Soda cracker candy

I have to share this recipe with everyone:

Chocolate Saltine Bars

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
1 package saltine crackers
1 package (2 cups or more) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven on 375. melt brown sugar and butter until boiling. Line up saltines in a tight single layer on a foil covered cookie sheet. Pour boiled liquid over the top. Put in oven for 8 minutes or so, until bubbly. Pour chocolate chips evenly over the top put back in the oven for 2 more minutes. Once soft, spread the chocolate with a spatula. Cool in freezer. You can also sprinkle crushed peanuts on top or crushed candy canes to be more festive. Break it up into small pieces once it is frozen.


Okay, now that you have read the ingredients and have seen the real title, I will tell you what it is called in some of the circles I keep. It is called "Christmas Crack" and a lot of women get a kick out of being hooked on "crack" candy.

Now, that I have shared the recipe with you I will tell you that I made a batch this week. (Shhh, don't tell my Weight Watchers members.) The stuff is heavenly. It is like a Heath bar or Skor bar. Yum!

Now that I have told you that, I have to share a story with you at the risk of child protection services knocking on my door or our local friendly police, but it's too funny not to share.

I have had this "crack" candy in the house all week. I was asking Cara the other day what she thinks we should get Daddy for Christmas. Her reply? "A bong." (Now, for all you sweet innocents out there, google bong and see what you come up with.) Then, she proceeded to name everyone in our family and said we need to get them a bong. For the record, when she says bong, she really means bone. Now, I don't know why she thinks everyone in our family needs a bone, but that is certainly better than a bong.

Poor Bruce, I had to explain what a bong is to him. And, he grew up during the '70s.

Let's just hope she doesn't say, "We're getting Daddy a bong for Christmas" when we are at church.

Tigers win! Tigers win!

It was a hard-fought battle, but the Tigers triumphed over the Gamecocks.

Bruce said before the game, we can forgive losing the ACC title, but if Tommy messes this one up, he might as well pack his bags.

Once again, Tommy gets to keep his job.

Black Friday shopping

I think he's crossed over to the other side. Mr. "I'd rather pay full price than get up at 5 a.m. to save a few bucks" has now realized the thrill of the hunt.

I had been keeping an eye on the Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving) ads on the Gotta Deal website and had pretty much decided that I would not head out until around 7 a.m. or so this year. That was until Bruce saw the Black Friday ads on Thanksgiving Day.

I asked him if he would mind going to get me a newspaper since I was busy with Tom (see previous post). He went to get one, but came back a few minutes later because he needed more money. That should tell you something about a paper when it costs more than 50 cents during the week.

We both flipped through the paper and started perusing the ads. We had already completed a good bit of shopping for ourselves the day before shopping. Bruce needs some new shoes and he "bought" some for me to give him for Christmas when I noticed that he needed not only dress shoes, but some tennis shoes as well. While searching the Black Friday ads, he zeroed in on a pair of tennis shoes in a Shoe Carnival ad that were a very good doorbuster price. The ad said they were going to open at 5 a.m. and the first 100 customers would get a $10 gift card.

So, 4 a.m. rolled around and up I went. (Bruce has said he is amazed at how someone who hates mornings at much as I do can get up ready to go on Black Friday and the day after Christmas.) At 4:30 a.m., we were on the road. We did get in on the $10 gift card deal and we also had a coupon for another $5 off our total. We were able to get two pairs of shoes for $21. Pretty good deal, if you ask me.

After leaving there, we stopped to get me a hot chocolate at Panera Bread and then headed to see what the crowd was like at Target. Once I saw the line, I remarked to Bruce that I wasn't going to set foot in that place. Wally World price matches, and I was mainly wanting the Polar Express DVD anyway. He seemed quite pleased with that decision.

Next stop was Chick Fil-A for a biscuit. We were able to walk right up, order and sit down. Right after that, they got very busy, very fast. Everyone was nice and friendly, though, and seemed to be enjoying the shopping experience.

From there we went to Walgreen's, which is the main place I wanted to go. Now, I can't say what I was going there for because someone who reads this may be getting one of the items. Let's just say we were successful.

