For the love of Sausage Balls

As some of you know, I have carpal tunnel syndrome. It has flared up again and I told KJ that I would probably not be able to make sausage balls for the super bowl. He was devastated! However, he decided that he wanted them so much that he would make them himself! He did a great job. I told him from now on at Christmas this would be his job. He didn't like that too much!

Super Bowl!

Last night was the Super Bowl and how much fun was that???? It was a great game! The screaming in my house was deafening when the Giants scored that last touchdown. We were obviously for the Giants. KJ said that it may be the best Super Bowl game ever!
We had our friends DP and his brood over for the game and we all had a blast! Of course the food is a big part of the Super Bowl! One of my all time favorite bloggers is Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. If you haven't read her blog do, she is hilarious! Reading her ongoing saga of how she met her husband is a treat and a workout for your abs because you will laugh so hard!

Well she has a cooking blog: The Pioneer Woman Cooks! It is a great site full of yummy food and step by step instructions and pictures all done in her hilarious commentary. Another must read!

So anyway, she did a cooking post on what to cook for the Super Bowl. KJ had already informed me that wings were a must for the Super Bowl (apparently you can't watch the Super Bowl without them, it isn't allowed!) She had a whole post on how to make wings! So I made them and KJ and DP raved about them. KJ said they were every bit as good as a restaurant and DP said they were they best he had! What compliments. I also made her Bacon Wrapped Cracker Appetizers which were as wonderful as promised and KJ said a must for now on at any appetizer function! DP ate about 20 if that tells you how good they were and his boys ate a ton of them too. A real man pleaser!
I also made the Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever! It totally lived up to its name! It was so moist and good.
So if you are looking for recipes that are yummy, easy, and good try her site out! I can vouch that her stuff is yummy and very pleasing!
We also had sausage balls, nachos, fruit, chips and salsa (from Chili's of course!), and corn, black bean, and feta dip. As you can tell everyone at the party gained 5 pounds but it was sooooo goood!

Lost Boys

This weekend we got visit with some great guys we haven't seen in awhile. The first being Opa (okay granted we saw him over Christmas but not since then which is a long time to go without seeing him!) Opa came down and brought HJ's Christmas gift they gave him because it would not fit in our car when we came home for Christmas. It is the cool jeep that the kids love driving around the yard.

The second guy we got to see was a friend who moved to Kansas from Knoxville a few years ago. We were in a Bible study with he and his wife Jennifer before we had kids (they moved shortly after Hunter was born). He was in town for some military training or something along those lines. I am so glad he called and came over for dinner and to hang out! It has been too long! Maybe he can get his whole family to join him in Nashville in April when he has to come back! (Hint, Hint!) They would have free lodging and meals and really who can beat that!

Thanks for blessing us with your company Robbie and Shae! We had a lot of fun.

Friday Pizza Night

Friday night has for the most part always been pizza night at our house. In Ktown we often went to our favorite pizza place, Little Joe's. It is a dive of a place that you would probably never choose to eat at unless someone told you about it. However, the pizza is pretty good, they give you free breadsticks, and we never have to order b/c the wait staff knows what we want without having to ask!
Since moving, we haven't found a pizza place that can be our Friday pizza place. They are either to expensive for what you get or not super great. Therefore, I have been making pizza on Fridays. Until last Friday, I had been using the pop can pizza crust. However, I love to read this blog. She does a Meal Plan Monday, where people post their menus for the week. I love to browse and see what everyone is cooking (it goes back to my cookbook obsession, I think). Anyway, I noticed quite a few people are using this recipe for pizza dough. It is a bread machine recipe for pizza dough. I was very intrigued because it was used by a couple people in the posts and also the ingredients sounded wonderful.
My wonderful Grammy, gave me a bread maker a few years ago. She had one she never used and asked if I would use it. I said I would love it. Now, I really liked the idea of using it but somehow I had never used it until Friday. I don't know why, but I think I was intimidated by it. Not anymore! It was so easy to use and I will be using it a lot more now! My next thing to make in it will be whole wheat cinnamon bread with raisins. It is a certain little boy's favorite for breakfast.
Anyway, I put all the ingredients in and it said that 1 hour and 20 minutes later I would have pizza dough. (I substituted whole wheat white flour for the white flour in the dough). Just pulling the dough out of the bread machine, I could tell it would be good b/c it already smelled great! It was easy to work into the pan and while it was cooking HJ kept coming into the kitchen and telling me it smelled like a pizza restaurant! Well the pizza was wonderful and I will definitely be making this dough for every pizza Friday we have! It was great! If you have a bread machine, I highly recommend this recipe. It is also fun to browse and see what so many people are cooking for dinner this week. You never know if you will find a new family favorite!

