No school? No Problem!

Andrew didn't have school today, it's a holiday here in Nevada, so we decided to build a haunted house while Julie was asleep. I bought a kit awhile ago at Walmart and it came pre-assembled so that was great! I've had to try and build one before and it's such a pain.

We mixed the frosting and started decorating...

I wrote this, just to remember what year it was.

This was my attempt at making a pumpkin, if you couldn't tell what it was.

The finished product! I think it turned out great, Andrew put down the frosting and said, "Perfect"! I guess he approved as well.

I drew an 'A' for Andrew

And a 'J' for Julie, or you could say 'J' for Johnson.

For dinner Mark brought home the Jack-O-Lantern pizza from Papa Murphy's. Great ending to a great day! Thanks for hanging out with me today Andrew! I love you!!!

Halloween School Party!

Andrew had his Kindergarten Halloween party yesterday. The teachers in his hallway had an 'Alice in Wonderland' theme so his teacher was the Cat, the helper aides were the Mad Hatter and a Tree. It was a lot of fun, I just wish they had closed the blinds so there wasn't such a glare.

They colored pumpkins, decorated cookies (Jasmine Proffitt on the left)...

Julie tried to eat the crayons, like always...

Had their faces painted (Andrew is getting a lego man)

Then they played outside. Julie found a tool shed, realized she can run around it and play 'BOO'. She didn't play very long, there were so many different things to play. She had such a great time. Andrew had girls chasing him and he chased them back. Julie kept wandering off so quickly that I didn't have much time to take pictures of Andrew. Sorry kiddo!

Overall, I think Andrew and Julie both really enjoyed it!

All about PuMpKiNs

We meant to do all of this last night for family home evening but we were all too sick so tonight we had a pumpkin party! Andrew found this great Star Wars pumpkin stensil things that we used, I think they turned out GREAT!

I carved the Yoda and Mark did the Light Sabers.Yoda...Light Sabers...

The pumkin love didn't stop there...I found a recipe for Pumpkin Pot Pie so I made this for dinner tonight. I couldn't find very many small pumpkins so I improvised on what we had. Mark LOVED them...I think they turned out great!

Want the recipe?

Pumpkin Pot Pies:

6 sugar pumpkins or acorn squash (1 - 2 pounds each)

6 Tbsp butter

6 Tbsp flour

3 C canned chicken broth

8 ounces frozen mixed vegetables

8 ounces frozen pearl onions or chopped onions (I doubled veggies instead)

4 C cooked chicken, cut into bite-size pieces

1 Tbsp dried tyme

1 Tbsp dried leaf sage

2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley

1 refrigerated pie crust

1 egg beaten with 1 Tbsp milk for egg wash

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Slice tops off pumpkins. Remove seeds and pulp. Sprinkle insides of pumpkins with salt and pepper. Place pumpkins cut side up on a baking sheet. Cover pumpkins tightly with foil. Bake 25 - 30 minutes or just until a knife pierces the skin. Remove from oven. Reduce oven temperature to 350F.

2. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly until well combined, about 1 minute. Add broth and stir constantly until mixture is thick and bubbly, about 5 minutes. Add veggies, onions, chicken and herbs. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and divide mixture evenly among cooled pumpkin shells (about 1.5 C per pumpkin).

3. Unwrap pie dough and place on lightly floured work surface. With a sharp paring knife, cut (12) 6-in-long, 1/2-in-wide strips, and roll dough to resemble tendrils. Cut small leaf shapes, and with back of knife, gently press lines into leaf to resemble veins.

4. Use egg wash as glue to attach dough strips, twisting gently to form coils. Attach leaves. Brush all decorations with egg wash. Return pumpkins to oven and bake about 30 min, or until pie dough is golden and filling is hot and bubbling.

Here is the picture that was included:

I covered my pumpkins with the pie crust instead of making the pretty strips so whatever you want to do. Give it a try!

Halloween Party

So this year Andrew had said he wanted to be Obi Won from Star Wars (sorry if I can't spell his name correctly, it's not my show). We found a cheap costume online back in the begining of Sept but it never came, it's been out of stock. We started shopping around and could only find storm troopers or Darth Vader. I've been talking to my mother about all of this and she took it upon herself to ask my grandmother to help make a costume for Andrew. By this time Andrew had changed his mind and wanted to be Luke Skywalker. We had a party to go to on the 23rd and luckily we got the costume that afternoon :) I think it turned our GREAT! Andrew wore it up until the party and almost bed time.

For this Halloween party we were asked to bring fingerfood to share. I had found a website (http://thisoldhenhouse.blogspot.com/2010/09/candy-caramel-apples.html) that made bite-sized carmel apples. I thought it might be cute and fun to do so I attempted it. You first need to melon ball your apple to get bite size pieces...

Then add the stick...I put them in little mini muffin liners.

You then coat the apples with a clear candy shell, let that harden and add the caramel. I did all of this but the carmel kept falling off. I decided not to bring them to the party since it was time to leave so I went with Andrew without anything (Mark and Julie were sick so they stayed home. I went as a witch because I found a hat at Target for $2.50 and socks to match at Walmart for the same price.

I even used black eye liner to make my lips black and added a black mole. I thought it turned out cute until I saw these pictures, I guess I need to work out more...Andrew had so much fun, we played some fun games and got to mingle with the ward. When we got home I caught Mark finishing up my caramel apples and they turned out pretty cute! We still need to work on our skills since we can't take the wax paper off of the apples to eat them but they are really yummy so oh well...

Andrew had fun wearing my witch hat,

But no one enjoyed it more than Julie. She would put it on and run away from you laughing so hard...I wish pictures could have sound cuz it was so super cute!!!

It was hard to get pictures of her since she would run everytime she saw me but I still tried. Thanks again Shana for the great party!

Recent Activities

I couldn't help but take some pictures of Julie. She had climbed on our chair with her blanket, sippy cup and the Book of Mormon. It's so cute!!!

I found this great activity on Sugardoodle, I think that's where I found it anyway. It's really self explanitory, paint your kids feet white, have them step on a black paper, put some black paint on the heel for the eyes/mouth. Can you tell what it is??? A GHOST!!! The kids had fun. I also found a GREAT poem to go with it, I'll post it at the bottom.

I made little cards for the kids Sunday School teachers. I made 4 for Julie's teachers since she's in nursery. I included the poem on the back. I think they turned out so cute.

Here's the link to the site with the poem, it was for Visiting Teaching but I thought it worked for teachers as well (http://mcillecespot.blogspot.com/2010/10/happy-halloween-visiting-teaching.html)

“Since this is the time for goblins and bats,

Halloween spirits, ghosts and cats,

Weird happenings and witches brew,

These are our Halloween wishes for you:

May the only ghost that comes to stay,

Is the Holy Ghost to light your way.

May the only spirit you chance to meet

Be the spirit of love and friendship sweet.

These are our Halloween wishes for you,

And may the Lord bless you in all that you do.”

--Sister B.

Halloween - Pictures and Costumes???

Why is it that when you have a great picture idea you get pictures that look like this?

They're cute, just not exactly what you want. One kid is looking at you, the other is walking off... Or once you get the younger one looking at you, the older one isn't smiling? Isn't that always the case? I did manage to get these other pictures, a slight improvement but with such cute kids like mine I don't think any are that bad...Enjoy!