Since we have been home from our work trip, we have enjoyed so much family time. Believe it or not, we missed the busyness. We were bored and missed our family. We called and they called and I had to settle melt downs and crying because they missed us. But now, we are having the time of our lives.
After Thanksgiving was over it was out turn with the girls. Let me explain. Their mom and dad rotate weeks. My son fought for his rights as their dad and he said there was no way he would ever be a weekend dad. They have shared custody because we fought for it. They have equal responsibilities and share support. Not all fathers are dead beat dads and they need more lawyers who will help them fight. I'm even here for the mom on her weeks when they need me. We have been there since day one and we will continue to be. Boy, sorry, that was just pinned up emotions. Let's get on with this post.
Our son brings them to us in the mornings and drops them off because he and his wife have to be at work or on their way to work 45 minutes away before the school even opens. So, I finish getting the oldest one ready for school and feed her breakfast to start her off to a good day. We take her to school and drop her off. Me and little sissy, who did not make it in this year to Kindergarten because of this stupid (oooppppps did I say that?) birthday rule, come back home and do school. That's ok. That gives me one more year with her to get her ready for Kindergarten this next school year. And trust me, she will be ready. We find things to do and I have plenty of homeschool resources in my stash. Well, about every nook and cranny in my house. I love this Leapfrog Leapstart pad. I had one for our boys, and for the life of me don't know what I did with that thing. So, I got one for our girls. I will link it below. It is in our Amazon store under Homeschool List. I bought some new books to go with it and she is loving them. These go from Toddler all the way up to 2nd grade or maybe 3rd grade if you'd like. But I promise, they will not get tired of using it.
Sometimes I use manipulatives to make up games for us like this pop it and big dice. I just make up a math game off the top of my head. Then I have educational electronics that helps. We practice our writing and letters on all kinds of different manipulatives.
Oh and will you look at this. We found something to do with her hands. Bless her heart, she gets her figgiting from me. Maybe I didn't spell that correctly. Sometimes being figgity gets mistaken for ADD. Nope, just has pinned up energy and pinned up creativity and we channel that and use it to our advantage and do something she enjoys and that is being creative. I have saved so much of her artwork. But this day I decided it was time to teach how to use a needle and thread. We started out big with a big needle, thick thread and felt. Worked like a charm. She sat for an hour working on stitching baby blankets for her babies.
Then guess what? We graduated to sewing on buttons. Smaller needles, thinner thread. She did awesome. Most grownups don't know how to do this.
Oh and look a here. She wanted on my machine. So, here we go. I worked the pressure foot, not ready for that yet. lol I showed her how to lift the presser foot, place her fabric, guide the fabric, and sew a stitch all the way down. Then to lift the needle, cut the thread, and lift the presser foot. She has sewed lines down two big pieces of material already. Not bad for a 5 yr old. You can teach kids anything if you take the time.
Well, I guess this is my circus and this is my monkeys because we are teaching a Lemur to sew on a button now. LOL
This particular week, Atleigh wanted Poppie to take her to school and pick her up everyday. I feel betrayed. LOL. One day when she got home, it was time to fire up my AeroGardens again and we got 12 different things planted. They inspect it everyday and are very excited to see those things start sprouting. I have videos on how we use our Aerogardens, what they are and what they do. I will link them below. We also have my Aero Garden in my Amazon store under Garden List.
Then it was her turn to learn. Whatever GMaw is doing and sissy has learned, she wants to too. They are so proud of themselves and I am too. They are working on some Christmas gifts now for teachers.
This weekend was an all girls weekend. No boys allowed because Poppie and Daddy went on a duck hunting trip to Oklahoma for our sons birthday. It has always been a father son tradition, but the past few years either on of them or both of them could not go due to work. I will show them later. But first, us girls. That Friday night, we went to town and I bought them a little goody and picked up things to make goody bags for school and day care Christmas parties for their classmates. It was cold and wet outside so we brought our hot dog and marshmallow roast inside in the fireplace.
After we ate, we warmed up some hot chocolate in their goody mugs and started Christmas decorating. We danced, sang, sipped hot chocolate etc. I have a small Christmas village that I always let our boys decorate growing up, but since they are grown and gone, I have let the girls take over it. They did it all by themselves. Yes, my OCD was kicking in and wanted to organize it, but I refrained because they were so proud and no way was I gonna spoil that. I will deal with it. They have their two little Christmas trees to themselves also. Again, not gonna touch it. Before we knew it, it was bath time and get ready for bedtime. We settled in and they wanted to watch Christmas movie and eat popcorn. ALWAYS. No problem.
The next day, I declared a pj and craft day. But first, I taught them how to make their own breakfast. Scrambles eggs and sausage. Just look at that face.
We got busy with the crafts and big sissy wanted to know how to sew a button too and work my sewing machine. She did so good and she was very proud of her accomplishments as well.
That evening we got ready and I had a surprise for them. I took them to see the new Trolls movie and eat.
The next morning we got up and ready to go to church. We came home, ate lunch, took naps and got up and ready to go. I had two more surprises for them. I took them to eat and then to our local home town Christmas parade. They enjoyed getting so much candy. Just to see the looks of excitement, giggles, laughter and sparkle in their eyes was enough. Then sadly it was time to take them to mommy's house for her week. Needless to say that didn't go too well. Because they never want to leave GMaw. lol But with much comfort, hugs and kisses and promises of seeing them the following week, all was well.
This was our guys on their trip. They racked and stacked em'!!!!!!! They had so much fun with friends also. The girls told their daddy to bring some ducks home because they wanted some duck jerky. LOL
We got back home from our work trip just in time for Thanksgiving and I told dear hubby that since we were cutting it so close that I just wanted to come up with a meal plan using things we already had on hand.
