Updates

I posted some projects to my Creative Sayings blog. There are two new ones - Thanksgiving and Winter Stackers.

Announcing...

Can you guess?

Yes, we're expecting baby number 5 or babies number 5 and 6. (That's why I have been blogg-ily absent - not feeling so good)

Who thinks we're having twins- again?

Yes we CAN!

A little bit of this
And a little bit of this....ok, a lot of each

Makes this
A few of these
Oh, don't forget the fruit fresh!

makes thisAnd this

Craft The Night Away

So here are the projects that we're doing for our Craft night in October.

Magnetic Family Home Evening Sign

$23

The board we're actually doing will look more like the blue sign - five categories and no magnets included. I made the brown one for me and could customize it a little more to what I wanted. I loved the flower magnets, but with so many different interests and families, I am not including magnets that night. People will have to get or make their own.

Merry Christmas Tree Frame

$12

I posted this on my Creative Sayings site. Several people loved this and requested it for a Craft the Night Away project. I'm excited to use it this year.

Halloween Stackers

$6

Noel Plaque

$6.00

This one can either be hung on the wall or it has it's own built in nifty stand. I like this one.

Established Blocks

$8.00

Countdown Blocks
$10.00 each set

These are really fun to make. One is for Christmas and one is for just any occasion - birthdays maybe. Cute! Cute!

Home Blocks

$8.00

We're providing two examples of these, one with the black and red and then a brown set.

Temple Quiet Book

$7.50

CRAFT SWAP

We're also hosting a craft swap that night where the women can bring any crafts they don't want, need, or use for others to take if they want. Hopefully it goes well.

Our event is Friday October 30th from 6:30 -11:00pm. Anyone want to come?

All Laid Out

Emma's clothes are neatly folded on her night stand with her shoes set carefully to the side. Her backpack sits ready by the door and excitement sleeps with her deep inside.

She wasn't mad when we told her she'd have to retire early for bed and even opted out of a story so she could faster rest her little head.

My little girl's growing up! sniff! sniff! :)

Getting Ready

We have been so busy. My lazy days don't come quite as often as they used to. They usually happen Sunday after I give my YW lesson and Tuesdays after a school board night. That's when I let down and don't think about my deadlines looming over me. I will be giving up the Wahluke School Board meetings because of the start of school. I will miss it. I love to be in the know. On the other hand, it will be nice not to have to worry about it anymore.

We are getting ready for two very important things. Emma will be starting school on Friday and Craft the Night Away is coming up in our ward.

We went school shopping with Emma and we've talked about what it will be like a hundred times. We have a meeting with her teacher on Thursday morning and I hope her excitement will stay with her. I am excited to see her in this new stage of her life. (Plus it'll just be me and Mr. Paul and the twins at home now.)

Our ward does a Craft the Night Away for their Super Saturday. They start at about 6:30 pm and go to 11 or so. The woman that was the specialist before has served for probably 10 years and they just recently asked me if I would take over for her. I am so excited to come up with some new crafts and work with some other great crafters in my ward. The actual event isn't until October, but I've got to get my sign-ups out here pretty quick. I'll post some pictures of what we'll be doing.

Well, I just thought that since I was up, (School Board article due tonight) that I would type in a little update. I'm still alive!

Peanut Butter Energy

One day when Emma was playing over at the Smith's (Ellensburg neighbors). It happened that she stayed through lunch and they had peanut butter and jam sandwiches. The only hang up? They like crunchy and Emma was used to creamy. She ate it and told me all about it when I came back to get her. Rachel told her, and I confirmed it, that the crunchy peanut butter would give her energy and make her run really fast. She has not forgotten that. We've referenced that energy many times, and Emma is usually the one who brings it up. Rachel didn't know she had such powerful peanut butter.

Well, just recently Paul picked up on it too. The other day he said, "Mommy, me got peanut butter energy." At first I wasn't quite sure what he was trying to say. And then I just laughed when it dawned on me. Thanks Rachel for peanut butter energy.

Chicken Pot Pie Recipe

Filling:

1/2 cup chopped onion
6Tbsp butter
1/2 cup flour
3 cups chicken broth
3 cups cooked chicken, cubed
1 (10 oz) pkg frozen peas and carrots or
1 to 2 cans mixed vegetables
1 two crust pie (recipe below or use your own)

Saute onion in butter. Add broth and flour. Increase heat, stirring constantly until broth thickens. Reduce heat and add chicken and vegetables, heat through. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Bake at 350 for about 40 min or until golden.

Pie crust:

2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup + 2 Tbsp Crisco
5 Tbsp water

Use a bowl that has a lid. Stir salt into flour, add Crisco. Use a fork to cut shortening into flour until Crisco is coated and in fine pieces. Sprinkle in water. Place lid on bowl and toss ingredients in a circular fashion. (It may sound funny, I know, but it works. Keep a firm hold on the bowl and you can use some force as you toss the ingredients.) When you're done, the ingredients should come together in a ball. Then divide the dough into two balls and roll them out to fit your pie dish.

