Mama Knows Best

Ethan, Addison and I have been decorating the house for Christmas. I have spent the past three days chasing Addison around the house, removing Christmas ornaments from her hands and loving every minute of it. Thanksgiving morning, my babies slept in until around 10:00 a.m., which gave me plenty of time to get some of my Christmas wrapping done. Of course, just as I get caught up.. I fall behind again do to Black Friday shopping. I snagged up some awesome deals, checked about five people off of my list and even managed to get several of those presents wrapped.  I am anticipating the moment when it will be safe to put the presents under the tree.

And to celebrate our holiday success, we went out to dinner and finished up with a little bit of shopping afterward to pick out Christmas ornaments. When Ethan was born, I decided to carry on the tradition of purchasing Christmas ornaments for my children. Ethan picked out the Frosty the Snowman ornament for himself and Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer for his sister. And mommy even managed to purchase a few new ornaments for herself.

After a great night out with the kids, I came home only to discover that our water softener overflowed all over the laundry room.

Heavenly Father, on Thanksgiving Day
We bow our hearts to You and pray.
We give You thanks for all You’ve done
Especially for the gift of Jesus, Your Son.
For beauty in nature, Your glory we see
For joy and health, friends and family,
For daily provision, Your mercy and care
These are the blessings You graciously share.
So today we offer this response of praise
With a promise to follow You all of our days.

–Mary Fairchild

Today, as with every day, I have a lot of reasons to give thanks.  I have an amazing family and circle of friends, a roof over my head, food in my belly and two amazing children.  I am thankful for my father’s successful surgery and that he’s here to celebrate this day with me.  I am thankful to Linda, our pediatrician, for never doubting me when it came to Addison’s health.  I am grateful for Granny and Dummy, for babysitting the munchkins while I go to school.  I am thankful for God. Happy Thanksgiving y’all, from my family to yours!

Ethan is officially potty trained, y’all. He could probably even go through the night without a pull-up, but to err on the side of caution, I leave him in one. He is quite proud of himself and loves to call people into the bathroom to check it out.

And as promised to him a long time ago, I took him shopping to pick out a new toy. Out of all the toys he could pick out, he wanted a cash register. Yes, that’s right. He wanted one of those toy cash registers, completely with the pop-up receipt and barcode scanner. Definitely did not see that one coming, but whatever makes him happy. He’s quite an easy little guy to please.

Aside from his potty training success, he is also learning how to pick up after himself. Not that he hasn’t been all along, but now it’s more to my standards. I know, I know.. I’m too anal about things. But he officially puts his shoes and coat away where they belong.

I am so proud of how responsible my little guy is becoming!

During the holidays, you can find the vast majority of my family congregated around the island in the kitchen munching away on the snacks, courtesy of my mother and grandmother and chit-chatting about the current on-goings. My fondest holiday memories come from within those congregations in the kitchen.

My grandmother, bless her heart, always puts together the best snack trays for us to sample from. One of my favorites is the tray of summer sausage, cheese and crackers. For as long as I can remember, my grandmother would travel about an thirty minutes away to purchase the Hickory Farm brand of summer sausage and cheese from the mall’s Hickory Farm stand. I never really understood this until recently.

I was given the opportunity to do a review of Hickory Farm’s summer sausage and cheese gift basket. I decided that since I was reviewing these products, I should probably do them justice by trying another brand of summer sausage, so that I had something to compare to. Hands down, Hickory Farms summer sausage is the better choice when it comes to summer sausage. The brand I chose to compare it to left the most disgusting, filmy taste/feeling on the roof of my mouth after eating a couple of bites. As for the cheese, I am not much of a cheese person, but the Apple Pie Cheddar cheese was delicious. I’m not a huge fan of the Sharp Wisconsin Cheddar on my crackers, but I did grate it down to use elsewhere and it was great. My hubby and son have taken a liking to the Pennsylvania Dutch Edam.

If you are looking for a quick snack idea or a great gift, visit the Hickory Farm’s website for more gift basket ideas!

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Hickory Farms and received a Hickory Farms gift basket to facilitate my review.”