Sweet balsamic pork chops

Usually when i make something new Its like pulling teeth from Alex to me how he liked it or how I can make things better. Well this Sweet Balsamic Pork Alex loved. I didn't even have to ask him if he liked it. He told me that this is favorite i have cooked lately. I found a recipe on pintest that i made it was good. But i knew i could make it better. So this is what i did....




I cooked 4 pork chops in my crock pot with a half of a cup of water, a sprinkle of black pepper, salt and garlic powder and cooked them till they were done and shredded them with a fork.

 Then I made my sauce which in a pan which is.
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
 and 1 tablespoon of corn starch
I put all those ingredients in my sauce pan and stir it until it starts to thicken and once it does that I put the shredded pork chops in my sauce pan.

 And I stir everything together and let the sauce thicken up more.

I put it over white rice but you could just have it alone or put it on a hamburger bun.

 And this was dinner. It doesn't look as good as it taste.

Zoe even loved it!!!

I hope you will try it out. If you do let me know!!!



My handy hubby!!!

I am so thankful for my hubby Alex. If you don't know Alex this is the kind of man he is in a nut shell. He does so much what needs to get done around our home. Which we are in the middle of remodeling and other things like cutting and splitting the wood for our wood boiler and plus working a full time job. I know i don't thank him enough or give him enough credit. But i am so thankful that God gave me a husband that is a "do it himself" guy. It saves us money not to hire someone else and plus I know what kind of guy he is. He is not the kind of person that likes to do things the cheap way because he doesn't want to fix it later. He rather take his time and do it right the first time then go back and redo things that aren't right and do it over.  Here are some pictures of Alex getting our wood ready for this coming winter and our brand new front door!!!!

Our load of wood for the winter

 Alex hard at work

This was our old door

This is our new door!!! Now its time to think about what color to paint it!!!

Zoe examining the new door and Daddy's work

Thanks Alex for the new door!!! You did such a great job!!! I love you so much!!!

Fishies!!!!

Today I had to go to Walmart and I had Zoe in the front of the cart and I was walking in the pet section in the store and all of a sudden Zoe's eyes lit up and she got a BIG smile on her face and she started pointing at the...............Fishies!!! So I brought the cart closer to the fish and she had a ball watching them. It was so cute!!! She was even trying to do the mouth movements that fish do. We spent like almost a half hour watching the fish. She just loved it!!! Here are some pictures!!!!

She wanted to touch them so bad

 She loved it!!!

 Zoe doing the fishie mouth

 Why sit when you can get a closer look standing???

 Oh!!! There is more over there!!!

 So much fun!!!

 I knew I shouldn't have shown these pictures to Alex. He wants to get her a fish now ...hahahahaha

This is how i do it....

People ask me all the time how i not cook anything with cow protein because of Zoe's allergy. So i thought i would show you all one of our favorite meals....Shepherds pie. Its very easy.

For a substitute i of beef i cook with turkey burger

 In my casserole dish i put just enough vegetables in to cover the bottom

I put mayonnaise, garlic powder, and soy butter in my potatoes

 Then i pour my turkey buger on top of my vegetables

 Then i drain my potatoes

 Then i add my ingredients to my potatoes and mash them.(this is also the way i make and eat my mash potatoes at home.)

My mashed potatoes

 This is the before its cooked

 And this is the after being cooked....

And I usually put turkey gravy on the bottom with the vegetables but i forgot to pick some up.

Enjoy!!!!

Zoe calling Daddy....

This morning like every morning when Alex has to work right when Zoe wakes up while she eats her breakfast we call Daddy. Well I always put the phone on speaker and then close the flip phone so Zoe wont push buttons while we talk to Alex. And then I always hand her the phone to say good morning to Daddy. And this morning she held the phone up to her ear. And she was talking to Alex. It was so cute. Here are some pictures of Zoe talking to her Daddy on the phone.

This is a very serious conversation between daddy and her i guess...

" hmmmmmm let me think about that"

 Daddy must have said something funny!!!

 Ok Daddy I love you and i will see you when you get home.



A visit with Poppi and Grandma Brinkerhoff!!!

