Happy Thanksgiving!

What a Happy Time of year.

Last year I made an all organic Thanksgiving meal.

This year I am going to try to recreate recipes from the Hale Family Farm.

Pioneer recipes. Ohio Style.

http://www.wrhs.org/index.php/hale

Armed with all of my Hale family cookbooks, books and knowledge I have set to work building a recipe.

When we visited the farm a few years ago, I made sure to buy up as much information as I could. One of which is the trusty " A Young Housewife's Helpful Handbook"

The recipes are so simple

Cream Pie
One pint of Cream
Two Cups of Sugar
Two Teaspoonfuls of cornstarch
Whites of Three Eggs
Flavor with Nutmeg

this makes two pies

Mrs. Susan E. M

It was assumed you knew exactly your way around the kitchen, no need to explain "beat the egg whites til frothy" or "pre heat oven to 350"

What a difference a hundred years make. We know google recipes to stop diabetes, lower blood pressure, impress our families. Looking thru these recipe and farm manuals really makes me appreciate the fine art of living simply.

It is truly an art. I wonder what it is like to mother and parent without the constant rash of emails and internet distractions.
Mrs. Gertrude Swift has a recipe for Polishing Shirt Fronts:
Henry Country, KS., 1883
I will give a recipe for polishing shirt front. Such a recipe was asked for some time ago. One ounce of white wax, four ounces of parafinne, one grain of ultra marine blue. Melt together and let cool. Take a piece the size of hazelnut to one quart of the starch; iron as common, then dampen, and polish with the heel of the iron.


Hm, seems a bit harder than picking up at the dry cleaner! perhaps I do really love my modern life :)

Nonetheless, I am attempting to create a old fashioned Thanksgiving here. Then we are off to Austin to have another Thanksgiving, this time with a Cuban Flair- will be interesting!

Hello sorry fell off blog land!

YIKES

Busy month what can I say! Our Sprint Partnership is going very well and we are very blessed. Also means alot of hard work for Mr Hale and he and I are SO very thankful to be given the opportunity to work hard in this present economic crises!

I know Houston is in a bubble so its very hard to comprehend life outside the bubble when you hear all these crazy news stories.

My house went up in value by 11% just in one year!~ Anyway, a list because I dont know where to start!!

1- Landon as Spiderman and a Transformer (long story) for halloween, his best friend was a black spiderman. Cannon was superman. They had an all out ball.
2- I actually broke down and bought a....MINI VAN! at least its totally decked out- a Honda Odyssey, has all this blingy bling like sliding doors, leather, dvd players, navigation. What can I say, if you gotta roll in the MV, might as well do it in style! LOL, its actually been a huge bonus to my organizational/lifestyle, sooo easy. I gottta thank my friend Michelle for pushing me over the mini van edge! HAHA
3- Ok we have always wanted to have a swing set, I couldn't comprehend spending $3,500 for a huge rainbow set, neither could I wasting under $2,000 for a cheezy one. Voila- we bought a Rainbow Clubhouse from our neighbors! AND its covered under warranty, almost 80 % of the set will be REPLACED, and almost brand new!

they bought it for $5,500 and we are buying it for......

$450!

SCORE

It is this one minus the long monkey bars
http://www.rainbowplay.com/index.php/swing-sets/package/supersized-rainbow-clubhouse-package-iii-nicely-equipped/

I hope to have it installed on dec 23rd! I can't believe we lucked out so much! thank you good neighbors!!!
4- Preschool is going very well. I decided to just have Landon in for 3 days and pull Cannon, he is just too easy and fun and little for preschool, amazing how my thinking has changed on this topic!
5- Swimming- both boys still at Houston Swim Club, Cannon hates it! too bad though- we have a pool so must be properly trained! :)
6- We are having a good time hanging out with neighbors, friends and etc.
7- Soccer- HUGE NEWS, Landon scored TWO GOALS, yes TWO GOALS saturday! what a big day for him!
8- Disney has come out with some huge crazy (recession inspired) deal and we are probably going as Christmas present? Not sure yet. You pay for 4 niites and you get 3 free plus a $200 gift card, its a full $2,500 less than normal. Its a great deal if you are wanting a Disney vacation. I am torn! I feel Cannon who is my sleepy prince wont get a thing out of it, but I know Landon is young enough to really love Disney and believe in the whole "magic" of it!
9- My old beloved Digital 35MM camera finally died on Halloween nite. I am going to buy a new 40D on Ebay. I really was totally happy with my old rebel, but why spend $200 to fix it when I can just get a new one! very sad to see it hit the dust though. It has been carted everywhere and thrown around, gotten rained on, it even got crushed once, I am not sure how it has survived this long!
10- I admit I am getting baby fever- is it the holidays? being pregnant is horrible for me. Can someone surrogate for me? lol.
11- Lastly, our little three year old buddy Alex who has Down Syndrome has also fallen to Leukemia, we are working hard on putting together a Fundraiser event. It is scheduled for Dec 4th at Double Daves from 5:30-8:30. All of our friends have been scrambling to put on a great nite with raffle items (cinco Ranch pajamas, scrapbook goodies, oil paintings from the houston rodeo auctions, free photography sittings, moxie moms memberships) the list goes on and its fabulous!

We were able to put together an immediate goody bag for him last week. A family was able to deliver it to him at Texas Childrens.
12- 'Tis the season. I am trying to keep up with all the donations, gifts, needy children, shoeboxes, books for the neglected, holiday parties (we even had our first holiday even last nite, a sweet friend hosted over 30 people and kids to her home for a all out flat out fabulous Thanksgiving Dinner, we are very blessed!!).

May God Bless and I am determined to keep up myself better! Now off to read the many blogs that I have neglected , whoops and sitll haven't put up my most read/friends blogs!

