Trip to TN

We went to TN this past weekend to visit with family. We left Friday at lunch time and make great time. The reasons we had to stop were because of me and my small bladder. Abigail slept for 2 ½ hours of the 4 hour trip. She is a great traveler; I think this is good practice for our upcoming trip to the beach in September. I can’t wait! I am in much need of a beach trip; it has been over a year since I have seen the ocean. We went on our “baby moon” in March prior to having Abbyroo, and haven’t had a beach trip since. We usually do those in September, however Abigail was only 2 months old at the time and we didn’t think the trip would be a vacation.

I missed the mountains a lot. I don’t think about them until I see them again, and it makes me miss them. We ordered pizza from Greg’s on Friday evening, which was wonderful! I hadn’t had Greg’s pizza in about 5 years. It was just as good as I remember it. It is a one of a kind pizza, I have never tasted any other like it ever, and I eat pizza often. We got to visit with my Aunt Judy, Carl, Abby’s Uncle Josh, Aunt Mary and of course her Nanny. She just reached for them as soon as she saw them. She knows they are family. It was a nice trip, since we hadn’t been since Christmas, we are hoping to make another trip in about 3-4 months, and hopefully we will see everyone in July for Abbyroo’s 1st birthday!

Day with mommy...

Abby and I got to spend the whole day together, which makes for a wonderful day. I love the days that we are together from sun up till sun down, but it makes me want every day like that! I am so happy to have some time off work coming up around July 4th, and then we will be taking vacation in September, during the equestrian games.

I’m still practicing a lot with my camera. I truly think that I missed my calling, wouldn’t that be a dream to do photography on a daily basis! I also think that I have the cutest person in the world to take pictures of, which helps a me a lot!

National Doughnut Day!!!

Abigail had her 1st doughnut today in honor of doughnut appreciation day, celebrated the 1st Friday of June yearly.  Jason picked up a dozen of Krispy kreme's for us to enjoy and celebrate this day!  Abigail loved the doughnuts needless to say!

Memorial Day Weekend

So for the past month I don’t think Abigail has slept through the whole night but like 3 or 4 times. She has been waking up several times a night. At first I attributed this to teething; however she still doesn’t have any teeth. I took off Wednesday through Friday of last week due to there being cancellations in court, for some extra time with Roo. I got bunches of extra time with her in the wee hours of the morning. I have gotten into a bad habit of pulling her into bed with me. She slept through the night last night and I found myself missing her being in the bed with me. I just love her little body cuddled all up to mine. We still swaddle her and she will turn on her side and pucker her little butt out and have the sweetest little snore. I think I need to take some time off work to recover from my time off work. I have no idea how single mom’s do it! Jason helps so much with Abigail, and more than willing to anything for her. I know that I am spoiling her, but she is only little once, and she is growing to fast. I know that she is only going to be this age once, and I just want to enjoy every moment of it. My time off work using leave was accompanied by a day off on Monday to observe Memorial Day, it was so hard to start back to work on Tuesday. We enjoyed some fun times with family!

4 of my favorite corn recipes!

My most favorite part of this time of year is the unlimited amount of fresh fruits and veggies you can get at the farmers and supermarket. I absolutely love corn on the cob, it makes me think of when I was a little girl and we lived in Cherokee Gardens, my mom did a huge garden every year, and planted every kind of vegetable that you can imagine. I would follow her out there as a child while she would weed in her flower garden and pick the veggies. We would always can a lot of them. I remember in the winter when I would walk into the kitchen and see a couple of jars of tomatoes on the counter; I knew that mama would be making vegetable soup, my favorite winter food.


I often wish that my grandmother, Nanny wrote down the way she cooked things. My mom does this same thing, when I got married and had a desire to first start cooking, I would call my mom and ask her how she made something and she would tell me, add this, this, and this, but she would never know how much, she just did it. My Nanny would make cream corn from the cob, and I remember it tasting so good, I asked my mom several years ago how she would make it and she said that she just added a little, milk, flower, sugar, salt and pepper.

About five years ago I started writing down my favorite recipes in a book that I hope to pass down to my daughter some day and I hope that she has the memories of food and family that I do.

Here are my favorite corn recipes.

Cream Corn
8-10 ears of corn
1 cup whipping cream
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons butter
2 teaspoons flour
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

***Cut corn from the cob and place in saucepan with whipping cream, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in salt and sugar. Melt the butter in a small pan and stir in flour (do not brown). Stir this roux into the corn and cook until slightly thickened. Turn corn into oven-proof dish. Sprinkle with cheese and dot with additional butter. Brown under the broiler and serve.

