Haiti--Your Urgent Help is Needed!

I have been devastated watching and hearing the reports coming out of Haiti after the recent earthquake. These people already have so little and now their country lies in ruins and lives hang in the balance.
This tragedy is one that impacts my family and I on a more personal note as my sister-in-law Julie and her husband Rob just recently completed an almost 3 year journey of faith and adopted two 9-year old boys from Haiti. "A" and "J" lived in a wonderful, Christian orphanage very close to the epi-center of the earthquake and arrived home in the US just a week before Thanksgiving. I cannot begin to tell you how much I am praising God for sparing them and for bringing them home when He did!
My heart is breaking, however, for the many, many adoptive families who still have children living in Haiti AND for the people of Haiti as a whole as they have been impacted by this earthquake and the devastation to their country.
Please take a moment to visit the "For His Glory Orphanage" website and pray how you could help:
http://www.forhisgloryoutreach.org/home

My husband and I donated today out of deep sense of urgency to help these precious people who so desperately need all of our help.
Please consider doing whatever you can!!

Please Pray

***Update***
Stellan is absolutely, completely, undeniably, MIRACULOUSLY HEALED!! Can I get an "Amen?!!"
It's taken me a while a ridiculous amount of time to post this update, but on  November 9th, Stellan went in for his second ablation of his heart and it was a rip-roaring success!  You can read all about that day HERE.  So many, including myself, are praising God for His hand upon this sweet babe and for restoring him to complete health.  I look foward to watching him grow and THRIVE!!

Original Post:
Along with literally THOUSANDS of other readers, I am praying for sweet little Stellan today.
If you're unfamiliar with his story, or his Mama, or the rest of the MckFamily, head over to their family blog here: http://www.mckmama.com/
Stellan, who turns 1 years old today was diagnosed with SVT in the womb, born healthy and presumably normal, but at 4 months began having bouts with SVT (super fast heart rate) once again.  He has been hospitalized and gravely ill numerous times, flown by medical helicopter to Boston where he received an ablation of his heart at 5 months and since then has had on-again/off-again bouts with SVT.
He is currently hospitalized, and this bout of SVT came on VERY suddenly and has really hit his poor little body hard.
Please take the time today to pray for him and to ask our Great God, who is the ultimate Healer to do a miracle for Stellan and their family and restore him to complete health.
Happy Birthday sweet Stellan!  Praying you get to eat your birthday cake real soon big boy!

The BEST (and easiest) Stuffed Mushroom Recipe Ever!

Trust me when I tell you that your friends will be BEGGING you for this recipe!  I know this because
a. Begging is how I came to have it (I've got no shame...) and
b. It's what happens to me every time I decide to make these delectable little morsels and take them to a party, get together, etc.

The greatest thing about this recipe (other than the begging and adulation described above) is that it's soooo easy to make with very few ingredients.  (My kind of recipe!)

Here's what you'll need:

3 packages of regular sized mushrooms, stems removed and discarded
10 pieces of bacon, cooked and crumbled
3/4 Cup Hellman's Mayo (no substitution here, bring out the good stuff!)
1 1/2 Cups Shredded Sharp Cheddar
Lawry's Season Salt, to taste

Here's what you'll do:

• Take a 1/4 sized teaspoon or small melon baller to core out the mushroom stems and enlarge the opening of the cap slightly (to allow for more stuffing.)
• Wash mushroom caps thouroughly and set them on papertowel to drain/dry.
• Cook bacon and crumble.
• In a bowl, mix together the crumbled bacon, mayonnaise, cheese and seasoning salt.
• Fill each mushroom cap with the cheese mixture and place cheese-side up into a 9X13 baking dish.
• Broil for approximately 7 min. or until cheese is melted and just starts to brown.

Warning!  Be prepared to either:
a. gain approximately 3 pounds (from eating as many as you can yourself) or
b. spend time handing out the recipe cards you very wisely made up in advance to save you from being smothered with people vying for your attention! 
Unless that was your goal all along...in that case~~
Revel in it!! :-)

What's your favorite recipe to take to party or get together?

Dinner Diary-Bowtie Festival

I'm still loving all the inspiration and great recipes I'm getting over at Tiffany's blog Eat At Home Cooks.  If you haven't had the chance to check it out--Go there NOW!  (Well, okay, maybe not RIGHT now, but as soon as you read this post, GO!)

Tonight I tried out her recipe for Bowtie Festival and it was a HUGE hit!  Don't you just love it when you can razzle and dazzle your family? Thanks Tiffany!

I wanted to share it here, but for detailed pictures (ours was gone so fast I didn't even get a chance to take a pic!) be sure to check out Tiffany's site!

Bowtie Festival:
1 box bowtie pasta
4 Tbs. butter
2 cups half & half
1/2 cup white wine (I could only find the non-alcoholic version, which was fine with me!)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 red pepper, finely chopped
12 oz.pre-cooked bacon, diced
2 cups Parmesan, shredded
salt and pepper, to taste
1 tomato, finely chopped (I omited this since NONE of us like tomatoes!)

