Carrots and Blocks

These are some carrots from our garden this year, the seed package wasn't kidding when they said they would grow into big juicey carrots. I tried to get James to hold one of the carrots so you could see how big these carrots actually are. He wouldn't. He was rather afraid of it. 1 carrot equals about 6 large carrots, these things are monsters, but the good and crazy thing about them is they still taste good.



Meet Ellie, the photographer.
She conducted yet another photo session with James. She asked me if she could take some pictures of James playing with his blocks.
Notice the focus, the lighting, the angles. I think my girl truly has talent.

chuckling

Last Sunday, a counselor asked Barry if he'd play Joseph in our Stake nativity. Barry was eager to accept because it would mean he would have an excuse to keep growing his beard until Christmas.

They told him he would have a few lines to say, something from Joseph's perspective.

Later, I teased him that they would be lines like:

-Think of all the money we're saving Mary by staying in this manger.
-This baby doesn't look anything like me.


I mean, seriously what would Joseph say?

Barry's speaking part arrived in the mail today, I admit, I just had to open it.....

Now, I'm chuckling all the more, I just can't see Barry or Joseph saying any of this.


I just hope Mary is cute, for his sake, and over 18 ......talk about awkward ;)

oh and he gets to make his own costume.....




I'm definitely attending the Nativity this year.

I'm sure he would appreciate your support as well.

Come one, come all.

Recipes Good Enough to Share

Lucky you, this is #2 post for today.

My two favorite soups, and yours too, as I can see. I'm watching you. Wooooo wooooo. (Scary huh?)

YUM!


Kelli's Creamy White Chili

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast, cooked and cubed
1 medium onion
1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder (or fresh garlic is even better)
1 Tbls. Vegetable oil (I use olive)
2 (15 oz.) cans great northern beans, drained and rinsed
1 (14 1/2 oz.) can chicken broth
2 (4 oz.) can chopped green chilies (usually found in Mexican food section of the grocery store)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. black pepper ( I put in about high, because I mildly allergic to it)
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (I leave this out, because I'm highly allergic to it)
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup whipping cream

The recipe doesn't call for it but I always add in fresh mushrooms and saute them with the chicken. Add as many as you like.

In a large saucepan, saute chicken, onion and garlic powder in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Add beans, broth, chilies and seasonings. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer uncovered for 30 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in sour cream and whipping cream. Serve immediately.





Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana

* 1 lb ground Italian sausage
* 1½ tsp crushed red peppers
* 1 large diced white onion
* 4 Tbsp bacon pieces
* 2 tsp garlic puree
* 10 cups water
* 5 cubes of chicken bouillon
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 1 lb sliced Russet potatoes, or about 4 large potatoes
* ¼ of a bunch of kale
I added a bit more salt in the end, because I think it needed it, but other than that, it was just as good as the Olive Garden.

1. Sauté Italian sausage and crushed red pepper in a large pot. Drain excess fat, refrigerate while you prepare other ingredients.
2. In the same pan, sauté bacon, onions and garlic over low-medium heat for approximately 15 mins. or until the onions are soft.
3. Add chicken bouillon and water to the pot and heat until it starts to boil.
4. Add the sliced potatoes and cook until soft, about half an hour.
5. Add the heavy cream and just cook until thoroughly heated.
6. Stir in the sausage and the kale, let all heat through and serve. Delicious!

Buon appetito!

Halloween and High Self Esteem

For Halloween we went to the fabulous annual Stuart Halloween Party. My brother and his wife out did themselves again.
They set up a graveyard in their backyard with fog, and a spooky zombie that moved. Inside they had decorated everything spooky. James was very scared at first. My brother constructed this really cool ghost that looked and moved like I would imagine a real ghost would. I wish I had a video of it, it was awesome.
They also had yummy soup and bread sticks shaped like bones. The pumpkin roll my mom brought was also delicious.
I admit I didn't dress up for the party. I felt bad, I was going to be a peanut M&M, but nothing was going my way that day, so it didn't happen. Ellie was a beautiful princess and James was an adorable puppy dog.

