Happy Thanksgiving!

So to start off, I dont want to brag TOO much, but I think I may have inherited my Fathers gift for sweet making. Isnt my pie pretty! The apples cooked down so it sank, but I'm not quite sure how to fix that. The pie itself was pretty yummy, I used 4 fuji apples, and 3 granny smith. My first slice of pie was a little to tart for me (I think I got a slice full of granny smith apples) But I just ate another one with icecream on it. OH MY HECK! I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I thought the crust could use some more sugar in it, but everyone there said it was pretty good as a tart apple pie. What can I say, I'm an Adams...everything needs more sugar.

We went to our friends Corey and Denise's house. They've got a 4 year old boy and a boy the same age as Gavin. We love these people to death, and consider them family. This is Mikey ans Xander and their oldest, Dakota. They rescued this kitty off of the highway, and ALL of the boys LOVED that cat. Gavin loved it the most I think.

I for one and proud of myself today. So much GOOD food, and I didnt overstuff myself. This is whats left of our thanksgving feast. I had 3 child sized plates basically to myself. And then I went back for pie. Everyone was wondering how I was still eating. 1 I'm pregnant, which gives me the excuse to eat as often as I want, 2 I was having kiddy sized portions 3 you cont call it thanksgiving until you've had pie!

Reading Books

Mikey LOVES to read. It's come in handy this week since I've had a sore throat. He doesn't have the books memorized, but he knows a lot of the Rhymes in the Dr. Seuss books. And when he doesn't know, he just tells you whats going on. He reads out loud by himself all the time.

DIY tree

So I know it isn't Christmas yet, but I had to post this cause it's too cool. I was trying to figure out what to do for a tree this year. I dont want to mess with a real one...unless we can get one for $10...yeah right. So I'm thinking it may be less hassel to just hang our chrismtas lights in the shape of a tree on our wall. (idea from Sarah). But then I thought...maybe theres some neat things online about a christmas tree. And I found this! It's a Mt.Dew Christmas tree! And it's PRETTY! I would SSSOO do this if we drank soda on a regular basis...which we dont :( So I dont have the stuff to do it with. But for a recycled tree thats pretty freakin cool!

11 minute biscuits

Or...

Karine's Drop Biscuits

3 cups Quick Mix
3/4 cups milk or water

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet. Combine Quick Mix and milk or water in a medium bowl. Stir until just blended. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes, until golden brown. Makes 12 large drop biscuits.
Variations
Cheese & Herb Biscuits: Add 1/3 cup grated Cheddar cheese and chopped parsley, chives or herbs to taste while stirring dough.
Buttermilk Biscuits: Substitute 3/4 cup buttermilk for milk or water.
Country Dumplings: Drop dough by tablespoonfuls over top of boiling beef or chicken stew. Boil gently 10minutes, uncovered. Cover and cook over medium-high heat 10 more minutes, until cooked through. Makes 12 dumplings.
Orange Biscuits: Add 1 tablespoon grated orange peel. If desired, substitute 2 tablespoons orange juice for part of milk or water.
Fruit Cobbler: Spoon dough over top of hot, sweetened fruit or berries and bake in an 8 inch square pan about 20-25 minutes until golden brown.


I started laughing as I made this recipe because it was TOO easy. After it was mixed I just used my hands and made dough drops about the same size. Who cares if they're not totally even..in my case I have a buncha boys who just want to eat...not admire.

Quick Mix

This is the most versatile of all the mixes in my cookbook. This is the same mix I got my super quick biscuits from. See last post for a list of everything this mix makes. If you don't regularly buy powdered milk, do so In this case. This mix is delectable...and it makes cooking 10X faster. If you don't have a pastry cutter you can use a butter knife in each hand or mix it by hand till "crumbly."

QUICK MIX
8 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons cream of tarter
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups instant nonfat dry milk
2 1/4 cups vegetable shortening

In large bowl sift together all dry ingrediants. Blend well. With pastry blender, cut in shortening until evenly distributed. Mixture will resemble cornmeal in texture. Put in a large airtight container. Label. Store in a cool dry place. Use within 10-12 weeks. Makes about 13cups of Quick Mix.
Variation
Use 4 1/4 cups all purpose flour and 4 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour instead of 8 1/2 cups all-purpose flour. Increase baking powder to 5 tablespoons.

making a mix

I would just like to publicly thank my mom for getting me this book. I hadn't used it too much until now. we're a little tight on cash so I've been cooking more...instead of buying hotpockets. The gist of this book is that you have mixes for everything, bread, meat, sauce. And then when you need to make something you go to the mix and find a recipe you want to use. Since you've made a mix, you don't have to do as much cooking or finding ingredients so it takes less time. And let me tell you, everything that I have tried out of this book so far has be marvelous! And it does make cooking a lot easier. Today I made the "quick mix" and the "hot roll mix" here is what each mix will make.

