Happy Thanksgiving from Bella

So I still play the preschool teacher at home and I’m so glad Bella loves it! We have been talking and doing crafts about Fall, Pilgrims, Indians, and etc. this month. Had to post this ’cause I thought it was too cute! So Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!! I hope this makes you smile too 🙂
 

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more about “peegrims & aquins on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod

Thanksgiving Goodies pt.2

So as usual I started something I didn’t finish, but will this week. I have been testing some recipes for Thanksgiving and I wanted to finish sharing the ones my family loves!

So here’s the yummy recipes I’ve found so far:

Sweet Potato Casserole: This one is Trey’s absolute favorite! He would eat the whole thing by himself, seriously!

4 1/2 pd sweet potatoes, 1 cup of sugar (you can reduce this to 1/2 cup), 1/4 cup milk, 1/2 cup butter-softened (you can also reduce this to 4 tblsps), 2 lg eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 tsp salt

Bake sweet potatoes at 400 degrees for about an  hour or until tender. Let cool, peel and mash. Beat mashed sweet potatoes, sugar and next 5 ingredients at med speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Spoon into a greased 11 x 7 inch baking dish.

Topping

1/2 packed brown sugar, 1/3 cup all purpose flour, 3 tblsp butter melted, 1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 1/2 cups miniature marshmellows

Mix these ingredients together, I prefer using my hands to mix. 

Sprinkle diagonally over casserole in rows 2 inches apart. Alternate using brown sugar topping and miniature marshmellows.  Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.  Yields 6 to 8 servings                                                         

Bacon Wrapped Green Beans

The next one is just a different way to do green beans and it is delish! My mom actually did this last year and it’s so easy.

Whole green beans  ( you can use frozen, fresh, or canned. if you use frozen or fresh, put them in boiling  water for 3 to 4 minutes, then rinse in cold water) 

1 pkg of bacon  ( you can use turkey bacon to say on the fat)

1 bottle of Catalina dressing

Cut bacon strips in half. Hint: it’s so much easier to use scissors!  Make bundles of green beans, about 6-8 to a bundle and wrap bacon around bundles. You can secure the bundles with toothpicks if you want. Put bundles in casserole dish in one layer. Pour dressing over the bundles, I did not use a whole bottle of dressing but the recipe actually says to.  Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Yummy!!!!

Let me know if you try any of these and what you thought. And please share any of your Thanksgiving recipes!!!

hmm, hmm, good!

I have been in the holiday mood since Nov. 1st, so I decided to do a mock Thanksgiving dinner! Trey has decided that I need to do a different Thanksgiving entree until Thanksgiving, so we can work out the kinks. 😉 It turned out sooooo good that I decided to share the ones I have tried so far and maybe you could share with me 🙂 

The first I’ve tried is this crockpot turkey breast that completely rocked my world!!!! I am so not lying, it is amazing! It’s pretty easy and so tender, not dry at all. The only issue I had was pulling the turkey skin back, that was a first for me and I had to self talk through it 🙂 I tweeked it a little and I will share that too. 

Let me know what you think and don’t forget to share some ideas with me too!

Ingredients:

6-6 1/2 lbs turkey breast, 2 tsps olive oil, salt and pepper (1 tsp of each), 2 tbs rosemary (dried or fresh, you really can’t use too much of this stuff), 1 1/2 tsp minced garlic,  1 med. onion, 4 garlic cloves, 1/2 cup of chicken broth, 1/2 cup of white wine, 1/4 cup of marsala wine   ( I like the wine!)

1. Rinse the turkey and pat it dry with paper towels.

2. Rub turkey all over with the oil.

3. Carefully pull back skin over breast and rub with seasonings (salt, pepper, rosemary, and minced garlic). I mixed these together in a bowl and then did the rub instead of doing it one at a time.

4. Carefully pull skin back down and rub the skin with remaining seasonings.

5. Place breast, meaty side up into a 5 quart slow cooker. 

6. Peel the onion, cut it into quarters and place around edges of pot.’

7. Peel garlic cloves and place around edges of pot, and pour broth/wine mixture around the turkey.

8. Cook for 9 hrs. if frozen or 7 1/2 hrs. if thawed, on low or to 170 degrees internal temp.  

* I cooked a thawed 4 1/2 lb turkey on high for 3 1/2 to 4 hrs.

* Remember a it takes a frozen turkey 2 to 3 days to thaw in the fridge

* I also basted the breast with the broth/wine mixture a couple of times while it was cooking.

