Week #4 {2016}

Sunday. This was my view while watching tv.  I love these moments.

The kids made a fort {they actually worked together pretty well!}.

Monday. God painted a beautiful sunrise for us to enjoy.

It was another snow day for school, so some friends came over to play.

I made mini banana bread muffins.

Tuesday morning, Payton walked out sporting this adorable outfit.  Her friend made the headband while they were playing on Monday.

Thursday. When it's 27° at the bus stop, you pile everyone in the car to stay warm.

Baby Girl, hurt her elbow on Monday and was still complaining about it, so I took her to the doctors.

Thankfully it was a bruised nerve and she's going to fine!

One of the houses behind us is going up quickly. Our view will be gone soon, but it was still pretty tonight. I snapped this picture of the roofers working to send to my brother-in-law (he owns a roof in company in California).

Ry has changed the way he's been coloring lately, and I love it.

He also folded all the laundry for me, without being asked.

And took a bunch of pictures of his hard work.

Friday we got to go to Downtown Nashville for a little bit. We love going down there to walk around, listen to the music, stop in to Savannah's Candy {of course}, and be around the hustle and bustle. We grabbed a bite to eat at Hattie B's too!

Saturday. Payton asked "Do I looke like a mini Becca?". Yes, you sure do Baby Girl!

We have such bizarre weather in Nashville. Monday there was snow on the ground and today it was 66° it felt a little like Spring! We got a LOT of outside playing in todayz

Nuggle Buggle

This post is for me.  It's a memory that I don't want to forget and was able to capture it on video!

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Rylan loves to Nuggle Buggle. He says "Somebody didn't have a Nuggle today!" and then says "Daddy", "Mommy" or "You" based on who he wants to Nuggle Buggle.

{video taken almost 2 weeks ago}

That is his Bit-Bit {his blanket} and he loves the "cold" part. {Every night he tucks it under his head, just like that to go to sleep.}  He works and works to get it perfect, then he will settle down.  I treasure every moment like this, and love when he wants to Nuggle Buggle.

Chicken Divine {recipe}

Growing up my momma made Chicken Divine often for dinner. It was one of my favorites. So when I got married, it was one of the recipes I asked her for. 

Fast forward 13 years and this recipe is now in our dinner rotation. Everyone loves it and we eat the entire thing.

Chicken Divine

1 refrigerated pie crust

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

2 pounds fresh broccoli cut into small florets and stem chopped into bite size pieces

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 cup light mayo

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon curry powder

2 cups shredded cheese

Place the refrigerated pie dough on the counter to bring to room temperature.

Cook chicken breasts in a pan seasoned with salt and pepper; shred.

Steam broccoli until crisp tender.

Mix together canned soup, mayo, lemon juice and curry. Add in chicken and broccoli and stir to coat.

Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan, sprinkle with cheese and top with pie crust.

Bake at 400° for 30-ish minutes until bubbly and crust is golden brown.

A couple of notes: 

•My momma didn't top it with pie crust, that was something that I added a few years back and it's awesome {she makes it this way now too!}

•You can make this with frozen broccoli, if you get in a bind, but fresh is WAAAAAAY better.

•Instead of the canned soup, you can make it from scratch, following this recipe {here}. I do it both ways.

•If it's bubbly and the crust still isn't done, I put it under the broiler for a minute or 2.

All is Grace {book review}

I got to hear Brennan Manning speak almost 20 years ago as a guest speaker at my church, and I still remember what his message was on - God's relentless love for me. It was SO good and something that we need to really know and remember often. God loves me {and you!} so much, in spite of all our dirtyness & sin, he sent his beloved Son to die because he wants to have relationship with me {you/us}. Wow. Pretty impactful.

So with that in mind, I really enjoyed reading his very last book, his memoir "All Is Grace" {he passed away about 3 years ago}. I also enjoyed The Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba's Child that he wrote.  If your a fan of Brennan Manning, I would definitely recommend this book.

{BTW - I downloaded this eBook months ago and have just been reading it here and there especially when I couldn't sleep at night.}

I give the book 4 stars.

Here's the other books I finished so far in 2016:

(2) Dear John by Nicholas Sparks
(1) Bridge to Haven by Francine Rivers
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Week #3 {2016} #snowmageddon

Sunday Rylan woke me up in the middle of the night with a nasty croup-y sounding cough.  We snuggled on the couch and he quickly fell back asleep.  He slept fine and didn't cough much the rest of the night but we decided to play hooky from church and stayed home in our jammies all day.