Saturday afternoon we came home and made soup for the ward party, Zuppa Toscana, it was delicious, I was very pleased how it turned out, since we never had made it before.
At the ward party the kids got to go around the gym in a line and get candy from everyone sitting on chairs around the edges. James and I were stuck behind a very shy neighbor girl who just froze and stood in front of people and stared at them even after they gave her a piece of candy. Eventually I would prod her on, but James took this to his full advantage and gave big smiles to the people who gave him candy, he would stand and wait a minute behind the frozen girl, and then again smile and hold up his little plastic pumpkin to the same person, who usually couldn't resist giving my adorable puppy another piece. One man gave him 4 candy bars before we moved on.

After about the hundredth person told Ellie she looked just like a princess, Ellie chuckled and whispered in my ear, "What they don't know, is that I REALLY AM a Princess"
Maybe that would concern some mothers, but it makes me happy. I want my daughter to know and feel as special as any princess. I want her to have confidence in herself, and love who she is. I know there are some risks with too high of self-esteem but we'll take those any day over those of a low self-esteem.
We went to a party after the ward party and had homemade doughnuts and apple cider. The kids ran wild, the men discussed, the woman gossiped, and I stuffed myself silly. It was truly delightful.

I'll post some pictures as soon as I figure how to get them off my email.



Coming soon .............Mouse Tales continued

Around, Around the Mulberry Bush.......

You may ask, why is my 5 year old Ellie running away from little James????





Why she hiding??













I've entitled these photos "Walk Softly and Carry A Big Stick"

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A Mouse Tale

Saturday night was terrible, in the night I heard a scratch scratch, scratching in my closet.

Definitely a mouse, definitely unacceptable. I desperately tried to ignore the noise, but soon the sound changed to a scratch scratch scratching under my bed!!!!!!!!!!!

Ack!!! I hoped I had a imagined it, I hoped it would go away, it seemed like for hours the scratching continued.

Finally I could stand it no longer, I flipped on my light, of course this caused the scratching to stop, and set out on a determined search to find out how that nasty little critter got into my room.

Pulling mostly everything out from my closet, I discovered a small space between the carpet, and the Sheetrock in the back of my closet, and just as I was examining it, a little mouse stuck his head out. ICK ICK ICk.

I stomped downstairs, flipped on the light and loomed over barry, who had fallen asleep on the couch in front of the fire. Barry, a deep sleeper with hearing loss surprisingly opened his eyes and looked up at me with a confused expression. I explained very nicely that I had been up all night listening to the scratch scratching of a nasty mouse, and that I had found his hole and that he(barry) would get up early before church and block it.

Barry surprised me again, and quickly agreed and closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.

Now 4am, I tromped back up the stairs, happy to have a plan, I sat on my bed and announced to mister mouse. "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die!
Laying down on my bed, I then peacefully went to sleep.
I was woken up in the early morning by Barry asking me what in the world I was talking about in the middle of the night.

I explained againnicely, and Barry seeing the dark shadows under my blood-shot eyes wisely did not argue and went to work. He blocked off the hole to my satisfaction and then quickly got ready for church, I got Ellie ready and sent them off. Yes, I sent them off to church without me, claiming a sore throat. The sore throat was in fact true, but it was from the cloves I put in the cookies that I had eaten the night before, and was in no way contagious.

The Ox is in the Myer, I told myself, a mouse is in my house, and that is a very serious thing.

I went to work, cleaning out my entire closet, which was full of all of our emergency supplies, 72 hour backpacks, guns and suitcases. I cleaned out under my bed throwing away anything the mouse might have licked, scratched, peed on, etc.
I washed all of my bedding in case the mouse had perchance scampered across a blanket hanging on the floor in the night, and swept and vacuumed the entire house in case the mouse was looking for a last meal.

After thoroughly cleaning the closet I did leave the the mouse behind just one small present, a gift bag, with a mouse trap snugly tucked behind it. I quietly closed the doors, put another log on the fire, dished myself up a big bowl of ice cream and waited.

