Various and Assorted

I did enjoy the "bloggy break" last week and was certainly busy getting ready for Thanksgiving, taking care of Benjamin, and enjoying Mom and Dad, but all week I kept thinking "I should blog about that ..." I guess I'm addicted :)

The picture above is Benjamin enjoying resting in his Bug-a-roo sling. I joke that this sling must have "magic dust" in it because it calms him like magic! He's slept completely through church services, prayer meetings, and even a pretty rowdy game night we had for Will's birthday. On this day, I was trying to get some cooking done, but the little man was fussy - Mommy had the answer! just put him in the sling - I did end up getting icing on it, but hey, the cookies got iced! :)

When preparing food for Mom and Dad's arrival, I realized it was the first time I had really cooked since Benjamin was born! (almost 7 weeks!) Sure, I had defrosted meals from the freezer, or mixed up some cornbread to go with soup, but, thanks to people all over the country, we had food that lasted almost two months! So, a HUGE THANK YOU to all who sent food - our friends from our church here, our Northbrook friends in TN, and of course, my mom who made sure the freezer was stocked :)

However, I did miss cooking and baking. So, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, as Mom and Dad were making their long drive up here, I got busy in the kitchen! (I could either have cooked or cleaned, and I would so much rather cook :) I made cheddar corn chowder, pumpkin cookies, and orange oat scones.

Don't they look yummy? The texture of the scones didn't come out exactly right, but i thought they tasted good - everyone else's comment about them was "hmm...interesting..." so try the recipe at your own risk :) You can find it here. (I replaced the dried currants with chocolate chips :)

Here are links to the other recipes as well (which everyone loved and we would highly recommend)

Cheddar Corn Chowder (I used a whole pound of bacon and 4 cans of corn)

Pumpkin Cookies (I doubled the cinnamon and nutmeg)

As Thanksgiving was approaching, I did struggle a bit with how far away we are from our families. And it didn't help to look at friends' pictures on Facebook of their babies with all their grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., and to know that Benjamin has only met one set of grandparents so far and neither of his aunts or his uncle ... so sad!! I just felt very far away. I know New York State isn't the moon, but sometimes it seems like it might as well be.

It happened that this was also the day I was planning to do my marathon grocery trip to prepare for Thanksgiving. We were planning to make Paula Deen's corn casserole, but needed Jiffy cornbread mix, which I've never been able to find here, so Mom has brought me several boxes to stock our pantry. Anyway, to make a long story short (as my dad would say) guess what I found at the grocery store???

I guess it really is "America's Favorite!" Maybe God knew I just needed one little thing to make me feel not quite so far away.