He did vacuum his room.

And Chris hung his shelves for his Skylanders characters.

3 weeks after my birthday, and I'm still enjoying the flowers my friend/neighbor gave me.

Monday was MLK day and we headed up to Opry Mills Mall which is right next to The Grand Ole Opry.

I had $25 bucks to spend at Claim Jumper so we ate lunch there, for $4.  Seriously.  The service is always slow there, but you can't beat feeding a family of 5 for 4 bucks!

- Yes it was freezing.

- Check out the middle picture - I can totally see Payton as a teenager {#holdme}!

It was so cold that when we got home Chris made all of us decaf coffees. {Less coffee and more milk/creamer for the kids of course!}

Tuesday morning was brutal.  It was FREEZING and the morning after a 3 day weekend. Fortunately Dylan was still all smiles.

And I finished another book {in 2 days thankyouverymuch!}.

We sent the kids to bed and then got this notification.

Wednesday. Guess all the snow day superstitions worked! {You wear your pajamas backward, flush ice down the toilet and sleep with a spoon under your pillow in the hopes of waking up to a snowday. - who comes up with this stuff?!?!}

This was our forecast for Wednesday.

It snowed a little bit.  And by little bit, I mean this:

We had freezing rain, so the roads were all messed up and there were accidents everywhere.  So I'm glad they cancelled school.

~

Thursday morning the kids had delayed start by one hour and it was heavenly.  It was a calm morning and I loved it.

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I sat down to do my "scripture writing plan"and this was one of the days that God smacked me in the forehead. This was SO very good for me today.  Isn't it amazing when God has the right thing for you at the right time?

Ry Guy and I made a treat...

to celebrate the 100th day of school!

{They are excited!}

Friday Snowmageddon hit Nashville and I posted a TON of pics {here}.

Saturday we woke up to this:

And it was still snowing.

But the sun came out and it was beautiful.

The boys shoveled the driveway again.

And played for a bit.

Isn't the sky stunning?

Me and the littles bundled up and headed out for a {very} short walk.

And a few neighbor girls came and grabbed Payton to go have hot cocoa at one of their houses.

That night we had a neighborhood meet and greet party across the street.  We laughed at all the layers we had to put on to walk over to it!

Snowmageddon

Last night we found out that school was cancelled because of a Winter Storm coming today...So I was a little disappointed to not wake up to a white winter wonderland.  But by 8am this started falling from the sky:

And out the front door, it looked like this:

Ry walked in like this and said "I'm ready to go in the snow!".

By 9:30 it looked like this.

The kids had a blast.

Not bad for an hour and a half of it snowing .

Then the kids tried to sled down the hill.

Here's the back of our house.

We came in and got hot cocoa to warm up. BTW - they best hot cocoa recipe is found {here}. I won't be buying those little packets anymore!

I went and snuggled up under a heated throw to thaw out and Rylan said he was too hot and took off his shirt. Crazy boy.

At 1pm Chris decided to go shovel

The driveway and Dylan wanted to help.

When I asked Dylan to smile for a pic, Chris threw a shovel full of snow on him. It was hilarious!

A blanket of white snow makes everything so pretty.

My honey and me.

Yes, it was freezing!

Dylan's snow angel.

We collected enough fresh snow to make snow cones. Recipe for the syrup can be found {here}.

They were cold, eating snow, and loving every bit of it!

The boys got hot while they were wrestling {mind you I'm still layered up under a heated throw}.

At 3 o'clock this is how much snow we had. We were 8 hours into it snowing and had 8 more to go!

It was turning out to be a pretty awesome snow day.

The kids went back out to play.

And some neighborhood kids joined in.

Ry LOVED it.

He thought he was one of the big boys.

Then he finally got too cold and wanted to come in.

He defrosted in front of the heater,

while Chris and I enjoyed siping on Carmel Macchiatos and watching the big boys outside.

They went off to go sledding and Dylan came back TWO hours later, frozen and exhausted.

9pm and it's been snowing steadily for 13 hours. 

This was a day full of memory making. Pretty fun for #snowmageddon2016 !