Random Picture Saturday

I am going to make Saturdays random pic day. I am a picture junkie, I love looking at pictures, mine or others. I really enjoyed Show & Tell yesterday and looking at everyone's special items and people. Thanks for looking and have a wonderful peaceful Saturday :))

Here is me and my daughter camping.

One of the happiest days of my life, the day we adopted Tiana 7/06

We had a VERY large adoption/1st bday party at our home for 125 people

Our favorite winter meal:

placecards I made for Thanksgiving, I made slits in chestnuts to hold the cards:

3 of my kids at Holiday time:

I am most proud of my very loving accepting children-I can teach them no better lesson:

My very beautiful oldest (23):

This past Halloween at Disneyworld

Show & Tell Friday

Kelli's Show & Tell of her great book find made me look at my book collection. I love to collect old books, Dick & Jane books, vintage cookbooks and vintage children's books.


I love this book, found it in Goodwill for .25.


Good Housekeeping Book of Menus, Recipes and Household Discoveries

Printed in 1922. It's facinating reading recipes from 1922 and prior and the household discoveries are a hoot!!

Here is a yummy sounding recipe from the book:

Candied Yams

3 medium sized sweet potatoes

1 to 1 1/2 cupfuls sirup from canned peaches

2 tablespoons margarin

Boil the potatoes until nearly tender. Peel and slice lengthwise. Lay in a shallow pan, preferable glass or earthenware, pour oven them the juice and add dots of margarin. Bake for thirty minutes in a 400 F oven. Raise the heat to brown or brown under the broiler flame.

Thank God It's Friday/Recipe

Happy Friday everyone. I really like blogging, it's suits me. I like to write, cook and take pics. I wish I could connect with more bloggers but I guess that will come in time. Please feel free to add my Blog to your list of bloggers on your blog page. I would so appreciate it. Sometimes I feel like I am talking to myself LOL. Yesterday was a busy day here and I got NO cooking done. I had to run out to a meeting at 5 and didn't get home until 9pm. Hubby made the kids mac and cheese from the blue box, hope he gave them fruit or something. It was nice to come home and have all the kids either sleeping or ready for bed.

I am a morning person and go to bed early. I like to get up before everyone is awake and drink my coffee, read my emails and ponder my day in peace before I wake the gang. Today will be an easy day, Tiana only has PT at 9am and then we are free. I need to go to the grocery store for a few things after morning naps.

I just can't wait for school to be over, I think I am more excited then the kids. The 2 middle will go to camp for 6 weeks from 9-4 and they LOVE it. It's a really nice camp and close to home. We have a 30' camper and try to go camping as many weekends as we can. Now that we have a new fosterbaby I am not sure how that will work out. We are going camping for 5 days the 4th of July and a good friend of mine who is a foster parent will take my baby while we are away. Only licensed foster parents can keep your child overnight so it's hard to find someone to help as I could not send her to strangers.

Here are some pics of us camping last summer: The one with all the kids, 2 are my best friend's kids. The view is what we were lucky to wake to every morning. I love to go camping, it's peaceful and we can just be.

I have boneless porkchops defrosted, have NO idea what I want to do with them, any suggestions??

Before I forget here is the Saucy Chicken recipe for Kitty and anyone else that is interested:

Saucy Chicken

2 1/2 pounds chicken (I used chicken breasts)

1 small yellow onion

1 garlic clove

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup white vinegar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 375.F

2. Arrange chicken pieces in a baking dish.

3. Chop the onion and garlic. Melt the butter in saucepan. Add the onion and garlic and cook over medium heat until onion is transparent, about 5 minutes.

4. Stir in all remaining ingredients. Mix with a wooden spoon.

5. Bring the sauce to a boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.

6. Pour sauce over chicken and bake until chicken is cooked all the way through.

*I doubled the sauce*

Thursday

Yesterday was a great day. It was a calm day and I got a lot done. I made cinna-buns for the kids to have after school (each kid brought home a friend on the bus). I found a package of already made bread dough in the freezer so I defrosted them and made 2 recipes that were printed on the package. The cinna-buns and dinner rolls, both were delicious! For dinner we had a new recipe that I got off a AOL message board called Saucy Chicken, we loved it, also had rice and green beans. It was chilly here in NY yesterday and I had to keep most of the windows closed. Tiana was really cranky when she woke from her nap so when DH came home he took the kids outside for some running around time, seems to always make things better. I am planning Tiana's 2nd birthday party and can't believe how fast the 2 years have flown by. Tiana came to us as a foster placement when she was 27 days old and I knew she was a gift from God the second I laid eyes on her in the hospital. We were able to adopt her last July and she is ours forever. Gosh how I love that child!! I love all my children but Tiana was sent to us by a higher power.

On another note. My 10 year old has been feeling her oats of late (growing pains? Aunt Flo coming?) She is really a good kid but I won't take sass, she was sassy so I told her she could have a peanut butter sandwich for dinner (knowing she loved the dinner I made). She loves to eat and totally appreciates good food so I knew it was a punishment for her more so then taking TV time away etc. Do you think that is mean in any way?? I hate to use food as a punishment but it was effective and she didn't go hungry. It hurt me too cause I love to nourish my family with good home-cooking.

Here are some pics:

Wedsnesday Morning

Wow, even with 5 kids I didn't realize how busy I am until I tried to get to my blog to make a post 100 times yesterday! It was truly a crazy day yesterday. New baby had some Early Intervention evaluations, Tiana had OT therapy, I had a root canal, had Tiana's yearly EI meeting and finally had a meeting last night. YIKES. I did manage to make banana bread and ham spirals for my EI meeting. I also managed to fix dinner in advance and then hubby popped it in the oven while I was at the dentist. Yesterday involved teamwork from hubby and I am thankful for that!

Someone asked me for my meatloaf recipe:

2.5 lbs ground beef (I do not like the mix with the pork)

2 eggs

a few handfuls of flavored breadcrumbs

ketchup

paprika for the top (makes it nice and brown)

just mix it all up and add enough ketchup to be able to incorporate the breadcrumbs. I have used a can of tomato soup before but like the ketchup better. Pretty basic recipe but we all love it. I use a loaf pan to bake mine and take off the fat as it cooks with a turkey baster.

My mashed taters I add a stick of butter and either sour cream or a brick of cream cheese. I could eat cream cheese with a spoon!

Dinner tonight was baked chicken thighs, leftover mashed and green beans.

Today we are FREE from apts and such. I need to put the folded laundry away, my most dreaded job and there is a pile for everyone. I should have the kids be in charge of their own pile but then they would just ball it up into the drawers and that is a pet peeve of mine, I like organized drawers. Gosh, I sound so anal!! I am really not. :))

I hope you all have a wonderful day filled with the sound of laughter and love.

Dinner Pics

I love to take pics of my cooking and baking. When I find a new recipe that I like I then take a pic of the finished product and print it and attach to the recipe so I can see how mine came out.

Here are some pics- I could not figure out how to go back to my post and insert them. My meatloaf waiting to go into the oven. My new Yankee Candle (Banana scent) and the figure is what my kids bought me for Mother's Day.