QUICK MIX
super-duper doughnuts
sunshine coffeecake
madeline's muffins
nevada's pancakes
indian fry bread
golden cornbread
banana-nut bread
crispy breadsticks
drop biscuits
Never-Fail rolled biscuits
Sausage-cheese balls
churried shrimp rounds
tempura
self-crust cheese tart
tuna-cheese swirls
seafood-rice puffs
sugar cookies
molasses cookies
cinnamon thins
crescent butter cookies
millionaire bars
apple-nut cake
carmel-nut pudding cake
hot fudge pudding cake
pineapple upsid-down cake
lazy daisy cake
impossible pie
turnover fried pies
cream puffs supreme
apple-walnut cobbler
sunday shortcake

and most of those have varriations, like one you cam make dumplings, or pizza, or cinnamon rolls

HOT ROLL MIX
swedish cinnamon twists
tatonuts
cinnamon rolls
cream cheese swirls
butterscotch butter balls
pluckit
honey-walnut swirl
Pan rols
orange butterflake rolls
crescent rolls
homemade white bread
hi-light onion bread
good for you bread
big soft pretzels

So far out of these mixes I've only made golden cornbread, homemade white bread, and big soft pretzels. I'm so excited to try some of these other recipes. All the things I have made have been pretty straight forward and easy. And it's saved me A LOT of money/time when it comes to dinner. I give this book 5 stars for its ingenuity, and pure tastiness of it's recipes. I dont think they sell it anymore...mine is pretty old. But you can find it really cheap on Alibris.com or amazon.com check alibris first because they sell only books and movies. But seriously I dont think I could live without this book anymore. It has been a lifesaver. The meat mixes you cook up a whole pot of food and stick it in your freezer for quick meals during the week. And they're so versitile. You can make sloppy joes one day, and then make hawaiian haystacks one day and sweet & sour chicken the next! (both of which I have tried and they are amazing) So really people. if you dont have this book, GET IT. I cant tell you how greatful I am that my wonderful mother got me this book. I keep finding more and more things I like about it every time I open the pages. Seriously if I had the money I'd get it for all my buddies for christmas. But I dont have THAT much money. So merry christmas I tipped you off to one of the greatest cookbooks of all time.

what happens when you're a mother of boys

Well...it was bound to happen sooner or later. Boys will be boys. Anyone know how long it takes a black eye to heal. It's not horrible...but Xander was swinging his foam bat around and decided it would be fun to play karate with mom. (only mommy never uses bats, and we're not suposed to karate chop eachother....espically with a bat) And thats how I got my first black eye. What can I say......I'm a boy mom.

My "bucket list" just got shorter!!

So I can now scratch something off of my bucket list, (the list of stuff you want to do before you kick the bucket) and it's called......FLYING!


This is Mikey and Xander when they first got to see the cool red airplane mommy and daddy were going to fly in. I think Xander was a little shy cause he didnt seam as interested as Gavin and Mikey.


This is Mikey with "his" red airplane. The moment he saw it he started calling it his. In case you cant tell by the look on his face, he really thinks it's his airplane.


If you look at Gavins face you can tell how much he is loving this. The whole time we were there he kept saying "ooohhh!" and "wow!"


Jim (the guy who owns the plane) was nice enough to even let Mr. Mikey sit in it. The seat was kinda far back but you can tell he thinks it's pretty neat.


once we got the seat scooted up, everything became 10X cooler. He was all about "driving" that airplane & he even kept checking the controls. He LOVED it.


The guy in the window wearing the blue shirt is Jim. Really one of the sweetest guys I've met. Him and his wife really loved talking and playing with our kiddos too.


This is the only picture we have of Xander in the Airplane cause he didnt want to stay in for very long. When we got home and started looking at the pictures he kept saying, "where's Xander?" He didt start thinking the airplanes were really cool until he saw some of them take off from the runway.


