Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone has a wonderful, fun, safe, and WARM Halloween! We've had temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s all week, but it looks like we might have some rain today. It just wouldn't be Halloween in Idaho without some sort of inclement weather. The kids have a costume parade at school today, so they got to wear their costumes. They were so excited!! I remember Halloween being one of the most looked forward to days of the year as a kid, so it's fun to relive that through them. Enjoy a few pictures of our morning. :)

How True, How True...

My neighbor turned me on to this little true story today. Regardless of your political leanings, you have to admit that this is pretty hilariously spot-on:

The waiter and the bum
Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money." I laughed.

Once in the restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside.

The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

$10 is pretty cheap tuition for Econ 101. I'd say this waiter got a nice bit of education out of this demonstration if he chooses to take it! :)

Scooter Blues

Todd had a traumatic experience on Saturday afternoon. He decided to ride his scooter to the public library. He was inside for all of 10 minutes and when he returned to the scooter/bike parking area his scooter was gone! He called me, obviously upset, but holding it together, so I went to pick him up. He walked out to the car with the longest face you've ever seen. When he got in the car I told him how sorry I was for him and he burst into tears. He sobbed and sobbed and was absolutely broken hearted. Kate (bless her heart) kept making excuses for the thief (maybe he thought it was his, maybe it was an accident, maybe he really needed a scooter, etc.) but this didn't really help the situation very much. I could hardly hold back the tears as I listened to Todd pour his heart out about how he couldn't believe someone would actually take something that didn't belong to them. He was completely incredulous. It was so sweet, yet so sad to glimpse at his innocence and realize that a part of that inherent trust he had is now gone. I hate for him to become jaded, but I suppose being a little world-wise isn't the worst thing ever.

I have to say that my first reaction was what we call "mama bear syndrome" at our house. All my fighting protective instincts came to the surface in a hurry. I seriously contemplated driving around Rupert, and stopping to interrogate every kid on a scooter -- until I realized that I may just end up being arrested for harrassing a minor. Maybe not the best idea I ever had! Once I calmed down, my second instinct kicked in and I very nearly drove to WalMart to buy him a new one. I just wanted to take away his pain so badly. But I also resisted this urge and instead we just talked about how sad it was that someone made such a wrong choice -- and how our choices hurt more than just us sometimes. Brad and I both encouraged him to remember how rotten it felt to be on the receiving end of such a slight, and then never do anything to make anyone else feel that rotten. He agreed and has since declared his plans to ask for a new scooter for his birthday (which is only 2 weeks away). Good timing, huh?

Todd and the K-Club

Todd came home brimming with happiness today because he was recommended by his teacher to join K-Club, a service organization for 4th and 5th graders sponsored by the Kiwanis Club. He will be helping with Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF and Project Rudolph along with a few other community service projects. He gets to stay after school on Fridays for an extra 2 hours. He was thrilled. Yea Toddy!!!

Jack's Speech Update

We visited the speech therapist yesterday for the first time (just an initial evaluation). She was great with him and helped me understand some issues that I hadn't related to his speech troubles before. Basically, he has a speech pattern called "H substitution" -- it's considered a unique (rare) impediment, but she assured me that every child she's ever worked with who has that particular problem has been able to fix it without too much difficulty. She asked me a series of questions about his eating preferences and habits, and I was amazed to realized that the reason he often spits out giant mouthfuls of food is because he has a weak tongue which makes it difficult to chew. It's simply not worth the effort to him to struggle through the chewing in order to get the food down. He's done this (and been a great frustration to me) since he was tiny -- and I could never figure out why. Now I know, and it's so wonderful to have a way to start to help the problem. So far they've just given me a few suggestions of ways to help him strengthen his tongue. Eating peanut butter is a good way, also licking ice cream, sticking out your tongue, and holding a smartie to the roof of your mouth. Weird (yet fun) huh? I'm very thankful for knowledge and for people who study these things. I know this therapy is really going to impact his little life for the better.

Cafe Rio Crock Pot Sweet Pork

Cafe Rio Crock Pot Sweet Pork
(you'll want to plan ahead because this takes about 18 hours)

5-6 pound pork roast
1 Tbsp. cumin
1 cup brown sugar
12 oz. bottle La Victoria taco sauce (you'll need another bottle to pour over burrito)
20 oz. bottle of Coca-Cola

Place pork roast in crock pot and fill about halfway up with water. Cook on low for 12 hours.

Drain off almost all the water, add all other ingredients. Cook another 4 hours on low. Shred pork, then cook another 2 hours.