We then stopped at Michael's to get some things for children's church and projects for our children to do during Christmas. Then, we headed to a Wal-Mart in that town that is away from the main shopping area. We had already stopped at the other one, and they were out of the items we were pursuing. At this one, we were successful, found a couple of items and the Polar Express DVD which they price matched. We didn't find one item, but I found it at another Wal-Mart on the way home. We have decided in the future we are going to go straight to the second Wal-Mart on Black Friday if we need anything from there.

Overall, it was a good day, and we were back at Nanny's by 10:30 a.m. Next year, hopefully, I can convince Bruce to sleep in and not be in such a hurry to get those bargains.

Thanksgiving

We had a good Thanksgiving. We went up to Bruce's mom's and spent a few days there. The children love to go to Nanny's house because she has a big yard they enjoy. In fact, all week Jonah kept saying, "We go to Nanny's house" because he kept thinking we were going right then.

I volunteered to make the turkey. Don't know exactly why I did that, I have never cooked a turkey in all my life. I decided to brine it using an Alton Brown recipe from the Food Network. That took some work, and ingredients that we don't have in our pantry or at the local grocery store.

After the children and I got to Nanny's house (Bruce came later because he had a meeting), I watched a little bit of the news and the traffic report. Deciding that the traffic on the interstate was worse going south than it was going north, I decided to go a little north of her house to get a couple of more ingredients for the brine. Wrong move. The traffic was awful. Somewhere along the way, the north traffic became worse than the south traffic. Even so, I was able to get to my destination and get the ingredients. I also managed to stop at a Christian bookstore and purchase a couple of pre-Thanksgiving specials. This was Tuesday.

Wednesday afternoon, I started "Tom" to brining. The recipe called for six hours, but ours went longer because I was not going to get up in the middle of the night to turn Tom over. After brining him, I put him in my handy dandy roaster oven for what I thought was going to be four hours. He was done in less than two and a half! We managed to keep him warm until time for lunch.

Tom must have been good, because Cara had about three or four helpings. This is saying something because she is a very picky eater. She kept saying, "More turkey." We gladly kept getting her more.

That night, we went on our second annual (and possibly, last) trip to see some Christmas lights. We took the children last year and they loved it. They laughed the whole time and begged to go around several times. This year, not so much. Cara was very excited about going and kept asking when were we going. While we were driving through, we said something about going to McDonald's afterwards and getting an ice cream. (Yes, McD's was open.) That was all it took. Forget the lights, they wanted ice cream. We made them go around a couple of more times, anyway.

I remarked to Bruce that may have been the shortest lived family tradition. All in all, it was a good day.

Sports banquet

The girls had their end of the season soccer banquet recently. They both received trophies for their participation during the season. This is one of the reasons why Adriana used to think she won everything, because she has about seven or so trophies.

Keepsake for the Heart

Jonah was so sweet yesterday and was very affectionate, which is wonderful compared to the twoness that has been coming out lately.

He and I went to the grocery store right before picking Cara up at school. While we were in the check-out line, a man walked up behind us. He noticed the man looking at him, and without prompting, Jonah hugged me and told the man, "I love my mommy."

Aaaahhhhh!

Forgot to add the best part of Saturday...(at least to Bruce)

Clemson won, Carolina lost. Tommy can keep his job. Enough said.

Operation Christmas Child

As I mentioned in the previous post, Adriana is a member of a children's choir at a local church (not at ours). She recently had a performance on a Sunday night that I tried to post video of, but was unable to do so.

After the children performed, a presentation was made about Operation Christmas Child which is run by Samaritan's Purse, Franklin Graham's organization. This church was collecting boxes for at lease the second year in a row.

Adriana sat with us while the video was being played about children all over the world who receive a shoebox filled with goodies that people have donated. She told me she wanted to do that. We actually participated last year, but she said she didn't remember it. I told her she may have to give something up this year that she may want for Christmas so we can afford to do it. She said she didn't mind and she wanted to put one together.

A wise friend once told me that after all she had been through her first couple of years, she will probably have the gift of mercy. And, that is so true. She has a very sensitive heart and she is emotionally moved more so than a lot of children her age.

I told her we would do it, and Sunday was the deadline for the boxes. We went to Wally World, picked out a plastic shoebox which she carried it all through the store while we picked out things to go in it. She decided to make one for a girl 5-9 years old. We included a picture and a letter in the box. We then gathered as a family and prayed over the box. Adriana then said a sweet prayer herself over the box for whomever may receive it.

