FRIDAY FIVE

This Fridays Five is Your 5 Favorite Movies.

This is actually kinda hard for me cause I really don't care about movies that much and just because I watch them or even look forward to them coming out, it doesn't mean I think it's a 'good movie'. There is also that thing where I have THE worst memory ever, So, this could be boring, hmmm...

1. Real Genius circa 1985: This is a family favorite for my side of the family. We watched it over and over, laughed over and over and quoted over and over. For example:

(there are a few words that aren't my 'favorite' in some of the quotes. proceed with caution)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/quotes

"You think you are smarter than me, but can you do this..."

2. Strange Brew circa 1983

3. Masterpiece Theater (PBS) renditions of Jane Austen books

4.

5.

zzzzzzzz.........

Greenway adventures

This is the first little friend we met on the greenway this morning on a walk with our friends Vivian/son & Meghan/son for 'stroller club' lol. You never know who you might come across. In our case the first friend we met was this cutest baby turtle! It was literally the size of a silver dollar I think. Later we saw a snake (you could tell it had just eaten something for the lump in it's gut. He he) & an adult turtle. I can't wait to go back!
Let me know if you are interesting in joining us...

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Chocolate Chess Pie Recipe

CHOCOLATE CHESS PIE
1 large OR 3 small eggs
1 stick butter
3 1/2 Tbsp cocoa
1 9in UNBAKED deep dish pie shell
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 small can evaporated milk

Preheat oven to 350. Prick the bottom and sides of the pie shell with a fork. Melt butter. Beat eggs. Add eggs and vanilla to butter. Stir in cocoa and sugar. Add evaporated milk and stir until well blended. Pour into pie shell and bake for 45 minutes.

Michael's first Chocolate Chess pie

It is one of his favorites & this is the first time he made it himself! Tastes yummy! (yes katrina, I'll add the recipe in a minute).

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Friday Five

Thank you Shannon for borrowing this from another. My turn :)...

This weeks "Friday Five" is 5 of your Favorite Restaurants and what do you get there.

1. OLIVE GARDEN: Calamari, Shrimp Alfredo (with Angel Hair pasta) with their salad (don't like their bread anymore). I love it! It is so delicate tasting and normally, I eat like a bird and can't finish but not only do I finish it (Evan loves to eat it all too!) but I even have room for the YUMMY YUMMY Lemon Creme Cake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am not so much a Chocolate lover but I do love sweets and the Lemon Creme Cake is light and not too tart but sweet too. YUM! Thank you O.G.!

2. QUIZNO'S: Chicken Carbanara on wheat, yes mushrooms, light bacon. I try not to drink very much soda but they are one of the few places that serve MUG root beer. MMMM..... So I ALWAYS get Mug and Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips, to go. :)

3. RUBY TUESDAY's: GARDEN BAR!!!!!! Enough said. Though... last time I went they didn't have my avocado ranch dressing that I like to drizzle over my regular ranch dressing and I admit to disappointment. But still delicious! I don't like croutons cause they always give me crunch mouth but theirs are crispy on the outside and really soft on the inside. After Evan was born, one glorious person brought us food (thanks Lauren!) and introduced us to R.T.'s Turkey burger. YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (also comes as a slider) It is so delicious! It is very juicy and full of flavor. You cannot finish it yourself and even the sliders come as four and you could share with a friend in my opinion. I have had many other of their entree's and always been happy too. Plus I really like the style changes they made a year ago or so, very... cosmo esq.

4. FAT MOE BURGER:'s Hot Wings. I know, that is weird to start naming a burger place then say it's for their Hot Wings but it's true! Mike and I ALWAYS are at odds when it comes to where we want to eat when we get a chance to eat out. On this particular occasion, he was desperately throwing out ideas of where to eat that I would like because as usual I wanted nothing to do with whatever he wanted (don't remember what it was).Also I was beyond starving, like when you haven't eaten all day and have been ravenous but now you've waited so long that you are almost numb to food now? lol. Then he dangled the thought that, you know, you love wings and Fat Moe's now has some...

