A Few Good Recipes

No pictures in this post tonight!  I mainly just wanted to get these recipes typed up so I can have easy access to them instead of having them on little pieces of paper laying around. 

I love this chocolate pie recipe.  It tastes so very traditional and quite a few people have told me it tastes exactly the way their grandmother made it!  It came from a lovely old cafe that used to be in our hometown a long time ago.

West Gadsden Cafe Chocolate Pie

1/2 stick butter

5 Tbspoons Cocoa Powder

4 egg yolks, beaten

4 Tbspoons corn starch

2 cups whole milk

1 cup sugar

*Whisk all ingredients in a saucepan on medium heat until it thickens.  Before putting the egg yolks into the pan, make sure you temper them with a bit of the hot chcolate mixture so they won't scramble when you add them to the pan.  Stirring the mixture until it thickens  will be a gradual process.  Whisk constantly until it slowly turns to a pudding-like consistency.

*Pour into a baked pie shell.

*To make the meringue, whisk the 4 egg whites with 1/3 cup of sugar until stiff peaks form.  Mound onto the hot, chocolate pie and bake at 350 for about 5-10 minutes, until it's light brown on the top.

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I found this random recipe for muffins on the back of a piece of paper.  It's a weight watchers recipe and they are so good!  The pumpkin makes them extra-moist!

Spice Muffins

1 box spice cake mix

1 15 oz. canned pumpkin

1/2 splenda or sugar

1 cup water

2 egg whites

*Mix all ingredients together with a hand mixer.  Pour into muffin tin and bake at 350 for around 32 minutes. 

*Makes 24 muffins at 2 points a piece.  Yummy!  The reason I don't have a picture to share is because we ate them up so quickly.  Both boys LOVED them!

Spring

Slowly but surely there are signs of Spring all around us.  Although, you wouldn't know it this past weekend due to the freezing temperatures!  We have had some nice, warm days though! 

I noticed the trees are starting to bloom and have some buds forming...

We've had some nice days to play at the park and slide,

and swing

and slide some more!

I'm so excited for the warm weather, although by this summer I'm sure I'll be complaining non-stop about being in my 3rd trimester and the weather being so hot!  Hello large air conditioning bill!

Matthew's First Haircut!

It was definitely time for Matthew to have his first haircut.  I simply cannot cut off these sweet baby curls on any of my boys when they're little, so I just do a wee little trim so they still have their curls!  I took Matthew after we dropped JM off at Mother's Day Out and he did SO well!  Both of my boys are little angels when you put them in that seat to get their haircut....a sucker helps a lot though!

He sat up there ready to go! 

He was so happy to get a sucker.

 

I think he would have done anything for a sucker.  He was just so good!

He needed a trim, but his sweet little curls are still there!  I've noticed his hair is getting lighter and lighter lately, so who knows, it might be dark blond during the summer!

Happy First haircut Matthew!

It's the little things...

Often it's the little things in life that bring the biggest smiles....

bedtime Angry Birds, bedtime stories and our nightly Bible stories with prayers that John Michael says to us warm my heart each and every night and make me love my man even more.  It's always a precious time!

Bowling Fun!

The weekend after we got back from Disney we took the boys to the bowling alley for the first time.  We had been playing bowling on Wii ALL winter long and we knew they would love it!  Matthew was a bit distracted because of all the bowling balls.  Everything to him lately is "ball, ball, ball" so he had a had time concentrating, plus all the balls were too heavy for him to actually play with!

John Michael was really excited for his first bowling experience!

I'll have to say, Jordan did most of the actual "work" on this one!  He took the boys up to the line and helped them with the bowling ball the whole time!

Matthew wanted to get all the bowling balls!

But, he was ready for his turn.  He did a pretty good job!

 

The scores weren't all that bad for bowling with 2 little children!

 

We all had a really good time and it was fun to be back spending quality time with our little ones!  We'll definitely have to go back again soon!

Last Disney Post, Promise!!

On our last day we were definitely ready to come home to the boys!  We went to Magic Kingdom first and rode a few rides for a second time and just walked around a bit.

We took the train around the park for something fun to do.  We were able to walk right onto the Pirates boat ride.

 

 

We got tired after we had done a few things so we watched a parade, got some ice cream and then decided to go to Disney Hollywood Studios for the last part of the afternoon!  It started turning really, really cold by the end of that afternoon and since we didn't have any set plans and bring any coats with us, we were cold!

We left Hollywood Studios and after some confusing transit time on multiple buses we finally made it back to Downtown Disney.  I had read about a place called "Earl of Sandwich" and so we decided to give it a try.  It was SOOOO good.  We inhaled our warm, toasted sandwiches so fast that I couldn't even get a picture until there was nothing but crumbs left.  It was so good.  Our second favorite meal at Disney!  YUM!

Sadly, we made our way back to our resort to start packing.  During the day they had delivered all of our information about check-out including what to do with our bags and when to have our bags to the bell hop out front.  We packed and then woke up the next morning and had breakfast in the big, big main dining hall and checked out and waited for our Magical Express bus to take us to the airport.  Before we left we bought a few tiny trinkets for the boys in the gift shop, which they have basically already broken by now!

I'm so glad we took a fun trip by ourselves!  It was a fun, random place to go but we had such a good time!  I enjoyed getting to just sit and talk with my sweet husband.  Those times are few and far between here lately.  Until we meet again Mickey!

