A Merry Little Christmas

Kirsten's Christmas program was on the 15th and she did a great job! Her part was the star on top of the tree. But can you tell from the next two pictures what she really wanted to be? But she bucked up and played the star anyway:) It made her feel better when we decided maybe she could be a bunny for Halloween next year.

Some Christmas Eve jammy photos. As soon as Kyle got out the camera they all started dancing around and posing. Jannika is usually goofy like this but it was so funny to see Kirsten and Claire get into it!

The morning finally came! Some favorite presents: a doctor's kit, a BB gun for Jannika (no, she hasn't shot her eye out:), a scooter for Kirsten, a new baby doll and doll swing for Claire and of course, Pillowpets! They have all loved their pillowpets! It was a great Christmas.

Ahoy, Mateys!

I asked Kirsten what she wanted to do for her birthday party a few weeks ago and she wasn't sure but she did want to invite boys. Sooooo, no princess girly party:) We decided to do a pirate party. Huge success! We delivered pirate map invitations that were burnt around the edge and rolled up and put in a bottle. We asked the kids to wear a striped shirt or any other pirate stuff that they had. The day of the party, I went on a treasure hunt of my own to find some piratey things for the picture backdrop. I had the door in my house already and I horked the chest from my mom's house and then I had to go to Price and was gone for a few hours. When I got back, my awesome sister, LeAnne, had found all the rest of the stuff and set it up in my house! So now are we glad my dad never threw anything away? Yeah, because this was a pretty awesome setup. And LeAnne was so creative to come up with all the stuff!

I made the hooks with a paper cup and a piece of cardboard cut out like a hooked and covered with tinfoil. When the kids came, they decorated their hats and then we took a picture of each of them by the piratey stuff.

We had this ship cake and the kids went on a treasure hunt and their treasure was a little tin box shaped like a treasure chest that I had painted brown filled with root beer barrels, chocolate coins and candy necklaces.

P.S. If you want to do a party like this I can send you a copy of the invitation I used and give you info on how I made the cake, etc. Also, it is hard to find chocolate coins unless you order them online or buy them at Christmastime. I found mine at Walmart in the Christmas candy section. I also found the tin boxes at the dollar store and they were Christmasy. In other words, you might want to buy some of the stuff now if you want to find those items at a store.

Turkey Day

We had two great Thanksgiving dinners, one on Thursday and one on Saturday. Kyle's family came down and we had lots of fun making these apple turkeys. It was a great activity to keep the kids busy while we got the food ready. We have so much to be thankful for and I am glad that we have a holiday that reminds us of that:)

We celebrated Kirsten's birthday too. It was yesterday. I remember being big prego with her 5 years ago when Kyle's family came to Logan for Thanksgiving when we lived there. Now she's a big 5 year old!

Got $3 and 30 minutes?

I was so excited about this I just had to post it! I found this website the other day called naptimecrafters.blogspot.com and saw this dress and I HAD to make it! I didn't have any sweaters I wanted to cut up so I went to DI and bought this one for $3. I followed her instructions and in 30 (yes, 3-0 minutes) I cut out and sewed this dress. It was so easy!
On the instructions she cuts hers into two pieces and gathers the bottom. I liked the idea of just having one piece and having it straight and flared a bit on the bottom.
Some tips:
I laid out another one of Claire's dresses on top of this one (make sure it is a jumper so you can cut the armholes the right size) and cut around it.
If you have a taller/older child you will need to get a longer sweater or buy two of the same sweater on clearance or something.
I couldn't find a long sleeved sweater that I liked but if you want the sleeves longer, you will obviously want to buy a long sleeved sweater.
You may want to look at the care instructions on the tag because I didn't and only later realized this is dry clean only. Boo. But, hopefully they won't be doing anything too messy in nursery:)

October

Just thought I'd show you this picture of Claire. It's so funny when kids put on random clothes! What a funny kid!

Jannika got to be a junior cheerleader at one of our high school football games this month. They let all the elementary kids do it if they wanted to and Jannika definitely wanted to! She picked up on the cheers really fast and had a lot of fun.

These are my little cuties on Halloween. Claire was Dorothy, Kirsten was a witch, those are pretty obvious;) and Jannika was an ice cream cone (with whipped cream on top). I already had Kirst and Claire's costumes but Jannika wasn't sure what she wanted to be. I saw this costume in a magazine and decided to try to make it. Yikes! I bought the fabric and started to sew it on my mom's machine and her machine did all sorts of weird things and the thread kept breaking. I was so frustrated with it that I gave up. Later that day I picked it up and tried to keep going on it again. Well anyway, finally I finished it and it actually fit and looked pretty cute!

School!

Jannika started school about a month ago and is loving it. She's in 2nd grade and they have finally split her class so there are only 15 kids in her class instead of 30. She has lost a bunch of teeth lately and got a new haircut for school.

Kirsten also got a new haircut and new glasses for school. Actually, we had lost her other ones but we figured she was due for some new ones anyway. The day after we bought the new ones, we found the old ones on a fencepost at my sister's house! Of all the random places! She is doing a second year of preschool. She has informed me lately that she is going to be a paleontologist (did I even spell that right?) when she grows up so that she can "dig up dinosaur bones and put them together with glue." What a funny kid!

My little Claire-bear is my little shadow. She helps me with all my projects. She uses a lot of sign language in her communication and has started to say sentences with some verbal words and some signs like, "Daddy", then the sign for Grandma and the sign for house. Kyle and I have been doing tons of projects on my mom's house. More pics to come!

What's Cookin'?