Boil the pasta according to the package directions.  In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add the onion and garlic, cooking until soft.  Add the red pepper, wine and bacon to the mix and cook for a minute.  (This kept the red peppers slightly hard, next time I may try cooking them longer.) Whisk in the half and half, then the cheese, allowing the cheese to melt.  Season with salt and pepper.

Drain the pasta and put it back in the cooking pot.  Pour the sauce over it and stir it together.
(Optional: Top with the chopped tomato.)

I served Caesar salad with ours and it was sooo good!

What have YOU been cooking up in the kitchen lately?  I'd love to hear!

"Casting" Our Cares Away...

So our little one had his big appointment on Wednesday to have his cast removed.
Yeah!!  ((Can you hear the chorus of angels singing??))
It was a day we have all eagerly anticipated over the past 3 weeks.
Although we're thankful for modern medical marvels such as casts, having a 16 month old wearing one has definitely affected our day-to-day.
Of course, with no more cast, we wouldn't be able to enjoy...

• Wearing Daddy's big sock over his arm at the dinner table...

• Attempted "sponge baths" over the kitchen sink; washing his head/hair with the sprayer while his head rests comfortably on an overturned soup pot while he cries and flails his arms wildly; angry that we would DARE to force this manner of bathing on him!
  

• Cleaning the spaghetti sauce, bananas, oranges, gravy and cheerios out of his hair with wipes in an attempt to avoid the aforementioned "sink" bath.

• Constantly worrying that I would forget to pick up the dog dish full of water and he would proceed to splash to his hearts content and his cast's demise.

But alas, I need not mourn too long...

After having his pumpkin-y colored cast removed and new x-rays taken, it was determined that one of the two fractured bones still needed a little TLC and healing time so....
Hello, fall-ish Navy Blue color!

See? I don't mind a bit!

And..."Hello!" to one more week of dirty boy!

Just kidding, cause I SOOO give him a bath EVERY night.

*Ahem*

Company and a Yummy Breakfast Treat

This weekend is a pretty big weekend in my household.  It has nothing to do with birthdays, or family members, anniversaries or traditions.  Well, actually now that I think about it, this event probably could be counted as a tradition.  A tradition that my husband looks forward to every year and one that we have been SOOOO blessed to recieve 4 free tickets to:  The annual meeting of the Penn State Nitany Lions with my husbands' beloved Iowa Hawkeyes.  Woot! Woot!!  Oh yeah, we are headed to Happy Valley, baby!
I've been hearing/reading alot of smack-talk going down between my husband and his Penn State buddies this week (we are pretty surrounded courtesy of living so close to Pennsylvania!) and I'm hoping that his Hawkeyes will pull off a victory.  Ya'll know my heart is still in Florida with my 'Noles, but hey, I love my hubby and thus root passionately for his team!  Go Hawks! 
We are taking our 4 year old with us and my Father in Law flew in tonight (all the way from IOWA!) just so he could travel with us to the big game tomorrow.  My son is soooo excited to go.  This will be his first time going to a REAL football game and he's been talking about it all week.

All that said, I wanted to have something on hand for us to eat in the morning without getting my kitchen too dirty before heading out.  We are trying to sell it for goodness sakes and it's sooo hard to keep everything "potential-buyer-clean" while still living in it!!

I remembered that I had a really yummy Egg Souffle recipe buried in one of my cookbooks and decided to dig it out and throw it together for tomorow.
I thought I would share it here as it's super easy to whip up and is soo good!  (This recipe was given to me by a sweet "host Mom" during our travels with our vocal group MISSION.)


Egg Souffle
6 slices of cubed bread
6 eggs slightly beaten
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 lb. of cooked sausage or bacon, drained and crumbled (I used two boxes of the pre-cooked bacon)
2 cups milk
1 tsp. dry mustard
1/2 tsp. seasoning salt or salt (I used salt since my FIL is deathly allergic to red pepper/chili pepper...no ER visits for us this weekend, thank you!)

 Beat eggs, add all other ingredients.  
Put in a casserole dish and refrigerate at least 12 hours.
Bake at 350 for 35 to 45 min. or until set in the middle.
Enjoy!

Here is a picture of it ready to be baked in the AM!  So easy and so good!

Be blessed!
~Jenn~

Doing Fine

"It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life....and I'm feeeeling Gooood..."

Ever have one of those weeks where so much happens all at once that it's hard to catch your breath?  These past few weeks have certainly been like that for us!  

For starters, almost two weeks ago, my husband (enjoying a Friday off of work) decided that he wanted to treat our boys and kept them home from daycare to spend some quality time with them. They had a nutritionally balanced yummy breakfast at McDonald's and then decided to pay one of our favorite fall destinations a visit.  

Ever since our firstborn was an infant, we have loved taking the boys to a local orchard during the fall season.  Beautiful decorations, pumpkins of various sizes, wonderful homemade pies, horse rides, various rich colored blooms, a playground and petting zoo make this a memory-making destination each time we go.

