October has been CRAZY!!!!! Their was Josh’s birthday which he had to work on but came home to a wonderful dinner of Pecan Crusted Tilapia, Twice Baked Potatoes and Portabello Green Beans with Sesame Seeds. Back in the summer I had already bought and given him his gifts of new shorts and short sleeve church shirts so he didn’t have to wait a whole year to use his gifts.
We have been working with insurance to get our roof replaced due to hail damage so there have been many calls to and from them. Plus the many calls to and from our roofer who has been great! Because we are having so many weeks with rain we had a date then it was rescheduled twice but it is finally done!!!
While in the midst of that insurance deal, I (Amy) had pulled into the parking lot at work…like five seconds and I would have been in my parking space…and this guy runs the stop sign and slams into the side of my car! Praise God I am o.k. I was sore and even now wake up when I have slept wrong feeling sore but I am o.k. My car (the one that took Josh & I on vacation for our anniversary, our first real vacation with Quinn and used as our furniture to sit in back of while hanging out in the garage while Quinn plays…)is dead :( Of course we had paid it off in the spring and I had only had it for two years. I loved my car and I will miss it. So yet another insurance deal to work through!! So now we have the buy me another car which was not in the plans. See we have been hoping that Josh’s car would make it to tax season so that we would buy him a newer car but now it is not going to work that way. So we are praying for a solution to his car whoas and getting ready to go through the car buying nightmare for me again. We hate car buying!!! We like the end product usually but the process stinks!!
Between getting the re-roofing together and the car accident, our friends Josh and Shana came home to visit so everyone could meet two month old baby Truett. We went up to Josh’s parents’ house to see them and got to see Truett and his new friend Jonathan who is Zach and Lauren’s brand new baby (Zach had requested that his family not be posted on blogs so we are honoring his wishes with no pictures of them…sorry but I will say that Jonathan reminds me of Quinn at that two week old age. Lots of brown hair and crazy cute!!). I was also able to give Josh & Shana their frame for Truett.My best girl friend Melissa FINALLY came home from her Air Force tour in Turkey for her tour in Florida!!! I am sooooooooooooooo excited!! I haven’t seen her in two years and she hasn’t had an assignment that has been this close to home since she joined. So she came up to our house to visit for the day and we spent time catching up and I cooked for her. It was really great to see her again!
Quinn has been sick with a chest cold and I took these cute pictures of him after he had fallen asleep on the couch after coughing so hard all day. He has fallen asleep ON Teddy while hugging Hank (his chimp that we got from Chattanooga, TN Zoo where they have a chimp named Hank).
My friend Marcy may flog me for this (at least she will probably find this unbelievable and shocking but true…) we went to North Carolina a few weekends ago to visit with family in the mountains and I forgot my camera!!! AND it was unbelievably beautiful!!! We can not understand why anyone would want to live in the city when you can walk out of your Walmart and view the mountains right across the street covered in the reds, oranges, yellows and browns of fall. I don’t know about you but this is not the view we see when walking out of our local Walmart. It was SO hard to leave and if it were not for the fact that Josh can not find monkey work in the NC mountain area, we would move there now. Alas, we will have to wait for that dream. We had fun as always and it was nice to get away from our troubles with the roof waiting for a dry day and my car issues. On the way back we stopped and got pumpkins at a great deal of 2 for $5.00 which leads me to…
Pumpkin carving 2009!!! My pumpkin that I picked out was very bumpy so I thought that it should be a witch and went in search of pictures from Quinn’s books for a witch. The only one I found was Lucy from Charlie Brown dressed up for Halloween so I fashion my pumpkin after this picture. Josh and Quinn’s pumpkin is supposed to look like Mike from Monsters Inc. I drew up our ideas on the pumpkins and away we went. Quinn likes to pull out the pumpkin guts and this year even helped crave with the carving tools under Josh’s supervision. Josh stated that he was really better at it than he would have thought..
Next, we went to Quinn’s school for his book fair and they had games and a hayride. Since Quinn had been sick and had to stay home from school a few days he missed his field trip to the pumpkin patch and they were suppose to go on a hayride. We were glad that his book fair offered a hayride and Josh rode with him. Quinn also got to decorate a pumpkin which he got to bring home (another part he had missed from his field trip was picking out a little pumpkin so this filled the bill for that also). He pushed a ball through cones with a tiny broom, tossed bean bags and got to draw a lollipop for a prize.
The Friday before Halloween, Quinn came home with green vampire teeth (hence the picture) and one day he woke and pulled on his shirt only to come to me looking all crazy haired so of course I took pictures of that too. Look at the height of his hair in these pictures!!! Looks like I am not the only one needing a hair cut!
