Halloween 2011

It seems like it's been years since we had a Halloween at home. I think it has been, so this year I decided we were going to stay at home. It was a nice Halloween. We, or should I say I, carved pumpkins in the morning and then went to the honey's work parade where the boys always get a ton of candy. I love it because then it means we don't have to do that much trick-or-treating. My niece and nephew came with us this year trick-or-treating and then we had Broccoli Cheese Chowder for dinner. The best part of the night was that we were in bed by 9:30!! I hope you all had a great Halloween!

Teague went to the pumpkin patch today with his pre-school and brought home the most adorable perfect pumpkin I've ever seen! I love the long stem! Now if only I could get him to look at the camera when I take a picture...

Khaki

I love this dog, but he is quite literally my shadow. He follows me EVERYWHERE! The biggest annoyance I have with him is that when he wants attention, he purposely comes up to my hands and pushes his cold, wet nose right to them. EWWWW!!!! The good thing is that I've never seen a dog so good with kids. He's had kids pull on his ears and climb right on top of him. He doesn't even move and inch. He's a good dog, sometimes I just wish he would leave me alone for 10 minutes.

Fall Decor

I decided this year to try to put some things up above on my ledge. My good friend Amy does this and I think it looks sooo good! I'm hoping maybe to get some Christmas stuff up there too.

I love my new tree. They've had them at Hobby Lobby for the last couple years and I've always been attracted to them, but never knew what I would do with them. When I decided to put stuff up on my ledge, it clicked and I was so happy they still had them this year.




I've been wanting one of these lanterns for such a long time and thought it would be perfect to use for Halloween. I will probably put in my kitchen somewhere afterwards, because for me, I want it out all year long. Unlike so many wonderful people I admire, I'm not really that great of a bargain shopper. I really wish I was so that I could save more money, but it's definitely something I struggle with. I think I'm getting better, but this was something I should have waited to go on sale. I didn't.
I really LOVE my floral arrangement. It was another idea I got from my wonderful friend Amy. I realize it may not be everyone's taste, but it seriously makes me sooo happy!This is actually not my favorite area of decoration this year. I haven't been the happiest with it, but I don't have anything else to put there. However, when I took this picture, I was amazed at how gorgeous the colors turned out together. It seriously doesn't look this great to me in person. I love the challenge of moving things around every year and not having things look exactly the same as they did the year before. It's so much fun to decorate, I LOVE it.

Teague's 4th Birthday!

I'm a little slow in posting this, but that's just because I've been sulking about the fact that my baby is now 4. Just kidding. He is such a special addition to our family, and I'm so extremely blessed to have him as part of it. I joke a lot about how hard he was when he was a baby and a toddler, which was true, but he's really starting to chill out a little as he gets older. I love that I'm getting to know just him a little bit more while Aidan is in school. He's so sweet and loves to cuddle. Several times a day he'll just say out of the blue, "Mommy, I love you." He's very affectionate and very physical, which can sometimes get him into trouble. When he's in a good mood he wants to give loves, when he's frustrated he wants to hit, etc, etc. He's so giving to his older brother. I think the second child has to succumb to a lot of manipulation from the oldest. ;) He's truly an extremely wonderful blessing in my life and I love him sooo much! The wonderful cake that is posted is from his aunt and uncle Chase and Stacee. Thanks guys for all the effort you put into this.

I picked up the honey something at the store today. Can't wait to give it to him. :)

I saw a photo on pinterest for a pumpkin caterpillar and decided to try to re-create it with the kids. There is a farm right by my house that has pumpkins for super cheap and so it cost next to nothing. The boys couldn't decide on a color so we decided to do a green and purple caterpillar. Although it doesn't look nearly as nice as the pinterest picture, I still think it turned out pretty cute and the boys love it!

Uh, Teague...I found your other sock. In my pantry. On top of the soda. Suspiciously enough, it looks planted there.

Paper Halloween Cup Lights

Nicole and I found this cute project on the Good Housekeeping website. It was really easy and these cups look so much cuter even in person than on the computer. Plus, they're cheap and who doesn't love that? Nicole and I made this for about $10. The things you'll need to get started are: 3 oz. paper bath cups, an exacto knife, glue (we just used hot glue since it dries so fast), Halloween scrapbook paper, and a 20-25 count strand of led lights.

We cut apart one of the paper cups to make a template for the shape of the scrapbook paper we needed to cut out. Then we cut out the template in the various scrapbook papers we were going to use.

