Halloween Festivities

Over the weekend we went out to the pumpkin patch for trick or treating. D finally let me put his Wilson costume on him! He'd freak out every time I tried. He looked adorable, and only 1 person knew who he was supposed to be LOL. He did great using his manners, and I was super proud of him. He's not very fond of the candy (win for mommy!) unless it's chocolate.

We finally got around to doing a few Halloween crafts Monday while S took a day off from work, last night a local church had fall fest, so we took D in case they switch trick or treating to Friday due to predicted bad weather. We've got a wedding tomorrow night, so unless its over early we wouldn't be able to make it out. 

 I love this fabric so we got some to make a bag for his candy. We sewed up the sides and made a bag and then just used an embroidery hoop to hold the bag open, also creating a handle. It worked out well because he's not so good at holding the bag open just yet, and everyone commented on how cute and smart it was!

At the fall fest, D got to play some games, trunk or treat, and RIDE A PONY! He loved it, I thought for sure he'd freak out *he wouldn't pet the animals in the petting zoo* but he did great. He was excited to tell my parents about it last night.

This has to be the cutest donkey ever!

Unfortunately my van decided to bite the dust on the way home last night, so we get to spend our weekend trying to see if its worth fixing it or not. Our best friend is having a super small wedding tomorrow night and asked me to take pictures, so we've got a pretty busy weekend. 

Please remember to use caution when trick or treating this weekend. People in cars don't seem to pay much attention to children walking, and remember if your littles have allergies to look out for those TEAL PUMPKINS! 


                                            Have a safe and Happy Halloween! 
                                                            *Save some candy for me!!!*
                                                                             Kay

Lunch Date

Years ago, I worked on a food truck making wraps. I loved it. I have a history of working in  food establishments that made wraps and sandwiches, so I'm pretty good at rolling them up if I do say so myself!  My mom's best friend was in visiting from Texas this week, and requested Shrimp Wraps so I went over yesterday and made lunch for us.

A few weeks ago, my parents bought 50 lbs of shrimp and mom and I cleaned it all and put it all in the freezer to be able to use over the next few months. It took us all day to get it all cleaned and bagged up, and we ended up with 21 lbs of shrimp and many bags of shells for stock. 

I started with 2 lbs of shrimp, seasoned them up with some Cajun spice blend and sauteed them in a little olive oil. I also made a remoulade sauce, which is a french condiment normally served with seafood. I didn't measure anything for my sauce, you just taste as you go. I served this in a spinach wrap, I love the flavored wraps, they add an extra layer of flavor. 

We had lettuce, cherry tomatoes and avocado in our wraps as well. 

Remoulade : Mayo, Ketchup, Spicy Mustard, chives, green onions, and parsley and cayenne. Some people put horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, capers, hot sauce. It's a very simple and flavorful sauce. And that's saying something because I hate ketchup and mustard! 

J made us some yummy fruit salad to go with our wraps. Crushed Pineapple, sliced peaches, mandarin oranges, sliced strawberries and bananas. The "sauce" is peach pie filling. Top with whipped cream and it's so good. You can use any fruit you want.

Hurricane Patricia

Living in Southern Louisiana, we are all to familiar with hurricanes. While Patricia will not be a direct impact for us (I'm hearing it should be bringing some needed rain, but hopefully not too much) I was thinking about hurricane preparedness this morning while reading about it. Mexico is bracing for a VERY STRONG storm. It's the strongest storm ever recorded with winds over 200 mph. Definitely keep the people of Mexico in your thoughts as they ride this out.

Hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th. Thankfully we haven't been impacted by anything major since Isaac in 2012. My family has never left for a hurricane, and hopefully we never have to. We aren't in what is considered a "flood zone", and we don't really get many tornados in these parts. Normally when a storm is coming, the stores run out of water, bread, gas and batteries. Power can be out for days (in horribly hit areas, WEEKS even.) It's very important to prepare because you just never really know how bad it will be.


