My One Creative Skill

In the last 2 years I have been enjoying crochet. I have been doing it since I was little (just not very well). My Mom and Granny Wells taught me. Sometimes I think they did to keep me from talking so much. However, I have recently started playing with it and LOVE IT!

18-24 month dress

6-9 month dress for Cora.

I am posting my latest creation the first preemie dress I have made. I make dresses often God only granted me boys so I make these dresses for the ones I love and maybe someday a paying customer.
0-6 month for Autumn

This Dress has an adjustable empire waist line. The bow can be loosened or tighten like a draw string in order to accommodate even the smallest baby girl.

Aaron Turns 5

So I have been really behind on posts, but after giving this blog a new face lift. I plan to blog more often and share more recipes. Aaron my middle child turned 5 on Oct 17th, 2011. He is a very sweet and loving kid. He is such a pleasure to give gifts to. Everything you give him is the most special and best thing you could have bought in the whole world. After he received his gifts he then picked out something to give away to each kid there. He has a very tender heart.

Thanks to Grammy and G.P. for all the great gifts and the fun for our quick trip down there. (as it now takes almost 8 hours to get there, we did not have tons of time to spend actually there.)

Sour Cream Enchiladas

Ingredients

• FOR THE SAUCE:
• 16 ounces, weight Sour Cream
• 1 can Cream Of Chicken Soup (10 Ounce Cans)
• 2 cups Milk, Divided
• 1 cup Flour
• 1 can Diced Green Chilies, 4 Ounce Can (2 If You Like Them A Lot)
• 1 Tablespoon Pamesan Cheese
• 2 teaspoons Cumin
• 2 Tablespoons Seasoned Salt
• 1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder
• 2 Tablespoons Apple Cider Vinagar
• 2 cups Broth Saved From Chicken
• ½ cups Mozzarella Cheese
• FOR THE ASSEMBLY:
• 3 whole Chicken Leg Quarters
• 16 whole Corn Tortillas
• 1-½ cup Grated Cheese, Your Choice

Preparation Instructions

To begin with, put the chicken legs in a pot covered with water and boil until fully cooked (probably about 15-20 minutes). Then remove the chicken from the broth, saving broth for sauce.

In a large pot bring sour cream, chicken soup and 1 cup of milk to low simmer. While this heats, mix 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of flour in a mixing bowl until flour is fully dissolved. Stir in flour and milk mixture once the sour cream mixture is simmering. Lower heat and add all remaining ingredients except mozzarella. Raise heat to a low slow boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. After 5 minutes, remove from heat. Add mozzarella. Salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cool slightly before assembling the enchiladas.

Finishing the enchiladas:

Steam or heat tortillas for a few seconds so that they are pliable.

Shred your boiled chicken and salt and pepper it lightly.

Fill each fried or steamed tortilla with chicken and grated cheese (your choice) and roll. Place in a 9×13 pan, seam side down, till every inch of pan is used.

Pour warm (not hot) sauce over the rolled enchiladas and sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Bake in oven, uncovered at 350F for 25 minutes or until edges are boiling. Or you can heat them in the microwave if you used a glass pan – heat on full power for 10 minutes.

I will be making these on Saturday and will include a picture then.

We did not fall off the face of the Earth!

Or move to Canada, but we did move to the panhandle and if it were not for the distance from family it would be the most wonderful place to live. We bought a house we really love and can see the park from the backyard, which the boys think is AWESOME. They ride bikes all over the neighborhood with all the kids that live around us. The other day I looked out the window to see at least 5 kids all drawing with sidewalk chalk on the driveway. Only 2 of them were mine. It is already cool here and in the early 40s in the mornings. Right now in the heat of the day it is 76. I have heard that we can expect multiple days below 0. So that will be new. Just wanted to let anyone who stumbles across this page that we are alive and well. THE CATES