When that was done, we hot glued the templates right over the top of our cups. Our cups had a pattern to it, but after the project is done, you can't even see the pattern under the scrapbook paper. Also, be careful when you line the paper up or you'll get a bulge in the top of the cup.

Then we took an exacto knife and cut a small x in the top of the cup so we could push through the lights. Be careful when you push the lights through, as I tore a few of my cups and had to re-make them. I found 20 count led lights at Wal-Mart that were battery powered for $4.98. I love that they're battery powered because then you can put them pretty much anywhere!

Needless to say, Nicole and I loved this project so much, we're planning on making some Christmas ones. And, since they make scrapbook paper for any occasion, I might make cups for every holiday. That will ensure I'll get lots of use out of my battery powered led lights. They also said to use led lights instead of regular Christmas lights because of the heat involved, but just be warned, the led lights aren't that bright.

New Floor!

So I've decided I need to start blogging more. It's a good way to stay in touch with family and let everyone know what you're doing. I haven't really liked blogging all that much simply because I don't really know how to use the program very well. I think that with a little practice, however, I will be able to figure it out.

The thing that has been taking up the bulk of our time lately is the new carpet. We weren't going to get new carpet until tax return time, however, a store was offering 12 months no interest financing and free installation for carpet. We decided we couldn't turn it down and that we could still pay it off with tax return money without losing anything. So we did it.

It was a rough 4 days having our house torn apart. We could eat in the living room and cook, but no one really wanted to spend any time in these big empty rooms. 4 people and 2 dogs lived in our master bedroom for 5 days. We tried to stay out of the house as much as possible.

The carpet installers did a great job. I LOVE it!!! I have to admit the carpet is a little darker than I thought it would be, but I did that on purpose to hide stains. The painting I wanted to do is finally done and now with the new carpet it feels like a whole new house. We also put laminate in the entrance we use the most since it was so disgustingly dirty you don't even want to know. Now I'm wishing we could do the bedrooms too. Gotta pay this off first though. :) I can finally put up my fall stuff now! Yay!

General Conference

I love reading the Ensign. There are few things I look forward to more. My favorite is the conference talks. I like General Conference weekend, but the time I most grow is when I am able to read and study the talks. I learn so much more that I didn't hear when I was listening to it. Over the many General Conference's (and I'm sure many of you can relate), I have noticed that I take the most from President Deiter F. Uchtdorf's talks. I'm sure everyone has a favorite they like to listen to. I feel like he talks to my soul the most, that he relates to me the most. I was reading the conference talk from April titled "Waiting on the Road to Damascus" and I found a new favorite quote:

"The truth is, those who diligently seek to learn of Christ eventually will come to know Him. They will personally receive a divine portrait of the Master, although it most often comes in the form of a puzzle-one piece at a time. Each individual piece may not be easily recognizable by itself; it may not be clear how it relates to the whole. Each piece helps us to see the big picture a little more clearly. Eventually, after enough pieces have been put together, we recognize the grand beauty of it all. Then, looking back on our experience, we see that the Savior has indeed come to be with us-not all at once but quietly, gently, almost unnoticed."

Tired little Monkey

This has never happened to me before. I guess there's a first for everything and there must have been too much Easter candy or something! :)

Happy Easter Everyone!

Trying to stay on track...

So, I've lost my camera. It is VERY frustrating because I wanted to post pictures of my BEAUTIFUL Valentine's Dinner!!! I think that one of my lovely children have gotten their hands on it and run off with it somewhere. So, the plan is that I will make my gourmet dinner for the week tomorrow night, but if I don't find my camera, it will be Friday. I want to post pictures of my wonderful meals along with the commentary. I'm also not very impressed with my book that I got from Amazon...I'm thinking of sending it back. I think I will just look online for recipes and build my own menu. The menu for this weeks gourmet cooking lesson (for myself):

Green Salad with Lemon Herb dressing
Lemon and Herb Roasted Chicken
Twice Baked Parmesan Potatoes
Fresh Baked Bread (I can't believe I'm actually going to try bread; the only thing I have a really hard time with)
Brazed Cucumbers
Orange Creamsicle cupcakes

Inspiration and Motivation

I am a perfectionist. I always have been. Ask my mother. ;) I'm never happy with the things I do, I always see something that can be tweaked, some way that I can do it better the next time. I'm far too critical of myself. But....I think most women are. I was doing my nightly scripture study and came across this quote by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, and if you're at all like me, maybe it will help you too.