My signature

I sat down on Monday and made up my menus again. It has been so nice having things planned out and I know just how much time in advance I need to start dinner for it to be ready at our 5:00 dinner time. We all get cranky if we don't eat close to 5:00.

Monday night we had chicken pot pie. I thought of my mom the whole time because she used to make it when I was growing up.

The exciting part was how I cut the top of the pie to allow it to vent while it cooked. I remember my mom telling me that when you bake a pie you cut it your own special way. She has a certain way that she always does it. Today I cut a heart into my pie. I loved it! That will be my special trademark, my signature. I may even right a column about it. That's one of the two jokes about me - my ideas either end up in vinyl or in writing in my column.

Doesn't this pie look great!

Cruisin' Ophello

I was told recently, in a not so friendly manner :), that I need to update my blog. And I do. So here goes.

We have been busy doing a lot of things. I am always thinking of things I will post about, but it just wasn't making it to the keyboard.

Pictures aren't working tonight - I'll have to add those later.

1. We got a dishwasher! It's one that has to be hooked up to the sink, but it sure beats standing at the sink for a very long time trying to do all the dishes. It rolls on wheels and the cords slip down inside the back of the machine - so no messy cords hanging out. Awesome!

2. I am enjoying writing for the paper. It is still so fun to see the paper come out on Wednesdays, look for my article(s), and read through them. What fun! The South County Sun website is now up and running if you want to check out my column.

3. Emma can ride a two-wheeler! She wanted her training wheels off, but we didn't really help her learn to ride right away. Finally we went up to the park to the fenced in hockey rink and let her ride around in the big, open space. It was so nice. The other kids were contained, and she could ride and learn.

4. Jason is now on day shift. Yippee! He works 7am-3pm Monday through Friday and has Saturday and Sunday off. It's so nice to have him at church with me - awake! When he was on nights it was all he could do to keep his eyes open sitting there with me in the pew. I have to say that I do miss nights though. I got a lot done in the evening when he wasn't here. Now he wants me to go to bed with him at 10:00. I'm thinking, I've still got a few good hours of things to do yet. :)

5.We went on vacation...to Tri-Cities. Jason had five days off when he switched from nights to days. We were thinking of places we could go and things we could see, but we didn't plan far enough in advance. We finally decided that we'd go stay with Jason's parents, save on gas and hotel fees, and have fun around there. We had a blast!

Thursday, the 18th, we went to the Pasco train yard and drove around so the kids could see the trains, mostly Paul and Ben (yes, Benny is an avid train fan now). We went to Howard Amon Park in Richland and let the kids get wet in the river. They loved it! And so did we because they were having fun. We met up with my mom and went to the movie Up and then to Burger King for dinner.

Friday, we had donuts with breakfast - that was probably more for me than for the kids :). We went to Playground of Dreams with Grandma and Grandpa E. They spoiled our kids with snow cones and even toys from Big Lots. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! Later in the evening Jason and I ran some errands without the kids - that was nice. Sigh.

Saturday, we borrowed Jason's brother-in-law's bike, used our own, and went for a ride down to Keywaden Park. Emma was a little pro. We got a bike trailer/ combo stroller off e-bay and it was nice to put Paul and the twins in there for the ride. My rear end was sure sore though. We let the kids play on the park toys for awhile and then headed back to Grandma's. In the afternoon, we took the kids and drove over to the Temple. It was so nice to walk around and see Emma's excitement at how beautiful it was. Paul fell asleep on the way there and snoozed on the seat while we walked around. That evening we met up with my mom and sisters for dinner at Taverna Tagaris. It was Shelly's Christmas present from us, we just weren't able to have it work out until now. It was fun to go there, but I don't know that we'd go back any time soon. Jason's steak alone was $29. yikes! It was one of those things you only do once and never regret not doing it again.

I don't know if we really saved any money. We may have spent more because we thought that by staying close we were saving all this money. Ha!

6. We have been going on a lot of bike rides since we purchased the bike stroller. It's so nice to get out with my kids and do something so fun like that. It beats sitting inside and getting grumpy or even trying to play in our hot backyard, we have no shade. On one of our trips Emma and I were going back and forth about how fun it was to ride and feel the wind and the sun. We said, "This is the life." Then Emma said, "We're cruisin' Ophello Mom," as if it was the greatest place on Earth. I laughed to myself.

7. We went to the pool today and that was absolute heaven. It's only $4 for me to get in and all my kids are free (5 years and under - anyone want to come visit?) I think we'll be going there a lot too.

8. We saw Raleigh and Jordan! He has graduated and has started his job in Connecticut. They were in Tri-Cities visiting family and so we were able to meet up at the park and then later at Shari's with some other friends for dinner and dessert. It was so much fun to see good friends again!

There's a little somethin'-somethin' of what we've been doing.