one mom's journey home
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I won’t take credit for this recipe (though I have some of my own to share), but in the midst of tailgate season I can’t pass up sharing these. I had the awesome privilege of spending last weekend in Jacksonville/ St. Augustine, FL. To my college football fan readers you all know it was the infamous UGA/FL Game weekend. As a Georgia Tech Alum I have always steered clear of this game. tailgate and anything associated to it. But it is my family’s rival weekend. My Dad’s family are all Bulldogs (I even grew up one), and my Aunt’s family are all Gators. They always get together and have some good old fashion rivalry fun and partying for the weekend around the game. The tailgating had some great food and this was one of the breakfast items my Aunt (Nane) made. Thank you Nane! I will warn you all though, they are porkarrific! So if you steer clear of pork, don’t even read on. seriously I can’t even begin to tell you how addictivly good these were. I think I had 5.
Bacon Smokies
8 servings
Ingredients:
Directions:
1. Cut bacon slices into thirds
2. Wrap each wiener with a piece of bacon
3. Pierce a took pick through to keep bacon in place
4. Cover a large baking pan with aluminum foil
5. Place seam side down in baking pan
6. Sprinkle brown sugar over wieners
7. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to 1 hour
Note:
Can wrap wieners in bacon ahead of time and keep in a Ziploc bag in refrigerator or freezer until ready to bake. Sprinkle sugar right before baking.
So a little fact about myself, I teach 5 year olds at Kids Church. I have been teaching kids for a long time now, but been with this age group for a little over a year now. I love this age. But a Sunday recently I had an amazing opportunity. Normally Hubby does not work with me with this group, but for this one week he did. Want to talk about God ordaining that! Here is why.
There is a family in our church who just adopted two boy from Ethiopia. They have been home for just a month, and I had the privilege of being the teacher the first time they were both dropped off for Kids church. One boy is very outgoing and the other very shy. Both struggle with English at this point. Hubby was able to focus on these two during the class and help them participate. They seemed to really bond with him. It was amazing to watch. I don’t get to see Hubby interact with kids other than our own or nieces and nephews very often. But he is amazing with kids. And these boys really took to him. We played a game where the kids were paired off. The boys were paired together and Hubby helped them. They won! Hubby gave them High Fives, and one of the boys taught Hubby the High Five from his home country. Throughout the hour I had them in class it was just amazing to watch them grow from sitting there to actively participating. Especially in our dancing. When they left the both gave use smiles! I feel incredibly privileged to have witnessed this first time in Kids Church, their interaction with my Hubby, and the chance to watch them grow as the adapt to life with their new family and the USA. Thank you God for giving me enough GRACE to get to watch your plan in action! May God be with this family and these two adorable boys, bless them richly, and bring them to knowledge of our God!
So after starting this blog, I had to a take a step back to gather my focus some. Regular Postings will be common now that I have had some time to sort through my thoughts.
My Story Mondays – I will share about who I am and my journey in life.
Tasty Tuesdays – I will share recipes, family favs and new flavors.
Thrifty Thursdays – I will share adventures in saving money, via DIY (Do-It-Yourself), Shopping Deals, Good Buys
Fun Food Fridays – While I try to make food fun for my girls often, I will try to not bore you with them all and save them for Fridays.
Super Saturday Special – Could be anything, a project started or finished, a recipe, a craft, a home school something. It will include instructions if you care to duplicate.
And other topics as they arise . . . .
So I started this Blog because I want to be real and honest about life as a mom, and the transition home. So here goes some embarrassing honesty.
I left my job in June 2011. My last day was on a Friday. On Monday we had speech therapy for Lala, and swim lessons for the other two (or so I thought). My mom was visiting and my hubby was home. I say all that tell you there were a lot more cars around than can normally be accounted for in my garage, driveway, and parked on the street in front of my house. Needless to say, being flustered because I was running late I backed into the speech therapist car! Not a GOOD start to being an at home mom. No more income from me and then I turn around and cost us some major money! So strike one.
Strike two goes something like this, I thought swim lessons began on that Monday. However I was wrong, they actually started on Tuesday. I knew the date for the first lesson, and I honestly thought it was that day. I mean who starts lessons on a Tuesday when they are everyday! So needless to say I had two very grumpy girls instead of giggling girls that they didn’t get to swim. As consolation I took them to the pool at the YMCA taking advantage of mom’s presence and not having to drag Lala with me. But due to my error, I promptly went out and bought a planner. I had been using my Outlook on my work computer to track my calender. Lesson learned!
While I am sure there have been more striked from june until now, I think I will count this one as strike three because of its correlation to strike one. Can you guess what happened? Yes, I backed into a car again! This time a friend’s car! I mean seriously how can I back into 2 cars in 6 months!!!!! Both to people I know. Humble Pie, that is what I have been eating lately. So to my credit I think my van has a huge blind spot, and I think both times these cars were right in that blind spot. Both times I was out of routine. But still seriously! God what are you trying to teach me, cause I want to make sure I got it, because I am really not sure how much lower I can sink . . . .
Hopefully my backing into cars days will be over soon. We are acquiring a new to us Van in a few days and it does have an alert system to warn me of objects behind me!!!! We shall see!
Lots of excitement here among the Giggling G’s. Ria (the eldest) finally has a loose tooth! At almost 6 and a half, all of her close friends have already lost there first, and some even second, third, and fourth. But Ria was quite distressed over this and wondering when it will be her turn! Well finally we have a loose tooth! Yeah! That was our wake up this morning.
