tara, don't read this post!

We went out to the desert this weekend for a BBQ, and look what we found!

A huge tarantula!!

faking sick and wants to wear a bra!

Gwen just got over her cold that she had for a week.  She had a pretty yucky cough, and so each morning I would give her a teaspoon of cough syrup.  (yeah I know that supposedly it doesn't work, but I say the psychological effect is good enough) At first she outright refused to take it, saying it was yucky!  It was orange flavored, so I told her it was orange pop cough medicine.  She then took it and was surprised at how good it actually tasted.  So it got to be that each morning she was reminding me she needed to take it.  

This morning was no different.  She reminded me it was time for her vitamins and cough medicine.  I told her no, that she wasn't sick anymore and that she didn't need the cough medicine.  Gwen then proceeded to fake cough and insist that she was still sick.  I said, "no you're not."  Gwen then said, "yes huh, I am sick because I eat my boogers all the time!"  

(she really doesn't, but Drake on the other hand....)

This silly girl also when watching me dress today asked what I was putting on.  I told her my bra.  She asked why, and I told her that it was a part of my underwear.  She asked why again, so I told her that when she grows up and gets boobies too she would wear one as well.  Her eyes then grew BIG and a smile spread from ear to ear.  About fifteen minutes later, she asked if it was time for her to wear a bra!  

I'm in trouble!!!!!

Jack O Lantern Stew

Halloween dinner has become a tradition in our house that we have Jack O Lantern Stew.  The kids love eating dinner out of a pumpkin, and it's packed with veggies so you can get some nutrition in them before they fill their little bodies with sugar!

Jack O Lantern Stew

1 9-12" pumpkin

1 lg onion, chopped

1 green pepper, diced (I used a yellow one for more color!)

1 red pepper, diced

4 carrots, sliced

3 celery, sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 lb ground lean beef

1 lb ground chicken or turkey (I just used 2 lbs ground elk)

2 C cooked rice

1 lg can diced tomatoes

1 lg can tomato soup

Etch the face you want your Jack O Lantern to have in the pumpkin, rub the pumpkin with oil and put in pre heated (350) oven for 30 min.

In the mean time, chop and then sautee all you veggies.

Just look at those pretty colors!

Remove veggies once they've softened.  Then add you meat and brown it.  Season all you want with S&P (we heart salt!)  

Add veggies back to pan, then add the tomatoes, rice and soup.  At this point I also chopped a zucchini and threw it in.  Bring to boil.  

Pour soup into pumpkin and return to the oven for 20 min.  

Then we had fun trick or treating, came home, stayed up late eating candy and watching movies, then crashed!
We love Halloween in our house!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

hairy cookies and pumpkins

Drake has had poofy hair for quite some time. I've had a dream of letting him grow it out a little bit to have some cute little boy surfer hair, or something like that. Unfortunately his hair has always had a mind of his own and will NOT lay down. So I realized I was "that" mom. We had one a couple wards ago that had a little boy with LONG hair. He was probably two, and it was long enough to put it up in clips...which his mom did! And everyone would ask when she was going to cut it, and she would say that she just couldn't do it because it was so cute. I didn't want to be her, so I buzzed Drake.
The other hard part of cutting his hair is that Drake has nerves and feeling INSIDE his hair! At least that's the only explanation for the HUGE fits he throws every time I try to cut his hair.

Hates it

check out that snot/slobber combo!

mom, how could you do this to me?!

All better thanks to this slow melt popsicle!  (I just now discovered the slow melts-GENIUS!!)

Need directions to the gun show?

Sunday we had the cuzins over for dinner and cookie decorating

She may look stoned here, but Delia's proud of that ghost cookie!

When Ryan saw this picture of Cloe with her frosting stained black teeth, he said that she looks just like what Gavin looked like when he was a kid.  

Gwenny bum loves decorating cookies!

And tonight we carved pumpkins!

When I told Gwen that she had to clean the pumpkin out, 

she made this face and said "eww gross!"

then she got the hang of it

sawing away at her pumpkin

Ta da!  She carved it all by herself!  I'm so proud.

Then Gwen wanted to take a picture of momma with my pumpkin.  

Saturday is a special day...

Ever since the incident , we have been working on upping the security at home. Like getting the porch light to work (turns out it just needed a light bulb - duh), installing a peep hole, and since the kids will unlock and open the door for anyone, we got some latches to install today that are high so the kids won't be able to unlock the door. 

I also was able to find something similar for the sliding doors. It's basically a pin that goes through both doors so when it's in, the door won't slide- again preventing the kids from just unlocking and opening the doors. Installation of the first went off with out a hitch, but the second door, just what Ryan feared happened- his drill bit hit the glass.