Even More Disney

On this random day we woke up to rain.  We lucked out and got a last-minute reservation at the Polynesian for the character breakfast.  We loved it last time and we loved it just as much this time!  The food is really good and we just love the atmosphere.  We know the boys are going to love it whenever we go back!

It was rainy and a little cold so we just took our time at the Polynesian and browsed through a gift shop.  About the time we were done the sun was coming out, so we took a bus over to Animal Kingdom.

 

I love the lobby at the Polynesian!  It's so pretty!

We weren't up for doing too much on this day.  Neither one of us had ever gone to Animal Kingdom, so we just did a quick little tour through the park.

I was super excited to go see the Nemo show.  I love it!  I mean, I really, really loved it!  I wanted to see it again, but there was a big break in between shows.

The show was wonderful and since we watch Nemo almost everyday around here, I really enjoyed it.  It's a must-see!

I couldn't ride a lot of the rides there so we just walked around and then took a bus back to our resort to eat lunch.  The rest of the day was spent napping, reading books and magazines and we even ordered in a pizza to our room so we could be extra-lazy!  It felt wonderful to not really do anything for half of a day!

Disney Day 3, Epcot!

We started full day 3 at a bright and early start of around 11!  No early rising for us!  We headed to Epcot, walked in, got our locker for the day (we had a bag full of clothes to change into for our dinner reservations), and headed straight back to our favorite ride, NEMO!

 

First things first, we got a FastPass for "Soarin'".  It told us to come back in like 4 hours!

After the Nemo ride you get to go look at the aqarium the ride is built around.  We saw some awesome manatees and we even got to see them eating.  They look so cool close up!

We next watched the dolpins playing.  I'm not sure I really realized how big they were until I got super-close up with them!

We found a hidden Mickey at the bottom of the aquarium!

Next, we toured The Land and we saw another Mickey made out of plants.  I might make me sound old, but I love to ride through this ride and see all the different plants and flowers they are working on at Epcot!

After eating lunch at The Land pavilion we wandered back to the different countries in the back of Epcot.  We leisurely walked around and then headed back to use our FastPass for "Soarin'"

We stopped off at our locker and ate a little snack and then headed to the monorail to go to the Grand Floridian for dinner at Citricos!

Who doesn't love the beautiful Grand Floridian?!  It's so pretty and grand!  I love to just go and sit and people watch!  On our last trip we dined at the Grand Floridian at Narcoossee's and it was really good.  This time we chose the other restaurant at GF, Citricos.

We had an early reservation and got seated right by a window with a great view!  I read that Citricos was one of the best-kept dining secrets at Disney and we definitely agree!

I went out on a limb and ate veal and it was wonderful.  It was a very large serving and I wanted to make room for dessert, so I only ate a little of mine.  It was a shame because it just fell apart on my fork it was so tender!

We can't remember exactly what Jordan had, but it was also wonderful!

Now, for dessert!  Jordan got a lemon cheesecake and he loved it as well!

Now, MY dessert was to die for.  I would say this was an excellent tiramisu.  One of the best I've ever had.  I had some wonderful french press coffee to go with it!

I mean honestly, doesn't that look wonderful?!

We enjoyed our dessert and coffee and took our time and then noticed it was time for the fireworks at Magic Kingdom!  We could see about 1/2 of Cinderella's Castle from our seats!  It was fun to see the fireworks while we finished dessert.

After dinner we strolled through the lobby and listened to the live band before heading back to our resort.

We had an excellent dinner and it was such a nice way to end our day at Epcot!

Disney Day 2

So our first full day at Disney was a Sunday.  We had no big schedules so we slept in and usually made it to a park around 11.  Can't beat that!

Of course we went to The Magic Kingdom first!  We never really had any problems with any of the buses from our resort.  Of course, this was off-season but we never had to wait very long for a bus to any park.

We were super-excited to be heading to our first park together!  Because we didn't have a stroller or anything like that, we ended up renting a locker at each park for around $7 a day.  On our last day we found out that if you rent a locker you can use it at any park that day.  So if you start out at Epcot and then go to Magic Kingdom, you can also use a locker at Magic Kingdom and not have to pay anything extra.  It just worked out easier for us to keep some waters and sandwiches and sunscreen in our locker instead of having to tote it around.

 

We got a FastPass first then went to Small World and Snow White! FastPass is your friend, use it!  I know it helped us get through the rides we wanted to ride while we did other things.

We brought Goober Grape sandwiches to tide us over and then we had a pretty good hot dog meal that we split.  After lunch we headed over to Adventure Land to ride Pirates of the Caribbean!

 

We got a FastPass for the Jungle Cruise.  By this time we were about done.  It was HOT!  It was around 88 toward the end of this day.

I love these baby elephants on the Jungle Cruise.  They're too cute!

I kept reading about something called a Dole Whip, so I knew I had to get one!  You can only get them in two places on the whole property.  We got one on our way out.  It was good but it was sooo sweet.  Think pineapple juice with pineapple soft serve on top!

We went back to Port Orleans and got ready for our dinner reservation at Epcot.  We ate at the French Pavilion at Les Chefs deFrance and I was NOT at all impressed.  There was a huge page of people in front of us even though we had a reservation.  We didn't wait long but I just didn't like the food at all.  It was just OK and for the price we paid, I was NOT happy!  I don't think we'll be back to that one!

On the way out of Epcot we walked right onto Spaceship Earth in the big ball.  There wasn't a soul around so we went ahead and rode it while we could!  It was a fun first full day at Disney!