I digress: Normally my favorite place for wings is HOOTERS. I love their HOT wings and don't like any others in town. I am not ashamed of Hooters or saying I like it but do get really worked up when people and especially high and mighty's *gasp* and say... "Oh my gosh! you go to 'Hooters'???" Are you kidding? Are you really offended by their UGLY-arse outfits? Let's review: fake tans, over processed hair dye jobs, drag queen make up, tight tank with an owl on it, ORANGE 80's JOGGING SHORTS!, dancers TIGHTS!!!!, scrunched 80's socks with Tennis shoes? NOT sexy to me... gag.

... Anyway, a light bulb went off when he said Hot Wings so I agreed... As I mentioned I was beyond starving so when I even just looked at the wings I 'poo pooed' them, even getting angry from lack of sustenance and pushing them away saying they were burnt. Mike felt sooooOOO bad cause he really wanted to get me food but also something I would like. I probably hurt his feelings but by then, I was an animal. lol. Anyway, Mike tried one to see how burnt they were cause in all honesty they really look like they've sat under a heat lamp for an hour after charring them. He looked at me really weird and excitedly said, "they aren't burnt! it must just be the breading/spices they use, they're actually good". I could NOT believe it till I finally tried it. They are delicious! The 'breading' is like nothing I've ever had before. It has the texture of biting a charred Marshmallow from the campfire. All cooked and crispy on the outside and gooey and tender on the inside. Weird all right but so good! I've had Hooters wings since... don't like them. Plus... I can get Fat Moe's wings in the drive thru! LOL.

5. CHICK FIL A: I get the nuggets with "Chick fil A sauce" and always ask for 2 Mayo's and 4 catsup's to mix together and make 'fry sauce' for their yummy waffle fries. Their lemonade... it has crack in it and I'm addicted (not really but I can taste it in my mouth anytime I drive by). Let us not forget their Oreo shake topped with whipped cream and a cherry! Do they know me or do they know me. (though ask my husband, it's a shocker I love an "oreo" shake as i have an aversion to Oreo's by themselves... whole other post for that). The best thing about the shake is it now comes in a medium size so you don't have to get that big huge large one. Old ladies like me can't handle that much anymore. lol.

There you go! Can't wait to see what next weeks subject is! :)

Hide & Seek

Evan's favorite 'hiding' place in the backyard is on the side of our air conditioning unit. Lol.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

My morning

Evan's cousin Liam is visiting & they are dressed like twins today for a day at the greenway & park. :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Book of Mormon Read passage

The Lord has commanded Lehi and his family to go into the wilderness in faith that he will give them a new home away from the wickedness of Jerusalem. The have suffered set backs & complaints from their party but...
1. And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth. And we did travel and wade through much affliction in the wilderness; and our women did bear children in the wilderness.
2. And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, our women did give plenty of suck for their children, and were strong, yea, even like unto the men; and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings.
3. And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them; wherefore, he did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness.

Reading this morning (while everyone still sleeps), I found this passage so relevant for many things in my life. To me it means that if I am listening to what God has planned for me (even if it's hard), if I can faithfully serve him & trust him, he will make my burdens light & help me accomplish that what he has commanded me to do. For me, I believe my family still needs me to work at the moment but it gets more & more difficult to take him to the sitter as the desire worsens to be a complete stay at home mom (my dream). As we embark on another adoption hopefully this year, Satan will try to derail us as he knows we are worthy parents & guides to the spirits that could be sent to our home. He doesn't want that or for our joy to grow & our family grows. He may make us distracted by petty things of the world or silly conversations or make us NOT have conversations with each other (effectively causing miscommunication), soon finding ourselves far away from where we plan to be so I am grateful I am reading the scriptures, especially now, to keep myself focused on the Lords will for me & for my family.

The above scripture is: 1 Nephi Chapter 17 verses 1-3:

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Happy dogwood!

