Little moments

Do you ever have moments where you look around at your kids, your spouse, your life, etc. and you just can't help but smile and feel overwhelmed with happiness? It happens to me sometimes. I spend a lot of my days feeling stressed, running from place to place, always telling my kids "Do this now!" or "Don't do that ever!", and I'm trying to spend more time enjoying life and taking moments to relax and savor the little moments. It's those times when I slow down and take a look around that I feel so lucky and blessed with the life I have. 

Here are a few of the moments this week that made me smile:

I was using oranges for baking, and Dallin (who has previously stayed far away from oranges) picked one up and started licking it. I cut off a little segment for him and he began eating it.

This is a miraculous event! The only fruits Dallin will eat are cantaloupes and grapes. And cantaloupe this time of year is gross and expensive, so I'm overjoyed to find something else he will eat.

At the grocery store this week, we passed some oranges and Dallin asked for some, then happily put them in the basket. I'm cautiously optimistic about this.

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I tried to take a decent looking picture of the boys together and actually got a few good shots.

I love Connor's smile here.

And this brotherly love is pretty cute.

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A recent snowfall meant it was time to shovel the driveway and play in the snow.

Connor used a sand shovel to help me.

While very ineffective, this is ridiculously cute.

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This video warms my heart. Connor  picked up my scriptures and started turning through the pages, "reading" outloud: "Heavenly Father loves me."

I'm not quite sure where he picked up that exact phrase, but we must be doing something right.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Part of the fun of making a Thanksgiving dinner is trying to figure out how to use up the leftovers. You can only have a leftover turkey sandwich so many times before it gets boring. I got pretty creative this year. I made Herb Turkey and Asparagus Risotto.

This was made with turkey stock that I made myself from the leftover turkey bones. It was so full of flavor and delicious.

I also made Turkey Enchiladas. I made them exactly like I would chicken enchiladas with a red sauce, but I used turkey instead of chicken. Easy!

I ran out of turkey a lot faster than I thought I would, but there is always one thing that I have leftover long after everything else is consumed: cranberry sauce. I love making my own fresh cranberry sauce and I keep it simple: cranberries, diced apple, sugar, water. Boil. Cool. Eat. I think I'm the only person that ever eats it, so I always have a ton leftover. I'm determined to use it up this year so I made some cranberry muffins.

These are really yummy. Connor is a muffin-fiend and has eaten two in the last hour. I mostly followed this recipe from Two Peas and their Pod, but I changed a few things. I used juice from an orange instead of orange zest. (My orange had already been zested for a previous dish.) The batter is REALLY thick (we're talking almost cookie dough consistency), so I would add more milk or orange juice to thin it out. The thick batter makes a dense hearty muffin, which may or may not be desirable to you, but it does make for quite a beautiful, rounded muffin top. I also cut the sugar back by a few tablespoons. I find myself doing that for most recipes and I can hardly tell the difference.

The muffins are delicious. I recommend you give them a try if you have some cranberry sauce to spare. I have a Christmas party to attend tomorrow, so next I want to try this Cranberry Orange bread recipe:

Mmmmmm......