All is well!

Well, it is a busy time of year for everyone and we are no exception. We enjoyed a trip to Boise for Thanksgiving this year. We ate dinner with Shawn's family and the girls got to have a sleep over with their cousins at Grandma's house. They stayed up late (Evie was the last to sleep) and had a good time. Shawn and I took advantage of that and went and saw a movie - he even consented to go see Twilight (he must really love me!) Of course it wasn't as good as the book, but I still enjoyed it. (Other Twilight news - I finally read Breaking Dawn!) While we were there my dad also took some family pictures for us. If you watch Samantha Who? you know what I mean when I say I have Andrea's disease - I'm always pulling some funny face or have my eyes closed in pictures. But we did get a few good ones and one that I don't even need to Photo Shop to use!

Since we got back to town we have been going non-stop. The girls' dance recital is coming up so they have been busy practicing their dances. Their school Christmas program was this week and our ward Christmas party is tomorrow night. Shawn and I finally got our outside lights put up just before the snow came last weekend. I've been finishing up Christmas shopping and sending off cards and presents.

I got the flu earlier this week and that wiped me out for about 24 hours. My awesome hubby was able to take an afternoon off though to stay home with Evie, take care of me, help the girls with all their homework, and make dinner (yummy chicken pot pie). I was able to sleep most of the day and within a couple more days I'd bounced back completely. He even rented a couple of movies while he was out running errands - we watched Kung-Fu Panda all together and then he and I watched Get Smart after the girls went to bed.

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season and enjoying good health, good food, and good company!

Yup, that's me - eyes closed.

Lissy's turn... goofy face
Our homeland - Boise.

Evie - over here!

Ahhh... perfect!

Free Turkey Recipes

Click here for a link to a free downloadable recipe book for all those turkey leftovers. Found it while blog-surfing and thought I would pass it on.

Creative Outlet

I needed a creative outlet today, so here's what I did. I have been wanting to make a Thanksgiving sign like my Boo sign, so I cut out a phrase and leaf with my Cricut, added some stickers to spell "give" and voila!

Then I didn't want to waste the leftovers, so I put together a scrapbook page.

Here are the Christmas cards I made last week for card group.

And here are a bunch more I just made mostly with scraps I had laying around. I've decided I really like making cards because I'm never really behind like I ALWAYS am with scrapbooking. Plus, I don't like to throw bits and pieces away so it's a great way to use scraps!

Just a little blogging and a recipe

Nothing much is happening around here, but it's been over a week and I feel guilty that I haven't blogged. Today is laundry day, so I after I get my first load over to the dryer I'll have a quick shower and then run a couple errands before Evie gets home. We're almost out of milk and I need some green chilis for our white bean chili tonight. Cream of chicken soup and albacore tuna are also on sale at Walgreens (of all places), so I'll go get my limit of those. Here's the Heavenly Chili recipe that we got from a friend at BYU - we love it and get requests for the recipe everytime we share. Thanks Karen!

Heavenly Chili or White Chicken Chili
Karen Meeker - BYU

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken, cubed
1 med onion, chopped (or dried, minced onion)
¼ tsp. garlic powder
1 Tbl. Vegetable oil
3 cans (15 ½ oz.) Great Northern Beans, drained
1 can (14 ½ oz) chicken broth
1 sm. can chopped green chilies
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. pepper
1 cup sour cream
½ cup whipping cream (or evaporated milk)

Saute chicken in oil. When well cooked, add the spices, green chilies and broth and bring to a boil. Add the beans and bring to a boil again. Reduce heat and let simmer for 30 minutes. Remove form heat and stir in sour cream and whipping cream. Serve immediately for rave reviews!

Flashback

So, I was working on a project for pirmary and I decided to show you all what a cute kid I was. We are using school-age pictures to introduce each of the new presidency to the kids and here is mine...age 7 1/2.

Which one of my girls do you think it looks like?

Crafty Giveaway

So my friend is doing another great giveaway and you can enter here. She is so creative and I want to be like her when I grow up! Here is what she created this time.

Evelyn the Cooker Girl

So while I was busy neglecting my child and our need to eat lunch while blogging, she put together a little surprise for me. She came downstairs, told me to stop typing, close my eyes and come upstairs. This is what I found (at 2 in the afternoon I'm ashamed to say). She has learned how to make her own quesdillas and corndogs (both take "5-0" seconds in the microwave) and the sweetie had made us lunch! I told her I would put it on the blog (ironic, huh?) and she suggested the title. My baby is growing up!

I think I am caught up now, so I better go pay attention to my kids. The big girls are home now and seem to have forgotten that they're supposed to be doing homework!

Aren't we trendy?

So here are the promised pics of Shawn and I in our new glasses. Shawn's look great and fit his"big heed" perfectly and mine have a cute little bit of bling on the side (though this isn't my best side).

And... I copied my friend Chelsea and we held elections for dinner last night. Shawn cast an absentee ballot since he wasn't with us after school and the girls were pretty excited to out-vote the grown-ups for once. Little do they know, Platform 2 will be served tomorrow night anyway.

The Master Weaver

Evie got a weaving kit from Grandma for her birthday and we got it out the other day after kindergarten. She did great setting it up and I showed her how to do the weaving and she just took off! I was amazed at how quickly she caught on and how perfectly she did it. I had to figure out how to get it off the loom, but she did all the weaving herself. Thanks for the fun activity Grandma! I found the finished product later hanging from her doorknob.

Activity Days Pumpkin

Felicity divided her pumpkin from activity days into three sections and decorated each section. One was a jack-o-lantern face, one some Halloween shapes and one the word pumpkin.

Random Pictures

Crafting on the kitchen floor - I'm not sure why, but they prefer to put the "plasti-crafti" tablecloth on the floor rather then the table.

My mother's day flower from preschool in May - it brings a bit of sunshine to the cool fall days.

My adaptation of the Boo sign on several craft blogs.

The colors we are using in Felicity's room - a work in progress.

Pumpkin Patch

Our trip to the pumpkin patch was bittersweet this year. We went to a new patch, and picked from the pumkins that were left. We always seem to go maybe a week too late and the "good ones" are all gone. It was a beautiful day at least and the patch had a hay maze and a red barn with homegrown produce samples. The watermelon was yummy, but we didnt get any because Shawn was already out the door. If it looks like he was a little grumpy, well he was. But I'm glad we got to go and he is a good daddy for bringing us and for carrying all the pumpkins to the car.

Homemade Uncrustables

The girls take an Uncrustable (or Jamz as they are found at Sams Club) almost every day in their lunches, so we decided to try making our own. I got the little pastry sealer from Pampered Chef and we went to town. We used 2 loaves of bread and filled a bread sack back up again with all the "crusts" we cut off. Then we bagged up the sandwiches and popped them in the freezer. It worked and is probably cheaper than buying them, but if we were to do it again, we'll just make sandwiches and cut them in half so we don't waste such a sickening amount to bread.

Old vs. New

Old Curtains

New Curtains

(Found at Ross for $10 and are much nicer, don't ya think?)

(The models are pretty cute too)

Carving Pumpkins

Halloween Dinner

Halloween Pictures

Joan of Arc

Spider Geisha
Pink Fairy

Indiana Jones