Preparations

Saturday is the brunch and boy oh boy does the house smell good!



I'm looking forward to seeing lots of good dear friends Saturday, sharing good memories and stories and laughing and hugging and loving one another. It's been an unbelievably difficult week for a very dear family who got crushing, heartbreaking news. I've been grateful for the time I've had this week to stand and bake in the quiet of the afternoons and reflect and pray and cry for my friend and her family. I am hugging my children a little tighter and saying "yes" to more of their simple requests. I'm finding my priorities shifting back into their proper place and I am pleading with the Lord for many small and mighty miricals to happen in the lives of those around me.

Dust and Dirt

Monday the Young Women's President called and asked if the girls could come over and serve the Bishop's family... cleaning, organizing, playing with the children ... "anything you need done, we'll do it." I swallowed hard and called GR for a pep talk. People in my house ... all over my house ... seeing, cleaning ALL OUR DIRT?! I don't think so. Not in this life time. Not this week. ... But it's the young women and they are wanting to serve. I was so torn. Like a good husband, GR convinced me it would be okay ... I would survive.

So before they came I tried to get caught up on laundry, get things put away that had been waiting for months, get some Christmas decorations put up, and the worst surfaces dusted and vacuumed. On the list of "chores" for the night ...

1. sweep kitchen floor and spot clean, wipe down kitchen table
2. help girls straighten room and put away laundry.
3. help boys straighten room and put way laundry.
4. clean mirrors and counters in bathrooms
5. dust, first floor
6. wash windows
7. vacuum first floor

They did all this and so much more, truly exemplifying the principle of going the extra mile. The house is clean, and it feels oh so good! Add the couple of Christmas decorations we've gotten put up this week and I'm starting to feel the spirit of the season, and that's a good thing.

I told the YW I would take care of the treats. Apple cider, and one of my favorite Christmas cookies ... Reindeer Cookies, using my Brown Sugar Spice Cookie recipe. Oh so yummy, quick and simple to make, plus they look super cute.

BROWN SUGAR SPICE COOKIES

1-1/2 cup softened butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 egg
4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Cream butter, sugar and egg. Beat until light and fluffy. Stir flour with spices and soda, add to creamed mixture; mix well. Cover and chill until firm, about 2 hours. On floured surface, roll dough to 1/8" thickness. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350ºF for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

For Reindeer Cookies, before chilling dough, shape in to a rounded triangle log, wrap in waxed paper and chill. Then slice, re-shape if needed and decorate with pretzel twist antlers, chocolate chip eyes and a red nose (gum drop, red M&M, etc.) before baking. Cool on baking sheet ~1-2 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Gingerbread Houses

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the entire family was at Grandma Mum's constructing and decorating gingerbread houses. Each year we try and invite new friends to join us who haven't come in the past. This year we had school friends, work friends, church friends, and friends we've known for many years join us, and it was a lovely time.

I made houses for each of the four "big" kids ... Alexander and I teamed up to decorate his, and this year we didn't have ANY housing catastrophes! No collapsing roofs, no caving walls ... we had four structurally sound houses and that was a very nice thing!

A big thanks to my amazing mother-in-law who spent her entire weekend surrounded by gingerbread houses, first with her church group on Friday and then all Saturday morning with about 6 families coming and decorating houses together ... in total 12 houses and 1 train were decorated, pretty cool huh!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

30 Days Hath November

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. This year was my families turn to come here and enjoy the holiday with us and Bob and Diane. My parents and three of my siblings came along with my future SIL. We had a great time baking and talking and relaxing and playing with the kids. I'm so grateful they were all able to come and enjoy a few days with us!

For Family Home Evening last Monday night, the kids and I talked about gratitude. I'd read the idea somewhere to create a turkey with 30 feathers (one for each day of the month), each feather listing something someone was grateful for. The turkey never got made, but I did make 30 feathers and I did write down 30 things the children said they were grateful for, and I did get the feathers taped to the fridge with a huge space left in the center for the imaginary turkey body. I thought I'd share the unedited comments the children gave when asked what they were grateful for ...

