BEDLAM!!! OSU vs. OU

Today it's war in our family-Oklahoma State University plays Oklahoma University in football.  It's Bedlam - the best time of the entire year.  I grew up in Stillwater, OK the home of OSU until I was 12 years old so I am a born and bred Cowboy fan.  When it was time for college, my Dad told me I could go anywhere in the world but he was going to send a check to OSU.  I could either work my way through college or go where he was sending the check-HA!  I loved my time at OSU- it's where I met my best friend in the entire world, Becky.  

When I met Mr. H - he asked me where I went to college.  When I told him OSU, he said he liked me so he was willing to overlook that.  I laughed, not knowing how big of an OU fan he truly was.  The guy is crazy about OU. On our first date, he told me he had something to discuss with me.  I was terrified that there was something wrong with him.  Instead, he told me that he donates money to Oklahoma University every year and would like it if I would support him on that.  And...he was dead serious when he said it.  At that moment, I knew he liked college football as much as I did and we were a match made in heaven!!!  Mr. H had season OU tickets and I'd never been to a game since my family was completely OSU crazed.  He took me to my first OU game and it was soooo much fun.  Best time I'd ever had at a college game.  From then on, I've been an OU fan also but never when they play OSU! 

OU has been choking a little this year and OSU is ranked higher in the BCS standings.  This just might be my year!!!! I will bug the crud out of Mr. H if OSU beats OU!

We had tickets to the game, which is being held in Stillwater this year.  BUT....Mr. H said he's not going to the game and having to listen to the OSU homers yelling at him on the way out so he sold our tickets.  What a chicken!!! I love it...he's actually scared!!!

We will see what kind of a night the game will bring.  No matter what - it's going to be an exciting time in the Hautemama family!!!

Thankful for Veterans

Everyone on Facebook is talking about what they are thankful for during November, the month of Thanksgiving.  I am so thankful for Veterans.  My father was an Air Force veteran and my big brother is a veteran.  My brother is not only a veteran, but he's a retired Colonel.  He spent twenty-six years in the armed forces.  He knew from a very early age that he wanted to serve his country and for that I am thankful. 

As we've been involved in wars throughout my life, I've worried about him and also felt a peace knowing that my brother, who is one of the greatest people in the world, was one of the brave soldiers fighting for our freedom. 

Last week, Small Fry had a Veterans Day program at school.  Mr. H and I went and were so excited to see our sweet Small Fry in the program singing his heart out.  Here's the view of our sweetie.

 See the little blonde guy behind the very very tall girl in the purple.  Yep, that's my little guy.  Everytime I would pick up my camera, he would duck behind the purple girl.  Little tooter!

The entire program, all I could see was a little bit of blonde hair.  This is actually a magnified photo.  UGH!

Ree Drummond on Food Network's Throwdown with Bobby Flay

Did you all see Ree Drummond the Pioneer Woman on Throwdown with Bobby Flay??? I loved it!  To think that we only live a short drive away from her.  It's like watching a neighbor cook on TV!

I love her and think she's so relatable.  I actually went to school with the famous Matteo.  If all of the women in the world knew that he was even more personable than he is good-looking, they would be dying over him!

I think I'm going to try some of her dishes this Thanksgiving. I'll let you know how they turn out!

My Royal Family

Now that Prince William and Kate Middleton are engaged, the news is constantly showing pictures of Princes William and Harry with Princess Diana.  I have been obsessed with the royal family since I was a child, probably 7 or 8, watching the royal wedding at 6am like everyone else in the world. 

My problem with this media coverage is....I ball my stinking eyes out everytime they show William and Harry because, as you can see in the picture below, I have a redhead and a blondie just like Princess Diana. 

Mine are opposite though, my oldest is the handsome redhead and my youngest is the handsome blonde.  One of my son's even has the given name of William.  That kills me.  I think of myself and how much I absolutely adore and cherish my boys and how Princess Diana would never have wanted the boys to go through what they've had to at such a young age.  I also look at the Princes and think how handsome and grown up my boys will be in a very short time.  They're 11 and 9 now, but it seems like they're going to grow up in no time at all. 

