Happy Thanksgiving Friends

I hope you all have a wonderful & joyful Thanksgiving!
Be Blessed! :)
Philippians 1:3 "I thank my God every time I remember you."

For Everything Give Thanks

For all that God in mercy sends;
For health and children, home and friends,
For comfort in the time of need,
For every kindly word and deed,
For happy thoughts and holy talk,
For guidance in our daily walk,
FOR EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS!

For beauty in this world of ours,
For verdant grass and lovely flowers,
For song of birds, for hum of bees,
For refreshing summer breeze,
For hill and plain, for streams and wood,
For the great ocean's mighty flood,
FOR EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS!

For sweet sleep which comes with night,
For the returning morning's light,
For the bright sun that shines on high,
For the stars glittering in the sky,
For these and everything we see,
O Lord, our hearts we lift to thee.
FOR EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS!

~H.I. Tupper

Stuffed

The stuff I like to stuff myself with until I am totally stuffed!!!! ;)

Cranberry Salad
Stuffing
Sweet Potato Casserole (the one that taste like candy..yep, that one)
Broccoli/Cheese & Rice casserole
Endless rolls
and one of my favorite...my mom's cheese logs

Love, love these foods! I can't wait until this time next week, I am so eating the major left overs from Thanksgiving day. :)
YEP, these are the foods, I'll go back for over and over again until I'm so very stuffed! :)

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

in my home! :) I spent most of the day yesterday pulling down some of the Christmas boxes and started decorating my mantle and t.v. entertainment center! I had my little 5 year old helper, Annalise, helping me undo boxes. She was beaming ear to ear and singing right along with me as we had Christmas music in the background. :)
I love this time of year so I always try to get most of my decorations up before we leave for Thanksgiving holidays! We are always away the whole week of Thanksgiving since the girls get a whole week of no school and Ryan has absolutely no responsibilities in church life. So, I like to get all my Christmas decorations up on the inside and outside so all we have to do when we return from Thanksgiving break is put up our tree! I LOVE this time of year and the joy it brings so I'm like bring on the jolly. ;) I try to do this as early as I can without totally getting the "look" and "question" (are you already getting the Christmas decorations down) from my hubby! The funny thing is that early in our marriage Ryan would never listen to Christmas music until Thanksgiving was over....well, now he kindly enjoys my cheer WAY before Thanksgiving! ;)
So, snow village is up, along with some holly & berries, and my David Frykman Santa's and I still have a lot more but I sure do like the feel so far! My favorite part was when Addie and Avery walked through the door yesterday and beamed too from ear to ear and said.."I love Christmas". Made mommy's heart happy! :)
Hope you all are getting ready and excited for what this Christmas season will bring. Tis the Season!

A little Country...

A little Country Music, please! :) I love it! And a favorite thing I like to do is to watch any of the Country music award shows on tv. Its like a free concert of all the most popular artists in a 2 hour time span. :) I like to hear the new songs, see them sing their most popular, or all the beautiful dresses that are worn that night. Fun stuff!
Well one of my favorite bands, Lady Antebellum sang a GREAT song last night...it was awesome, totally loved it. I was like, whelp, I'll be downloading that onto itunes!
So here it is..enjoy it. :) It's called Hello World!

Endless Fall favorite dinners

I love to cook, try new things, and like my previous post on my favorite magazine, I love to find new yummy food ideas that my family will actually try! (not stare at and say whats that?!) ;)
This time of year...I love to use the crock pot as much as I can or my big dutch oven cookware to make soups, stews, or anything else that makes for a scrumptious Fall dinner.
Here are some favorites that I don't let a Fall/Winter go by without putting this on the dinner table! :)
Taco Soup
Chicken & Dumplings
Chicken Pot Pie
Beef Tortilla Soup
Chili...(OF COURSE, I'm Texan) ;)
Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

I LOVE how this time of year, it just makes dinner life a little more simple and doable. It seems like you can get away with a bowl of soup and salad more. :)
I look forward to many more dinners like these above and starting it out tonight with some Chicken and Dumplings!!!!
OH..and a little CMA awards...Yeehaw yall! Have a great dinner! :)

A Favorite

One of my favorite things to do this time of year is curl up to my favorite magazine which would be....
Southern Living


Totally love everything about this magazine especially around the Fall/Winter time and Holidays! :) It gives you amazing recipes and crafty decoration ideas, must see small town places, best travel for Fall foliage, and anything else that just makes this time of year wonderful. My mom bought me this subscription and its the gift that just keeps on giving. When I get in the mail...I literally can't wait to sit down & curl up on the couch and read from front to cover.
Anybody else have a favorite magazine that's a must read or an excuse to have down time?? Please share... if not, at least get the November and December edition of Southern Living. I know you wont be disappointed. :)

The Most Interesting Weekend Ever....

