Random January

Random snippets from January...

We got new star words from church.  Our first were lost in the mail somewhere.  Would love to know what they were... but here are the three that Jonathan, Marvin, and I pulled out.  I had two left in the envelope to take to Mama and Daddy the next day.  I didn’t see what they were.  

Jonathan’s is essence - and he was pretty unsure about that.  :)  But I just looked up essence and feel like it is a really GOOD word for him!  Here are 3 definitions of essence...

        ‘the most significant element, quality, or aspect of a thing or person - the essence of the issue’

‘one that possesses or exhibits a quality in abundance as if in concentrated form’
‘the individual, real, or ultimate nature of a thing especially as opposed to its existence’

Mine is Reach and Marvin’s is Courage.  I have to say the courage one scares me.  Not interested in any more courage... :)  So I was really wary of this, but then I looked it up and of course Marvin got Courage.  It is defined as...

        'the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear;    

        bravery.'                                  

I believe Marvin’s whole life has illustrated his courage. 

Reach for me is intriguing.  I’ll be thinking about that.  Reach out?  Reach for a dream?  Definitions include...

        ’To stretch out’ and ‘communicate with or make an impression on’.  

Interesting.

Mama got Constant and Daddy got Genuine.  Good words for each of them.  Here is a definition of each that I think fits well with them...

        Constant - 'faithful, unswerving in love, devotion'

        Genuine - 'free from pretense, affectation or hypocrisy.  Sincere'

Yup, good words for them.

I made some old fashioned 'mix tapes' to pass
out to some small group friends.  :D

Mama and Daddy's house is like a museum in some ways... they have so many photos, plaques, mementoes from their many, many years of education and public service that they quite literally fill the walls of their home.  Often, I overlook them, but on this particular day I was struck by the fact that these are all back by the washer and dryer and the back door to the house.  :)  The first is the proclamation by (then) Secretary of State Robin Carnahan on the occasion of Daddy's retirement as President of ATSU back in 2012.  Dear John B wrote this and we all laughed heartily at the inclusion of his 'inside joke' about Mama's name being "hislovelywifeSue".  :)  

And this is the official photograph and certificate recognizing Daddy's induction as one of the members of the Academy of Missouri Squires.  Good memories, all.  And something to look at as you throw a load of clothes in the washing machine.  :D

What. A. Day.

Vaccinated!  So very thankful!

Dearest Dawn has been a true lifeline for our whole family the last year.  She has always been spectacular and a dear friend, but during the time of covid she entered our 'bubble' and stuck with Mama and Daddy helping in so many ways.  What a testament of love and service and self sacrifice.  We love Dawn and her daughters more than we can ever say.  And Dawn has lovingly spoiled Daddy with a 'pandemic holiday' called 'Pie Friday'.  :)  Every Friday Dawn makes him pie (sugar free, no less!).  Now how can you ever beat THAT deal???

My wonderful friend Donna has a beautiful home with mid-century details in her decor.  Recently she acquired some 60's style cat statues that she was pretty happy about.  Well, when I saw this turquoise cat (containing Avon bubble bath!!!) I just KNEW Donna needed to have it.  On one of our trips down to her town I stopped by and gave it to her.  She is a great friend and was happily surprised by this (eclectic?) gift.  :D

While I was there Joy dropped by and had a book to loan me.  I was so glad to see these two dear friends in person and I sure can't wait until we can have a girls weekend together!  :)

Donna later sent me this photo of the turquoise cat in its new (for now, at least) home in her super cool mid-century breakfast nook.  I think it looks purrrrfect!  ;) 

And finally, our church bells rang out - participating in the national covid memorial on January 19, 2021.

Hibachi Chicken

Donna's town has a food truck that sells delicious Hibachi meals.  One day we had their Hibachi chicken for lunch and I had been dreaming about it ever since.  This was my version of it and I have to say, it was pretty darn good!!  Will make again, for sure.  (Note - the secret ingredient is the YumYum Sauce.  I bought mine from Walmart but you can also make your own homemade.)