S: My family, because some people are just nice to me.
E: Mom & Dad. They are nice and don't yell that much.
R: Anna, because she is funny.
A: Mommy & Daddy. Daddy work.
S: Grandma & Grandpa, they are making our special dinner on Thanksgiving.
E: Holidays - spending time with relatives.
R: Friendship
A: My guys - Emily, Rebecca & Sam
S: Water because we can drink it. [This after having asked 100 times if he could get a drink, and being told to NO!, 101 times.]
E: Clothes so we can keep warm.
R: Food. My mom makes the best food.
A: My blankie.
S: Carson, he plays with me a school and we have fun together.
E: Trees, and the color they turn in fall.
R: Mom, you always get stuff done, laundry, dinner, shopping, ...
A: Baby Anna. I love her.
S: Action figures 'cause I can play with them a lot and they are really cool.
E: Color. If we had no colors everything wouldn't be colorful.
R: Books they help you entertain yourself and some are easy and some are hard ...
A: Swings. I like to play at the park.
S: Balls, you can bounce them, kick them, catch them, throw them.
E: Animals, sounds and crickets
R: Toys, they are something to play with
A: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
S: Horses to ride
E: All the work Grandma and Grandpa did so we could make gingerbread houses
R: Dad helps us get ready for school in the mornings
S: My healthy body and my lungs
E: That some books are funny.
R: Our house, my shelter that keeps me warm and I can sleep here.

From the Other Half...

Best non-family quote so far about being bishop: "The good thing about you being called as Bishop at such a young age, everything you screw up you'll get to fix when they call you again later on!"

My wife has been bugging me to post these little tidbits of information, so here goes...


Best quote from Sam: (We were in my office at the church) "This is so weird, coming in here now to get candy."
Me:"Why is that?"
Sam:"Because this is the real Bishop's office, not yours."


Best quote from Rebecca: (I was putting on a shirt and tie to go on teamups with the Elders)
Rebecca:"Why are you putting on a tie?"
Me:"I'm going on team-ups with the missionaries tonight."
Rebecca:"Well, that's odd."
Me:(laughing)"Why is that odd?"
Rebecca:"Well, you hardly ever go out with the missionaries"
Me:"True, but I'm the Bishop now, so you just have to do these things."
Rebecca:"Oh, so you don't have a choice anymore?"

Our Blockbuster Weekend

The kids were out of school Thursday and Friday for parent teacher conferences and we stuck a deal with the children that if they got their homework done, rooms cleaned and all their laundry put away we'd do something fun Thursday night. Did you know that evening AMC movie tickets during the week are $5 instead of the $10 weekend price? I'm definitely tucking that little tid bit way for the future!

Thursday afternoon, I scheduled all the kids for flu shots. The doctors office is on the way to GR's work and the movie theater isn't far either. So we did flu shots (and all the kids qualified for the flu mist, so no shots!), met GR at the hospital and ate dinner in the cafeteria -- 6 meals for $18, gotta love home cooking that doesn't break the bank!, and headed to the theaters for the 6:30 showing of Madagascar Escape 2 Africa. The kids loved it and since it was a Thrusday night, the theater wasn't cowded, allowing Alex to have more freedom that he otherwise would to walk around a bit during the movie.

Saturday night GR and I got together with some friends and saw Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond movie. So intense, but good. We really enjoyed it and little Anna slept through the entire movie!

Sunday was Stake Conference, so we had more time than we typically do Sunday afternoon to watch a movie. This summer we had wanted to take the kids to see the new American Girl movie, Kit Kittredge, an American Girl, but with all the travel, and Anna's birth, etc. we never made it. We found it on pay-per-view and watched it Sunday evening. The kids enjoyed it and GR was quite surprised that he really liked it too! I'm hoping to find a couple of the other American Girl movies at the library. The girls really enjoy the books and if the others are like this one, I think the entire family would enjoy watching them.

One more step on the road to becoming a REAL Mormon family

Remember my little wish to make applesauce? The kids were out of school a week ago Friday and earlier that week I'd gotten an email from the orchard saying that with all the winds we've had here in Kansas lately, they had lots of beautiful windfall apples available for people to come and pick for $9.50 a bag.

They weren't giving them away, but the kids were still interested in picking apples and making applesauce, so we bundled up and went. We all held it together for the hour and half or so that we were there. The kids weren't happy that they HAD to pick up the apples from the ground and not from the trees, and it didn't matter how many times I tried to explain how to systemically go through the apples on the ground, I had two worker bees and two who wanted to be but easily got distracted.