Take cooked pork and place in tortilla, roll into burritos, place in pan, cover with La Victoria taco sauce (green) and mozarella cheese. Cook at 350 for about 20 minutes and enjoy.

Kaycee's Fabulous Fresh Salsa

This recipe is courtesy of Kaycee (Allred) Wolfley, my great friend from high school and college. We devoured an obscene amount of this salsa over Labor Day weekend. I ate it standing up, so that doesn't count, right?

Kaycee's Fabulous Fresh Salsa

4-6 fresh tomatoes (diced into bite sized pieces)
1-2 avacados (depending on how much you like them)
1 can corn (drained and rinsed)
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 onion (chopped)
1/4 cup (or more) chopped, fresh cilantro
1 whole jalapeno pepper, finely diced

1 dry packet Good Seasons Italian Dressing mix
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup cooking oil

Mix all ingredients. Delicious and ready to serve right away!

Chocolate Pumpkin Tart

I mentioned the Chocolate-Pumpkin Tart in an earlier post and thought I'd share the recipe. It's a Martha Stewart Everyday Food recipe, so if you have the October 2008 issue, it's on page 27.

The Crust:
20 chocolate wafer cookies
2 Tbsp. sugar
3 Tbsp. melted butter, plus a little more reserved for brushing the pan
4 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted

The Filling:
1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin puree
1 large egg
1/2 cup heavy cream (I substituted evaporated milk)
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp. pumpkin-pie spice
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor, pulse cookies and sugar until finely ground. Add butter; pulse until crumbs are moistened. Using the bottom of a dry measuring cup, press crumbs into bottom (but not sides) of a 9-inch removable-bottom tart pan. Place tart pan on a baking sheet; bake until set, about 12 minutes.

Pour melted chocolate onto warm crust; spread with spatula. Freeze until chocolate is firm, about 5 minutes. Brush sides of tart pan with butter; set aside.

In a bowl, whisk together pumpkin, egg, cream, sugar, maple syrup, pumpkin-pie spice, and salt. Pour filling into prepared crust; bake on a rimmed baking sheet until set, 45-50 minutes. Cool 1 hour at room temperature; refrigerate 1 hour (or up to 1 day).

Unmold tart (if sides stick, gently loosen with a knife). With two thin metal spatulas, transfer to a platter.

** Just a personal note: the maple flavor really comes through, so if you don't like maple I would suggest leaving it out. Brad and I really liked the maple taste, but the kids weren't as thrilled with it. I guess they like their maple where it belongs -- on pancakes!

The Happiest Boy in the World

No picture I snapped could adequately do justice to the sublime happiness of our little Jack-Jack. Daddy's boy through and through!!!

Pictures from the Pumpkin Patch

As you can see, we had a great time, and successfully acquired 6 of the finest pumpkins $11 can buy! :)

By the way, my neighbor mentioned to me the other day that this year in Beverly Hills the big thing is to buy organic pumpkins. They're twice as much money -- and can I just ask -- if you're not going to eat it, does it really matter if it's organic? Duh, some people have more cents than sense.

A Family Weekend

During General Conference I was struck by the many talks devoted to the family. I particularly loved Elder Wirthlin's talk about having fun with your family, and choosing to make happy, wonderful memories together. (I laughed my head off at his story about his daughter and the babysitter mixup!!!) This sparked the conversation with Brad that we need to do more things together as a family. The time with our kids is just slipping by too quickly and I don't want to regret anything about this time when the kids are grown in just a few short years. We often ask in our family prayers that we can "live without regret" so I'm really trying to do that.

Saturday there were the usual 1001 things to be done around the house and yard, and I needed to run over to the church for a RS Super Saturday activity, so Brad put Jack and Kate on the lawn mower with him and they cruised around the yard mowing and picking up leaves. The kids thought it was the greatest thing! Todd dumped flower pots, swept leaves off the cement, etc. so by the time I got home the yard was looking great. We ate some lunch, went to the pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkins, then decided to take a drive to Albion to look at the old Normal School Campus which has recently been transformed into a hotel/convention/reunion site. (You should definitely browse their website or come up and take a tour -- it is an awesome spot. They two couples that bought it have done a fantastic job thusfar.) It was so fun to spend the day talking, laughing, playing I-Spy, and just being together.

Once home, we baked a chocolate pumpkin tart (I'll post the recipe later), painted pumpkins, and made cheesecloth ghosts. Todd also painted a paper mache mask like an alien for a scout project. We were TIRED by bedtime -- but it was a great kind of tired.