WOW

6 Weeks and little Caleb will be one year old. This year seems so strange. We have been so very busy I am ready for Christmas to come. I love the time with family. All of my boys are growing so fast Kody will start his second semester of school, Aaron will be spending the last half a year at home with mom before pre k. I am amazed at how fast the time has flown. I love my family and am so thankful to be a stay at home mommy. God has really blessed us. Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Life gets way from us

As you can see it has been a very long time since I have posted anything. When Caleb was 1 month old my parents were in a major car accident. They are both alive but that accident changed my Mom's life forever. In the accident her hip and femur broke. The boys and I spent the next couple of months in hospital waiting rooms. Since then things have been crazy I lived down there on and off for 2 months helping and seeing my hubby on the weekends. My mom has endured tremendous amounts of pain and 10 surgeries. She is not not well and and may never walk with out a limp. But I am thankful that she can walk and that she and my Daddy are breathing. I am going to try to post on here more often there is so much that has happened in this last year that I have a hard time thinking of what to post about, but I will be posting and life will get fall back into some routine in the near future. I can feel it. Thanks to those that check up on us. I will be giving you more to read.

I wrote this post a few months ago

I never realized I did not publish this post

Here is a little bit of the Caleb. Life spun out of control when Caleb was 2 days over a month old. I got a phone call on April 26th after a scary visit at the door, my parents were in a serious car accident. Dad was ok mom was not after 2 weeks in the hospital she was sent home with a patch job hip. I stayed with her for quite some time when I left fever got worse and she had an infection after 2 more surgeries we thought things would get better however this is when the joint failed. Mom will have a total hip replacement Moday 2 days shy of an entire 3 months since that day. Please if anyone reads this pray for her and that she will be infection free.

I love you MOM! Caleb is 4 months old today!

Caleb will be here

Caleb will be here in a little over 4 weeks. I find that I feel very unprepared. With the last 2 at this point I was so tired and uncomfortable I could not wait. However I think since this will be my last baby I am reluctant to let this preganancy come to a close (as if I have a choice). However, knowing this does not keep me from procrastinating. I just wish I could make myself get everything taken care of and not feel sad about this being my last baby. I want to hold him and love on him, but the sooner he gets here the sooner he grows into a 1 year old and so on. I sound like a crazy a person when I put this on paper. I will miss the movements of this little one and it breaks my heart to know I will never feel this again.
It is so hard to know this is the last one. I feel heart sick, but now I am going to grow past this pettiness of being self-fish. I stay tired all the time and I am uncomfortable so in 4 weeks I will be so happy to be able to go for more than 1 hour with out peeing. I will be loving on this little angel and enjoying each of his milestones. Thanks for reading my insane rantings as little as a blog it still a great outlet of my feelings.

Baby Caleb Arnett Cates

Due January 29, 2010. Here are a couple 3D sono pics of our 3 rd wonderful boy. We did not have a 3 D sono with Kody or Aaron so this was a great gift from my ob. When I say gift I mean it since our insurance deductable reset 6 weeks before this appointment my ob Dr Deborah Hajovsky in San Angelo. Did not charge for this Sono. She is the best ob I feel very comfortable asking her questions and she is very sweet. She also talks football with Daniel so I say she is quite a keeper. Ok now for the pictures thanks for taking time to read the ramblings before the pics.









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Washed my iPhone update

Well this is my very clean iPhone. Everything seems to be great except for a few watery streaks under the screen. Great response normal battery life. Yeah for iPhone. Yeah for me. Even the camera is working see Kody for exmple.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Washed my iPhone

I was really glad to be going to bed with a really clean kitchen. I was hungry so I fixed me some cereal. Daniel was already in bed so I was hurrying along and relized oh man where is my phone. After a quick look around, no phone! So I asked Daniel to call it straight to vm. That never happens so I made him get up to help me look. He says maybe it's in the dishwasher I am preto and once in a while put things in strange places. But, then I think maybe it is in the laundry with my pants. All of sudden I relize that I had put my pants in the washer. I went in there the washer was on the spin cycle and in my back pocket so was my phone.
I grabbed a bag of rice after lamenting that u can not take an iPhone apart to dry it and threw it in. I went to my room with my old iPhone which is cracked but works and began so e research. To my surprise this bag if rice thing has worked for a number if people. So for the next 2 days I sport the old messed up phone in hopes that my phone will work. I am so thankful I did not sell this one. I think I will try to sleep, but this seemed like a blogging opportunity I did not want to pass up. Will blog more in 2 days hopefully on my rice saved iPhone.

