Jackson and His Dump Truck

Yesterday evening, I came into the kitchen to find this...

 

...a boy and his dump truck waiting for the baked ziti to finish cooking!

Look at that mischievous smile!  He didn't do anything bad before or after I snapped this picture, but that smile cracks me up!

Then, Jackson and his dump truck rode off to the dinner table.

Family

 

I am so blessed to be a wife and a mommy to these three!

Thanksgiving

This year, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  It's one of my favorite holidays because it's a great time to really stop and reflect on all of God's blessings.  Bryan's Mom, Dad, and Grand Nana came to celebrate with us, and we had a great time together!

 

I traced all four of our hands to make turkeys this year, and I love how this project turned out!  I can't wait to display it each year!

 

Wednesday, Sarah and I made a pecan pie!

 

Dr. Crowder brought home a syringe from work again this year to inject the turkey with garlic butter!  He and I made the whole turkey this year--which included me removing it's neck and such, washing it, stuffing it with apples, onions, and rosemary, and using my hands to spread butter all over it.  I should receive a medal for doing that, because I'm extremely germaphobic, so cleaning out the turkey in my sink was almost more than I could handle!  But once he was clean, I took my trusty sanitizing wipes and went to town cleaning the kitchen!  After that, I felt much better!  Ha!



 

 

 

Another thing we did again this year was create our "thankful rolls."  Sarah asks everyone what they're thankful for, then I type it up and cut it out, and she puts them in crescent rolls.  Once we eat, we're all supposed to unwrap them and try to figure out who is thankful for what, but I think a few people ate their paper this year!! 

 

Bryan wanted to add bacon and brown sugar to the top of the turkey this year, so I had to snap a picture of our unique bird once it was out of the oven! 

We say grace before dinner each night.  Jackson used to fold his little hands while we were praying, but for the past couple of months, he's started holding my hand during grace.  Since we had guests at our table for Thanksgiving, our seats were different, so Daddy sat next to Jack and held his hand.  It was too precious!  So when grace was over, I asked Bryan to stay so I could capture the sweetness! 

This was Jackson's face while he was being silly with Nana from across the table!  I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but he is covered in some of his three servings of sweet potatoes!

Jackson and Grand Nana spent the majority of the visit playing together!

She may be 74, but she can snap a football with the best of them!

 

Sarah and Grandpa worked a lot on her guitar.  She's getting really good!

 

God has blessed our family so much, and we are truly grateful!

I am so thankful for my sweet family.

 

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

1 Chronicles 16:34

 

Face Pancakes!

Sarah's out of school this week, so I decided to whip up a fun breakfast this morning to celebrate!

 

I used our favorite buttermilk pancake recipe to make huge pancakes!  Then, I piped on faces with some homemade whipped cream that I made yesterday and added some chocolate chips. 

One of Sarah's eyes was melting when I took this picture!  And of course, her pancake had to include a bow!

 Sarah said, "My head is delicious!"

 Jackson really enjoyed his too!

I love days when I can be a supermom!

Tea for Two

On Sunday afternoon while the boys were napping, (Jackson because he's a baby, and Bryan because he was post-call), Sarah and I had a tea party!  I made cucumber-cream cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off and put out dainty little cookies.  We usually wear dresses--even when we just have tea in the dining room--but it was cold, so we stayed in our long sleeve shirts!

Even though we've had more tea parties than I can count, they're always sweet and special.  I hope they will always be a wonderful memory for Sarah too.

Flannel

I just love flannel, and I love it even more when Jackson and I wear our flannel together!  (Please excuse J's crazy hair!)

Coloring

We have been doing a ton of coloring lately!  Jackson loves it, and since I spend a little more to get washable crayons, (just in case!), I don't worry if his crayons stray from the paper!

 

 Sometimes, we color in our jammies...

 ...other times, we color without our shirt!

This particular masterpiece I'm going to frame for the kids' art wall.

 Jackson also loves stickers!

I think he put the whole jungle on his shirt!

Biscuits

Yesterday afternoon, I taught Sarah how to make homemade biscuits...something every good Southern girl should know how to do!  As always, it was so fun being in the kitchen with her!

 

 Her favorite part was kneading the dough...

 ...until it was time to roll out the dough, and then that became her favorite part!

 She was so excited about her first cut out biscuit!

 Ready to go in the oven!

 Look at those beauties!  Her future husband will thank me one day!

To go with the biscuits, more Southern goodness--chicken fried steak!

After the biscuits were finished, Bryan and I made the rest of dinner.  With his work schedule, he's not always home in time to help me cook dinner, but when we're able to, we love being in the kitchen together!  We fixed mashed potatoes, gravy, and roasted broccoli, (our kids favorite vegetable!), to go with our chicken fried steak, biscuits, and sweet tea!  We love being from the South!

Aggies Rock!

Today, the Texas Aggies defeated Alabama--the number 1 ranked team!!

 

Bryan was beside himself with happiness!  He and Jackson high-fived more times than I could count during the game!  After Bryan kissed me following their first touchdown, Jackson gave me a kiss too!  Talk about melting my heart!  And after it was over, Jack was even hitting Daddy on his bottom--I think J thought he was in the locker room!  Ha!  We had to wait until the game was over to put Jackson to bed--there was too much yelling for him to be able to sleep otherwise!

Baking with my Babies!

A few days ago, Bryan said he wanted chocolate chip cookies soon.  Then, he added that he wanted me to bake them when he was home though, so he could eat them as soon as they came out of the oven!  So, I asked if he wouldn't mind taking pictures of me baking with the kids.  I have over 100 pictures of the kids baking, (no joke!), but no pictures of me in the kitchen with them.  Since baking with Sarah and Jackson is one of my favorite things to do, I really wanted pictures of it!

 

Here, I'm showing Sarah what size measuring cup we're using (it's a half cup) and asking her how many scoops we need of it to equal 2 cups of flour.  Reviewing fractions while cooking--excellent!

See Jackson's finger in his mouth?  Yeah, he had just dipped it into the flour and licked it off.  I know he's my son, but that's weird!  : )

 Love his little smile here!

 Sarah's a pro in the kitchen!

Notice how they're stealing some chocolate chips while Mommy does the work!

 My favorite shot!!  Look at J's face!  It cracks me up!

 Jack loves watching what's in the oven--especially when it's cookies!