Thanksgiving pictures

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

 These were taken at my mom's Thursday. I didn't even take my camera in at Alan's mom's. oops.

Madison loved mama's horse, Fancy. She's seen her quite a bit before but I guess she's getting old enough to realize what she is.

That's my stepdads great-grand daughter, Gracelyn

Kylyn. Madison's 8 month old cousin

My child's crazy hair!

Kylyn is already taking steps! So crazy to see these little people walking around!

 
Madison and her PawPaw

Homemade Vanilla Wafers

As said before, I would rather make something homemade than buy it. Have you ever looked at the ingredients or sodium in boxed, canned or bottled things? I was looking for some snacks for Madison and came across Weelicious. This site has a ton of great toddler friendly foods and snacks and also some regular recipes as well! I made these earlier in the week and Madison seems to love them! They are actually pretty good, even though they taste more like sugar cookies than the store bought boxed vanilla wafers. Sorry these are phone pictures so they aren't great. Full recipe at the bottom.

• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Place the first 3 ingredients into a bowl and combine. Place the butter and sugar in a standing mixer (or bowl using a hand mixer) and cream for 3-4 minutes until the butter is light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla extract and egg and mix for another minute, scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go. Add the flour mixture and mix until combined. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

Roll 1 tspn of dough into a ball, about 1 inch, and place on a parchment or aluminum foil lined baking sheet.
Flatten each ball into a disk then bake for 15 minutes.

Cool and serve. Mine aren't nearly as pretty as theirs.

Vanilla Wafers  (Makes about 4 dozen)

• Prep Time:35 minutes,
• Cook Time: 15 minutes,
• Total Time: 50 minutes,

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preparation

Grown up things

I'm going to try to write more about what Alan and I are doing. Madison is so darn cute, plus she's involved in just about everything we do, so it's hard for her to not take over this blog. Random order but here we go:

I'm so ready for our annual Christmas tree trip to the mountains. Madison was only 2 months old last year. Seriously, look how tiny she was, and how tired I looked, and how long my hair was.. Geez :(

It was freezing and the wind was blowing crazy on that mountain! This was the first year we didn't go to the same tree farm in 7 years! Our usual farm was pretty bare the day we went last year and we lucked up on this one. I think it will be our normal farm from now on. We have booked a nice cabin and we are ready to go!

oh yeah.. Supposed to be a post not about Madison... This will be hard.

Movies/tv watched recently

Alan's movies:

Moneyball

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

 Machine Gun Preacher

Hunger Games(also enjoyed by Crystal) -really strange and pretty controversial as kids are killing kids but we both liked it.

Dolphin Tale(also enjoyed by Crystal) - very good. Sad but sweet!

The Eagle

War Horse

The Manchurian Candidate

Contagion
The Grey -pretty graphic and sort of strange but decent.

Crystal's movies:

Mirror Mirror - so bad I turned off

Wanderlust  - turned off also

What to Expect When You're Expecting -so funny! Especially if you are a mom/pregnant or trying to get pregnant.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - very good and very emotional! Not a girlie movie at all.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall- Very funny. Could be quite offensive. Very R rated.

Friends with Kids - hilarious! Great cast! A must see if you have young kids or if you have friends with kids and you don't have kids.

One for the Money- Pretty good!

A Thousand Words - Horrible. Turned off and rated 1 star.

New Years Eve - Really good

The Vow - So sweet. Seems like a Nicholas Sparks movie.

What's Your Number? May have questionable subject but I thought it was cute.

As far as tv goes, Alan doesn't watch much tv. He has gotten interested in the series Last Resort. He also watches Dallas, The Office and football.

Crystal records too much. Young and the Restless, Rachael Ray(depending on the recipes/guest), The Talk (only watch the discussion part unless a good guest is on), Ellen (depending on the guests), Cupcake Wars, Shark Tank, Breaking Amish(so sad it's over :( ), Long Island Medium, Auction Kings, The Real World, Pioneer Woman, Trisha's Southern Kitchen, Duck Dynasty (love!), Great Food Truck Race, Up All Night, Giuliana and Bill, Undercover Boss and SNL(depending on the host/musical guest). Some of these are on season break right now and yes, some weeks I have about 4 episodes of each show and I have to weed through them cause I don't have the time to watch them! Some of them are background noise while I do things around the house, while she's napping or if she's playing in the floor, and a lot of them I just fast forward through.

We both watch Modern Family.

We have Christmas pictures coming up next week. We are doing them at a local park. Trying to figure out what all of us will wear.. 

My sweet Micki's 10th birthday is tomorrow. I got her when she was 9 months old. This dog has been through the worst. Tragically losing a leg when she was a year old, having heartworms(and getting rid of them through the  and her back right foot's tendons got sliced a couple years ago after stepping on a broken mug in the grass, while on a walk one day. She is still super happy and still loves to swim. Her bark is crazy annoying but I can't imagine not having her around. She's been through some of my happiest and saddest times. Happy Birthday Micki!

