To dress or to stuff.

In my ward we have an ongoing joke about dressing and stuffing.  Us Westerners call it stuffing.  Here in the South they call it dressing.  They even taste different.  Dressing is more like a mashed potato consistency.  Some has chicken in it and it is usually made of corn bread.  Stuffing is a little more dry, but… not to dry.  My Southern friend teases me that my recipe has nuts and twigs in it.  Well… I like my nut and twig STUFFING.  I thought you might enjoy trying the recipe for your Thanksgiving meal.

Cornbread and Wild Rice Stuffing

Ingredients:

1 cup of wild rice(I use uncle bens microwave kind)

8 slices of stale Italian bread cut into cubes

1 tube pork sausage(Jimmy Dean)

4 T. butter

1 large onion, chopped

3 medium celery ribs, chopped

3 cups packaged corn bread stuffing like Stove top

1 Cup dried cranberries

1/2 C. chopped parsley

3 t. thyme

3/4 t. ground pepper

2 to 2 1/2 C. chicken broth

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Microwave your rice for 90 seconds or cook your rice in water until moist.

2.  Meanwhile spread cubed bread on a jelly roll pan and bake until lightly toasted.  Stir once.  Takes about 15 minutes.

3.  In a large skillet cook sausage until browned.  Rinse the fat with hot water in a colander.  Add it to a large dish.

4.  Add butter, onion, and celery to a skillet.  Increase heat to medium-high and cook until the vegetables are softened.  Pour into dish with sausage.

5.  Add rice, bread, bread stuffing, cranberries, parsley, thyme and pepper.  Toss to mix.  Drizzle with 2 cups chicken broth, tossing until evenly moistened.  Add remaining broth if needed.

I like to put this in a dish that I can put in the oven to keep warm until I serve it.

My other favorite Thanksgiving recipe can be found here.  Scroll down to the bottom of the post.  It is called Sweet Potato Soufflé.  You will see the recipe written on top of a picture.

…and since I am having company, I thought it would be nice to  whip up a batch of these.

I stumbled on this recipe when I cleaned out my hubby’s wallet about a year back.  He had been carrying it around since his mission.  You should see how tattered and worn the paper is.  They are the best cookies.  I spruced them up for the season by adding peppermint chips and white chocolate chips; but they taste just as good with the regular chocolate.

Mission Cookies

2 1/4 C. Flour

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

1 C. butter

3/4 C. brown sugar

1 t. vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.  Beat butter, sugars, and vanilla.  Add eggs one at a time.  Gradually mix in the dry ingredients, and then the chocolate or peppermint chips.

Bake 9-11 minutes.  I like them a little under done.

A little holiday decorating, challenge end, and what I have learned.

For those of you who took my 5 week challenge it has come to an end.  WE DID IT!!!  I hope you all reached your goals.  I hope you found it an easy way to loose some weight and get in shape.  I lost the 5 pounds that I had wanted too.  These five weeks have been harder then most.  Jonathan has worked so much that I have not had much time to run.  I have been doing Pilates and some weight training.  I have learned how much easier it is when you have a good strong partner around.  I do feel more tone, and less flabby then I did five weeks ago which is exactly what I wanted.

I wish I had more 300 calorie recipes to share, but I really have not had much time to try new recipes.  Jonathan hasn’t been home much to share them with.  My kids have been eating chicken nuggets and I have been eating salads and sandwiches. 

I guess that is one part about eating right.  You have to be able to continue with it even when life hands you a curve ball. 

Do you remember when I was more on the ball and I used to post what I have learned.  Well I hope to still share that, but more on the fly.  Today my what I have learned has to do with my challenge. 

These last 5 weeks did not go at all as I had planned. I guess I thought they would be similar to the last 12 that I had just completed.  I soon remembered that my husband was starting a whole new rotation that would change my routine once again.  I hate that!! I hate when things are working so well, and I have to make it work differently.  That is the life of a residents wife.

Like I said, I had to find a new way to exercise.  I also didn’t have my regular eating plan like I did when his schedule was more predictable.

I found myself sabotaging myself.  What a horrible thing to do.  In my mind if things were not going to work out how I had planned then I should just have 12 cookies. 

THAT MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!!