On this rainy Halloween Quinn went as a Storm Trooper from Star Wars and as we did not plan anything for Josh this year, we cheated and he just went in his PJ’s and slippers and I eye-shadowed his under eyes. Once again we went to Publix for their annual Halloween thing then searched out surrounding churches for trunk and treats. The church we always hit first had theirs indoors since it was a rainy day but they still had some activities for the kids to do like decorate a pumpkin door hanger, bean bag toss and a ball toss. This year besides candy, this church had school supplies to give out and Quinn picked a box of new crayons. When we got home Quinn and I colored before he headed off to bed.
As you can see it has been a VERY busy October (busier than our norm) but I hope to be more regular in updating everyone in November but I can not promise that that will happen. I know we have my birthday (tomorrow Nov. 14th!!), car shopping, a family visit from my sister and family, small group gatherings and Thanksgiving along with after Thanksgiving work schedules plus Christmas decorating and shopping!!! Hang with us though and I will try to get it all to you as soon as possible!! ;)
Cool, Creamy Chocolate Dessert from Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2009
Serves 15
Ingredients:
Crust:
1 ¼ c. all-purpose flour ¼ c. powdered sugar 6 Tbsp. chilled butter, cut into small pieces (I used I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter sticks for baking) ¼ c. finely chopped pecans, toasted Cooking spray
Filling:
1 c. powdered sugar ½ c. (4oz.) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened ½ c. (4oz.) fat-free cream cheese, softened 1 (8oz.) carton frozen reduced-calorie whipped topping, thawed and divided 3 c. 1% low-fat milk (I used skim milk) 2 (3.9oz.) packages chocolate instant pudding mix Unsweetened cocoa (optional– I used dark chocolate cocoa)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven 325.
2. To prepare crust, lightly spoon flour into cups. Combine flour & sugar in food processor; pulse 2 times or until combined. Add butter; pulse 10 times or until mix resembles coarse meal. Stir in pecans. Firmly press mix into bottom of a 13x9 in. baking dish coated in cooking spray. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes or until crust is lightly browned. Cool completely.
3. To prepare filling, place 1 c. sugar & cream cheeses in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light & fluffy. Fold in half of whipped topping. Spread cream cheese mix on cooled crust. Cover loosely; refrigerate 1 hour.
4. Combine milk & pudding mix in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed 2 minutes. Cover & refrigerate 1 hour or until pudding is set. Spread pudding mix over cream cheese layer. Spread remaining whipped topping over pudding layer. Cover & chill 30 minutes. Sprinkle with cocoa, if desired. Cut into 15 pieces.
(My crust came out thin but yummy so if you want a thicker crust you might want to double the crust recipe.)
Since we had so many rainy days a few weeks ago, we had to find creative ways to sty occupied. I dug out old Halloween costumes of Quinn's and we decided to dress Teddy up in them and this is how great he looked. I think Teddy should go trunk and treating with us this year dressed up as Tigger don't you?!! Very cute!!
1 can (28 oz.) whole tomatoes in puree 1 jalapeno chile (ribs and seeds removed), minced 2 small onions, chopped 3 garlic cloves (2 whole, 1 minced) Coarse salt and ground pepper 1 can (19 oz.) black beans, rinsed and drained ½ c. yellow cornmeal 1 c. shredded pepper Jack cheese 1 tsp. ground cumin 4 large poblano chiles, halved lengthwise (stems left intact), ribs and seeds removed
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425. In a blender, combine tomatoes in puree, jalapeno, half the onions, and 2 whole garlic cloves; puree. Season with salt . Pour sauce into a 9x13 in. baking dish; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine beans, cornmeal, ½ c. cheese, remaining onions, minced garlic, cumin, and ¾ c. water; season with salt and pepper.
3. Dividing evenly, stuff poblano halves with bean mix; place on top of sauce in baking dish. Sprinkle poblanos with remaining ½ c. cheese; cover baking dish with foil tightly.
4. Bake until poblanos are tender, about 45 minutes. Uncover and continue to cook until sauce in thickened slightly and cheese is browned, 10 to 15 min. more. Let cool 10 minutes.
So for a few weeks now we have been on the watch for the tooth fairy (actually Quinn knows that the tooth fairy is actually us but...). We noticed that his tooth was wiggly a few weeks ago and have been keeping close watch of it. Last Saturday I told Josh that there was no way that tooth would make it out the week and I was right!! I have been trying to convince Quinn to let me pull it but he was SO not having it. So yesterday when I went to pick him up from school the first thing that he had to tell me was that his tooth had come out after he got to school this morning!!! He said that it didn't hurt and he did not get blood all over his white shirt (bonus!!)
