Christmas Story family home evening reinactment

It was Angelique's idea and planning that brought about our Family Home Evening reinactment of the Christmas story. She was the narrator, Safia was Mary, Jaren was Joseph,Elody was Baby Jesus, Beau and Jileigh were the shepherds, and the toy rocking horse was the donkey. Talon was doing his homework and Matt fell asleep.

They did a wonderful job!

Jileigh's choir concert and Angelique's orchestra concert

These are some pics of Jileigh's choir concert and Angelique's orchestra concert. Sadly, I forgot my camera for Talon's guitar concert. Jileigh got to introduce a song title, that's why she is standing up there.

My first attempt at Mexican pizzas - dang good!

A friend of mine, Shari, always makes Mexican pizzas during the Christmas holiday season. I thought I would give it a try. They were very yummy and very filling. Matt took one to work the next day and all the other employees in the cafeteria were rather envious. He ended up sharing a fourth of it with his boss. It was a lot of work though. I won't be doing it again for a while.

Safia lost her two front teeth just in time for christmas and princess dress up

Sariah and Hannah came over for an afternoon and played princess dress up. I also wanted to get a picture of Safia. "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!" She hated it when we would sing that to her. :)

Dec 10th Ward Christmas party breakfast and meeting santa

This year for our ward Christmas party, we had a breakfast instead of a dinner. We brought a yummy breakfast egg casserole and a gallon of custard sauce to go on the pancakes. The custard sauce was a hit. Several people asked me for the recipe. I just ended up bring the recipe to church the next Sunday and made a bunch of copies for everyone.

The kids each took a turn sitting on Santa's lap except for Jileigh. He siblings literally took off after her. Tackled her down, and carried her to Santa where she finally complied and sat of Santa's lap. Elody wasn't too happy about sitting on Santa's lap either, but Beau was. He hopped up on his lap and gave him a big hug. It was so sweet. Unfortunately, it happened so fast, that I didn't get a picture of it. At least I can write about it.

Common sense

You would think my kids had a little more common sense.

This morning I left to Choir practice at 9:25am and Talon left shortly after I did on his bike to meet up with the other Deacons to collect Fast Offering. At 10:55am he shows up at church (our ward starts at 11am) and comes and tells me he's cold. The kid didn't even wear a jacket. He was out it in the 35 degree cold for an hour and almost a half without a jacket on his bike. Really Talon??? By the end of Sacrament meeting he had warmed up fortunately.

Then this afternoon while the adults were napping, some of the kids made bows and arrow and were playing outside. Angelique got Talon's real bow and arrow and SHOT AN ARROW INTO THE AIR! It went over the neighbor's back yard, over their house, and landed in the rocks in their front yard! Fortunately their grandkids were playing in the backyard and no one was in the front. Really Angelique??? I guess Anne Oakley needs some more weapon safety lessons.

Matt the Mechanic

Matt's an electrician, not a mechanic, by trade. But, over the recent years, he's had a bit more guts to dive into solving his vehicle's mechanical needs. This past week, he took the truck bed off to find where the truck was leaking gas. He found the hose that was cracked. He called the local parts store and they wanted $180 bucks for the part. So he went on ebay and found it for $44.80 with free shipping. Problem solved!

Then his air conditioning was stuck on heat. So he pulled the WHOLE dash off and found the broken part. He super glued it back together and fixed it and put the dash back together. Problem solved!

Christmas Decorations already

I experience anxiety when it comes to setting up Christmas decorations because the awful mess it makes. So this year, when Matt and I went to take our Sunday nap, The kids took care of everything. The pulled down the decor from the attic, set it all up including decorating the tree and then they cleaned everything up. That was pretty impressive! I did re-sweep all the floors the next day, but for the most part everything look really nice. (I usually don't take naps, but there's something about Sundays. After lunch, usually whole grain pancakes or waffles with custard sauce, I crash!)