What I have learned is to find the balance.  If I am frustrated, which I will be, it is important to remember to work with myself instead of against myself.  When I cheat or completely fall off the band wagon I only become more angry with myself.  I made a goal to stop sabotaging what I have set out to do.  I am the only one who can decide to be what I want to be.  That can work in every aspect of our life not just weight loss.

I have learned that eating right is a lifestyle change, not something I do to loose weight.  It is a choice I make to live healthy every day and lets face it to fit in to my clothes.  Oh, and to keep up with my kids and their crazy schedules.  I feel so much better when I eat right and exercise.

What did you learn through this whole process?

I am grateful to have figured this out.  It is nice to be at my goal, and determined to maintain my healthy lifestyle.

Oh, and still find room for a cookie now and then without the guilt.

I have been busy this week decorating for the holidays.  I wanted to get it all up before our friends came for Thanksgiving.

Do you decorate your kids rooms?

I do.  Here is a little preview of what they look like during the holidays.

Girls Room:

  

My girls don’t have room for a tree in their room so I have this nice tree and snowmen figure that lights up.  I love the stars that it projects on their walls at night.  I also made the wreaths for their closet door this year.  See them in the boys room too:

Boys Room:

    

   

   

These are the ornaments that hang from their window.  They do have room for a tree.  This little tree is home to all the ornaments that they have collected over the years.  Ornaments from school, church, grandparents, and mom and dad.  They love hearing about each one as we put them on the tree.  They also love decorating it.  I have found each one of them just staring at it on numerous occasions.

The lights are mesmerizing.

I love the holidays, and the magic that is already present in our home.  I plan to share more about our holidays throughout the next few weeks; if I can find the time to sit at my computer.

Thanks for looking, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Diving in head first…

After a year and half of having my favorite little memory taker(my cherished camera), I have decided that I am ready to dive in and do photography for others. 

I have practiced on my friends and family, I have read every bit of photography knowledge I can get my hands on, and now I am ready to put that practice and knowledge to use.

I have a talent that I am ready to share and use.

To get me started, I did a nice little shoot of the kids tonight. 

Here are a few of my favorites and some examples of what your shoot would look like.

          

    

       

It was a good reminder that I really do love photography and I am ready for this.

I think everyone deserves to have great pictures.  I am trying to keep my prices reasonable so you can have great memories too.

If you are in the Little Rock area and are interested in knowing more about what a session includes and my prices, please email me at cutiewithclippers@yahoo.com.

Thankful for:

Tonight, I am thankful for a healthy body.  A body that works. I haven’t been able to run for almost 2 weeks.  2 weeks since my running shoes have hit the pavement!! Jonathan has a new schedule that doesn’t always allow me to run.  He leaves before the sun comes up, and comes home after it goes down. I really enjoy running outdoors. So… I have been doing lots of Pilates. 

This morning, I got up and did my Pilates.  I felt great, but when Jonathan got home early from work today I just had to take advantage of it.  I laced up those shoes,set my ipod to a little Jason, and hit the road. It felt so good.  I think I had a smile on my face the whole time.

Do you think it is weird to smile and run at the same time?

As I was running I couldn’t help but be grateful for my miraculous body that works.

Yes, I have aches and pain.  Yes, I run into weird little problems every now and then.

For the most part it works, and it works well.

I hope to have this body for a long time.

I think I just might take care of it.

I will give my prayer of Thanksgiving to a God who has given me good health and strength.

P.S.  Take the time to check out 365.

Christmas Countdown

The last few Christmas’s have been a little crazy it seems.  It seems like I just couldn’t get it together.  This year I set a goal for myself:

Have it together by Nov. 1.

What does that mean?

For me it means, having my expectations for the Holidays written down.

I did just that. On Nov. 1st.

With the help of this:

My Holiday Planner.

I made this thing years ago.

I updated it a little this year.

It has every thought, idea, project, tradition, gift, address, recipe that just might be swimming around in my brain.

I realized that the way for me to cut the crazy was to get the crazy out of my head.

It has been helpful to get it all spelled out before the holidays actually start.

I would be happy to share my file for anyone who might be interested.

I also wanted to get all of my Christmas Projects done before Thanksgiving. I have just about succeeded in that.

I can’t wait to share what I have been working on.