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It's a boy!!!

We will now have our own all boys 3 on 3 basketball team. Have to admit I really wanted a girl, but God knows our needs and limitations and this baby boy is right for us. At this point I am a little weepy it was the best Sono ever and I love seeing his little heart beat. All in all I am tremendously blessed and loving this baby even more now that he has a name and have seem his little face. Thank you Lord for our baby boy.

CHAOS times 3

Soon this blog site title will be changing since I am now 14 weeks prego with little Cates number 3. I am so excited as this is the first baby we have planned. At 8 wks we had a sono and everthing looks great. At 12 weeks we got to hear the heart beat of 170 bpm. So everything is great and the little one is starting to get bigger and I can now feel little movements. I am wishing for a girl or a beautiful baby boy. I can not wait to find out the gender in 5 weeks, pretty exciting.

Anyway Daniel, Kody and Aaron just went on a short vacation with out me so I was alone for the first time in over 3 years. It was really nice and gave me a little time to relax and do some laundry. Here is a great picture of my kids out with their Daddy. They had a very good time.

AZ

If u have never been to Arizona in July I would not recommend it. We stayed at a laquinta in north Phoenix for almost a week. It was so hot that going out to the pool was only an evening activity. One day I decided to take the boys to the park we got there at 9am when we got out of the Burb it was already 99 degrees. We did not stay long. We saw lots of neat things and played in the pool every day.
We went to see ice age in the theater and that was great fun. Toward the end of the movie Aaron decided he needed to rawr back at the dinos and even though it was a little embarrassing it was really cute. If u ever go to Phoenix in July make sure u have a lot of indoor things to do. One day the Burb thermometer read 123. It was a lot of fun, but I am so glad to be home with my hubby.

Week full of fun

We went to Angelo on Monday to visit with Daniel's family. We stayed up late playing at Becca's house then Tuesday headed home for volley ball night.
Wednesday morning we started or adventure.
We had a great spring break down in the old B-ville. Sure missed Daniel since he had track practice and meets to attend. We road in the pasture for house gathering sheep (which happened to be Kody and Aaron's favorite sspart).
Then the next day we marked lambs there were so few this year, because of dogs. I helped as much as I could when not trying to control boys. I so love seeing the boys in the pens it really warms my heart. After 2 days of hard work we took some big lambs and old ewes to a guy who buys them in Del Rio. We spent most of the day there and then went home to begin doing decorations for Des's party. We went to bed and got up and finished and headed to church in Del Rio. Followed by a skate b-day party for Des. It was great fun and although I had to carry Aaron a lot while I skated it was a blast. I am so glad to be home it was a very busy week.

More to The Update

Kody and Aaron are growing like weeds they have recently discovered how to wrestle with one another. This is so cool until someone gets hurt, of course, or any time Kody pins Aaron. Kody always refers to Aaron as, "My Aaron brother" very rarely he will say Aaron. They both share a room, but have to be seperated at nap time since they want to play so much. At night it is to dark to play so they don't have that problem.
Kody is really into super heroes, he even loves Superman Returns. Aaron on the other hand still loves Thomas the Train. They love to tie their blankets around thier shoulders and play "capes" around the house I will post some pictures of this soon. This is my first post from my iPhone and I am using the lite version so text posts are the only option. I think this completes the update. I will be posting more often since I can do that from anywhere so watch out.

the picture challenge

The answer to JoLee's Challenge ( http://www.texose.blogspot.com/ )