"Let me cite a hypothetical example of a dear sister in any ward, the one who has perfect children who never cause a disturbance in church. She is the one working on her 20th generation in her family history, keeps an immaculate home, has memorized the book of Mark, and makes wool sweaters for the orphaned children in Romania. No disrespect, of course, intended for any of these worthy goals. Now, when you get tempted to throw your hands in the air and give up because of this dear sister, please remember you're not competing with her any more than I'm competing with the members of the Quorum of the Twelve in the 50-yard dash. The only thing you need to worry about is striving to be the best you can be. And how do you do that? You keep your eye on the goals that matter most in life, and you move towards them step by step."

Valentine's Day Dinner

So, I kind of slacked. I really didn't mean to, it just kind of worked out that way. I went to Barnes and Noble last weekend to look at cookbooks. Man, was that intimidating! I almost got the BYU cookbook for my hubby but one of the recipes was literally to buy frozen cream puffs, strawberries and to put them on a stick and drizzle them with chocolate syrup. While it had great tailgating recipes, I felt it wasn't challenging enough for what I was going for. I also thought maybe an Italian cookbook would be fun. I found one called "Cooking with Italian Grandmothers." Sounds fun, right? Well, when I opened the first page and saw a completely whole dead fish on a white plate with just a little garnish I decided that was a definite no go (I'm not a big fish person, AT ALL).

So, although it was not my intention to buy the Julia Child cookbook, I did. I got home and was all excited to make bief bourguignon until I saw that it called for 2 1/2 cups of red wine! Now, I know this is just a little quirk of mine and I know that alcohol cooks out of the dishes, however, I just wasn't comfortable using THAT much alcohol. I really don't mind using a little alcohol here and there to cook with. I can appreciate that it gives dishes some really good flavor. However, I have to remember who I am and make things that I'm comfortable with. So.....Monday I took back the cookbook and decided to look for something on Amazon.

I did finally find a cookbook, but with the time it took to do all this, I probably won't have it by Valentine's Day. So, I decided to make one of my most favorite light recipes. I actually found it on KUTV on the news one day and decided to try it. The pork spice rub is the MOST delicious I have ever tasted. I've tweaked it a little. I only put in half the pepper it calls for because if you put it all in I'm just warning you it will be SPICY!! But here is the recipe, just in case you're looking for something to make for Valentine's Day. I'll post pictures when I make it on Monday. And I PROMISE next week I will be trying a new recipe out of my new cookbook!

Lemon Marinated Pork Medallion Salad
Ingredients:
4 Pork Medallions

Spice Rub:
1 Tbsp. Lemon Zest
1 Tbsp. salt
2 tsp. Pepper
1 tsp. dried sage
2 garlic cloves, minced or 1 tsp. crushed garlic

Salad:
6 cups spring salad mix
1 cup toasted walnut pieces (I use almond slivers, I'm somewhat allergic to walnuts)
1 cup chopped dried apricots
1 red bell pepper, julienne sliced

Dressing:
3 Tbsp. canola oil
1 Tbsp. Rice Vinegar
1 Tbsp. Sugar
1 Tbsp. Lemon juice
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:
In a small bowl, combine all the spice rub ingredients. Rub the ingredients all over the pork and refrigerate for 30 minutes. In a large bowl toss together the salad ingredients. Set aside until ready to use. Pan sear the pork medallions for 3 minutes on each side or until golden. Finish cooking off medallions in a 400 degree oven until fully cooked through. Remove medallions from oven and allow them to rest for 10 minutes (VERY IMPORTANT!!) Pour dressing over salad and toss to coat. Slice medallions and place on top of the salad.

New Adventures

My life is kind of in limbo right now. The big plan is that I want to be able to go back to school and quit my job to be at home with my kids. But that can't happen for at least another 6 months. So what can I do to keep me occupied in the meantime? Well, I don't know whether or not you've seen Julie and Julia, but that was such an inspirational movie to me. I LOVE to cook. It's very relaxing and very satisfying to make something that tastes yummy.

I've wanted for a while to get more techniques down and learn more about food and cooking. I'm also in a kind of rut as far as making the same things every night. But who has the money for culinary school? Plus, it's not something I want to make a career out of simply because it takes me away from my family too much. So, anyway, back to my point. :)

I decided that I'm going to go get a fancy cook book and make one meal out of it a week. I can't do the daily thing like she did on Julie and Julia simply because I can't afford it and I don't have the time. And my first assignment? To make something for Valentine's evening. I will let you guys know what cook book I decide on when I get it and I'll post a picture. I'm a little nervous, simply because I don't really like seafood, but I'm willing to try just about anything. I can't guarantee I'll be able to continue this when I finally go back to school, but I thought it would be a fun thing to try until school starts. Just to mix things up a bit.