Pumpkin Carving

We've had a week of Halloween and soccer fun all rolled into one very short, very full week! I'll start with pumpkin carving, then highlight the kids fall parties and then trick-or-treating!

Last Saturday (October 25th) the kids each played their last soccer game of the season, and everyone's had a little party of some kind to celebrate the season over the last week. We've eaten lots of pizza this week and my dishwasher has greatly appreciated the week off!

After our marathon morning of soccer on the 25th, we headed out to Bob and Diane's for our pumpkin carving party. This year, we invited our entire ward and a few friends to join in the fun. In all, about 50 people came out and enjoyed an evening of amazing weather and fall family time fun!





We went through 5 big crock pots of chili, and I thought I'd share the recipe I use. It's a good basic chili that seems to go over well with kids and adults, and is easy to make in large quantities when needed since you really only need a good big pot and reliable can opener.

Kid Friendly & Adult Filling Chili

3 cups browned ground beef (a little more than 1lb.) that was seasoned with onion
1 envelope McCormick's chili seasoning
3 cans petite diced tomatoes (undrained)
2 cans seasoned chili beans (undrained)
2 cans dark red kidney beans (slightly drained)

Dump in large pot and heat through. Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, hot dogs, dice onion or any of your favorite chili toppings. Makes ~13, 1 cup servings.

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Monday and Tuesday evenings were spent at Triple R Ranch ... aka Rachel and RJ's ... sharing good food, lots of laughs, and letting our kids (and us adults too!) get in some good, long overdue playing time together. We just found out they are expecting number five in March and it's a boy! This is five for five with our two families ... we're girl, girl, boy, boy, girl, and they are boy, boy, girl, girl, boy. RJ was joking we could marry them all off within the two families in one day and call it good ... what are the odds of that happening?

Here's a picture of all of us carving away at our pumpkins Tuesday night. Add these to the ones we worked on Saturday, and we should have a good little line of jack-o-lanterns lighting the path to the front door for trick-or-treaters.