Recipe Tuesday: Italian Pork Chops

I love this crock pot recipe because (yup you guessed it) it is soooo good and so easy. Takes literally 5 seconds and your done.


Ingredients:
Pork chops What ever cut your family enjoys ( I use thin cut no bone)
Bottle of italian dressing

THAT'S IT!!! TOLD YOU IT WAS A NO BRAINER

I start these about 5 hours before we are going to eat.
Put the chops in the pot and cover with Italian dressing. You don't have to use the whole bottle just enough to cover them.

I start them out on High and about an hour or so turn them to low.

The dressing makes a sauce that is really good served with rice. the pork chops come out really tender and fall apart easily.

I serve this with rice (either white or rice pilaf)
Henry likes beans so I make them and usually green beans and a bread of some sort.

sorry I didn't get pictures of this I put it on and I was in a hurry.

Favorite Thing Thursdays: Zip up hoodies

Is anyone as excited about fall as I am? I love this time of year. Football weather I call it and it is slowly getting here. The reason I like it so much is because I can wear my hoodies. They have really grown on me over the past year, mostly because they help me hide my "BABY FAT". I also have noticed that I seem to be more cold natured than I used to be and these light jackets are just the right size to keet the CHILL off my bones!!!


Thank goodness for Fall because now I have an excuse to wear them!!

Happy 60th Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday to the first man I ever Loved!!

My dad turns 60 today.

Can you believe it?

About my DAD:

-He loves the Longhorns

-His favorite place to go is Red River.

-He loves his family.

-He is a proud PAPA of 8 Grandkids who all love him very much.

-Everyone says that I LOOK and ACT just lilke him.

There are a lot of things to love about him. He is a Great dad.

Happy Birthday Dad!

LOVE YOU

Recipe Tuesday: Peanut Butter Glaze

My WONDERFUL sis-in-law got me a long awaited bundt pan for my birthday. I have wanted one for a long long time. I made a chocolate cake yesterday and found a recipe for a glaze that I thought my family would like. We all love peanut butter so I think it made a big hit.

Ingredients:

powdered sugar

peanut butter

milk

I used 2 cups of the sugar

approx. 3 big tablespoons peanut butter

add milk table spoon at a time.

stir,stir,stir.

I made this the consistency easy to kind of drizzle on top of my warm cake and let it melt down the sides.

This was really good!!!

totally adorable cupcakes!

I was surfing blogs tonight and ran across these cupcakes! Are these not a HOOT? They look like little slider hamburgers. I found them on Cupcakes take the cake blog. They have a ton of cute cupcakes. I would love to try these sometime.

Outside Fun with the Romans

Make a Smilebox slideshow

September Birthday Bash

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Favorite Thing Thursdays: Crystal Light

We drink alot of this in our home. We rarely buy soft drinks. We always have a jug of this stuff in the fridge. Our new favorite flavor is the Cranberry. It is very good. It is really good mixed with the lemonade too. Henry likes it that way, kind of a combination of flavor. I think we have tried every flavor and we love them all.

Poor little Fish

I saw this on the internet and wanted to share it. Apparently this fish got stuck in this fence during the hurricane last week. Poor thing! How Strange. What are the odds huh!

Recipe Tuesday: Enchilada Casserole

Make a Smilebox postcard

I LOVE SMILEBOX!!!! IT IS SO MUCH FUN! AND IT'S FREE!!!!

I Want This!!!

Ok I NEVER in my wildest dreams would have guessed I would want a MINI VAN. They were always for soccer moms of 4 kids, the stay at home room mother, or the mom trying to parallel park while talking on a CELL PHONE. (which always really annoyed me the most.) Hang up the phone before you kill someone lady.

I have almost always had a compact 2 door car. Especially in my younger more HIP days. I even flew to Dallas to buy a RED ECLIPSE, black interior and an awesome loud stereo system because I could not find it here. So a MINI VAN has never been in my brain until last year.

Now having 2 children and all the stuff that goes with them (Bags, diapers and friends) I realize that I NEED SPACE. We have been looking at these for a year now. I finally sat in one on Friday and I got the fever. (CAR FEVER) Then I have to tell myself that we have NO car payment at this time. Which is AWESOME. I think of all the stuff we could buy with that money we would be spending on a car payment. That is when the CAR FEVER wears off!

Cute Cupcakes!

I was surfing blogs yesterday and came across these cute cupcakes and I just had to show them. My sister-in-law has really gotten me interested in cupcake decorating. I asked Ashley this morning if I could make these for her birthday in January. Uh- she said NO WAY! She thinks they are not cool enough for her. She said "what about for Charlie" . I guess I'll have to wait and have him a monkey birthday next summer. Darn I really want to make these !!!!