We picked 6 bags of apples ... about 3 bushels. One of the bags went to my friend April and the rest we turned in to applesauce.



I borrowed a food strainer/sauce maker from my friend Julie and Friday night we started cooking and saucing apples. My gadget loving husband who was the crank turner on the food strainer/sauce maker went in search for the equivalent KitchenAid attachment Saturday and came home with one. It's quite nice, although I think the manual version is a bit more efficient, it spits out only waste and no sauce with it, while the attachment spits out applesauce with the peel/core/seeds.

It took most of two Saturdays, but thanks to GR and all the kids working really hard together, we got all the apples sauced and bottled by Saturday afternoon!



When it was all said and done, we ended up with 16 quarts and three pints of bottled applesauce (we would have had one more quart, but the bottle broke in the hot water bath - what a huge mess). The kids love the homemade applesauce, and I love the fact that I know exactly what's in it ... pure apples and nothing else!. We could have easily had another 4-6 quarts if we'd been able to bottle the applesauce faster. Over the last week, the kids have eaten at least that much applesauce!



I don't think anyone was more excited about making homemade applesauce than GR. There's no way we would have gotten all those apples cooked and smashed and sauced and bottled if he hadn't been so supportive of the entire project. Growing up he watched his good friend Rob's mom bottle and can everything - they were and are his example of a real LDS family. So for him, making our own applesauce, in addition to trying to do a better job at having family prayer and family scripture study and real family home evenings where we actually have a lesson and not just playing games, is just one more little thing we're doing to try and become a real LDS family.

4 Months Old

It's hard to believe this little one has been in our family a full four months now! She's growing up so fast!

She talks up a storm, mostly in the evenings when she has my undivided attention.
She loves to smile and her entire face lights up when she does.
She drools a lot, totally soaking a bib or shirt, because she prefers to not have a pacifier in her mouth 24/7 to plug it all up.
She has a very pointy tongue and likes to stick it out a lot.
She is content to watch all the happenings of the household.
When she's upset, and mom can't get to her, she's content to be held by her older sisters.
She thinks the world of her big brothers and loves to watch them.

How was your Sunday?

In case you're wondering, the three signatures were each done in a different color of ink or type of pen.

Heaven help us all ... the answering machine message and GR's cell phone voice mail message are getting changed today ... if you've ever called his cell phone and gotten his voice mail and listened to the entire message, you'll understand why it MUST be changed very, very, very soon!

In the Kitchen with Kate

GR and I have been testing a few new recipes lately and I thought I'd share our results.

My friend Katrina over at Baking and Boys, posted a recipe a couple weeks ago for Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta that I suggested to GR we try. Saturday was our first open night and so he purchased the needed supplies and set to work making them. We cooked ours on the grill, and everyone cleaned their plates. I used the leftover chicken for Sunday nights dinner. Rotini noodles, cream of chicken soup thinned with milk and leftover chicken diced up - also very yummy.



I've been looking through past issues of Food & Family (the free Kraft magazine) for new recipes to try. They had basic instructions for an "old fashioned" poke cake ... make a cake, while warm, poke it with a fork, pour a hot, concentrated solution of jello over the warm cake, chill in fridge for 3 hours, frost with cool whip and serve. They had a little chart with suggestions of flavor combinations. They had a spice cake paired with orange jello and since I had all the ingredients in the pantry I gave it a try ... the jury is still out on this one. GR described it as a lot of intense flavors, and Sunday night that was true. It mellowed as it sat in the fridge over night. The kids loved it, even Rebecca who typically avoids intense tastes.



Our All-American dinner was oh so yummy, although I don't think anyone got the correlation. And we did make it over to Ben & Jerry's for our "I Voted" ice cream cones! I made my own patties this time ...


~2lbs of hamburger meat
1 envelope onion soup mix
1/3 cup dry onion
1/2 cup bread crumbs
a little water (1/4 cup)
salt and pepper

Mix all together and gently form into patties and cook until desired doneness.

After my request for a Dutch Apple Pie recipe, April called and gave me her families recipe. They don't exactly measure anything over there ... it's just done to taste and feel. But I think even with that handicap, after an eatable first try, I've produced a really good version of her family's recipe. Don't you love the dish I baked it in? A birthday gift from my sister ... LOVE it!