Jeff enjoyed letting the boys pet the goats and play on the playground for a bit, and then gave our youngest (15 months old) a piggy-back ride on his shoulders.  As our four year old walked ahead of him, my husband tripped/stepped into a hole in the gravel which sent both of them hurtling forward and our little one somersaulting over his right shoulder.  My husband kept a firm grip on his right arm to prevent him from hitting the ground and hitting his head.  Of course, the whole thing scared our little guy and he cried for a bit, but recovered quickly and they went on with their day: lunchtime, naptime, playtime, etc.

When I got home, we both noticed that he just wasn't acting like himself.  He would cry off and on for no apparent reason.  My husband mentioned what had happened and we started wondering if maybe he had tweaked his shoulder.  A few strategically placed squeezes later, we weren't convinced that there was really anything wrong.  He was still using his arm to point and could lift it fine.  However, he cried through most of dinner and nearly all of his bath time, which gave us more reason for concern.  After his bath, I laid him on the changing table to put his jammies on.  As soon as I attempted to (gently) put his right arm in the sleeve he started bawling.  My husband and I looked at each other and the decision was made.  We were headed to the ER.  

I am ever so glad that we made that decision because two hours, a little TV, a lot of fussing, and a couple of x-rays later we had our diagnosis: both bones of the forearm were fractured about two inches above his right wrist.  Needless to say we were heartbroken for him and my poor husband felt TERRIBLE!!  I'm still convinced that he probably saved him from an even worse injury had he fallen on/hit his head on the gravel!  Of course, this is the same little boy who just TWO months ago was in that same ER getting 4 stitches in his eyelid after big brother tried to "swim" between his legs in the bathtub!

  (Note to the baby hospital....we really do love our children no matter how this looks!) 

Anyways, our little guy got his cast on a week ago and is doing splendidly! 

See?

Also, pay no mind to the various items on his floor.  He really should try to pick up after himself a little better. 

Ahem.

As if all of that wasn't enough, for some reason I've also chosen the last 2-3 weeks of my life to become a little more adventurous in the kitchen and have cooked up a whole slew of new homemade concoctions that I have NEVER attempted before.   

Having spent the first couple of years of our married life dining on such finer things as Dinty-Moore-Beef-Stew-Over-Rice, Tuna Helper and Grilled Cheese with Ramen Noodles, to say that making things from scratch is HUGE for me might just be the understatement of the year.

My husband has been wondering who body snatched his wife happily devouring every meal and has really spoken to my "love language" with comments such as "Your batting 1000!" 

(It's really a good thing I love sports so much and will gladly take a sports analogy like this to my cooking as the sincerest form of compliment!)

Here's a short list of the things I've made (from scratch) for the first time in my life recently:

(Blogs about several of these will hopefully be forthcoming. More on that in a bit)

• Homemade Bread (6 loaves of it!) without the use of a bread machine OR a free stand mixer (although I am now on the hunt for used versions of either...)
  
• Stuffed Shells
• Homemade Pizza Dough (for Calzones which I had also never made)
  
• Homemade Pie Crust (for the yummiest Quiche Lorraine. I made a double batch of my mom's recipe, but this was my first time NOT using a store-bought crust.  It was soooo much better homemade!)
  

• Homemade Cinnamon Rolls~ (Oh my word, ya'll....these were THE.BEST.EVER!!  I only used half of the dough and it made 7 pans full!  These would make a great gift-giving idea.  But don't steal, cause I'm thinking I will give these out for the holidays.  I will definitely be posting about these oooey-gooey heavenly morsels from this great mama cook soon!)

• Stromboli (pretty basic, but my first time making it and my first time using frozen bread dough. Pretty cool when you're in a rush, but I think the next time I'll just whip up the homemade pizza dough I used for the Calzones.  Cause I can so totally "whip it right up" now. Uh-huh, yeah.

Hopefully I can find the time in the next week or so to put up the recipe 

posts for all of these, but I'm not sure that will happen since this went up last night:

Yep, our house is for sale.

(*Sniff*)

No really, it's a good thing.  It's just one of those things that you know God is in, and you know He's telling you to do, but you still have those moments where you're like "Are you sure?!"

God has put such a burden in my heart that my purpose, my calling is to be home with my children.  I have already missed sooo much precious time with them and they will only be small for a season and I don't want to miss.any.more!

We have loved our house and have soo many wonderful memories, but we know that I would never be able to stay at home while in this house.  We're trying to make the right decisions (even though they're REALLY hard sometimes) and following alot of common sense.  (We'd make Dave proud!)  

Please be praying with us for the sale of our home and that God would provide just the right place for us, whether that be another home, or an apartment, or a townhouse.  We know that all of this is in HIS hands and we are trusting in that!

So, now between working full-time, whipping up homemade creations in the kitchen, loving my husband and children, cleaning up the pee and poop my diabetic dog is leaving for me everyday and trying to keep my house potential-buyer-clean, I'll still be trusting Him to take care of every insane, crazy, stressful moment and hopefully live to blog about it enjoy every minute of it.

That, and learning how to do cool things with my blog that may, or may not annoy everyone else who reads it like striking through perfectly good words just to satisfy my own sense of humor.

Be blessed,

~Jenn~