Now, I am caught up!

Almost there with catching up...

This past Saturday Adriana stayed home with me while Cara and Jonah went with Bruce to his mother's to help her sell his father's tractor.

We had planned to go to a local church to attend the fall festival there. Adriana is in the children's choir and I attend a ladies Bible study there.

Cara was going to go with us and had even been asking me what color the ponies at the pony rides were going to be. She wondered if they were going to be purple like the My Little Ponies someone gave her for her birthday. At the last minute, she decided to go see her Nanny.

The festival was not until the afternoon, so Adriana and I hung out together until then. The hanging out turned into cleaning because Adriana was anxious to help clean and I was getting rather tired of the way the house was looking.

And then, I really looked at my refrigerator. Eek! I had to clean a drawer out with the salad makings that never quite made it into a salad, which led to throwing food out, which led to shelves being cleaned, taken apart and put back together, which lead to the door being cleaned, you get the idea. Something that needed to have been done a long, long time ago.

I was on a mission and it had to get done before we went to that festival. I worked my way from the down up. Don't ask me why. I know from top down would be better, but I don't work that way.

About halfway through, Adriana decided she wanted to rummage through the fridge. She pulled out pickles, yogurt and I can't remember what else. Made her a nice little snack and then left it. After it had set a while, I told her to come back and throw it away or eat it. She proceeded to try to put the bowl loaded with pickle juice and pickles into the fridge. You guessed it, it spilled. I cried. I tried not to get too upset because she had been working with me for most of the day. So, she got to work with me some more.

After she went back on her merry way, a can of drink fell off a shelf and somehow was punctured and spewed on the shelves that had just been cleaned a second time. And then, I touched one of the refrigerator bulbs with my dishcloth, and it exploded. I almost literally threw in the towel. Almost, but I did get it finished.

No before pictures of the refrigerator. I can't do that to anyone.

We did get to the fall festival and Adriana was able to ride the pony which was brown and not purple.

After we came home, Adriana and I both did our fair share of coughing, so I think we both definitely have allergies.

The stinking pumpkin

I forgot to add about our stinking pumpkin. The children and I went to our local pumpkin patch (Wal-Mart) after Cara's traumatic time at the doctor's office.

Adriana picked out a small pumpkin to paint, and Cara being Cara said she didn't want one but decided later she did. So, she shared Jonah's that I picked out for him while he was busy head bobbing in the shopping cart. I had to reach for a pumpkin while holding his head.

We also picked out a big pumpkin to carve. All was well, so we thought. This was on Friday. We went to carve the pumpkin on Tuesday only to discover it had started going bad. It smelled and was starting to get mushy on top.

We decided to carve him and light him up in our kitchen. Since we were not going to be home on Halloween night, we just plunked him straight into the trash. I guess that is better than leaving him outside until we remember we have a rotting pumpkin outside.

I had planned to save the seeds and toast them because Adriana loves toasted pumpkin seeds. She didn't get any last year because somehow they feel off the stove while I had them up there to dry out. Now, she won't get any this year because of the stinking pumpkin.

Maybe next year.

Fall Festival at church

We had our fall festival at church last Saturday. (Or as Cara calls it, fall festibul.) We had a great time, except Bruce wasn't able to attend because his uncle had passed away and he went three hours away to preside over the funeral service.

His Uncle Clifford was a great man who loved children. I will miss seeing him at the family reunions, but he had lived a good long life and he was ready to go home to be with Jesus.

We debated going with Bruce to see his aunt and cousin. We would have gone down the night before, but we finally decided against it. Adriana gets worn out so easily, and she really wanted to go the festival. If we had gone with Bruce, we probably would not have made it back in time to go to the festival.

Back to the festival, we had a good time with the games and the cake walk. That day was rather busy because I had all three to myself and had some running around to do before the festival. Plus, I decided to make a dessert that www.allrecipes.com said would take about 30 minutes, but it probably took more like an hour and a half. And, I decided to make two cakes for the cake walk in case both girls won the cake walk. I wanted them to have a cake to choose that I knew they would love.