Sharing Christmas gifts is a little tricky though.  The people that I am giving too just happen to read this blog.  I don’t know how I am going to go about it.

I do want to share a couple of other ideas.

I really wanted to have an advent calendar for my kids.  I really wanted to uphold some of the fun holiday ideas that I have had written in my little planner.  So… I combined the two.

I bought the kit for this here.  The kids and I put it together one evening.

There is an ornament for each day.

Then I took little slips of paper and wrote down anything that I thought the kids might enjoy.

I glued a paper clip to the back of the ornament for the slip of paper to go.

I wanted to be able to switch these up each year.

Next, I looked at my calendar and laid out what would work best for which days of the week.

For example, cutting snowflakes out of paper is easy to do on a Tuesday evening.  Going to see the lights at Garvin Gardens is not.  We will save that for a Friday.

I also put appropriate tasks on Mondays that we could do for Family Home Evening.

I can’t wait to put this plan in to motion.

I am hoping to hang the ornaments on these branches.  I will probably spray paint them silver for the Holidays, and add a few more to my vase with a pretty red ribbon.

Here is my full list of ideas:

Make snowmen out of play dough

Make a holiday treat

Read a Christmas book

Watch a Christmas movie with popcorn

Do a gift of service

Have a fondue night

Write a Christmas story and draw a picture to go with it.

Make gingerbread cookies to hang on children’s tree.

Letters to Santa.

Make a treat for out neighbors.

Cut out snowflakes.

Drive around and look at the lights.

Make cookies.

Call a family member.

Make Hot Chocolate or Apple Cider.

Play a game.

Read “The” Christmas Story

String Popcorn

Do a service for someone in your immediate family.

Eat a Candy Cane

Have a snowball fight with toilet paper.

Look through your ornament book.(this is a special book that I make for each of my kids, more on this later.)

I also finally got around to making this little advent for myself.  This is from a class that I took from this site. Can you tell how much I love Jessica Sprague?  She is also teaching a free class at the end of the month.  Don’t forget to sign up.  Jessica’s classes are awesome.

My plan with this little project is to take 20 minutes for myself everyday to record the important memories that happen in the month of December.  I will take a photo, and share a thought.  This little advent gives me the prompts to do so.

For example:

Write about: The importance to you of your holiday tree. 

Photo: Of your tree

Remember: Did you have rituals or traditions relating to your holiday tree?

I will use my 365 blog for the whole month of December to complete this little project.

One other thing we do at Christmas is try to keep it simple.  We have expectations that we do not exceed.  Our kids know what to expect, and that helps them not feel disappointment.  It also helps our wallet.

We have written a letter to Santa asking him to only bring one gift.

The rest of the gifts come from us. 

Each child gets:

Something to wear, something to read, something you want, and something you need.

This makes shopping very easy.

Did I mention that I am all done shopping?

I make sure to make a list of all of that in my handy dandy planner.

Then when I am out and about I can remember, “Isaac needs new jeans.”  Cross that off the list.

I am so excited this year.

I really want to focus on the memories, and traditions.  I want to feel less pressure and stress.

I want to share a great holiday with my family.

Eight years ago when I made my planner, these are the objectives that I wrote down.

1. to spend joyful quality time with my family

2. to have an evenly spaced holiday

3. to have realistic expectations

4. to have reliable family traditions.

It is funny that those objectives remain the same to today.

We are getting there.  I am working out the kinks, but we are getting there.

I truly believe that some of the greatest memories I have as a child happened during the month of December.

There is something so magical about it as a child.

My goal is to create the magic in our home.

Giving Thanks.

I am thankful for so many things.

Right now, I am thankful that my bestie is coming for Thanksgiving.

The whole crew.  All 6 of them to be with all of the 6 crazies that reside in this house.

Are you ready for Thanksgiving?

Are you hosting?

I think I am ready except…

I STILL NEED TO SHOP!!

We do have the menu all planned, and..

it will be delicious.

I will share a few of my favorite recipes in the next few days.

Today, I have to share how Thankful I am for good deals.

I love deals.

I am all done Christmas shopping, and boy did I do good this year.

(more on this later)

Right now, I am just too excited about my $store and thrift store finds.

They make my Thanksgiving decorations complete.

