Christmas Through Mary's Eyes

While I understand that, when I grab a free moment, I just post recipes, I wanted to take a minute and share my heart.  With the Christmas season soon approaching, and every one busy buying gifts, we seem to always get to Christmas and truly forget all of the small details that lead to Christ's birth and just why we celebrate that day! Think about it-what if the decree hadn’t been passed? Would Mary and Joseph have even been in Bethlehem? And what if Christ had never come?!?!? That is even bigger-our great sin debt would have never been paid!!! There are so many great songs that we get to listen to once a year that remind us just what Christmas is all about-“Hark the herald, angels sing-Glory to the new born KING!” “O holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear SAVIOR’S birth!”

BUT!!! Do you ever stop and think about Mary and Joseph? Like REALLY think about them?!?! In October 2012, I got married. About a month later, Neal and I found out that we were expecting. We were so excited, but when December came, I had a new outlook on Christmas.  I was pregnant with our first baby. It was as though I looked at everything through Mary’s eyes. Here she was, told by an Angel that she was going to be a Mommy! First off, she was a virgin and was still going to conceive! (Luke 1:28-38) MIND BLOWING!!!! She, without any questions or backtalk, willingly accepted!!! Secondly, what about all of those people and their comments?!? There were people who told Neal and I we should have waited, and then there were people who were excited. Did Mary experience that too? I’m sure she did! Next, she was told that He would be Holy. We’re not talking about her carrying a preacher or a missionary. She was carrying God’s son. She was to give birth to a son who would live a perfect, sinless life. He would one day be beaten; He would carry the sins of the world and be crucified. Sins that included His mother’s sins!! I mean, that seriously just blows my mind! He needed her to live and be brought into this world, but without Him, she wouldn’t be able to live!!

I will never forget there was one particular Sunday morning in December that it really hit me hard.  I just couldn’t shake the thought that there was this tiny baby growing inside me. The tiny little hands and tiny little toes, the sweet baby face and soft delicate skin-one day soon, I would feel him or her kick. All I could think about was Mary. What all went through her mind? How did she react the first time she felt Him kick or get the hiccups? Did she hold her belly tight and long to hold Him close? Now that I have had a second baby, I wonder-Was that first pregnancy perfect and incomparable to the others?

Hands down, my favorite song for Christmas is “Be Born in Me” by Francesca Battistelli.  It accurately describes how I felt at that time in my life.  I was scared of the unknown. What was this baby inside of me going to be like? I wasn't carrying the long awaited Savior though! Mary KNEW that she had been specifically chosen for this task. Mary also knew that there was something special about this baby she was carrying and would soon give birth to.  Mary knew that this baby was going to somehow save the world, but instead of being scared or asking God “Why?” she just quietly sat and “Pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19) Listen to this song and think of Mary. Think about everything that she was pondering-both while she was pregnant and as she held that tiny miracle in her arms! Think about the rush of emotions you felt the first time you held a tiny baby. If you're a Mom, think back to the first time you got to put your arms around that sweet little babe. Mary was holding the long awaited Savior. He was her tiny son, but he was also her great Savior!!!

Whitley Grayson

Nora Lou


Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce

This recipe makes enough for us to eat one meal, and freeze the rest for another meal! It is delicious and just a "throw in the pot and forget it" kind of recipe! It's a total winner in our house (especially since I'm essentially fixing dinner for 2 nights at one time!!!)

Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce

2 lb ground beef

2 onions, chopped (about 2 cups)

2 cups sliced mushrooms (6 oz)

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 can diced tomatoes, undrained (28 oz) 

2 cans tomato sauce (30 oz total)

1 can tomato paste (6 oz)

1 Tbsp. dried Basil

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 Tbsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

In a large skillet, cook meat, onion, mushrooms and garlic. Drain and spoon into crock pot. Add remaining ingredients, stir, cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours! It's seriously THAT easy!!!

As a grocery note, we shop at Aldi, and they have diced tomatoes with basil and garlic! I love my spaghetti sauce "tomatoey", so I use two cans of diced tomatoes, and one can of sauce!

ENJOY!!!! (PS-We had already ate dinner after my picture was taken, so please excuse my dirty looking crock pot!)