It wasn't long...... SNAP!

R.I.P little mouse.

Ahh I could suddenly breath again, the air seemed cleaner, the world was a better happier place.

I grabbed a newly washed and dried blanket and curled up in front of the fire and peacefully feel asleep.

I did reset the trap, just in case mister mouse, was a mrs mouse, ....and I'll tell you what happened then, but that story is for another day.




Authors' note: Now don't be reading this and thinking I'm mouse-a-phobic or something. I am not. I would do the same thing if someone let their cat, dog or gerbil scamper through my house. Of course then I would have to use a bigger trap. ;)

Sunny Day

Yesterday, I woke up, I didn't have a headache, I wasn't dizzy, and I had some energy, a rare occurrence these days. I decided to take advantage of it.

I spent the morning, washing and chopping up onions from our garden to freeze. I got through about half of them, and could stand the smell no more...

So I decided to clean out the fridge, in which I found a lemon, which smelled so good I decided all I wanted in the world was a lemon meringue pie. So I made one, and then I decided I better make a butterscotch one too for Barry, since he doesn't like lemon.

Unfortunately, I was too tired to make supper, so we had leftovers, but Barry was consoled with pie ....and so was I.

October

On Saturday, we went to the Robin's Pumpkin Patch, and let the kids pick out their pumpkins, James had no trouble, but Ellie wanted to look them ALL over first.






Coming home with their pumpkins, James wanted to be big like Ellie and hold his pumpkin on his lap, but he eventually pushed it off, I think it was making his legs go numb.






Ellie making cinnamon rolls with mom. She's a big help, she likes to put on the nuts and raisins on and help cut the rolls with the floss.




Ellie's Cinnamon Roll snake.




Recently James and I have been at war. He desperately wants to play in our bathroom drawer that has my make-up in it and my curling irons. I have tried just about every possible method to keep him out of it. Child locks were not successful, removing the handle was not successful, jamming the drawer shut with something was the only thing that really seemed to work most of the time. James was extremely frustrated by this solution, and worked on it until he discovered a solutions of his very own.





Thanks James.






Now I don't ever have to worry about him opening my drawer again........














He doesn't need too, ...........he can just reach right in.












Happy October!

Squash Day

Today is a Squash day. The smell of Squash cooking in the oven reminds of home. It takes me back to my childhood, of Saturdays of working hard, Saturday night baths, of crisp cool fall evenings, warm food, and my family.

Today, I want it back. I want to be a child again, I want to give my cares, fears and worries away .......and just live. Today, I want someone to cook MY dinner, wash my clothes and clean up my messes, I want someone to hold me, to love me, and to tell me everything will be alright.

I'm feeling tense, I'm feeling stressed, can you tell?
3 kids, how can I have three kids? My neighbor says when you have three kids, that's when you lose all control. I can't help thinking about THAT, but most of all I can't help worrying about my Jamesers.

My Sweet James, so full of love and life with his dark gentle eyes, and mischievous grin. He has softened a part of my hard-heart that not Barry, nor even Ellie was able to reach.
I don't want James to feel displaced by a new baby, even for a moment, I don't want him to feel less loved or less special, even for a moment.
Ellie is excited, but I feel like James is going to be broadsided by this.... and I don't know what to do.

All I can do is pray, pray he'll understand.

But James, when you CAN understand, I want you to know, that I'm having another baby so soon for YOU! BECAUSE YOU are so special, so important, so loved. So you can have a playmate, a comrade, a friend, someone close to your age. So you won't have to be lonely like Ellie was for so long before you came along.

We love you James, you have brought so much love to our little family.

Ellie we love you, and we are so excited for you to have a little sister to mother and love and play with.

and Baby Pate, we are so excited to meet you and hold you in our arms and welcome you into our little family.

Tonight we'll be having squash for dinner, homemade wheat bread, and hot oatmeal cookies. (Talk about comfort food)

Need a little comfort??

Come join us.