Southern Broccoli Bread

5 eggs
12 oz. cottage cheese
10 oz. chopped broccoli
1 med. chopped onion
1 box of jiffy cornbread mix
1 stick of butter
Melt butter in a 9x13 glass baking dish. Mix eggs, cottage cheese, broccoli (thawed and drained if using frozen) and onion in a bowl. Add corn bread mix. Pour batter into baking dish on top of the melted butter. Place in oven and bake for 20-30 minutes at 350*F, until golden brown or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. Good warm or cold. Enjoy!

Recipe courtesy of Mary Erma Fairchild - Mississippi Gal

(no picture - I haven't taken one because it comes out of the oven and gets cut up and eaten)

It's Pretty Quiet Around Here

School is back in session. The girls all went back to school last week and I have been taking it easy. Super easy! I watched a movie almost everyday last week without interuption and without the hundreds of questions that always happen when it's a new movie. Why don't kids understand that if it's a new movie, I don't have answers either since I've never seen it? But I digress. . . Here's Miss Priss sporting her sassy little attitude that is sure to win her lots of new friends. She was super excited to be heading back to school. She did come home disappointed that her teacher doesn't sing with her. She let me know everyday that there was no singing. Her kinder teacher used music a lot in class and the kids loved it. Miss Priss has settled in well and will have her first night of homework tonight.

Drama Queen is cute as a bug with that little pixie cut hairdo. She sports it so well! Drama Queen was looking forward to school too. She loves to show people how smart she is and man alive is this one too smart sometimes. She has enjoyed school so far and is making new friends everyday. She loves that she has PE everyday. I like that too!

Cowgirl is the shyest of all of my kidlets. Don't let it fool you, she has made several friends this year already that sound like that are great kids too. Cowgirl is loving the big life of having more than one teacher this year. She's in art for right now and that is a perfect match for her. She's quite creative and very detailed oriented when she wants to be. Oh, and check out those cute little glasses too. Cowgirl started wearing them about a month ago and they look stinkin' cute on her!

Diva is growing up too fast at times. She's developing into such a beautiful young lady. She's a social little butterfly and gets to know everyone. She's a smartypants too and is in the pre-AP classes again this year. She loves a challenge. She is in choir and horticulture this year. She loves to sing (just like her mama) and she has found the horticulture class very interesting so far.

Here's the obligitory picture of all the kidlets on the first day of school. They are sitting on one of the benches Big Daddy and I made this summer. Can you believe how big these girls are all getting?!

. . . and. . . they're off. . . One happy Little Mama and one very quiet house everyday. . . love it!

Crepes with Buttermilk Syrup and Bananas

Doesn't this look delicious?

Guess what?! It's super simple!First you start with the Crepes. They are fairly simple to make. If you've got a kiddo who loves to help in the kitchen, this would be a great one to let them help with if they are 10 or older.

Buttermilk Syrup

• 1/2 cup butter - has to be the real stuff
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Combine butter, sugar, buttermilk and corn syrup in pan and bring to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes. Add vanilla (I use mexican vanilla) and stir. Turn off heat and add baking soda. Stir quickly. The syrup will foam up. Let rest 5 minutes then stir and serve.

So, this is the set up. Make your crepes. Place your desired number of crepes on your plate, drizzle with syrup and top with sliced bananas. You will be in heaven! Trust me!

What we did this summer

Hello all this is Big Daddy. I thought I'd take this chance and up date you on a few of the projects we completed this summer. As many may remember we built the hope coop in the Spring well as the chickens got older we needed to build a nesting box so that they would have a place to lay eggs. So afters some reserch and planning we built this Nesting Condo for them they really seem to like it and the hens that are laying have adapeted to it really well.


One of the next projects was to build some outdoor seating. We finally settled on two separate designs. One for the Patio and one to place through out the yard. Below HOT MAMA (i mean little Mama) models the patio chair we built. I don't have photos of yard ones but we like them to.

Next on our list of things to do was a swing set for the girls. Again planning and research led us to this hefty design that should last many generations to come and if we ever don't need swings we can replace them with a "porch" swing.

And last but not least is our never ending project THE YARD it is looking a whole lot better and we have only had a few minor incedents, including my getting stung by two wasps and my hand swelling up like a balloon resulting in a trip to the ER. I was told that it was just a bad reaction and not an allergy (as of yet).

Well that covers our major projects over the summer, I am sure I may have missed one or two but those are the big ones so until I grace the blog again, good-bye

Tortoise & Tye Dye

I've got to do some catching up with the blog. School starts in two weeks and then, maybe then I will have the time to get back to my daily blogging.

Last Tuesday, while Miss Priss was eating her breakfast, she came running into the living room to inform me there was a turtle out on the lawn. I was surprised to see him/her as we've never seen one near our Patch of Heaven. Apparently he/she is a native tortoise and likes to eat prickly pear. We have plenty of that out here on the property so I'm sure he/she was just looking for a tasty treat. We held on to our tortoise for the day so Big Daddy could see him/her. We set up a nice little box with pine shavings, water, a carrot, some grapes and some lettuce. We named our tortoise, Valentine. We painted a nice heart on Valentines back so if he/she wants to come back to visit, we will know who it is. Drama Queen walked Valentine out to the edge of the property and set him/her free. We've not seen Valentine again but we do hope someday to have our special visitor return.

Last Tuesday we also Tye Dyed a bunch of shirts. I should have worn the gloves included in the kit. I was many shades of various colors and had to deal with that for several days. All of you who really know me, Little Mama, know I have issues with dirty hands. Here is the results of just a couple of the shirts we made.

Bapa's Visit Mad Lib Style

Bapa came to visit a week or so ago and I hadn't posted anything yet. Cowgirl, Drama Queen and Miss Priss helped to put together this mad lib. We wish Nana Banana had been able to come and have fun with us but work didn't allow that. We think she would really like our patch of heaven.

MY COOL GRANDPARENTS
My grandparents just came to visit me and my family. They do different things for fun than kids do. I like to hang out with my friends at Dollar Tree, but my grandparents like to run at Claires. Do anyone else's grandparents like to do that?

Both of my grandparents are really cool. They like to wear sweaters that look just like something Hannah Montana would wear. We talk about the latest movies, music, and TV shows. I really like The Incredibles, and my grandma said she does too. Her favorite actress is Dolly Parton! I can't believe how cool my grandma is!

And my grandpa is just as cool. We talk about Aerosmith all the time! He knows all their music. He even owns Fearless. He said that the next time Aerosmith come to Funafuti for a concert, he'll take me! I can hardly wait. He'll be the coolest grandpa at the Aerosmith concert, and I'll be so happy to be there with him.