"T" is for Turkey, Time and Thankfulness!

What am I thankful for??

My FAMILY and the times we get to spend together!!

We had so much fun over the holiday weekend and I will be back soon to tell you all about it!!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like.........

HUNTING SEASON!!!   haha...tricked ya!    Nope, I refuse to talk about Christmas until after Thanksgiving.....(even tho I've been holed up all weekend watching the hallmark xmas channel....shhhhh!)
But from the looks of this:

duck season opened this weekend!

and this!!

 The dinner that cap'n cooked for all the hunters tonight! Fried duck with hot water cornbread and gravy, ducks in mustard greens and I bet there was some kinda cobbler in there somewhere too! 

This week is the annual hunting week that has been going on for a long, long time.  All my sons and their dad and their friends spend the whole week at the deer camp just doing guy stuff.  Like hunting and watching football and taking naps and scratching and hunting some more!! Oh yeah..and eating really good food!  They wait for it all year long.

The rest of us...wives and babies.....will be joining them on Wednesday for the rest of the week. I'll start cooking in the morning for Turkey Day but when you see this:

a counter full of chocolate chip cookies

and....

a roaster full of party mix.....

It means that it's beginning to look a lot like Hunting Season and Thanksgiving are upon us!!

Have a great Thanksgiving to you all!

 

Cousins who Talk........to each other!

This may look like two kids just sitting close to one another....katiejane & case

but you can bet they're talking some "kid stuff"!  the expressions on case's face crack me UP!! he is definitely talking here...

and would you look at the profile of these two girls! katiejane&lilli! no mistaking them for sisters!

Next thing on this days agenda was to visit MORE cousins!

Huck, Lilli, KatieJane, Case, Austin and Ella

Cap'ns brother has two new grandkids too and boy, oh boy....is it ever going to be fun around the deer camp this Thanksgiving and Christmas.....not to mention every time they all get together!

Hailey and Stephanie are friends and now have babyboys born 3 months apart. The boys are second cousins.,...I think.   Geeze, I cannot keep up with all these babies!

and at the end of this day, both Case and his dad went down for a lil snooze!

 

In other lagniappe this week, Ms. Lill had her ballet open house where they performed a bit for parents and grandparents.

 3yr olds in pink leotards and tutus just really float my boat!!

(couldn't get video to load...so cute of her dancing...)

and then we had the pilgrim from the Thanksgiving Play at her school.  I  think she was a mad pilgrim!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Moment in Time...

...and by that, I mean that this morning my middle son and his daughter and my youngest son made a memory!  Cap'n provided the trees and my boys provided the labor.....for our new fruit orchard!!!  Yep....peach, plum, fig, mayhaw and apple trees went into the ground behind our house. 

I can remember a day back some 25 yrs ago that my oldest son and middle son pulled a red wagon around the yard with some oak trees in it.  They helped their dad plant those trees in our front yard. I seem to recall underwear and cowboy boots as their attire ....the sons, not the dad!....and they were 5 and 6 yrs old.   Well, today those trees are mighty big and it seems like it was only last week that I watched them plant while holding my newborn baby boy.  I only wish I had taken the time to really appreciate that moment in time.  So this morning, I mentioned several times to my sons how awesome it will be to show these pics to their kids when the fruit trees are big and remember this day.
Lilli was here to help so it will really be special for her!

Father and Daughter

the whole gang

not only did cap'n provide the trees, but also his "expertise" from the 4wheeler!

Cap'n was in supervisory mode!

job well done!!

 

Before this daddy knows it, that lil girl will be eating fruit and having picnics under those trees ..... when she comes home from college!!!

It goes by in a flash.....sigh....Moments in Time!

 

Ahhhhhhh....Autumn!

Today is a cloudy, kinda muggy day.  Not so much feeling like fall here but the trees are beautiful and I'm having a really nice quiet Saturday.  So, I thought I'd just bring fall INTO my home and pretend!

Made Eat Cake for Dinner's Cream Cheese Pumpkin Bread this morning. Trying to make up a few goodies now that I can freeze and have for the long Turkey Day weekend coming up.  OMG YA'LL.....if you could smell my house right now, you would be certain that fall is outside!  While it was cooking, I thought....even if it doesn't taste good, it's worth making just so my house smells like this!!  But never fear.  It is DELICIOUS...and oh so easy.  It will freeze perfectly and once warmed will be yummy plain or with ice cream or whipped topping.  So moist and so harvesty.  Is that even a word?  Should be!!  This is going to be so good as "girl food" early in the morning!

