedding/Pillows that I LOVE!  A week later my husband thought it would be a good idea to re-arrange the room and add a desk for our computer. (Which wasn't a bad idea) But, he decided to do it without me. :)  Oh my!!

This is the room before anything was changed:

 I actually loved how the room turned out.  It gives it extra space, and now we use the room everyday!

The Pillows I bought at Pottery Barn Outlet. I wish we had one in town! (and yes, the tags are still on, but I have been too lazy apparently)

I went and found this white desk for $70 at a local flea market called "Daises and Olives" and the white chair in the corner for $20.  (There is a big black chest to the right of the room that I didn't get in the picture...)

HERE IS THE QUESTION:  I have struggled with what to do over the bed.  I have this gold and antique white frame that we just hung up so we would have something.  I am by no means attached to it...so I want to know if I should leave it, add something to it, change it all together, find something for the middle?  I am horrible at this....   I would love ALL opinions.

Graduation Day!

 Last Friday, Asa graduated from therapy!  He had tested out of Occupational Therapy a couple of weeks ago, and now has tested out of Physical Therapy.  I am so proud of him!  Another bonus is that it frees up our schedule two days out of the week.  Asa started going in January of 2011 (when he was about 12 weeks old).  He has worked with only 3 therapist the entire time. Katie (left) has been with his since day one, and Christina (right) has worked with him since the end of last summer.  We will miss them both!  Asa adores them. He still has a lot to work on.  They are things that most people wouldn't notice, but if we don't work on them, he will continue to fall behind his age.  Learning to throw a ball, to stand up just from sitting on the floor instead of having to pull up on something, stepping over obstacles, ect.  All the little things that we don't even notice they do/don't do- but are very important.

My only other pictures I got were around 5 months old.  Learning to roll over took him a long time! :)

Hard at work!

Playing in the "squat" position.  Therapy was fun, but hard.  I will miss those looooong naps afterwards!

I believe that Asa is as caught up as much as he is because of his therapy.  We are so thankful for the financing provided by an early intervention program in order to receive therapy at NO cost to us for over a year.  God is GOOD!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Scavenger Hunt Clues

I have had several people ask about the details for the clues that we used for our Gender Reveal party. So, I thought I would post them for those of you who have asked.  You can read about the Gender Reveal Party here for more details.

Girls Clues:
1. Girls will never fail to get their magazines in the ______. (Mail) - Hide next clue in Mailbox

2. Girls plant their gardens by seeds, and end up picking the _____. (Weeds) - Hide next clue in "weeds" or front landscaping if you are too cool to have weeds. :)
3. Girls will get some lovin' when there's something cooking in the _____. (Oven).
4. A girl will always laugh when she's in the bubble _____. (Bath)- Hide next clue in bathtub
5. This place will be a mess, but it holds her little black ______. (Dress)- Hide next clue in closet
6.  The last clue card will say, " Go to the living room for your final clue".


Boys Clues:
1.Daddy will have to be brave to teach his son to _____. (Shave) - Hide next clue by husbands razor or cream
2.Good grief! Boys wear ______. (Briefs) - Hide in husbands underwear drawer
3. Boys don't squat to use the _____. (Pot) - Hide by toilet
4. Boys think it's cool to use a power _______. (Tool) - Hide in tool cabinet or something similar
5. Little boys will spray their clothes when they use the water _____. (Hose) -Hide by outside water hose
6. The last clue card will say, "Go to the living room for your final clue."

On the Back of each card will have a number.  Those numbers will add up to your "due date".  Or, if you happen to be due at the first of the month, you could make it add up to something else...

My final clue I handed to them:

We had SUCH A GREAT TIME!  Everyone got involved and loved figuring it out what we were having.  If you have other specific questions, please feel free to ask!!