My new sunglasses

Last time I went for an eye exam (2 years ago) my dr. insisted that I get perscription sunglasses because my eyes are blue and were starting to look hazy.  Needless to say, I didn’t buy them.  Instead, I bought 2 pair of regular glasses.  I couldn’t afford a third pair.  So, today I went back and he said that my eyes are sun damaged and I am 5 years away from cataracts…um, whaaaat?  Cataracts?  Yeah, so, needless to say, I ordered a pair of really cool shades and as of Wednesday, you won’t find me outside without them. 

Jake, who has always needed glasses, but only a little bit, thus his refusal to wear them, had his eyes checked.  With one eye, he couldn’t see the E.  Yes, I said the E!!!  One eye is 400 and one eye is 100 (or around that).  And, with his lovely baby blues, he also needs shades, so we got him a pair that has those magnetized sunglasses that pop on.  Expect pictures in a few days!

Why is it?

I have a week off and we have doctors visits planned for every day except today.  Yesterday, the kids went for their yearly checkup.  No shots!  Can I get a woo-hoo?  Tomorrow the husband and I get our annual skin cancer check.  Thursday, Jake has an orthodontist appointment and then we’ll go straight to the eye doctor for checkups for all and hopefully some contact samples for Jake to try out.  Then, on Friday I have my hair appointment. So, this is the only days for me to get other things done.  I planned on getting the oil changed in my car and taking Jake to Wal-Mart to spend some of his money.  Instead, I click the DVR button on my remote and watch last week’s Bizarre Foods episode.  Then, I remember that I have Flowers in the Attic saved as well, so I watch that.  In the meantime, I finish reading all of Jorge Garcia’s blog and determine taht I like him so much more than I ever did before.  He is a very funny man! Then, I see that The Wiz has just started, so I watch that too.  Now, it’s almost 2pm and Jake & I are still in our jammies and Bailey & Reece are playing in the backyard.  I still have no intention of getting off my couch any time soon.  And that’s ok!

Mmmm…pumpkin muffins!

Prepare to taste the best pumpkin muffins ever.  I mean, ever!  I’ve tried many a pumpkin muffin and none compare.  Make them and let me know how they turn out!

Becky’s Pumpkin Muffins

3 eggs 
3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1- 15 oz can solid pack pure pumpkin
3 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 3/4 tsp baking soda
4 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Topping
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease two loaf pans or 24 large muffin cups. Combine the eggs, sugar, oil, and pumpkin in a large bowl, and stir until smooth. In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients and the spices with a wire whisk. Add to the egg mixture and mix thoroughly. Fill the loaf pans or muffin cups with the batter.

Mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl, and sprinkle over the bread or muffin batter. Bake the bread at 375 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or the muffins for 30-35 minutes.

Chicken Pot Pie

If I have one recipe that people ask me to make over and over again, it’s this one.  It’s that good.  Kristen and my other veggie-head friends- you can leave the chicken out and just add more veggies- broccoli would be good!

Becky’s Chicken Pot Pie

 

4 large potatoes, diced

½ c carrots, diced

½ onion, diced

1 container sliced mushrooms

1 boullion cube

2-3 cooked chicken breasts, diced

½ c frozen peas

1 small container sour cream

1 ½ c cheddar cheese

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 T parsley

1 T sage or thyme

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 Pillsbury pie crust in the biscuit section

1 tsp celery seed (not salt)

 

Put potatoes in a large pot. Add carrots, onion and mushrooms. Add enough water and a boullion cube to cover half of veggies. Cover and cook until tender.

 

Drain all but about a cup of the water.

Add chicken, frozen peas, sour cream, cheese, soup and seasonings.

Cook on med. Heat until the sauce is thick. If you need to add water you can.

 

While this is heating, put 1 pie crust in the bottom of a large round casserole. Prick the bottom and bake according to directions on box.

 

Pour pot pie mixture into pre-baked crust. Unfold the second crust and sprinkle celery seed onto the top. Push it into the raw crust. Put the crust on top of the pie, celery seed side down. Cut vent holes.