Jackanese Update

Jack has had a veritable word/sentence explosion lately -- unfortunately it is still fairly difficult to understand. So with a little help from my visiting teachers (both of whom have had children with the same types of problems) I was able to contact a childhood development center that could help Jack. They came to the house and played with Jack for about an hour to evaluate his cognitive/motor/language abilities. They were so great with him! He had a ball playing with them, showing off, and really trying to mimic everything they said and did. It was so cute to watch him have such a fun time. They just loved him and kept saying what a doll he was. In fact, they ended up staying and playing with him about twice as long and they usually do because they were having so much fun with him. :)

At the end of the session one of the therapists said he is SO smart. Cognitively and in terms of fine and gross motor skills he is way above his peers, but he is just having difficulty with articulation. I had basically thought the same thing, but it was good to hear from a professional. She referred him to an articulation therapist at Cassia Regional Hospital in Burley. We will be going there for an evaluation tomorrow morning and then should be able to start therapy very soon. It will be so good for him to have something intensive to help fix this problem before it becomes an issue for him. He's just getting to the age where he's starting to be frustrated that I can't understand everything he says. I think if I ignore this problem he'll become a very unhappy/unpleasant little boy. A lot of behavior problems in children come from frustrations about learning or communication difficulties.

I'll update after our appointment tomorrow.

Wicked, Wild Weather Weekend

The snow continued to fall all day yesterday and all through the night last night. It finally subsided sometime around 10-11 am this morning. Just look at how much snow is on these benches (above) -- this was taken yesterday afternoon, so add about 4 inches to that and that's how much snow we ended up with. Now the sun is shining and the snow is steadily melting. You really have to dodge the giant snow blobs falling out of the treetops! All freeways were closed last night and this morning. We needed to be at stake conference anyway, but I was bummed that I couldn't be in Logan for baby Cannon's blessing. Looks like the storm would have been a problem anyway. Sorry we weren't able to make it to the baby blessing, Juge and Stanton -- hope everything was wonderful (doubtful that it was anything but). Due to the heavy snow on the trees we lost several pretty significant branches in both the front and back yards. We're very thankful that they didn't hit the house.


We were reminded during stake conference today that it was an unseasonably early 18 inch snow storm that stranded the Martin Handcart company so many years ago. Tears flowed as I thought about the excruciating cold and wet conditions they endured. We are so blessed to live in such luxury and comfort. The snow was nothing more than a minor inconvenience, at worst, in fact, it is actually quite beautiful and fun! I'm sure the early saints considered snow to be a lot of things, but 'fun' was probably not one of them.

What We Woke Up To This Morning

Yesterday we were picking pumpkins, plums, and grapes in the backyard, this morning we woke up to 4 inches of snow! It's still coming down hard, we're supposed to get at least 6 inches by tonight, with more in the forecast for tomorrow. We have some very excited kids -- in fact, the first thing Kate said this morning was, "Mom, Santa Claus is coming tonight!!!!" Sadly, we had to break it to her that, no, Santa doesn't come just because there's snow. Nice try, Kate. She recovered pretty quickly and as I speak the three of them are outside making snow angels, ski trails, and snow balls. Yea! Winter is here!!!

Kate Did It! (finally)

It's been a looooong time coming, but Kate finally learned to tie her shoes all by herself. Sometimes these milestones are bigger for the mom than for the kid herself!!! It's so nice to be able to have her do it for herself -- and it's especially fun to see her glow with pride and confidence. Very cool.

By the way, in case you haven't checked the comments portion of the post about the bracelet, Kate did get her bracelet back. Check my comments on that post for details -- it's pretty funny! :)

Good Students

Today I had the opportunity to visit with both Kate's and Todd's teacher. They both had great things to say about the kids. They're doing very well.

Todd has had a bit of a rude awakening because 4th grade is a lot different than 3rd grade. His teacher is especially tough, and really expects a lot out of him. He is learning to be more organized, disciplined, careful, and attentive: all important skills for the future.

Kate is thrilled because she has been accepted into the Discovery (Gifted and Talented) Program. She will attend with the 2nd graders once a week for two hours. She's looking very forward to participating in some of the fun activities she's seen Todd enjoying the last couple of years. We're very proud of her for working so hard. She's becoming a great little reader, and starting to play the piano with more confidence as well. At six years old, she's doing great!!!