Yesterday after my mom left we went to go see Alex's grandparents. We had a great visit with Grandma and Poppi. Zoe had so much fun with them.  Zoe kept chasing their poor Siamese cat. She found the cats bell ball. And she loved making noise with that. She was so happy and giggling when Grandma was playing with her. Here are some picture of them having fun with each other!!

Zoe and Poppi ( and the cats bell ball)

 Zoe and Grandma (Zoe will be calling her Gi Gi)

 We had so much fun with them!!!



Grandma Lewis Came for a visit!!

 

I got a phone call Friday morning from my mom asking me what i was doing that night. And i said nothing why??? And She said she wanted to meet up with my day Saturday so she was wondering if she could come up for the night. And of coarse i said yes!!! So she was at my house in less then 4 hours later. Zoe knew right when she saw Grandma who she was. She went right to her and started trying to talk to her. The whole time my mom was here Zoe was laughing and talking to her and had a big smile on her face. She loves her Grandma Lewis sooooooooooooooooooooo much!!! After Zoe went to bed my mom had to stay up till 10:45 p.m  to wake my dad up (who was on the road as a truck driver.) from his nap. So i was thinking i would go to bed after that. Well we didn't go to bed till midnight. It was great to just spend sometime with my mom. I really missed that.  The next day we brought her to a restaurant called the Boondocks right in town. We had a great time with her. We were so sad to see her leave :-(  We cant wait for the next visit. I miss her so much already!!!



Zoe is so happy to see Grandma Lewis!!!

 Zoe cant wait to eat at the Boondocks

This is the restaurant Boondocks. You cant really see it very good but this a tree with twinkle lights on it.

The big rock to the left has water flowing on it and the water goes under the bridge and there is a stream that goes through the restaurant.

 Grandma Lewis and Zoe on the wooden bridge

 Me and my Mom!!!

52 reasons why I love you!!!!

Me and my best friend Sarah did a craft together for our husbands. We saw it on Pinterest. But we added our own personalities to it (that is why i love scrap booking). this is what we did... We took a deck of cards and scrap booked them so they were all different and then we typed and printed out our 52 different reasons why we loved them and cut them out and pasted them on. Then we hole punched them in the corners so we could put a ring in it to keep it together. Here is some pictures of the finished project. And i will even show you some of the pages. I am really happy how it turned out!!!

The finished project!!

One of the reasons...

another reason....

and another reason...

I tried really hard not to make them girlie. This is probably the girliest i made them.

Zoe even likes it!!!

Its pretty thick.....But It's a really cute idea!!!

She did so good!!!!

Today we had to bring Zoe to the laboratory at the hospital to get the stool and a blood tested for Iron and for lead poisoning. Zoe did great!!! There was two nurses. One to help me hold her down and one to draw the blood. I had Zoe on my lap and she let them put the rubber band on her arm fine and when they put the needle in she didn't even flinch. The nurse had to fish around for a vein. I understand that she has small veins. But i was almost in tears because she was fishing around for a minute and i wanted to tell the nurse just take it out. But she founds a vein and right before she actually found it Zoe burst into tears. I felt so bad for her I know fishing around for the vein hurts worse but once she found the vein she stopped crying. So Zoe maybe cried for 15 seconds. The nurses face was red and said she wanted cry she felt so bad for her. Zoe did so great mommy and daddy bought her some french fries from Mc Donald's and that seemed to make it all better....

Zoe being silly!!!

All Happy!!!

the band-aid

Enjoying the nice day!!!

Today was so nice!!! So When Alex came home we spent a lot of time outside. Alex cut some wood while i made dinner and then after dinner I laid a blanket on the ground and let Zoe crawl all over and she loved it. She wasn't sure about the grass at first but then once i put her on the grass she was fine. We went for a walk too. It was cut a little short because it looked like it wanted to rain. And it did rain. Here are some pictures of Zoe enjoying the nice day!!!

She loves being outside but she isn't sure about the grass..

She only went off the blanket to get into trouble to see daddy's tools..

But then quickly realized what she did!!! And went right on the blanket again.

So mommy took her off the blanket so she could see that the grass isn't bad.

And she quickly crawled over to my lap.

Daddy playing with her!!!

Zoe is a airplane!!!

We so enjoyed the beautiful weather..........and we cant wait to have more!!!!