Food Friday (on Monday)

Here's a great dessert recipe that I used on Thanksgiving this year. Enjoy!


Dirt Cake

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter, softened 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar 2 (3.5 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix

3 cups milk 1 (12 ounce) Cool Whip 1 pkg Oreos

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Chop cookies very fine in food processor. The white cream will disappear.
2.	Mix butter, cream cheese, and sugar in bowl.
3.	In a large bowl mix milk, pudding and whipped topping together.
4.	Combine pudding mixture and cream mixture together.
5.	Layer in pan, starting with cookies then cream mixture. Repeat layers.
6.	Chill until ready to serve.

My Favorite Guy in the whole wide world!!!

Today is a very important day!  It is the day that my favorite person was born, 36 Now 38!) years ago.  :-)  This post is dedicated to him!  I love you, baby!

I think I will just give a few reasons why he's my favorite person, but if you know him, you already know!  Enjoy the pictures!

1.  He loves me more than I could ever have hoped to be loved!  Just for who I am.

2.  He has a heart for God.

3.  He's a wonderful father to our children.

4.  He's my best friend.

5.  He's the funniest person, EVER!

6.  He never gives up.  Even on me, when I have.

7.  He's a ROCKIN' guitarist!

8.  He can admit when he's wrong...usually.  :-)

9.  He builds gorgeous guitars!  Agape Guitars  (Had to get his blog in here somewhere!)

10.  He inspires me to be a better me!


This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Rich.  I've been with him for 16 (18!) years and I am still learning new things about him.  He's a fantastic guy and I can't imagine what my world would be like if not for him.  He has taught me a lot, and I'm not even close to being done with him!  So, make sure you tell him Happy Birthday!

Thanksgiving (A day late)

Those of you who know me, know that I am late for almost everything.  I was even late for my own wedding!  It's not a fun affliction to be stuck with, but I do what I have to do.  Also, I usually use Fridays for Food Fridays...that will come out on Monday.  Make sure you check it out!  With that out of the way, let me get down to business.

This is what I am thankful for this year:

My husband, Rich, is the best thing that has ever happened to me!  Honestly, I can't imagine what my life would be like if I had not happened upon him 16 years ago.  He's my best friend and I am incredibly thankful to be married to the wonderful man!  He works outrageously hard so I can be a stay-at-home mom to our children...which brings me to number two.

My kids.  I think I have the funniest children around!  They make me laugh on a daily basis.  At 10 and almost 5 they are still really cuddly, so I get so many cuddles that I can hardly stand it!  I am thankful that God trusted me to raise them.  

Sharon Holbert and Bethany Powroznik.  I am so truly thankful for these ladies.  They love my son.  They love him enough to be tough on him.  They believe in his potential.  If it weren't for these two ladies, Wesley wouldn't be where he is today.  Because of them, I have the option to either start him in kindergarten next year or go ahead and hold him back another year.  I have that option because I think that he could make it in kindergarten.  Their hard work has given that to us.  Bethany is Wesley's pre-k teacher.  Sharon is his Developmental Specialist.  I will be forever thankful for them.  They are helping Wesley be able to function in this crazy world.

Thanks for reading this.  It's a great feeling to be thankful for something!

Weekend and new blog...nothing creative here.

I have a new (revived) blog for my soap! http://foggymorningsundries.blogspot.com/  Come follow me over there!


I hope you all had a great weekend.  Mine was a little up and down.  Friday ended up pretty great because a problem that I was having with Wesley's SSI got resolved and I had a fantastic time with the MOPS ladies at Mom's Night Out!  We had an absolute blast!  We played "I've never..." and I revealed a little more about myself than I wanted to, but that's the beauty of these ladies...no one was judging me.  We were all laughing and had a good time.  I knocked Lisa out of the chair, but was nice and helped her up and let her have it.  :-)

Saturday was a pretty good day too.  Nick got to go hunting for the very first time...I will have to recount some stories later this week.  The we got together with his 4H group and went to see Megamind.  That was a really good movie!  Loved the soundtrack!  Songs like "Back in Black", "Bad to the Bone", "Bad."  Great stuff!  Then we went to eat at McDonald's.  We had a good time!

Yesterday is where the down came to play.  Got the kids all dressed and ready to go to church.  I was excited to go, Rich was playing at CRC this weekend.  We got in the car, with the exception of Nick, he was still in the house...went to put the car into park to go see what was taking him so long and the gear shift fell off in my hand.  Ok, either this thing just broke or I suddenly have super human strength!  Wow!  Let's see what else I can do!  Nope, it just broke.  Of course, I was sitting in front of the house in the middle of the road, in reverse.  Nick couldn't get out of the door, so...not thinking here...I shut the car down.  Great, now I can't get it started again because it's in gear!  ARGH!!  Luckily, there isn't much traffic on my road at 8:30 on a Sunday morning.

"Dad, can you come rescue me?  I'm stuck!"  Dad played the knight in shining armor. He took my steering column apart so I can shift gears manually.  Ugh.  Checked it out online, apparently, this is a common problem with these vehicles.  And something like $2000 to replace the steering column!!  Are you kidding me?!?  It's almost Christmas, I don't have that kind of money!! (I wouldn't have that kind of money even if it WASN'T almost Christmas, but that's beside the point!)

And this morning, my kids decided that 4:30 was a FINE time to be awake!  (ZZZzzzzz.....)

Anyway, that was my weekend.  How was yours?

Food Friday

Today I am posting a pretty simple dish for pasta.  I tried making homemade pasta this week, but I think I will wait until I have a pasta machine before I make it again.  I don't think I cooked it long enough either, but oh well.  Got a nice arm workout from it!  Here you go!

Oh, before I post it, I would love to hear from you all.  I am on the lookout for some great holiday recipes.  Have one?  Care to share?  I would love to try them!

Creamy Spinach and Tomato Pasta

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb thin spaghetti 2 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes 10 oz baby spinach leaves

1 cup sour cream 2 tablespoon prepared basil pesto

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until tender. Drain.
2.	While you wait for the pasta, combine the tomatoes and spinach in a saucepan over medium heat. When the spinach begins to wilt, stir in the sour cream and pesto. Toss sauce with drained pasta and serve immediately.

I've done it.

I finally went and did it.  I opened an Etsy shop.  It's called Foggy Morning Sundries.  I joined the site about 18 months ago, but never got up the nerve to start selling.  After the craft show that I did last weekend, I did it.  I love making soap!  I love trying to be creative and coming up with new things.  Here's to trying to make a go of it!  Wish me luck and come check it out!

Meaning-full Monday

Coming up on Thanksgiving, I am seeing lots of people post what they are thankful for.  I love seeing these posts on FB.  I love that people are taking the time to reflect on even the small things in life to be thankful for.  Sometimes it's only small things that you have.  Then, it's the small things that get you through those huge awful things.  I have several big things, but right now, (knock on wood) we are doing quite well with them.  Today, my big awful thing staring me in the face is HOUSEWORK.

My weekend was super busy!  I had a Pampered Chef party, a craft show, and a birthday party all this weekend.  That being said...my house is a WRECK!  I am going to chose to be grateful for it though.  I am choosing to be thankful that I have a house.  That I have things that need cleaning up.  That I have the children that so enjoy wrecking my house.  I wouldn't trade any of that for the world!  So, there you have it.  I am turning my big awful thing around and being thankful!  I am choosing to walk through this day with a happy heart, not grieving all the work that needs to be done.  If I look hard enough, I can always find something to be thankful and grateful for.

As I am typing this, I am delighted to look out my window at a family of deer passing by on the hillside. See, it's the small things that can almost always make me smile.