Diaper Cream Mishap

In other news, here is a picture of my son Joby. This is what I walked in on when he was supposed to be sleeping.

Do you notice his frown? This is because he knows he is in big trouble. He had used an entire jar of diaper cream and smeared it all over his head and carpet. Oh and in case you are a mom and you keep your diaper cream within your little curious toddlers reach, Dawn dish soap gets it out! You learn so much when you have kids!

Malachi

This was sent to me in an email a long time ago. It is good stuff!

Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study. That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot;then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it" If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

I wouldn't normally copy an email in my blog but it had a good message. And now I dont have to think of anything to write. You guys are rejoicing right now aren't you?

Spaghetti & Meatballs

These are the BEST meatballs in the world!

There are a lot of things I am eminently not qualified to comment on, this however is not one of them. I can guarantee you that when you make these you will love me even more than you do now. You are going to want to bring me cookies, cakes, chocolates, flowers (I like wildflowers and milk chocolate, in case you are writing this down)
Ok so lets get this show on the road!

You will need:
4 slices of bread
¼ cup Parmesan (the powder)
¼ cup of water
2 eggs
2 cloves garlic
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
1 tbs. Parsley
1 lb. hamburger meat

In a bowl tear the bread into small pieces, like so.

(Please try to ignore my photography skills)

Add the Parmesan, water, eggs, salt, pepper, and parsley. Than add 2 cloves of crushed garlic. (warning: I am in love with garlic, it is in almost all my main dishes-it must be fresh, and it must be crushed. This is mandatory)



Stir it all up with a fork until it looks like this


Then add in the meat. Note: You can use beef, or beef/pork or if you want to be healthy (which I would not advise) then you can use ground turkey. I just use beef.
Stir it all up again, till it looks like this


Then make into balls. I make mine golf ball size, but you can make them bigger or smaller depending on your preference.


Once this is done heat up a skillet or large pan to med/high or 350. I use an electric skillet. These babies are the best, I use it to cook a lot of things. A worthy investment. Brown the meatballs on all sides.


The meatballs wont be completely cooked through, but thats ok bc they will simmer for awhile.
Once this is done start on the sauce.

The sauce recipe is as follows
1 Jar Ragu Traditional. You can make your own sauce if you are super ambitious, but since I am not ambitious at all, I choose the jar. This one is the BEST, you can use Prego or Newman’s or some specialty sauce but this particular one is the only one I can endorse. I have tried others and they have just left me disappointed. Disappointed and alone. It was very traumatic, I would like to forget all about it.

Yummy!


Ok moving on, you will need
Another 2 cloves garlic crushed
¼ cup Parmesan (the powder)
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 tsp. Oregano

Mix the above and set aside

Chop some green onions,add the green onions to the meatballs to cook them a little (you can add as many green onions as you want) I forgot to take a picture of this step, so you are on your own.

After they have cooked for a few minutes add the sauce mixture to the skillet. Stir gently to cover meatballs . Cover and let simmer a few hours or less. You can really cook it as long as you want. Or as little as you want.

mmmmmmmmmm! There are not words.

Ok I forgot to plate it and take a picture, instead I scarfed it down. I don't have a lot of patience. I did get a picture of the meatball I tried while the rest were simmering. Check it.....

On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed. Ahhh good times. Enjoy!

WAITLIST!!

Yay! We are on the waitlist for our adoption! This means we are done with the paperwork and on to officially waiting for our baby girl! I am so pumped to be done with the paperwork! Gladney is saying the wait for a referral for a toddler is about 6 months. We shall see, I am kinda expecting it to take longer than that. I am hoping February is our month! No matter, God has the perfect child for our family already picked out for us. We already love her so much!