H. Family Clan Thanksgiving 2011 at the Ranch

This year for Thanksgiving we went to cabin with Matt's whole family clan. Actually, his uncle Ken's family wasn't there and a few of Matt's family, but the rest of us were! Someone counted 103 people. We took homemade stuffing, grain-free stuffing (for Matt's soon to be sister in law), two homemade pumpkin pies, and 3 dozen homemade wheat rolls. (I made 4 doz. but we ate some.) It was a fun day filled with eating a visiting. Unfortunately, it didn't go without incident. Talon got a goose egg on his forehead. A cousin threw an armful of leaves at him and there was a rock in the middle. Towards the end of the day, Uncle Glen was cleaning the turkey and I pleaded to keep the bones. There were two turkeys so they kept one set of bones and I got the other. The next night, I filled two 6-quart crock pots with bones and water and let them cook overnight. We had a fabulous pot of turkey noodle soup the following day. A few days later, after the wishbone had dried enough, Beau and Safia had their turn to pull apart the wishbone. Angelique made them SWEAR to not through a fit if they lost. Beau lost and he did throw a little sad fit. Safia won so I told her to go outside where she can be alone, make her wish and throw her wishbone half over her shoulder and she did!

But... let's not forget Black Friday! Walmart mixed thing up this year. They opened their Black Friday shopping Thursday night at 10pm. There were 1000s of people there. It was ridiculous. We couldn't even get to what we wanted to get more or less get what we wanted. There was only one thing there that we got and it really wasn't a big deal. Anyway, we have had to shop elsewhere. The next morning we got up at 4:15am and to the one store before 5am so we would get what we wanted. We had success there and a couple of other stores. We made it back home around 8:30 and went to sleep for the next 4 hours. I really don't like shopping.

Leaves are falling all around...

Fall has come and the kids don't miss a beat. This is the one thing the look forward to when Fall comes: gathering up all the leaves and jumping in!