Corn Chowder
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 small onion, diced
1 small carrot, finely diced
1 small celery stalk, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups white corn kernels, fresh or frozen
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups half-and-half
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper

***Melt 1 stick of butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic, and saute for 2 minutes. Add the flour and stir to make a roux. Cook until the roux is lightly browned; set aside to cool to room temperature. (I leave out the carrots sometimes)

Meanwhile, combine the corn and chicken stock in another saucepan, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Pour the boiling stock with the corn (a little at a time) into the saucepan with the roux, whisking briskly so it doesn't lump. Return the skillet to the heat and bring to a boil. The mixture should become very thick.

In a small saucepan, gently heat the half-and-half; stir it into the thick corn mixture. Add the nutmeg and salt and pepper, to taste. Just before serving, cut the remaining stick of butter into large chunks. Add it to enrich the soup, stirring until the butter melts.

Easy Corn Pudding [sweet]
1 can regular corn
1 can cream corn
8oz sour cream
2 eggs beaten
1 box of jiffy cornbread mix
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 table spoon sugar [if you like it sweeter]

mix everything together and put in a sprayed baking pan. Cook uncovered at 325 for about 50-55 minutes. Cook until golden.

Corn Pudding
5 eggs
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 (15.25 ounce) can whole kernel corn
2 (14.75 ounce) cans cream-style corn

***Preheat oven to 400 Degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease a 2 quart casserole dish.   In a large bowl, lightly beat eggs. Add melted butter, sugar, and milk. Whisk in cornstarch. Stir in corn and creamed corn. Blend well. Pour mixture into prepared casserole dish.  Bake for 1 hour.

Happy Cooking!

Welcome to our Famly

We got Millie from a breeder in Midway, if you are interested I will give you her name and number, she has I think four or five puppies left. Millie definitely picked us – it would have been really hard to choose a puppy out of a litter. She is so sweet, of course she cried last night, but that will soon pass and she will roam with the beagles. They were really sweet with her yesterday, we put her on one side of the fence and them on the other, I wasn’t sure how Samson would react to a new puppy. Barkly either for that matter after chasing the ground squirrel up the gutter drain yesterday. Millie isn’t much bigger than that squirrel. She is just precious. Jason went into work this morning and took her with him; I know she will make a wonderful golf course dog.

Looking foward to seconds...

I absolutely loved taking time off this week from work. I was able to take off Wednesday through Friday, and our offices are closed on Monday because of Memorial Day. Jason was able to take a half a day off work on Friday because there was a scramble going on at the golf course, so we decided to take Abigail to Boyd Orchards to pick some strawberries. While we were there we were able to see some roasters and goats.

Abigail hadn’t ever seen either so she was pretty amazed at the interesting creatures. She wanted to get on her tip toes so she could see everything! Abigail had a scoop of ice-cream, I got a strawberry sundae and Jason enjoyed a piece of apple pie. We were able to relax, sit in the rockers, play on the play ground and best of all – eat some strawberries. I wish Abigail wasn’t allergic to them – we gave them to her one time and she got little bumps all of her cheeks – all four cheeks that is, on her little face and her bottom. We will give them to her again when she is older, but for now, we won’t! It was a wonderful afternoon and we look forward to going back here in a few weeks for seconds.

They did sale an amazing product there for $4.99 - it is a strawberry slicer:  You use this - and get this!  Wonderful :-)

Missing my golden girl

"Grieve not, nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you.  I loved you so.. 'twas Heaven here with you"  Ilsa Paschal Richardson

The whole Spencer house is missing Molly. I know Jason especially is. She would go the golf course with him daily and I think Friday was especially hard. It was his first day there without her. He said there was somewhere she would always be when they did certain things, if he would get out to check on a water head, she would sit in his cart, she would run chase the geese, and even had her own sofa in his office. I am sure it was especially hard when he saw her food and water bowl in his office. I think the beagles know that she is gone; however Abbyroo I think still wonders where she is. Abby will always crawl to the kitchen door and push herself up and hit the glass door until the dogs run to it, she would always stop and laugh once they got there, now when she crawls to the window she just keeps hitting it, waiting for Molly. We got a sympathy card in the mail from the Advanced medical care vet, very heartfelt comments on there, they had all their staff sign it with a sweet note to us.  We sure miss our Golden girl, she was so special to us, looks like we will have a new golden boy in our home on June 5 – we can’t wait, although Molly can never be replaced.

One year already!

What a wonderful evening with friends, who we consider family. I can’t believe that Canaan is one! It seems like yesterday his mother and I were talking after church about finding out we were prego! It is amazing how time flies, and I know that I am going to blink and Abby will be one just around the corner.


I have been practicing with my new camera a lot! I have read 3 books from the library and watched a DVD about SLR cameras and taking better pictures, but I have found out the best way for me to learn this camera and all the different settings is just to take pictures, and a lot of them! We went to a birthday party tonight and had a wonderful time! Happy Birthday Canaan, your girlfriend can’t wait to see you again!