Weigh In Wednesday

I've been avoiding the scale since I've been eating so much sugar this past week. But I jumped on this morning and I've lost 0.8 lbs since last Wednesday. Hard to believe, especially with absolutely NO exercising and terrible eating. Maybe the exclusive nursing to my 11-month old baby is keeping the metabolism pumping. Who knows, but I'll gladly take it!

Carmel Apples

Thanks Amy for posting this delicious recipe for carmel apples. We improvised on the recipe since I didn't have a candy thermometer or wax paper and they still turned out so good! The kids all loved this yummy fall treat! Enjoy!

Ashley hard at work dipping the apples into the delicious homemade carmel sauce. We also didn't have craft sticks or dowels, notice our lovely plastic knives.

Abbey & Aliza with the carmel apples. Notice the post-it notes in both pictures. Yes, Ashley is the most like me, she labeled which apples are hers.

Carmel Apple Recipe

1 lb brown sugar
2 sticks butter
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 c. light corn syrup
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
12 apples
12 dowels or craft sticks

Combine ingredients in a 2-3 quart saucepan. Heat at medium low temp, stirring constantly but slowly and frequently scraping the bottom of the pan. Cook caramel to the soft ball stage (236) degrees. Pour into a small deep metal or heat proof bowl and let cool to 200 degrees. Line a baking sheet with wax paper. Push a dowel or stick into the top of each apple. Dip apples into caramel using a straight up and down motion. Place dipped apples on baking sheet and place in the fridge for 15 - 20 min.

*After making the apples, you'll still have plenty of carmel sauce which I've been eating by the spoonfuls! Maybe I should skip Weigh In Wednesday this week!

Don't forget to vote!

It's not too late to vote! Jason & I voted at our kid's elementary school and it took us a mere 10 minutes today with absolutely no lines. It was so extremely easy with the new computer system & swipe card.

Uncle Lee emailed me this cartoon today. This cartoon says it all! We'll all know who the media wants to win today.

Here's my political soapbox for what it's worth. I've been preparing taxes for 17 years now and there's a huge difference between democrats & republicans on their view on income taxes. Even though Pres. Bush has unfavorable ratings, income taxes have never been lower. Before Bush was in office, there was no 10% tax bracket, and since income taxes are tiered all of are first taxed only at 10%. Back in the Clinton years, taxes started at 15%. During Bush's administration, those of us with children under 16 years of age have received a $1,000 tax credit per child, which is huge! Especially considering Jason & I with our 5 kids, this wipes away $5,000 of our tax dollars per year! I'm so nervous if Obama gets elected. I truly think he's a wild card & I'm not crazy about his socialistic views.

I think Thomas Jefferson said it best, "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have."

So go out & vote and don't forget your free Krispy Kreme doughnut. And also, Chick Fil A is also giving away free chicken sandwiches tonight with your "I voted" sticker.

My "White Trash" brother, Jeff

Leave it to Jeff to have the most creative Halloween costume once again. He actually took 1st place at his work's Halloween costume contest and won himself a sweet IPOD touch. WTG, Jeff!

Of course, Jeff has been planning this costume for months and his costume is full of "white trash" made of Tropicana juice cartons, a garbage can helmet and a garbage bag for the cape. Jeff' is a graphic designer for EA Games, who is contracted by Nintendo to develop Wii games. Alex thinks Jeff has the coolest job ever and would love to have the same job someday. Jeff also is great at website and logo design. He even designed scrapbook papers for us when we had our scrapbook company, even though he might not proudly admit it!

Halloween Party at Grandma's

Grandma (Michelle's mom) hosted her annual Halloween party last Saturday night. Another good excuse to see each other's costumes and have dinner. Here's a group shot of the crew (minus Jason & my mom who were both taking pictures and minus my 2 sisters, Melissa in DC and Ally, in the basement with the stomach flu and minus Duane, my step dad, upstairs with the stomach flu).

Here's Ben (Jared's son) & Aliza. After taking at least 10 pictures, this was the best picture we got. Ben was born 2 months after Aliza.

I've been trying to talk my sister-in-laws into creating their own blog, but one of them said, "Why have a blog? Michelle can just have one for us." So this post is for you, Missy, Marize & Michelle. How crazy is that? My brothers, Jared, Joe & Jeff all married girls with the letter "M." And Melissa and I both married guys whose name started with the letter "J" - Jason & Justin. It's even weirder that we have 2 sister-in-laws who share our names, Michelle & Melissa aka Missy.

