No Cut Chicken Spaghetti! Yummy!

Hello friends!  Today I thought I would share with you one of my family's favorite meals.  If any of you know my mother, you know she doesn't like to cook.  Consequently I never quite learned how to "love" being in the kitchen.  Since I have started staying at home this is beginning to change.  I digress.  Anyway, one meal my mother can make and makes WELL is chicken spaghetti!  Her recipe is extra cheesy and delicious, and the best part of it all is that you don't have to cut up anything!  Here is what you will need. . . (Caution, this is probably not on the healthiest side of things lol)

2-3 lbs chicken

8 oz velveeta cheese

8 oz cream cheese

1 can cream of mushroom 

1 can cream of celery 

1 can cream of chicken

16 oz of spaghetti noodles

To begin you need a large pot filled with water so that it will cover all the chicken.  Start heating your water to boiling so you can stick your chicken in there to boil it. 

If you don't have one of these you need one!  It is a stone that doesn't let your water  boil over!  I found one at Bed Bath and Beyond!  Best $4 ever!

Once you have your water at a boil stick you chicken in the pot and let it begin to cook.  Stir occassionally.

While your chicken is buys boiling start cutting the velveeta into little squares  so it melts easier.  

A block of velveeta is usually 16 oz, just cut it in half and use the rest at a later date.

After you have done this, take out the chicken, but DON'T DRAIN THE POT!!  You are going to use the water you boiled the chicken in to boil the noodles (for flavor).  Start those on low heat.  

Take your chicken and begin tearing it off into bite size pieces.  Beware it is VERY HOT.  Have either some kitchen gloves or give it a few minutes to cool.  Set chicken aside and continue on.  

Begin heating all your soups, rotel, and cheeses.  Put the soups in first so your cheese doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.  

Add all 3 soups

Your cream cheese

And velveeta.  You need to watch this and stir a lot so it doesn't burn.

Keep this on a low heat and stir occasionally until everything is melted into a thick creamy mixture.

Once you have done this, take the big pot that you have your noodles in and drain those out and leave the noodles in the collandar.  

Then put your melted cheese and chicken into the big pot (so everything will fit).  

 And then mix it all together.  First the chicken and cheeses, then add the noodles.

This makes a TON of food!  It is great and super easy if you are having to feed a large crowd.  It makes a 9X13 and another slightly smaller container.  It also freezes EXTREMELY WELL.  

So hopefully this hasn't been too confusing for yall.  Here is a picture of the picture of the recipe card if you would prefer to follow that.  

Reid's 1st Birthday Party: Having a Ball!

As you know, my little guy turned one last week!  The day after his actual birthday I wanted to schedule a party to celebrate with family and friends who have helped me and a my little family make it through.  The toy of choice around our home is and has been for a while balls.  Balls of any size, color, texture, you name it, our guy likes it!  So after searching on Pinterest for a while I found a party that I could kind of build off of.  You can find the link to that awesome looking party here.  *I made similar invitations to this gals party, and sent them out through e-mail*

I am glad I did this particular theme because it was SO EASY.  Balls are basically 3 dimensional circles, so we (we mostly being my mother and me, along with the occasional input from my aunt and grandmother) just cut out a bunch of circles and decorated from there.  We made a "Happy Birthday Reid" banner, a "1st Birthday" high chair banner, and a monthly banner (from pictures I had taken each month with Reid up against a certain stuffed animal).  I really think it turned out pretty good.  Sadly I don't think we got just plain pictures of all the decorations but here are a few to give you an idea. . . 

This is the high chair banner

Behind my in-laws you can see the "Happy Birthday Reid" banner.  The mantel

was decorated with his name, pictures, and balloons.

I have NO PICTURE of the monthly banner, but I am hanging it up in his room so I will take a picture of it there once it is up.  

Instead of having the traditional cake and to keep with our round theme, I decided to do cupcakes.  This was such a fun, incredibly easy, hassle free idea, that was also very cheap.  I went to Sam's and bought 2 packages of 30 cupcakes (good sized ones) for $13 a piece.  You cannot beat 60 cupcakes for under $30!  My cousin had just gotten married 2 weekends before and had cupcakes at her wedding.  My grandfather built a cupcake stand to house them all.  We borrowed the stand and my mom taped paper along the outsides of the three layers we used.  It worked out perfectly!

Didn't Mom do a great job decorating?

Big shout out to my MIL for the napkins that fit just perfectly!