Thanks to my little friend Emma I have a dogwood flower & I LOVE it! One day I will have my own dogwood tree in my yard & an eastern redbud. They are so gorgeous. It can't easily be described the amzing sight in spring as the two tree grow naturally & wild here in Tennessee but with a backdrop of evergreens & oaks in various forms of bloom, it takes my breath away!
That, and the fact I got to listen to dolly partons 'little sparrow' album on my way to work today... Life is wonderful!!!!

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

New Adoption Caseworker

We had our meeting with our new caseworker Dave this morning from 8am -10am (we all had to wake up early for that one. Evan doesn't get up till 9-930 normally). Our meeting today was for us to get to know each other and start the process to be an "approved" adoptive couple again. The reason they have to do this before every adoption is to be sure you didn't become a different (bad) person since the last time. For Dave, he was meeting us for the first time so it was a little more formal then I expected. Still we rolled with it. Part of the 'interview' was inspecting our house to be sure we have safety precautions in place for a child as deemed this time by the state of KY. Of which we will be borrowing their adoption licencing till the Church is able to put a LDSFS Tennessee Agency in place. We passed the home inspection! lol. No biggie but it gets us a step closer to being approved which if we are punctual, we can be approved by the first week of June. After that, we will be making pass along cards, a separate blog for birth mothers and "advertising" on a site called Parent Profiles. What we have learned from our first adoption is not to sit and wait (not that we did, we were very pro-active but) so this time we will be more on top of getting the word out and explaining what you can do to help us when the time is right. So go ahead and start feeling supportive cause we want our process to go as smooth as possible. This process is not for the faint of heart. I look forward to exercising my faith again and building on my testimony that our Heavenly Father DOES want us to have the righteous desires of our hearts. Now, if only he could grow my house a little bigger to fit all my righteous desires in? ;) xoxo

For my brother Bennett...

RRRRRRRRRR.

(evan's trying to learn to do the "Rrrrrrr" foot to intimidate you)

My California family, definately has it's quirks. I love that about them and literally prayed my baby that I adopted would be 'tweeky' so he could fit right in with the rest of us. BOY did I get that and then some! :) amoung the quirks I admit to 'inviting' Evan to adopt are: I say, "All cute babies raise your hand!" and he will eagerly raise one or both hands high up and say "EEEE" ("Me"), so he can be a cute baby. UGH! sooooo cute!

My brother Bennett and I started something with our feet where we curl our toes down and face our foot toward the other to 'intimidate them' while saying "Rrrrrr". It totally works. (Don't ask why this ever happened or by whom cause I have no idea)

The last one I can think of is when I say "Owe" (like something hurts, aka 'ouch') Evan will hit his own head and say "Ou" sp? at the same time. :) he he he.

The one he did on his very own is the famous "FACE" i'll have to look back in posts to see when he started doing this but I think it was aroun 7 or 8 months? When he was in his highchair and being fed his rice cereal or something. all the sudden he'd start bowing his head while still looking at you and furrowing his brow. I will need to get a new video of this as he stopped for awhile but is now again at it, on demand. :) he he he.

Summer?

Easter croquet & swimming pools!? It was like 80 degrees at 10 this morning! Ahhh...

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Easter

Watching his video from "jail". ;) (he wanted to watch it but kept unplugging it)

Beautiful Blooms

Our weeping cherry tree & Camellia bush today. :) I love spring in the south.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

MY FIRST PIE!

Recently my amazing friend Denise Wall decided to make Mike & I one of our favorite pies...each. She made a chocolate chess pie for MDS & a Lemon Meringue for me! Let me tell you we are both VERY picky about these particular pies and they wer DELICIOUS! The L.M. was just as good as my favorite- Marie Callendars, in california. (yes family, it's true). Tonight I decided to make it myself (she shared the recipe) & it looks amazing! I cannot wait to eat it and for the Jones to eat some leftovers too so we don't get sick lol. I'll add the recipe in a minute incase you're interested in trying it yourself. Whoo hoo! I'm turning into a homemaker!!! He he he

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi