October Happenings!

Since it's Halloween, I want to get all of the pictures caught up and posted so I can have a fresh start for November :)  Well, actually, that wont be the case because we are going to have more pictures tonight after trick or treating to share as well!  At least I will have these off my camera and posted for now.

We have had a great October with lots of fun and excitement.  We got to see DOLLY earlier this month which was such a great way to start the Fall season, we've had pumpkins, and parties, SO much fun!  

I loved this little picture of this pumpkin below.  It's kinda hard to see, but it was Ella's pumpkin from her field trip to the pumpkin patch and she decided to draw him a little face.  The glare makes it hard to see, but it's super adorable!

And these next ones are from Ella's Halloween party at pre-school..

First they had a little parade and then each of the kids got to stand up and show their costumes to each other..

She decided to dress as a fairy for this party.  It was a little Dora fairy outfit!  

 Ella and her friend Karissa!

 Back to the class for snacks and a party!

 My pretty fairy!

 Then, on Thursday night, I took Ella and Noah to the "spooktacular stories" at the library.  Randy was out of town with work again, so it was just me and the kiddos, but we had a great time!!

Ella dressed as a "Barbie Princess"

 Ella volunteered to help for one of the stories!

 She was the Jack-O-Lantern!

 Then on the way home, we swung through Krispy Kream for a donut!! ;)

 My two little cuties getting their teeth brushed and ready for bed!

Hope you are all having a great time today and lots of fun tonight!! We're off for the festival and some Trick or Treating tonight!!! :)

Busted!

Fall Chocolates don't last very long....

with little people in the house!

But wait.....

how in the world...did Noah reach the chocolates sitting on the end table..out of his reach?????

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Must have had some help!

Cookin' Up Collards!

I don't think I've posted about it much on here, but I have been shopping our local farmers market alot lately.  They have so much fresh, yummy, produce for awesome prices.  I had also set a goal for our family to start buying all of our meat from local farmers only instead of local grocery stores.  I'm SO excited that for last month or so we have not purchased anything besides turkey lunch meat from the store.  Still haven't figured out a replacement for that yet!  We are loving it.  I love picking up my meat and having it handed to me by the actual farmer and his wife! They are so sweet and take such good care of their farm and animals.  Their slogan is "Our cows don't do drugs!" Anyways, I'm on a huge rabbit trail.  That's a whole different post...where was I?? Oh! COLLARD GREENS!

While I was at the market on Saturday, there were huge crates of beautiful, fresh collard greens.  I wont even tell you about the conversation I had with the farmer, but it ended with him saying, "You aren't from North Carolina, are you?".  He convinced me that I could cook up a big pot of collards and make Randy proud. And I did!  Randy LOVES them so he was so excited when I came home with a shopping bag stuffed full of them.  

I had some ideas about how to cook them, but I also knew that my friend Amy would be able to set me straight with this one.  She was born in Mobil, Alabama and although I've never eaten at her mother's table, I know from stories that she is an amazing Southern cook.  So Amy sent me a nice set of instructions and I got to work.  The next day I was also able to get some more pointers from her mom through facebook.  The thing I have loved about trying new recipes, is that everyone has their own version..each a little different.  It's so fun to see which you like best. SO!  I'm going to share with you a little mix of what I learned from both Amy and her mom Jackie..and then how I did my pot.

The first and most common tip from EVERYONE I meet is this.  wash, WASH, wash!!  Triple wash.  So I soaked mine in the sink all morning while I was at church and then gave each one an individual rinse and look over.  Can I just tell you though, that mine were sooo clean before I started. They had obviously had a really good wash at the farm.

Next, I used a tip from my receptionist at work (wish I had taken a pic of this part!).  I stacked several leaves on top of each other and chopped of the thick stem at the bottom.  Then I rolled them like a burrito and chopped them longways once or twice.  Next time I am going to try it the way Mrs. Garvin suggested and just pull each side of the leaf right off the stem and throw all the stems out!

Here's one of the places I changed mine up.  Amy's suggestion was to heat up my stock pot with a little EVOO and saute some chopped onion first.  I forgot to buy an onion so I couldn't do this, but I definitely will next time.  Instead, I just dumped all of my greens into the pot and filled it up with half chicken stock and half water.

I also added a little bit of fresh, chopped, garlic into the pot.  This wasn't suggested to me, but since I didn't have any onion..and I really love garlic, I though it would be yummy.  I left the pieces pretty big though so they wouldn't be too strong.

Also, you have to add some sort of meat for flavor.  Both Amy and her mom suggested either smoked turkey wings, turkey legs, or ham hocks.  This time I went with a ham hock.  Also, Amy's mom suggested cooking the ham hock in covered water for an hour or so until it was nice and tender and then adding your greens.  I actually just plopped mine right in there, but I knew that I was going to just let mine cook low and slow for awhile.  The flavor from the ham hock was soooo yummy!

I just smushed it down under there. I also added salt, pepper, and some apple cider vinegar to the water as well.  (Per Amy's suggestion)  Then I let them come to a boil, reduced the heat, and let them simmer for awhile.  They cooked down a ton, but still made lots! I also roasted some potatoes, and had some ribs in the oven.  Loved it because I just prepped the whole thing right when we got home from church, went with a friend to speak to some college girls at ECU and then came home to a delicious dinner!

