Homemade Biscuits

Yes, another food blog! My sweet husband is all about his wife knowing how to make the homemade recipes that our grandmothers were able to make (rolls, biscuits, fried chicken...and so on). I've been making these biscuits for a few years now and will tell you that I don't think we have purchased the pre-made ones since then. I've made them a few different ways but here is how I made them the last time they turned out really good!

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup butter or vegetable shortening (this last time I used butter flavored crisco)
*if you use butter, I would suggest really cold stick butter.

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Sift together flour, salt, sugar and baking powder in a bowl.
3. Make a well in your flour mixture and add the milk.
4. Add shortening and mix until you have the shortening (or butter) throughout your mixture.
*I use my dough hook with my kitchen aid and it does the job. I've used my hands for step 4 and that worked good too.
5. You can add more milk or flour if you need to.
6. Knead your dough a few times on a floured cutting board.
7. Pat the dough out to a 1/2 inch thickness.
8. Use a cookie cutter to cut the biscuits. If you don't have a cookie cutter you can use a cup; I found a mason jar is just right. :)
9. Put on a baking sheet and bake for about 10-13 minutes.
The recipe should make about 9 biscuits but we like ours bigger so it made only about 5. Watch them closely while they are baking to make sure they don't burn.MMM Enjoy! If you make them I'd love to know how they turn out!! Don't give up if they don't turn out the way you want them to on the first try...Keep trying! I've made some pretty bad ones!

Cooking Favorites

We've been pretty busy lately so I wasn't able to do my favorites last week. Since we have lived in Shamrock we have made Friday nights our cooking nights. Most Fridays we try cooking something that we have never done before. We are big leftover people, so most of these dishes could serve an army. Shawn has his handy food saver that really has been helpful! We still have some frozen veggies from our garden back in Lubbock. Anyways, here are a few of my favorite dishes/items that we have made!

1. One of Shawn's co-workers, Shannon *THANK YOU AGAIN!*, from another office gave us her family recipe for homemade tortillas. We have made them a few times and pretty much have them perfected! We've made them to go with fajitas, breakfast burritos and chili. They are wonderful!!
2. I had never had sausage balls until I met Shawn. His family loves them and makes them anytime we are all together or when we go on a trip. This past Christmas my mother-in-law got a new Christmas cook book that had Sausage cheese muffins! Marianne tried them out and we are hooked. They are the perfect size to just pop in your mouth...but you have to be careful. Before you know it you look down and realize you've eaten way to many! This recipe makes a lot, so we like to freeze them and then reheat them when we feel like having them for breakfast.
3. Egg rolls!! Our dear friends, Jeff and Ashley Williams, had us over one night and made us egg rolls for appetizers. Ashley showed me how she did them, so Shawn and I gave it a try one night. SO easy and SO good! We made veggie and pork rolls but the possibilities are endless! These are really good reheated in the oven!4. Shawn loves homemade rolls! I have tried making them a few times but never really succeeded...until the other day that is! I worked all afternoon on the dough and even added extra yeast to make sure they rose the way I wanted them to. I was a little disappointed when I saw that they hadn't really done that. I prepared Shawn for stinky rolls yet again. BUT when I baked them...they turned out great!! woo hoo. I still think I could prefect them a little but all in all they were great. Again, this recipe made a lot but Shawn got creative and made yummy turkey sandwiches and baked them in the oven for lunch!5. The same night I attempted the rolls I also put together a new side dish for us. We love squash and zucchini, so I made a zucchini casserole. It is officially one of our new favorites! It has lots of good zucchini, bacon, onion, cheese, and a little egg to hold it together! Not hard at all and has been good reheated!
We absolutely love our Friday nights. We play our music, talk about our days (mainly Shawn's day...it's more eventful) and of course our sweet son. It amazes me how we continue to get closer each day as a couple. God has truly blessed us with this small town life. We have had to shift our ways of thinking so that we don't get bored and angry with each other hehe. God has shown us how wonderful it can be in such a small town. We have gotten involved with a little church here and are seriously young enough to be the GREAT grandchildren to EVERYONE there. They are all so thrilled to have a young couple in the church. We love this life that we have been blessed with and love being able to share it with everyone through this blog. If you would like the recipes to any of these items just let me know and I can email them to you!!

