Sunshine and scribbles

{morgan pretends to be bella sunday evening}

Since I've been sort of out of 'real' blogging mode(whatever that is), I wanted to rewind a bit to Sunday. Sunday was a beautiful day - crisp, but sort of perfect.

In the morning, after church, Kricket and I took pictures outside on my front lawn - my front lawn that was blanketed with glowing orange leaves. I let Morgan crunch around and kick them. It was beautiful. I will post pictures later - I took several, and I mean sev.er.al. You know me.

That afternoon, we had Apricot Chicken - a favorite recipe of mine from SKeller. She shared it with us when she came to take care of our family (all three) after we came home from the hospital last fall. When I reminded Jared of that fact, he commented that we sure had had our fill of Apricot Chicken over the coarse of the year.

And it's true. We have.

And I will share it with you at the end of this post. It is delicious, and very simple. And it looks very pretty. You know, restaurant-pretty, if served with green peas.

For our weekly sunday dessert, I got 'brave' and made a pumpkin roll. I love those things, but have never attempted to make one because I get really confused with any type of directions, and the directions for roll cake of any kind make my head spin at the part where you're to roll the cake up in a linen towel. I mean, who even thought of that?

A quick call to my sister simplifed things. And we had a very rich, but very yummy pumpkin roll that evening (thanks AllRecipes).

Jared watched sunday night football and I wrote pages and pages in Morgan's journal. I read through it and it made me saddened at the fact I did not write more.

We surely forget things we end up longing to remember as time goes by - even things we swear we'll remember. I was feeling that way Sunday evening. I believe that journal writing is commandment - a tender, fulfilling one that I need to be more diligent in following. I so enjoy the things I have written, even when as little time as a year has gone by. Isn't it amazing when we look back, how nostalgic our day-to-day lives become once they have changed, once we find ourselves in a different routine?

Like Jared and I bringing our brand new bundle home. Like me being so emotionally spent. And how we both longed for sleep.

Then one day it just changed. And we rested a little more.

And now, Morgan sleeps entirelly through the night.

I miss those sleepless nights. Who would have ever known?

Journaling: do it. It's so worth it.

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Here's that recipe (thanks Stacy):

{Apricot Chicken}

Arrange 7 frozen chicken tenders or 2-3 full-sized frozen chicken breasts (or enough chicken to fill a 9x13 glass baking dish).

Sauce:
1/2 bottle of Kraft Catalina Dressing
1/2 jar of Apricot jam
1 envelope of onion soup mix

Mix the sauce ingredients together and pour over the frozen chicken.
Bake at 350 degrees for one hour. You can also bake this in a crock pot.
Serve over rice.

{Pumpkin Roll II}
from allrecipes - click here for the original post over there on their website.

note: I would use half of the filling instead of all of it. It was WAY too rich I ended up unrolling the cake and taking half of it off.

3 eggs
1 cup white sugar
2/3 cup canned pumpkin
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
confectioners' sugar for dusting

1 cup confectioners' sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 15x10x1 inch baking pan and line with parchment paper. Grease and flour the paper.
In a large bowl, beat eggs on high for five minutes. Gradually add white sugar and pumpkin. Add flour, cinnamon, and baking soda. Spread batter evenly in pan. Sprinkle walnuts evenly on top.
Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 15 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Immediately turn out onto a linen towel dusted with confectioners sugar. Peel off paper and roll cake up in the towel, starting with the short end. Cool.
To Make Filling: Mix confectioners sugar, vanilla, butter or margarine, and cream cheese together till smooth.
Carefully unroll the cake. Spread filling over cake to within 1 inch of edges. Roll up again. Cover and chill until serving. Dust with additional confectioners' sugar, if desired.