A week with Hannah

Matt's brother Nate and his wife Candy were asked by a relative to go to Hawaii for a week to clean, paint, and furnish a condo to be used for a timeshare, expenses paid. They jumped at the chance and had to figure out what to do with their kids. Her niece came to stay with them for the nights. The other kids went to school during the daytime and I had Hannah Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and again on Monday. Grandma Cynthia came Thursday afternoon and took care of them for the weekend.
So Tuesday went very well. Hannah and Elody played happily the whole day. Actually, they had a little disputing over toys, but I think it was good for both of them to have to learn to take turns. By evening time I got really worried about yo-yo-ing her around. So wrote her mom a letter through facebook: "I want you to consider thinking about letting me keep Hannah day and night. I really think she needs to stay in one place. She's happy here and it won't matter if I get woken up in the middle of the night as much as it would matter if Meagan is. I just think she would be sad to go home and not find Mom there and that Mom's not coming home. Just think about it." I also talked to Meagan and she said No, but that she would talk to Candy about it, from her point of view and she said No too. So I feed her and took her home.
On Wednesday morning I wrote this letter: "Just so you know, I think you are wrong in not trusting my judgement. Your poor little girl came to me this morning, buried her head, put her arms around my neck and stayed there. I sat and cuddled and rocked her for about 20 minutes with a sad pitiful little frown on her face until she fell asleep. I tried to put her down and she opened her eyes. I snuggled her in bed for another 20 minutes and then she was finally ready to get up and play. It breaks my heart seeing her being yo-yo(d) around. I didn't last night and I won't tonight take her home to be without a "mommy." I will take her back to your house after Meagan gets home. She really just wanted to be held and loved on."
Later on Wednesday I wrote this letter: "She's happy now and doing well. She ate lunch really well. We went to the Relief Society Wacky Wednesday to help with a quilt and they served potato soup for lunch. Oh, and another thing, I was listening to Elody and Hannah's conversation and Hannah said, "I don't have a Mom." Maybe the next time you call home, you could talk to her and let her know you are alive and so on..."
Then even later on Wednesday: "After the Wacky Wednesday, The girls went outside to play. When they came, I put a movie on for them. Hannah fell right to sleep at about 2pm. Just after 3pm Matt came home and I left with Jileigh to her High School Registration. What a Nightmare! We didn't get home until almost 5 pm. She grabbed her backpack and I took her over to your house and them came back home. I walked into the house and saw Hannah STILL asleep. I woke her up and picked her up and snuggled her for quite a while until she was ready to be social again. When I picked her up, she looked am me sadly like, 'You're still not my mom.' After that I made my whole multi grain pancakes. I haven't seen Hannah poop yet. I figured this would do the trick. She ate 3 of them gone! She ate as much as Elody did. Then I them both a head to toe bath. After I got her dressed, I called your house and Megan had just got home. I took Hannah home and inside the house. They all said Hi to her, but it was Colton that put his arms out to her and snuggled her by his side."
Thursday's letter in the morning: This morning Hannah came to me in good spirits. I think she is finally becoming accustomed to the routine. I finally feel better about the routine of here to there to there, etc. Although I am glad that I decided to keep her until the next "mommy" figure is available. I told Cynthia to call me when she gets to your house and I will take her there."
Thursday evening letter: "Today we went shopping at Lin's because I was asked to take a salad to the funeral by 12 noon. I didn't make it out of the house until 10:45am so I didn't end up getting to go to the funeral, just made a salad for it. I don't think I want to go shopping with 3 little kids again. That was a little too much. After I took the salad over to the church, I decided to see the state of your house. Needless to say, we stayed. I did one load of dishes then cleaned, swept, and vacuumed the front room and swept the kitchen floor. Then the Colton and Brandon came home. I got them to help me gather ALL the dirty laundry and I got that going plus took two loads to my house to get going. Then we collected all the baskets of clean laundry, that you washed before you left, and we all together got those clothes folded and put away. Then I got the boys to finish cleaning their rooms and Angelique and I cleaned the girls room. Then I got the boys to unload the dishwasher and I loaded it up again and ran it through again. At that point, I left Jileigh and Angelique there and came home with the rest of the kids. Hannah was doing so well today that I left her there too. I got my dishes done and by then the two load were dry. I took them back to your house and Cynthia had just gotten there. We all folded the three loads and the kids put them away. There was just one load left in the dryer. Cynthia was tired and was very grateful to come there to a clean house, which is why I did it. I knew she would be left to take care of it and I couldn't bear the thought. Colton was so good at helping do the laundry. You now have two baskets of clean folded laundry in your closet to put away when you get home. So, all is well. I talked to Colton and Brandon about calling me mean. The plead innocence and blamed on Austin. I told them that I am not mean. I am direct, but not mean. I don't punch or kick them, but I do expect them to comply. And they did, very well. I didn't get a chance to talk to Austin though. Ok well, I'm exhausted. Signing off."
Saturday I went over there to pick up a movie that we forgot there on Thursday and go get Colton's broken dresser drawer. After I pulled out the drawer, I notice something in the back. It was a small picture frame and then noticed something else. It was the missing library book that they lost several months ago and she kept hoping that they would find it. Well, I did! She's gonna love me for that one. I took the drawer home, Matt fixed it, and I took it back, hoping they don't really notice. (I actually ended up telling her.)

Sunday we had Cynthia, Candy's kids, and Dan and Lise with there kids for dinner. We also invited Amanda's family came over too. We had breakfast casseroles. Dan's family was here for a week for Thanksgiving. Yes, it was very nice of me to do that for them.

Monday I went back over to Candy's house and sure enough it needed cleaned up all over again. I put one load in the washer there, loaded the dishwasher and got it going, swept and vacuumed again and then went home and put a load in my washer. That evening I made sure everything was clean and put away. Nate and Candy got home Tuesday morning early. Candy called me later to thank me for everything that I did for them.

I decided that I don't want to have to leave my baby for a week anytime soon.

Angelique's 5th grade Veteran's Day Program

November 11th was Angelique's Veteran's Day Program. They sang all sorts of patriotic songs. This is the whole 5th grade class.
I video recorded the last song: God Bless America and posted it on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIm_tkBGydo

Jaren and Angelique testing at school

Angelique and Jaren have both been chosen at school to participate in a High Ability Learners Test program. Monday was their first testing. They test for one hour everyday this week. The results won't be back for another month, so we will see then how they did.