The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am going to start posting recipes to the blog! They are awesome ones that I love. To begin, I am going to share my chocolate chip cookie recipe! I have had a lot of people ask me for this recipe so it seems fitting to start with it. They are pure deliciousness. I could marry these cookies, take them out and show them a good time. They are better than your momma's. and my momma's. It's true, I wouldn't lie to you, at least not about this. When I post recipes I plan on taking pictures of the steps in making the recipe as well, like pioneer woman ,whom I love. But since cookies are easy to make and because I didn't think of this until after I made them, I will not be showing pictures of the cookies except in their final stages. Here is the finished product.


See how glorious? oooh boy!

Ok so grab a bowl and a fork and lets do this! (I do not use a mixer to make cookies, it tends to over whip them, but you do what you want. I am not the boss of you, I wouldn't want that job.)

1 stick of butter(not margarine). By the way none of my recipes contain margarine. Butter is the only way to go. It is the only way, ok? Butter makes the world a better place. Margarine only wishes it could be as cool, but it is an impostor and therefore has no place in my kitchen. This brings me to my second point which is none of my recipes are for dieters. Ok!

Put the room temperature stick of butter in the bowl and add:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar

cream together then add

1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla (Again I go for the pure vanilla bc like I said before I didn't like impostors like imitation vanilla.)

mix completely again and then add

1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda

mix completely then add

1 cup chocolate chips (I usually add a little more) Whats the harm?

once done cover and chill for a couple of hours or in your freezer for awhile or overnight. (I usually chill mine overnight bc it makes them turn out perfect every time) I can not stress this point enough folks, dough needs to be chilled, it's too soft after you make it to go straight in the oven. This is how cookies turn out flat. That and they don't have enough flour in them. If you notice this recipe is a lot like the toll house recipe but it has more flour and more sugar. Sugar helps the cookies have a little crunch on the edge and flour makes them denser. This recipe makes about 15 cookies. Double it if you want to use a whole bag of chips. I usually don't double mine bc we like fresh cookies right out the oven and don't need a lot of leftovers. Once the cookies are chilled preheat oven to 375 and ball the cookies into the size of a golf ball and place on pan (this may seem big but they turn out smaller than you think). i cook them 10 to 12 minutes. This will vary just cook until a little brown around the edges and a little on the top. do not overcook! They should have a little crust but mostly chewy and gooey and wonderfulness. If you make them let me know what you think!!

My Better Half

So I have told you about my three little darlings. So I figured I need to move on to my sweetie.

Mmmmm, where to begin…….Well he is a wonderful, outgoing, passionate, loveable man.

But who is he really?

-Well for starters he likes to rile up the kids when he gets home, get them good and crazy before bedtime. He has a little child inside him, the doctors say if they remove it, he’ll die.

-He drinks from the tap, no ice. (this is a wierd phenomenon to me)

-He loves chocolate covered peanuts and movie theatre popcorn

-He scares easy. (this one is particularly fun bc I get to jump out and scare him a lot)

-He loves sports more than me :) (Im only a little kidding)

-He wears his dress socks with his gym shorts

-He cannot dress himself. It’s similar to dressing a child. There are times in the morning where he will wake me up just to see if something matches (If you know me, you probably know how much I value my sleep, I’ve killed people for less). Sometimes I contemplate setting his clothing out for him the evening before so as to fend off any bickering about the fact that brown shirts don’t go with black pants or that striped pants and plaid shirts clash in the early morning hours.

-He texts me important information, the kind you generally prefer to hear in person or by phone or in my case not at all. Two weeks ago he texted me that he was in a car accident. What the huh?
Then just last week he texted me that he smashed his brand new iphone in the car door. (Don’t even ask) Ok so both of these things fall into the bad news category…..what’s next?

“I quit my job today.”

“I ran over the dog………sorry.”

Texting should only be used for non serious stuff. Here are some examples that I use and you should too.

“Who is #23 and why are they inspecting my jeans?”

“If people from Poland are called poles, why aren’t people from Holland called Holes?”

“I don’t feel like you take me seriously.”

“Why don’t you ever text me back?”

“I wished I liked chicken salad”

“I had to take out the trash today bc you forgot, you're lucky I didn’t get hurt.”

All this to say-He really is my BETTER half. I'm better for knowing him.