Ready.gov  has tons of information on how to prepare for a storm. *It also gives tips on other natural disasters as well if you aren't in a hurricane prone area*. We live in an apartment complex, so with the exception of removing any items we may have on our balcony, we don't need to prepare the outside area of our home. However, its VERY important to secure things that could become projectiles. The wind with a hurricane can be unreal! *See comment above about TWO HUNDRED MILE AN HOUR WINDS!!!* This also means removing any tree limbs that aren't in good shape, they could fall on your house, car or get swept up in the wind. A generator is a great idea to be able to have a fan available, and keep your fridge going. Once the power goes out, you have no idea how long its out for, and you are likely to lose everything in your fridge/freezer if you don't prepare.

We are a few hours away from New Orleans, so Katrina didn't really get us like she did them. She was a devastating storm for that area, as they are already below sea level. There are still areas that haven't bounced back. Hurricanes are no joke, and you can't stop them. But you can prepare.


Thankfully our season is almost over, and we haven't had any storms. Mexico won't be that lucky this year. Here's hoping they are heading all the warnings they can and getting to saftey.


Stay safe! 

Kay

Crock on.

I love my crockpot. It's great during the summer, when you just really don't want the extra heat from the stove, or on busy (or lazy) days when you just won't have time to cook a meal for your family. There are so many things you can do in it, meals, stock, cake, bread, yogurt! 


I knew I'd be out of the house most of the day today, and while I can make this on the stove (or even the power cooker  *I'll try to post about the wonders of that thing another day!) in about 30 minutes, I knew I wasn't going to want to come home and mess with that at 5:30 with a toddler who didn't take a nap so I tossed this soup into the crockpot when I got up at let it cook on low for 9 hours. S got home before me and tossed a cornbread in the oven and dinner was done! 

This can be done in the crockpot (I've always done it on low all day) or on the stove in 30 minutes, or you can let it simmer longer than that to develop more flavors, like most soups, its not picky about how long it cooks for. The only real difference between stove and crockpot, besides being able to set and forget it is that on the stove, I brown off my chicken and onions. I tossed everything into the crockpot frozen. 

I started with frozen chicken breasts (you could totally use beef too), I tossed in about 7 or so (they weren't very big) because we love to freeze this and have leftovers. ***Due to the chipolte peppers the spice intensifies while frozen, you can omit them or cut back, use a less spicy pepper.* I chopped up 2 onions, and used frozen bell pepper because its what I had. I don't really normally measure these things. If I have fresh bell pepper sometimes I will char it, to add extra flavor. You can also roast your corn, but I just toss in frozen whole kernel corn. The heat level is up to your tastebuds. We like it SPICY, so I use a lot of chipolte peppers. 2 is usually plenty, but I'm a glutton for punishment. The first time I made this, I used half a can..and boy was it HOT. We ate it, and loved it but couldn't feel our tongues for a few days. Chicken broth, and tomato products plus some seasoning finish it up. 

At this point, you can really add in anything else you think would be good. My mom adds zucchini to hers (which is AWESOME) but S is allergic, so we omit it. Beans would be good as well.

Nothing ever really looks good when you first toss it in the crockpot...

We top our soup with shredded cheese, sour cream, green onions and tortilla chips. We didn't have any chips today so we just tossed together a cornbread to serve with it. 

Perfect for a cold night!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

chicken breasts (I'd say about a pound.), *normally I'd cut them into chunks, but I left them whole since they were frozen, and cut before serving*
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, either chared and diced or just diced 
1 tbsp minced garlic
1-2 chopped chipolte in adobo peppers  *remember these are SPICY* 
28 oz stewed tomatoes
8 oz tomato sauce
3 cups chicken broth 
1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
salt and pepper
corn ( I never measure and just use what looks like enough.) 

Toss this all in the crockpot on low for about 9 hours, or high for about 4.5. You can also cook it on the stove (brown chicken, and onions and toss everything else in the pan) for a minimum of 30 minutes. 

Top with sour cream, cheese, avocado, tortilla chips, raw onion. Serve with cornbread. 