Recipe Tuesday: Loaded Potatoes

These potatoes are Henry's favorite. They aren't all that great for you so we don't have them very often, but they are really easy to make and don't really have a "recipe" per say.

Ingredients:

Potatoes (I use red potatoes with the skin on them)
Bacon (I usually fry the bacon and chop it, but I was out this day and used bacon chips from a jar. They worked Great too!
Green onion
Sour cream
Butter
Cheddar cheese shredded

I cube my potatoes into about Fourths
and cook them until tender.

Meanwhile I chop my green onion (I use 1-2 white and green)
about 1/2 bag of shredded cheese
2 heaping spoon fulls of sour cream and butter
1/4 c. of bacon pieces.

I put all of these on a serving bowl while my potatoes cook.
when the potatoes are done, drain the water and add them to the bowel.
Let them sit for a few minutes to let the heat from the potatoes melt the cheese, butter and sour cream.

Then mix well and serve.

This is such an easy side dish that goes well with anything.
We had baked ham, baked beans and crescent rolls with it last night. It sure was good.

Random Picture Monday: Bottoms Up

Charlie decided he had enough of his diaper tonight, and pulled it off. We all of a sudden saw a naked baby running through the living room and into his room. I had to grab my camera to catch it. it took me several shots to get the "behind". Here's my little baby buns. AREN'T THEY CUTE!

Look Out Here We Come!

Red River.....How we all love to get to this little piece of HEAVEN. We love to take a long weekend and enjoy spending time with each other and relaxing. This will be Charlie's first time to this place.. We couldn't go last year since he was so sick. So he is going to get his first taste this year.

Ashley is super excited to do the horse tour this year. I feel like she is old enough to go by herself on the hour long ride. She did have a year worth of riding lessons and knows how to handle a horse. I don't think these horses need much handling though. Ashley is also wanting to get moccasins this year. Something I tell her NO to every year. I may have to give in this time.

The fudge shop..mmmmm
Can't wait to get me some of that sweet creamy fudge, and let the kids pick out a bunch of sugary candy to get them nice and hyper.

And last but not least. Sit out on the deck of the cabin and drink coffee with my MOM in my flannel pj's and smell the crisp cool air. I can see and feel it now.

Look out Red River Here comes the TEXAS family!

Caution Enter at Your Own Risk

Make a Smilebox postcard

HAPPY BIRTHDAY........

Well, this is a HUGE birthday month for us. We have 6 People that are turning a year older. Some are happy about it, but for others not so much. So I thought I would make one HAPPY BIRTHDAY post to everyone at once.

Gavin..Sept 2-Turning 8
Cutter..Sept 5-Turning 6 and He started Kindergarten this Year!
Katie..Sept 13-turning 14
Cody..Sept 16-Turning 20 OH MY GOODNESS CAN YOU BELIEVE IT
Me..Sept 19-Tuning 35
Dad..Sept 24-Turning 60

Hope everyone has a great day on their special day. I'm sure I will be posting Birthday pictures at some point this month.

Favorite Thing Thursdays: Fruit and Yogurt Parfait

OK- When I go to McDonald's the last thing I think about is LOW FAT! But I finally decided to try their Fruit and Yogurt Parfait On Tuesday, and it was REALLY GOOD. And it is on their dollar menu. A bonus! It is made with low fat vanilla yogurt, with lots of strawberries and blueberries, and comes with a pack of crunchy granola to pour on top. All for 160 calories, and 2 grams of fat. That is a great start for the day or a mid-day snack. (Especially if you are trying to loose baby fat for the last 16 mo.) Man what happened to my metabolism! It couldn't be age! Well next time you pull in for a sausage McMuffin (my personal favorite) try this instead. I think you will feel much better about your decision.

Recipe Tuesday: Biscuits

Ok this was my first time to make biscuits. I will make them bigger next time! They turned out a tad small, but they were tasty I must say. I thought this recipe was very easy and didn't take long at all to make. We had them for dinner tonight, and Ashley even liked them! She is my food critic!

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1 cup milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425
In large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
Cut in the shortening
Stir in milk until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead 15-20 times. Pat or roll dough out to 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a large cutter or juice glass dipped in flour. Brush off excess flour, and place onto an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake for 13- 15 minutes or until edges begin to brown.

We had these with Hot Spaghetti (Made with HOT pork sausage) instead of hamburger meat, and fresh steamed squash. It was a YUMMY dinner.

By the way- Ashley was my supper helper tonight and she did a GREAT job measuring out the ingredients. Thank You Ashley for all your help!