If you haven’t already heard, the Ratcliff’s are packing up and moving to the Crescent City. Wes get an incredible job opportunity and we are so excited about this new chapter in our lives. Change is a good thing and there are many new developments we want to share with the world. That being said, Simplyaboutg.com and 72mach1.com are merging. Visit Adventureinthebigeasy.com to read about life in a new city.
Yep, we are T minus 2 days till Turkey Day, which just happens to be my favorite holiday. I love the fall colors and the cool ( not cold) weather, the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg and apple cider, and of course the food. If you know me, you know I love to cook and I love to host, so at Thanksgiving, I get to do both. So this year, instead of posting what we ate, ( after the big day), I thought I’d post what we’re going to eat and share some of my recipes.
I won’t have quite as big a crown this year as last, so I decided to cheat a bit and get one of those fabulous boneless, stuffed turkeys from Chris’ Specialty Meats, but the last few years I have prepared my turkey from frozen status using this great recipe. It is delicious and very easy to follow.
When it comes time to carve that bird, check out some “How to” videos on youtube.
As for sides, I make the Mac & Cheese, but I have a tiny oven, so my mom makes her wonderful dressing, and sweet potatoes and also this Cranberry Jello salad that is out of this world good. If I had the recipe I’d share it. I also make a basic chocolate pie, ( Cook and Serve chocolate pudding in a Graham cracker crust) But that’s not all, here is a recipe for French Silk Pie. I only make it once or twice a year because I would eat the entire thing. Yeah, it’s that good.
Crust
1 refrigerated pie crust (softened as directed on box)
Filling
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, cut into pieces
1 cup butter, softened (do not use margarine)
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs
Topping
1/2 cup sweetened whipped cream
Chocolate curls, if desired
Directions:
1 . Heat oven to 450°F. Make pie crust as directed on box for One-Crust Baked Shell using 9-inch glass pie pan. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.
2 . In 1-quart saucepan, melt chocolate over low heat; cool. In small bowl with electric mixer, beat butter on medium speed until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in cooled chocolate and vanilla until well blended.
3 . Add eggs 1 at a time, beating on high speed 2 minutes after each addition; beat until mixture is smooth and fluffy. Pour into cooled baked shell. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving. Garnish with whipped cream and chocolate curls. Store in refrigerator.
So anyway, Thanksgiving is not all bout the food, it’s about being thankful, and I am very thankful for my family and friends, health and happiness and everything else I’v been blessed with.I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.
Just wanted to give a little shout out to the hubby. Today is our 6 year wedding anniversary. It’s been a great day and a great 6 years. Love ya babe, Happy Anniversary 
Yeah, so I know I’m a horrible blogger. I have had a lot of stuff on my mind lately and just haven’t had the time or desire to sit here and write. So there ya go, that’s the truth. I’ll try to be more proactive this week and come up with some blog posts for you, but in the mean time, I’ll just leave you with pictures rather than words.
I took Kayla out to the park last week, and here are some shots.
Ok,I forgot how hot slides are in the summer!
She loved this tunnel. You can tell by the psycho expression on her face.
This photo would give the impression that she was having fun, but she was actually not…
I don’t know how long she would have hung there, she was 2 inches from the ground, but would not let go.
See, here is that crazy tunnel look again.
I was loving this twisty slide. And see the cracks in the slide? Yeah, I lost all my back pocket buttons.
Our X-box went kaput a couple weeks ago, not that we play it, but it was an excellent DVD player. So we’ve been using DVD player from our room, that isn’t that great. It gives the green screen of death every couple of movies. So we decided it was time to go get a new one. I left this task up to Wes since he’s the gadget guru. So off to Best Buy he went last night and this is what he came home with.
Yep, that is a Play Station 3 and Guitar Hero. I couldn’t help but laugh, I just thougt it was the funniest thing. I asked, ” Where is the DVD player?” To which he responded, ” It’s a Blue Ray player!” That is multi-tasking at its finest. I have to admit, I had a blast playing Guitar Hero last night. Though not at first when I was getting booed off stage, but I eventually got the hang of it. Wes fell asleep on the couch and I played career mode for about 2 hours. The fingers on my left hand were frozen in a crippled arthritic position. But I unlocked some cool new songs, my favorite so far is Black Magic Woman by Santana. But I am pretty sure it was Barracuda that I was playing in my sleep last night. I really really want to go play right now, but Wes says I have to clean the house first, lol.
I know, its been almost a week and no Christmas update. I’ve been too busy relaxing and being lazy to post. We had a very nice Christmas, I hope you all did too. I guess we’ll start with Santa’s workshop.
He looks thrilled doesn’t he. We never imagined that some assembly required meant so many tiny parts. It took 2 hours from start to finish.
Was it worth it? This was Kayla on Christmas morning…
This was her today…
What is it with boxes or in this cages? At least she’s entertained right? She got so many toys this Christmas, our living room and dining room looks like a tornado hit it. We’ve decided to try out this toy rotation thing. We picked up half of her toys and will rotate in new toys, to hopefully keep her entertained and out of trouble.
Wes and I fought the traffic to get to Bass Pro this afternoon to get a pictute with Santa. We figured the crowd would be less crazy there than the mall and we were right, there was hardly no one there. While standing in line the power went out, I’m talking complete darkness, which is kind of freaky in a place like that. Thankfully it came back on a few seconds later. So, it’s our turn and Kayla doesn’t want to have anything to do with Santa or Mrs. Clause. So Santa suggests that we all get in and take a family shot, (good thing I fixed my hair, cause I was not planning to be in the picture). So they snap the picture and the girl behing the camera checks it out in her digital screen and gives me a thumbs up and says, “That’s a really good one”. So they move on to the next kid in line and we wait for our photo to be printed. She hands it to me and it took all I had not to laugh. Wes couldn’t hold it in and announces, ” It looks like we beat her”. Ah memories, we’ll have them forever. Merrry Christmas.
Just got home from the Emergency Room, been there for the last 3 hours or so. Kayla’s fever spiked to 105.5, the nurse told us to bring her in. Really scary, those sorts of things. You don’t know what’s wrong and there isn’t much you can do. It’s not strep, but it is a virus. Nothing much we can do except give her Tylenol and Ibuprofen ever 4 and 6 hours. She should be good in a couple days. I can tell you I’ll be disinfecting the shopping carts at Target from now on.
Other than that we had a really nice day. Got up at 6am to put the biggest bird ever in the oven. Seriously, the thing weighed 23lbs. I do not reccomend this. If you want to make a lot of turkey, get 2 small ones. It was quite a feat to get it out of the oven and then flipped over to carve it. We had quite a spread too, all the usuals, dressing, sweet potatoes, mac & cheese and green bean casserole. Even some new treats, like french silk pie and caramel apple pie. Once we were able to get up and start moving around again, we played a riveting game of Balderdash. It was insatiable ( lol to Dave).
So anyway, to sum it up, it’s been a really long day. Thank you to my Sister in law Holly for keeping me calm and to my mother in law Kandris for staying at the hospital with me. Ya’ll are the best
Happy Thanksgiving!
