Pioneer Woman Cooks, Sort of.

For a change of pace last night for dinner I made a Meat Loaf.
Can you believe I have been married for 34 years and this is my first ever attempt at meat loaf.

I was inspired yesterday while browsing the meat department, where I spotted the 1/2 pork 1/2 beef prepackaged meat. I was also inspired by the artichoke recipe from My little Italian life. I figure heck if she can do that I certainly could whip up a fancy dancy meat loaf.....is it sad that I consider meat loaf fancy?

I followed Rees recipe from the Pioneer Woman Cooks , but I made a few changes.

2 pds of 1/2 pork 1/2 beef

 prepackaged seasoning

1/2 of a cup of milk

one egg

then I mixed it up, it felt a little slimy, gooey, moist to me so

I fell back on my Moms recipe and crushed up 1/2 a pack of saltines

to absorb some of the slime moisture.

O.K that looks like a meat loaf.

This is where I took Ree's advise I added brown sugar, dried mustard

and some Tabasco sauce to the ketchup topping.

While it baked we did some of this

 

and some of this

 

 and a whole lotta this.

Man O Man, lovin this summer weather in March.

Its not pretty but it doesn't look to bad does it?

I served it with baked potatoes and broccoli and called it dinner.

The jury is still out on whether or not I should make this again.

FOOTNOTE: to FOOTNOTES, Did you know if you bake a potato

long enough with out any foil on it, it will explode all over your oven.

Just sayin'

Happy Birthday to my Niece Sarah

30 years old today.....another one of the

"Young and the Beautiful"

"IT'S A GOOD LIFE"

SPRING IS IN THE AIR

Last night while Grandpa and Daddy worked on Mommy's car

we girls went for a walk.

(NOTE TO SELF: If you jump in a mud puddle

your shoes and pants get wet. Who knew?)

SO totally worth it.

careful careful

Please God help me, I have never attempted this stunt before.

Yay I can do it!

Yes It's true...not only am I a Chicketarian

I'm a Treehugger too

"IT'S A GOOD LIFE"

There Was a Party Today

and its late

and I'm tired

so here you go a

Sesame Street Party Photo Montage

A Good Time was had by all,

and that's all I'm going to say about that!

"IT'S A GOOD LIFE"

Cadence a Birth Story

If you remember I was just sayin how important it is to document your moments in time because memories grow fuzzy.

WELL

These are the facts as I remember them from March 6, 2010

The hubs and I had been out to dinner with friends the night before.
We had just arrived back home at about 9pm. How do I know it was about 9pm? Because I never stay out past 9.

When we got the call from Jen that they were headed to the hospital.

Months earlier she had invited me to join her, Neal and her Mom in the delivery room. I will forever be grateful to her for that. It was more then I had hoped for.

Grandpa, Uncle Steve and I made the trip to the hospital to be with them.

 

 

Once they were all settled into the birthing room I got to join them. Neal got the nice comfy chair next to Jen and her Mom sat in the chair in front of her.  It was the perfect set up Neal was there by her side to rub her back, hold her hand and she could make eye contact with her Mom for extra reassurance when the going got tuff. Moms make all things better!

It was a very long night.....

 On the other hand it passed quickly (for me at least) and before I knew it it was dawn.

not the best picture ever it was taken with my cell phone thru a window

 I had taken a little break and got up to walk around when I saw the sun coming up and it made me all teary eyed, because I knew this was going to be the day I would get to meet my first Grand Baby.

 

 

 

After many hours of hard contractions Jen decided to go with the epidural. The anesthesiologist was called and the nurse asked Theresa and I to leave the room. Shortly after the anesthesiologist walked in and shut the door we heard Laughter coming from the room....that's how well those things work (why oh why didn't I have one.)  After that things started to settle down in the birthing room so her Mom and I went in to the waiting room in hopes that Jen and Neal would rest.

That was short lived ....it wasn't long before Theresa was receiving a call to come back in the baby was almost here.  The nurses were all so very nice and they agreed to let me stay in the room during the delivery as long as I stayed out of the way. (You can bet I hid in the corner and was quiet as a church mouse, for fear someone would kick me out.)

*******Jen gave me permission to take pictures of the delivery. *******

Hi Baby Girl, you are perfect!

It wasn't long before both Grandpas were up at the hospital and we were oooing and ahhhing over the baby. Thankfully Mama and Daddy were good sports about the whole thing and let us all hang out with them in the birthing room the rest of the day!

 As soon as we could the next morning we high tailed it back up to the hospital to see the baby.

 (oh yeah Neal and Jen too)

The room was full of people just LOVIN' the new family up.

We ordered Pizza and threw a party.

I mean really what better reason to throw a party

 then the arrival of a sweet little soul into this world?

Happy 2nd Birthday Girlfriend

You ROCK OUR WORLD

"IT'S A GOOD LIFE"