Thanksgiving..........

Last year Megan was in the kitchen with me while I was preparing Thanksgiving dinner. She named the Turkey "Tom" - not too surprising, although she did name the ham at Christmas Tom-Ham, and any time we roast a chicken, it's Tom the Chicken...so the name has stuck. With the great deal on Turkeys at Walmart going on all over the country (still 40 cents a pound), I stocked up and am the proud owner of 4 Tom's in my freezer. I know I'm not the only one who loves Thanksgiving, so I wanted to share a few of my memories and recipes from over the past 30 (and holding) years.

My first memory was when we lived in Ramona, CA. We had relatives visiting us that year - specifically my Aunt Kathy - I was about 10 and someone (probably my aunt because she is a great cartoonist) drew a huge turkey on paper that covered the table. We had pre-cut a bunch of feathers out of construction paper and took turns writing down the many things we were grateful for that year then gluing the feathers in place. It was a significant moment for me as I reflected on the things that I was really grateful for.

A Thanksgiving meal at my home always includes the following:
(Click on the highlighted links for yummy recipes at allrecipes.com)

Roasted Turkey
Homemade Mashed Potatoes
Homemade Gravy (from the turkey drippings)
Stove Top Stuffing (tried many kinds - always go back to stovetop) (add in diced onions and celery to the water)
Green Beans (sometimes Green Bean casserole)
Dinner Rolls
Cranberry Jello (if you can't find black cherry jello, use cherry jello)
Sweet Potato Pie
At least 1 pie per person (you may think that's alot, but there has to be plenty for leftovers)

6 years ago, we invited a new girl at church to join our family for Thanksgiving. She became very dear to us and we love having friends join us every year.

Please share your favorite memories and recipes. I would love to try something new this year for my family.

I have memories as a small child on Saturday nights (after our hair had partially dried from bath time) of my mom putting sponge rollers in our hair for church the next day. What a big job that must have been for her (as she had 5 little girls - and 1 boy before I had even turned 8.) The best part of this memory is the clean pair of silk panties that mom had sewn the leg seams shut, and we would wear these as caps to keep the curlers in place. I have to admit, I have always wanted to try this on my girls, but I hated sleeping in my curlers every Saturday night, so I have been unsure about torturing my kids this way....until today. (Well she didn't have to sleep in it....yet) Megan wanted to be a ballerina (again) and her hair is too short to put in a bun, so the rollers entered the picture. I might have went a little overboard with my first attempt at sponge rollers....she looks like a cross between a clown and a really bad Afro, but I loved it anyway. We had to have a modeling session afterward and I have to add that she poses herself....

She did her "mad face"

Weight and Wait.....

I am 3 days into my 500 calorie a day diet...and the wait is killing me. I have never been much of a patient person. When I want something - I want it NOW. Thankfully this is a short term deal. Anyone can go into starvation mode for 3 weeks (Right?) I am learning a lot about my eating habits and that I eat waaaaaaay too much FAST food. (there's that patience thing again.) The funniest part of all of this is the delicious food I've been feeding my family...food that I can't eat because of this immensely restricting diet. I made them my favorite zucchini casserole 2 nights ago. The next day for lunch was homemade chili cheese dogs. But tonight takes the cake. I had picked a bunch of green beans yesterday and googled green bean recipes, but after realizing I had no bacon (and every good green bean recipe calls for bacon) I settled on the generic green bean casserole, but I made the onion topping from scratch. I partnered the beans with yummy pork roast. It smelled divine. And so I wait and starve and wait and starve some more. Seriously I am excited about this diet, although it is tougher than I expected. If any of you are interested in taking a look at the info online go to http://hcgdietinfo.com/.

Some of the pros of this diet (besides the obvious weight loss):

1. No need to have a napkin while you eat - you lick every morsel off your fingers
2. Vinegar is your new best friend (I've always liked it - now I LOVE it)
3. Get out of cleaning up the dinner dishes (Dave feels bad for me since I want to lick all the dishes clean instead of use the dishwasher)
4. The food I do get to eat is very yummy.