Anna & Chloe Dance Productions

Anna & Chloe, 2 girls from our ward, taught a dance class to some younger girls in the neighborhood. They taught the girls a few dances for a few weeks and then put on a recital. They had two classes, one for 7-8 year olds and one for 4-6 year olds. Abbey & Aliza have enjoyed these classes for the past weeks and last Saturday, they had a recital. Anna & Chloe were so sweet to both Abbey & Aliza. They were very organized with notes to the parents, they picked out costumes and gave weekly treats. I was quite impressed that these two 10 year-olds did this on their own. My daughters have always loved dance. Abbey is on a competition dance team this year and has dance 2x/week (same as Ashley). Aliza started dance this year and loves it.

Here's a few pictures of Aliza with the younger group. I can't remember the name of this song, but it had something to do with driving. I loved watching Aliza get some serious air while jumping and shaking to this song. In the other songs they danced to , she wore a crown. Aliza had a few "wardrobe malfunctions" since her crown kept falling off, but she kept putting it back on and luckily, it didn't seem to bother her.


Here's Abbey with the older group. Abbey is in the front row (2nd from left). Most of these girls live in our neighborhood. We've been so lucky to have so many kids the same ages as our kids. They always have plenty of friends to choose from!

Thanks again, Anna & Chloe! (Anna might see this post, since her mom is one of my few readers!) Thanks Andrea for allowing your basement to be the dance studio for several weeks!

Trick or Treat!

The kids had a great time trick or treating this year! It made such a difference having a warm Halloween. In fact, Abbey was even able to wear flip flops. So much better than a few years ago when we were walking through deep snow!

Here's Abbey, Aliza & Alexis (Abbey's friend) with their stash of treats:

Ava, Michelle & Aliza off to Trick or Treat. I couldn't get Ava to look at the camera.

Here's the group I went trick or treating with. Aliza with neighbors & friends: Hayden, Lauren, Ashley & Austin.

Ava, our little bunny rabbit, no, she's not piglet (even though a few kids thought so). I guess it's because the ears on her costume went down instead of up.

Aliza, Abbey, Ava & Alexis excited to get some treats!

Ashley & friend, Jessica

Ashley & Abbey

Alex and his friends, Justin and Clay. Alex said Justin had a hard time seeing in his grim reaper all-black costume, so it was hard for him to keep up with Alex & Clay.

Alex dressed up as Bigfoot. Before the trick or treating began, Alex ran around in his Bigfoot costume. Clay was screaming "Bigfoot. He's alive." They ran in several neighbor's backyards. Some poor kids ran inside yelling, "Mommy," which of course, only fueled Clay & Alex's fires. They thought the prank was hilarious.

After the trick or treating was over, we went to a neighbor's house for delicious homemade donuts.

Halloween Parade

Thursday, Oct. 30th, we went to the kid's elementary school for the annual Halloween parade. It's always a fun tradition to see all of the kids in costumes. I figured out we've done this same parade for 7 years straight (since Alex was in kindergarten) and we'll have kids at this elementary school for 11 more years! Leave it to me to crunch the numbers on that one!

Here's Abbey (our 2nd grader) as an asian princess:

Ashley (our 4th grader) also an asian princess:

Aliza watching from the sidelines:

Alex (our 6th grader) as Bigfoot. Unfortunately, they don't let the kids wear masks, so everyone thought he was a gorilla. At the end of the parade, they turn off the lights and the 6th graders do a dance to Michael Jackson's "thriller."

Our little pumpkin, Ava, now 11 months old

Ava is so close to walking. She just turned 11 months old on October 30th. It's hard to believe our little baby is almost 1!

Happy Halloween!

Pictures coming soon!

Preschool Princess

Tues, Oct. 29 Aliza had a Halloween party at preschool and also a Halloween party at dance. All of the parents came to the library to see the kids parade around in their costumes. I love the stage that Aliza is in. Everything is so magical. She'll say things like "mom, you're a princess and daddy's your prince, but where's my prince? I need to find him." She actually was going to be Cinderella for Halloween, but I have no idea where the costume is. Luckily, we own every princess costume that Disney has created so we had plenty more to choose from.