9. Let bird stand 10 min. before carving.

*** My mom gave me this little nugget: take the leftover turkey, juices, onion, and garlic from the crockpot and make turkey and dressing!!!!!  Just add some veggies and you have another meal.  It was amazing as well! I’ll post that one tomorrow 🙂

My Little Treehugger…

My daughter Bella loves nature! I mean seriously, loves nature and all that comes with it. Whether it be bugs, dirt, leaves, or etc. she is in heaven. Here are a couple of pic’s from today of her collecting leaves. It was the cutest thing, as she was finding her stash of leaves, she was singing a song I just made up when teaching Pre-K. In between singing you could here her saying “here’s yellow and red and brown and ernie” (that’s what she calls orange b/c Ernie on Sesame Street is orange). The song is really nothing amazing, but does introduce the Autumn season and colors. So I thought I would share a fun thing to do with your toddlers if they are driving you crazy! After collecting leaves you can sort the colors, count the leaves, compare big and small leaves, talk about the season, or even make a leaf collection. So I thought I would share my thoughts and my song, so here it is! (sung to the tune London Bridges Falling Down)

All the leaves are falling down,             

All around, on the ground,

All the leaves are falling down,

Autumn is here.

Red and yellow

Orange and brown

All around, on the ground

Red, yellow, orange, and brown

Autumn is here!                                                                    

There’s a change a comin’….

So we have change coming to us, that is a fact. Change can be uncomfortable, challenging, and unpredictable. Change is also refreshing, strengthening, and restoring. Some people embrace change and others reject it. I am one who usually rejects it because it is unpredictable and I like structure and to know how things are going to go step by step. This drives my husband crazy! He is the opposite, he embraces change, he even looks to change things that don’t need to be changed just to have something different. We make an interesting couple when making decisions, you should be a fly on the wall!! 🙂

I said that to say, embrace this change and pray for our president. So many of us prayed for God’s will and we have to trust that this is His will. I have to honestly say that when Obama won last night, I didn’t feel fear, anger, or like our world was coming to an end. I felt proud for our country and the history it made last night. I was remembering all of the stories I heard in school of the sufferings people went through in order to have equal rights. I was remembering Martin Luther King’s speeches, and the price he paid. Last night I saw a man’s dream and prayer from over 45 years ago come to pass. That is amazing to me.

I have to say that no I don’t agree completely with the views of our President-Elect, but I will pray for God to change his heart. I will pray for God to lead him and help him. He has to me the biggest weight of any president ever, because he is treading new ground and the future is looking to this president like never before. We need to honor him and pray for him. I still believe that God can change the hearts and views of kings and queens. Our children need to see us honoring our authority, and not fearing, disrespecting, and trashing him or his family.  

So let’s pray that our new President-Elect will succeed during his term and God will bring change to our nation through him!

Adventure #3: Halloween and my 2 yr. old

So there’s some controversy in the Christian community about Halloween. I agree that it has an evil foundation and I do not agree in any way with it’s origin. On the other hand I don’t want my daughter not to have fun dressing up and collecting a ton of candy. So first step in this festive night is talking my 2 yr. old into keeping her costume on. This took much effort, but after alot of screaming and crying, she gave in. So we dressed Bella Boo up, went to the grandparent’s house, and then found a Harvest Festival to go to. We had a blast and didn’t expose our 2 year old to vampires, witches, or any of the scary creatures walking our streets last night. I really don’t think she is ready for that yet and I’m not ready to explain what they are. Maybe next year. 😉 Our friends Josh and Faith brought along there beautiful daughters Livie and Ava (Ava is not shown, she was cozy inside of a front pack).  So I just want to say to my Christian community, if someone you know celebrated Halloween to the tee or hid inside there house and fasted all night, be kind, don’t judge, and don’t be haters!  Respect each other and share the love man!!!!!! Trust me we can spend our time on alot more important things! Hope you enjoy the pic’s!!!!

p.s. and yes this is our same costume from last year, it still fit and it has got to be my favorite so far!

              

         

                    

Our adventures continued….

Adventure #2:Getting the prize pumpkin to carve.

We headed out to a local farmers market to go get “the” pumpkin. Everyone was involved, including the dog, which Bella loved!  She laughed the whole ride to the market, one of those great belly laughs, it was great! Since we are having real fall weather it was cold, so it set the mood for pumpkin shopping and carving. It also made our trip fast b/c we could not stand being outside.

