We finally got our upstairs finished, it turned out great and we are happy. The kids love to be up there in their own space. The girls did great on their room, picking out the vinyl to put up. As you can tell by the picutures it is alreay well lived in after a month of being up there.
Sydney "barrowed" my camera with me not knowing it and took some interested pictures, thought I would share Sydney's photography.
We had this Taste of Home breakfast casserole for dinner tonight. Very good, I was suprised that it didn't have eggs in it. If you try it let me know how you liked it.
Sausage Hashbrown Bake
2 lbs pork sausage
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 can (10 3/4 oz) cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
1 carton (8oz) French onion dip
1 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/4 cup chopped red pepper (I used 1/2 cup green pepper because reds were $2 ea)
1/8 tsp pepper
1 package (30oz) frozen shredded hasbrown potatoes, thawed
Optional: Diced tomatoes
In a large skillet, cook sausage over medium heat(use your mix-n-chop) until no longer pink; drain on paper towels. In a large bowl, combine 1 3/4 cup of cheese and the next 7 ingredients; fold in potatoes.
Spread 1/2 of potato mixture in a greased 9x13 pan. Top with sausage and remaining potato mixture. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and diced tomotoes. Cover and bake 350 for 45 minutes. Uncover; bake 10 minutes longer or until heated through.
If you use stoneware like I do, I cooked it covered for 1 hour and then uncovered it and cooked it for 15 mins more. My potatoes were still just a little bit frozen to.
I spent the weekend cleaning out my freezer of overripe banana's and after making 6 loaves of banana bread, I decided I needed to make something else with the rest of the bananas. I found these Banana Crumb Muffins on allrecipes.com. It was something different than the banana bread my family loves. I took some to work and everybody loved them. These would freeze really well to. Hope you like them as much as we did.
Banana Crumb Muffins
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 bananas, mashed (I used 3 cups & doubled the recipe)
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 TBL all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 TBL butter
1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers. (I used cupcake liners and got 24 cupcake size muffins from doubling the recipe).
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg, and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour misture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 TBL flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 TBL butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean (because mine weren't true muffin size they cooked 18mins, I would check at 15 mins. I used my Pampered Chef Stone)
Here are pictures of the girls' dormers. There beds go in each one, I wish the dormers were wider, you build and learn. They turned out great and the girls love their room. Now, just to get them to keep it clean and pick up their dirty clothes!
Shaun shot a deer the last day of hunting season. A small 3 point, he said he was doing it for the kids beacasue they would ask him every night he got home if he had shot anything. I think he just got trigger happy and wanted to shot his gun; the kids thought it was neat no matter how little it was. Preston is now on a hunting kick and wants to go hunting with his guns that he got for Christmas.
Last night I made Beef Barley soup for the first time. I had it growing up but never made it for our family. Shelby loved it and had 2 bowls; and Shaun isn't a soup fan and "secretly" had 2 bowls too. I am sure there are tons of different recipes out there it but this is the Quick version that I used.
Beef Barley Soup
1 lb ground beef
2 medium onions chopped
1/2 cup celery chopped (I used my food storage Freeze dried celery)
3 cups water
1 cup quick cooking Barley
2 (14 1/2oz) cans beef broth (I made my own with beef bullion)
2 (14 1/2 oz) diced tomatoes with garlic and onion
2 TBL Worchestershire sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried basil
Cook the beef, onions and celery together until meat is brown and veggies are tender(I used my Pampered chef mix n chop, if you don't have one get one, it is the best for ground meats), drain. In a stock pot add the beef and veggies, water, and broth; bring to a boil. add barley and simmer 10-20 minutes until the barley is tender. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Serve or freeze up to 3 months.
Hope you enjoy as much as we did.
We had a Ballerina Witch, a Barbie Princess and a Race Car Driver for Halloween this year. Since it was on a Monday, we went over to Cache Valley to all of Shaun's family on Sunday after church then stayed home and went to all our friends and family around Garland, they kids got to dress up 3 times this year so it was really fun for them. Preston really got the hang of it this year.
Sydney-7, Shelby-4 & Preston-2
Their pumpkins they painted at Grandma Bev's house
The kids with Great Grandma Grape (because she always gives them grapes), Shaun's grandma
cousin Reggie, Sydney, Preston, cousin Hudson, & Shelby
This is my all time favorite picture of 2011. Preston was playing outside with our new litte kitten and the kittie just let him luge it around and didn't care. I was really suprised it stayed in the swing. Do you like his black finger nails :)
Shelby just needing her picture taken. What a poser.