So now we have a broken slider.  It seriously was cracking for at least an hour after it was hit.  And we could just see the cracks spreading, and finally the weight of it has made it bow out and small pieces have been falling off.  Does anybody know of a good glass company?????

But we didn't let that spoil our day.  We had our ward's Fall Festival-mucho funo with loads of chili, candy and games, and face painting!  Then went over to Gavin and Emily's ward's trunk or treat.  

So Gwen's kitty painted face (from our previous activity) with her witch costume kind of confused people, but we thought it was cute.

And Drake was a hit!  Everyone kept saying that the ghost was the "classic" costume, but that you never see it anymore.  But honestly, ever since the kids have seen ET, Drake is always putting blankets over his head and pretending to be a ghost, so it was an obvious costume choice.

So it was fun to let the kids have a practice before Halloween next week.  

And also nice to get lots of candy already!  ;)

Next week, we'll join them in costume!!!

pumpkin cookies with my pumpkins

With Ryan at school from first thing in the morning till often after the kids go to bed I'm constantly having to entertain.  One of the things we like to do is cook.  Gwen goes to a Montessori preschool and the Montessori method encourages child participation in the kitchen.  So I cook with the kids now.  They love it, and I like getting them excited about cooking.  The other night we made  these super yummy, healthy whole wheat pumpkin cookies from my new FAVORITE blog.  The only change I made was adding a couple tablespoons of ground flax seed, and I did the butterscotch chips as well.  As chief frugal officer of the home, I'm so stretching the grocery bill by incorporating a lot of our food storage.  It is fun, easy, and way yummy with a lot of her ideas and recipes.  

Gwen and Drake are wearing some of my grandma's old aprons.  They love them!

I used to make dresses for Gwen with some of my old shirts, like the one below

It's been a while, but this morning I decided we weren't going to watch tv today.  So after doing some visiting teaching, going to the park, reading, and cooking I ran out of things to do.  So Gwen and I took a trip to my closet.  This shirt I bought because it was way cute, but after the first wash, it was annoyingly obvious that the fabric was not cut on the grain.  So I stopped wearing it because I didn't like the way it twisted.  So I took in the sleeves, added a couple of tucks and put on a new collar, and voila!  Gwen has a new dress.

Yay, she loves it!

finally uploaded some pics

That's right, Ryan is the mustached man again.  Preparing for a Halloween costume....

This was our family home evening a couple of weeks ago.  If you look closely at Drake's necklace, it says "I am a child of God".

Okay, longer than a couple of weeks ago, because the walls there aren't even painted.

Then I found 

this picture from out old house.  It's just so cute how Ryan's singing to Gwen, and she obviously dressed 

herself.

Next up is Gwen at

 her international children's day at school.  She was a Navajo girl.  Awwww, cute!  I cheaped out and didn't make her a traditional outfit, but she's sporting the belt, jewelry and hairdo.

Then our awesome little Drakey boy at the children's day looking like a pimp.  Seriously, his hair looks like that EVERYDAY, there's no taming it.  And don't you just want to rub that little Buddha belly?

And FINALLLLLY something I've been working on (or not working on) for almost five years!  When I found out I was pregnant with Gwen I started making a quilt.  Cutting and piecing was so easy breezy, but hand quilting with out a stand....long and hard!  It seriously drove me crazy everytime I thought about it because I wanted it done, but didn't want to have half machine quilted and half hand quilted.  But I finally realized it's better to have half of it not so nice and let it get some use then to be sitting in a box in my closet forever.  So I broke down and machine quilted the other half (and Grandma's turning in her grave).  Good new is Gwen loves it!  She sleeps with it everynight!  Plus, it's finally a finished project.

guns- yea or nay?

I've always leaned toward yea, Ryan the nay.  My dream was to have (among many other guns) a cute little pistol with a pearl handle that I could wear in a garter.  Silly, maybe, but I still like to go target shooting and think it would add a sense of comfort should danger arise.  I also understand that having a gun can bring danger into your home when you have children, and that's why Ryan leans toward nay.  Of course there are precautions that you can and should take like a gun lock, safe location and teaching your children about them.  But to be honest I don't think having a gun in your house is anymore dangerous than having a pool in your back yard.  You just have to educate your babies and ALWAYS take safety precautions.