Well, I promised I would do a tutorial on how I made the dishes for our Thanksgiving meal and used what we had in our freezers and pantries. I wanted to share with you because I always have so many people ask how we cook with our garden produce we can or freeze, so here we go.
We freeze our corn whole on the cob. Any time I get ready to cook with it, I just take out a bag, and let it thaw out. If I want whole kernel corn, I just take a sharp knife and cut the kernels off the cob into a sauce pot and add a little water, butter and salt. I cook it on medium heat until the corn is done. If I want cream style corn, I cut the kernels off first, then scrape the cob to remove excess milk. I use the same process as the whole kernel corn to cook. If I want corn on the cob, I cut the vacuum seal bag open and leave the cobs in the bag and add a few pats of butter and seasonings. I place the bag in the microwave and steam 3 minutes on each side. This is why I love our vacuum sealer and vacuum seal bags. This is the easiest way ever to fix your corn. I made whole kernel corn for the ones who didn't like it on the cob and I reserved some for those who like corn on the cob.
I used our frozen squash to make squash dressing. I took two packages of our squash and steamed them in the microwave in the vacuum seal bag. After they steamed, I squeezed the excess water out. I made a pan of cornbread. I crumbled the corn bread into a large bowl, added the squash, two eggs, can of cream of celery soup, sage, milk and chicken broth. I mixed all this together and poured into a casserole dish and baked on 375 degrees until the dressing was set and golden brown.
I made home made pumpkin pie from scratch using one of the pumpkins my granddaughters had. It was a little pie pumpkin. I lined a large baking sheet with aluminum foil and cut the pumpkins in half , scooped out the strings and seeds, and laid them flat down and roasted at 400 degrees until the pumpkin was soft and tender. After cooling, I removed the skins and placed the puree into a bowl and mashed with a potato masher. I then set the puree into a cheese cloth. I tied the cheese cloth and hung it up over a bowl and let it drain the excess water out over night. If I was using my frozen pumpkin puree, I would have thawed it out, poured it into a cheese cloth, tied it up, hung it up over a bowl to let it drain the excess water out overnight.
I prepared the crust by using the pie crust recipe below. I put all the ingredients into my food processor (except water) and pulsed until it became crumbly, then I added the water and pulsed until it formed and came together into a ball. It doesn't get any easier than that.
I took out the dough ball and put it onto a floured surface. I floured my rolling pin and rolled out the dough to a 9 inch circle. The easiest way to transfer a pie crust to a dish is to roll the dough around the pin and pull it over to your dish and roll it out backwards. I formed it into the pie dish and smoothed every thing out and crimped the edges. Then I took a knife a removed the extra hanging off. Do not discard this. I'll show you what I did with it.
I got the ingredients ready for my filling. You can use the recipe on a can of pumpkin puree if you like or there are tons of recipes online for pumpkin pie using fresh pumpkin. I mixed all my ingredients together in my stand mixer, and poured the filling into my piecrust then spreaded out smooth. Baked at 375 degrees until the filling comes out clean when you stick a knife into the middle. It was smelling delicious in my kitchen. Had had that fallish vibe going on.
Now for those pie scraps, I divided that dough and made two dough balls that I spreaded out, spreaded a dollop of Nutella in it, folded the crust into a half moon and crimped closed. Placed on a baking sheet and baked until golden brown. Made cute bite sized chocolate pies for my granddaughters.
Now for my homemade rolls recipe. I use a recipe from The West Ladies on YouTube. I watched them before I even heard of YouTube. They have a set of DVD's of their own and I bought the whole set. I will link the channel and place you can get their dvds below. I just used their recipe and mixed the dough in my stand mixer. I rolled out the dough and cut out my rolls. I placed them onto a baking sheet and baked according to directions. After removing from the oven, I brushed with melted butter. My family tore them up.
I used two jars of my home canned green beans and made your normal green bean casserole
I used two jars of my home canned dry packed potatoes. I opened them and put them into a sauce pan and added water and boiled until really tender. I drained and mashed with a potato masher first. I added butter, salt, pepper and milk and used an immersion blender to puree all together. I had extra fixings on the island in case anyone wanted to make loaded mashed potatoes.
I used a simple recipe online and made sweet potato casserole. I used two bags of frozen sweet potato puree I had. I let it thaw, hung in a cheese cloth to let it drain and used as normal for the recipe. I did half with marshmallows and half not for those who couldn't eat them.
This is how it all came together. Dear hubby had smoked the ham all day in our smoker and deep fried two turkey breasts in our deep fryer. They were finger licking good. The chocolate pie is courtesy of my momma. She makes the best and she knows it is my favorite. I forgot I opened an extra jar of green beans for our granddaughters. They do not like green bean casserole. And I made deviled eggs. We had a few extras for the girls too like zucchini pickles I canned and pickled okra I canned. And that was our awesome Thanksgiving dinner.
We had a really good time with our family and enjoyed our holiday. I hope you all did as well. I hope you can use some of these ideas and I hope I have given you some inspiration on how to use your home canned and frozen goodies. Even the cat had to get in the picture.
The West Ladies website Homestead Blessings DVD's They also have a recipe book I have too.
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Just about everything we made was from our garden and I couldn't be happier. I will try and do a tutorial of each dish and explain how I cooked them as soon as I can. Everything was delicious.
Dear hubby was a little down and out but I didn't realize it until later. He just misses being with his family. He misses his mom and all the get togethers we had all the time. Hold your families tight and treasure the times you have together.