                                                                       Enjoy! 
                                  Kay

My little brother got married today! Congrats to you guys (even tho I doubt either of you read this lol) I hope you have a long beautiful marriage. 

We ate great gumbo, chili and of course cake (well, cupcakes and cake). We took lots of pictures, danced a little and had great family time. I always love it when we are able to get the whole family together. We laugh and have so much fun. We may not always all agree on everything, but I think its safe to say we all agree our family is one of the most beautiful and important things to us. **I'm not comfortable posting a picture of all of us on here, but if you are on my fb page you will definitely see some there over the next few days.**

Right at the start of the wedding I noticed my vision seemed off,  I thought maybe it was just due to more eye makeup than I'm used to but I quickly realized at the start of the reception I was coming down with a migraine. I haven't had one in quiet a while, but I was in the kitchen getting D some dinner together and suddenly couldn't feel my arm. It was completely numb. And I was slurring my words a bit. Next my face started going numb, its such a SCARY feeling. I couldn't form a complete sentence when trying to tell my sister about our anniversary dinner last night, and felt off. Unfortunately, I've been getting migraines like this since I was 8 years old and fell off a swing resulting in a concussion but it doesn't change the fact that it's terrifying ever thing. I quickly got some ibuprofen and amazingly it worked pretty fast, I'm normally down for about 2 hours and need to sleep them off. I'm so glad I didn't miss their whole wedding!

 D realized about an hour into the reception that there was a little girl there around his age and quickly became friends with her. They were super cute together. They chased each other, and hugged and sat together. 

Welcome to the family officially M! 

Kay

Festivals and Pumpkins

My in-laws came in this last weekend for a visit. We had dinner together Friday night after they arrived, and Saturday we went to a local festival, and then took a trip to the local pumpkin patch. 

The festival was held at a park, so D got to go play for a bit, and of course we ATE. Crawfish Ettouffee Stuffed Potato, Beignets, Jambalaya. Delicious. There was Cajun music, and dancing. 

The local children's museum had a section set up for the kids to make a "washboard". D had a blast making one, and I think its a craft we could easily replicate at the house with friends.

Our pumpkin patch is set up at a church, and they have photo opportunities set up throughout for you to take pictures, so we got MIL to go with us, so she could take some family pictures. There are never any pictures of me, because I'm always taking them! We also picked up a pumpkin while we were there.

Last night I made Roasted Sweet Potato and Sausage "hash" to go along with some Chicken we grilled with Southwest Chipotle Seasoning, Edamame and some Mexican Corn Muffins I froze a few weeks ago for dinner.

Tonight we roasted a pumpkin, and I'm making Pumpkin Bisque, with Candied Bacon and Roasted pumpkin seeds, to go along with some Spicy/Sweet glazed Pork Sausage, S is making. Hopefully the soup turns out great and I can come back to share with you how I did it. 

                                          Hope you are having a great Monday!

                                                             Kay

There is no friend as loyal as a book - Ernest Hemingway

We spend a lot of time at our local library. I loved it as a little girl and D seems to enjoy it as well. They just recently spent a few years remodeling our main branch. We have been going to story time for a few months, and recently they have started a Toddler Time on Wednesday's. Story time, some songs/activities and then it becomes free play for about 30 minutes. D LOVES it. He constantly ask to go to "lotta books" as he calls it usually. They also have a pajama storytime (sometimes they allow your stuffed animals to spend the night, super cute!) and movie times. It's a great FREE resource for stay at home (or not!) parents. This is a great article from What to Expect about taking your little ones to the library.

I came across this article our local library shared on FB. 

Read more HERE

These are a bit advanced for D, but I love these for when he's older. 

This can be found HERE

We could maybe do this "bingo"game : 

I like the interview the librarian list too! 

Books about reading! I'll be requesting a few of these from our library over the next few weeks. We try to pick themes to read about as well as just whatever books D grabs himself.     

These are geared towards toddlers, but I'm sure you can find books for older children about reading too

                     

Go enjoy your library! 

Kay