 

Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes. Put foil on the crust to prevent burning

I love the holidays

Not just the Christmas spirit and the magical feeling in December, but because friends come home to visit family.  That means that I also get to see friends that I only see this time of year.  This year, my bff from high school, Amy, came home for Thanksgiving.  Today, we met for lunch with another friend from high school, Alex.  I also got to meet Amy’s new hubby, Nate, whom I adored.  As always, we got to reminisce about the good old days of high school. We were all in a small chorus group together and had an excellent time in high school, so we have lots of great and funny memories.  And now, because of facebook, we were able to chat about all the people we’ve come back in contact with.  I don’t know about them, but I had a fabulous time today and can’t wait for Christmas time when two of my other best friends from high school, Roger and Ryan are coming in town.  Alex & I plan on getting together with them too!

Within second of my arrival, I thrust my camera into Nate’s hands and had him take a pic of Amy & I.

Alex arrived within minutes and again, Nate was camera man!

Before leaving, I realized that I didn’t get a photo of just Alex & I, so out came the camera!

It’s great to have such good friends that when we get together, it’s like coming home.  I miss you guys!

Stone Mountain Christmas 2008

My lovely weekend

Yes, I know it was 27 degrees at times, but my weekend was wonderful because my very best friend, Lesley and her little boy, Giovanni, came in town for 3 days.  We packed a lot into those three days!

First, I took off work on Friday and we went to The Flying Biscuit, my very favorite breakfast spot. I had my favorite- eggs on top of love cakes (black bean corn cakes) smothered in tomatillo sauce, sour cream and feta cheese, with a side of grits and flying biscuits with cranberry apple butter of course.

Lesley had her first fried green tomatoes, which were covered with goat cheese-yum!  G had oatmeal pancakes which had a very strange texture from the oatmeal, but were totally addicting!

Here is G in the restaurant.

Then, we headed over to Perimeter mall.  I haven’t been there in ages- it is so nice.  I was pretty peeved that they don’t have a Hollister.  I mean, really.  Who the heck doesn’t have a Hollister??  That was the main reason for me going to the mall- Christmas presents of Hollister t-shirts (on sale of course) for Jake.  But, finding my new favorite store, Anthropologie, made it all worth while.  I’ve decided that if I ever win the lottery, I’m just going to buy the whole store. 

After that, we head home to take the kids to their birthday dinner- Japanese steakhouse, of course.  Bailey turned 9 on the 13th and Jake turned 12 on Monday.  The kids had fun with the warm hand towels.

…about Dave’s head…I’ll just leave you with “stupid human trick” and you can use your own imagination…

This was Giovanni’s first time at a hibachi and I was kind of concerned.  I shouldn’t have been- he had a blast! This was the look on his face the whole night.

Our hibachi chef was quite funny.  He even posed for me!

I also had the best drink I’ve ever had.  Seriously.  You know how much I love lychees.  They are absolutely my favorite thing.  My favorite fruit, my favorite drink (which I can only find at the Asian market),  my favorite candy (again- Asian market only) my favorite flavor of all time.  Well, new to America is Soho Lychee Liquor.  Yee haw! They made a drink there with it and it was just lychee yumminess.  Next time I go, I’m making them give me the recipe. Here is the loveliness which is my new favorite beverage.

After that, we headed over to my mom and dad’s house to drop Jake off to spend the night.  They brought out their bin of ooooold McDonald’s toys and we all had fun. I think Lesley and I had more fun than the kids!

The next day we headed out to Stone Mountain Christmas.  Lesley just couldn’t get over how amazing Stone Mountain was!

It is pretty darn cool!

Here are my goofballs.

This would have been a cool Christmas card, had Jake not made a silly face.

After walking around the Christmas village for a little bit, we decide to go up the mountain on one of these.

Jake keeps telling me he doesn’t want to go up and can’t understand why he can’t just wait in the car.  LOL  By the time we get in line, he is hysterical- he is sobbing, hitting me and calling me an idiot.  Um, yeah.  My response?  Suck it up, be a man, you.are.going.on.the.skytram.  Here he is halfway up the mountain.

