Special Holiday Meals: National Fried Chicken Day

National Fried Chicken Day is the day we celebrate the deliciousness of fried chicken. Click here to learn more about this holiday. It is celebrated on July 6th. This might be Mr. Awesome’s favorite summer holiday, but boy, do I abhor frying chicken in the heat!

National Fried Chicken Menu

Fried Chicken

Mashed Potatoes, Mac N Cheese

Greens, Baked Beans, Creamed corn

Biscuits or Waffles with honey on the side

Peach Cobbler w/vanilla ice cream

Here are a couple of alternative recipes:

 Keto Fried Chicken Gizzards

Oven Fried Chicken


 Below are some recipes I found to celebrate this day:

(Use at your own discretion.)

Crispy Fried Chicken Recipe – Allrecipes.com

Crispy Fried Chicken Recipe | Taste of Home

Fried Chicken Recipe | Food Network

Skillet-Fried Chicken Recipe – BettyCrocker.com

Mama’s Fried Chicken Recipe | MyRecipes

Southern Fried Chicken recipe | Epicurious.com

Also check out:

Fried chicken on YouTube

Family Outing: Jacksonville Zoo 6/10/2017

Well a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we had a special outing planned. Unfortunately we did not get to go the weekend we planned to go because of the weather. We did go this past weekend and it was so much fun!

As you can imagine trying to take a many kids as we did (we took 7 kids, ages 4-14) can be a bit daunting but we managed. One of my sisters was also able to join us which helped out alot. Continue reading “Family Outing: Jacksonville Zoo 6/10/2017”

May 28, 2017

I pray you are all having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. This past month has been extremely busy around here with this past week being the busiest of all. It has been a blast though and many memories have been made.

Our homeschool will be wrapping up this coming week with a special surprise outing planned as a treat. We are all looking forward to just having a little fun and maybe getting to relax a bit.

My youngest child just turned 4 this month! I can hardly believe how fast time has flown and how much has changed since the day we brought him home. My kids amaze me everyday and I am so blessed to be able to stay at home and watch them as they learn and grow.

My oldest son came to visit this past week! Yay! We had not seen him in almost 4 years because of his employment. He also brought along his beautiful wife, my first daughter in law, who I had not met before. We had such a great time. It was hard to say goodbye but I know that they will be back soon. All we can do is trust that God will watch over them and keep them safe along life’s journey.

Amongst all of the visiting, homeschooling, and other normal routines of the house I also had my square dancing. Ahhh… if anyone had told me a few months ago how involved I would become in square dancing I wouldn’t have believed them. I probably would’ve laughed a little but it is amazing how things can sometimes just fall into place.

Our club in Starke, the Silver Fox Squares, has been very busy and we dance every Friday night. We have also had some special dances, visitations, and other activities that we attended throughout the month including a Luau and a banner raid. I have earned two new dangles this month. As the publicity chairman for the club I am constantly busy with updating the sites, planning new events, and looking for new ideas.

In addition to the Friday nights, we also have dances and classes on Tuesday nights in Fort White. We have been trying to recruit new dancers and had a covered dish dinner on the first night of class. So far we have a couple of couples who have come to join us and we are looking forward to seeing some new faces this coming week.

And then we have the Clay Allemanders in Middleburg on Mondays. Our caller and co-caller from the Silver Fox Squares are the callers there as well. This club has also been extremely busy with the transition to the new callers and the fact that we moved to a new dance location this month.

I am also the caller’s assistant to one of the callers so I have been busy with a few other details as well. We went to visit the Grand Squares, in Gainesville, earlier in the month and I got to meet a lot of new people. He was also able to reconnect with some people he had not seen in awhile. Square dancing has definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone, in a good way, and allowed me to expand my horizons and meet a lot of new people.

My youngest son, and my oldest son and his wife, attended the dance this past Tuesday. It was a lot of fun to have some of my children there. My little one didn’t make it through the night before he curled up and fell asleep. My oldest however did seem to enjoy himself and caught on quite quickly. I hope to be able to expose my children to it a little bit at a time and eventually get them involved more with square dancing.

I have been trying to squeeze in some blogging between all of the different activities that are going on. I have so many drafts started that it would make you go cross eyed if you could see them. The topics are quite varied as well because I get so many ideas and just try to write them down as I think of them. I hope you all have enjoyed the ones I have managed to publish and I pray that you do find something that helps you or inspires you in some way.

As i write this and think about it I am completely amazed at the awesomeness of God! He has a plan for each of us and He knows what He is doing. He has been working in my life in so many ways and He has been preparing me for where I am now for quite some time. All I had to do was let go and trust Him to guide me to where I needed to be.

