Oh, What A Beautiful Day!

I have been energized all day! It's because of the wonderful temperatures. We had 45 this morning and 72 for the better part of the afternoon AND sunshine.

I did some extra cleaning in our bedroom and bathroom while Jaylon napped this morning. He slept for most of the morning, finally waking up at 11:oo. He is such a joy to care for! My, my.....

Here is a picture of Jaylon flashing is toofers!
And this is Jaylon and his mommy this evening when she came to get him after work!
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Anywayyyyy.....*smile*......a friend on FB commented about how she was making chili today and that got me in the mood for chili, so I made a 'licious pot and also fixed grilled cheese sandwiches to go along with it. Well, Ed had grilled cheese sandwiches but not me. It's just a tad too fattening but I still super-enjoyed the chili. Yum! I had a slice of wheat bread scantily buttered! (It will be worth it...it will be worth it....it will be worth....)

We had a chili cook-off at church a couple of years ago and if there is one thing I learned it is that EVERYONE has their own idea of what chili should be or is. We had 14 entries and they all were so different. Mine is pretty basic: lean ground beef, onions, S&P, chili powder, kidney beans, stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato juice AND several drops of Liquid Smoke. Oh, and just a bit of brown sugar, maybe two teaspoons. I adjust the seasonings until I get it the way I want it! *smile* I like my chili kind of a medium consistency...not too thick, but not too soupy either.

How do you like your chili? What are the ingredients that you like in yours?

What is it about a nip in the air that makes a person hanker for some good chili? *smile*

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Tomorrow is weigh-in day for me here but I've already weighed myself for the week and I am stuck on having lost 13lbs. but I really would like to lose the last 7lbs to reach 20lbs. total lost, sooooo I am endeavoring to do so over the next two weeks. Very sensible, hm? *grin* No eating after five o'clock. Keeping my portion sizes down. Drinking more water and moving more.

BUT I loooove to eat in the evening! We got home from church last night at about 8:30pm and I wanted to eat. Nooooo, I wasn't hungry. I just wanted to eat because I like food and enjoy the taste of it and....well, you get the idea. :-)

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I hope you've enjoyed this beautiful Monday.

Please join with me in praying that somehow they will be able to get the fires in California under control.

The secret to a long marriage

At First Community Church they have a weekly husbands' marriage seminar. At the session last week, the pastor asked Giuseppe, who was approaching his 50th wedding anniversary, to take a few minutes and share some insight into how he had managed to stay married to the same woman for all these years.
Giuseppe replied to the assembled husbands, "Well, I've a-tried to treat-a her nice-a, spenda da money on her, but besta of alla is, I tooka her to Italy for the 25th anniversary!"
The pastor responded, "Giuseppe, you are an amazing inspiration to all the husbands here! Please tell us what you are planning for yiour wifefor your 50th anniversary!"
Guiseppe proudly replied, "I'm agonna go get her!"

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MARRIAGE SEMINAR:
While attending a Marriage Seminar dealing with communication, Tom and his wife Grace listened to the instructor, "It is essential that husbands and wives know eachother's likes and dislikes." He addressed the men, "Can you name your wife's favorite flower?" Tom leaned over, touched his wife's arm gently and whispered, "It's Pillsbury, isn't it?

ALERT!!!!

If you receive an email message from the Department of Health telling you not to eat canned pork because of swine flu, Ignore it.

IT'S JUST SPAM!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's Friday!!

And I am tired......but wanting to do something special, though I don't know what. Ever feel that way?

I went with Ed this morning as he picked up his student and dropped him off at school. We left the house at 7am! Then we checked the mileage and location to another student's home because Ed will be picking him up and transporting him beginning Monday morning.

Afterward, we went to Jack's Steakhouse for breakfast where Daniel and little Jaylon joined us. Jaylon just smiles at everyone! :-) And he has another tooth! He now has four upper and three lower teeth and is he ever drooling! Every so often this past week, he has felt warm to the touch, been a little clingy and slept more than usual and I think it has been because of those old toofers!
I bought Jaylon an OSU football jersey so he'll be all ready for next Saturday's opening game!!
:-)
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AND earlier today, I had just finished doing my friend Pat's hair. I put Jaylon in his pac n' play while I walked out onto the porch with her and Dee and told them goodbye.

