36 dinners in one day

This last Saturday my sister-in-law Renay came over and we cooked 36 dinners all in one day. That left 18 for each of us to put in our freezer.

Jason had taken all the kids to Renay's house the night before so we could really work. The kids were excited to have a sleep over with the cousins too. We went out and got pedicures and then to dinner. It was really nice and relaxing. NO KIDS IN SIGHT! We did have a slight glitch of Jason's car battery dying while we were out but luckily by friend's husband knows cars and he came and put a new one in for us.

This is my counter the night before. I also had a fridge full of meat (6 bags of frozen chicken from Costco, 12 lbs of hamburger, 2 pork roasts, 2 chuck roasts, & 2 lbs of sausage.) I meant to take a picture of us cooking but I totally forgot. We started about 8:00 am and were done around 3:30 pm. My feet were killing me by the end of the day. I only forgot one thing too so we only had to make one unexpected trip to the store. I thought that was pretty good. The other amazing thing is that we each got 18 dinners for only $162 each.

It feels great to have my freezer stocked with dinners!

Caught!

I caught a rare moment these days, Preston and Adam working together nicely. They are going through a rough patch where I usually can't leave them alone at all or else they start fighting.

Today I caught Preston reading this book to Adam and they were being really cute with each other. I had to document it to remind myself that they really do like each other. :)

We have a new addition to our family and it's a . . . .

PUPPY!!!

We got a Maltipoo (Maltese/Toy Poodle mix) last week and we named her Sophie.

Behind the scenes we had been working on getting her for awhile but we didn't tell the kids until the day we were going to pick her up. We told them by sending them on a scavenger hunt all over the house.

The final clue told them about the puppy. It took a minute to sink in but once it did man were they excited! Don't you just love Natasha's reaction? They have wanted a dog for as long as I can remember and I've always said no. Thing were much too crazy around here but now I think it has calmed down enough for us to handle it. After the final clue Preston couldn't even comprehend it I don't think. He asked me "Is it a real dog or a pretend dog?"

Sophie flew to us from Kansas City, MO and this is us at the airport picking her up. It had been a few weeks since we had seen any pictures of her and she was so much cuter than we could have imagined.

Even Jason thinks she's a cutie pie!

A few weeks ago Natasha told me that she had the best dream of her life. It was that she was eleven years old and that we got a dog. (I had always told her, when your older, when your older.) Then just last week she wanted to put that she wanted a real dog on her Santa list. Andrew's response to that was "I highly doubt that would ever happen!" It was so cute to see all their dreams come true!

Preston has been quite the little helper around here. He loves to play with her a lot which then helps me.
Preston's friend Sadie came to see her too. I just love how gentle Preston is with Sophie.

Sophie even likes Adam. She's definitely a lover girl.

Happy Halloween

Halloween is one of the kids FAVORITE holidays. This year they had plenty of opportunities to celebrate. They had school parties, trunk-or-treat at church, and the real trick-or-treat on Halloween.

This was the night of Trunk-or-Treat at church. Andrew is an evil emperor, Adam is Batman, Preston is Bumblee the Transformer, and Natasha is a monarch butterfly.

Waiting to have chili and nachos for dinner.

What a beautiful little butterfly!

After they went around to all the cars they stayed at our car to give out candy. It was impossible to keep Adam from eating it!!

Andrew with his skull staff that almost ruined Halloween. (see below)

On Halloween night we went Trick-or-Treating with cousins Kaeli, Alyssa, and Ian. Alyssa was a vampire, Kaeli a pirate, and Ian a skeleton. Now, the story behind the staff that almost ruined Halloween. Basically Andrew forgot to pack his skull staff and didn't realize it until he was getting ready that night. He was so upset about it that he came VERY close to not even going out for candy. He just thought that his whole costume was ruined without it. Lucky for us he eventually came out of it and ended up having fun instead of letting that ruin his night.

On this night Natasha went as Bindi the Jungle Girl. Papa made her the shirt and when she got it in the mail she LOVED it! ( I had got the butterfly costume as a back up just in case Bindi didn't work out). Going as Bindi was absolutely perfect for her and she looked really cute. On the back of her shirt it says "Extinct Stinks" with her name below it.

They had a blast and got tons of candy. Everyone kept saying that Adam was the cutest Batman they had ever seen. We started the night with seven kids and by the end we only had three. They slowly dropped like flies from being tired and went back to the house. The last one to give up was Adam (he did great and probably would have made it the whole time if he hadn't spent the whole day jumping on the trampoline). The last three standing were Kaeli, Andrew, and Natasha. Such fun memories.

It's pumpkin seed time!

The day after we carved our pumpkins Preston helped me make pumpkin seeds. It's a real favorite of my kids.

Recipe

2 cups pumpkin seeds washed and dried

2 Tbsp melted butter

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

salt

Mix it all together and spread out on a cookie sheet. Bake at 250 for about 2 hours or until crisp and brown.

Happy Birthday Adam!

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Adam's 3rd birthday. We had a joint party with his cousin Kaeli whose 10th birthday was just a few days after his.

This one of my favorite pictures of all time. I took this of Adam when he was about a week old. It was the picture we used on his birth announcement. What a sweet little face!

Kaeli and Adam waiting to blow out their candles. We sang twice so they each could do their own candles. Andrew and Jason put trick candles on Kaeli's side and it was so funny. Every time she tried to blow them out they would just light back up again. Everyone got a good laugh out of it.

Adam could hardly contain himself waiting to open his presents. There is hardly anything in his life that is all about him and he was sooo excited about his day. He kept going around saying "My Birt-day!, My Birt-day!" He got cars, trucks, and bulldozers and that made him very happy. After every present that was any kind of car he would yell "Hot Wheels! Hot Wheels!"

Here he his with two cars that he got that are from his all time favorite show "Hot Wheels: Battleforce 5" or as Adam calls it, "World Race". He slept with these cars and never let them out of his sight for over a week.

I had to include these two pictures. Adam has had a rough year as far as injuries go. We have made too many visits to the Emergency Room that's for sure! Luckily his injuries have not been too major. He's a pretty tough kid. The one above is from his fall at one of Andrew's baseball games. The one below is from his fall in Ohio where he ended up with two stitches in his lip.

I really like this picture. Adam is a true car man through and through. He is getting to where he can distinguish different makes and models of different cars. He knows a Nissan Titan truck from any other kind of truck (his cousin Ian has a Titan). He also knows a Corvette when he sees one. We were sitting at a stop light the other day and I couldn't figure out what he was saying. It sounded like "Coh- Va". I was guessing "cold?" "van?" I just wasn't getting it right. Then in the back of my mind I remembered seeing a white corvette go by and I guessed "Corvette?" Adam finally answered with a very enthusiastic "YEAH!" My brother has a corvette that he saw this summer but I was surprised he picked that one up going by.

Happy Birthday my little car man!

Those were the days

I remember as a kid spending HOURS looking at the JcPenny catalog trying to find all the toys that I wanted to put on my Christmas list. Last night Andrew and Natasha were doing just that. They were looking through all the toy magazines that I get trying to put together a Christmas list. It was fun to watch them.