Sweet Little Bull

Good evening blog followers. I am reporting to you tonight engulfed with a sense of sorrow. The reason being is that our youngest (4-legged) baby is spending the night at the vets because she was spayed earlier today. I must say that it is pretty sad sitting here right now not hearing not hearing a "roaring" snore coming from a sweet and wrinkled dog. Not only is this hard on me because my sweet dog is being operated on, but I have also been getting some grief from my "better half". See, she is under the impression that I am fully to blame for Lola having to get spayed because "I called in the appointment". I will admit that it was very cute hearing Jamie give Lola a talk explaining what was going to happen. She kept wanting me to give the talk, but I thought Lola would rather hear it from a fellow female. So Jamie went ahead and explained what was going to happen and also threw in that we were going to check with the vet to see if she could get a "breast reduction" on her.... (her "doggy-boobies" are still a little swollen from her first heat cycle)......I truthfully think that Jamie is just a little jealous, but Lola seemed to understand. Anyways, we are going to just have to tough it out tonight, but we will get to see her tomorrow morning. For those of you not familiar with Lola, let me update you. I was peacefully working one day in Plainview when I got an e-mail from my wife. She was told by her Mother (Pegs) that there was a sign for AKC registered English Bulldogs for sale in Lubbock. Me and Jamie have always loved English Bulldogs and knew we eventually wanted one. That same day, I was sent about 20 different e-mails with different pictures of breeders websites with arrows pointing to the one that we "needed". Needless to say, Jamie had already talked to the breeder in Lubbock, and we went to see the litter the next day. The following day we took out a redicuous sum of money and reserved our little Lola. She was so grateful that we chose her that she pooped on my shirt during the drive home...lucky me!! In the end, Lola has been a blessing to our family. After being bit a few times by our sometimes evil Hattie, she now is best friends with both the other dogs. She is the only one who has full time furniture privileges and is a great 45 pound lap dog. Please enjoy the following pictures of our "Poco Torro!"

Lola saying hello to Wesley on the first day we had her. Notice I just have my under shirt on.

Lola often gets too tired to go outside to potty before bed. Therefore, Jamie "makes" me carry her outside like this. I just hate doing it.

This is the "cuddle-bug" aspect of Lola. I will admit that most of the time she snuggles with Jamie, but she was giving me some lovin' this night. This is also where the roaring snoring comes in to play.

In conclusion, I would like to let you know that Lola is a very spiritual dog. While she can't quite recite bible verses, she has taught me a lot about meditation. This final picture is just me and Lola practicing our intense yoga/meditation/chi-focusing routines. We do this every Mondays-Wednesdays-Fridays. Lessons are available upon request. Good night!

Lubbock Trip and House Updates!

I spent this last weekend in Lubbock with my family. I hadn't been back to Lubbock since Christmas and was in need of a weekend away from Shamrock. I had a very enjoyable time with my family, friends, getting my hair done and of course doing a little shopping. My handsome little nephew Brenden always makes my visits there more enjoyable. Just look at this smile...He is at the point where he repeats everything you say! I love hearing his sweet little voice when he says "She-own" which if you say that fast it is Shawn. He calls me DeeDa...it used to be Ding Dong. My sister and I walked into a store and the second we walked in he yelled "DING DONG" and got the attention of everyone in the store! He then proceeded to smile at everyone and dance along with the music. He has also started giving everyone "knuckles". He holds his sweet little fist out and expects everyone to bang their knuckles with his.

While I was gone my father-in-law came up to help Shawn with a few projects we still had to get done before little love gets here. When we moved into this house there was very little we had to do besides paint. There was however our third bathroom that serves as the guest bath that was just nasty. Looking at it put me in a bad mood. There were teenage boys using it before us so you can only imagine. I'm not sure why people paint certain rooms the way that they do but this was just beyond me. Take a look at the before...Ugh...look at the cabinets...They are a salmon color with tan trim. AND the lovely cowboy boots boarder. Just Lovely! The tile in the shower was pretty nasty as well. We didn't want to take the time to replace all of it, so Shawn spent 2 days scraping it all out and then re-grouting it. Huge difference...it's actually white!
We decided to keep it a very clean/neutral bathroom since it would be used as a guest and baby bathroom. We did the walls a cream color and the cabinets white.

SOOO much better. I can actually stand to be in there!! Shawn and Dwight also worked on the ceiling in our kitchen. It has this cut out where the lights are that was unfinished when we moved in. Shawny wanted to texture and paint it the same blue the rest of the kitchen is in...
Before...
After...
It looks so much better!! Shawn's dad was a huge help to come up and do all of this while I enjoyed a relaxing weekend. I just can't believe they got all of that done in 2 days. Next on our list...the counter tops. Hopefully after that we will be done with projects and can relax until May!!

Update

Last week we had a doctors appointment which took 3 hours! Since we are seeing a doctor in a smaller town she is extremely busy... all the time. She had 2 emergencies the day of my appointment, but I didn't want to reschedule so I waited.

She went over our last sonogram with me and said that our little guy looks to be growing at the rate he needs to be. She estimated that at the appointment he was nearing the 2 pound mark and said by week 28 he should be 3 pounds! That's only a week away! I can't believe we started out with a piece of rice and now we actually have a little 2-3 pound baby in there. I'm sitting here watching my belly move all over the place with his every move. It melts my heart each time. Oh..and my mom is officially the second person to feel him move. My sweet sister tried and tried to get him to move but he just wouldn't do it.