OK, first off, you have to know that I start my weekends on Thursday night! ;) I work 2 days a week and when my Thursday is over and because Ryan has Fridays off, I officially count it my weekend! :) Now, last Thursday, I had this grand idea that we should do a fun, family night something out of our "routine" to help break the mundane of a week...plus it would kick off my Avery girl's birthday the next day.
So, I made one of our favorite dinners, sliders (mini hamburgers on Hawaiian bread rolls, fresh fruit, & french fries), then we carved our family pumpkin for Halloween. It was a fun, good night until about 7:30 when Avery started complaining of a major tummy ache. I was like O NO....because deep down in me, i knew that the stomach bug had been going around like crazy in first grade! Well, my feeling was confirmed after 5 throw up sessions, Avery was sick. Therefore, this meant, my sweet angel girl missed her birthday at school..she was so so sad! :( She missed passing out her pumpkin cookies, dressing up for costume day, and the Halloween party. Such a bummer of a day to miss for sure!
Then, by Friday afternoon she was TONS better, so I decided for sure to go with Ryan to his retreat in Huntsville so we could all get away..and hopefully away from the germs.
Ryan convinces me that since she was tons better we would stop in The Woodlands eat at a favorite place, celebrate Avery & let her open her gifts and then keep going to Forest Glen Camp in Huntsville. We ate at Salt Grass and it was so yummy like normal & my Avery was doing great almost like she hadn't ever been sick and she absolutely loved the gift we gave her, a pillow pet! :)
Now, we are at Forest Glen in Huntsville which is beautiful and nestled amongst the Sam Houston National Forest. Very pretty and mountain like feel..without the mountains. ;) So pretty nonetheless. I was thinking wow, this will be fun. Well, we get to the cabin (thinking its totally furnished w/ linens, etc because that's what my hubby thought too & we packed in hurry because i decided last minute to go with him) and what do you know...a cabin with a tiny bathroom, a loft, and like eight bunk beds that were not furnished with linens!!! ;-/ I was like, o this isn't good, how can we make the 2 pillows and 1 sleeping bag that we brought with us work for 5 people???
So, we go to the office who graciously laughed at us and said its very common for the speaker of the camp or other volunteers to come with out any details or NO instructions that the cabins are unfurnished besides a bed, toilet, and shower! We got linens, blankets, and pillows, and we laughed & kept telling ourselves..memories, memories. :) It ended up being a fun little cabin all packed in one room with Ryan on the top bunk, Annalise, Addie and me beneath him on the full bunk, and Avery next two us on her bunk. I felt like little house on the prairie as we fell asleep..Goodnight Pa, Goodnight Ma..etc. LOL :D

The next day was awesome. Ryan spoke 3 times for the camp (Sugarland Baptist Church and Jersey Village Baptist Church) and me and the girls just enjoyed the camp. A huge playground, canoed, walking in the forest. It was a nice, family day. So we headed home and arrived back to League City by 10 pm, got the girls to bed and wouldn't ya know...Addie wakes us up at 3 saying her tummy hurt! I was like are you kidding me??? NO, not again, I thought we were in the clear. But it was confirmed the tummy bug hit her & I was totally convinced the bug came from school since now they were the only ones who had gotten it. Yep, its Halloween and she's down for the count. It was so sad, she didn't throw up as much as Avery but had a fever! :(

Tag team it became, Ryan took Annalise and Avery trick or treating and I stayed home with Addie and passed out candy. It had been a crazy weekend! Between the getaway, the cleaning, laundry and a whole can of Lysol...I was done. But it gets better, by 3 am that night, Ryan wakes up sick! Yep, I officially handed him more Lysol and wipes and said I'm headed to the couch. My entire Monday consisted of cleaning every linen, comforter and all, bathrooms, doorknobs, light switches, etc etc to rid this nasty bug out of our home. I happy to report that Super Momma and Super Annalise did not get the bug! :) WE celebrated that for sure. And Annalise, she is such the busy body and bullet, that I don't think the germ can ever land on that girl because she is in constant motion. LOL
All is well and I'm sure I have the cleanest house in South Shore Village. ;)
So..it truly was the most interesting weekend ever that felt like it lasted forever!
Here are some pictures of the girls at Halloween...I even got one of Addie sound asleep on the couch. :) Hope you all had a fun weekend & got some yummy treats.