Welllll....when I came back into the house, Jaylon had pulled himself up onto his knees and was holding onto the sides of his little bed just smiling and bouncing up and down for all who laid it!!!! It was soooo funny AND exciting!! He was so proud of himself!!! AND I was a bit scared thinking that we are really going to have to keep an eye on him!! :-)

Here he is shortly after I found him:

Guess Who??? :-)

Here's Jaylon all dressed up in his Ohio State Buckeye garb! We had these taken at Walmart and were really pleased with how they turned out! Oh, and this is the photo "entourage" I told you about HERE! :-)

Warning!

SENIOR CITIZENS ARE THE NATION'S LEADING CARRIERS OF AIDS!
HEARING AIDS
BAND AIDS
ROLL AIDS
WALKING AIDS
MEDICAL AIDS
GOVERNMENT AIDS

MOST OF ALL:
MONETARY AID TO THEIR KIDS!

Not forgetting HIV
(Hair is Vanishing)

Best-dressed in PJ category!! :-)

Each morning, when Jaylon arrives, he is dressed in some of the cutest PJ's!! :-) I always look forward to seeing what he is going to have on! Erin told me that she has gotten most of them at T.J. Maxx(I think I spelled that correctly!)for a fraction of their regular price. They are mostly Baby Gap brand. He has a new pair on this morning, so I will add a pic of them later. Here is a sampling of his PJ wardrobe:

Like mother, like son

So a couple of weeks ago, Daniel, Erin and Jaylon accompanied their youth group, as chaperones, to North American Youth Congress which was in Nashville this year.
Well, during the five days they were gone, the ONLY time Daniel called me was to tell me what an awesome breakfast he had that morning at Cracker Barrel, which is one of our favorite places to eat! He called me about FOOD! Is he my son or what??? LOL Oh my. We do so love our food. *sigh* If I remember correctly, he said that for $8.59 he got three eggs, hash browns, two biscuits and gravy, bacon, cinnamon apples, grits, and toast! I asked him if he ate it all himself and I believe he said that Erin ate the cinnamon apples and something else.
Yep, that's my boy!! A foodie!! :-)
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Little Jaylon must be cutting some more teeth because he has been pretty clingy the past couple of days, has been slobbering alot and chewing, hasn't wanted his baby food and has been sleeping more than usual, plus he feels warm to the touch though he isn't registering a noticeable fever. Poor little guy. But grandma doesn't mind holding him and rocking him.
Those old "toofers" can make a little guy feel pretty rough sometimes.
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Jaylon isn't crawling yet, though he does get "around" and I do mean around. He is all over the floor! :-) Going in circles and turning over and over and over. He'll get the hang of crawling before long!
AND he has his own little jabber-talk going on, though he isn't saying any definite words. ALTHOUGH, a couple of times last week, I thought I heard him say "da-da" almost in a whisper-like. I think he's holding out on us because he KNOWS how much we want to hear him say "da-da" and "mama"!
I remember when Daniel first started talking. He said Da-da first and just went around saying da-da all of the time and everywhere!! Grrr! BUT in the middle of the night he would wake up and say "Ma-maaaaa"......of course! He never said Da-da in the middle of the night. Oh no. I didn't think he would EVER say Ma-ma for others to hear, but he did...eventually! :-) Oh, and I can still remember the sweet sound of it! Ma-ma! It was sooo adorable!
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AND finally.....we took Jaylon to Walmart yesterday to have his picture taken. They turned out great! We had the photographer make a "collage" of five of the photos and on the way home Ed and I were talking, when he said that he really liked that "entourage" that she made of the photos. WHAT!?!?! You mean "collage", Ed!!!! Oh, well, whatever, yeah, I really liked it! :-)

Time is passing me by!!