Here's the final view of the pot:

And the whole meal (but not plated fancy or anything!  We were ready to dig in!)

Yum, yum! Thanks again for all of the pointers from Jackie Garvin and Amy Garvin Wren!
So tell me, how do you cook your collards??  Any thing else you like to add to the pot?  I have another batch to cook up again soon!

Fall Pictures

While my mom was in town, we went to visit one of our favorite photographers!  Mom wanted some updated Halloween/Fall pictures so she took advantage of the chance to get some while she was here.  We had a photo shoot with our good family friend, Jennifer Kent of Jennography and she did an AMAZING job (as usual).  She photographed me while I was pregnant with Noah, then again for a newborn shoot, and actually once again to capture some special moments of Noah and I when he was only a few months old.  She has been so good to us and we are always thrilled with the pictures she produces!

Some of the pics are on facebook, but you can also check out her blog here and see a post she did and some of the pictures as well!

HAT Hair!

Silly Ella had fun trying on wigs in Target the other day..she's our little clown!

Catalyst Unload!

So we've been home from Catalyst now for several days and my brain feels like it's overwhelmed!  Trying to process things and put into action the stuff I learned.  We had SO much fun!  The speakers were amazing!  My favorites were probably (in random order) Perry Noble, Francis Chan, Beth Moore, Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschel.  TD Jakes was pretty awesome, too.  Who am I kidding..they were all pretty amazing and passionate about the topics they spoke on.

Along with some pictures, I thought I would share some of my favorite notes.

* Our hunger for more progress, achievement, respect, fame, growth, money, responsibility, ect. will always be hungry. These hungers are never fully and finally satisfied.  They will always whisper to us now and not later.  - Andy Stanley

*Francis Chan spoke about his family selling their house and leaving for another country.  They're not sure how long they'll be gone or where they'll go after the 2 months that they plan to be there, but they are trusting that God is going to show them where they need to be.  My favorite point he made was that people (we) look at him and people like him as if they are crazy.  We think they are strange and out of their minds to not know where they are going to live.  But if you look through the Bible, it would not seem strange at all.  In fact, it would look completely normal.  It really challenged me to walk by faith a little more and get out of my own comfort zone.

*Perry Noble really blew me away!  He spoke out of 1 Kings 17:7 where Elijah gets to the brook and it's dry.  He talked about "dry" spells in our own churches or lives and how we feel like it's a dead end.  His reminder was that God could have brought Elijah to the brook to prepare him for bigger and better things  to come.  Not to punish him, but to make him fully reliant on God as his "water supply" instead of the brooks physical water supply.  With God our supply is never dry!  (Ad in our churches we sometimes feel dry when we are having low attendance or low offerings, but we are depending on that as our supply instead of God). He ended with "You are a follower of Jesus. Jesus is not a quitter. NO giving up!"

*Sometimes we separate ourselves too much from culture and the world as if they are our enemy.  Instead of just talking and watching, this new generation is diving in and helping the needy and the broken.   Remember our most important goal is to spread the good news even if it's out of our comfort zone. 2 Cor 5:20 - Gabe Lyons

*Craig Groeschel spoke to the audience as either the "older generation" or the "younger generation"
For the older people, some of his points were:
-Do not resent or judge the next generation
-Believe in them and invest in them
-Be authentic
-Delegate authority within your church to make new leaders out of the younger generation
-"If you are not dead, you are not done!"
For the younger people, some of his points were:
-Loose your sense of entitlement!
-Stop overestimating what God wants to do with you in the short run, because it causes you to loose out in the long run. Be patient and let things happen in God's time.
-Be careful not to dishonor spiritual believers above you.
-When we truly honor God, we will learn to truly honor the leaders before us.
- "Public honor leads to private influence!"

*Td Jakes' topic was "Great Leadership Requires Great Risk"
-Get out of your safety zone and go spread the gospel. (Get off your "corner")
-Risk be "shot at"
-Don't let things push you back into your corner.  People who play it safe are not leaders.
-Only the church doesn't take the time to learn the language of the masses.
-"If you always do what you always do, you will always be there!!"
-Fruit is born when differences come together.
-Go out and fly like an eagle.  Don't be a chicken.


There is so much more, but I picked these because they are all so practical.  We also got to hear from several really great ministries that were so amazing.  I will share more on some of those soon. But for now, here are some pics and video :)

Also, through Carlos Whittaker's twitter, Randy found an awesome opportunity to play guitar at Catalyst. He was so excited about this!! He had to go to a late night practice the first night we got in town and also had to be up and at practice at 6:00am the next morning.  We were all tired, but it was definitely worth it for him to have this amazing experience.  I only had video on my phone and it came out sooo blurry, but thankfully a friend of Randy's from Wilson Community Church documented his whole experience.  They got a really good shot of the guys playing on stage at the end.  You'll have to follow this link to see it.  Hopefully it works :)
 http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=515815081153&ref=mf

Fall Field Trip

Ella had her first field trip this year with her Pre-School class at St. Tims.  Noah and I decided to come along and we also stopped to pick up Ella's friend Karissa from church.  Ella and Karissa are in the same class this year so we thought it would be fun to carpool!  The girls had SO much fun and Noah loved it, too!

Ella and her classmates :)

 Making her way through the corn maze!

 The kids were so busy I could barely get good pic of them picking! 

 Milking a pretend COW!

Happy Fall Ya'll!