Home Made Hot Pockets

Before my family came in town for the Thanksgiving holiday, we split up some food ideas to help spread out meals for the weekend.  I was asked to make home made breakfast hot pockets.  My sister, Melanie, showed me a link on MoneySavingMom's blog that is a super yummy recipe, and we have been making them during the cold months for the past few years.  We keep a few fresh, and then freeze the rest.  It's so nice to be running out the door in a rush one morning, and just grab one of these hot pockets out of the freezer, pop it in the microwave for 1 & 1/2 mins and Ta-Da!....an amazing breakfast to go :)

The dough is filled and ready to be popped in the oven!

The recipe makes about 30, but I doubled it and made 60 hot pockets!

Yummy!  Warm right out of the oven ;)

This recipe definitely takes time (probably half a day bc of all the waiting for rising), and the clean up is not fun either!  I think I use every pot and pan that I own!  But it is DEFINITELY worth it!

I usually try to use every bit of the bacon-sausage-egg mixture, but this time I just had some left over.  Perfect for some breakfast burritos or egg scrambler!!

If you want to make these, just go here for the recipe:  http://moneysavingmom.com/2009/02/guest-post-homemade-hot-pockets.html

(I made a few changes to the recipe, like adding bacon, and cooking the pepper and onion with the sausage)

School Lessons

In November, I was teaching James the letter J.  That was a fun one because we did a segment "All About James!"  

James wrote his name

And drew his family.

I love how he keeps drawing a person inside of another person. :)

November Fun

The kids relax with Daddy

We forgot when we take James for a run, we need to make sure it's early in the day, or he will fall asleep!

On some Saturdays, Justin takes the kids to ECS for a campus ride on the "tractor".

Then, they help daddy collect the pylons.

James being a big helper.

Oh the creativity of a 3 year old boy!

Just some cuteness

Cold, long walks in the neighborhood.

Goofy glasses 

Reese's favorite spot in the house :)

(What her aunt Michelle used to do :)

Daddy soothes little girl

Bedtime stories

Happy kid

Training with Dad

So many people in my family decided to sign up for the St. Jude Half Marathon!

Me, my Dad, Justin, Rachel, Eric, Dad Payne (almost Michelle :)!  We would race on December 1st, but until then, we had to train for it.  So my dad and I came up with the arrangement that we would do our weekly run/walks on our own, but we would get together once on the weekend to do our LONG distance runs together.  

My dad's goal was to complete a half marathon now that he is 60.  What an amazing goal!  And an even bigger goal was to complete it in under 3 hours.  And to keep it low pressure, he decided to train by walking.  If anyone knows this man, you know he is SLOW going.  (I think I take a little after him :)  He gets in and out of the car slow.  He drives slow.  He walks slow.  He just takes his time and I love that about him.  But you should see him as he trained for the half marathon.  Those long legs, when put to work with a goal in mind, can go FAST!!!  I seriously had trouble keeping up walking beside him.  He trained between a 12 and 13 minute mile.  Sometimes we would even walk at an 11-something pace.  Amazing.  

Training with my dad was precious and brought back so many memories.  My dad was the one who got me into running.  I was that little 6 year old girl that wanted to run with her daddy, but complained the whole way.  I remember my dad saying, "Keep your eyes up".  He was so encouraging and patient with me until I found my love for running and stopped complaining so much.  It then became fun.  We ran 5K races together throughout elementary and middle school years.  Dad (and of course Mom!) supported me in track when I was in high school.  And when I came home from college, we would go on runs, but I would call them counseling sessions.  We had opportunities to have long, meaningful talks where I got much needed advice.  I hope to provide those kind of special moments with my kids one day.  And even while we trained in October and November, we were able to just find the time to talk, which always provides such encouragement to a daughter from her daddy.

Dad, I loved every minute of it!

Here are James and Reese playing in the huge "sand box" at ECS while my Dad and I walked lap after lap around the track.  This day, Mom was not able to watch the kids.  But usually during the LONG walks that lasted 2-3 hours, my mom would watch the kids and play hard with them and feed them.  Mom, thank you so much for giving me much needed time away from them!  Ha.  It's nice to know I can just leave them with you and know that they LOVE playing with their Meme!

