Archives for November 2011

We’re moving right along.  The kids are thinking, coming to a consensus and voicing their thankfulness.

What are you thankful for?

I’m thankful for lots, but for now…the weekend and a stache’ bash tonight for my birthday!

Happy Saturday!

My 29th birthday came and went.  It was a good day.  It consisted of, but not limited to:

An early, early morning run with Susan.  Like so early it was still dark and so cold that we needed gloves and lots of layers.  We were looking pretty…hence the black and white…it’s more forgiving 🙂

Mustache socks from Chad…I immediately put them on…I love them.

Morning birthday greetings from my sweet Kelley kiddos…I love their morning look.

Flowers from a super great husband.

The Typography Sketchbook I have been eyeing.  It may have helped that I sent Josh the direct link to the book and said something along the lines of “This would be a great birthday gift.”

A cardboard house that Josh made for the wee ones to enjoy on my birthday.

New hand mixer from my mom…it has its own storage case and everything.  Even has bread hook attachments and one for making milkshakes.  My day just got brighter.

Gorgeous looking and smelling flowers from my dad!

Sweet CeCe’s at 3pm…yes, ice cream for snack…it was my birthday.

Some alone time in some of our local antique shops.  Scored this old wire basket for $3.

Heavenly popcorn, a new Africa tee and an awesome set of mustache greeting cards from my friend Courtney.

Happy birthday Dairy Queen icecream cake.

Icecream cake shared with my little family.  The perfect end to a pretty great birthday.

Looking forward to the big 3-0.  It shall be grand.

Happy Friday!

Today is my birthday.

Before the week started I told Josh I was going to celebrate the whole week.  I dubbed it my birthday week.

I once read an article about not setting people up to fail…aka not letting them forget your birthday.  I didn’t think Josh would forget, but just in case…

I left a reminder.

So far my birthday week has been quite fantastic.

Halloween on your birthday week is like double joy…it was superb.

We had, hands-down the best Buzz, Zurg and black cat on the block.

The kids ate lots of treats, as did I.

Huddy was joyful…I mean P.U.R.E J.O.Y.  Halloween is going to be his most favorite holiday…I just know it.

Birthday week means the beginning of November which also means the start of our Thankful Leaves.  I used to do this in my classroom.  A leaf a day, marked with something the kids are thankful for. The kids totally dig it.

November 1st: Toys (surprise, surprise)

November 2nd: Warm beds (maybe we’re doing something right).

Birthday week entitles you to Chick-fil-a breakfast…in your car…before going on a full on hunt for a new rug and chair…with your small sidekick.

We even had a Tuesday movie night.  Movie nights are meant for Fridays, but not on your birthday week.  We Redboxed Cars 2 and ate dinner at the coffee table.  FYI:  Cars 2 is only semi-okay.

Birthday week also was our “goodbye to Carmen” week.  Our poor dog Carmen is old and grouchy and miserable with 3 loud crazy kids running around.  Poor thing just wasn’t getting the attention she deserved.  Luckily my mother-in-law is in love with Carmen and was totally down with Carmen living at her house from now on.  The kids even went for a visit today.

And to share the birthday love, these two 4×12 canvases are up for grabs on my PPA Facebook page.  I’ll draw 2 winners tomorrow.

Happy Birthday To Me & Happy Wednesday Evening!

Have you ever made homemade biscuits?  No, me neither…that is, until my sweet friend Jessica taught our small group how to make them.

We have had the same small group Bible study for almost 3 years now.  I love these ladies and I think they love me 🙂  Jess is one of those people, well, that is organized and precise and just down right in love with office supplies.  She has even used a colored pie chart at Bible study before and don’t even get her started on graphing and charting our prayer requests…she’s crazy awesome like that.

We just finished up Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist.  Super, super amazing book.  So last week we discussed the few remaining chapters and then spent the rest of our time in biscuit making mode with Jess.  In her love for us and of all things organized and pretty, she even gave everyone their own bag, rolling pin, recipe card and hand butter blender thingy…she is probably mortified right now reading that I called it a “hand butter blender thingy”…I just can’t remember the correct word.  Sorry Jess.

And she gave me the “okay” on sharing her grandfathers biscuit recipe.  I must say it was pretty simple and the biscuits are down right delicious.

Okay so you need the following:

2 cups self rising flour

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

3/4 cup buttermilk

I love recipes with very few ingredients…makes my heart happy.

So here is the how to on these amazing biscuits:

Measure your flour out into a mixing bowl.

Add the butter to the flour and cut in butter using the “hand blender butter thing”.

Add buttermilk.

Stir with fork.

SIDE NOTE:  Do not over stir.  I didn’t catch that part of the instruction and was going to town stirring it up…trying to make sure every bit of flour was completely gone and ummm, well that isn’t how you are suppose to stir this dough.  You want to be an easy stirrer…not like me, gritting my teeth and taking some full-on aggression out on that dough.  That is the incorrect stirring way.

Flour your hands and roll dough into a ball.

Roll with rolling pin 1/2″ thick.

SIDE NOTE AGAIN:  Some of us got a little roller happy and ended up with biscuit pancakes…very, very flat…cough, cough, Ashley.  But these biscuits were actually quite yummy because they didn’t soak up the honey too quickly.

Cut your biscuits in circle form.  I loved how Jess used a can.

Put dough circles on cookie sheet or baking stone.

Pop those lovelies in the oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes.  Nice form Alissa.

And enjoy…seriously, enjoy.  I may have eaten 5 biscuits completely slathered with honey.  I was kind of hungry.

LAST SIDE NOTE:  I was the only one to have burned biscuits and to stir the ever loven’ goodness out of her biscuits as well.  When trying to figure out which biscuits were mine to take home with me, Courtney said, “Well which ones are burned?”  Ahhh, yes.  So all I had to do was find the completely burned bottoms and I could easily identify my biscuits.

If you don’t already have something planned for dinner tonight, I highly recommend you do breakfast for dinner…with Jess’ biscuits.  Love you Jess.

Happy Tuesday!