One Pan Mexican Quinoa

Hello my friends, I am so excited to share with you that our family has now grown, and we now have not just one, but two beautiful girls that God has blessed us with!!!  My sweet Nora arrived very quickly on August 12 at 1:28pm! She weighed 7 lb 1 oz and was 20 inches long! It was such a blessing to have my baby sister, Madison-who is about to get married and move to Alaska, in the delivery room with me! If you'd like to see more pictures, read her perspective of the birth, AND see her Alaskan journey, visit her blog!

I am so very excited to report that Big Sis is head over heels in love and so so very helpful!! She loves to put her paci in when Nora begins to cry and realizes that Mommy is busy and can't go right to her rescue! She also loves to hold her. She will walk up to me and say "I hole sissy? I get da boppy, okay?" and return to the couch and place the boppy around her waist, look at me and say "I hold sissy!" With a few minutes of sweet kisses, nose snuggles in the cheek, and "sissy talk", she happily smiles up at me and giggly says "I done!"

Soooooo.......due to the sweet new addition to our family, I have been seeking easy, quick and high in protein dinners! Between nursing, laundry, cleaning, doctor appointments, naps, and a shower and teeth brush here and there planning ahead has been vitally important to our finance and our dinner survival!!! While I was pregnant, I fixed this dish at least once a week! It is so so easy, and it is just as delicious the next day as it was the night before! So, without further jabber, here is One Pan Mexican Quinoa!!!!

One Pan Mexican Quinoa

(I'll take a picture next time we have it! Sorry!)

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno, minced (we don't use since we have a little mouth eating!)
• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (14.5 oz) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
• 1 cup corn
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. cumin
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 avocado, halved, seeded, peeled and diced
• Juice of 1 lime
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Heat olive oil in a large pot or wok over medium heat.  Add garlic and jalapeno and saute for about 1 minute. 

Stir in the remaining ingredients EXCEPT avocado, lime juice, and cilantro.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat and cover. Allow to simmer is cooked through (about 20 minutes). 

Place in bowl and top with avocado, lime juice and cilantro. We also top ours with salsa!!!

IF YOU'VE NEVER COOKED/HAD QUINOA-my personal description is that it is similar to rice. It takes on the flavor of what it is cooked in! When it is done cooking, it will have slightly expanded, and it becomes somewhat translucent! You can see a "tail" inside it! (My best way to describe it! lol)

As I stated in the recipe, we have a small mouth, so we opt out of the jalapeno! I have also used Rotel instead of the fire roasted tomatoes and jalapeno-it gives it a very spicy kick! I also have use chicken broth before because my vegetable broth was moldy-YUCK!!!! It worked just fine!!! AND my husband eats rice chips with his!

Enjoy, and let me know how you like it!

I got this off of Pinterest. Here's the original recipe!

Zesty Chicken and Avocado Bowls

I love this recipe! I found this recipe on the Old El Paso Recipe. It is so so easy and extremely fast! I mentioned earlier that my Mister loves fajitas-we now fix our chicken this way for our chicken fajitas! VERY moist, very fast, and full of taco flavor!

Zesty Chicken and Avocado Bowls

Small pack of boneless, skinless chicken tenders

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1/4 cup water

1 package taco seasoning

2 ripe avocados

1 package Stand-n-Stuff tortilla bowls (Old El Paso)

Taco toppings: cheese, lettuce, salsa, pico, sour cream, etc.

In a medium size skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat until oil is hot. Add chicken and cook 2 minutes on each side to brown chicken. Add water, sprinkle both sides of chicken with taco seasoning, and loosely cover skillet with foil or lid. Cook an additional 3 minutes, flipping chicken if necessary.

While chicken is cooking in skillet, warm taco shells and gather toppings. Remove cooked chicken from skillet and thinly slice. Fill tortillas with chicken and your favorite toppings.