Here's Aliza with all of her stash of candy she scored. Each child in preschool brought a treat for each friend in the class.

One of her friends in her class brought this. I loved the little poem attached to the sour gecko candy. Some one's mom is an overachiever. I just gave Aliza Halloween nerds to share with the class.

And I'll have plenty more Halloween pictures to post later. Alex, Ashley & Abbey will be in a parade today (Thurs) at their school. I better get back to working. I have a huge quarterly tax return deadline tomorrow, Oct. 31st.

Weigh In Wednesday

Here's the official results: I lost 1.2 lbs since last Wednesday. Small loss, but since I did absolutely no exercising this past week, due to a bad cold that the kids & I had, I'll gladly take it!

This week I'm going to kick it in high gear & start running again. I really do love running, especially to some good tunes. I just found out about a 6k "Cold Turkey" race on Thanksgiving day, 9 am at the Capitol in SLC that I'm going to run. What a great way to start Thanksgiving! Then I really can enjoy all of my mom's homemade dressing and cranberry sauce to my heart's content, guilt free!
I found out about this race on Tiburon's blog (a random girl whose blog I stalk) See all of the useful information I'm finding on blogs. Any other runners out there care to join us? Michelle (hint, hint) this means you! So far, I know my friend Kristy is coming. Wooo hooo! Click here for more info about the race.

While I'm on the subject of Michelle (my great sister-in-law), I have to publicly congratulate her on running her 1st marathon last weekend in Oregon. I'm so proud of her! It's been a major goal of hers. She kept the secret from us until after the race (she said just in case she chickened out at the last minute!) My brother cheered her on and said he'll never run one after watching the runners who were seriously hurting at mile 22. One runner left in an ambulance at mile 24. Poor guy! Too get so close to the finish line!

Michelle came to my old ward to visit her sister about 7 years ago. I taught the Relief Society lesson that day and had the feeling that I should go talk to her after the lesson and see if she wanted to go out with my brother, Joe. I felt a little weird going to a random stranger and asking her this, but she was game for the idea. They went on their first date in Oct 2001 and married April 2002, so yes I keep taking credit for hooking them up and yes, Michelle, you can name your 1st daughter after me. Then again we have the same name, so it wouldn't be too hard to do. Thanks for being such a great aunt & sister-in-law, Michelle!


Here's a picture of my brother, Joe (who everyone thinks is Jason's brother-they really do look more alike than Joe & I do!) and sweet sister-in-law, Michelle and their cute son Aaron!

Funny Headliners

Wait! I think I know this guy!

Typical thing a kid would say about their brother/sister:

Too funny!

Thanks for the laughs, Uncle Lee!

Investment Tips

Courtesy of my Uncle Lee, enjoy the following:

Investment tips for 2008

With all the turmoil in the market today and the collapse of Lehman Bros and Acquisition of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America this might be some good advice. For any of you with any money left, be aware of the next expected mergers so that you can get in on the ground floor and make some BIG bucks. Watch for these consolidations later on this year:

1. Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W R. Grace Co. will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.

2. Polygram Records, Warner Bros., and Zesta Crackers join forces and become: Poly, Warner Cracker.

3. 3M will merge with Goodyear and become: MMMGood.

4. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa.

5. FedEx is expected to join its competitor, UPS, and become: FedUP.

6. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become: Fairwell Honeychild.

7. Grey Poupon and Docker Pants are expected to become: PouponPants.

8. Knotts Berry Farm and the National Organization of Women will become: Knott NOW!

Great Giveaways

Check out this blog! They're having tons of giveaways this week. They also have free blog layouts, if you're ready for a change.

I love all of their LDS buttons. I just added one to my sidebar. Click here to read a talk given by Elder Ballard about the importance of sharing our beliefs on our blogs.

How to lose a tooth by Ashley

Last night (Sunday) Ashley found the secret to pulling teeth. She took one of her small hair elastics and wrapped it around a loose tooth and pulled it out. It worked so well that she decided to do the same trick to pull a 2nd loose tooth out. I was a little disappointed since I love pulling the kids teeth out. Nothing better than getting my fingernail underneath the tooth and giving it a good yank. I'm really serious (even though it sounds quite sarcastic).