This is not one I would have picked to upload, but I like this one. This is the 4th picture in the fourth folder on my computer. Michelle Clements (http://www.happinessisastateofbeing.blogspot.com/ ) it is your turn pick the same pic, 4th folder 4th pic, and then explain it then Challenge someone who reads your blog to do the same; it is kind of fun. This is Kody and his friend Gage pretending to drink coffee with my friend Melissa and I. They are having Kool- Aid. They are pretty cute too. they have grown a lot and both potty trained this picture was taken almost a year ago in May.

update

I know it is a little fuzzy since it is a picture of a picture but I wanted to put an updated pic on here. This is our church directory pic from 2 months ago.

So life has been going 90 miles a minute and I have not posted in some time since the monitor on my lap top is taking a leave of absence with no return in sight. I have been using my iphone and I have yet to figure out how to blog with the thing.

Today I made fresh bread I have not made fresh bread in 6 years and now all of sudden I just can not stop I love the stuff and it is so much cheaper than buying it at Wal-Mart. Whose prices might I add have really started heading through the roof. Plus I can make bread they don't sell in the store.

I am really enjoying my kids, but lately the fit train has been chugging through my house so if you call you may here yelling at random times in the day. The boys are so different for being only a year apart. Aaron is my snuggler and Kody has to be chased for a hug. Kody is now crying because in order to use my laptop and blog I have it hooked up to the LCD tv and he can not watch Diego. So even though it has been a while since my last post I will go for now and write more later. Sometimes it is better to stay sain then to reason with a 3 year old. ;)

Hardest Thanksgiving Ever

Well for those of you that came to see pics of the boys sorry to disappoint I will be the emotional blogger today.

We left out on Wednesday morning to go to Angelo where Daniel's family is. We were staying with Adam, Daniel's brother. Any way this is my first thanksgiving with out my mother in law and all the way to Angelo every little bit I would just tear up and the closer we got the more upset my tummy was over the anticipation of the emotional roller coaster I was already on. We got to Angelo and Adam and Kari welcomed us and it was so nice to get the kids out of the truck. Kudos to Adam and Kari they have recently redone almost every room in their house it was nicely put together and almost completely baby proof :) . THANK YOU BOTH. So any way shortly after we got there Rebecca, Daniel's sis, came over. With Rebecca and I both on emotional overdrive even though not much was said I was pretty worn out. The boys went to bed and I made the last batch of corn bread for the dressing while Kari made all the toast. I made the pea salad and then I was pretty well done except getting the turkey put in the roaster. When it came to the chocolate pie it was more than I could deal with emotionally so... Adam and Daniel came to the rescue and got right to work. Mom (Paula) was the only one to ever make the chocolate pie. So while the boys made pie Kari and I went to see Becca at work where I cried for the billionth time that day.

Thursday was not so bad for me since I had prepared all day the day before. making the dressing was the hardest part of the day since I missed Mom, but I did the best I have ever done and that made it all better I think mom would have liked it. Kari was so great to go for a walk with me that evening taking the boys in strollers. it helped to just be out out of the house for a little while.

Then on Friday I had to leave my hubby in Angelo since he had to work the next day and I cried again. After about 50 miles I was much better although missing him terribly. I was only 45 miles out of Delrio when Aaron could not take his wet diaper anymore. So I stopped at the only gas station for almost 90 miles to change him. When we came out there was a puddle under the truck. I started it and headed for the highway and the needle hit HOT. So.. no cell service I called mom and Dad who were on the lake in del rio from the little gas station and waited. Of course when they got there the truck was fine and did not overheat again. So.. to make a very long weekend short I had a great time with my family and they were great emotional support. I missed my hubby and I am so glad to be home.

Halloween

This year Daddy had to work so the trick or treat was up to the mommy. Here are some pictures of my little skunk Aaron and my nice dragon as Kody says. By the way dragons say "fire".

For even better pics you can visit http://tisha.squarespace.com/blog/2008/11/12/the-dragon-the-skunk.htmlthis lady has some talent.