Parent / Teacher Conferences

Last Wednesday was the middle school's parent/teacher conferences. It started at 4:30pm, but we didn't get there until almost 5pm. Basically what we do is go to a door and wait until the teacher is done with the parent she is talking to and then we go in for our turn. My two children, Jileigh and Talon, each have 8 teachers. We were there until almost 7:30pm visiting with each of their teachers, minus Jileigh's choir teacher and seminary teacher. Sometimes we could walk right in, but there were a couple of teachers that we had to wait 10 minutes or so to speak with them. Fortunately, I had a dinner planned and half of it prepared. Matt took over and finished making dinner while we were gone and we were able to come home to a warm dinner. Jileigh has 3 honors classes and so I really need to know how she was doing and what was coming up in the classes. Talon's doing OK. He just forgets to hand in his assignments and so in half of his classes he was handing in homework and was finding out what else was due. It was a crazy, exhausting afternoon.
For dinner we had a new recipe that I found on Allrecipes.com called Brown Rice and Black bean casserole. I changed it a little to make it better and it turned out fabulous. No picture this time. I was too tired to think about it.

Brown Rice and Black Bean Casserole from Allrecipes.com.

Ingredients
1 C brown rice
3 C vegetable or chicken broth
¾ tsp salt
2 T butter
1 T olive oil
½ C diced onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini, thinly sliced
2 cooked skinless boneless chicken breast halves, chopped
1 C sliced mushrooms (optional)
½ - 1 tsp cumin
Salt to taste
Ground cayenne pepper and/or chili powder to taste
1 (15 ounce) can each black beans and pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 (4 ounce) can diced green chili peppers
1 (14.5 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes
1 C shredded carrots
2 cups shredded Cheddar, Colby Jack, or Mexican mix cheese

Directions
1- Sauté onion in 2 T butter until soft. Add 1 T olive oil and minced garlic. Sauté for 30 seconds then mix in the brown rice, salt, and broth in a pot, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 2 hours.
2- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a large casserole dish.
3- Season diced chicken with salt, cumin pd, chili pd, onion pd, and garlic pd. Heat 1-2 T olive oil or bacon grease or beef tallow in a large cast iron pan. Sauté half of the chicken until cooked through to 165 degrees. Move chicken to a bowl. Sauté the second half of the chicken in a little more oil until cooked through and add to the chicken bowl. Set aside.
4- Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Sauté zucchini, carrots, and mushrooms. Season it with cumin, chili powder, salt, and a dash of ground cayenne pepper. Cook and stir until zucchini is lightly browned.
5- In large bowl, mix the cooked rice and onion, chicken, zucchini, carrots, and mushrooms, beans, diced tomatoes, chilies, and 1 cup cheese. Transfer to the prepared casserole dish, and sprinkle with remaining cup of cheese.
6- Cover casserole loosely with foil and bake 30 minutes in oven. Uncover, and continue baking 10 minutes, or until bubbly and lightly browned.
7- Top with sour cream and cilantro.

Angelique's story telling contest video

http://youtu.be/wbmn0jv0EM
My Angelique was in a story telling contest and won her class competition. She told her story in a school assembly and gets to go on to the district competition. The above link with get you to the video on youtube.

sleep walking

A couple of weeks ago, my little 4 year old, whom shall remain nameless, came into my room at 10:30pm. I wasn't quite asleep, so I popped my head up and asked him what was wrong. He proceeded to pull "it" out and pee on my carpet! I quickly jumped up and took him to the toilet to finish. He peed on my bedroom carpet which is the only room in my house that has carpet, down the hall, on his pjs, on the bathroom floor and on the toilet. All we could do is laugh as we cleaned it all up. Funny kid!

Beau's preschool progress

Beau is progressing very well with his preschooling. Today he finished Book B of the Explode the code series and tomorrow wants to start Book C. Books A, B, and C cover the consonants and Book 1 covers the vowels and making the word families, cat, mat, sat, etc. It is clicking so much better with him than I expected. Also, today he pulled out the boggle Jr game and started making words. It was so cute. And also, the other day in the car, he yelled out, "It's 8!" I said,"What's 8?" He replied, "4 plus 4 equals 8!" How cute is that?!?! On his own, he is trying to add. He melts my heart!

Safia's award for student of the month in Citizenship

Today Safia was awarded a certificate for Student of the Month in the first grade class for Citizenship. We received a letter in the mail inviting us to go, but it was a surprise to her. She does very well in school and her teacher always tells me how much she enjoys having her in her class.