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Welcome

Welcome to my little corner of the world. I am so honored by your visit today. My name is Kristi and I am married to my college sweetheart(I refer to him here as "Mr. Incredible"), momma to my 2 beautiful girls who are growing much too quickly, a high school computer teacher, photographer, and a gardener (at times~right now I'm growing weeds). I love to laugh, drink strong Starbucks coffee, take pictures, and be anywhere my family is. Jesus is my Savior and I try so hard to be the wife and momma that He has called me to be. I often fail but He lovingly picks me up, dusts me off, and encourages me that with Him all things are possible. Feel free to join me on this journey of faith, stop in and say hello, look around, and leave a comment~I love comments. Why "Kiki's Corner?" My nephews call me Aunt Kiki and I love that too.

I'm Thankful For


...Our 4th of July Celebration:
(I can't believe the 4th of July was nearly a week ago! Where does the time go? )

We had a lot of fun having R (Daddy) home for a three day weekend! Delight! I was brave and tried a few new recipes. I was too chicken to invite dear loved ones over for dinner because, I was not that confident in my fried chicken ability. Now, I wish that I had not been so...chicken!




We tried Tyler Florence's Family Recipe for fried chicken and it did not disappoint! I normally do not like the smell of frying anything in my kitchen, all 3 times I have fried somethings, so this time I snipped fresh Rosemary and Thyme from the garden and dropped it in the oil before we turned on the heat. The smell was heavenly! It took us 2 hours, yes you read that correctly, 2 hours to fry all the chicken my sweet hubby picked out. Note to self, never go to the grocery store with a hungry man and ask him to please pick out the chicken. We could have fed our street! We LOVED it! The chicken was moist on the inside and so crunchy on the outside. I served it w/ Tyler's tomatoes with blue cheese dressing and his recipe for roasted corn and Chile lime butter. Again, it was delicious!


Here are the girls enjoying our lunch. Rachel found a hat that belonged to R's Mamaw, when we cleaned out the game room....fun times!


And since it was the 4th of July, we had to have homemade apple pie. I'm not a great pie maker. The last time we had pie, I didn't even have a pie plate and we have been married for almost 18 years. So, using my good judgement, I improvised and used...are you ready for this?...cake pans! I thought it was brilliant. I worked so hard on my pie and finally the moment arrived to bake it in the oven. Since patience is not really my favorite fruit of the spirit, I refer to it as the "P" word, I waited 10 minutes, oh alright, 5 minutes, and checked on my pies. The crust had fallen and they looked like flattened pancakes. Ugh!

So, you can imagine my family's delight when I announced that I would be baking homemade apple pies, that I had never made before, for our dessert. Their chuckles were not appreciated! Anyway, Rachel and R helped me carefully slice all of the apples. Rachel and I carefully sculpted the pie crusts, and then the moment arrived to place them in the oven. I had flashbacks of my last pie, so I told them "good luck" and closed the door.

55 minutes later this is what I found:

Yippee! I baked a pie! I baked a pie! It turned out so well, I shared the second pie, cause you can't just make one at a time, with my parents. It was delicious and I was so thankful!


I'm also thankful for the fun times Hannah, R, and I had bowling this week.

Really, I prefer to bowl via our Nintendo Wii, but noooo, Hannah wanted the real deal this time. Off we went to the local bowl-a-rama. We laughed until our sides hurt. Note to self, real bowling is much harder than Wii bowling. Here are a few pics.




Great form...looking good...right?

Let me just explain, R and I are very competitive, therefore, our girls are very competitive! I'm sure R thought that he would just smoke us with his bowling expertise and just leave us in the dust, he did not! Okay, okay, he won the first game, by 3 points, and I won the second game.

It was quite a sight of beauty to see our score at the end of our second game. Here it is:

Pitiful isn't it? The high score for the night was 87. Clearly, we are not a bowling family. I think I will stick to Wii bowling, it isn't nearly as hard on my pride or my body.

It was fun, though!



On a more spiritual note, I am thankful for so many blessings in my life. Rachel has been texting me all week to let me know how the Backyard Bible School is going. They are having an incredible week. She asked me to pray for the kids in her group. Of course, I had been praying for them before they left, but I just loved her heart. I'm thankful for her heart and her deep love for the Lord. I can hardly wait to see her! I'm thankful she comes home in only 2 more days!



Joyfully,
Kristi





25 comments:

Denise said...

Looks like you enjoyed some yummy food, and fun times with your dear family. Bless you sweetie.

Tracy said...

Great list of things to be thankful for. Sounds like you had a fun 4th of July weekend! Blessings! ~ Tracy

Anonymous said...

Your food looked so delicious! Good for you Mrs. Chef!!! :)
Happy TT.

lori said...

