We got home from our trip on Sunday afternoon and had absolutely nothing to eat. After digging through the freezer, fridge and pantry I decided to come up with my own concoction. After J.Paul took a bite he said "You've got to blog about this". He liked it.

It is Toasted Ravioli with chicken and broccoli. If you're interested, it's easy to make, but there are quite a few steps.

for chicken and white sauce: cut chicken into small pieces and cook in olive oil with salt and pepper. When thoroughly cooked, remove chicken and add a couple tablespoons butter to pan. When melted add a couple tablespoons of flour and mix well. Slowly add a can of chicken broth while whisking. Add a little half and half. Add a couple handfuls of grated parmesan cheese. Keep on medium heat to thicken up while toasting ravioli. When sauce is thickened, add chicken.

prepare broccoli to your liking

to toast ravioli: whisk two eggs together with a little half and half. Dip ravioli into egg mixture and then into seasoned bread crumbs. Toast ravioli in olive oil over medium heat. It just takes a couple minutes on each side.

Serve ravioli with broccoli on top then put the chicken and white sauce on top of that.

Hope you like it.

Thanksgiving weekend

Okay so I am notorious for not taking pictures when we go on trips. I remembered to snap a couple on our way down to Georgia but I really wish I would have thought to take a picture of our Thanksgiving spread. My brothers Wade and Reed and their families were going down to Disney world and planned to stop at my sister's in the Atlanta area for Thanksgiving and head on down to Orlando the next day. So, a few more of us decided to join in for the fun. I think there were close to 40 people there. We had a great time. On Saturday morning we woke up and headed to J.Paul's grandparents in Linden, TN. We got there just in time to eat another delicious Thanksgiving dinner. Needless to say, we were a little tired by the time we got home Sunday afternoon but it was all worth it. It's great to spend time with family.

This picture was taken outside of Birmingham. You can't really tell from the picture how pretty all the changing leaves were but it was really a beautiful drive.

Game On!

So we are slightly addicted to a game called The Settlers of Catan. I would say we used to be highly addicted but just haven't been able to feed the addiction as much lately with J.Paul's crazy school schedule. We used to get together with my brother and sister-in-law, Chad & Kristy, every Friday night. Now we're lucky if we can get in 1-2 games a month. The thing that makes Settlers so fun is that the game changes every time because of the way you set it up. We played Saturday night and I won the first game and J.Paul won the second game. Yes, the Beelers dominated. You also may notice the chips and salsa, those are required for play. Also cookies are usually a staple but we didn't have any the other night. If you've never played this game I highly recommend it. Just be ready to play for a while - the average game takes about an hour and a half. This picture is of Chad being beaten twice in a row. See how baffled he is? He thinks he usually wins. We also like to play with Amanda and Michelle who we look forward to beating over the Christmas vacation. :)

Silly Amzie

Yesterday morning my visiting teachers were over and I was sitting talking with them and Amzie was playing with one of their little boys. While they were here it started raining pretty hard and the next thing we know Amzie was ready to go play in the rain. As you see, she still had her pajamas on and she went and found her red shoes and umbrella and proceeded to go outside. Later that day, when giving her a bath, she decided she needed to wear her shades. And she did the whole time until I shampooed her hair.

Amzieisms

Amzie says some of the funniest things and I wanted to write some of them down before I forget.

1. chocolate milk is "cold hot chocolate"

2. a tissue is "tennis shoe"

3. past tense of make is muck, for example "mommy, Evan muck a mess"

4. every time she wants to say "I forgot" it's "I got to forgot"

5. mowing the grass "moving the grass"

6. every time she gets in bed it's "mommy, I want you to laid with me"

7. breakfast is "bretis" and cereal is "cimeal"

8. every time I tell her to be quiet her reply is "Who's sleeping" as if the only time you need to not be screaming at the top of your lungs is if someone's asleep.

Green Tomatoes

Our garden continued to grow this summer after we were over it. Well should I say after I was over it and J.Paul was too busy to do anything about it. Mainly it was the okra that we just let go. But the other day (we're in November, mind you) we noticed we have a few green tomatoes just a-growin'. J.Paul said Amzie and I needed to collect them. My mamaw says that she remembers picking green tomatoes before the frost and letting them ripen inside and having tomatoes well into the winter. We got about 1/3 of a paper bag full. We'll see what happens.

Sleeping Amzie (finally)

I've mentioned before that Amzie's not a big fan of going to sleep. She has all the delay tactics down pat. The other night I heard all of them 100 times each. After at least 1 hr. 15 min., I didn't hear any noise. When I went to check on her, this is what I found.

That's right, she's sleeping on the hard floor. I guess she just couldn't get comfortable on her soft warm bed with her blankets and pillows. Also, these aren't the pajamas I put her to bed in - they were pink. Hmmm...

Isn't this monkey irresistable?

Okay, sorry I couldn't resist the urge to put a couple more pictures of Evan in his monkey outfit. He was just too cute.

Trick or Treat

These are the kiddos on Halloween. They had a good time. Evan didn't seem to mind his monkey costume as much this time around. I just put him in the stroller when we went trick or treating and he was content. We went with the Waites in their neighborhood. Amzie and Eden had fun screaming out "Trick or Treat" as long as nobody was really at the door yet, when someone came they seemed a little more reserved about it. They especially enjoyed looking at all the fun Halloween decorations at the houses. And we had perfect weather. It's finally cooling off here and feeling like fall.