~Fun Food Friday...Comforting Chicken Noodle Soup~

~Some years ago my dear friend Susanna gave me this recipe for this yummy soup.  I thought I'd share this with you.  It's a pretty fast yet nutritious meal...to help you through the Holiday rush.
So, put on a pot today, while writing out your Christmas cards, and your Christmas-to-do list.  Or if you are already doing Christmas shopping, get the things ready to make this soup before you leave, and then when you get home..throw the soup together for a nice hot meal for your family. =)~

 ~Comforting Chicken Noodle Soup~
2 quarts of water  (Or if I cook my own chicken... I use that broth for the 2 qts. of water.)
8 chicken bullion cubes. 
6 1/2 cups uncooked egg noodles
2 cans (10 3/4 oz.) condensed cream of chicken soup
3 cups cubed Cooked chicken
1 cup (8 oz) sour cream.
In a large saucepan bring water and bullion to boil.  Add noodles, cook uncovered til tender.
 DO NOT DRAIN!
Add cream of chicken soup and chicken and heat thoroughly.
Remove from heat.
Add sour cream!
Ta Da...you have a yummy hot soup ready to impress your family.  =)
And as Always...ENJOY!
Don't forget to come back tomorrow...I'll be starting the 1st of 25 days of Christmas on my blog. =) 

~My Friend Marisol~

~My dear friend Marisol and I try to get together once every week or two. Most of the time we come to each other's houses to make a recipe, or just chat. Sometimes we go shopping together. =)  This was back in October when she came and I made her a black and white polka dotted T.P. pumpkin (and I made myself one that night too.=) ~

~One evening I went to her house alone and she served me yummy tamales (that she had purchased), hot choc., cheese, and bread. ~

~Since no one else was with me to take our picture that night, I took it.  =) ~

~When I was about 11 years old or so, my Moma received an Oster kitchen center for Christmas.  Since I had my own bread business in several states I REALLY PUT MOMA'S OSTER KITCHEN CENTER TO USE!!!  Every week I would take orders and then you could have heard Moma's mixer working away to make all the bread, cinnamon rolls, rolls, etc. that I was going to sell.  
God must have Smiled knowing that I would need to know how to use an Oster Kitchen center one day...in BOGOTA, Colombia!  
You see, my friend Marisol's husband bought her an Oster Kitchen center about 20 years ago.  BUT, since ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS were in ENGLISH, she was SCARED TO DEATH to use it and RUIN this expensive machine, SO IT HAS JUST SAT IN HER CABINET ALL THIS TIME.  For about 3 years now, she has told me about this mixer and told me that she would love for me to see the manual and help her learn how to use it.  You can imagine my SURPRISE (and hers too!!) when she RECENTLY brought me the manual to her mixer for me to read it and explain to her how to use this.  I squealed, "Oh, Marisol, I have used this machine way too many times to count!!!"  So, I went to her house, she got out her Oster Kitchen center, scrubbed off all the dust from setting in the box, and we had fun making some cookies with it. =) ~

~Marisol putting the jelly in our cookies.~

~The next time we got together, we used her kitchen center to make my French bread. ~

~Normally little Mary stays home with her big brothers and Daddy, but THIS TIME she got to come with her big sisters and Mommy. =) ~

~Here Mary is ready to eat her snack that Mrs. Marisol made her.  She was feeling like "Quite the LADY" having her own chair, and plate and hot drink. =)~

~Kimberly took this picture of us eating in Marisol's dinning room. (Notice little Mary daintily holding her cup. =)~

~Here we are with the French bread rolled out.  Years ago Marisol had eaten a bread in another country  (Ecuador?)  that had raisins, green olives, ham, and cheese rolled inside.  She had told me all about that bread and WANTED to make it.  So, we made 4 loaves of my french bread and rolled those things inside.  It does sound pretty INTERESTING, but we were surprised at how tasty it was. ~

~Our "stuffed" French bread ready for the oven.~

~Recently we took Marisol to see the new mall that just opened here.   We had a fun evening walking around and doing some Christmas shopping in the CHEAP stores. =)  We took time out for a little snack together before we went home.~

~Sarah and Kimberly enjoying their blackberry Icees. 
We are VERY BLESSED to have Many DEAR friends here in Colombia...one of which is Marisol.~

 

~Our HAPPY Thanksgiving~

Jesus gave us such a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving with our Colombian family!! =)    We invited Pastor Jimmy, Sis. Farly, Nataly, Gaby, and Bro. Jimmy's parents Bro. Jaime, and Sis. Sofia over to help us celebrate.  We would have loved to have invited the whole church, but there wasn't enough room in our house.  =) 
~I made 2 pumpkin pies.   This one I cut little leaves out of pastry and put them around the outside of the crust. ~

~

~and these are little pumpkins around this crust. ~

~Phillip was in charge of the turkey.  It was the biggest turkey we've ever had; 26 pounds. God really helped him and it was DELICIOUS!~

~I was glad that Jesus used my little leaves/pumpkins to help my crust not slide down into the pie like normally happens here in Bogota.~

~I also made 2 apple pies.~

~Everyone worked together to make the dinner.  Even Elijah helped by taking the grapes off to cook them for my fresh grape juice.  =) (I served a punch of my fresh grape juice with Sprite and it was yummy and refreshing.   4 cups of grape juice to 5 cups of Sprite.)  Yum!~