Here is what the kids ate tonight:

Here is what I ate: steamed cinnamon apples, imitation crab, celery, and 2 small melba rounds.

Review of Monte Ne Inn (the chicken house)

This starts out as an ordinary review, but stick with it....it has an interesting ending..........

Okay, so if you have lived in Arkansas for a while you have probably heard of the Monte Ne Inn (pronounced mahnta-nay - although some don't pronounce the "t") where you sit and eat the best fried chicken, mashed potatoes & gravy, bread, several sides - all served up family style. We have lived here almost nine years and had never been there. It's located about 7 or 8 miles down New Hope Rd in Rogers (that's the road that goes up between the Promenade and Olive Garden.) Dave and I took the family camping up at Monte Ne campground last night (just before Horseshoe Bend) and decided last minute to make reservations at the chicken house. (You should always have a reservation - they are packed.) The restaurant itself doesn't look like much from the outside, but has a charming interior with table scattered everywhere and the walls are filled with antiqued wrought-iron tools and such. I was instantly in love with it and planned immediately to blog about it. The cost is $9.25 for 11 and over and $4.50 for children 4-10. 3 and under are free. They don't put a menu on the table and the waiters are rather hurried and expect you to know how the chicken house works, but we were first-timers and had no clue. Our waiter quickly took the drink order (we ordered waters - trying to not go into debt for dinner) and then brought out a pot of delicious blended bean soup. It was a light appetizer, but I really wanted more (I think all the kids did). We watched as our server carried huge amounts of food all over the restaurant ( I think they could have been better staffed) and we were curious what to expect yet but didn't want to flag him down as he looked so busy, so I pulled a busgirl over and told her we were new and asked how this all worked. We asked if drinks were included and she told us yes, as were the desserts, which sounded delicious as well. When the waiter finally arrived, we ordered sodas for everyone. The food was brought shortly after and we passed around the fried chicken (which was mostly white meat - you can pay extra for all white meat, when available), the creamy mashed potatoes and gravy (average), corn (again, average), green beans (cooked with bacon, I think, because they were very flavorful), coleslaw (better the KFC), baby bread loaves (average) with apple butter (yummy.) All in all I would say it was like a glorified KFC (unless you factor in the atmostphere - that helped) When our bellies were sufficiently full (it is all you can eat), we were asked about desserts. Dave and I requested cobbler ala mode - he had blackberry, I had peach. Hannah and Megs both had huge bowls with fudge cake and ice cream. Alyssa and Wes had 3 scoops of rainbow sherbet each. The bill arrived while I was in the bathroom washing off a fudge-covered Megan, and Dave showed me that we were charged for drinks and dessert as well. I knew I needed to go talk to the manager (who I realized is actually the owner) as we had been told those things were included, but I wasn't looking forward to it. I shuffled up to the front where I knew he was and tried to quietly explain my situation as there were people everywhere. WARNING: HE WAS VERY UNPROFESSIONAL. Yup, you heard right. He asked me if I thought I hadn't eaten my money's worth and I explained to him that the meal was great, but that given the fact that I have a large family, I would not have ordered drinks and $7.oo desserts had I known they weren't part of the package deal. But his busgirl had told us they were all included. He looked me right in the face and said none of his employees would say that, (he's calling me a liar here) so I had to do the awful task of pointing the poor girl out and he finally agreed to take the desserts off the bill. He then went and brought the girl over to the front desk and made her apologize to me. I felt so bad for her - she was probably new. He put his hand on her shoulder and said in a loud voice , "The next time a customer asks you a question and you are not sure about the answer, what should you do?" She timidly responded that she should ask a server. I apologized quietly to her and I felt just as humiliated as she did. I think that the owner handled the situation so poorly that I will never go back again.
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What time is it?.........SUMMERTIME....it's our vacation!!!!