The boys have grown more in the last year than ever before.  They like to do their own thing and don't need Momma as much as before and thats a hard pill to swallow.  I read blogs like Kellyskornerblog and I just want to tell her everyday to cherish each individual moment with her baby because she be grown before you know it. 

Just last year I would have to remind the boys to get ready for bed 50 times before they would even make a move to go to bed.  Now they tell me when they're going to sleep and it's usually right on time. They've learned to be responsible and keep track of what time it is at night so they can wrap things up and go to bed.  It simply amazes me!

It's actually funny having two so close in age because I almost have another "mother" helping me most days.  Big brother loves to keep the little one on track and gripe at him when he's not doing what he's supposed to.  Its the funniest thing to hear.  Sometimes I have to remind Tater Tot that I've got the Mother thing covered. 

Well, I guess I'll be crying a lot in the next six months since the next royal wedding will be all over TV.  I honestly can't wait to watch it, I love anything royal!!!!

Weekend Wrap-Up

This past weekend was full of boys, boys, boys!  Tater Tot had his best friend Braden spend the night on Friday night.  The boys were so excited they were bouncing off the walls.  We took them to eat at everyone's favorite, IHOP, and then Mr. H took us all to Best Buy.  He wanted to surprise the boys and buy one of the video games they had been looking at buying.  It's one of those war games that I really don't like at all but all the boys think it's awesome.  I really can't say much about war stuff since my brother is a Retired Colonel.  I just don't like guns of any kind at all.  Yuck. They scare me.

The boys stayed up playing the XBox with Mr. H pretty late and the bad part was that we had to get up early in the morning for Tater Tot's soccer game.  They won the game, their last one of the season.  It makes me sad when soccer season ends, I just love all my soccer mom friends that I sit with and chat about who-knows-what.  We've all been together on the same team so long that we've gotten pretty close.  I love it!   We stayed at the fields and watched our nieces' game too, which she won! Yay!

Braden had such a good time at our house that he asked his parents to stay on Saturday night too!  I didn't mind because I just love Braden to death.  He's the sweetest kid and I have so much fun watching the boys goof around.  They are a pair, that's for sure!  It makes me so happy too that they always include little brother, Small Fry, in all the action.  That's a good big brother, if you ask me!

Sunday, the boys and I went into town to check out a sports bar and grill that we are thinking about having Mr. H's 40th birthday party at in December.  It's a big birthday so we want to have fun celebrating.

So far we have something planned almost every night in December, I have no idea how I'm going to swing it.  We are gonna be super tired come Christmas!

Oyster Dressing - My Thanksgiving Favorite!

This is late but Miss Priss over at the Real Housewives of Oklahoma asked what our favorite Thanksgiving food is.  My answer is.....

OYSTER DRESSING

Here's my problem though.  My Mom is from Alabama and being a southern momma cook, she doesn't measure anything.  She just cooks the way she always has, a pinch there, add some here, it might taste like it needs a little more of this.  This makes it very hard to learn except by actually standing in the kitchen with your Momma and cooking the dish. 

My Momma couldn't even make up the measurements when I called her so I copied Paula Deen's recipe from the Food Network.  She reminds me sooo much of my 9, yes, 9 Aunts from Alabama.  Some of them have passed away but they hold the greatest memories in my heart.

Ingredients

Cornbread:

1 cup self rising cornmeal

1/2 cup self-rising flour
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Dressing:
7 slices white bread, dried in warm oven
Cornbread
1 sleeve saltine crackers
2 cups chopped celery
1 large onion, chopped
8 tablespoons butter
2 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 tablespoon poultry seasoning
5 eggs, beaten
2 pints or 1 quart oysters, drained

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
To make the cornbread, combine all ingredients and pour into a greased shallow baking dish. Bake for approximately 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

To make the dressing, crumble dried white bread slices, cornbread and crackers. Mix together and set aside. Saute chopped celery and onion in butter until transparent, approximately 5 to 10 minutes. Pour over corn bread mixture. Add stock, mix well and add salt, pepper, sage, and poultry seasoning. Add beaten eggs and mix well. Add oysters and mix. Pour into a greased pan. Bake for about 45 minutes.

Fall!

This Fall has been super busy so far.  We've finished out the soccer season and just have one game left for each of the boys.  Tater Tot's team is tied for 2nd place and Small Fry's team is in 1st place. 

