Ward Halloween Party

My parents have been called to be ward activities peeps. That means that we get to help them out with stuff.... which is pretty fun. Last night they put on our ward's Halloween party. We spent most of the day decorating for it.

My Dad was Fred Flintstones (it was the first time he'd ever dressed up in his life!!) and my mom was Wilma.





Here's my Dad just after we did his hair... Maria could have been pebbles with her little pony.



and if she were Pebbles, here would be the whole Flintstone family:



I took pictures of anyone who wanted theirs taken... Justine and Maria were my models to get the lighting right.





Maria found her friend, Gideon.... at first they just looked at each other...



Then came the hug....



All the girls:



The first half was games, and then they had some dancing and then trunk-or-treat.
They only did 3 dances which was great.... They started off with the chicken dance.



Maria LOVED the dancing... she totally rocked out in Justine's arms.



and then they did the hokey pokey, and ended with the Monster Mash... halfway thru the Monster Mash Marco and my dad let down the 800 balloons that we blew up earlier during the day (with air compressors) for a balloon stomp.





And they got them all...



we had a great time.... thanks for throwing such a good party mom & dad!!

Pumpkin Picking 2009

Late this afternoon we headed over to a pumpkin patch to get ourselves a few pumpkins.

We dressed Maria up in her costume (how fitting that it's a pumpkin) and got some pictures!

There is a little shed with some stuff set up so you can take your picture with scarecrows and stuff. Maria was.... terrified of the scarecrows.



Even sitting on Nana's lap she was unsure.



She's started to do this thing where she'll turn around and then back up to you and lean on you... she did this to Nana just after the scarecrow's.



Here's my handsome hubby bustin' out his cowboy hat.





Maria was so cute with the pumpkins...







... and then she put it down cause it got dirt on her hands.



Here's Nana pickin' out her pumpkin



Maybe I should have helped her instead of taking a picture... you know bum knee and all.

And here's Marco with his pickin's...



and then just a couple more of my cutie pie...

Apple Pressing

October 10th we pressed apples. The Wednesday before we went out to different trees in the neighborhood and picked apples. The back of my dad's truck was FULL.

I'm not sure what Marco was doing here, but most of the time he filled up the apples and dumped the tractor when the bucket was full of apple mush.



Dave was such a trooper and rinsed off the apples. His hands must have been freezing!!



Jack, Karen, & my dad manned the press most of the time. The press was pretty amazing... our neighbor Steve made it... we were totally impressed.



Then the apples were strained and we put them into gallon containers. I got a turn while my mom was watching Maria.

tidbits

there is a program at one of the grocery stores here called "pump perks". instead of saving on your food, or getting points towards something you get cents off your gas. for the last few weeks when you bought a gallon of milk you would get 10 cents off per gallon (up to 15 gallons) and with the amount of milk that we drink in our household..... we got our 15 gallons of gas today for a whopping $17.09.... i haven't paid that little for gas in years!!

i read (part of) an article today on human evolution... it studied a town in Massachusetts and said that if there were no major changes, the women in that town in the year 2409 would:

be 2 cm shorter,
1 kg heavier,
have a healthier heart,
have her first child earlier,
and enter menopause later.

i thought that was interesting. it said that "According to their findings, it was stout, slightly plump (but not obese) women who tended to have more children..." interesting...

i chased some cows today. remember my neighbor that has decided to be a farmer, but really isn't. his cows got out yesterday, and after spending a couple of hours today trying to get the cows back into his fence Marco and I went out and helped with the last two. One of those heifers charged at me... scared me a little bit. But we got them in at the end and it only took 4 tries.

maria is starting to talk on the phone instead of just stare at it. today she had a conversation with lily that i thought was really cute!

Lop

4 chicken breast, ground
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp oil
Oyster sauce
Red Rooster sauce
1 bunch cilantro, minced

Cook ground chicken in oil and garlic. Add cilantro. Add Oyster sauce (1-2 cups) and Red rooster sauce to taste. Red rooster sauce is spicy so use in moderation.

Serve with sticky rice & peanut sauce

Peanut Sauce

1 cup water
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp red curry paste

In a small sauce pan combine the water, peanut butter and garlic. Cook over medium heat until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Let cool to room temp.