When we got home we ate chili and then got started. I had seen a pumpkin on Martha Stewart that I wanted to do, which required alot of Trey and not alot of me…perfect 🙂 So we cheated a little by using power tools, but I bet my mom would have loved cheating a little when we were growing up. Bella wasn’t sure about the slimy stuff inside the pumpkin, but finally stuck her hand in. She was then sure that was stuff she did not want to touch! …….so here’s our pumpkin!!!!!!

p.s. Martha gave a tip: if you rub vaseline on the pumpkin where you have carved, it will not turn brown as fast and last longer. So far it has worked!                                                                                                          

p.s.s. Bella gave a tip: if you rub vaseline all over the pumpkin it’s really messy, but makes the pumpkin very shiny!  You can also rub it all over your face and all in your hair, so that you match your shiny pumpkin!

 

                

                               

The Taylors Harvest Adventures!

Let me start off by saying that down here in L.A. (lower Alabama), we rarely get fall weather.  I’m not sure that I’ve seen the leaves change before December since I’ve lived here. Well, God answered mine and I’m sure a few others prayers this year. We have been having 36 degree weather at night and 60’s during the day! We have red, yellow, orange, and brown leaves! It’s a Fall Harvest miracle 🙂

The fam has been doing the fall harvest thing, so here are some pic’s from our adventures.

Adventure #1: the pumpkin patch.  This is Beebe Farms in Whitehouse Fork, Al. and it is a real working farm. Here we fed goats, went on a pony ride, and saw all the usual farm animals. My daughter was in heaven! My little Dr. Doolittle fed a bluejay, which was pretty neat.  The bird was raised by the workers at the farm after falling out of it’s nest.  They set it free, but it stays around and is not afraid of the visitors.  We ended our farm adventure with a hayride to a pumpkin patch. It was alot of fun and worth the ride to the middle of nowhere!

Will post tomorrow our next Harvest Adventure!

                  

                  

                  

                  

our summer vacate

So I’m playing catch up and this one is on our vacation we took at the end of Sept. to Rockhill and Charleston, SC.  We have friends in Rockhill so we stayed with them a couple of days before heading over to Charleston, which is our favorite place yet! Our friends have a little girl, Isabelle and a son, Caleb.  Bella and Isabelle got along great, they became good friends 🙂 We also had a great time  catching up with our friends Jody and Gina, we miss them so much. 

So on our way to Charleston we stopped by the zoo in Columbia. This was Bella’s first time to a big zoo and she LOVED it!  Anyone who knows my daughter knows she is crazy about any kind of animal, insect, or critter.  We got to feed giraffes, cows, and birds, saw anykind of animal you can imagine, and ride a choo choo train and a pony!  Feeding giraffes was my highlight, that has to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  It was a good little pit stop, until we couldn’t find gas, which was horrible!

We actually stayed on the beach outside of Charleston, which was nice, but not as beautiful as our white sandy beaches here.  Then during the day we would ride to Charleston to site see and eat. Charleston has the most amazing food!  We did a horse and buggy ride, which  I would not recommend doing with a toddler, in the South Carolina heat.  She was hot and the ride was an hour long. She entertained herself by singing the ABC’s to the entire group, completely drowning out our tour guide. Practiced her fine motor and manipulative skills by breaking  her daddy’s glasses. Tested her reflexes by kicking the lady in front of us in the butt.  Then cooled herself off by pouring an entire bottle of water on her and her daddy…..it was an experience.  🙂  We did have a great time, minus the buggy ride. Here are some of the pic’s and the rest you can view on flicker.

                              

                 

    

    

I hope I’m back to stay!

Ok, so it’s been awhile……to be exact 9 weeks and 6 days.  Alot has went on, so I will do my best to play catch up over the next few days on only the important things. 

I am sad to say that my friends baby Alli, died a week ago today.  It was a long struggle for this little warrior, but now she can rest with Jesus.  Three weeks before she died she had surgery to open up her jugular and an artery outside of her heart.  The blockage outside of the heart was a opened successfully, but the jugular was completely closed and she had lost it forever.  Her health seemed to decline week by week, until my friend got a call from the nurse that she was very sick.  She died that night after her mommy held her for the last time.  Alli Nicole lived up to her name, which means “victorious warrior”.  She was indeed a warrior that fought until the end.  Please keep my friend Janna, and her husband Richard in your prayers.  I can’t imagine what they are going through, but I know that God will help them.  Thank you to everyone who prayed and fasted for Alli.  We will miss you Alli and always remember you.