 

 

Zucchini-Oatmeal Muffins with Chef Whitley

I LOVE that Whitley begs and pleads "onna help" when she see's that I am in the kitchen!!! I am a serious OCD freak when it comes to doing things too. I know how to do it, so instead of asking for help or letting others help me, I'd rather just do it myself-because I can get it done faster! Motherhood is not a good place to be like this, but when God made me a Momma, He gave me the patience of Job (compared to the patience I use to have!) and He also gave me this "I don't care" type of attitude (towards certain things)! I would rather let my sweet W "help" and learn, and leave my kitchen in a total mess with flour all over the floor and eggs all over the counter than for her to grow up not knowing how to do things and not be adventurous to try new things! There are so many children in today's society who have no idea that vegetables can be grown in your back yard-they don't just come from a can! I seriously met a girl one time who had no idea how to crack an egg!!!!  REALLY!?!?! Sometimes my Momma and I talk about life and how kids are now a days, and our conversation sometimes ends with "Maybe her Mom never taught her!" "Maybe she was never shown true love growing up!" etc. I was so so blessed with a Momma who taught me a lot, and a Daddy who taught me a whole lot too!! I had some pretty amazing parents growing up, and I'm so glad that they get to be Meme and Poppy to my soon to be two little girls! They have to have raising girls perfect by now! My sweet Daddy raised us three girls, plus my Momma, and we had three labs growing up-who were, of course, all girls too! By the way, both of my sisters are getting married this year, and he will still be out numbered thanks to my sweet little girls! We wanted a boy, for my Dad's sake, but he said he wouldn't know what to do with one!!! haha

This year, our little garden is busting at the seams! Our squash and zucchini plants are MASSIVE! I can't begin to describe to you how big they are, but the leaves on those things are bigger than my face!! We have been blessed! With the amount of "zoo-knee-knee and gwash" as Whitley calls it, we've had lots of sautéed veggies, and we needed a new recipe! I love love love muffins for breakfast, and this is the best recipe! It is so moist and just down right yummy! We didn't use any raisins or nuts or anything in this recipe-we didn't have raisins, and Chef W said no to the pecans, so we kept it simple our first go round! Let me know if you love them as much as we do!

Zucchini-Oatmeal Muffins

2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
4 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup oil (I used coconut and my Momma used vegetable-your preference!)
1 1/2 cups shredded, peeled, zucchini
(Optional)
1/2 cup raisins or dates
1/2 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

In a bowl, mix the first six ingredients (flour through cinnamon). Combine eggs and oil, and stir into dry ingredients until just moist. Fold in zucchini, raisins, and nuts. Spoon into greased muffin tin/liners and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes. (I baked mine for 20 minutes!)
Yields 1 1/2 to 2 dozen muffins

Helpful tip-we always use our ice cream scoop to measure out cupcakes and muffins so that all of them are the same size and take the same amount of time to get done! With this recipe, we made 18 regular size, and 18 mini size "cuh-cakes" as Whitley called them!

Hope you enjoy these as much as we do, and if you have an itty bitty that wants to help, we hope that you enjoy the memories made while fixing them!

 This is where my cleanliness kicks in-when the flour and sugar mixture goes everywhere!

BUT! How will she ever learn and get better if I don't let her do it herself!

 

 She was so excited about how the flour sifter worked!

 Ready for the oven Mom!

Homemade Pico de Gallo

Homemade Pico de Gallo

2 1/2 cups diced tomatoes (about 5-6 tomatoes)

1/2 cup fine-diced red onion

1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro

1 small jalapeño, finely minced

1 clove garlic, finely minced

Juice of 1 lime

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Carefully dice the plum tomatoes. An easy method is to quarter the tomatoes and then cut each quarter in half. Dice into small bite-sized pieces. In a medium bowl, add all of the ingredients and toss well to combine. Taste and add additional salt, if needed. Transfer to a serving dish and enjoy with your favorite chips! If you have time, it taste better if it sits for about an hour before eating!

DIY Taco Seasoning

So, Mexican is a favorite in this house. And by favorite, I mean we sometimes have Mexican 2 or more times a week.  There is an amazing new Mexican restaurant here and they have 99 cent Chalupa's on Monday, Taco's on Tuesday, and Enchilada's on Wednesday! Our family can eat for $10 or less!!!  BUT, we do eat Mexican at home a lot too! My handsome man absolutely loves fajitas.  We usually grill flank steak and then grill/sauté peppers and onions! Pardon me while I wipe the drool from my mouth, but when we grill the peppers and onions instead of doing them in the kitchen it makes such a huge difference! I also make my own taco seasoning! So delicious and minus all the crazy chemicals, and you know exactly what is in it. So without further ado, here are recipes for DIY Taco Seasoning, Flank Steak Fajita's, Homemade Pico de Gallo, and Zesty Avocado Chicken Bowls.

