Tuesday Tell All

For those of you who haven't heard of Tuesday tell all. It is a blog that gives you journaling ideas for your blogs and the address is Tuesday-tell-all.blogspot.com. Anyway, I rarely end up blogging on Tuesday or the topic they have chosen doesn't particularly appeal to me. However since it is still Tuesday and the topic is Halloween traditions I thought I'd give it a try.

Halloween is one of those holidays where you usually find a couple of opportunities to celebrate. Our ward always had a halloween carnival put on by the young women and Young men. Then their was the elementary school carnival not to mention my birthday parties.
As a young child my parents always took me and my siblings to my grandmas house. She would make Chili and rolls and then we would head out for some trick-or-treating. She lives in a mobile home court which is a huge advantage for halloween with the homes so close together you can get a lot of candy in a short amount of time. We would also hit our own neighborhood when we were done. Then it was home to sort and count all the goodies.

when I got older, it was fun to be in charge of the carnivals and also to do go to halloween parties, dances and haunted houses. There was one stake halloween dance in high school where some guy asked me to slow dance to the song "forever young" by Alphaville. I guess that ages me a bit. Anyway, he had very bad hygeine and bad breath and he was singing the song to me while I was trying to hold my breath. I felt bad but I almost darted away from him at the end to get some fresh air. I was never much for haunted houses (the chain saw dudes and being in closed in spaces freaked me out). I usually ended up punching a few of the actors who came too close and falling down a lot. I went to a corn maze only once a few years ago and it was raining buckets and the mud was up to the mid calf. Pretty miserable!

Now that I have my own children we usually do the pumpkin patch thing that I mentioned last time and this year we went to the Syracuse pumpkin walk. they have volunteers carve hundreds of pumpkins and then they light them and line them up for everyone to come walk through and see all the creations. We usually spend halloween with my in-laws. There are lots of cousins all the same age to play together and trick-or-treat together. It is pretty casual but it is nice that Eli has a big family and that most of them are close. We always miss the cousins in Phoenix and Denver on the holidays though. Hopefully we will have lots of fun memories and new traditions to come. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Pumpkin Carving

We usually like to go to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins, but this year since the weather was bad and we were out of town during the pumpkin patch times we just had to get them from the grocery store. I was kind of disappointed because I like my kids to have the little tractor ride and to be able to see the fields where the pumpkins grow (plus they give you some pumpkins free). Oh well.

Kate was able to participate a little more this year since she drew the face on the small pumpkin and daddy carved it out.

Eli wasn't really looking forward to the pumpkin carving so he kept the designs pretty simple this year. Kate also drew a little picture of a skeleton that she was very proud of and I am sure she got the idea from the cute skeleton T-shirt her aunt Dani made her. Beck liked seeing the inside of the pumpkins with all the seeds and stuff. He is also my little helper so he enjoyed helping scrape out the inside with my help of course. Kate can't let her little brother show her up, so of course she had to join in on the scaping of the pumpkins as well. Here you can see the finished products. I was glad we didn't show up well (or at least me since my hormones have made my face look more like it did when I was a teenager). I think my favorite part of the night was the Ben and Jerry's pumpkin cheesecake ice cream. I highly recommend it and it is on sale for $2.50 right now at wal-mart. Although I went back to my neighborhood wal-mart to find more and they were sold out. I probably shouldn't be admitting that :).

Heber Valley Camp

These are pictures from Oct. 10-11th when we went with some of Eli's family to the Heber Valley Camp. We had never been up there and we thought it would be nice to stay in the cabins with family and do some of the activities like the zip line. Unfortunately the weather decided otherwise and the activities were cancelled because of the snow. It was a nice drive, the scenery was beautiful, and the cabins stayed nice and warm with the space heaters. The kids loved the snow as long as they could stand the cold and then it was back inside to warm up.

I had to buy new winter coats and they are a little big, but at least they'll probably last two years. Beck figured out real quick that snow is fun to eat.

Kate loved spending time with her cousins. We were so glad Dani and Tom and their kids could come. We've missed them so much since they moved to Denver. Here are Brookie, Kate and Jennie enjoying the campsite as it started snowing. You can see part of the cabins and beautiful colors in the background.