Some Peoples' Children

Kate came through the door from school today absolutely distraught. Apparently a girl in her class spotted her completely awesome kitchen sink bracelet custom made for her by TaLaisa at TaLaisa's Bead Drawer. Kate absolutely adores this bracelet -- it is the greatest single treasure in her world and she in inordinately proud of it. This little girl saw what a completely cool bracelet it was and decided that she wanted it for herself, so she threatened Kate that she wouldn't be her friend unless she gave her the bracelet. Not wanting to create an enemy, and not having any experience with such matters, Kate gave in and handed over the prized possession. By the time she got home she was a mess -- completely devastated. Well, we had a talk about how wrong it is to blackmail someone into giving something away, and how wrong it is to ask for things that don't belong to you. We also talked about how we have to be strong and stand up for ourselves and not give other people the right and opportunity to walk all over us. This is a good lesson for her. I've coached her about what to say to this little girl tomorrow when she asks for her bracelet back. Also, as luck would have it, we had parent/teacher conferences today and I informed her teacher of the problem. Between the three of us Kate should have her bracelet back tomorrow and be a little more world-wise in the bargain.

Uh......

I was just looking over the pictures I've posted today and, uh, I really need to get a new camera. Sorry about the hazy quality -- just use your imagination.

Late Nights-Early Mornings

Brad has been burning the midnight oil and then getting up early that last few mornings in order to refinish our hardwood floors. They have been in desperate need for a couple of years now, so I'm am thrilled with the results. They 'shine like the top of the Chrysler Building'! Because we have so much square footage in wood, he has done it in sections, moving the furniture around to do it. Not an easy job, but WOW the results speak for themselves. The only thing left to do is the staircase. Thank goodness he built the back staircase or we'd have to move in to a hotel in order to get this done. He's awesome.

A little sidenote: we also finally got our new concrete sealed and it looks amazing. I can't walk on it right now because it is drying, so maybe I'll get a picture of it some other time.

A Few Halloween Decorations

Julie and my friend Amber inspired me to get my act together and get my house decorated for fall. The kids were very excited to help and it turned out to be a really fun afternoon.

These paper bag pumpkins were made from - duh - paper bags!! A couple of years ago I was in charge of centerpieces for our ward harvest dinner. The budget was $20 for 20 tables, so my friend Karrie and I got creative and made these with spray paint, curled raffia, and a little wire.


This little display is just a bunch of stuff that I've had for years . Most of it is gifts from people that I haven't known what to do with at the time. The vase is filled with curly willow from the neighbors bush and some silk Japanese lantern flowers I used for a shower decoration this summer.









This decoration was inspired by Amber Tribe, who did a mini version of this last year on top of her entertainment center. She just took a small pumpkin and stuck in a creepy branch that had fallen off one of her trees. Sooo cute! I used curly willow (again) and large, oblong pumpkins that fit in my urns. The orange berries and leaves are off a bush in my alley, the bow and green berry wreath are from Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree, respectively. I'm really happy with how this turned out. There's a matching one on the other side of the sidewalk.
This is the view of the front of the house now. I am especially happy that this will last from now until after Thanksgiving. I like decorating with fall decorations rather than just specifically Halloween, because I'm lazy (let's face it, folks!)










Up the stairs, wrapped around the banister is a cute orange berry strand (that you really can't see at all in this picture). Also, some fun orange lights, some creepy bony hands, the obligatory spiderwebs, and my personal favorite -- the little ghosty-girl. It's made out of a white, lighted paper lantern with a ghost face drawn on it, then covered with torn up cheesecloth. I added a bow on top of it's head because it just made me smile. Kate thinks it is her ghostly twin!! :)


Today we're going to make cheesecloth ghosts if I get really ambitious. But first, it's off to parent/teacher conferences.

What Happens When You Leave a 9-yr-old In Charge

Brad and I went to the church to get our temple recommends renewed. We left Todd in charge and when we returned 40 minutes later we couldn't find Jack. Todd didn't know where he was and he wouldn't answer us when we called. I was a bit worried because he has learned how to open the door now. We went through the house calling him and Brad found him like this:

Apparently, the last three steps were just too much for him. He was headed upstairs to go to bed (he has taken to putting himself to bed when he gets tired or wants to be left alone at night), but just couldn't muster the strength needed to finish the climb. I love that he is using Scooby Doo as a pillow!

Who Knew?

I inadvertently broke Jack's heart yesterday. I was washing all the bedding in the house, but he was downstairs when I stripped the beds. Later in the morning he went upstairs and completely wigged out because his bed was NOT right. He just kept crying and moaning, "ma ed, ma ed" and "a-keen, a-keen" (that's 'my bed, my bed' and 'McQueen, McQueen' [as in Lightning McQueen from Cars] for those of you who don't speak Jackanese). I had to take him downstairs and let him watch the sheets and blankets roll around in the dryer so he could catch a glimpse of his beloved bedding before he could calm down and start laughing that sad, happy, overemotional laugh we all have when we've just had the scare of our lives. What a drama.