Stay-at-home / non-candy Halloween Party

Yesterday I went to Safia's classroom to help with her class Halloween party. Then I got to watch the students in the costume parade. I forgot my camera but Alyssa's dad was there and took the first three pictures at school. (1st picture: Safia, Mary Jane, and Alyssa.)

Last night was our stay-at-home / non-candy Halloween Party with my friend, Jennifer, and her kids. Their craft was spray painting milk jugs orange and making jack-o-lanterns out of them. I made 7 pizzas all on my homemade wheat crust. I made BBQ Beef, chicken and veggie, chicken/bacon ranch, pepperoni, Hawaiian, and 2 dessert pizzas. There were all fantastic! Then the older girls made award certificates for each of the kids for their costumes. Then we watched Captain America. We really like the Marvel movies and are looking forward to The Avengers!

Going to the Dance!

Jileigh went to the Halloween Saturday night dance. She took some fun pictures of herself and I thought they were cute!

Chicken pot pie

After weeks of my kids' begging, I finally spent the day making Chicken pot pie. As Matt was rolling out the pie dough, Angelique brought out one of her birthday presents, a little pie dish with mini kitchen utensils. She wanted to make her own with the leftover pie crust and some of the filling. So we let her, of course. It turned out fabulous!

Chicken Pot Pie

6 T butter
½ C flour
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
4 C chicken broth
1 C milk
½ tsp onion pd
¼ tsp garlic pd
4-6 oz Colby jack cheese
2 chicken breasts or ½ of a chicken cooked and shredded
1 lb mixed veggies steamed (carrots, peas, corn, green beans)
3-4 medium potatoes diced and cooked.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Melt butter, add flour and mix. Add chicken broth and milk and whisk until it thickens. Add seasonings and cheese. Stir until cheese melts. Add chicken, veggies and potatoes. Stir.
Have bottom pie crust ready in a 9 x 13 casserole dish and the top ready. Pour into bottom pie crust and cover with top. Seal bottom and top pie dough together.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until top crust has golden brown spots.

The dreaded fall wood gathering day

The kids had Thursday and Friday off for their Fall Break, so Matt took Friday off too. We decided that it would be a good day to go get wood. We only have to go a few miles away to the freeway and up a few more miles to the forest/brush area where we cut our wood. Several years ago a fire went through that area and killed the trees, but only burned off the "leaves" leaving the rest of the juniper tree. So it's not very far away, and it is a very good burning wood. Unfortunately, the bark has some black on it from the fire so we all look like Chimney-Sweeps by the time we are finished! We filled the trailer and the back of the truck. Before we got the truck filled, it got a flat on the right front tire. Matt had to change it there in the sand. We were exhausted by the time we got home, so we grilled hot dogs, (the no Nitrate, no nitrite, Turkey kind) and sauteed up some green beans from the garden. EVEN ANGELIQUE ate some! I ended the day with a migraine. But all in all, we ended up with about a cord of wood. We usually go through two cords, so we will have to go back sometime before the end of the year. The permit we got was for two cords by Dec 31,2011. (Sorry it's not a very pretty picture of me!)

My Fall Garden

I decided to put in a fall garden this year. In the first of July, I put in pole green beans then the first of Sept I put in broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, beets, radishes, turnips, brussel sprouts, lettuce, and spinach. Our green beans are in full bloom! We have been picking about 1/2 gallon every 2 days. Everything is doing ok. We were having a problem with the birds and had to buy a couple of bird nets to cover the plants for $8 a piece. We still have something eating the leaves. I find grass hoppers once in a while and there are ants in there too. It's kinda frustrating. I really hope they can get past the pests and still produce.

General Conference weekend at the ranch

For General Conference and Matt's mom's birthday, we spent the weekend up at the Ranch. We had beautiful weather. We turned the radio on in our car and we all listened as the little kids played and the older kids and adults put a puzzle together. (My Angelique is upside down in one of the pictures looking to see if they dropped any in the grass.) I prefered to just sit and take notes. I can focus better that way and remember what was said.
Matt's cousin Justin took a few horses and saddles up there for us to ride. Some of the boys actually got into the water, dang cold water! Our dog had a good time too getting lots of attention from everyone and eating people food.
The last picture is of cousin Sammy. This one is for my sister in law.

My little Beau - The Photographer

I found 14 similar pictures to these ones on my camera. My sweet little Beau can't keep his sneaky hand off of it. Anytime we are trying to take pictures, he wants to be the one to push the button. Almost every time I download pictures on to my computer, I will find a few like these. He's such a character!

Happy 11th Birthday my sweet Angel-Pie!

Today is Angelique's birthday!
Yesterday morning Angelique, Jileigh, and I put together invitations for her friends at school for Angelique to have a party today. With that, all but one showed up. The girls had a great time together. The first picture is of Elody, we gave her a muffin and she fell right to sleep after eating it. She missed most of it, but was awake for the end. She loves Angelique and curled up in her arms after she woke up. Anyway, I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for her "cupcakes." (I only put in 1/4 cup of chocolate chips per batch of a dozen muffins. They make them extra yummy!) Matt made an amazing Lemon Meringue Pie which was Angelique's requested "birthday cake". After blowing out the candles and eating, they played a game of stomping on each others balloons. Then they went outside and played apples to apples together. Then she opened her presents.