DIY Taco Seasoning

(I got this recipe from Pintrest-recipe and photo credit to the blog Family Fresh Meals)

 

 

 

1 Tsp. Garlic Powder

1/2  Tsp. Onion Powder

1 Tsp. Dried Oregano

2 Tsp. Black Pepper

2 Tbsp. Chili Powder

1 Tsp. Paprika

1/2 Tsp. Red Pepper Flakes

2 Tsp. Sea Salt

1 Tbsp. Ground Cumin

 

Mix all ingredients together and store in an old spice jar or an air tight container. When ready to use, use 2 tablespoons per 1 pound of meat.

 

I usually double this recipe and then just store it for later!

 

 

Please forgive me.....

Hello blog world! Please excuse my MAJOR absence! We have been so very busy-with A LOT of new things going on!!! My baby sister went to visit her sweet beau in Alaska-visit her awesome blog and look at all of her blog post and pictures of her "Taking Alaska" HERE! (And as a side note-we've started a craft business too-Anchored Down South-it's on her blog AND you can follow us on instagram too @anchoreddownsouth! I will be adding some of my baby crafts soon!) So, all of December I worked second shift for her! Let me tell you-WOW! This Momma hasn't worked since a few months before my blue eyed baby was born, and while being a stay at home Momma whose married to a hardworking UPS man is hard-being a working Momma is hard too-kudos to all you working Momma's! My sweet handsome man and I had been talking and throwing around a lot of things-having another baby; buying, building, or renting a new house closer to his work; buying a new car, etc. One day my sweet Momma called me up to tell me that she had passed a cute little house that was for rent, and when I saw it-it was perfect!!!!! We cut my man's weekly travel down by 100 MILES!!!! Shortly after we decided to move-which was right before Christmas-I had been feeling really strange, but I chalked it up to stress and the new schedule of working. SURPRISE!!!! It wasn't just crazy life, it was a new life!!!! So, in December, I worked and packed and we moved from a 2 bedroom city house to a 3 bedroom country home with land, just in time to remodel and make room for baby!!!! Life since January has been a lot of nesting-a whole lot!!! I have "decluttered" and downsized and then gone back to what was left and downsized some more! We've painted and carpeted and tiled and fixed lots of little things all while get my 18 month old into her big girl bed AND getting her potty trained! She has been such a good sport.  She loves our new house and our big yard, and she has been extremely easy when it has come to her big girl bed and using the big girl potty! She is growing up, and it just tears my heart to pieces ya'll! We just found out that, like my parents, we will be having a house full of estrogen! Another girl!!!! When I think back to July and the months shortly after when my sweet girl was born, I think of how I just would lay and rock her and watch her sleep.  This time I am very nervous because I have grown very attached to my sweets and she's very attached to me! This time will be different because I have two babies to divide my attention between! Is it possible to love someone as much as I love my Whitley? Questions like this came when about to have my girl, and after she got here I never once asked myself "How can I love her?", so I know that when August comes, all of my fears will subside and I won't question myself like I do now!
This entire year is going to be very busy! My middle sister is getting married July 18, my sweet blue eyed babe will be two July 22, and August 16ish, we will become a family of four!!!! (There are a few other big things going on too, but I can't talk of those just yet!) SO.....I have quite a few recipes to post tonight, but I will do my best to get back to my original "one recipe a week" commitment. We are also going to be trying a monthly meal plan instead of doing it weekly.  I am excited about this! We have done it twice and I seriously loved it, but this time I am going to try to incorporate more healthy meals! We will see how that goes!!!
So, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Valentines Day, Happy St. Patrick's Day, and-finally-Happy April Fools!!!! Thanks for sticking around during my absence! I can't wait to show you some of our new foods!!!