 

Then I look around and see my dining room table dressed in its fall colors....

And I know that even if our southern weather doesn't always feel like fall.........my home sure is filled with Autumn!

!Cream Cheese Pumpkin Bread

1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ground clove
1 c. sugar
1 c. light brown sugar
4 oz. cream cheese
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. buttermilk
4 large eggs
2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 c. mini semisweet chocolate chips

Streusel
5 Tbl. light brown sugar
1 Tbl. all-purpose flour
1 Tbl. unsalted butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt

Add pumpkin puree to a large saucepan along with the cinnamon, salt, nutmeg and ground cloves.  Heat over medium heat until mixture measures 1 1/2 cups; about 6 minutes.  Measure and add back to the saucepan.  Stir in the sugar, brown sugar, cream cheese and vegetable oil.  Heat until cream cheese is melted.  Whisk until smooth.  In a separate dish, whisk together the buttermilk and eggs.  Slowly add mixture into to the pumpkin puree, whisking constantly.  Remove from heat.  Combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda and fold into wet mixture.  Allow to cool for a few minutes while you make the streusel.

For the streusel: combine all ingredients and using your clean hands, work the butter into the other ingredients until it resembles coarse sand.

Quickly stir the chocolate chips into the slightly cooled pumpkin mixture.  They will begin to melt, so stir quickly.  Divide batter between two, well greased, 9x5-inch loaf pans.  Sprinkle streusel topping evenly over loaves.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs.  Cool in pan 20 minutes, remove and cool completely.  Yield: 2 loaves.   

Lookout Turkey Day....you're right around the corner!!

     

   

 

   

 

 

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Deer Season Opens!!!

Now, to a lot of you.....this is a crazy title.  But oh no.....not to this family of hunters!  They've been waiting, anxiously, since late last January when duck season closed ..... for the next season to begin again.  Which, in turn, will be the focus of  their lives for the next 3 months.  They will eat, breathe, talk, laugh and shoot their weekends away. With very little sleep.  With brothers, friends and their dad.  It's really a beautiful thing to see all of them sharing such a passion with each other!
(and the wives will shop and nap and not cook most of those weekends away!!)

This was their bounty on opening day! 

Matt got one in the morning!

Cap'n got two in the morning!! 

Nice rack, cap'n!!!  (love saying that!!)

Chad got one in the morning too but I didn't get a shot of him when he came in. But at the cleaning shed, they were all there.

There's Chad holding the leg of his!

Josh didn't get one that morning but still hung out at the shed with the others. And all the chatter!

But never fear!!!

He was back out again that afternoon and got one then.  Here he is showing his brand new son, dressed in his carhart overalls!, all about how hunting season works!

But uh-oh......a little blood "accidentally" got on that boy and dad was looking to see what mom said!

She was cool and knew it would happen sooner or later!! It was only a few yrs ago that she had that same stuff all over her face after she got her first deer!!

A little girl in her pj's even got to hold some of the horns!

 

It was a very successful weekend.  And we are happy....because all of our freezers will be full for the next year.  Their hunting passion feeds all of us and that makes the wives="dears" verah verah happy!

 

 

 

The Fabulous Four!!

We had the best weekend ever!!  All of my chirren and all of their chirren spent the weekend together at the deer camp.  It was the opening weekend of deer season and I've got lots of pics documenting the big hunt ...... but for now, just look at these Fabulous Four grandchirren of mine!!

Case is thinking......If only I could be big like my cousin, Austin!

They are both just so cool!

and Lilli is thinking....Yep, I'm the big kid!

and then you have your photo bomber AKA.....Bromley!

and sweet  KatieJane was sound asleep when all of this was going on....!!!

I'm a lucky YaYa!!

 be back tomorrow with lots more pics of the deer hunters!

 

Good Friends = Good Times!

Last night on a beautiful fall evening, some of our good friends came to share tasty food, funny stories and lots of laughing.  We asked our buddies to come out to the deer camp where there was some 4-wheeler riding, some picking of mustard greens from the garden and sitting by the campfire late into the night.  We don't get to do it often but when we do, it's just so dadgum fun!!