You know you're country....

when you entertain your children and yourself by giving them tractor rides around your yard. (Yes that is Robbie driving them in the first picture but Kevin did it too! HJ was in the back but did not want his pic taken and hid under the blanket.)

Apparently I am IT!

I have been tagged by Jennifer and her blog Lemons and Lemonade to share 7 things you probably don't know about me. This is really hard as I feel like I am a pretty boring/dorky person. By sharing these, I feel like everyone is going to know that now (if they don't already from reading my blog, which is most likely the case!) Okay, here it goes:

1. I love to read! I love to curl up with a good book and get lost in it. Here is a list of some of my favorite authors: Francine Rivers (if you haven't read her yet do! She is a treat. Start with her Mark of the Lion series. It is the best!), Maeve Binchy, Phillippa Greggory (I lover her Tudor England series. And for all you non history buffs, that is a series of books set in the England of King Henry VIII, you will remember he had 6 wives. One of her books, The Other Boleyn Girl is coming to the big screen this month! I can't wait to see it!) , Jodi Picoult, and Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind is one of my favs of all time!).

2. Okay, I can't believe I am going to share this on a blog my grandmother reads but I am! Sorry Nana, this is something that may change your image of me! I have a tattoo. Yikes, did I just share that? Yes I do. I got it when I was a senior in high school on our spring break trip. It is on my bottom. It is a very small outline of a three leaf clover (because when I was 17, I thought that would be really cool forever!) Most of the time I forget about it but every now and then, Kevin likes to throw that bit of info out to people he thinks it will shock and embarrass me! There will be no pictures of it, EVER!

3. Now for those that know me, know that I have never been a morning person. As long as I can remember, I could have happily slept until at least 10:00 am every morning. Well since I have moved, the Lord has had other ideas for me! I now get up no later that 6:00 AM happily!!! I have even been known to get up at 4:30 AM (yikes) to go to a 5:00 am spinning class on days when I have a lot to do. KJ thinks I have lost my mind and doesn't know who this morning person is anymore.

4. I love to cook! I love to bake! Since moving, I am really enjoying learning how to bake with whole wheat flours. I think I am getting pretty good. My friend Aimee has been doing it for years and has been sharing her wisdom with me. I can now mix flours really well and make great muffins, waffles, and breads using a combo of different whole wheat flours. No one misses the white flour because the stuff is so good! Thanks Aimee for all the wisdom. I want to try making brownies with whole wheat next! I also love to just cook dinners and meals for my family and friends. I will probably start doing some posts on what I am making because I can and want to. I will probably bore all of you to tears but I stated above I am a pretty boring person so you are warned! I am so excited to be cooking today for a Super Bowl get together! I am making a couple things I have never made before (mainly wings!) so I will let you know how it goes!

5. Almost everyday, the kids and I troop into the study and have a dance. Our current favorite song to dance to is the YMCA song by the Village People. We go through phases of songs. I dare anyone to download that song and dance to it and not be happy. It is simply impossible to listen to that song and not have your mood pick up and smile! It is fun and the kids love it!

6. This goes along with number 4. I have a cookbook obsession. I have about a million and am always looking for more. I don't know why but I love looking at them and seeing all the possibilities that I could cook.

7. I have an irrational fear of being late. I drive my husband and kids to tears in my need to be on time where ever we are going. It literally pains me to think about being late. I don't know why or where it comes from but something inside me cringes at the thought! I really need to relax a little about it because I really can become a nazi dictator and not a nice person when it comes to being on time.

Okay, I think that wraps things up. I am going to tag Aimee because I can't wait to read what she will write! I would also like to tag a lurker to my blog, my friend from Murfreesboro, Alison, because I have a sneaking suspicion that she has a blog that she has not told me about and if she doesn't have a blog should start one because you have some hilarious stories about life in Murfreesboro (I may not let your parents know these stories as they may file for custody of your kids!) So Alison, if you have a blog, you have been tagged and please leave a comment with a link to it!

Sports Day

Today rounds out a week of celebrating 100 days at his school. For today, the kids could dress in sports attire. HJ was all over this! It was a huge decision as to which team he would wear (he could choose from: UT, Titans, or Predators, as that is what we have). He originally chose to wear Titans wear, as I think with college ball over now for awhile, the NFL has been the focus in the house and freshest on his mind. However, at breakfast, I was going thru the junk drawer and found some leftover UT tattoos. Well that sealed the deal for HJ. He quickly changed into his orange sweatshirt and happily picked out two tattoos for each cheek. Here he is ready for school this morning or a trip to Neyland Stadium!