Abbey at Christmas

I know that I'm way behind on this blogging stuff, but we have had computer problems at home and I have moved offices at work so things have been packed up including my work computer. Anyway, I'm back on track in both places (although still behind for the holidays). I still do not have a tree up because I don't want to risk the chance that Abbey will pull it down. Tonight Clark should have the prelit tree up when I get home and all I'm going to do is stick a tree skirt around the bottom and put a couple of bows on it for color. I decided not to put my ornaments on this year, again for Abbey's sake. Next year we can decorate like normal. She does have a stocking and I will wait until Christmas to put the presents under the tree. We should end up with good pictures and little fuss for this year. So here are a few pictures that Bonnie took for me of Abbey in her reindeer outfit. Have a wonderful holiday season, Merry Christmas to all!

Our sweet little pumpkin

Abbey's faces

MeMe has taught Abbey to make this new face and I've been trying so hard to get it on film. Everyone wants a shot of it and today at lunch she made this grinning face and I got it with the camera. Here are the many faces of Abbey Claire...

(the last one is the new "grin" face)

Sunday picture

I was so excited about being ready in time to make Sunday pictures today that I downloaded them as soon as I got back from church. Only one turn out clear, but it is a great one.

It's been a while.

It's been a while since I have put anything on the blog. I've been very busy with work and our little Abbey, but thought I would send a few pictures so you can see how we have been. Don't worry, I still keep up with my friends blogs, even if I don't say anything myself. I really admire those of you who write on a regular basis. Enjoy the pictures and I'll try to do better at leaving messages.

I have to brag (just a little)

I've been decorating cakes for about four years now. Nothing too difficult , but I have made them for money and have helped out at my friend's bakery when she gets too over booked with cakes. I think I have a creative mind for it. Anyway, I have to brag just a little on this cake. About a month ago, a lady I work with mentioned the big party that her family has every year to send her nephew off to training camp. He has played for the Steelers, the Vikings and is playing this year for the Tennessee Titans. I decided to make one of my cakes for his party and I just wanted to show you know how it turned out. I was very proud of it.

Sunday pics...

My camera has not been working very good and it makes it even harder when Abbey doesn't want to stay still, but here is a pic from a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning that I just got off the camera. Don't you just love the hat?

Sunday Pictures (Thanks for the idea, Mindy!)

Well, I haven't had much to say lately so I haven't blogged in a while. But I was talking with my aunt recently and she mentioned how she hates that she doesn't get to see Abbey on Sunday with all her cute outfits (apparently word has spread, via the little old ladies, that Abbey always has something cute on for church on Sunday). Well, I decided to take a page from my friend of a friend, Mindy's blog and start putting Sunday pictures of Abbey on here so family can see her in her Sunday best. I have taken pictures the past few weeks and these are what I have so far. Both dresses were gifts from Meme. The last one is just a picture of me and Abbey after we changed out of our Sunday clothes.

It won't be long...

Till it's football time in Tennessee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Around this time of year I start getting tired of the heat and I'm ready for the cool crisp air of fall, but most of all I'm ready for some football. I love football, it is truely a passion. I love to have tailgate food, friends over and I get so wrapped up in a game that it is almost silly. I think I love football more than my husband does, although he gets pretty wrapped up in it too. I have reserved season tickets to the local high school games, I print out all of the schedules for our favorite college and pro teams, I plan get togethers, vacations or any necessary trips around the football schedules and my house turns orange and two shades of blue for football (funny how all our favorite teams have these colors in common). I love it. This year we will have to work around the baby, but I don't think that will be a problem. She needs to learn from a young age what is important in life, FOOTBALL. We have already started teaching her to say "Go Vols!". For those of you who might be as crazy as I am, and have started to look at the fall line ups, here is a great link to remind you of last year and get you excited about the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVF4CSgWiTc

Let's hear it, REBS! Go Vols! How about those Titans! And charge on Broncos! Let's get ready for a great season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. Look for local boy, Eric Taylor, on the LP Field this year for the Titan's defense. We are really proud of him.

Salsa!

Well, I canned my first batch last night and we chose Salsa. I cheated a little and got a seasoning mix to use, but we ended up with a good salsa. Clark really liked the flavor and it had just enough punch. Since most of my tomatoes are still green and they are larger tomatoes, not best for salsa or tomato paste, we bought 8 lbs. of Roma tomatoes from a farmer friend that Clark works with. It made 5 pints of salsa and all the lids were sealed good by this morning. So far, so good. Now tonight we will work on pickles. We also bought 15lbs. of pickling cucumbers and again I bought a cheat packet of dill pickle seasoning for the brine. I can't wait to work on it tonight. I enjoy seeing fresh food preserved. It brings back a lot of memories of how my family would pull together and put up food from our garden when I was young and it has become something that Clark and I enjoy doing together. I think my parents and grandmothers are impressed with us too.