Well, my little one just climbed up on the stool beside me and is sneaking sips of my cold coffee. Another one has mentioned that he was ready for snack a minute ago so I will get off of here and set out some snacks for them to hopefully hold them over until lunch time. I pray you all have a blessed day and week to come!

Yellow Rocks (hugs) to all!

Links to club updates will be posted soon:

Silver Fox Squares: June 2017 Updates

Clay Allemanders: June 2017 Updates

March 16, 2017

I had planned on putting together a study unit for Easter, similar to what we had done for Advent, but it didn’t happen. It is still in the works and I will continue to work on it a little at a time. I’ll also be sure to share it with you all as well.

This Easter was a little crazy as I’ve had two children who have been consistently trying my patience on a daily basis. I know this is just a phase and it will pass soon but it had been utterly exhausting.

Luckily I have family and friends to support me and offer advice. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just take a step back and look at things through someone else’s eyes.

We have truly been blessed with the friends we have and there is one person in particular who has went above and beyond to help me lately. He may never know what a blessing he has been to me and my family over the past couple of months. He is so awesome with my kids that it is truly a blessing.

He is a constant source of encouragement and he motivates me to be a better person. The crazy thing is that we probably never would’ve met had I stuck to my idea of what I thought I needed. God knew all along and has so far exceeded my ideas and expectations, just as he always does. It is so amazing to see what God does when you let go and hand your life over to him.

So getting back to Easter, we didn’t do a big get to together or go visiting like we normally do. We stayed at home and had a small cookout with family. It was nice and it was simple.

My older kids did hide some eggs for the younger ones yesterday. The younger kids were too smart and found them all in a minute or two. This prompted the older ones to ‘up their game’ and rehide them so they could have more of a challenge. The challenge was accepted and they found them again super quickly.

It was time to eat after the second go round and everyone was starving. My youngest two surprised everyone with the amount of food they ate yesterday and the lack of complaining about what they didn’t want to eat.

Of course, the kids were all super excited and didn’t want to go to bed. They were hoping to see the Easter Bunny… and get lots of candy.

Well this morning they awoke to a big Easter basket on the kitchen island. It had a small toy for each child and some candy and games as well. I decided several years ago that doing one basket was much easier than individual baskets. I also want to try to keep the focus on the real reason for Easter which does not involve a bunny or candy.

After breakfast we had a mini lesson using our Resurrection Eggs that I found at the thrift store last year. I will post a few pics at the end of the post. We went over the meaning of each item and talked about the real meaning of Easter before letting them inspect the basket.

We didn’t buy new Easter outfits, I had thought about it though, as we could all still wear the outfits we bought for big sisters wedding last year. My dress hadn’t even been worn, or tried on until yesterday, as I had decided on a different dress.  I did find a couple of cute hats for the girls that match with their dresses too.

Later this afternoon, probably after nap time, we will make the Empty Tomb Rolls. I usually try to make them the day before but it just didn’t happen this time around. I will go over the Easter story again while we assemble the rolls.

Then hopefully we will get to color some eggs later on this afternoon as ‘Mr. Awesome’ has said he will come by later today to help with that. I will try to add some of those pics to this post as well.

Life is never going to be perfect and things are going to happen beyond our control. So we need to stop waiting for that ‘perfect moment’ and just live in this moment. Stop procrastinating and looking for excuses as to why you can’t do things. Instead focus on ways to make things possible in some way, shape, or form. Make those special memories and be sure to let each and every person around you know how much they mean to you.

We are living in uncertain times right now and we have never been promised a tomorrow. So take a moment to appreciate all that you have been blessed with and cherish this moment and time in your life.

I pray that you have all had a very blessed Easter!

It took forever to get a decent picture where almost everyone was smiling and (almost) looking in the same direction. Big sister didn’t want to wear her matching dress which was OK. The little girls had snuck into some chocolate while I was getting ready. They smeared their chocolate hands on the fronts of their dresses too. We got them spot cleaned and off to church we went. It was really nice to have 6 of my 9 kids in church with me today too.  While at church the same two girls tore holes in their dresses…. I will have my work cut out for me trying to repair them… but that’s life!

We did make some Empty Tomb Rolls after nap time. This was a fun experience and the kids helped assembling the roles while discussing the meaning of each ingredient. Then they had them for a snack.

We also managed to squeeze in some egg coloring! Oh what a fun day we had!

S’mores

Who doesn’t love a campfire with and roasting marshmallows? We try to have a ‘Weenie Roast‘ every few months and let the kids roast their hot dogs and marshmallows on a stick. They love it!

We also do this at least one night when we go camping. I am so ready to go right now! S’mores are the best when you take a freshly roasted marshmallow from the campfire but you can also make them in the microwave if you don’t happen to have a campfire handy.

Have you tried S’mores Dip yet? Continue reading “S’mores”