I used a made-from-scratch, pie crust (Heather's recipe that's posted on Mormonchic with her peach pie is excellent), 'cause I now have a food processor and am too cheap to purchase pie crust from the store if I can make it work here at home. Then 6 or so sliced apples (it was hugely mounded when I put in it the oven), mixed with 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, pinch of nutmeg, 1 tablespoon of butter, and 2 tablespoons of tapioca (the instant variety - I tried the non instant and that didn't turn out so well). The crumb toping ... 1 stick of butter, 3/4 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of sugar. I have learned that I prefer crumb toppings made with brown sugar instead of white, but they both taste quite yummy. Baked at 400 for 50 minutes.

I really should have put a cookie sheet or foil under my pan, cause it made a royal mess in my oven. Now I have to figure out how to clean my oven.
. . . .
Alexander was in a massively destructive mood yesterday. I spent his entire waking day, cleaning up after him ... so today we're taking advantage of a sunny crisp day and going to the park and hopefully meeting up with some of our playgroup friends. Then I hope to try this recipe ... I think it will make a great addition to this years brunch menu!

All present and accounted for!

I didn't think I grew up in a hugely political household. In my poli-sci class in college, I felt I was at a huge disadvantage because I really couldn't tell you if I was a republican or democrat or if my parents were republican or democrat. Nor could I really tell you more than 1 or 2 things about what made each platform different.

Now that I'm a parent, I have realized that my parents taught me more than I thought about politics, namely the importance of being an educated citizen, weighing all the issues and making the most informed choice you can when voting. In turn, GR and I trying to teach our children a little at a time about our system of government and being a responsible citizen even at their tender ages.

As a kindergartner, Rebecca knew who the candidates were and I let her fill out and cast a ballot when the kids and I went to vote. Four years later, the kids are much more politically minded, having watched much of the presidential and vice presidential debates, and talking about the candidates in school and around the dinner table. We've tried to keep our over all views of who're in favor of to ourselves so the children could form their own opinions.

Last night as we were eating dinner and GR asked the children who they were going to vote for. We've asked the question many times ... or maybe it's more that they've answered it many times ... "Mom, who are you going to vote for?" "I'm still thinking it out." "Well, I'm voting for Obama!"

This time I decided to write down their answers for posterity sake, I guess.

Sam: Obama.
Why: "Because, Will told me that if I vote for McCain he will come and ruin our house."

Emily: Obama.
Why: "When I listen to his speeches, I thought they were better."

Rebecca: Obama.
Why: "Since I've seen all the debates, I like his ideas better. He's going to give health plans to everyone, but McCain's just going to give everyone a $5,000 credit."

Tonight we're going to watch the election coverage (on Comedy Central - GR refuses to watch it on any other station) while eating an All American meal ... hamburgers, corn on the cob, and homemade apple pie and chocolate chip cookies. And if I can pull it off, we'll take a small break and head to Ben & Jerry's for free cones (5pm-8pm - Thanks for the reminder Elspeth!).

Trick-or-Treating

When we talked with the kids about what they wanted to be for Halloween at the beginning of October, I encouraged them to look at costumes and supplies we already had to reduce the crazy amount of money that can be dumped into costumes that are poorly made and rarely get enough use. Early on the plan was the costumes would go something like this ... Becca - Princess or queen; Emily - Cheetah; Sam - Superman; Alex - Pumpkin; Anna - Pumpkin. Our cheetah costume was defiantly too small for Emily, so I found a cute velor "sweat" suit $9/piece in cheetah print for her to wear, and found a great classic Superman costume on eBay for $15 (including shipping).

When everyone changed into their costumes, Sam decided to wear his Buz Lightyear costume from 2 years ago; Becca had her heart set on being a vampire (what?! - it must be an 8 year old thing Kris and Renee?) wearing her witch costume and a quickly pinned and taped "grim reaper" cape of GR's; and we all felt with Alex's Diego obsession, that he really should be Diego - even though GR was going to keep him home with him to pass out candy instead of having him go around with the big kids.

They all looked super cute even with the last minute changes! And FYI - if you don't have face paint, washable markers work really well for painting on animal faces and fake blood.