Hibachi Chicken (can also make with beef or shrimp)

First, I made the rice in my Instant Pot.  I used 1 cup white Basmati and 1 cup brown Basmati, rinsed.  Placed in the IP with 2 ½ cups water.  Added a little dollop of chicken better than bouillon and about 1 Tbsp. butter.  Stirred then put the lid on and cooked using the Rice setting.  That was 12 minutes and I believe the Rice setting cooks on Low Pressure...  I let it just Natural Pressure Release while I was cooking the rest of the meal.  It was perfect.  Could probably have gone up to 3 cups of water if I wanted to (because of the brown rice).  

I used 4 Schwans chicken breasts (4 oz. each), slightly thawed.  Cut the chicken into bite size pieces. Saute in a large skillet with a drizzle of sesame oil and a dollop of coconut oil (or oil of your choice). Add minced garlic, some fresh or ground ginger, and a lot of black pepper.  Added in some soy sauce and some rice vinegar.  Not sure exactly how much... but maybe around ½ to ¾ cup soy sauce and 1-2 Tbsp. rice vinegar?  Just added a few times what looked right.  :)  Removed chicken to a plate when it was almost (but not quite) done cooking.  I think the heat of it finished it cooking on the plate. 

Sugar Snap Pea stir fry veggies on left, chicken on right

I also made a bagful of Great Value stir fry blend - the snow pea one - in sesame oil and a bit of coconut oil with a dash of soy sauce.  Just to have even more veggies.

You can see the bottle of YumYum sauce I bought in this picture. 

Then I put the veggies in that same pan.  I had chopped up an onion, 2 zucchini, a tub of mushrooms, and about 8 large carrots.  Sauteed all that and added a bit more black pepper and a bit more soy sauce.  When the veggies were almost done (I went a bit too long this time and they were fully cooked... too much) I added the chicken back in and stirred together to finish everything up.  

bowl with chopped veggies

chicken added back in to the veggies

Serve all of this over rice and be sure to drizzle YumYum sauce over all.  This is key to Hibachi chicken!  You can make your own YumYum sauce (google it) but I just bought a bottle of it at Walmart and it was very good.  

At Donna's house

I had to have some warranty work done on our Buick so planned to take it in when I could spend the night with Donna.  It is so handy having her in the same town as our car dealership!  :)  We decided that would be a great opportunity for us to do a 'practice run' of fondue night for wine club.  I have to say that it was so delicious!  I had no idea how much I would enjoy the various fondues!  We learned a lot and figured out some things that will make it run even more smoothly on wine night.  So it was a fun and informative time at Donna's house - like always!  :)

here we were making plans about fondue  :)

A lot has come of us sitting in those chairs and reading books/making plans.  :)  This is where the Wine Club was born!  Two posts to look back (and chuckle a bit).  :)

https://lifeatwilliscreekranch.blogspot.com/2018/07/visit-to-donnas-house.html

https://lifeatwilliscreekranch.blogspot.com/2018/07/random-july.html

I love sitting in Donna's house - so relaxing.

One of the recipes we were making that night...

We experimented on various vegetables to dip.  Sadly the zucchini tasted great but fell apart in the fondue, even though we cut them 3 different ways to test.  Lesson learned.  

parboiling the potatoes - we are going to roast all the veggies next time

we par-boiled all the veggies this time around

Donna's house is adorable - all her mid-century modern decor...

I believe my Mama had a silver casserole just like that one on her shelf.
And I remember having a thermos like the one on the basket, too.  :)

And Mama STILL has that square cake pan on the bottom shelf.

Love the view onto Donna's street 

ready to eat!

Donna and Laura

I was so glad that Donna invited her friend, Joy, to join us for this evening.  I really loved getting to know Joy and we all had a wonderful time together.

Donna and Joy

We did meat this time (we won't for wine club).  It was amazing!!
Chicken, beef, and shrimp cooked in oil or broth.

