Meatloaf

I made meatloaf Sunday night and it was delicious. I am usually not a fan of meatloaf but for some reason I had a hankerin' for meatloaf Sunday and this recipe was fast and it was very moist and flavorful. I thought I would share it with my readers because I definitely recommend it!

All American Mini Meatloaves

17 Saltines crushed fine
¼ cup whole milk
1/3 cup minced fresh parsley
3 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
1 large egg
1 ½ tablespoons Dijon Mustard
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 ½ lbs meatloaf mix*
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Glaze
½ cup Ketchup
¼ cup light brown sugar
4 teaspoons cider vinegar

*Walmart did not have meatloaf mix so I bought a pound of 90% lean ground beef and 1 ½ lbs ground pork and mixed them together and took out what looked like ¾ lb. And put it in the freezer for next time.

1. Heat oven to 500 degrees and put oven rack in the middle position.

2. Mix saltines, milk, parsley, wors. Sauce, egg, mustard, onion powder, garlic powder and meat together. I used my hands to make sure it got incorporated well. Shape the meat into 4 oval loaves.

3. Heat the oil in a nonstick 12 inch skillet and brown the meatloaves on one side for about 5 minutes then carefully flip them over to brown the other side. Neaten up the edges with a spatula. In the meantime, while the meat is browning mix the glaze.

4. If your skillet is oven safe, top the meatloaves with glaze and place in the oven until the center of the loaves reach 160 degrees, this takes about 15 minutes. My skillet was not oven safe so I rubbed the bottom of a casserole dish with vegetable oil and placed the meatloaves in there before glazing them. Bake for 15 minutes. Enjoy!

If you try it let me know what you think!

Henry singing

Believers for Barack? Oxymoron if you ask me!

Barack Obama has rolled out new Believers for Barack merchandise. This sickens me! how a christian can defend someone who thinks it's ok to kill babies puzzles me. I guess people put their pocket books and their "Hope" for "change" above human lives and what God wants. God does not create life just so that it can be destroyed. This man disgusts me! I really hope that he does not become president.

You know I really struggled with wether I should post this or not because I don't want to offend people but, I felt like sometimes you need to stand up for what you believe in. So sorry if I offended you but I can't let this go unspoken for.

Why?

Henry's new favorite word, although he still likes "no" a lot too. Almost everything I told Henry this weekend he would respond to with "why?" So cute and annoying at the same time.

Finger Painting

Henry and I finger painted today and he loved it. I got some washable fingerpaints for him at the store last week and have just been waiting to do some painting with him. He loved it! He kept saying "We're Painting! We're painting!" Here are some pics I took and a short video of one of his painting techniques. :)

Beautiful boy!

Painting

one of his masterpieces

He painted his socks too, good thing it's washable!

paint on his face

video

Learning to read

So, I am teaching Henry how to read and I am shocked by how well he is doing. He knows almost all his letter sounds. He even quizzes me, he says "what letter says buh buh" and I'll say, "I don't know what letter makes that sound?" and he'll say "b". He also knows about 30 "sight words" and a few other words like mommy, daddy, Henry, Zoe, Abner, and Buster. I am worried a little that once he gets to Kindergarten he will already know how to read and he will be bored so I am trying to figure out what to do about that (he already knows his colors, shapes, and numbers too). He loves learning how to read (well he loves learning period). After I am done with our "session" for the day he begs me to keep going, I love that! I feel like I should stop before he gets bored with it though so that he will keep that desire to learn. My friend Lisa gave me access to a website that she paid for to help her 6 year old to read so I am looking forward to trying it with Henry this weekend. I think that Henry is going to be smarter than me soon and that scares me!!! I want him to reach his full potential and I hope that I can help him do that without pushing him too hard. I also hope that I will not expect too much from Zoe. I know that Henry is a special case and that not all my children will be as smart as him. I hope that I can help her reach her full potential without any preconceived notions of how she should be based on Henry. Who Knows? maybe she'll be SMARTER than Henry! After all she is a girl! ;)

Henry's birthday party

Yesterday was Henry's birthday party. I thought is was a huge success. I think that it was fun for all. I didn't feel stressed one time either which is always a plus. Henry's grandma, grammie and both papas came. Also Aunt toot-toot, bubba and kelly, uncle will, and cousins Clara, Lindy, Charlie and Leilani. Of course mom, dad and Zoe were there too. It was a sesame street theme and my mom made the cutest cupcakes and cake for it. (see pictures below) Henry got lots of presents! Aunt toot toot made him a cute hooded towel, Aunt Kelly got him some coloring books, an aquadoodle and an outfit, Grammie Hawkins got him a thomas the train set, Grandma Cox got him some playdoh toys and a Panthers sweatsuit, Aunt bubba got him some playdoh. I had some games planned for the kids but they were entertaining themselves just fine so I let them just play. Thank you to everyone who came!!

Here are some pictures:

OK, photo overload!!!

The Decor:

The Cake / Cupcakes

The food: The party was at 4:30 so we just did snacks instead of a meal. The sandwiches are ala peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we also had carrots and dip (which are not in the photo)

My sisters

My sisters, my mom, and my nieces

My mom and my niece

Henry and his cake.

Henry's first cupcake

Henry's THIRD cupcake! LOL He basically just ate the icing.

Henry playing with his train, chugga chugga choo choo!

Henry with his towel

Zoe looking pretty!

Matt's blog

I've got another new link. My husband Matt decided to write a blog. Check it out!

http://hawkbass.blogspot.com/

new link

If you click on my portrait of the day you can see all of them...

Fish Tank

We set up the fishtank and got Henry some fish for his birthday. He loves them. He loves to feed them and watch them swim. He said that the tank was "beautiful" he also at first called it a "tankfish" instead of fishtank. He is also so sweet to Zoe, she will look at the fish tank and Henry says "look at my fish Zoe" I love to see him interacting with his little sister. I hope that as she grows they will play good together and Henry will teach her lots of stuff.

Here is a picture of Henry with his fishtank before we put fish in it. He was playing "dress up" on this day. I need to tie the wires up in the back better.