I have tomatoes...

Well, I thought I would give you a garden update. Weeds have taken over and the garden is growing slow. I figured this would happen because I just love the thought of a garden more than I love the work, but Clark is off from work this week and promised that he would till down the rows for me. I have kept the weeds out from around the plants so they are growing, just not too fast. I was really dissapointed in myself when my neighbors came over a couple of nights ago with a bag full of squash, peppers, cucumber and a head of cabbage and said there was plenty more so go pick out of their garden whenever we want. We tilled our gardens the same weekend, but they are much more into it than I have been and the results are obvious. I went out yesterday to take a look and was very happy to see one of my tomatoes is turning red, I have four dime size patty pan squash growing and a zucchini that is about four inches long already. Maybe my garden is doing better than I thought. I'll see if I can get some pictures soon. After we clean the weeds out. :)

PS. The two tomato plants that survived from the seeds I planted in February have started to grow tomatoes and they are Roma style, long and slender, so I guess I have either Sweet Tangerine Mamas or Golden Mamas. Maybe it will be one of each.

MaMa...

Abbey said her first word and it was MaMa...although no one else has heard her say it and frankly no one believes me when I tell them that I heard it. But that was what she said last night, I promise. I have noticed in the past couple of days that she is working very hard at forming her mouth and not just making sounds. Well, last night she was in her Jumparoo and she started getting tired and wining, then she would cry out "Mama" and rub her eyes. I would think that it was just her making noise, but she did it three or four more times and it was very clear. Still no one believes me, but hopefully tonight she will do it again while Clark is around. I'm sorry that it will break his heart that her first word is mama instead of dada, but that's the way it goes. :)

Learning new things

Seems like Abbey learns something new everyday, but there are some things that are bigger accomplishments than others. Last week she learned to roll over by herself and she even scoots a little (not quite crawling, but she tries really hard). Here are a few pictures of her rolling over. We have also found that she likes to watch TV (SpongeBob and HGTV are her favorites) but she really loves her playtime before bed each night. The play time wears her out, which is the part I like. Enjoy the pictures!

Fresh Canning

I'm so excited. Clark bought me some freezer jam jars, a water bath canner and a pressure canner this weekend. I have long talked about canning and having fresh food for us all winter long, but never seemed to get it done (plus pressure canners scared me after hearing the horror stories my mom and grandmother would tell) but this year I'm going to get it done. Since we have a small garden this year and it is doing well and the price of food it going up all of the time, I want to make a greater effort to can and freeze as much food possible. I'm starting with freezer jam which I have done successfully before. I have found a great recipe for freezer jam that use Splenda as the sweetner so Clark can have as much as he wants. Also Ball now makes a No Sugar Added pectin for canning so that will help with any jams and jellies that I decide to can for the winter. I also have experience with the water bath canner and canning tomato sauces, but I normally just use my stock pot so I can't seal very many jars at one time. With my new canner I can seal seven quarts or ten pints at once. Much better! The pressure canner will be my new experience so I plan to read the directions very well and talk to people who can on a regular basis to get any advice possible. So if you have any to throw my way, go ahead. It will be greatly appreciated. For the things that just do not can well, I still have my chest freezer to store things in. I plan to put food up from my garden, trade things from my garden for things from my friends gardens and of course buy from the farmers market. I can't wait until harvest time. We have a few things at the farmers market now, but it will really pick up by the end of June. This gives Clark a project to work on as well. I need somewhere to store all of this wonderful food, so it is Clark's job to build some shelves in our downstairs office closet. It is coolest room in the house and I really don't store anything in that closet so it will be shelves and Ball jars from floor to ceiling. Wish me luck and of course I will post updates!

Sweet Pictures!

I just love it when you get a good candid photo that you know will mean so much later when you look back on it. This is my new favorite picture of my daughter. I was changing out my closets the other night, switching the winter clothes to the guest room and bringing in the summer clothes to the closet in our room. Clark offered to take care of Abbey for me and so they just played on the bed and watched TV in our room so we could all be together and I looked up and saw this so I ran and got the camera as quickly as I could to have it as a reminder of the two people I love the most in this world. Just wanted to share!

More good news on the baby scene!