At the festival, the church decided to have a Pastor and Family Appreciation Day. They didn't know that Bruce might not come to the festival, so I had to relay all the information when we got home. When all was said and done with all the gifts and gestures of appreciation, the church provided about a week's worth of meals for us and then some. Very nice, especially this month. The Lord still amazes me with how he provides.

Honors Day

At the risk of sounding like a bragging parent, Adriana made the "A" honor roll at school. Here she is with her principal right after receiving her award. Yeah, Adriana!

Halloween night

Okay, so what's the preacher's kids supposed to do when Halloween is on a Wednesday night and they are normally at church? Not skip church, of course, so they improvise.

We are normally at church on Wednesday night unless on of us is sick. We don't have a children's program on Wednesday nights, so the children and I usually go for the meal and then the children play in the nursery while Bruce has Bible study.

I kept trying to come up with a way that the children could still enjoy trick or treating and be at church. At one point, I thought about taking them into town after we had finished eating. The problem with that idea is the church is in the country, and by the time we drove there we would need to turn around because Bible study would be ending.

What to do? What to do?

I finally came up with the idea that I would take some candy with us and their costumes. I let them dress up and asked the adults to give them some candy while the children went around the table saying, "Trick or Treat." Everyone loved it. The adults had the best time. Jonah was so cute and Cara kept giving the candy back as she went around the table. Adriana was hesitant at first, but she finally joined in without her wig.

Still catching up and then I'll be caught up, I hope

I had planned to write another post last night, but this little congestion bug I have had prevented me from doing such.

The girls had a "Vocabulary Parade" at school on Halloween. This was the deal-they were allowed to dress up as a "word", but they were not allowed to wear their Halloween costumes to school. ??? Still trying to figure that one out.

Cara went dressed as a rabbit. She wanted to go as a tiger, but I couldn't find our tiger ears we have around here. I did find the bunny ears, so I convinced her to go as a rabbit. When I went into my closet off of our bathroom to get cotton balls for her tail, I found an unused white shower puff. Viola! Great tail.

Adriana went as the color pink, and since she loves the color pink, that was not a problem to come up with at all.

I went to the school to watch the parade and I had a little bit of a problem because both girls wanted me and were getting upset because I would not sit with them. Cara actually cried, and Adriana cried going down the hallway because I didn't have money to give her for a popsicle at lunch. I saw the mother who was running the popsicle booth and she told me they were a quarter. She said she would be glad to "cover me" and don't worry about reimbursing her. So, I am indebted to Becky for a quarter.

The Halloween Festival

Our town has a festival every year on the Saturday before Halloween, which this year was the same day as Cara's party. I scheduled her party early so all the children would be able to go.

In between Cara's party and the festival, our children attended another party for one of the girls' friends. At that party was a bounce house that the children could not be dragged out of. And, Jonah had a fun time "flirting" with the birthday girl's older sister who is a teenager. What is it about my children and older crushes? Think they have learned something from their mom?

We had to leave that party before the presents were open so they could get home, changed and up town to trick and treat. The event is really neat in that some of the downtown merchants stand outside while children walk up and down the street trick or treating. This was going to be the only opportunity our children had to participate in door to door trick or treating this year, so we tried to make the most of it.

Adriana was Hannah Montana, of course. She was a homemade version, with a scarf I made the night before. It was crudely made, but it was a scarf nonetheless. I was afraid no one would know who she was, but plenty of the children knew. We had issues with her wig, but she wore it.

Cara was Dora the Explorer, of course, too. The best part of her get up was she did not need a wig with her already cut Dora the Explorer hairstyle.

Jonah was a monkey. He was supposed to be Boots (Dora's monkey), but it wasn't a Boots outfit. It was actually a very hot thick monkey outfit that he sweated profusely in. One day costume manufacturers are going to learn it is just not that hot in the South at Halloween.

After trick or treating, we gathered in this area of town where games and a costume contest were going on. None of ours won the costume contest this time, but they had fun. Bruce took Cara and Jonah home after the costume contest because 1. Jonah was burning up in his costume and 2. Cara was worn out.

Adriana stayed with me while I took pictures for the newspaper. And, she stuck around to play the Go Fish game a couple of times. (That was one of my favorites when I was younger, too.) We also tried guessing the amount of candy corn in a jar, but we were both way off. I think Adriana really wanted to win that, but she didn't seem too disappointed when she didn't.

