Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings

Fall is finally making it's way to Mississippi. And fall weather mixed with late night football practice pretty much screams for a crock pot meal! I have to be honest and tell you that up until a few weeks ago, I really only ever used my crock pot to make an annual pot roast and to heat up cheese dip for parties. I don't know why, but for some reason the crock pot just never really appealed to me. But with our afternoons being so busy lately, I decided using my crock pot was the only way I was going to be able to feed my family a meal that didn't include frozen chicken nuggets or pizza! I've actually tried quite a few different recipes, and this delicious recipe for Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings has been my favorite by far! 

I searched around for an easy crock pot recipe, and I found this one at BubbleCrumb.com. The thing I liked most about this recipe is that it is very similar to the recipe that my mom uses for her chicken and dumplings, except it uses a few more canned ingredients and a crock pot. I modified the original recipe to make it a little easier and to suit my family. I started with a couple of frozen chicken breast. Actually I threw in two smaller sized chicken breast and about four frozen chicken tenderloins because that is what I had in my freezer.

I added in two cans of cream of chicken soup and then I added enough chicken stock to cover the frozen chicken pieces. 

I gave the cream of chicken soup/stock mixture a little bit of a stir in the crock pot and then added a couple pats of butter and a little sprinkle of some dried parsley, salt, and pepper. 

Then I put the lid on my crock pot and let it go on high for 4-5 hours. The one thing I love about cooking with my crock pot is that it is almost impossible to overcook something. So if you accidentally leave your chicken in the crock pot a little longer it will be fine and still moist and delicious!

After the 4-5 hours is up, I pulled the cooked chicken out of the crock pot and shredded it up with two forks. Then I added the shredded chicken back to the crock pot.

I got my tube of refrigerated biscuits out. I used butter flavored biscuits because that is the kind that my mom always used in her Chicken and Dumplings, but the original recipe calls for Grand's biscuits. Use whatever kind your family prefers, just know that the butter flavored biscuits add a really yummy, buttery flavor that regular biscuits won't. I rolled out my biscuits a little with a cup and then cut each biscuit into four pieces. Next time I'm going to cut them a little smaller to make the cooking time a little shorter and to ensure that the dumplings aren't still gooey when it's time to eat. 

I then dropped my biscuit pieces in a few a time and carefully stirred them into the liquid. At this point, you can also add a little more stock or even a splash of milk if you think you need more liquid. After I added all the dumplings, I let it cook for about another hour on low. The cook time will really depend on how big you cut your dumplings, so keep that in mind. 

Serve up these delicious and easy Chicken and Dumplings with a side of butter beans and maybe even some warm cornbread on a really cold day! These Chicken and Dumplings were a big hit at our house. Henry even said he liked mine better than my mom's, thought Grant said he still prefers Grammie's:) 

September Recap Via Instagram

We started September off with a short camping trip.

 We did a lot of bike riding....

 ...got yummy snoballs...

 ...made popcorn over the campfire...

 ...did a little geocaching...

 ...and went to the beach one last time!

 I got a sunburn...and it was not pretty!

 I decided to start using my crock pot more...but then forgot to buy chicken:)

 We celebrated Eli's 4th birthday.

 The fall is all about football in the south!

 We had a fun barnyard brunch birthday party:

 Grant had a sore throat so we went to the doctor and wasted a couple hours for them to say it's just a virus.

 I took advantage of the fall like weather and headed to the walking track.

 My blog disappeared for a day {and scared me to death}!

 We had smoothies for dinner on a busy Wednesday night.

 I got a much needed pedicure...

 ...and treated myself to Starbucks while shopping at Target:)

 We took the Airstream to our annual family reunion....

 ...and I took this picture of the boys again:

 I started following along with She Reads Truth on YouVersion.

 I went back to Target again:)

 Eli cried when I picked him up from school because he wanted to stay!

 The photobooks that I order from Shutterfly came in the mail!

 I made some yummy chicken and dumplings in the crockpot.

 I wore a new dress with my pretty turquoise sandals.

 Henry and Grant played football....

 ...then we watched the Bulldogs play football.

 Eli decided to add a little graffiti to his arms and legs on the way to town.

 I took some meds that made me sick so I ate tons of saltines trying to make myself feel better.

 I played around with the new panorama option on my iPhone:) SO MUCH FUN!