I remember as a kid my mom always loved the last day of school. I couldn't understand why because she had 9 kids, and the house would be crazy for the summer. My senior year there were 7 kids in school. Kindergarten, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th! WOW. Since I became a mother of school-aged children I haven't exactly looked forward to the last day of school (kind of sad to admit.) However,I couldn't be more excited for my kids to be out of school. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that we are leaving to Houston in the morning, or no alarm clocks all summer, or maybe it has to do with no rushing to pack school lunches. Whatever the reason (or reasons) I am thrilled that school's out!!! And so are the kids....they had a great time playing with the water shooters this afternoon - I'm trying to wear them out so they will sleep good tonight.

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

I don't think we've ever had a more rainy Spring, but it has done wonders for the green things in the ground - I love watching for new growth each day, especially from the newly planted garden. We planted 2 weeks ago - using seeds for everything except tomatoes and green peppers. And thanks to the rain, I haven't had to water a bit! The seeds we planted are: spaghetti squash, watermelon, zucchini, crookneck, butternut, lots of green beans and beets, peas, strawberries, onions, 4 types of lettuce, jalapenos, cilantro, several different herbs.....can't think of anything else - oh yeah, carrots.
Also, last week we took advantage of a friend's free offer of a kitten. We named him Sprite - he's 2 months old and still an adorable cat. I haven't been able to get a good picture because he won't sit still,but I'll include the silly one of him climbing on a bike. To any friends who might have cat allergies - he's not an indoor cat :) He sleeps in odd places in the garage...preferring the engine of the car and shelves to his comfy bed that we made him.
I guess that's all - I'm going to attempt to add some pictures now....this is why I don't blog very often. I really need someone to sit down with me and show me the basics.

ONE MORE THING - PLEASE POST PICS OF YOUR GARDENS _ I WOULD LOVE TO SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE!! :)

Giveaway!!!!

My first giveaway!The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice.For YOU!I saw this on a blog and I thought, "humm, in my attempt at being a better person, why not do a little service for friends and loved ones." This is going to be fun and I can't wait to start some new projects. It must be something to do with spring because once the sun comes out I all of the sudden get this huge urge to take on tons of new projects.This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!2. What I create will be just for you.3. It'll be done this year. Hopefully sooner than later.4. You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be sewn, painted, written, scrapbooky, or be something totally random that I come up with on a whim. I may even bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. Let's spread some love! So, the first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they are doing it too win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! (I know...that could either be cool or scary) Who knows! :)Be sure to post pictures of what you won when you recieve it! :) You better hurry!BTW- If you go to http://decourseyproject.blogspot.com you can enter to win a box of awesomeness! I am ALL about winning things. Aren't you??

I've got the gardening bug....now when is that last frost?

So I realized that I can post something and not have to post pictures....that's usually why I blog - I have pics to share - but not today. :) A week and a half ago, Dave and I visited Lowe's and found this book on Square Foot Gardening. Long story short......we now have 6 nicely put together (thanks Dave) and painted (thanks Cori and Megan) 4X4 wooden boxes to start our garden in. We've had a garden every summer since we've been married, but neither one of us enjoys weeds. This method mostly does away with weeds and to make it even more inticing - you never have to till the ground again!!!! I will post more later with pics - I just had to share my enthusiasm with you all.

No good at this blogging thing....time to call in the pros (Nicole? Alyssa? anyone?)

So I changed my template, cuz I realized Christmas was over almost 2 months ago, and in doing so, deleted my followers, all of my links, pretty much everything. I don't know if I have the patience or the memory to do this again. I do have something to share though. Thanks to the fact that I still don't know how to really post - the pics came in backwards....so with that said - I'll tell the story backwards.....The red couch is where I sat through the horrible experience....screaming and half-crying the entire time........

The mop on the kitchen floor.....it's actually the murder weapon. I don' think I'll ever look at it the same way again.

Gus-Gus, once he roamed free in our house....for quite a long time actually, but no longer. We hope he was alone, because we feel awful if he was the only provider in the mouse family (really we don't want there to be any more mice). For those of you who know my story of killing a mole in my garden with the edge of the shovel, you would know the Grahams mean business when it comes to taking care of rodents. Dave did an awesome job after we cornered Gus in the front room. I guess awesome is relative though.....Gus probably didn't think it was awesome.