Wordless Wednesday - New Friends

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No Tackles, Just Time Well Spent

What a great week. ThisThanksgiving for whatever reason was just a good one. Maybe because I didn't have the stress of hosting. I had easy side dishes to prepare and we were eating at 5pm instead of our usual 1pm. But I woke up early before the rest of the house, watched my fave Thanksgiving movie (Home for the Holidays) had my coffee, caught some turkey bowling on TV and just hung out with the family. Bill and the kids spent most of the day playing card games. It was nice. I am so thankful for this family God has blessed me with.

I did manage to sneak out Friday evening and get more Christmas shopping done. I am doing pretty good with it this year. Doing online shopping which is something I really haven't done before. I even have a few people finished up. I love it!! I know some of you out there are done already and good for you. I usually like to get out a little when it is actually Christmas time so I can soak up all the decorations and listen to the wonderful music. So I usually don't even start until December.

We had our daughters birthday party Saturday and we had a good turnout. She had some of her friends there and some cousins we don't see very often showed up too. We went swimming at a local hotel and it was so much fun. It went off without a hitch until last night when I realized I left my charger to my camera plugged in the wall in our room. I need to call today and see if they still have it. My dh is gonna think I did it on purpose since I have been pricing cameras and getting ready to upgrade. Now without a charger I will be forced to buy a new one. I really didn't plan that out and I hope they still have it as it will be a few weeks before I purchase anything new.

This was our first time staying in a hotel with our kids. I know bad parents, we just don't travel with our kids. Heck, we don't travel at all!! I am just waiting until they are older when they aren't so wild. But they were really good. They thought it was just great to sleep there and wake up and eat breakfast there. They will really love it this winter when we stay overnight at one of the indoor water parks. This was just a warm up for them.
We got home Sunday and put up our Christmas Tree. I am loving how excited Natalie is getting. I have 2 trees up right now and we will have 3. Since my mil lives here now, she has a tree with all her special ornaments so I told her she could put it up in our dining room. The one at the top of the stairs I put up last week, so when we put up the living room tree Natalie said "2 trees??" She thought that was great. And then yesterday I got out my lighted garland to wrap the banister and she says "more trees?" She is so cute these days I could gobble her up!

Yesterday was Elena's real birthday. She is officially 5! My mil took her out to lunch and gave her presents and then my aunt stopped by after work and hung out with us for a little bit and brought her another gift. We made cut out turkey cookies for her to bring to school today and frosted them last night. We all went to church and had our picture taken for our directory and it actually came out! They luckily put a bright red background up that did not look good with our outfits, so it saved me spending a bunch of money.

Today I get to spend time with my grandma. She gets together with her sisters and they have a bingo party. They bring gifts for prizes and then have a potluck. I haven't went for years and I am looking forward to it. Me and Natalie will go and spend time with them while Ethan and Elena are in school.

So just sharing what has been going on with me the last few days. It was a great weekend and I am so Thankful for it!

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Thanksgiving!

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Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Tackle it Tuesday

I am so excited! One of the things that has kept me from blogging is my super slow computer. We have high speed cable Internet, but our memory was soo low, my computer was bogged down and it took forever to do anything! So my hubby finally got this baby an update and I am amazed. It is like having a new computer again. I was pulling up websites last night and couldn't believe it didn't take an hour! YAY!! So some of your sites that I used to visit I can come by again. Love it!

So I have a few tackles for today. I am helping at my daughters preschool for their Thanksgiving feast. I love to do this, they dress up like pilgrims and Indians. Last year Elena dressed up like a pilgrim, this year she is an Indian. I always am surprised at how many preschoolers eat the turkey dinner.

I have to head to the post office and ship out a camera I just sold on eBay. I am loving this eBay thing. Definitely can see myself walking around my house and just selling everything for the pure thrill of the auction. Could seriously be dangerous. Must proceed with caution.

Also each of the kids are going to have friends over after school which will help me as they won't be needing my constant attention. My tackles for today are the upstairs and downstairs closets. Since the mother in law moved in, I lost some closet space and am freaking because I don't know where to hide Christmas presents!! We are very limited with hiding places in this house. So today I am going to create some space.

At some point I need to sneak over to the next town and buy a few things that are on my shopping list for Christmas. All on sale for 4 day pre -Thanksgiving sales. Savings of like $50, so I gotta get over and do it!

Just need to make some space first. Not too hard of a tackle today and no, no pictures are allowed as It really is overfilled and nobody wants to see those messes.

Menu Monday and other ramblings

I have been doing things for meal planning a little different these days. Since my hubby works pretty much about 9-10 mths out of the year and will be home here in a few weeks, I have been trying to make sure we have at least 3 weeks worth of meals on hand. So instead of just planning weekly, I have a running list on the side of our fridge of meals on hand and we just pick something. It has worked really well although right now we are full. I won a 10lb turkey from my son's pto raffle and we almost didn't have room in the freezer for it!!

Monday: Chicken Quesadillas and Tomato soup -chicken soup for Natalie. She caught a bug yesterday:(
Tuesday: Mother in Law cooking
Wednesday: Tator tot casserole
Thursday: Gobble, Gobble - Guess what we'll be eating??
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Friday: Thanksgiving leftover casserole - Love this!!
Saturday: My daughter's 5th Birthday party. Pizza and cake!!
Sunday: Spaghetti pie, salad

We don't eat turkey for days and days I try to make as many meals as I can out of the leftovers and freeze them so we can enjoy turkey a little here and there. Last year I was able to make
Turkey soup, Turkey Chili, Turkey Tetrazzini and The Turkey Casserole

LEFTOVER THANKSGIVING CASSEROLE
3 Tbls butter
2 Tbls flour
1can (12 oz) Evaporated Milk
1 C water
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp onion powder
2 Tbls butter
1 C finely crushed herb-seasoned dry bread stuffing mix (I used stove top)
1 C cooked, diced turkey
1 C shredded cheddar cheese
2 C leftover mashed potatoes
Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x13 baking dish

2. Melt 3 Tbls butter in a saucepan over low heat. Blend in flour, Slowly stir in evaporated milk and water, then season with salt, pepper and onion powder. Stir sauce over low heat for 5 min.

3. In a separate saucepan, over low heat, melt 2 tbls butter. Blend in the dry stuffing mix.

4. Place turkey in the baking dish, pour sauce over the turkey, then sprinkle with Cheddar cheese. Spread mashed potatoes over cheese. Top mashed potatoes with the stuffing mixture.

5. Bake 45 min

I am getting almost giddy this week knowing it is the official kick off of the Christmas season. We had an early Thanksgiving get together this past weekend with family and it really put me into high gear! I really am looking forward to this Holiday with our 2 year old. She is really starting to talk and I know she will be so much fun!

I hope everyone has lots of yummy meals planned for this week! Let the Holiday food begin :)

oh yea, Hop over to Laura's blog for more meal planning.