Homemade baked chicken nuggets

I made these for Madison to freeze as an easy lunch. I also made some last night for supper and Alan said they were good. He says that about everything, even if it's horrible. He's a great hubby. Everything is really depending on how many you want to make. For a meal, I'd say 2-4 chicken breasts would be enough for 2 people with some leftovers.

Ingredients:

2-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 stick melted, unsalted butter (1 cup)

1 cup grated/shredded parmesan cheese(not that cheap kind in the canister)

1.5 cup Panko bread crumbs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450.

Pour melted butter into a bowl. Put cheese and bread crumbs into another bowl.

Chop your chicken into nugget-size pieces. You could always do strips if adults are eating these. Dip the chicken into the butter then roll in bread crumb mixture. Lay out chicken on foil lined baking pan and bake 20 minutes or so, depending on the amount of chicken you have.

*To freeze, once the pan is cool, transfer to freezer. Let freeze at least 1-2 hours and then take chicken off pan and put into bag or container. To reheat, just put amount of chicken on baking sheet in 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.

Wednesday life

I may make this a new weekly series, posting pictures of daily life one day out of the week. I will vary up the days.

I declared yesterday PJ day for Madison.

This is her new favorite activity. Sitting on the couch and playing with the monitor.

Or getting into the paper towel cabinet.

Aren't these pjs so cute?

What Wilma does 90% of the day.

Afternoon snack.

Playtime.

There's something so innocent and sweet about a messy haired , chubby cheeked wearing pjs, sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street and holding her water.

Knocked out!

Thirty Days of Thanksgiving

There's a challenge on Instagram and Facebook during November where everyday you say what you are thankful for. I will do 2 weeks at a time so it's no so overwhelming. Here are mine so far in very random order(except the first two)!

Day 1-Madison

 Today and everyday I'm thankful God blessed us with an amazing daughter! After years of trying and questioning why, now I know His timing is perfect. She's healthy, smart, happy, hilarious and beautiful! We are so blessed!

Day 2-Alan

 Thankful for my handsome husband, best friend and perfect father to M. We have the perfect marriage and I don't know how I made it so long without him.

Day 3-Coffee

On a day like this, thankful for coffee

Day 4-Family and friends

 The people we lean on and trust, outside of each other.

Day 5-

 Thankful my daughter LOVES to read! Ever since she was born, we read a book at every nap and bedtime. Now she loves flipping through books and talking.
"If you want your child to be intelligent, read them fairy tales" ~ Einstein 

Day 6-

Thankful for the freedom to vote, these tiny stickers that shows I voted and the lady that gave M one :)

Day 7-Blessed to be a stay at home mom

 It does get very repetitive and I get stir crazy about every other day but I wouldn't want to have it any other way! I love spending my day with this girl and our crazy animals!

Day 8-Sunglasses

After making an out of town trip this cloudless day and leaving my sunglasses at home, I appreciate them a lot more now!

Day 9 - DVR

If not for this great invention, I'd never catch any good tv and Madison would never watch Play with me Sesame since it comes on at times she's either asleep or not eating.(she only watches tv when she's eating)

Day 10-massages
I've been getting massages at least once a month for the past 13 years! I can't imagine not getting them on a normal basis.

Day 11-Veterans

 thankful for all the veterans and their families who fought and are currently fighting for our freedom. They sacrifice so much! 

 Day 12-Pinterest

 As weird as it may be to be thankful, I've gotten lots of recipes, fitness tips, decorating tips and I planned Madison's first birthday entirely from it. I also have a lot of ideas just waiting to be done too.

Day 13-A daughter that plays well on her own.

Day 14-My car

Even with the rattles, dings and scratches, she's very loyal and gets me where I need to go and I feel very safe in it.

Things a parent says...

I saw this on Pinterest a while back but never much paid attention to what I was saying until recently. As a parent of a human and pets, we say the weirdest things! I'm going to start blogging them! Boring or not?

Things said recently:

To Madison while playing with her play food "Grab your chicken leg and come here"

To Madison "Stop licking Daddy's arm"

"Wilma, stop licking the furniture"

To Madison who was being pretty fussy while we were all eating supper -(Alan handed her a local Christian store sales flyer) "Here, read about the Bible and maybe you will feel better" (Crystal) "God and Santa are watching you"

(Alan said to me while we were giving Madison a bath) "Like seriously, what did we do before having Madison?" (Crystal) "I guess watched a lot of tv and rested? I have no idea!" (Alan) "Did we eat supper in front of the tv or at the table?" (Crystal) "We've always eaten at the table but sometime we would eat while watching tv" (Alan) "I don't even remember eating before having Madison, did we eat before having her?" (Crystal) "Yeah I'm sure we did."

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