Delicious with pad thai, lop, steamed cabbage.

Chocolate Mint Swirls

1 cup powdered sugar
2 sticks butter
2 eggs
12 oz mint chocolate chips

Melt and cool chocolate. Cream sugar and butter. Add one egg at a time and beat for 5 minutes each. Mix in cooled chocolate. Use cake decorating bag and squeeze into mini-cups. Refrigerate.

This is a great recipe for around the holiday season. It makes a TON of mini mint swirls.

If you don't have mint chocolate chips you can add mint seasoning to regular chocolate chips and let sit for 24 hours before using.

September Twenty-First

was over a month ago. That was the last time I blogged.... it's been a while. Lots has happened, so brace yourself for lots of words.... I'll try to bold the more important things.

We have new baby chicks. We "borrowed" a rooster and he did his job. We started off with 16, but now only have 12. They're getting so big already. This picture is from when they were newborns. They've started getting real feathers. The teenage hens that we got in the spring have started laying eggs... mini white ones. The rest of the adults are on a little hiatus though... they've decided to molt.

I went down to Seattle with my mom, sister, cousin, and two aunts and we saw WICKED... we had such a fun time. We headed down in the morning and did a session at the Seattle Temple. We were going to do some shopping, but ended up not having much time. We won the "lottery" and got an extra ticket (we were one short) so that was a relief not to have to pay a scalper. We checked out the H&M, had dinner at Cheese Cake Factory and saw the play.... it was SO good. I want to go again... and have closer seats.

I cut bangs.

I started swimming at the YMCA (but have since stopped.... I'm going to try to start up again hopefully soon) Swimming there is so great because it's not really busy. And during lap time they'll let us (Mom, Dad, Marco & I) bring Maria in to hang out in the water, that way we can all get some pool time in and not have to worry about what the baby's up to. I was working on my freestyle stroke and getting pretty good.... my cousin Dawn came down and gave us a swimming lesson which was super-duper helpful. That breathing thing is so much easier now.

Lily came to visit for a week. Maria and Lil's had SO much fun together. Lily taught Maria how to climb, eat fruit snacks, take only one nap a day and Maria taught Lily how to growl, crawl, drink out of a bottle. Lily pushed, Maria bit. We went for bike rides, watched "Cars", visited the chickens, pushed strollers, picked apples.... had all sorts of fun.

We picked and pressed a truckload of apples. We gathered apples from a few different trees from around the neighborhood and filled the back of my dad's pick-up FULL. Then we borrowed a press from a friend and made cider. That press was amazing. We got thru that load of apples in just less than 3 hours and got over 30 gallons of cider!!

Maria is going to be a big sister. We're pregnant. The new baby will get here April 10th-ish. I'm feeling pretty good.... I still get nauseous pretty much every day. I can't watch then news because I cry too much. I'm starting to get forgetful again (my least favorite part). I have NO idea if it is a boy or a girl... yes, we're going to find out, and we should know in about a month!

Another reason to cry was... My mom had a little scare that she might have bone cancer.... she doesn't thank goodness... I can stop crying now. She's got Osteoarthritis in her knee, a meniscus tear and a floating body. She'll have surgery when she gets back from Belize.

I had tons of fun at our ward's Super Saturday. I helped out with a service project, helped my mom make cards, made some adorable magnets, made cookie in a jar and soup in a jar, "taught" how to make cake pops, and got the stuff to make a winter stitchery craft (didn't make it... that whole time thing alluded me.) Thanks to grandpa Toyk for watching Maria so I could do Super Saturday and so Marco could get a little work in.

Clam Chowder

2 cans minced clams
1 cup diced celery
1 quart half and half
1/2 cup flour
1 c finely diced onions
2 cups finely diced potatoes
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste

In a small sauce pan cook juice from clams and all vegetables. Add water to cover. In a large pan melt butter and add flour gradually stirring for 1 minute. Add half and half. Stir until thick and smooth. Add clams, vegetables, salt and pepper. Do not drain vegetables. Stir until well blended. Serve hot with french bread.