Chef Taylor Helps me in the Kitchen

Taylor helped me create dessert for dinner. We made the Toffee Brownie Trifle and he seems to like it! He was really proud of himself for making it and made sure everyone knew..

A Group of Boys and a Week at the Lake

Jackie, Rachel, Emily and Sierra (a friend of Emily's) came and picked the two boys up for a trip to Lake Charles so that Taylor could meet with someone at his new school. Jackie then went to the lake and we were to meet them there. I was a little leary of taking all the kids to the lake without the "Man", but Marvin assured me that he would help me if I needed it. The kids and I packed up everything we would need and after baking and getting food together, we set off on our man less adventure to the beautiful Toledo Bend lake in Louisiana.
Taylor of course kept calling to find out where we were and why we weren't there yet.. now keep in mind.. he had just gotten there 30 minutes before the calls started!
When we showed up, Marvin and Jackie came over to see if there was anything they could do to help. With the teamwork, we were unpacked from the car and the movie tent was set up in no time at all!
The boys were instantly drawn to the cove to swim and get away from the heat and any remaining work :)
A few days later, Rod came in and put the boat in the water. These boys wanted to be yanked all along the lake at high speeds! It was great getting to see them attempt tricks and flying through the air. Abbie did not allow me to spend much time in the boat. She very quickly informed us that she does NOT like the boat. This turned to screams after a while and she was grateful for the thunder in the background which brought the boat in for our outing. They later went without us...
Vaughn and Taylor made it to the skiing position! Our Cameron almost made it to the upright position and the other Cameron I think made it for a few seconds.
Movies were played nightly and even a one man concert the first night of being there!

Friday Night Entertainment

After FINALLY getting home from the mall last night, the kids decided to skate and jump in the street. Cameron gets tricky and decides to jump on a skateboard only to land on his head. He now is the proud owner of a lump on the head. He says it is still hurting this morning.
Taylor is wanting to take a trip to Wal-Mart for the air soft gun. Vaughn wants to take a trip BACK to the mall BUT just to the Pac Sun store. Cameron has picked Game Stop in the Mall.. TWO stores and that's IT!
However today we will not be going anywhere until the two wee ones take a nap! Who takes 5 kids to the mall when the two little ones haven't had a nap.. Insane I tell you!!

This mid-morning activity...

This morning after the two tall guys got back with discounted surfboard.. and the others woke finally after a long night of movie watching and falling asleep on the living room floor... they all got the bright idea to toss some kids about... will post pics soon...

A little shopping and a little jumping...

Taylor gets the idea to skate from the top of the picnic table.

There is nothing like a boy this tall sitting a swing where his knees are pratically dragging the ground.

Today, all of the guys went south to the Montrose area and shopped for skateboards as well as surfboards. Taylor found a skateboard and Vaughn found a surfboard. Taylor had to buy wheels for the skateboard and attach them before using the board. Vaughn and Rod will be going back down to the shop to buy the surfboard tomorrow as they will offer a discount tomorrow.. (this is really this morning, I am a little behind in doing the blog.. just go with it)

Cameron and Ben bought a skateboard.. apparently everyone is going to skate down to the park and try all the new wheels out. See pics below.. Abbie and I had gone to Kroger to buy food and stopped back by the park.. pictures are with the berry.. so quality isn't that good..

It's flippin' hot in Texas with all this humidity!

Holy Smokes there they are!

Those doors really are magical.. look what they did to Vaughn aka "Fun" ... That boy must be kin to the Ming guy that plays for the Houston Rockets! He just is so dang tall!! Now look at all those curls on Taylor.. Such handsome young men.

Bodden Boys Visit July 09

Okay.. I figured this was the best way to keep everyone updated on all the pictures we take during the visit. So we are going to do a blog of their visit!

Make sure to click "follow" so that you can follow the journey of our visit :)

Here are the beginning pictures of the kids at the "airpork" not so patiently waiting for Taylee and Fun to show up through those magical doors.

All the little things...

While talking to our cousin on the ever so popular Facebook yesterday, I realized that again, we have started getting a massive collection of hotel soaps, shampoos, body washes etc... What in the world do people do with these things that they continue to bring home from their nights at hotels?
With my husbands job.. he is Always in hotels! We are able to fill a basket in no time at all with all the itty bitty hotel bottles! We have a HUGE bag of Decaf coffee packs. He doesn't drink decaf, but brings the packs home because someone might use them.... no one we know drinks coffee without caffeine! These are really good brands since he stays in very good hotels such as the Embassy Suite line.
I have got to find some way to do something with all of these things.. they are building up and I can't just throw them away!
I dream of using one of those big full size bars of soap!

Pasta Surprise with Fresh Baby Spanich

Okay.. so when the kids and I are home alone, we will eat just about anything that we throw into the pot. We were looking for a quick meal yesterday and I had bought some of the multi-grain pasta. We already had that frozen chicken that you take from the bag and cook.. so I just sauted those while the noodles cooked along with some onions, garlic and bellpeppers of course. We poured all of this into the skillet together with some fresh baby spinach and roma tomatoes.. That was really good! It really didn't take a whole lot of the chicken strips for there to be plenty of meat for the entire dish. Quick, cheap and delish! All for well under $5.00 to feed 4 people twice.. because we had it for leftovers at lunch today :)

Sloppy Kids for Dinner

Sloppy Kids for Dinner
Okay... Our family is thinking that I have come up with a fantastic Sloppy Kid recipe.. I have tried others that didn't come out the way we had wanted them to taste. This one reminded my husband of the ones that his mom used to make when they were kids. This of course made me feel as if I had finally found the perfect mixture.




Our Sloppy Kids:
2 lb. ground beef browned and crumbled into small bits
1/3 cup chopped onions
1/3 cup chopped bell peppers
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tbls. prepared mustard
1 cup ketchup
3 tsp. brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbls. worcestershire
small can tomato paste
1 can tomato sauce
1 can petite cut tomato
1 tbls. vinegar

Just add everything and cook with each addition. I always cook my onions and bell peppers a bit with the meat so that they are cooked longer.
This amount will make a pot full and you will have left overs that they will want!

Checkbook Cover Give A Ways

I decided that I wanted to make the ITH (in the hoop) quilted checkbook covers, but needed to practice some, so that was one of my recent give a ways. Along with the checkbook covers, I made some ITH keyrings also.

This was a fun project and it's so quick and easy, you can make a ton of these real fast once you get the hang of it.