Jim was really sweet to even let Gavin take a turn. OH boy Gavin had a blast.


Jim and Mike doing airplane checks before the flights. Daddy got to go up first.


Gavin especially loved all the rocks...but he kept trying to pic them out of the pavement and was very confused as to why they were stuck.


taxi out to the runway. Mikey kept saying, "The airplane lives in the number 2 house!"


And there she blows! the boys LOVED watching daddy take off in that airplane.


Then it was finally my turn. And of course I took my camera up. Didnt wanna miss a photo op! Here is us right before we take off.


Rockwall from the sky. I made a coment about how everything looked like toys and Jim said, "yeah some of those toy houses are pretty expensive!" Then I realized how huge a lot of the houses were below us. there were a TON of very LARGE estates.


Since it was my first time flying in a small aircraft Jim said he'd take it easy. But the more the plane moved around, the more he realized exactly how much I was enjoying it. So he offered to show me what a G felt like. WWOO it was AWESOME! so here is proff that I've felt a G.


Pulling a G the other way. Jim also did a "rollercoster" where he went at a downward angle and you came out of your seat. IT WAS SO COOL!



Yeah thats Wal*Mart and Home Depot. Haha who knew they were so tiney! After this I stoped taking pictures for a while. Wanna know what on earth could get me to stop taking pictures? HE LET ME DRIVE! I FLEW AN AIRPLANE!!!!! And I flew for a while too. I'm goning to say anywhere from 4-10min. To me it felt like more cause it was really weird/cool/awesome that I was flying an airplane.



Banking as we come in to land.


Thats the runway in front of us. And Jim said since I enjoyed all the fun moves he'd show me a slide as we came in. Meaning we landed partly sidways. It was totally amazing!


Daddy and the boys sat and watched the planes at the airport coming and going. But Jim had the only Red one. When Mikey saw us coming in to land he said, "It's my red airplane bringing my mom!" This is mikey runing to give mommy one great big hug now that she was on the ground.




The boys were so good. They didnt get cranky once. Gavin is TOTALLY hooked on airplanes. Mike said he kept pointing and saying "WOW" to everything he saw. Everyone was tired when we went home but we didnt have one single cranky boy. All of them had one of the best days ever. And so did I.

Thoughts on Motherhood

It is a rare thing as a mother of 3 and expecting a 4th to find a moment of peace. But in those rare moments…you find yourself. Take your most frustrating day, and find the joy in the little moments. Cleaning my house is a chore, and I get frustrated because my children all want to be around me. Them being toddlers, they get into everything and make more of a mess than when I started. But a thought occurred to me. They keep coming around because the love me, they want my attention, and want me to play with them, and love them back. As my 1 year old, Gavin, walks into my room to show me something. I had to smile. Here I am…cleaning, and sweating the small details, when my son just wants to show his mom he loves her.

It is important to keep your house livable, but it doesn’t need to be spotless. And no matter how many times I told my children to go play today, they always came back to where I was cleaning. Sadly I did get frustrated and yelled a few times, “Why won’t you just go play?!” It is hard to recognize the moment when you are in it. But to them, they were playing. If you can seize that little moment, hold to it tightly. I hope I’ve been able to convey to my children how much they actually mean to me. Each one of them brings me new purpose, and brightens my day. A song from Mikey, a game of Peek-a-Boo from Xander, a kiss from Gavin, each rejuvenating act of love is worth every wet bed, stinky diaper, and temper tantrum.

I have noticed, sometimes it isn’t the child that throws the temper tantrum. A lot of the time, it’s me. But if I sit back, breath, and take in the full situation, I can become the mother I want to be. The kind gentle, understanding, mommy. And usually when you step back, you notice what a child was actually trying to do. Yes they put all their toys in the toilet, but really their toys just needed a bath, ant that was the only thing in the bathroom with water in it. Yes it was permanent marker in your favorite book, but it’s a picture of mommy. Yes there is cereal all over the floor, but he was just trying to be a big boy and poor it himself. Yes there is poo all over the floor, but he was just trying to change his brother stinky diaper. If we as parents can look through a child’s eyes, we will see a kinder world, and be able to understand more fully what our child was doing at that moment. Normally, as small children, they are trying to learn, or do something nice for a loved one. We just have to take a step back and use their eyes to see it. And the more that you do, you will find yourself complementing your children more, and teaching them valuable lessons that may have otherwise gotten lost in the daily grind of life.