The doctor also told us that she has decided to close her practice and move it somewhere else. As most of you know our due date is May 19th...or the 20th which is my Grandma's birthday!! Anyways..she gave the hospital the date of May 1st as her last day...WHAT DO WE DO?? She said that there is a possibility of her being there to deliver us but no guarantee. Shawn and I have decided to talk with her at our next appointment next week to see what other doctor she suggests. Even though we LOVE her we don't want to chance forming a relationship with someone who might not deliver our son. We have prayed about the situation and both know that God will take care of it all. We are surprisingly calm about it; that's what putting your faith in God does!!

Shawny got me this necklace from www.doulashop.com called the Bola Pregnancy ChimeThey come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colors. When the baby reaches about 20 weeks he can hear sounds from outside the womb. Shawn talks to our little love every night and is determined for him to know his voice when he gets here. The chime rests on your belly and makes its noise with your movements. It apparently is supposed to be a soothing/comforting sound for the baby in the womb and when he makes his appearance in the world. Does it work? I don't know, but I love how thoughtful Shawn was when he bought it for us.

New Bathroom Product Available

Good evening everyone. Well, my sweet wife is having a girls weekend back in Lubbock, so I am left here in Shamrock all by my lonesome. Since I have some time to kill, I thought I would share with yall a great new bathroom product that is now available. I must admit that I did not know that this product existed for my first 20 years of life. However, soon after June 2nd, 2007...my eyes were opened. Here is the wonderful product. I like to call it the "Multi-Purpose TP Holder"... please soak it all in!


As you can see, this is no "ordinary" TP holder. First off, it gives you the option of getting your TP from a horizontal role as well as a vertical role. Who doesn't love that? Also, you can either choose to get your TP from a full role on top or use one of those last few cherished sheets on the bottom role. It should be noted that sometimes the lower role may contain as little as ONE SQUARE of TP, however, I am sure that it serves its purpose. Well, I hope you are now enlightened to the engineering advances that have been made in the bathroom "TP Holder" industry. I still am not sure exactly where you get these, but I am sure Jamie does. She has successfully installed one of these in every house we have lived in together! Any further inquiries to the "Multi-Purpose TP Holder" should be directed to Jamie. Good night!

Sweetest Nursery

Our little guy's furniture has finally made it to it's new home! Shawn and I made a trip to Amarillo yesterday to pick it up. Little did we know, the furniture had been in Amarillo since December!! We knew that one piece was in but they were "still waiting" on the other pieces to arrive. They were actually already there, but the owner was not notified. Oh well, this was the perfect weekend to get it all set up!

I felt so helpless as I watched Shawn unload the furniture from the Uhaul. He unloaded, lifted, and put all the furniture together all by himself! He let me know that even if I wasn't pregnant I wouldn't be much help...We sure did not remember his furniture being so big when we picked it out!
I don't know if you can see that the box weight is over 180 pounds...there were 3 that were at least that size!
"Shajwan Overton"?? Not sure how they came up with that but it was on our receipt and the boxes haha. Once Shawn got the boxes unloaded he decided that it would be easiest to take everything out of the boxes and then make a trash run. That made a huge mess!!
We finally got all the boxes loaded and thrown away. While Shawn put everything together I cleaned up the living room...Styrofoam is officially miserable to pick up! It gets everywhere! Here's Shawny putting it all together!!
The pups helped too! :)
We sat in his room this morning before church and talked all about the things we want to do with it. We also realized that this makes things extremely hard for us now!! Having baby furniture and no baby for at least 3 more months is going to be difficult! Seeing his room full of furniture really sets things in for me. I've always wanted to make sure that my little loves have the sweetest little nurseries. We love love love his room and can't wait to welcome him and bring him home to it!May...Please hurry up and get here; we would like to meet our son :)

Little Love Update

Today was a LONG day.

Yesterday we were supposed to have an appointment with our doctor but it got canceled due to the weather. I was pretty bummed and my day was not so productive! BUT to my surprise and joy, the dr. office called this morning to see if we wanted to come in this afternoon! I immediately jumped up and got ready. Shawn, luckily, had the day off so we were ready to go! It was very convenient too b/c we desperately needed to go to the grocery store.

Our dr. office doesn't have an in the office sonographer (is that the right word?)...she flies in every two weeks from Houston to do all of the sonograms. I was glad that she was in so we didn't have to wait another few weeks or month to see our little love. I was also excited to see how much he had grown. At all of our sonograms he still had swimming room...not this time! He is officially taking up all the space he can.

