Fall Fun

Admittedly, fall is NOT my favorite season. I mourn the passing of the warm, lazy days of summer and I dread the coming cold, dreariness of winter. Fall in SE Idaho lasts about 2 days as well before the snow flier and we are socked into winter for half of the year. But both Abi and Tal love fall for the leaves. They had a great time raking and building this giant leaf pile in our front yard. Tal had been dying to rake the leaves on Sunday but he couldn't, so on Monday he burst home from school and grabbed the rake. He was a more than a little upset when I made him come in and do his piano practicing and homework first. But when he saw I wasn't budging, he raced through he chores in record time.
Leah loves the leaves as well. She loves getting outside everyday after lunch for 15-20 minutes. Some days we walk around the block and as the first leaves started falling she would squeal in delight as she crunched across them. Then she would turn around and dance back across them again to hear the delightfully crisp sound.
On Saturday, Kris took Abi and Tal to the U-Pick pumpkin patch to choose the prefect pumpkin for our jack o'lanterns. Leah was recovering from the flu, so we had to stay home.
They regaled me with stories about the corn maze and how much fun they had. Abi confided that by the 3rd time she had it memorized and so "it was easy."
They also got to ride on this fun little train. See them peeking out of the yellow caboose.
On Monday night we carved our jack o'lanterns. This year we gave in and bought the $4 carving kit. We are NEVER going back to plain old knives. It was quick, easy and little chance of impaling ourselves or chopping off a finger. Leah got into the act by smearing pumpkin innards all over her belly.
We turned out some pretty cool pumpkins. Tal's is a face of flames. Abi's is a bat. My favorite part is making the roasted pumpkin seeds. They are soooooo addictive. Recipe below from one of my favorite sites: www.Allrecipes.com.

Spiced Pumpkin Seeds
1 1/2 Tbsp margarine, melted
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic salt
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce ( I used more because I love it.)
2 cups cleaned pumpkin seeds

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix all of the ingredients together to coat pumpkin seeds and pour onto cookie sheet. Bake for 1 hour, turning every 15 minutes or so. Enjoy!!!

Happiness Is...

I've been struggling a little lately with that green eyed monster. I get caught between wanting the bigger house , the new furniture, and the exotic vacations and then learning about a woman from Kris's mission whose family was hit hard by the typhoon in the Philippines or the devastation from the tsunami in American Samoa where other friends once lived. I keep re-learning over and over that gratitude and service are the only ways to combat that green eyed monster. True happiness has to come from within - not from material possessions. ( I'll have to come back to this post often to remind myself.) Here are a few random things that have made me happy lately.

Abi, Tal and I made these festive pumpkins on their long weekend off from school. I am becoming a pro with the spray paint.

I wasn't too happy when I first discovered how Leah had disposed of an entire tube of my favorite lipstick - OK the only lipstick I wear. But before I got mad, I just had to grab the camera. She was so pleased with herself and thought that she looked soooooo pretty.

Making Ultimate Chocolate Brownies - Yum Yum. Talmage was my good little helper, and of course the best part is licking the beater.

The gorgeous sunshine of this weekend. I got out in my gardens and cleaned them out and put them to bed. Working out in the sunshine, especially in my gardens is one of the things that brings me the most happiness in life.

Ten amazing years and counting

This past September 17th, Kris and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. Now I don't have a scanner so I can't post a photo from our wedding, but trust me, we were really good looking :) And here we are ten years later with 3 kids, a mortgage and a minivan. And life, love and marriage are better than we every dreamed it would be. We celebrated with a Stay-cation. We sent our kids to my parents for the weekend and we stayed at our house. If you haven't tried it, it's FANTASTIC. We ate out at places we've wanted to try, we went golfing, we went to all the stores we have wanted to go to, we went to a late movie, stayed up late, slept in late, and thoroughly enjoyed just being together.

Milestones always make me reflect and our anniversary made me think about what an amazing husband I have and how grateful I am for our marriage. As a tribute to my darling husband:

Ten Things I Love About You

1. Kris went grocery shopping for me the other night - coupons and everything.
2. Kris fixed our toilets yesterday and does all of the other handyman jobs around the house.
3. He washes the dishes for me nearly every night.
4. He brought home a chick flick from the Redbox that he knew I had been wanting to watch.
5. He bought me jelly beans at the grocery store because he knows how much I love them.
6. He brings me home the flowers from work.
7. He sacrifices buying things he wants - like a motorbike - for things that I want.
8. He suggested that we read Conference talks together for scripture study and that we go to the temple more often.
9. He got up with the kids on Saturday morning and let me sleep in.
10. He is my best friend, my confidant, my lover - amazing by the way, a wonderful father to our children, and the person I fall more and more in love with every day.

Modest is Hottest

To preface, I have THE BEST calling in the church. I am the Activity Days Leader for our ward. Activity Days For Girls is a bit like Girl Scouts. We meet twice a month to work on goals and projects that help the girls develop talents and skills in 4 different areas. Most of our activities are planned around the "Faith in God for Girls" program of the LDS church. The girls are fun and silly and developing into such sweet young women. Best of all, I get to spend extra time with my own daughter Abi who is eight. In September we had a Super Activity that we called "Modest Is Hottest." During one of our weekly activities we learned about modest dress and made a poster of modest fashions. Then we planned this activity for a Saturday where we made pajama pants, had a little luncheon, and a fashion show of their pajama pants and a school outfit.

The moms and girls had a great time sewing together. Now, I'm not much of a seamstress but with a little help from an expert seamstress in our ward I had asked to help guide us along, we all turned out a cute pair of pajama pants.

Abi and I are working hard.

After our lovely luncheon the girls modeled thier pajama pants. They were so proud of themselves. Big shout out to Julie for the decorations and Tony for the sound system and catwalk music. It was awesome!!!