Yesterday was also the day he got his report card and he is on target in all his work and is ABOVE expectations in reading for his grade!!! Super cool!!
I also wanted to thank all our friends that helped with Quinn's walkathon donations. His school was looking for $15,000 and got over $19,000!!!
Sorry it has been SO long but it has been busy since school and work started back. We are all doing fine and enjoying spending more time together now that Josh is back to a one job schedule. With the beginning of Fall not far off (hip, hip hooray!!), we will surely have more to post. For now we hope you enjoy this really tasty recipe!!
1 c. (4oz.) preshredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese, divided 1/3 c. fat-free milk ¼ c. egg substitute 1 tsp. ground cumin 1/8 tsp. ground red pepper 1 (14 3/4oz.) can cream-style corn 1 (8.5oz.) pack corn muffin mix (such as Martha White – I used Jiffy) 1 (4oz.) can chopped green chiles, drained Cooking spray 1 (10oz.) can red enchilada sauce (such as Old El Paso - I used Kroger brand) 2 c. shredded cooked chicken breast ½ c. fat-free sour cream (we use reduced fat)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Combine ¼ c. cheese and next 7 ingredients in a large bowl, stirring just until moist. Pour mix into a 13x9 inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
3. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until set. Pierce entire surface liberally with a fork; pour enchilada sauce over top. Top with chicken; sprinkle with remaining 3/4 c. cheese. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven; let stand 5 minutes. Cut into 8 pieces; top each serving with 1 Tbsp. sour cream.
Quinn started school on Monday and I went back to work on Tuesday. Quinn is enjoying his class. He has one child in there from last year's class and gets to see all his buddies at recess. There are identical twins in his class which he finds fascinating. Besides that he really does not talk much about school.
I went back to work and it is nice to be back in a normal routine (and have Josh home at a normal time every night instead of him working two jobs). Everything at work is kind of crazy but I got a small raise and I have a job so I can't complain to much.
Bus driver Quinn…In these first pictures, Quinn is a bus driver taking Teddy to school.
For about a week it was hard not to find Quinn wearing this tiny bow tie from his Rhinoceros Tap rhinoceros. One Saturday he even decided that he would wear this when we went out to the store and Walmart…very snazzy =-). The sunglasses are a very nice touch don’t you think?!
This blue hat is an old one that was going to Goodwill when he found it and decided that he wanted to keep it. Well, I caught this picture of him in it along with his Cool Man Quinn sunglasses and it reminded me of old pics of him in this hat and decided to dig them up…
All- American Buffalo Chicken Tenders from Everyday Foods Magazine
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 c. Crumbled blue cheese (about 4 ozs.) 1 c. low-fat buttermilk Coarse salt & ground pepper 1 c. all-purpose flour 1 ½ lbs. chicken tenders ½ c. vegetable oil, such as safflower 1/3 c. hot sauce 2 Tbsp. melted butter
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 250. Place a wire rack on a rimmed baking sheet, and transfer to oven. In a medium bowl, stir together blue cheese and ½ c. buttermilk. Season dip with salt and pepper, and set aside.
2. Place flour and remaining ½ c. buttermilk in separate medium bowls; season with salt and pepper. Set out another rimmed baking sheet alongside. Dip chicken in buttermilk (allowing excess to drip off), then in flour (shaking off excess); place on sheet.
3. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium high. Working in batches, fry chicken until golden brown and cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to rack in oven to keep warm.
4. In a large bowl, stir together hot sauce and melted butter. Add chicken and toss to coat. Serve tenders with blue-cheese dip.
Quinn LOVED this and that is saying a lot since he is anti chicken!
This year's new babies are nesting closer to the front door than I would like...It is a risk just to go out to the mailbox! Two days ago a Mama bird almost attacked me on my way out to the mailbox so on the way back I had to wave the mail over my head just to get back in the house!! Yes my friends, picture it if you were my neighbors, looking out your window and seeing this strange lady (me) waving mail over her head and speaking to the sky!!! I am sure that I will be the first one on everyone's dinner guest list...Ha, ha!!
My best girl friend Melissa FINALLY came home from her Air Force tour in Turkey for her tour in Florida!!! I am sooooooooooooooo excited!! I haven’t seen her in two years and she hasn’t had an assignment that has been this close to home since she joined. So she came up to our house to visit for the day and we spent time catching up and I cooked for her. It was really great to see her again!
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