He was in a breech position and in a not so comfortable position at that. She said that he looked to be very healthy and cleared his heart, brain and sweet face. He didn't want to cooperate for her to get all the appropriate measurements to clear his spine but she felt very confident that there are no issues. I'm hoping he does not get comfortable in that breech position..TURN LITTLE GUY. She said that he weighed in at about 1 pound 12 ounces! CRAZY. I can definitely tell that there is a growing baby in there. He is SO active and my belly is starting to feel heavy. We also saw some sweet forming chubby cheeks.

**Let me go ahead and clarify a few things from my SWEET husband's previous blog. He has made it out to sound like all I eat is pizza and twix. I have had 2..I reapeat TWO packages of Twix since being pregnant!! They were just back to back so he felt like I had them ALL the time. I also have not eaten that much pizza haha. I loved pizza prior to being pregnant so this should not be anything new to him. AND the last time we got pizza...it was his idea! But I guess all the pizza and twix are making me SO large that I "shake the foundation when I walk". Friends...we live in a pier and beam house...a spider could shake the foundation. I rest my case. Until next time...

Living With Pregnant

Good evening ladies and gents. I figured that since Jamie and I are "kind of" isolated up here in Shammy-Town, some of you may be wondering what it is like to live with Jamie while she is pregnant. I will say that Jamie really hasn't had any dramatic changes and is still pleasant to be around just like before. However, I have noticed a few subtle changes and thought I might share them with you.

(1) She gets winded tying her shoes.
(2) There are many nights that she does not sleep good and let's me know by grunts of frustration and occasional kicks in the back throughout the night.
(3) Going on a 1 mile walk can sometimes be like trying to get her to run a marathon.
(4) She gets winded getting settled into bed.
(5) The foundation of our house shakes when she switches the side she is sleeping on.... :)
(6) Nice diaper bags are really "for the baby" and "not the Mommy".
(7) I have bought more twix in the last week than in 24 years previously.
(8) Pizza almost brings tears to her eyes...(this one really isn't much of a change) (9) I commonly get asked the same question more than once in a short time span.
(10) Sometimes I say things that "make her wanna cry"...most of the time in a good way.

All in all I consider myself very blessed by how she has acted while pregnant, especially after hearing other people's horror stories. Here's to hoping that her stable demeanor holds for the rest of the pregnancy!

My Weekly Favorites

Well, I'm sitting here watching the Bachelor and thought it would be a good time to blog. I thought a fun way to keep me in check with my blogging would be to blog about some of my favorite things once a week! Today I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite pregnancy things...fitting right?

1. I never thought that I would like maternity clothes. Since being pregnant I have had to purchase a few new pairs of jeans. Luckily, while I was in San Antonio there was a Baby Gap that actually carried Gap Maternity as well. I figured I'd get past my fear of maternity jeans and try some on. I fell in love! They are so comfortable...not to mention affordable! They are on sale right now for $59! You can find them here: http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=26691&vid=1&pid=689740

2. I thought cutting caffeine out of my diet would be hard, but it hasn't! I'll admit that I do sip on Shawn's weekend cups of coffee and his cokes. Caffeine free Dr. Peppers are actually pretty tasty too. BUT this favorite is wonderful. Crystal Light has these packets of goodness that you mix with water. They are caffeine free and only 5 calories. My favorite is the Cherry Pomegranate! One packet makes 2 quarts and I go through them like crazy. Shawn likes them too!
3. My sweet friend Ashley is so very creative and I learn so much from her. My sister-in-law, Halie, is as well. Halie had told me about these rice bags that she knew how to make that you heat up and use like a heating pad. As you know, pregnant women need to steer clear of the really hot things like baths, hot tubs, and heating pads. These rice bags are perfect for pregnant women! You just pop them in the microwave for a few seconds, they heat up perfectly and last for a long time! Ashley just so happened to make me a personalized one for Christmas! I was so excited haha. It has been wonderful for the late night back aches! Thank you Ashley.
4. My sister-in-law, Halie, has been so wonderful since we found out we were expecting. She is a labor and delivery nurse as well as a lactation specialist. She has been so supportive in my goal to have a natural child birth. Since she is in the baby making industry, hehe, she has been so helpful in expanding my knowledge about natural childbirth. For Christmas, she and Eric got me this fantastic book called The Official Lamaze Guide: Giving Birth with Confidence. I haven't finished it yet but love all of the information I have read so far. It encourages women to listen to their bodies. It is amazing how our bodies and sweet babies know exactly what to do when labor starts! I highly suggest it for any soon to be mommy! Halie, I've been underlining and marking important things. So get ready for my questions!

5. Last but not least...Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Call it a craving if you wish but that has always been a favorite of mine. I hadn't had it in a while and just decided one day to get some. It has now become a constant in our house. It's even whole grain! :)I hope you have enjoyed reading about some of my pregnancy favorites thus far. I'll be sure to post some of my other favorites each week!