Well tonight was a night I really wanted a gun.  I was home alone with the kids because Ryan had gone to Gavin's to watch the BYU football game.  (Go Cougs!!!)  I just finished coloring my hair and came down stairs to make some popcorn (gotta have my late night carbs) when  somebody rang the doorbell.  I wasn't expecting anybody, and since we live far from most our family and friends, people don't just drop by unannounced.  Still it could be a ward member or something, so I got up and since we don't have a peep hole, yelled through the door "who is it?"  But if we had a peep hole, it wouldn't do any good anyway since I can't figure how to turn the porch light on and our front door doesn't face the street but just a long dark walk way since most of the houses around ours are vacant right now.  Anyway, there was no answer, so I just stood there thinking they might not have heard.  The door bell rings again and again I yell "who's there?" - still no answer.  So I made a quick round the house shutting of all the blinds and making sure the doors were locked.  Problem, one of our down stairs sliders doesn't lock and the dowel that we use to make sure the door won't open was missing since Drake likes to use it as a sword.  So I call Ryan, ask if he know where it is-no, tell him what's going on.  Get off the phone and a minute later the door bell rings again.  Call Ryan, tell him somebody's outside, I'm scared, Ryan says he's calling the police and coming home.  I panic, imagining the worst, grab a knife and run upstairs to the kids room.  Right now's when I 'm wanting a gun in my hand because I realize if I have to use this knife to defend myself or the kids, the attacker has to get really close before the knife is effective.  (Oh but I also REALLY want to take knife throwing lessons, then I'd be cool)  So I go into the kids room that's over the front door, although you can't look straight down since there's a balcony in the way.  I have the lights off and go to the blinds.  I see shadows and hear noises-I wasn't sure if it was hopping the fence noises, or trying to open a window noises, PANIC!!! so  I call 911 and tell them someone's trying to break in.  This was all in whispered sobs, I don't know how he understood my address.  But the calm operator dispatched a squad car right away.  Then was ten minutes of agonized waiting for the police, and in the mean time, realized I only had a knife and that wasn't going to do much-dang it, and why did we switch the door knob so the door locks from the other side?  So I pushed the dresser in front of the door.  Still crying, wondering what do I do if someone breaks in and me and my babies are up here?  Finally the police get here, I saw them and their flash lights, and Ryan arrives about the same time.  

The police look around and while we were on the porch talking to them, our neighbor comes out and announces he has his gun loaded and one in the chamber ready to shoot because he's scared.  He also had his door bell rung, had no answer then heard gravel from people climbing around outside looked out his window and saw two dark figures!!!  Holy cow!  So glad I didn't open the door!  I seriously haven't ever been so scared, I couldn't stop the tears from coming for so long.  Now I reeeeeeeeealy want a gun.  

What do you think?

count your blessings

I have been the queen of feeling sorry for myself lately.  

We made the decision to have Ryan go to school full time (he's not allowed to work his first year of law school) and I'm staying home with the kids.  So that means no income.  Student loans and our shrinking savings is how we're living.  

So I'm cutting all possible corners and being Mrs. Frugal.  So when I see cute new clothes, or get an idea for a super cute project that I can't buy the materials for, I feel sorry for myself.  

I won't anymore.  (at least for a long time) Read what happened to my sister.

Sorry Tara.

Drake's bringing sexy back!

Gotta love a cowboy huh?

Drake and Jack think they're so sneaky!  For fifteen minutes last night Tara and I worked with the boys to eat their veggies.  All they had to do was eat two green beans and they would get their after dinner treats.  The boys cried, kicked and screamed no.  So when they both finally gave in and ate them, we cheered and got up and got their mini bags of skittles and opened them for the boys as they chewed.  But they kept the green beans in their mouths and spit them out as soon as the treat was handed over!

Tonight was "Show your work night" at Gwen's school.  She loved showing us around.  Here she is in the "library" reading a book to us.

The kids can come out here to the porch and paint, and water the plants.

Here are the birds that Gwen gets to feed.  They're sisters in case you were wondering.

And the "birds eat seeds, that's silly huh?"

Gwen also gets to feed these fish.  "And at night the black one comes out to eat! That's kinda wacky huh?"

Gwen is showing us the crumb picker upper that she likes to use.

And this is where Gwen LOVES to hang out.  In front of the painting easel where she creates her masterpieces such as shooting stars, rainbows, and princes holding dead princesses!  I'm not too sure about how she came up with that last one.  

Daddy and his little smarty pants.

I came in Gwen's room this morning to find Gwen changing her clothes:

me: good morning Gwen, did you keep your bed dry last night?

Gwen: well the boys (Jack spent the night last night) climbed up onto my bed last night and they peed all over it.

me: huh? really? are those your wet panties on the floor?

Gwen: well after the boys peed on my bed, they peed on my panties too.

I'm in love...

With my new table cloth!!

But in more exciting news, I also found a new place to put the kids in time out!

Tara and I took the kids to the Mesa Southwest Museum where the kids were in awe of the jail cells.  But imagine the luxury of just having to roll out of bed and having your bathroom right there!  ;)

We panned for gold, and Tara and I are hard core gold panners!  We are so circa 1800.

We went because the kids are really into dinosaurs right now, and uh oh... is that a stegasaurus just on the other side of that red fence from Gwen?

The kiddies had so much fun playing with these little dinosaurs, 

and Gwen is mid pee pee dance.