Starting off November

Nonie had a Peo meeting in Memphis, and she would only be here for a short period of time.  So after her meeting she stopped by our house to say hello before she headed back to Nashville.

Thanks for stopping by Mom!

We enjoy every chance we can get to spend time with you!

Halloween 2012

 Halloween arrived and we got ready to go trick or treating! 

What I must mention first, is that I have a sweet friend, who was very pregnant at the time, and I had told her I would be her delivery support person when she went into labor.  Well, right after I put the kids in their costumes, I was waiting on Justin to come home, and I got a call from my friend's husband saying that they were at the hospital and the baby would be coming that night!

So as soon as Justin got home, I headed out the door.  I was sad to miss my children's night of trick or treating, but I knew we would have plenty of times to make Halloween memories again.  And I was happy to be a part of a sweet little baby coming into the world.

Thankfully, Justin got LOTS of pictures for me!

Superman

(hand me down from Cassie)

Georgia Cheerleader

(hand me down from Katie)

Thanks sisters!!

Precious

Hilarious

James and Reese got to go trick or treating with their best buds, Taylor and Law.

Amber even dressed up to be a fairy with Taylor!

Trick Or Treat!

Trying to be brave.

Not sure what's around the corner.

Reese sat comfortably in the stroller much of the time...she was quite sleepy.

Visiting our dear neighbors the Tiptons!

This crazy skeleton limo drove through our neighborhood.

James and Law loved it!

The girls got tired and cold and headed back to Ambers house.

But the boys kept going strong!

And here is precious Avery.

It was a very memorable night for everyone!!

Costume Change

Well, my idea for the kids' halloween costumes was that James would be an ECS football player, and Reese would be a Georgia cheerleader.  Well, since James has his own opinion these days, the costume idea was altered.  Aunt Cassie has let us borrow lots of her kids' clothes.  We have spider man pjs, superman pjs, etc, that James started loving to wear!  Once James got to watch a movie clip of superman and after that, he was hooked on that particular character.  So all of a sudden he was dying to be superman for Halloween!

A quick video of James flying. 

(of course he has on a spider man pj shirt and a batman pj cape, but that doesnt stop him from being superman!)

ps...this video is from early september, so notice Reese is barely walking!  I forgot what a butterball she was!

More flying, and with a new superman cape from Meme this time!

And now we are putting things together:  Superman pjs from Aunt Cassie and the superman cape!

More flying on the bed

(it cracks us up how he gets ready for take off)

Our tiny superwoman :)

Who apparently is ready for bed :)

Before Bed

Sometimes the kids get kind of silly before bed, 

so we captured a cute moment.

Reese loves doing what her older brother does, 

so she keeps up the best she can.

These videos are just of them playing together and Reese learned the word "GO"!

I posted this first one because it cracked me up how Reese runs with her head sideways, looking at us!

And here you can see Reese is probably going to be a tough girl!

Her "running" makes me laugh so hard!

Hunting Weekend

Each year, the ECS football coaches get together late October and go hunting/camping ("The Man Weekend").  There is a former ECS family that Coach Durham has developed a friendship with over the years and he offers his land for the coaches and their weekend. 

Getting everything set up.

Quite a nice little place :)

Coach Thornton brings out his inner child by always climbing a tree.  

Coach Burton with all the fish he caught!  He loved fishing the whole weekend.

34 pounds of catfish!

Coach Durham tries to retrieve the raccoon that his dogs' treed and Justin and Brad shot. (Justin has a video on youtube when the raccoon fell from the tree and the dogs caught it, but I refuse to put it on my blog - yuck!)

Justin and Brad killed the coon

 looks like these two are getting along ;) So sweet

Coach Jordan shot this red fox squirrel

Yum...omelets made in a boiling pot of water in a ziplock bag :)

Skeet shooting practice.  

Coach Jordan.  That little dot over the tree is the skeet.

Coach McSwain (only time he left the fire or pond - haha)

Manuel's first time shooting a shotgun.

The lefty (Coach Thornton)

The guys had a great escape weekend camping & hunting and hanging out outside of the classroom or football field.  This was great timing as they got rejuvenated before their long playoff run!  They usually get a picture together, but they forgot this year.  Maybe next year  :)