We made it to the top!

There is nothing like a sunset on top of a mountain!

Jake LOVED running around the top- it looks like the surface of the moon.

So, we’re ready to ride down and somehow, Jake talks Lesley into hiking down with him while Bailey and I take G town on the Skytram. Great idea, right?  Sure, the hike wasn’t bad.  But, the fact that it took them around the other side of the park and they had to walk miles back to the Christmas Village was just not in the plans.  So, an hour later, with wobbly legs, they finally find us!

And then my camera dies…

If you have kids and you haven’t gone to Stone Mountain Christmas yet, I recommend it.  The village is adorable, the Christmas Train ride was great, unfortunately we didn’t get to see the 4-D Polar Express, but we’ll get that next time.  The best part was the Snow Angel show at the end- fireworks, snow (soap suds) falling from the sky and a real flying Snow Angel- she was actually flying above us- held up by wires.  It was very cool!

The next day, they went home and I cried, as always.

What do you think?

Every 6 weeks when I see my stylist, I have her cut my hair shorter and shorter.  This is what I’m thinking of doing.  What do you think?

Happy Birthday Mandi!

Mandi just turned 30.  Last year, the sisterchicks all went on a cruise for our 30th birthdays.  Since Mandi’s a little younger, we had to do a birthday bash, sisterchick style.  First,  Staci, brought her to the destination blindfolded! 

We took her to dinner at Bahama Breeze!  Get it?  Just like our cruise last year to the Bahamas! As you can see, we’re missing Mandy, whose dh had to work at the last minute.

After a scrumptious dinner, we headed out for another surprise.  We went to the Atlanta Cupcake Factory, whose website was just a tad bit misleading.  It was basically a hole in the wall with no place to sit! 

Disclaimer- here are my two favorite single gals, Staci & Kristen.  If you are a God-lovin, mature man, go ahead and check out their blogs! They’re both beautiful inside and out and would be a prize for any man!

Back to the hole in the wall… they did have lovely cupcakes!

The man working there brought out fresh ones for our little partay.

Here we are with our baked goodies.  You can see Amanda’s little bundle of joy, Asa, in the bottom left.  He was such a good baby!

So, we headed back into my van and asked Magellan to take us to the nearest Starbucks.  Luckily it was only 0.3 miles away.  Don’t these cupcakes look delicious?  Here are the flavors we chose: Pumpkin Latte, White Chocolate Cranberry, Double Chocolate, Sugar Cookie Nutella, Gingerbread Lemon, Chocolate Almond, and Caramel Apple. 

This is what the box looked like when we were done.

Here are some other pics I just couldn’t leave out.

Here is Mandi, who kept asking what a certain cupcake was! 

Happy birthday, friend!

What are you reading?

I haven’t done one of these in ages and since I read non-stop, I thought I’d share some of my recent favorites.  Please let me know what you’ve recently read and enjoyed so I can add it to my Paperback Swap wish list!

Right now I’m reading A Clearing in the Wild by Jane Kirkpatrick.  Amanda leant it to me and I am loving it!  I can’t wait to read the rest (which Amanda also leant me!) It’s the story of a headstrong woman in 1850 who clashes with the constraints of her small religious community. 

I recently finished Brisingr by Christopher Paolini.  I thought this was the final book of the Inheritance Trilogy, but I was so glad to be wrong when I finished the book that is to be continued in a fourth!  You may have heard of the first book, Eragon, which was made into a movie.  If you like dragons and Lord of the Rings type fantasy, this series is incredible.

Another recent read was Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult.  She is one of my favorite authors and she never fails to amaze me with her crazy twists. This is the story of a death row inmate who wants to donate his heart to the sister of the girl he murdered. 

The last book I read is the best one I’ve read in a long time.  It is Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster. Ths is the true memoir of how a ”haughty former sorority gal went from having a household income of almost a quarter-million dollars to being evicted from a ghetto apartment in less than two years.” I can’t wait to read her other books.

So, what are you reading?  Or better yet, what should I read next?