Kristi,
What a BLAST ya'll had!! I have NEVER, NEVER made fried chicken! I'm tooooo chicken too!! Now that you've said Tyler's recipe was great...I may have to dust off that Fry Daddy...

Here is what you can do....I have Adobe 6...but I'm still learning! In the meantime I use PAINT.NET..you can download it for FREE...the gal who did my blog for me told me about it. It's a simpler version....you can do a lot with it. It's all really in layers...just playing around!
There are a bunch of sites that offer FREE digital papers and stuff too....fun for playing around...if you ever want to know what they are just let me know!

It's just fun to play around...with out the mess :)
I just wish I had even MORE time to learn it all....someday, when I'm rocking away!!:)

Have a great Thursday!
Go, and download Paint.Net and PLAY!!
Peace,
lori

Kim @ Homesteader's Heart said...

Your 4th sounds great. I do have to comment on the bowling thing lol. We have a Wii too and my 6 year old as well as my 3 year old kick butt at it. I can't wait to take them to the "real" bowling alley and see how they does. My husband and I are very competitive as well. I have the all time high score of 191 and he's gotten as close as 190. I'll get obsessed about beating him if he ever does pass me ha ha! But anyway your post brought great laughs and memories! Ok and I do have to say that yes your scores were pitiful lol. But it's all about the fun.....or is it!
Blessings,
Kim

Sarah@Life in the Parsonage said...

That Pie looks so YUMMY!!!

Kim @ Homesteader's Heart said...

LOL! Your on! But I have to be honest with you I've only reached that score one time lol. I usually only bowl around 140. And yes cake is MUCH easier than pie. I cried my way through 3 chocolate cream pie attempts one Thanksgiving lol. But I have finally found the ultimate chocolate cream pie that even I could make. I have it posted on my blog by the way. Hee hee! That's it I'm going to have to put you on my blog list. Oh yeah you asked for it girlie! Let the games begin! Ha ha!
Blessings,
Kim

Anonymous said...

wow! you surely had fun with family.. I love the apple pie and I could almost smell it from here :)

God bless!

Lalaine's World
From Asia And Beyond
Day to Day Miracles

Tracy said...

What fun! Looks like a great time. That pie?! Heavenly!
Happy TT!

Blessings,
Tracy = )

Melanie said...

It sounds as if you and family had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. Certainly something for which to be thankful.

Happy Thankful Thursday!

Addicted to Beadz said...

Kristi,

What a fun week. I usually buy the already made pie crusts. Isn't that sad? I do have a great recipe for an upside down carmel apple pie. So yummy!

Maybe I should do some cooking!

Cheryl

Heather said...

What fun family times you've all been having. That pie did look great! As did the chicken and the corn. Not fair to only share pictures!!!

Unknown said...

I'm drooling. Seriously. I kid you not. Yum!

Joy said...

Great list and I love your pictures! Bowling is a lot of fun...can't wait until my children are able to bowl(without the gutter gards and the ramp LOL!) I really enjoyed my stop at your blog today and that fried chicken looked yummy!
Joy

Laurie Ann said...

Good food and good times with family - does it get any better? And yes, where does the time go? It seems like it was just yesterday, and almost a week has gone by.

Anonymous said...

that looks like so much fun!!!!

bp said...

What wonderful 4th of July memories! It looks lilke fun!

LAURIE said...

Wow what a great TT list! Spending time with family and having good eats all in the same day. Thanks for sharing your grateful heart with us and for visiting my TT post.

Crystal said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving a comment. I tell ya, these meme's are so much fun. Sounds like you had a great 4th of July. We spent the day putting a swingset together for our kids.

Erica said...

Yum! The family that was parked to our right at the parade we went to had fried chicken and it smelled so delicious!
Your pie looked really yummy as well! I love that you are having so much fun with your girls!

connorcolesmom said...

Kristi
Thank you for stopping by my blog
That is so neat that you also had a hummer greet you as well :)

BTW I noticed in your profile that you had gone to Baylor Do you still live around there?

I have a cousin that lives in Waco and her hubby is the Assistant AD at Baylor

She is coming to the FIESTA too :)
HAve a great night
Blessings
Kim

Kate said...

what a wonderful thankful list...thanks so much for stopping by my place and for commenting! lovely to "meet" you...have a blessed weekend!! :)

Mary said...

Great looking pie!! Good job!! Love Rachel's hat! :) Thanks for stopping by my place. Blessings on your weekend!

TheSmellyArmpit said...

Thanks for visiting my blog! I loved reading through your posts. You have such a neat family and I love all the scripture you post. Have a great weekend!

Unknown said...

What a great thankful list! The food sounds yummy and bowling, well, was bowling!

Thanks for visiting me this week! Have a great weekend!