Our friends the L's called Thursday night when their plans fell through, to see if they could trick-or-treat with us, and I'm so glad they did. The kids had a great time together, and I was grateful for some company! The weather was amazing, perfect for being outside. A mixed blessing. The sidewalks were full of kids and parents, but it kept the car traffic through the neighborhood to a minimum which was nice. On cold Halloweens, you can't get in or out of our neighborhood between 6 and 9 because the streets are packed with cars three across. The kids got great candy ... very little that they don't like or that I call "junk candy" and automatically throw out.

GR and Alex between the hours of 6:30 and 8 when the big kids got back in and we turned off all the lights, handed out ~200 pieces of candy. He did his best to limit it to 1 per, but wow that's a lot of candy!

Fall Parties

A couple of weeks ago Emily's teacher emailed me to see if I would head up the festivities for their classroom Fall Party. The 1st and 2nd graders were going to do one big combined party with a different activity happening in each classroom. They've been working on measuring lately and wanted as many of the activities to involve types of measuring. Since there are three 1st grades, and three 2nd grades, the teachers came up with six different activities and needed lots of parent helpers to pull it off.

1. Measure pumpkins
2. Weigh pumpkins
3. Make a trail mix
4. Craft - Make a pumpkin with strips of construction paper
5. Leaf Rubbings
6. Decorate Cookies

Any guesses on the room they wanted me to head up? ... 6. Decorate cookies ... here's where the project got tricky ... they want the kids to measure out all the decorating ingredients, there are 140 students AND it needs to fill 20 minutes.

Lots of thinking, lots of calculating, lots of conversations with GR and my Mom about how to make this doable without turning my kitchen into a massive bakery. We realized that with 20 minutes to fill, one cookie per child wasn't going to be enough, really we needed 3 cookies each, which meant 420 cookies and this is where my mind started to whirl uncontrollably!

My mom convinced me to give a local grocery store bakery a call to see if they could donate or cut us a really good deal on sugar cookies and frosting. They ended up selling me 420 cookies (with at least 40 extras) for $.20/cookie and donating a large 26lb bucket of orange frosting. This was such a huge help! We asked the parents to send in $.60/child to cover the cost of the cookies and we were able to collect more than enough to cover the cost of the cookies! Parents were also asked to help supply the other things we'd need for the party ... for my room we needed:

17 - 3.25 oz. containers of Halloween themed candied mixed sprinkles. ... 1 teaspoon/cookie
($1 @ Target in dollar bins. $1.88 @ Walmart in Halloween candy isle.)

6 - 1lb 8 oz. bags of candy corns ($1.68 @ Walmart) ... 15/child

5 - 24 oz. bags of pumpkins ($1.68 @ Walmart) ... 3/child

4 - 11 oz. bags of chocolate chips ... 1/2 tablespoon / child

4 - 14 oz. bags of plain milk chocolate M&Ms ... 1 tablespoon / child

I got lots of parent helpers, GR decided to have a touch of the stomach flu (wink, wink) and stayed home with Alex, Anna was a dream, and the 1st and 2nd graders had a great time with their 2.5 hour long party!





I think I mentioned last year that Rebecca's 2nd grade Halloween party was pretty pathetic ... so pathetic that she was in tears at the end of the day. Emily had had uproarious fun - tons of games, loads of treats, the works - and she, she got a small bag of trail mix and half a cookie. After that I promised her it wouldn't happen again. And I did all I could to help make the rest of her parties that year fun. It's looking like I'll have to keep that promise until she graduates.

After two notices home to parents looking for Fall party helpers, with no takers, I sent a note saying I was already committed in the 1st/2nd grade pods, but would be willing to organize the party. I tried to follow Alyson's magic formula for a successful party ... having violated more rules on her list when organizing past parties than I care to publicly admit, I followed it in every aspect, in hopes that I could pull off a successful party that would compete with Emily's 2.5 hours of fun.

I got a couple of Mom's to help by providing drink pouches, trail mix, and sugar cookies. In place of apples, I sent a cooler with green and orange Jell-O cups that had two creepy spider rings floating in each cup. They played the Halloween pairing game (suggested by Alyson), ate their snacks and went home. I was able to pop into Becca's room at the very end, and everyone seemed happy and like they'd been kept busy.

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.

* * * * *

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.

A work in progress

My sweet boys before church. I took the picture for the express reason of documenting for Samuel what he looks like when his Mama does not fight him on all his clothing choices for the day. Before his bath, he told me he was going to wear his suit - hallelujah! Only this is what he put on ... his black suit coat, yellow and blue striped shirt with red and blue striped tie, blue corduroy pants, white socks and brown plaid deck shoes.