 The boys' pee wee football team was in our local homecoming parade.

 The boys went swimming at a birthday party...at the end of September!

 Silly Eli asked me to "unwrap" his banana for him:)

Pallet and Hay Fall Display

So I've been a little absent from the blog world lately, mostly because things have been really busy around here...but also because I feel like I've lost a little bit of my creativity. I thought when Eli started preschool two days a week, that I would have a ton of time to do some crafting, creating, and decorating. But so far that hasn't happened. Instead my house is a wreck, my craft room is still nonexistent, and I can not for the life of me keep up with the laundry! Despite all of that {and sorry for my whining, but surely I'm not the only one feeling like this right now!?!}, I did manage to get a few fall decorations put up last week. I created this fun outdoor display from a few things leftover from Eli's Barnyard Brunch birthday party along with some of my usual fall decorations and a some things from a local nursery. 

 I think my favorite part of this whole display is the fun pallet with the vinyl saying. This is the same pallet that was the backdrop for the food table at Eli's party. I had already added the whitewash effect, which I thought was very fun and fallish. But it needed something a little more, so I broke out my Silhouette and cute out the cute Happy Fall, Y'all saying. I think it adds a ton of whimsy to the display! The best thing about it is that if I want to use this pallet again for something else, all I have to do is peel off the vinyl!

I also love the look of the funky pumpkins stacked together. I originally had a triple stack of pumpkins and another cute orange one, but the Mississippi heat was too much for the pumpkins and I ended up with some gross rotten pumpkin soup. I managed to salvage the two in the picture, but I don't think they are going to last much longer either....I'm starting to see the beauty of the fake, crafty pumpkins:) I threw in a couple of mums to complete the whole fall look, and I think it turned out pretty cute! 

Do you put any fall decorations outside?

{And do your pumpkins still look perfect, or do you have rotten pumpkin soup like me?!?}

Wordless Wednesday: A Few Years Ago

{2012}

{2011}

{2010}

{2009}

Geocaching with Kids

A few years ago a friend of mine mentioned something about this thing called geocaching that she had been doing. It sounded like fun, but with a house full of wild little boys I never had the time to research it beyond what she had told me. Fast forward a few years, and my boys are older {and still wild} and we are now a camping family looking for fun things to do while we are traveling all over in our Airstream. We ride bikes and make s'mores and go on hikes, but surprisingly geocaching has become on of our favorite camping activities...and the most exciting part is anybody can go geocaching almost anywhere!

What is geocaching?

It's sort of like an outdoor scavenger hunt that uses GPS {most smart phone are perfect for this} to locate hidden treasures. I did a little research online, then I downloaded the free geocaching intro app to my phone to see if we liked it as much as I thought we would....we did! So I bought the full app {it cost around $10 & it's totally worth it} and we got started! This is the app that we use {Geocaching by Groundspeak Inc.} There are quite a few different ones to chose from, but this one has worked great for us so far and I love that it is connected to geocaching.com so you can plan out your adventures at home before you hit the road {or trail}! 

We've had quite a few geocaching adventures over the past few weeks and most of them have been on our bikes at a couple different local state parks. We start by picking a cache to look for then we head out on our adventure. Once we get close according the app, the boys park their bikes and start looking. For the most part, the first to find the cache gets to open it up, but sometimes we save the easier ones for Eli:)

We spent one afternoon on our last beach trip geocaching, and we found this really fun coconut cache near the beach! The boys had fun with this one because it wasn't the typical box or bottle that we had been finding:) 

Here's a picture of what the log looks like. For some caches you have to bring your own pen to sign the log because they are too small to hold a pen {which was the case with this coconut}. When we find a cache, we sign the log, and check out the log to see when the most recent find was! It is fun to know that other people have been out looking for the same thing you are! We even saw a guy grabbing this one the day after we found it...which was really neat because we knew exactly what he was doing:)

We went on quite an adventure this past weekend too {and introduced my aunt to the world of geocaching}! After a really close encounter with a really big poisonous snake, we found this cache hidden in the woods buried under a pile of pine straw. 

This is what a typical geocaching adventure looks like for us: 

We really have been having a blast on all our geocaching adventures, and I would recommend it to anyone! If you are looking for a fun way to get your kiddos outside to burn off some calories, geocaching is a great way to it! 

Linking up here..