8 years ago...

 

Today, 8 years ago, I held my mans hand and said "I do." I was 18 & he was 24. We had already dated for 2 years, were engaged for 3 months, only lived 20 minutes away from each other & went to the same church. So to say that we knew each other pretty well is a bit of an understatement & we were quite anxious to be able to finally become one. And even though I didn't really enjoy our wedding day, it was still one of the best days of my life simply because I became his wife.  (He told me tonight that the next time we get married we can elope.) I'm gonna hold him to that. :)

 

 

I don't know about yall, but I always enjoy reading other peoples stories. You know the ones... "we were married 5 years & moved 16 times, changed jobs 5 times, had 4 babies & came through stronger then ever." Well, we don't really have a story like that. Yes, we've had a few children... but 3 in 8 years doesn't make for a very dramatic story. Neither one of us like change so we usually like to keep things as normal as possible. :)

 

 

And to some of you, 8 years might not seem like very long, but to me... hey, that's nearly a third of my life. That's kind of a big deal. :) So here are a few pictures we had taken on Sunday to remember our eighth wedding anniversary.

 

 

 

 

This picture probably sums our marriage up the best. We may be a little weird  but that's okay... we like to humor each other. :)

 

 

 

 

 

                                Our beautiful girls... I can't believe how big they are getting!!

 



 

 And our handsome little man. :)

 

I'm so thankful for where we are at today... for each of our children, a loving husband & a faithful God.

 

~Short

 

Homemade Egg Rolls

 

Yesterday my sister came out with some Egg Roll Wrappers that we used to make homemade cracker/chips with but when she had some extra wrappers we decided to go ahead and make some egg rolls, too. Usually when you think of Egg Rolls you think of grease but we baked these so the end result was a nice, non-greasy egg roll. Here are the ingredients she used: 

 

-Fried hamburger

-Shredded cabbage

-Chopped carrots

-Spices... garlic, salt, pepper, ect.

-Egg roll wrappers

-Olive oil

 

Fry & season the hamburger until done. Add cabbage & carrots and cook until the vegetables are tender. 

 

Put a small amount of the meat mixture onto an egg roll wrapper...

 

Swaddle them up like a baby... :)

 



 

Put them on a pan & brush with Olive oil...

 

 

Bake at 350 for around 7 minutes, flip over and bake for another 5-7 minutes.

 



Enjoy with my Homemade Sweet & Sour Sauce!!

 

~Short

Homemade Sweet & Sour Sauce

Yesterday my sister was here and she set out to make egg rolls. Now, to me, eating egg rolls without sweet & sour sauce is like eating fries without ketchup.  It's just not right. So when I saw that we didn't have any sweet & sour, I set out to make some myself. This is what you will need:

 

6 Tbs brown sugar

1/2 cup ketchup

3 Tbs apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup water

2 tsp corn starch

 

I mixed the brown sugar, ketchup & vinegar together in a pan and then dissolved the corn starch in the water. 

 



Once the ketchup mixture was hot, I slowly added the cornstarch & water. Stirring until thick.  

 

Serve with Homemade Egg Rolls!!

 



 

~Short

Christmas Goodies

Christmas time is sneaking up on us and even though we tend to keep Christmas pretty low key, there are still extra festivities that keep us busy. One thing that I try to do every year is make a few goodies to pass out to a few of our neighbors. This is what we made this year.

 

 

I don't really know the name of these things, they aren't really cookies but they aren't really candy either. The girls decided they should be called Snowflake Crunch because our crackers were shaped like snowflakes. I thought that sounded like a great name. :) Recipes for these are floating all over Pinterest but I got mine off of this blog. They are super easy to make and all you need is 3 or 4 ingredients.

-Ritz crackers

-Peanut butter

-Dipping chocolate

-Marshmallow cream (optional)

 

Start by spreading peanut butter on a cracker and if you use marshmallow cream, spread that on another one and then put then put the two together. Other wise, just put peanut butter on one and then add a top like you see in this picture. 

 

 

The girls had fun putting hats on all of them.

 

 

Here they are, all ready to be dipped in chocolate...

 

 

I don't have a double broiler so I put water in a big pot, put a smaller pot in the water, and then put  the chocolate in the small pot. This melts the chocolate without having to worry about it burning.

 

 

The happy baker...

 

 

  Once the chocolate is melted enough you can start dipping the crackers and then lay them  out on wax paper.

 

 

 

 

And that's it... they are super easy to make!! 

 

 

The girls had fun making them and even more fun eating them!!

 

 

And then we were off to visit some of the neighbors!!

 

 

 

~Short

 

Glory to God on the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men. Luke 2:14

 

Nativity Scene

I kind of claim Sunday afternoons as craft time around here and today we decided to make a nativity scene. I have been wanting to buy one for the girls to play with but seriously, have yall seen how much nativity scenes cost?? I didn't want to pay much for one which pretty much left me with only one option... making one myself. Here is what we came up with.

 

 

We started by having my husband chop a dowel rod into different size pieces for our people & animals. I made all the people basically the same size, give or take a 1/2 inch or so for variety. Then I sanded down the edges to get them nice and smooth. Holding a crazy girl on your lap while doing this is optional. :)

 

 

I wanted to paint the heads a pretty neutral color so I just used white with a little bit of gold mixed in with it. You could also use brown or maybe even a little black if you didn't have gold.

 

 

I let the girls paint the tops of the pieces, which will end up being the neck/shoulder part of the person. It doesn't matter if the paint gets down further because you will be covering the rest up with felt later.

 

 

After the paint was dry, we added a dab of hot glue...

 

 

And attached a head. I got these balls at Wal-Mart in the craft section. It was a pack of 12 for around 1.50. This was the only thing I didn't have on hand so it was a pretty cheap project.

 

 

Then I let the girls paint the heads...

 

 

We cut out squares of felt big enough to wrap around each body. This one was for an angel so we used white but we used all kinds of colors for the other people.

 

 

I cut out a half circle and cut slits on the front half for the hair. I didn't worry about covering the whole head with hair since they had scarves put on top.

 

 

Here is a piece I cut out for a scarf...

 

 

I didn't take a picture of the wings but then you just hot glue all the pieces on and you have angel!! The other people we made very similar but just changed a few minor details... belts instead of wings, crowns instead of scarves, ect.

 

 

And that's a look at our "less then 5.00" nativity scene!!