As for Alex ... not one of his better Sacrament meetings. One of those meetings where I walked out three or four times ... the last time I walked back into the meeting, well let's just say I wish I hadn't ... why oh why, does my row not have a trap door in the floor, where I and my wiggly, loud, amazingly cute little monster can disappear into
before anyone notices who's making all the commotion?!

Mutti's Pumpkin Bread

I'm still playing catch up ... so ignore the fact that this says it was posted 10 days ago ... we all know it's November 1st... Pictures of our Halloween Madness are coming!

The kids each took a little mini loaf of pumpkin bread to their teachers today. No school tomorrow - yippee!!

And since so many of you asked ... here is my mom's pumpkin bread recipe - it simply isn't fall around here without making loaves and loaves and loaves of this bread! Let me know how your loaves turn out! Enjoy!

PUMPKIN BREAD
2/3 cup oil
2-2/3 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 can (1lb.) pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3-1/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease two 9x5x3” loaf pans or three 8.5x4.5x2.5” loaf pans. For nice beautiful tall loaves, use two 8.5x4.5x2.5.” Makes 5 mini loaves.

In large bowl, cream shortening and sugar until fluffy. Stir in eggs, pumpkin and water. Blend in flour, soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves. Pour into pans. Bake about 70 minutes (50 minutes for mini loaves) or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

While loaves are still warm (not hot) place in plastic bags and let sit. This helps create the moist outer crust that we love!

Pharmacy Week

The third week of October is National Pharmacy Week. A couple of years ago with the welcome of a new young pharmacist just out of college, the hospital pharmacy started a new pharmacy week tradition of delivering plates of goodies to each of the nursing units in the hospital.

For those who don't know, pharmacists and nurses ... well they really don't get along with each other. GR correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it can be easily said, that each is certain that the other is at the bottom of the intelligence pool, and bound and determined to make their life at work harder than it should. So this little plate of goodies is a yearly peace offering, and thanks for their job well done in patient care.

A month ago the pharmacist who is heading up this portion of the weeks events, called to see if I could come in and help them plate up all the goodies for the 17 different units. I really enjoy the people GR works with and jumped at the chance to go spend a morning with them. Alex spent the morning with Grandpa, while Anna and I spent the morning in the pharmacy conference room, plating all these goodies!



GR wanted our contribution to be pumpkin bread, so last night once we got my dad safely on his way back home, and the kids tucked in bed, my kitchen started cranking out pumpkin bread. Three recipes of my mom's pumpkin bread later, and I had 15 mini loaves ready for GR to take with him. When the kids saw them, they all requested mini loaves for their teachers, so I'll be making more pumpkin bread this week!

Birthday Waffles

1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons margarine
2 large eggs
1-1/4 cups milk
2-1/2 cups flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup melted butter

Cream together sugar, margarine and eggs. Add all remaining ingredients except butter and blend well. Pour melted butter over batter and do not mix. Dip batter (~1/3 cup each for my waffle iron, yielding 10 waffles) onto heated waffle iron and follow directions for making waffles.

Serve with syrup or choice of topping (although they are fantastic plain), and enjoy every mouthful with the ones you love.

A Surprise Visitor

My dad surprised me this morning with a short weekend visit. My mom's been in Utah since the first weekend of September and it looks like she'll be there until the end of October with her sister who is having some difficult health issues. We love and miss you mom!

He met us for breakfast at McDonald's after Sam's game and then followed us to the soccer fields, to watch Rebecca and Emily's games. He played lots of games with the kids, and then joined us at Diane's for a fun pre-birthday dinner. Emily took this great little picture of me with the other kids and my dad.

Hot Tamale - aka Kid of the Week

All About Emily

1. My favorite color is blue.
2. My favorite book is Love from Your Friend Hannah by Mindy Warshaw Skolsky.
3. My favorite movie is Island Princess.
4. My favorite sport is soccer.
5. When I grow up I want to be a doctor.
6. I'm special because of my family.
7. I was born in ___, Kansas.
8. My favorite food is Chinese food.
9. My favorite animal are ponies.
10. The person I most admire is my grandma.
11. My favorite thing about our school is fast math.
12. If I could travel anywhere in the world, I would go to New York City.