Last night, we were hit by a storm that included at least one tornado that touched down in the area. Hail was also involved and in some areas, it was baseball sized. We were fortunate to be at just the tail end of the storm and we weren't affected much. We did take cover for a little while when the tornado had touched down nearby. Some pics...
Since we were outside doing some things (see previous post), we had take out for dinner. I did make dessert though and this is the recipe for that.
Fudge Puddles
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fudge-Puddles/Detail.aspx
My suggestions: the chocolate makes wayyyy too much so reduce that portion of it. I only used semi-sweet chocolate chips and not the milk chocolate and it was still a lot. Very rich and yummy!
Since the nice weather returned, we headed outside to do a little painting. We've lived in this house for 7 years and the wood trim was getting pretty shabby. The kids joined in to help me and we got a lot done. Daddy may be cleaning up some of the paint drips that are now on the concrete and brick but it was still very productive. :)
Andy and I both had brothers w/news today.
First, my brother and his wife had a baby boy at 2:25 p.m. today named Nathan. The baby is currently in ICU so please keep him in your thoughts. I'll post pics when I get some.
Second, Andy's youngest brother, Nick, got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Celeste. They are hoping to plan a wedding for the last part of 2008. We all adore Celeste (especially Blake!) and we are very happy for them.
Non-family members have a tough time keeping up with who is who in Andy's family (as of next month, we'll be up to 24 members including the parents, siblings and their children!) so I created a family tree showing who everybody is which you can see here. You can hover over the picture icon on each name to see a pic of that person.
And here's the ring...
Congrats to both brothers!
We had a mini-Thanksgiving dinner tonight. Small turkeys were on sale (and I think they are in many places right now, post-Easter) so we had a turkey dinner.
Slow Cooker Turkey
I washed the turkey, coated it with olive oil and then rubbed Italian seasonings all over it. Put it in the slow cooker on medium (high for crock pots) for an hour and then on low for 6 hours. Meat thermometer should read 180 degrees when it's done.
Dressing
I have tried a bunch of different dressing recipes and I never really like them too much. The one I used this time was this one. It came out a little too dry so I would probably add some chicken broth to it next time.
Gravy
The turkey made so much juice that I decided to make some gravy to go with our dinner. Poured the drippings into a skillet and slowly added 4 tablespoons of flour which made a perfect consistency and added a lot of moisture to the dry dressing.
Also served: mashed potatoes, corn and rolls
Very yummy and we have leftovers to eat for lunch the rest of the week!
We had hoped to spend time outside this weekend including an Easter picnic but that obviously didn't happen. The snow started coming down on Saturday...
Kids had Easter baskets on Sunday morning and had jelly beans leading from their rooms to the hiding location of the baskets....
Blake was up first and found his basket and then proceeded to pick up every single jelly bean that was laid out on the ground. That meant that when Payton got up, she didn't have a trail but he knew exactly where her basket was!
Spent the rest of the day being lazy and doing normal things that we always do - grocery store, laundry, etc. This week is supposed to return to the beautiful weather so maybe we'll get our picnic time in then.
Have a good week everyone!
I find great deals on various message boards that I read and I want to try to remember to share some of them here.
Andy and I had a date night tonight for the first time in a long, long time. Payton stayed home to work on a school project and we took Blake to the Parent Survival Night at the gym where the kids used to take gymnastics. It was his first time going without Payton but he did well.
Andy and I went to see Blades of Glory which was hilarious. So many people in it that we love and pure fun. Highly recommend it if you normally love Will Ferrell humor!