Hi Everyone! I mean to blog. I have good intentions everyday but then the day starts and before I know it, it's over!!! Does this only happen to me?? Monday is GONE! Tuesday is almost OVER! Where have the hours gone???? And it isn't because I waste my time! Well, okay, I did take a nap this afternoon when Jaylon napped but I've gotten alot done today while taking care of him and I did the same yesterday. AND a nap is NEVER wasted time, hm, Liz? :-) I think someone has caused time to go faster. You know, I've told Ed a few times that God COULD speed up time if He wanted and we wouldn't even know it. He would, of course, have to make all the rest of the universe come into sync but He can do that, too. He's God, after all! And just maybe He would do this to see just what is most important to us. What do we devote the majority of our time to? Hmmmm.....it is something to think about!
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I haven't cooked anything out of the ordinary for the last two or three weeks. I roasted a chicken today. My, but does anything smell any better than the aroma of a chicken roasting in the oven? Mmmm.... Well, a beef roast is really good, too! AND would you believe I have been craving something SWEET? Now that is a bit unusual for me but I think I am going to bake a couple of loaves of zuchinni bread either tonight or in the morning!
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Ed and I took Jaylon to Walmart this afternoon to have his picture taken. Oh my!! We dressed him in his Ohio State garb and his little hat! He looks so adorable!! I can hardly wait to get the pictures and yes indeedy, I will be posting them for your viewing pleasure!
Soooo, thankfully, we were the only ones there to have pictures taken because right in the middle of the first pictures being taken, Jaylon decided to do The DO! Well, actually, I was changing his outfits, when I noticed what had happened. Sooooo, with just his diaper on him, I headed to the ladies room to get him cleaned up! After that, everything went pretty smoothly.
On second thought, not quite! When we got back to the studio, he was hungry. Thankfully, I had taken a bottle, so the young lady photographer was very patient while I fed him. And there still weren't any other customers waiting. Thankfully.
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School starts the 24th. I can hardly believe that it is time for school to start! Where has the summer gone? And then, two weeks later, the county fair!
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Hope you are having a great week!!

A quick post!

Today is weigh-in day and I lost another pound! That is 13 lbs. in all! I had been stuck at 12 lbs. for about two weeks and was getting a little discouraged but hung in there, so hopefully I will begin losing again! My first goal is to lose 20lbs., so I have 7 more to go!!
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Jaylon has four teeth on the top now and two on the bottom!! He looks so cute! BUT I don't dare let him try to chew on my fingers which he does quite often. He is just about ready to crawl and is just an absolute joy and delight everyday!!
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I'm really going to try to start pacing myself a little better each day so I won't be soooo wiped out in the evening when Jaylon goes home. I took a nap with him today on my bed and got about an hour's good rest and some sleep. I feel so much better this evening already....well, in all honesty, I am still tired but not as much as I was last night.
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We have our monthly ladies' meeting and I've fixed fishstick casserole to take. I am looking forward to visiting and spending time with the ladies as I don't get the opportunity to talk to some of them at church because I am on the platform starting the music and worship when they arrive and then I am still there finishing the music when they leave! :-) I'm sure some of you understand! :-)

Warning: This is NOT diet food!

I made Fishstick Casserole for Daniel and Erin about a month ago and while it was pretty good, I knew that it needed some tweaking. *smile* I originally found the recipe in a Taste of Home magazine.
Soooo, I fixed it for them again Monday evening, changed up a few things and it was delicious!!! BUT I forgot to take a picture of it! Anywayyy...here is the recipe and it definitely is not diet food! *smile*

Fishstick Casserole

1 bag of frozen hashbrown potatoes
1 large box of fishsticks (made from whole fish, not minced)
1 1/2 cups of milk
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 2-cup package of shredded cheddar cheese

Empty the frozed hashbrowns into a large bowl and with a fork, make sure they are all broken apart and separated.
Add the milk and stir thoroughly.
Salt and pepper liberally and mix with your hands.
Add the butter/margarine and mix this through the potatoes with your hands.
Do the same with the cheddar cheese.
Put the potatoes in a 9x13 greased baking dish.
Place the fishsticks in even rows on the top of the potatoes.
Bake at 375 for 45 minutes or until the casserole begins to bubble slightly around the edges and the fishsticks crisp up.