I found the red and yellow dishes at the Dollar tree.  I am in love with these.  They can be put in the oven… I can’t wait to make a dessert in them.  An adorable little dessert for one.  Any recipes?

Krysta has a silver pot like this on her table, and I have always loved it.  I found this at good will.

…and the marble platter with glass cover was also a good will find.  I can’t wait to put a little treat here.  For now this little pumpkin fits great.

Then I stumbled upon the best… are you ready.. you are never going to believe it.

An entire owl collection.  I love owls.  As you may know by this and this; owls are a repetitive theme around here.

They make the best fall decoration.

Did I mention that I also found a stash of owl salt and pepper shakers at Kirklands for .67 cents a set.  I bought them all.  They will be great little gifts. (can you see them to the right of the clock.  They are black with green eyes.

Aren’t owls so cute?

Here is a peak at the rest of my Thanksgiving Decorations:

What are those placemats you ask?

That was a little Family Home Evening project that we had.

We each made our own little mat, with the same design layout, but they each have their own Unique characteristics.

Then I had them laminated.

Each Monday we write what we are thankful for with a dry erase marker.  I hope by the end of the month our table will be full of things we are thankful for.

See… Tess is thankful for milk.

I am going to enjoy my Thanksgiving decorations for a week or so.  I am hoping to put Christmas up early this year.

I am really in the Christmas spirit. (more on that later)

Anyways, I can’t wait to share what I have been working on with you.

Here is a sneak peak.

 

Wrapping it up.

My kids love to look at their scrapbooks.  I have been so bad about getting them printed once I went to digital.  Now, I am trying to get there pages wrapped up so I can get them printed and….

WRAPPED UP (literally)

…and put under the tree.

Merry Christmas Kids.  I am going to finish YOUR scrapbooks.

A couple of projects… finally.

I have been wanting to share this little project for a month.  I did this before we left on vacation.

I want to share it because it was cheap, and it totally revamped my whole bathroom.

My kids bathroom needed a little re-do.

I loved the shower curtain, but the walls were really getting to me.  I really want to paint in here, but our time in this house is winding down and I really don’t want to take the time when I know I will only get to enjoy it for a little while longer.

So… I came up with this little idea.

It was an idea that popped in to my head one day when I thought, “I want my kids to read thoughts about how great I think they are, how much I love them, or quotes that will lift them up and remind them of important things.”

There was no greater place to put them, then in their bathroom.

I even enjoy reading them.

I thought long and hard about what I wanted them to say, and then I made them in photoshop.

Printed them out on cardstock with our printer.

Framed them in frames that I found at Goodwill.  I just spray painted them cream, and WA-LA; a wall with encouraging words and reminders for less them $4.00, and I didn’t have to paint.

I also found this tin at Swiss Days in Utah, and new it would go great in here.  You have seen these flowers all over my house, and now they found their perfect home here.

This little frame has a card in it from my new friend Stella.  I met her through blogging.  She lives in the Netherlands.  She makes  awesome cards.  Check out her blog here to see just how awesome she is.  This little card came when she mailed our family our favorite Dutch treat; chocolate sprinkles that you put on toast.  We used to live on a Dutch island so when the package came it was such a sweet reminder of “home.”  Thanks again Stella, and thanks for the beautiful card that is now art in my bathroom.

What do you think? Pretty good room re-do for next to nothing.

One more project.  I whipped this up today, because once I took down my Candy Corn banner, my mantel seemed a little bare.  Plus, I thought this was a good reminder of the importance of Thanksgiving.

I printed the letters out on book pages that I torn out of an old book using the font Downcome.

Then I tore them and ruffed them up a little more.

I added them to the tan cardstock, and a little glitter to bling it up.

Then I stapled it to some white tool, and added it to the mantel.

I also included the paper book chain that I made for Tessa’s birthday.  I can’t wait to use it for other things too.

I have lots of project ideas running through my little brain right now.  Lets just hope I can find time to share them.

I hope you have time to do some projects too. 

I am thinking in homemade Christmas gifts.  Do you have any ideas?

P.S.  don’t forget to check out 365.  I have finally updated.

P.P.S.  How is the challenge going?  I had a rough week.  I stayed the same, but I only exercised twice, and I ate a little Halloween candy.  I am back on the bandwagon today.