Okay, so maybe it's a little unfair to use other people's food pics but let's face the facts, they just look better and let's face another fact, I wasn't about to make ALL of these recipes today to take pictures of them. Anyhoo, here's what's usually cookin' at my house:

Quesadillas

tortillas
black beans
corn
cooked, diced chicken
shredded cheese
cilantro, chopped

Butter one side of each tortilla. Put buttered side down in heated skillet. Put on other toppings and other tortilla. Cook for a few minutes and then flip carefully with a spatula. Serve with guacamole and sour cream.


Stir Fry

2 packages ramen noodles (I usually use oriental flavor but chicken is good too)
1 package frozen sugar snap pea stir fry mix (found at Walmart) or fresh chopped veggies
Soy sauce

Stir fry veggies in oil. Boil ramen noodles and drain but do NOT add the seasoning packet. Add noodles to veggies and add 1/2 of seasoning packet and soy sauce to taste. Continue to stir fry until noodles are a little crunchy. Serve.


Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 box Spice Cake mix
1 12 oz can pumpkin
1/2 bag chocolate chips

Mix ingredients and put out on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 8 minutes.




Ravioli Bake

Fresh or frozen ravioli (I buy frozen cheese ravioli)
Spaghetti sauce
Hamburger, cooked and drained
Mozarella cheese

Cook ravioli according to directions on package. (I love the frozen ravioli because it is cheaper and it only takes 3 min to cook in boiling water). Drain ravioli and add spaghetti sauce and hamburger. You can serve just like this or you can put it in an oven safe pan and top with cheese and cook until cheese is melted.

French Dip

1 loaf French bread

thin sliced roast beef

provolone cheese

1 Au Jus sauce mix

Slice French bread loaf lengthwise from the side (does that make sense?) Layer roast beef and cheese all along the loaf. Close the loaf and put on pan and warm in the oven. Mix Au Jus sauce (you can find the sauce mix packet by the gravy and other sauce mixes in the store). Slice the loaf and enjoy!

Garlic Chicken Farfalle

3-4 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)

1 12 bottle Lawry's mesquite marinate with lime juice

16 oz Farfalle or other pasta

1/2 C butter

2 C heavy whipping cream

2 to 3 cloves garlic crushed (I just use about 1/2 tsp garlic powder)

1 C shredded Parmesan cheese

1 tsp pepper (the recipe calls for 1 Tbsp but I don't like pepper that much)

1 lb bacon crumpled

Crock pot chicken with marinade on low for 6 hours. Pull chicken out of the juices and shred with a fork. About a 1/2 hour before serving, boil pasta. In a small saucepan, melt butter, add garlic, whipping cream, pepper, cheese and crumpled bacon. Whisk together on low heat for 3-4 minutes. In a large bowl pour over cooked drained pasta, add chicken. Sprinkle more parmesan cheese on top.

This is a great dish for Sunday dinner since you can crock pot the chicken while you are at Church and whip up the rest when you get home. SOOOO good.

Tera's Fast Breadsticks

1 1/2 C warm water

2 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp yeast

3 C flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C melted butter

garlic salt and parmesan cheese

Dissolve yeast and sugar in water. Add to flour and salt in mixer. Mix well. Let set for 10 minutes. Turn out on floured surface and knead in a little more flour. Roll out and cut dough into strips with a pizza cutter. Dip each strip in melted butter and put in 9x13 inch pan. Sprinkle with garlic and parmesan (I usually do 2 smaller pans and put parm and garlic on one and leave the other plain to dip in jam after they are done). Let raise 20 min. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

So that's some of what's cookin' at my house. What's cookin' at yours?

Pageant Season and President Uchtdorf

We've had another great season of the Pageant. I wish we a better pic of our family and one that included Jannika. She was off playing with some other kids when we took this picture. She loved going to the pioneer village before the pageant begins. LeAnne made the homemade ice cream every night and we were all happy to help her with it:)

We had a special visitor to the Pageant this year. President Uchtdorf came one night a talked to the cast and the audience. It was so neat to see him up close and hear him talk and shake his hand. We've never had a member of the 1st Presidency come before so it was a special treat.

We went to Salt Lake this last week because Kyle had some training meetings. We got to stay with him in the hotel and on the last day we were there, we decided to walk the 4 blocks to Temple square. We went to the north visitor's center and saw the Cristus statue. I always love going there. We also saw a video about eternal families. In the video, the main character's dad dies and of course that brought tears to our eyes. Kyle invited a guy who isn't a member to attend the pageant this year. He had studied a lot about the Church and he and Kyle talk a lot about it at work. When Kyle asked him what he thought about the Pageant, he said that he hadn't known before what emphasis our Church places on eternal families. I'm glad that that was one of the messages that he received at the Pageant. We are so thankful for eternal families!

July

For the fourth of July, we went down to Kyle's sister, Trista's house and did our traditional picnic with our hobo sticks. We also went to the park to see the parade and have some cotton candy. Rusty and Trista also blessed their baby the next day.

Kyle's sister, Megan, was getting rid of some things and sold us some bikes and this bike trailer. We have loved them! It is so nice to just use the bike trailer when we go down the street to visit grandma.
This was our 24th of July primary activity where the kids dressed up and did a little parade around the block. I love my little pioneer girls!
I love this picture of Kyle and Claire at the 24th of July parade! We had tons of fun and TONS of candy. The kids also caught two goldfish during the games at the park (both of which have since met their demise:( )

My brother's kids were here for a while for Pageant practice and also my sister's daughter. I took all the kids swimming last week and they had a ball and they were all good! Yay!
Here's Claire, just loungin' by the pool!
I have loved having a garden this year. Here is some of our corn that is almost ready to pick and the bottom is a picture of one of our pumpkins. (Notice how I took some close ups so that you couldn't see my large weed patch too:) We planted several different varieties of pumpkins, peas, beans and crook neck squash. As Claire would say, MMM, Num Num:)