Bacon Wrapped grease filled donuts anyone?

The guys were feeling adventurous (that or the cold air was getting to their brains) and they decided to try a new culinary creation with the left over breakfast. They thought as most guys do, "bacon wrapped anything is good and there are some left over mini donuts so lets try it." The left over donuts soaked up the bacon grease in the pan like a spounge which was not as good as they thought it might be. However later that night we had a couples mystery dinner party and the bacon wrapped cream cheese jalapeno poppers Candi and Kelly made were delicious!

The Heber Valley Camp was a fun experience even though it took me several days to recover from the sleep deprevation and to unpack the car.

Zucchini Bread & Zucchini Cookies

The only thing I really got out of my garden this year was the zucchini and a very few tomatoes. I was getting sick of eating cooked zucchini and decided to make some zucchini bread. I thought it has been a while since I have posted a recipe so here goes.
This is a Betty Crocker recipe with a few adjustments I liked from another recipe.
The original recipe called for 2 2/3 C. white Sugar which I changed to 1 C brown sugar and 1 2/3 C. white sugar. The original recipe also called for 2/3 Cup shortening and I changed that to 1/3 C. butter and 1/3 cup shortening (next time I might try it with all butter). I also added an additional tsp of vanilla.

Zucchini Bread
Heat oven to 350. Grease loaf pans.
Mix: 1 2/3 C white sugar, 1 C brown sugar, 1/3 C shortening and 1/3 C butter.
Stir in: 3 C shredded zucchini, 2/3 C water, 4 eggs.
Mix in: 3 1/3 C flour, 2 tsp baking soda. 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground cloves, 3 tsp vanilla & 1/2 tsp baking powder.
Optional: stir in 2/3 C nuts or rasins if desired. Bake 60-70 minutes.
Pumpkin Bread adujustment: substitute 16 oz. of pumpkin for the zucchini and omit the vanilla and bake 70 min.

This bread was a very nice consistency smooth and soft as well as tasty.

Another zucchini bread recipe I enjoy is called Zion Zucchini Bread and I am not sure where it comes from, but it is made with chocolate chips. My husband prefers the first recipe with the smoother consistency, but if you love sweets and chocolate this might be a good one to try.

Zion Zucchini Bread
Blend together: 1 C sugar
3 eggs
3 t vanilla
1 C brown sugar
1 C oil
2 C grated zucchini
Add 1/2 cup nuts or chocolate chips
Stir together: 3 C flour, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tst baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 3 tsp cinnamon.
grease & four pans. Bake at 325 until toothpick comes out clean.

This bread was also good, but with the chocolate chips it was a little denser and I liked that it had a kind of crusty outside and soft on inside.

Here is one last Zucchni recipe from a neighbor. I haven't tried this one but I have tried a lot of things she makes and I have never been disappointed. I wish I could try this one out too, but with the snow ending the growing season a little prematurely I will have to wait until next year.

Zucchini Cookies:
Beat Together:
2 cups sugar
1 cup Crisco
2 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp allspice or cloves
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

Add:
2 cups shredded zucchini- (beat in)
4 cups flour
Optional-1 cup butterscotch or chocolate chips (mixed in batter) or frost with chocolate frosting after baking. Scoop onto baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes. Cool before frosting.

Enjoy!

October

October is one of my favorite months! when I was younger I loved it because it was my sisters and my birthday month, Halloween, and I loved playing in all the fall leaves. Kassie's birthday is actually today. I hope she has a great birthday-she deserves it. We didn't get along too well when we were children. I was a big time spoiled brat! I wish I could go back and do it better because I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn't really appreciate having such a great sister until I got older. I am glad I finally realized my mistake and became more mature and less full of myself, so I could eventually have a good relationship that I have with her today. I love my sister and I am so glad to have her in my life. She is so compassionate, thoughtful and such a good listener. She is always so supportive of me and my family. This picture of her is a few years old. It was hard for me to find a picture with just her alone because she is always helping he own daughter with something or holding and playing with one of her nieces or nephews. She is always thinking of others and quietly helping and serving them without being asked or needing any recognition. she is a great example to me and I hope I can develop some of her strengths.