Adriana kept asking me about the haunted house and why I had never taken her in there. Yeah, right, like that's going to happen. I tried to explain it to her, including a lesson on hauntings and why they are not real. We even got to throw a quick lesson in there about what happens to your soul when you die if you are a Christian (so Halloween can be used to our advantage). She finally realized that a haunted house may not be the best choice for a six year old. On a side note, while we were at the festival, buzzards were flying over the haunted house.

Needless to say, they all went to sleep pretty quickly that night.

Cara's birthday party

Cara had her birthday party on Saturday, Oct. 27 at a local bowling rink. She had a very few friends and a few family members there.

The bowling was scheduled to go on for an hour, but the younger kids quickly lost interest. The older kids went the full hour, though.

This was Jonah's first time bowling and he had a blast. He also scored pretty well, thanks to Daddy's help.

After the bowling, we went into a party room, had pizza and Dora the Explorer cake, of course. Cara received plenty of more Dora items, so she was pleased.

Her big gift from us was a Dora bike and from her siblings she received a Dora cash register. Of course the cash register is just lovely with all the different pieces that go with it. (Note sarcasm.)

Sorry for the interruption to your scheduled programming

I have been away from the blog. I apologize. I will try to do better. Oh, yeah, Christmas is coming up. Forget it. But for now ...

I have lots to update and I am going to try to do so over the course of this weekend, but here is a little for now.

Cara and Jonah both had well child visits two weeks ago. Cara weighed in at 33.5 lbs. and was 39 1/4 inches tall. Jonah weighed 24 3/4 lbs. and measured 34 3/4 inches. His head circumference was 19 5/8 inches. They both did well during the visit, and their doctor said they both were developing fine. She was particularly impressed with Jonah's speech and could understand him. She said by the two year mark, children should be combining two words, but Jonah is actually combining a lot of four and five word sentences, sometimes more. Speech seems to be our strong suit in our family, imagine that.

Cara was a trooper throughout the shots ordeal. Jonah was not scheduled for any, but I had all three of them scheduled for flu shots. This meant that Cara was going to get five shots. Dr. G. said we could break the shots up into more than one visit, but I feel like with mine, if you have them on the table, go ahead because it may not happen again.

The nurse started with Jonah and gave him his shot. He did great. He cried a little but then was over it. Poor Cara was next. Bruce had come in during the middle of the visit and he helped me hold her down along with another nurse. I held her hands and just kept telling her how much I love her and that I was sorry we had to do this. She screamed and cried, of course. I can't blame her, that was a lot at one time.

She was so funny when we were leaving. She kept crying and wailing throughout the office. She had her legs stuck together and was walking very slowly. Bruce and I both tried to tell her that the more she walked, the quicker the pain would wear off. She wasn't buying it.

On the way through the hallway of the office, she was saying, "I don't like the flu and I don't like the flu shot." Everyone was grinning and kind of laughing in a sympathetic way. I saw her doctor laughing when Cara said, "Maybe a Dora sticker will make it feel better." (The doctor's office gives out stickers at the end of the visit.)

We went to lunch right after that, and she was still going strong. She had everyone in the restaurant feeling sorry for her. She finally calmed down somewhere during our meal, but she was still walking slowly when we left. I think she finally stopped after our second stop after that at Wally World.

While we were at the doctor's office, Dr. G. noticed Adriana was coughing and she offered to check her lungs. I had taken her in the week before because of her cough, and one of Dr. G.'s partners listened to her. Then, the partner said she thought at one point she may have heard some crackling, but she didn't hear it again. When Dr. G. listened, she heard a lot of crackling. So, we did a nebulizer treatment on her in the office, and the doctor listened to her again. She said it cleared her up, so she didn't think it was walking pneumonia or that she needed a chest x-ray. Whew! Dr. G. did say we were to continue the treatments and bring her back in a week. She didn't get a flu shot that day.

I took Adriana back a week later and the doctor said she sounded much better. Dr. G. and I talked about keeping her on nebulizer treatments or an inhaler for the winter months since Adriana tends to have problems with her lungs during the cold months. We decided that an inhaler was probably the best option, so until March she will use an inhaler twice a day.