We had a great Halloween a couple of weeks ago.  The boys dressed up as a scooter guy and a football player.  We walked around with our friends Sam and Brittany.  Their parents own a local fast food restaurant that is so good and they had the kids come by and get something to eat before trick or treating.  It was a great treat for the boys.  They had corn dogs and ice cream cones, who could beat that?!

We took the dogs trick or treating too! They loved seeing all of the kids running around the neighborhood.



Our white Boxer Allie and my brother-in-laws boxer Bella-cute cousins!




My brother-in-law Josh, my amazingly beautiful niece Taylor and my sweetie!

Look at my niece-she is gorgeous and we will be keeping her in the house from now on since she is quickly turning into a stunner at 13.  I feel sorry for the future boyfriends having to go through the grilling from her uncles.

The leaves are turning in our area of northeastern Oklahoma and it is stunning.  I love living in our small town because we have some huge hills right to the north of us.  The colors on that hill are so gorgeous!  I'm going out to take pictures this afternoon.

Parent-Teacher Conference

Google images

Parent-teacher conferences were last week and I was anxious to see how Small Fry was doing in school. The boys are so different - Tater Tot, the 11 yr. old, is a worrier and freaks out if he even thinks he's forgotten something for school or gotten a bad grade.  Small Fry, the 9 yr. old, is my laid back kid that really doesn't worry about anything.  He just "goes with the flow" as I like to put it.  He could really go two weeks without worrying about brushing his teeth or taking a shower.  He's a typical boy's boy.  He also doesn't worry about his school assignments or grades that much.  That's the part that always worries me about Small Fry.  Small Fry is exactly like my Dad - he has all the charm and charisma in the world and is the most easy-going guy.  Tator Tot, on the other hand, is a worry wart and he came by it naturally-he's just like his Momma. 

When I went into the parent-teacher meeting, I was a little nervous but knew that Small Fry was loving his teachers and enjoying his school year so far.  It is a far cry from the hard year we had last year.  Mrs. T, his Math and Science teacher said he was a sweet boy and she loved having him in class but he was missing five assignments.  Uh-oh.  I told her that I ask him every night if he has homework and he tells me they get time in class to finish their work so he never has homework.  Oops-guess I better start checking his work online.  His reading teacher said he was doing ok but so far had a D in class.  He wasn't really putting a lot of effort into reading and he seemed to be guessing at the words instead of sounding them out.  She said he could pull his reading grade up and not to worry too much, but a D in my book is a horrible grade and unexceptable in our house.  I had a long talk with Small Fry about effort and trying really hard to get his work turned in on time and complete.  He told me he always tried really hard and looked completely perplexed as to why he would have a D in Reading.  *See how laid-back he is...it didn't even phase him* UGH.

I started thinking about how he does guess the word sometimes when reading and it started to bother me.  I made an appointment with the eye doctor and took him to get his eyes checked.  I loved the doctor we saw and found out that Small Fry has the same problem I do with my eyesight.  His eyes are two different strengths.  His left eye is worse than his right eye and the doctor said he might be trying to focus and having a hard time with it, thus, guessing at words when he reads.  That made a lot of sense when he started explaining it to me.  Small Fry got to pick out some cute little reading glasses that he'll only need when he's working on schoolwork or reading a book.  I was smart enough to pick inexpensive glasses with a warranty, as this will be a "rough and tumble" boy wearing them!

I'm anxious to see if his schoolwork will improve with the glasses.  I hope so because Small Fry is just so stinkin' cute and charming that I hate to reprimand him about his work.  I know he thinks he's really trying and doing his best.  I just want him to learn that schoolwork is a serious thing.

A cute side story about the boys -
When Tater Tot was 36 months old and Small Fry was 8 months old, my favorite next door neighbor Cathy said to me, "You know, Tater Tot will be the lawyer, doctor, stockbroker and Small Fry is gonna be the football player, girl chaser."  I asked why she thought that as I laughed out loud.  She said because she could already see that Tater Tot was the perfectionist and Small Fry was the charmer!  Ha! Ha!  That's so true!  That's exactly how they act at 11 years old and 9 years old!  That Cathy is so smart in her observations.