So we tried the same trick on Alex, but he wasn't going for it. He has so many loose molars and a few adult molars growing next to the loose baby molars. Maybe I've blocked out part of my childhood, but I honestly don't remember loosing molars. I remember loosing my front teeth, but the molars?

Here's Ashley's cute note to the tooth fairy. She's constantly writing lists & notes. I guess the "apple doesn't fall far from the tree." She's definately my daughter!

BUNKO (Girl's Night Out at my house)

Last Thursday, I hosted BUNKO at my house. There are 12 of us in our group that meet monthly and have a great time playing bunko. I've been in this group 5 years now and I always look forward to bunko night. We each take a turn hosting. When it's your turn, you make the dinner and pick out the prizes. Bunko is a dice game that you play with teams of 2 and keep track of your points. A bunko is rolling 3 6's.

Here's Stephanie, Kim & Jessie (all great friends & neighbors):

7 of the 12 of us: Stephanie, Donna, Jessie, Angie, Janene, me & Stephanie. Kristy took this picture before everyone left. Someone said, "Since when do we take pictures at bunko?" That's what happens when you have a blog, I guess. I'm finding myself taking so many pictures.

Here's the prizes I picked out. A friend of mine sells rustic home decor. She's clearancing out her inventory so I was able to pick out these great prizes. We have $60 to spend (each person pays $5 each).

I found these cute napkins & plates at Target.

Just a picture taken before everyone came and the action began. This is what happens when you don't read the owner's manual of your new camera like Jason does. A few of these pictures are out of focus because I had the setting on "panoramic" instead of "auto."

And I won "biggest loser" of the night for having the least amount of wins, so I won the cute LOVE letters.

Thanks Missy, my sister-in-law, who truly is an amazing cook, for sharing the recipe to this delicious pumpkin trifle. It was a HUGE hit with everyone and I had so many requests for the recipe. Once again, this is another picture out of focus, but if you have a trifle dish & you want a dessert with amazing flavor, try this one. Also, you can just make the pumpkin bread, it really is so good! I also made my garlic chicken farfalle (see recipe below), breadsticks, salad, apples with carmel dip (carmel, sour cream & heath bar pieces), and we had sodas (rootbeer & fanta orange-halloween colors) in a black witch cauldron.

Grand Champion Pumpkin Bread
From “Farm Journal’s Complete Home Baking Book”

3 1/3 cups sifted flour
2/3 cups cooking oil
4 tsp. pumpkin spice
4 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
1 (1-lb) can mashed pumpkin (2 cups)
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup water
1 ½ tsp salt
2 2/3 cup sugar

Sift together flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Beat together sugar and oil in bowl until light and fluffy, using electric mixer at high speed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in pumpkin.

Add dry ingredients alternately with water to sugar mixture, beating well after each addition, using electric mixer at low speed. Pour batter into 2 greased 9x5x3-inch loaf pans.

Bake in 325 degree oven for 55 minutes, or until cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on racks 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool on racks. Makes 2 loaves.

Whipped Topping
Whip 2 pints heavy whipping cream until it stiffens. (I whip mine in my Kitchen Aid mixer and I really whip it a long time on a high speed. I make it a bit stiffer then you would usually do it if was just going to be a topping.)
Gradually add 1 ½ cups brown sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla.

**This recipe will make enough for one trifle dish- plus you will probably have some left over.

For 2 trifle dishes, I use 3 pints of heavy whipping cream, 2 ¼ cups brown sugar 1 ½ tsp vanilla.

Pumpkin Trifle
Cut one loaf of the pumpkin bread into cubes. Place half of the bread in the bottom of the trifle dish. Next drizzle caramel sauce (I used Smuckers caramel topping for ice cream) over the pumpkin bread. Next sprinkle Heath toffee bits (the Heath brand are chocolate and toffee pieces) over the bread and caramel. Spread a generous layer of the whipped topping over the pumpkin bread. Repeat all of the above for the second layer.
The pumpkin bread and the whipped topping can easily be made a day or two ahead and then just assemble the trifle right before you serve it.

Ava, our little stair climber

Ava has been climbing our flight of stairs for about 2 months now. She loves to go upstairs and explore in the kid's rooms. I'm constantly carrying her down the stairs. Here's just a few cute pictures of her going up.