In addition to the reasons above I also love October because I love to change my warddrobe for the cooler weather and watch the colors change. I love being able to got outside and play with kids without getting all sweaty and overheated. I also love the harvest time and being able to see the rewards of all my summer gardening and feeling resourceful as I do my best to can or bake a few things here and there. My garden has been pretty pathetic this year because our soil quality is so poor. It is basically straight sand and I tried to put enough garden top soil in when I planted the plants and I fertilized as well, but it wasn't enough to improve the quality-at least not for the tomatoes. I have been quite jealous of some of my friends gardens. Catherine and Valerie I am open to any of your suggestions. I doubt next year I will even be able to do a garden with a new baby. Anyway, I was picking some of my vegetables and Kate thought they might like a chance to swing on the swing. I think it is funny how she attibutes human feelings to things like vegetables.

Another reason to love October is the chance to listen to conference. I must be so deprived of the spirit in my busy mom life because just the music alone was almost overwhelming to me-especially the primary choir. I noticed Kate paid much more attention when the kids sang and she asked a lot of questions about the songs. That made it more meaningful as well. I definitely had a greater desire to improve on my prayers and I plan on trying to have some prayers that are just full of gratitude without asking for anything. I also know I need to study my scriptures better individually and as a family. I want to attend the temple more and make greater efforts to be reverent during sacrament meeting. I had never really considered it to be similar to the temple. I can't believe the nerve of some people texting or making phone calls though (at least I am not that bad). I also need to make sure I am living in the moment and using humor to deal with life challenges instead of getting all stressed out. It was also very humbling to me to hear the stories of members around the world, pioneers, and Joseph Smith. There were so many good messages and I tried to focus but with my kids needing attention and my own fatigue I know I missed a lot, so I am excited to be able to study the talks again when they come out in the Ensign.

Happenings

Well like many others I finally got sucked into the Twilight Series obsession which means I have gotten behind on blogging, housework, etc. Here are a few happenings that have been going on in my life. First I had my grandmother (Anna Hart's) 88th birthday party. Here is one of my favorite pictures of her with Kate.

The next day I had my nieces Emma and Bella's 2 year birthday parties. That is always a wonderful occasion because they are miracles and everytime I see them I am reminded of the Mercy, love and blessings that Heavenly Father granted us with their arrival. These identical twins shared a placenta and the blood flow and there was a complication fairly early on where the blood flow was going almost exclusively to one baby (Bella) and the other was not getting enough to maintain the amniotic fluid (Emma). Bella was the one at most risk for death or diability with too much blood pressure damaging her heart and possibly her brain. She had two amniotic fluid reductions hoping that would correct the problem, but they didn't work so we had to fly to San Francisco to allow her to have her placental arteries lasered correcting the blood flow problem. If the in utero condition wasn't hostile enough now the reductions and surgeries added even more risks. However, it was surgery or certain death for Bella and possible Emma as well. Thankfully the surgery was a success and amazingly all of Bella's heart problems reversed themselves in the following month. They were born 7 weeks early though, but they are doing amazingly well considering all they went through before they even made it to this earth. I was going to get individual pictures of them at their parties, but I forgot my camera. This picture is from Easter. It is amazing that they don't have any complications like brain or heart damage or that they even lived. We are so happy to have these precious girls in our family!

One of my good college friends Mary got married and I am so happy for her. The theme of the wedding video was worth the wait. She was 35 and he is I believe 39.

This past week one of my long time childhood friends Maren (34) got married also and I forgot my camera again. She looked beautiful and it was so fun to see her and all my neighborhood and highschool friends I hadn't see probably since my wedding.

I have another friend Maggie who was the Relief Society President in my student ward with me after the mission who is getting married the second week of October. I will be out of town and probably have to miss the reception. I am so happy for her since she is also in her thirties I believe.
At Maren's reception I chatted with a long time neighborhood friend about her daughter who is 25 and starting to worry about marriage and I still have a lot of single friends in their thirties who are living ful lives without their eternal companion. I know that is sometimes very difficult for them and I hope they will have the opportunity like these three friends of mine have had. I love them all so much and I am proud of them for all they have accomplished, their positive attitude and I am grateful to share in their joy when some of them do find their mate.

With all this celebrating you can see why I was on the pie and cake diet.