Then I was totally shocked this evening to realize we have a butterfly! If you remember a few weeks ago I posted that we started a science experiment with the Carrot Caterpillar. It turned 
itself into a Pupa. But because it formed it on a stem and not a twig, we didn’t think it would amount too much. But as I was passing by the kitchen where it was stored the beautiful wings caught my eye! We tried to release him outside, but he wouldn’t fly. It is a bit rainy and cold tonight too, so we are going to keep him inside for a while. We will see how that goes. He has been named Beauty Jane Lily. The irony is that the daughter that gave the Lily name was almost a Lily herself (and she doesn’t know that).
Ria is having her first swim team practice tonight! She is doing great and takes after her Uncle Richie for sure!
For those of you who know me, you know clutter and chaos rein. I am desperately trying to reign it in. Baby steps will get me there EVENTUALLY. I am the type that wants it all done now! But, I have to give myself GRACE in this area because I have to remind myself that 3 weeks after I moved into this house I had my first-born. Then when I really began to get on top of it all, number two joined us. And being perfectly honest, from then on life has been a roller coaster. She had colic, acid reflux, and still even now at 3 years old does not sleep that great. When she was just 7 months old we found out we were pregnant with number 3. 2 kids 15 months apart does not equate to time for much else. Especially since until June of this year I was still working a very stressful and time-consuming job outside the home.
We (being Hubby and I) made a baby step this week I am so excited about. Again another Pinterest idea implemented. I had read about having a basket with each kids name on it to collect all the papers and “stuff” that comes home with the kids. Of course it will still have to be gome through, but at least it gives it a home. (And yes, even with homeschooling you would be amazed at the stuff that comes home with them!) When I read the idea I thought it was a great idea, but was trying to figure out how to make it actually work in my home. Well here is my solution. This “entryway” is just off my kitchen as we come in from the garage (our main personal entryway). We already had the Coat Rack there at little one’s height, and the one hook for Titter’s backpack. Hubby had scrap wood in the man pit, cut it down, and made a trip to his favorite orange store (Home Depot for those non-DIY’s out there) for the brackets, and viola revamped entryway in an hour! Thanks Hubby!
So Pinterest is a new hobby of mine! Can I get an Amen to that! Anyways, I spend (or rather waste) a lot of time on the site gathering ideas. At some point you actually have to implement the ideas, right? So today I attempted to implement one of my “Fun Food” ideas for the kids.
At least Nana had fun helping me make them, but they did not go over well . . . Oh well. In fact Nana turned one into a “person” with a noodle on the top, 2 on the sides, and 2 on the bottom. So creative!
Today was a day adjusting back to some normalcy in routine, but was a crazy manic Monday as well. We traveled for the month of September. Hubby to China for work, and the girls to North Palm Beach for my brother’s wedding, St. Augustine for fun with Mema and Grandaddy, Auburn Alabama for cousin and Oma and Opa time, and Atlanta for some time with my college buds. I will post more about the trip later, but needless to say things were NOT routine for September. Last week was spent trying to just settle back into life in KY with Daddy, Dogs and Doctors. So today marked “normal” day one. It started with a dr. apt for me this am . . .
I have a friend I will be living with for the next six weeks! It is official, the MRI results were back and I have a tear in my perineal tendon of my left foot. 6 weeks in the boot and then PT. Let me tell you how much I look forward to the next 6 weeks!
Daddy took on Bible time for home school while I was off for that, then when I got home we hit the ground running. Today was the best day of schooling yet, I actually did something with all 3 of them! We started the school day on our backs on the floor practicing the “c” or “K” sound with Lala. The speech therapist recommended we lay on our backs because that is where the sound comes from. The big girls had fun helping!
Then it was time to get some lessons in for Nana. We are working on the letter P, and we did some patterning and fun Princess worksheets. Then I was able to send Lala to her room for playtime and focus on Ria. This worked great!
Lunchtime was another “fun” lunch with my new cookie cutter set and History lesson time. I actually managed to get all the reading I needed to done during lunch! Normally Lala doesn’t let me get it all done!
Then we had a home school field trip to see the K9 unit of the Local Police Department. This was factual and very interesting. The girls had fun, and Titter will be writing a report about it tomorrow 
with pictures from the demonstration. It was great for them see what it means to have a “working dog” and gain understanding of police work and how they help make our lives safe.
Then Ria had a friend she has had since she was 2 come over and play, then they went to sell Lemonade to raise money for the local food bank. She had fun and was super excited when daddy stopped by as a customer.
Then the real fun began tonight as Ria got to rock it old school for a skating party with the girl scouts. She did amazing! She was out there trying so hard by herself with whining or complaining. I am so proud of her! Proud of her willingness to try, proud of her courage for skating on her own! I am one proud mama! She had so much fun she was in tears when it was over because she wanted to keep skating. I LOVE SKATING, so I am excited to be able to take her again as soon as my foot heals up. The little ones did amazing during the event. Hubby had an event at church, so the little ones tagged along with me, but because of my foot, I would not let them skate (besides I am not that insane)! Lala was strapped into her stroller for close to 2 hours, she ate, played and just watched. She “asked” to have skates on her feet several times. Once I let her out after the crowd thinned, I knew keeping her strapped in had been a wise decision, she was EVERYWHERE! And especially wanting to go out on the skating rink. We did watch Ria from the rail and would just smile and babble all about it. Nana kept herself occupied with coloring and stamps that I brought along to entertain.
So all in all today was a great day, even though it was a manic monday! A day that reminds me, I CAN DO THIS. Thank you God for the glimpses of Grace and the courage to keep going.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the photos!
giggles and grace 