wow.

Opening Gifts

Last night the family (and two of the 15 yr olds buddies) came over to our house for a birthday celebration.

We have a tradition in my family that before we say the blessing and eat dinner everyone says one word about the birthday boy/girl. It usually makes at least one of us cry (tears of joy or pride or something)…it is great fun!

Some of his words were:

Athletic
Fun
Honest
Strong…

I really should have written them down, but I couldn’t see through the tears

It was a great evening and if I though this year was hard…next year is the begining of the whole growing wings…leaving the nest business, at least right now, I still have him for 20 minutes a day, in my car

This is Phoenix.

yesterday, spouselet and I took the dogs to McDonald’s for breakfast, I only do that once or twice a year but they love it so much. Phoenix is the ever curious so spouselet snapped a few pictures while I was driving.

Because texting and taking pictures while driving is dangerous boys and girls.

This is Sedona.

She sits back in the very back of the Pilot and prays that we aren’t taking her to the Doggie Hotel again. She doesn’t RTB (release the butt) until we get back home in the garage.

I love my dogs.

As mentioned yesterday the once super secret family recipe, not so secret.  I am sure that my moggie tweeked it, because she only wrote it down once, for me (and I have since misplaced it, because I never lose anything).

For the past few years my mom has made the whole spread including the dressing, but for yesterday, I made it.

Let’s start with a little bread

actually, this is only half the bread, when I got the bright idea to blog this, I was already half done with putting it all together.

Moosh and crumble all the bread (that would be a loaf of white, 12 biscuits and a pan of corn bread. Cook up a little over a cup of chopped celery and another cup of chopped onions in butter (I also tossed in two crushed cloves of garlic which isn’t mentioned anywhere but it worked)…when they are nice and tender toss them in the bread. Pour over the bread the drippings from one cooked (roasted chicken)…which I got from my mom (EW)
Throw in sage (to taste-and I didn’t use nearly enough, because I ran out). IF your dressing is too dry have some canned chicken broth read to go…I needed one cup of that.

Once it is well mixed and everything blended and it tastes good moosh it out in a pan.

I put it in the fridge over night because i didn’t need to bake it until yesterday morning.

My Moggie used to keep the uncooked dressing in a glass pickle jar in the fridge and would only pull out how much she needed, but when she did thanksgiving, she did it probably 4 different times for different parts of the family that couldn’t always get together on THE day.

This dressing isn’t hard to make but it does take a lot of equipment…especially if you make the cornbread AND biscuits.

I had the full glass pan left from yesterday and about 1/3 of the foil pan. We had 3 kids and 13 adults, some had seconds.

Oh, I almost forgot, cook in a 350 oven for about 30 minutes.

Decoration from last year @ mom and dad's

Right now the dressing is in the oven.

Soon, the almost 15 yr old and I will be heading to my aunt and uncles house for the great feast. The spouselet will join us there, he is going to an Indian Restaurant to get Tandoori Chicken from his parents for my family.

YUM!

I have been taking pictures of the super secret family dressing recipe, that I discovered used to be on the back of all the Martha White corn bread package, but Moggie has us fooled for decades.

Later this evening, I hope to have some pictures from the day.

Enjoy your family today and all the other blessings that we should be so very thankful.

follow up to this post.

Last night was the family celebration for my birthday AND my uncle AND my great aunt.  All three of us got a year older in the past 9 days.

My mom made taco in a bowl for me because I used to love that when I was a kid…so simple, no need for even a recipe-all the garbage you like in a taco, in a bowl and you eat it with chips.  YUM.

Since I didn’t claim my cake, she made her Jam Cake with butter sauce for the 14 yr old because that is his all time favorite and it really is VERY good.

But, this is the really important stuff…

I got the Canon (as mentioned previously, a lovely book, a rooster box that was  handmade by some lady that my great aunt knew that is married to a guy that looks like her son-it really is a very nice hand made box with some serious history.  I want the girls name, so I can look into her work! And a bracelet with the Lord’s Prayer I also got some birthday money, which can be the best gift ever and this year it bought me Vera Bradley Microfiber Crossbody Hipster Bag and the Symphony Bag that I am more likely to put office supplies in….

AND…

My sister gave me a glass Pandora charm and a house, but I already had the house so I traded it in for a monkey charm today, because my spouselet was Monkeyboy on a game we used to play online and all things monkey remind me of him….and my mom gave me the soccer ball with the green crystals…

So all this super cool stuff more than made up for the fact that I am now 41.

This past weekend my whole fam-damily headed off to Pigeon Forge, TN for a little fun before school starts.

We headed out early Thursday morning and before we even got to Frankfort we were surrounded by fog. The 14 yr old woke up from a small nap and said “WOW are we there already?” Heh. Good thing he is cute, we had only been on the road for 25 minutes.

When we really got to the hills of Tennessee the fog was completely gone, for which I am very grateful, I wouldn’t want to miss this view.

or this one

That afternoon we took my niece and nephew to a go-cart place to kill time until their parents arrived.
The track was called “The Wild Woody” it made the 14 yr old giggle like a girl while he took pictures on his cell to send all of his friends.

Friday night it was off to The Dixie Stampede. And when your dad is one of the guys out in the center of the whole thing tossing toilet seats…there isn’t anything else that needs to be said.

Saturday night we played putt-putt. I even got a hole in one! Good thing I am the designated photo taker in my clan, or someone might have a shot of me doing a happy dance!

I wasn’t so upset about the vacation being over when this was the view I got 15 miles from home.

(we won’t talk about the hour we sat in traffic on I-75. Have you ever walked on the interstate and chatted with people during a parking lot incident? I met a really cool family from Cincinnati.)

Last night I got to have a few glasses of wine with some very dear friends from college.  Over the years we had lost touch with each other-which I guess happens when you have kids and jobs and spouses and all that other stuff we never considered when we were in the dorm.

I have connected with tons of people from my past through facebook but re-connecting with these two women was great fun-and ironic because one lives about 4 miles from me and the other teaches at my son’s former middle school.

SMALL Flippin’ world.

This is K and I. She lived next door to me in the dorm. She introduced me to the girls I ended up moving off campus to live with. She ended up going back home to school and ended up getting her masters with my own real life sister-never knew that until last night.

SMALL Flippin’ world.

This is S and I. She lived on the other side of K. We stayed in touch for a few years after we came home from college. Funny not a one of us graduated from WKU. I think that we had to much fun and had to come back to the “ville” where our parents could keep better track of us.

The only person missing from this party is T. She lives in Ohio and none of us have talked to her in years. I saw her last. We all miss her still.

And I should mention that even though the three of us have some serious big 80’s hair. T beat us all. She had rock star hair band hair…David Coverdale would have been jealous.

We promised the 14 yr old that he could get contacts before he started high school.  I seriously thought I had longer.  This is proof that his freshman year is right around the corner.

Yesterday at my grandmother’s house we went through some of my popaw’s stuff that was in his office. At work we are cleaning out the room that was his and making a “Popaw Conference room” for small meetings. It is going to be really cool.

Check this bad boy out!

That thing is older than I am and it still works!
All except for the cutting blade, but that’s OK,  I have scissors.

He says he was only wearing these to the car to find his “real” shoes.   I think he does it to make my hair fall out! What does your spouselet do that makes you cringe?