I wanted Reid to have his own little cake so we went to Walmart and got one of those mini cakes and they decorated it for us on the spot!  It was great and also cheap!   We had chips and dips, icecream, drinks, I mean it was just wonderful.  I remember saying to my mom later how much it really did get pulled off, that it was actually perfect.  Here are few more pics from a very fun day.

Mr. Big 1 Year Old! 

Some of the guests

Yea for being 1!

My great great grandmother!  She is such a blessing!

This would be a ball pit my cousin got him.  It came with only 20 balls .

So she got him 250 more. . .

Can't wait until she has a kid.  It is payback ;)

Opening gifts with mommy and daddy!

Singing happy birthday!

Can you tell he is just a little loved?  And this is only 1 half of the room!

All in all, a great day!

Thank you to all who came, brought food, presents, and have been there with us through this past year. We are so blessed to have you in our lives!

Lovely

I saw this on Pinterest and just thought I would share. . .

Read about Reid: 1 Year

Right Now I should be doing plenty more things other than sitting down to blog.  However, when the boy is asleep I take the chance I have and run with it.  I cannot believe almost a whole year has gone by since he has been born.  It really feels like just yesterday he was placed in my arms after 9 long months of waiting!  The things we have been through in a whole year have been amazing too, some that I wish I could go back and relive, and others I do not care to go back and do over.  Here are some things about Reid that I want to never forget.

1.  The boy loves balls!  They are his toy of choice and it was the first word he said after "dada".  He can find one any where and wants to play with it instantly.  I love watching him be entertained by something so simple and to see his delight in it.

2.  He is now sleeping through the night quite comfortably.  We have finally reached the full 12 hour a night mark instead of 10 and for that I am SUPER grateful!  It is so nice!

3.  Reid can put away some food.  He likes most anything (berries are not his favorite.  We will work on that).  It amazes me how much he eats, it is way more than I eat that is for sure!  Some of his favorite foods are scrambled eggs, pancakes, bananas, grilled ham and cheese sandwhich, potatoes, green beans, taco meat, bread of any kind, spaghetti,  the list goes on and on!

4.  I love his little laugh.  He loves to be tickled and will giggle and squeal to let you know he is enjoying himself.  We have this silly came we play where I sit him in my lap and say "I" (while pointing to my eyes) "love" (cross my arms over my chest to make the love sign), and then I squeal "YOU!" and tickle him!  He goes crazy!

5.  There could never be a little boy who is loved more.  He has so many people around him that just want to eat him up it is crazy.  We are blessed.

6.  He is now toddling everywhere.  That just started last week!  It is crazy how one day they just decide they can do it, and go for it!

7.  He is also a strong little guy, he has muscles like you wouldn't believe.

8.  He loves to drive anything!  Going riding at noni's with poppy is one of his favorite past times.

9.  Swinging is also a blast.  There is a whole swingset set up just for him at Nana and Pops' house ready to be used whenever we are there.

10.  He is the best baby in the world!  I love how happy and joyful he is.  He brings so much to our lives, I know we will never be the same!  I pray that he loves deeply always, and follows hard after the Lord.  He is wonderful and I have been blessed by him this past year

Fun In Tyler

On labor day weekend Mark and I decided to take the whole weekend and go spend it in Tyler with my in-laws.  However, this wasn't going to be just any weekend, the whole Clifton clan (besides Blake who is a goober and decided not to come) AND their girlfriends/fiances were going to be in town!  To say this was a new experience for everyone is an understatement!  Seriously, for 4 years now I have been the only girl this family has had besides my mother-in-law, so now to have a house that had as many girls in it as boys was great!  I have to admit I was nervous about the dynamic, about how it would change, would the other girls like me, would we all mesh well etc.  What would you know, it did all come together and we all had a great time!  

Reid with his first real soon-to-be Aunt Melissa

If you could read his shirt it says "my uncle is a great catch".  Melissa is engaged to Wade Mark's oldest brother.

We got in some good reading time with Nana!

Reid with Scott and Wade, two of his many uncles!

This is Scott, Mark's second oldest brother and his girlfriend Katy

They are precious!

Wade and Melissa, love them too!

Daddy and Reid after church.

Just hanging around!

It's easy to see a good time was had by all!  I cannot believe how fast my little boy is growing up!  At the end of this week I will have a stinkin' 1 year old!  Where has the time gone?!?  Tell me does putting a book on his head make him stop growing up?