Donna made these sauces to go with the meat.  My favorite was the curry, back left.

We had two cheese fondues, a hot oil and a hot broth.  

Of course we paired wines with the fondue!  This was good.
A Chardonnay called 'Butter'.  I wasn't sure about that,
but it was delicious, especially with the fondue. 

This was a sweet sparkler that worked well with the meal. 

This was a super dry, organic sparkler and was also good with fondue.

Donna made this yummy tiramisu!  Wow!!

Yup, we had a great time together!
Laura, Joy, and Donna

The book that we are using for the recipes is this one...
Dip Into Something Different from The Melting Pot

Baby Gender Reveal

How to even describe this?  I'll mostly let the pictures (and video) do that for me.  I cried like a maniac and couldn't stop.  For... Days...  :)

Jackson and Brianna hosted their baby gender reveal party at their house.  (side note - their house is sooooo cute!  They have worked so hard this year and it has really paid off!)

The way J&B decided to do the gender reveal was to have Brianna's siblings, Alaina and Cody, break eggs on their foreheads.  What???  Let me explain.  :)  There were a dozen eggs with half dyed blue and half dyed pink.  They were all to be hard boiled except for one, which would be dyed the color of the gender of the baby.  So whichever sibling broke a raw egg on their forehead, that was the gender of the baby.  (I wondered if they might be rooting for the other one to get the raw egg!!!)  ha!  They went through all 12 eggs and they were ALL hard boiled!  I have to admit J&B had us all in the palm of their hands.  It hadn't even occurred to me that they had tricked us all and had two final eggs hidden away somewhere.  But they did!  (brilliant move... that way we had the suspense of all 12 eggs first!)  Jackson pulled out the final two eggs and handed them to Alaina and Cody.  They broke them at the same time and it was the blue egg that Cody broke that was raw.  It's a boy!!!!  Great reveal!

Sadly, Mama and Daddy weren't able to attend.  They were battling a cold so stayed home to not infect the crowd.  Later on Jackson and Brianna face-timed them to share their good news.  Jeremy and Shonda also face-timed their parents so all the great grandparents got the reveal info that same night.

Jackson, Laura, Brianna

Brianna 'practicing' with baby Ellie  :)

Amanda (due any day!) and Carrie

This was cute - two little girls looking out the doors at Scooter in the back yard.  :)

Tyler and Taylor

Cody, Laura (I like her name!!) and Jeremy

Jonathan and Marvin

here they go... Alaina and Cody

Ow!  That one hurt!!

These were the last two and they were both hard boiled!!??!!

aha!  Jackson brought out the REAL last two!

There it is!!!!

It's a boy!!!!!!!

Oh my...

Grandmas

I'm still crying... and hugging everyone  :)

Jackson pointing out the pertinent part of the ultrasound.  ;)

Shonda, Brianna, Jackson, Laura

Hannah holding me up!!!!!  :D  

Shonda, Brianna, Alaina 

Brianna and Alaina

Shonda and I rearranging the fellas....

Marvin, Laura, Shonda, Jeremy

This one is hilarious and terrifying all at once!

It was only fitting that Donna be here for the gender reveal.
She was at our house the night the kids came to tell
us they were pregnant in the first place!
I've told her to pencil in May 21 (the due date)... :D  

Hannah and Zac

J&B bought these little boots when they found out they were having a boy.  :) 

J&B face-timing Grandpa and Grandma

folks saying hi to Grandpa and Grandma

Daddy and Mommy (and the boots!)

The next day they took these photos at Jeremy and Shonda's place.  The snow was lightly falling.  Perfect!!  And I still love the little boots!

You can see the whole album of photos by clicking this link...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/williscreekranch/albums/72157712268029036
You can see the ultrasound photos including one of his little hand!!!!!  Gets me every time!!!

And here is a video from the evening - you can watch the gender reveal yourself!  :)