Turkey and Birthdays Oh My!

Hello November!
(I know I have done some other posts, but this is the official "November Kick Off Post" LOL)

This month is my 6(soon to be 7) year old's Birthday as well as my baby's 1st Birthday! And then of course we have Thanksgiving between the 2 as well! And that is all within a 9 day span! It is going to be a busy, busy month.  Hopefully I can find the time to post more and more posts up here. I am just about ready to make the post about the vitamins from my Aunt. I am bad at taking pills on time and to have a pill I am supposed to take twice a day that is not ordered by my doctor, takes time! LOL

So, I keep seeing people posting on Facebook about "30 days of Thankfulness" or "Day 1: I am Thankful for:....." and it got me thinking that I will try to do something similar here for all of you! I have already posted Days 1, 2 and 3! LOL...

This is the 6 year old little devil!
LOL

I started out mentioning my kiddos and their birthdays. First up this month is the 6 year old. He is so excited to turn 7 for some reason that he has been telling people for about 7 months that he IS 7! LOL Of course, I am that kind of Mommy that I remind him he is not 7 until his birthday. This gets a dirty look thrown my way real fast each time! Ha ha ha.... He has expressed a large LOVE for Angry Birds this year so we have planned an Angry Birds Birthday for him this year. Of course all this truly means in this family is that he is going to have the Angry Birds paper plates and napkins and his "cake" is going to be cupcakes, I bought the Angry Birds ring toppers today from the bakery! LOL! The plates and napkins however are what were on sale, so I picked some up! 

He has the "board/card" game of Angry Birds and he plays that very often! Unless I can find the Ice version of that game for him for super cheap (currently $14.98 @ Wal-mart, not cheap enough for Mama!) then he won't be getting any Angry Birds toys for his birthday and I am sure he is fine with that(the cupcake rings will be a great thing in his opinion). As long as he gets to turn seven at last! I know we have a lot of gifts stashed and I need to figure out what he is getting from there very soon. I found a hat tonight that I remembered getting up in WA when I visited my sister in the spring. It is so fitting for him, it is neat and has an R on the side of it. He will always know it is his! Anyways, I am not sure any of my kiddos have ever been this excited for their birthday to get here. He is also excited for that weekend because it is the same weekend that Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 opens in theaters and he would like to go see it. (Both him and his older brother have said they want to go see this movie. We shall see. Mama really wants to see it too! LOL)

Next up is Turkey Day! I am hoping that it will be a relatively mellow day, but we shall see. The husband is off that day (he works Christmas) so we should be able to "celebrate" all together. My mother and I have both been recipe hunting for the coming holiday so that we can eat as close as possible to our diet and not gain a holiday 30! LOL. I found some recipes on the Schwan's website (check here). They have a Maple Sweet Potato Cup side that sounds amazing (link above should take you straight to this recipe) and we are pretty sure we can make the right substitutions to make it "diet friendly"! I took another Schwan's recipe and made it more "diet friendly" myself. That one is the Slow-Cooker Autumn Pork Chops with Orange Cranberry Sauce Recipe and I have made those twice now because they are oh so yummy. After pork cooks in a slow-cooker all day it just falls apart and melts in your mouth. Best. Meat. Ever! LOL it calls for a 16-oz. can of cranberry sauce and I have made mine from scratch both times. 

Cranberry Sauce from Scratch:

Cut a bag of whole cranberries in half. 

Put it in a saucepan with 1 cup of water.

 1 cup of Splenda

(or a 50/50 split of 1/2 cup Splenda and 1/2 cup Stevia, 

which is what I prefer for taste)

 Bring it to a boil,.

Simmer for about 10 minutes.

It should be done!

You can always cook it longer if you want!

See, pretty simple. I actually just followed the directions on the side of the Ocean Spray Cranberries bag but exchanged the sugar for sweetener! LOL There is also a recipe for Jellied Sauce rather than the whole berry sauce. I prefer the canned/jellied sauce, have my entire life (after all they have those nifty little can lines for easy slicing! LOL)! I will try to post more recipes that we intend to use as we get them on "the plan"!

Deciding he likes Pickles @ 11 months old!

And then it is the baby! My how this year has just flown by! I can hardly believe he is going to be one year old in just a few short short weeks! He was my least expected baby as far as his arrival time goes. We had been discussing having a 4th baby and hoping for a girl(which we did anyways) but we had planned to wait to start "trying" until our now 4 year old had been potty trained for a full year. Well, by the time the baby got here #3 was potty trained for an entire year. We just had him on his was already! He he... I knew I was pregnant just by missing my period by 1 day! My husband on the other hand kept telling me I wasn't pregnant. I kept insisting. By 3 days late for my period I took a test and instant positive! I was super happy. He is yet another blessing in my life and even though I had Postpartum PreEclampsia(with a BP of 205/98) a week after I had him, which placed me BACK into the hospital, I would not change a thing about him. He is such a sweet and happy little guy and he is the reason I have been able to experience long term Breastfeeding! None of my other boys breastfed for more than 2 months. Here we are at almost a year and going strong! Granted, he prefers I stand or lay down for him to nurse now. But he is aloud to be a little picky. LOL!

After all the Birthdays and Holiday fun for November we will be ready to dive head first into December where we have My Birthday and Christmas and then the ending of the year! (Yes, I know there are other holidays but these are the ones WE celebrate, so these are the ones I will be discussing) I do believe we have all the kiddos gifts set and I should be able to talk more about those later on down the road. That is all for now...

~TTFN!