~I asked Kimberly and Phillip to pick some branches with orang-ish berries for our table.~

~Kimberly made us some of her "leaves with the egg shell border" to put on each place card. They were pretty and added a fun touch to our table. =) ~

~The berries and candles also added a nice touch and went well with our charcoal tablecloth..~

~Before we ate the kids and Bro. Jaime were doing "tops" outside.  Tops are really in right now here in Colombia.  The tops are made out of hard plastic or wood and come with a string.  One has to LEARN how to wrap the string around it, then throw it just right, so that when it lands it goes round and round.  Bro. Jaime was showing us how to do it on our hand. =) ~

~Our family on Thanksgiving. =)  Very Blessed.~

~Phillip did a CRACK BANG JOB with our turkey.  He brined the turkey all night in spices. (I just decorated it with the fruit after he did all the work. =)  His turkey turned out DELICIOUS, and Pretty too!!~ 

~Sis. Sofia brought the HUGE pot of yummy mashed potatoes, and Sis. Farly made the yummy salad to go along with our gravy, and my candied carrots, green beans, and french bread.  =) ~

~After dinner we had a special time of praising God together.  Pastor Jimmy gave us a good devotional, and then we went around the table saying what we were thankful for.  There were lots of tears as we each THANKED GOD for our BLESSINGS!  

~Then we sang several choruses and prayed together too.~

~Then we played a fun game together, ate pie, and finished off the evening with my Pumpkin Pie Lattes.~

~Sarah and Gaby.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day together.  I hope that you too had a wonderful Thanksgiving. ~

 

~Happy Thanksgiving~

'Twas the night OF Thanksgiving...and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring...not even a LOUSE! =)

All the people had gone to bed without THANKING GOD FOR...

All their BLESSINGS...the whole YEAR o're!

Here God had given them food, clothes, a place to stay,...

And MANY MORE Blessings...every.single.day!

But Life was too Busy to stop and Thank Him

I guess they thought He Owed it to them!

The saying goes,"What if you woke up Today, with only the things you Thanked God for yesterday?"

If that were so, You think we'd all see it in a different way?!

I plan on being GRATEFUL...and starting THIS MINUTE!

I'm THANKFUL for this house, and my SWEET family that's in it! =)

I'm Thankful for God, and for the LOVE His son Jesus had for ME,
To leave the splendor of Heaven to die on Calvary.
I won't go through my whole list...or we'd be here for DAYS...
But, I think you've caught my point...LET'S GIVE JESUS PRAISE! =)

                                                                     Nov. 2012 by ~Heather Dickinson~

~Phillip, Heather, Kimberly, Sarah, Noah, Elijah, and Mary.~

I'm VERY THANKFUL for each of you, my blog readers and friends.  You'll NEVER know how much this blog, and you reading it, and your nice comments help my heart not to be SO LONELY for our family and friends back in the USA.  (ESPECIALLY during the Holidays!!! )
~Wishing YOU a VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING...from our family to yours!!!~ 

  

~Fun Food Friday...Stuffed baked bananas.~

The other day Charity sent me this recipe to make for Fun Food Friday.  So, I did, we enjoyed it, and I'm sharing it with y'all.

 ~Just slice open bananas (DO NOT PEEL FIRST)
~Stuff with marshmallows and choc. chips (as much as to your liking)
~Wrap each banana in alum. foil.
~Bake on a cookie sheet for about 25-30 mins. or so at 350.  (I baked them while we ate our supper, then turned the oven off after 30 mins. and just left them in the oven.)

~Each person gets a banana for dessert.  Unwrap, and Eat.  (These sort of reminded us of baked plaintain like they do here in Colombia.) ~
And as Always...ENJOY!

 ~As you may know, we are in a rental house.  If it were more of a permanent home for us, we would have made some changes.  But, since we are awaiting our Colombian papers, and then the Lord is calling us to Argentina, we just live with some things. =)
One of those things being that I have NO upper kitchen cabinets, which means I have a LOT less storage.  Below is our microwave stand that our Dear Friend Bro. Edwards purchased for us back in 2006.  (He is in Heaven now, and we all miss him.  He LOVED microwave popcorn.  So, when he flew down to visit us our first year here, he brought us about 70 packs of popcorn, and then found out we didn't have a microwave.  So he bought us our microwave AND the stand.  What a Dear "Grandpa" he was to all of us.)
I was THRILLED to have this microwave stand, but the glass doors were a little nuisance to me, for you could see everything!  (The spices here come in bags, so it's hard to keep those organized.)
I just wasn't too thrilled that you could see the vitamins, etc. through the glass.  I mentioned this to my family a few weeks ago, and Kimberly said, "Why don't you just tape some scrapbooking paper inside?" ~

 ~Well, What a Good idea!  Why hadn't it crossed our mind to do this 6 years ago? =)  I taped paper inside, and I tried to organize it at the same time.
I'm HAPPY with the results!  =) ~

 ~On my last post I told you that my friend Marisol gave me 2 picture frames.
There were 2 hooks on the wall in my kitchen when I arrived.  I wanted to leave them there for the next person, since we'll be leaving soon, so ....I made 2 chalkboards to put in my new frames to hang on these hooks.  =)  ~

 ~As you know, my kitchen is decorated in a "Coffee" theme!  ~

 ~How fun!

 ~I'm Happy with my 2 new fun chalkboards in my kitchen! =) ~