Kelli n Company!

Post Ike in Katy Texas

Wheww what a week! The pictures of Galveston and Bolivar island are just devestating, gives you the cold chills! Scary stuff! Our power was out for about 12-15 hours and some neighbors had a bit of roof come off, and then some debris from old landscaping. Thats IT!

We are very blessed and very lucky here! Thank Goodness!

The city of Katy has had an overwhelming response to cover donations and other items to those in shelters, there is a shelter at Grace Methodist that actually requested that no more items to be taken as they were over capacity! unbelievable!

of course the ft bend food pantry and senior centers still need help. We are donating lots and it feels good. We have been without work and school for an entire week, the kids on the street have been in fantasy land all week. We feel very priveledged to have come home to a powered house and nothing wrong.

I am looking foward to preschool again next week! this week we have been landscaping the backyard, hanging outside and etc.

Some of my old friends from Pearland who have been without power this ENTIRE TIME are coming over to hang out, swim , watch a movie and etc. Hopefully ANY DAY now their power will be back on!!!!

surely by monday!

The boys have been playing outside every day for hours! they are caked in mud and dirt, oh well thats what we wanted for them, to have all these beautiful kiddos around.

The aftermath of the storm is so far reaching, its stunning. We pray for all of those hit by this storm from losing electricity to being homeless. In an article it read that this storm has created the highest amount of young children in shelters the red cross has EVER seen. BREAKS my heart!

some girlfriends of mine plan on being able to help out in a shelter in a few days for a shift. I am excited to give back to our community.

Kelli

Hurricane Ike and Katy

Yikes. What is the situation going to play out like? I have so many friends who have choosen to stay behind and who have/are evacuating. We are praying for them and hope that the best case scenario occurs. We have decided to evacuate to Dallas and are glad we are here. I am worried about power being out for a few days. Then again I am not looking forward to driving back in mass traffic either!

Friends say there are some water and food left at HEB and etc, just long lines, gas is still flowing, so its not a mass panic.

My biggest concern was entertaining the two kids, having a window break out and no a/c. I will feel lucky if my house is totally intact! At least the grass will be watered!

Truly, Cinco Ranch and most of Katy is built so well, with well designed road systems, drainage and bayous that are fairly new- I really think it will be able to handle it well.

If you googled this from katy, please comment and let us all know if you are leaving or staying!

K

School has started!@

What a whirlwind, we have been on "vacation" and now back to reality with school! Both boys are in preschool and so far so good! they go 2 days a week, its $350 a month for both, what a steal! I love both of their teachers. I am the room mom for cannons class , lol.

Lots of get togethrs and seeing friends this past few weeks. I need to upload alot of pictures, most recently a mommy friend of mine had a pool party, which was amazing! heated salt water pool made me feel great, I need to upgrade to salt next year in our own pool.

It was like disneyland in her backyard and the boys cried when we had to go, but we stayed for 3 hours! here is a picture I grabbed that is within reach, of course I am leaning down because cannon refuses to leave my side, great profile of me!

I have pictures somewher eof the boys first day of school, Landon had spiderman backpack and cannon had superman!

then the Crossbridge church had its opening day this past Sunday, Robbie and myself were greeters :) and greet we did! its an amazing thing and I am super happy for Howard and Krystal

speaking of which I gotta go meet some girls for lunch, I will promise to update my pictures later! both boys are in school

Fun stuff

Fun week, fun stuff.

The usual SAHM drill: playdates, playdates and get togethers. But what fun we are having! Today we celebrated the birthday of Alex who turned 3. Alex has Down Syndrome, we feel truly blessed to have him in our circle of friends. I also won't be seeing Tropic Thunder because Alex's mom mentioned that they use the term "retarded" in horrible ways in the film. I just cannot support a film that lends to hurtfulness of the differently abled!

Wednesday nite we had a friend get together at Pulcinella's off grandparkway, adorable little Italian place, cheesey Italian musak piped in and the wine was flowing! and that means LOUD craziness! was a blast! hoo rah! time out, I even bought a bottle of wine! what a lush am I!

we have been in Katy now over a year and it feels like we have just arrived yesterday. Every day we feel blessed to have this home and be in this community. Our cup is overflowing and I feel very blessed.

On that note, blessings multiply- my friend Krystal and her sweet husband are finally ready to launch their new Katy church Crossbridge. Their main church in The Woodlands selected Krystal's husband to start a new church right here in Katy.

http://www.crossbridgeumc.org/index.html

I never remember that Krystal is a "Pastor's Wife" she is completely real and authentic and I am sure this church will be as well. My husband I will be greeters for the church. Don't let that scare you, haha.

Another neat thing is that they are really wanting to make sure that jobs and time spent at the church is rotated, which I feel is very important.

Too many people become indentured servants at the church, it becomess a full time job and is unfair.

Their vision is that you can help AND still enjoy service.

Wanted to share

Little Explorer

With great anticipation, a friend of mine took pictures of Landon tonite in Cinco Ranch. She is expanding her photography business and wanted to beef up her portfolio. We were honored to participate. Loving photography so much, it is a real thrill for me to watch artists work. Eliza really combines the art of photo journalism with the tenderness of children's photography. I am excited to see her work as an artist grow.

On a personal level, I am really glad to know Eliza. Sometimes you meet people that are "old souls" and being around them makes you feel better, instantly. Wise beyond their years. This is the feeling I got tonite working with Eliza and I feel it shows in her work.

Thank You Eliza for your affirmations tonite and beautiful work.

Here is her blog with a few pictures of Landon. I cannot wait to get more pictures soon :)

Eliza if you read this- that last picture on this your blog has a 11 x 14 canvas print written all over it!

Thanks so much

http://www.glimpseofsoulphoto.com/blog/