Many of you know my cousin Shanna, who I'm very close to. Some of you might also know that she and her sweet husband Josh have had a hard time getting pregnant. Although the reason behind the difficult time was different than our situation, the empty feelings were the same. They tried for two years and saw a couple of different doctors who told them the same thing. Chances were slim and they might want to concider InVitro. This coming on the heels of our success with IVF, they were eager to give it a try, and I'm proud to say that this morning they discovered they were expecting. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They used the same doctor and the same clinic we did so it really became a family affair and we are so happy for them. It will be a couple of weeks before they know if they are having twins or not and even longer to find out if it is a boy or a girl, but that just gives them so much to look forward to. Now I get to dig up all my pregnancy books to pass along to them and I do so gladly. Great going guys!!!!!!!! I can't wait to see Abbey's little cousin and have history repeat itself. I know they will be very close too.

Garden Update

Don't try to grow tomato plants from seed unless you have a greenhouse. I set my plants out last week and they all laid down on the ground and died. They just didn't have strong enough stems to keep them up, so I bought new ones yesterday at a local greenhouse and planted them. They aren't the interesting varieties that the others were so I won't get anything different than other local growers, but at least I can get them fresh from my own garden. That is the only thing that I have planted so far. Since it keeps raining, Clark hasn't been able to go back over the garden spot with the tiller to brake it up a little more so I can plant my seeds. Hopefully I can get them in the ground by the end of the week. Also an update to my second job. I went in Friday night to Designer Cakes and worked till midnight to get things ready for Saturday. I loved it. I learned so much from Joan. Hopefully it will work out for me to go in on Thursday and Friday nights to help out. Everyone enjoy your week and check out these pictures of the new tomato plants that I planted. I have Better Boy, Golden Boy and Super Sweet 100 (Cherry Tomato).

OAMC (Once a month Cooking)

Well, my weekend was spent cooking. I have done freezer cooking before, but normally I just double a recipe or just use what is in my kitchen when my cabinets and refrigerator get too full. I have done once a month cooking before too, but I try to vary my recipes. This time I did a hamburger session because Kroger had ground beef on sale last week. I made and put in the freezer the following:

Spaghetti Sauce
Sloppy Joes
Upside down Pizza sauce
Firehouse meatloaf
Cheeseburger meatloaf
Burritos
Taco rolls
Breakfast Bread
Corn Casserole
Twice baked potatoes
Baked Beans
Shepherds Pie
Sunburst Casserole
Salisbury Steak
Cheeseburger Quiche
Taco Seasoned Meat

I made two servings of everything but the casseroles and only made one of those. I made four meatloaves and eight burritos. I was cooking from 8:30 Saturday morning till 5:00 Saturday night. It was worth it because now I just have to go home, put dinner in to heat up and fix a side dish (normally a salad or can veggie for us). This will save so much time that we could spend with Abbey or working on other chores that aren't getting done now. It also saves money because you buy in bulking. I guess I will have to have a chicken day and maybe a pork and side dish day to even out the freezer. I can't wait until the fresh veggies start to come in this summer, then I can put up those in the freezer. I hope everyone has a great week!

Not much going on...

Sorry I haven't posted much lately, but I haven't really done much. My tomato plants are still growing and so is my favorite little girl. Abbey is really getting big and she is finally on a routine. She goes to bed around 10 and sleeps till about 5, then a bottle, a diaper change and back to bed until time to go to MeMe's for the day. They seem to have a routine too. Then I pick her up at 5, go home for a bottle and we play and watch TV until time for a bath at 8:30 and bottle at 9:00. Finally we read books from 9:30 till 10 and its off to bed. I can't believe she is in such a good routine at three months old. Of course it doesn't always go this way, but most of the time it is close. As for my other project, we have to till up our garden spot this weekend and start getting it ready to plant next week. We are really tired of the tomato plants being in the kitchen. They have gotten so big that they take up my whole counter just about. They really need to go outside. I hope it will be nice this weekend so I can leave them out to get used to the weather before we plant them. I have seeds to plant also and those need to go in the ground in the next week. I'm so excited. Well, I'll leave you with a sweet little picture of Abbey being held by her friend Avery. I just love Avery's little pig tails.

More Veggies

I have now bought seeds for everything that will go in my garden and these are the veggies that I have decided to add: cucumbers, zucchini and okra. Check out what they are suppose to look like. I also plan on planting a regular yellow squash and a pickling cucumber. I think my eyes are bigger than my ability to grow things, but it will fun to try.

Tomato plants

I didn't have this picture when I posted about my tomato plants earlier, but this is the packet of seeds that I got. It is called the Burpee best in show tomato packet and it grows five different tomato plants. These are what they will look like if my plan is a success. Also I bought a packet of pattypan squash seeds today that should look like this when they grow. These are the "suppose to" pictures so I'll have to compare them to what actually comes out of my garden this summer. I can't wait!