This is absolutely delicious! If I wasn't fixing it for the kids, I might add some finely chopped onion, too. I googled Fishstick Casserole and came up with alot of versions and variations but I was quite pleased with how mine turned out!! And it is soooo easy and doesn't require alot of "foreign" ingredients that I would have to go out and buy and spend a fortune on! *smile*

Who's been sleeping in MY bed???

So I am sleeping away Saturday night, minding my own sleepy business, when I am awakened by a little pin-prickish feeling on my left leg, only to wake up a bit more and have it feel like a being-stuck-in-the-leg-with-a-needle kind of feeling! I brushed my hand down along my leg and felt some sort of critter on my leg, so I flung back the covers and jumped out of bed, woke up Ed and asked him to please turn on the light. We couldn't see anything at first and then we realized neither of us had our glasses on! *feeble grin* So I snatched my glasses from the dresser and beheld the carnivorous wasp that had just taken a chunk out of my leg! Oweeeeeee!!!

Soooooo, I seized upon the fly swatter and whacked that wasp to smithereens!!!

Now, I've...or rather WE have taken to checking our bed thoroughly for wasps and other creepy crawlies before slipping our tired bodies in said bed.
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And this brought about another memory:

Ed and I were driving/going somewhere and I felt a little stinging sensation on one of my legs. It began to intensify. Then I felt another stinging sensation and something moving about under my skirt. I yelled at Ed to pull over. We were going up Rt. 33 by our church. I jumped out and began flinging my skirt around, jumping up and down, asking Ed to help me. It was a yellow jacket. It managed to sting me three or four times before being put to death!

Sooo, the next day at church, my pastor asked me what I was doing shouting and dancing along side 33?!?!? Oh, but I assured him that I wasn't THAT spiritual! *smile*

I'm just thankful that I don't have an allergic reaction to bees!

His Family Camp Debut!

Here's Jaylon making his Family Camp debut at the old campgrounds at Buckeye Lake! Isn't he a cutie pie?!?!

I swear he knows what my camera is!! Whenever he hears it come on...it makes this little noise.... he immediately turns in my direction and smiles! What a little ham he is!! *smile*

What was for dinner!

This is a chicken stir-fry that I fix quite often. I love it and it is so easy to make!!
Chicken Stir-Fry
3 grilled chicken breasts-I grill these on my counter-top grill and I like ALOT of chicken in my stir-fry and, well, I usually nibble on it as I cook, too. :-o
Montreal Steak Seasoning and Seasoned Salt to taste
8oz. cooked fettucine
1 16oz. bag deluxe stir-fry vegetables-I used the Walmart brand or whatever is on sale or the lowest priced. I just pierce the bag 3 or 4 times with a fork on the top side and microwave them until done. I then hold the bag upside down with a dish towel and squeeze the excess liquid out of the bag before adding the veggies the other ingredients.
1/3 cup sweet and sour sauce
1/3 cup Teriyaki sauce
1/3 cup Ginger/Teriyaki sauce
Cooking Oil

Season and grill the chicken breasts till done. I cut or tear the chicken into small pieces. In a large skillet, mix and heat the sauces together, along with just a few drops of cooking oil. To this I add the chicken pieces, stirring them to coat. Then I add the fettucine and vegetables, mixing everything together and letting it heat through thoroughly. Oh, but it is so delicious!
I love condiments of all kinds and always have sweet and sour sauce and Teriyaki Sauce on hand. I just happened to have the Teriyaki/Ginger Sauce on hand because I got it at a really good price and thought it would add a nice flavor to the other sauces combined.
I fixed this for me and Ed to have for lunch and dinner this past Wednesday, but then Daniel came over to borrow some luggage and really put the hurt on it, so I barely had enough left for our lunch, but that is okay. I love it when Daniel comes by AND he enjoys food soooo much! :-) He is like his mother!!! Oh my!!
As you can tell by this post AND this one , I really like skillet and one-dish meals!