Thanksgiving or was it Christmas?

With all the snow and cold, Turkey day felt almost like Christmas!

We had hoped my parents would be here for the holiday and La-La's baptism but Mom was still recovering from a bad allergic reaction to iodine and did not feel up to a long drive yet. (We have scheduled La-La's big day for December 11 when my parents are planning to come!) So instead we invited ourselves to a friend's house, the other Dr Justin works with. They were happy to share the day with us and I was thrilled to not have to cook and clean the entire meal by myself!


Our friends live at the top of a steep driveway and after Monday's snow and ice storm, we could not drive all the way to their house; although we tried and ended up sideways stuck in a blackberry bush! We knew we would have to hike so we came prepared with all our snow gear and a sled to haul the food! So after getting unstuck and parked a little better, we burned lots of calories hiking and sliding our way up the hill.

While we finished cooking and preparing dinner, the kids had a ball sledding down the driveway. I even snuck a few runs in myself! I told them I was going to take pictures of the kids and just happened to slide down the ice once or twice!

Dinner was delicious with all the fixin's and the most amazing sweet potatoes I have ever had! They were so rich and delicious I had three servings! Just so you know, I usually do not eat sweet potatoes. I have never had sweet potato pie but I imagine what we ate, tasted like it!

After dinner, we talked while the kids played and then we all enjoyed pumpkin and apple pie made by yours truly! For me it is not Thanksgiving without the pumpkin pie I grew up on. Once you try it, you will never be happy with store bought dense pie! Just to be nice, here is the recipe!

Pumpkin Pie
1 cup pumpkin
1 cup sugar
2 cups canned evaporated milk (one can plus about 1/4 C regular milk works just fine)
3 TB corn starch
½ tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp salt
2 egg yolks

mix all ingredients except egg yolks in a microwave safe bowl. Cook in microwave on high for 3-4 minutes, stir and repeat until mixture is pudding consistency. Beat egg yolks in small bowl, add small amount of pie mixture to eggs, stir and add to pie mix. Cook for 3-4 for more minutes and spoon into baked pie shell. Cover pie with wax paper to prevent a thick film from forming on the pie and chill in refrigerator for several hours. Serve cold with whipped cream

It is truly the best pie I have ever had!

Around 8:30, we decided to brave the steep hill in the dark to head home. Jaco opted to sled down the hill. At one point the driveway became quite steep so all of us told Jaco to stop sledding and walk with the rest of us. He chose not to listen and went flying down the hill. He would have been fine except for the parked car that was in his path! We watched completely helpless as he barreled right for the car. We heard him slam into it and waited for the screaming to begin but by some miracle, he was fine! He said his body just kind of wedged under the car but no pain to be felt! I was picturing blood, bruises, and or broken bones!

We made it home safe and sound, had more pie, and went to bed happy, full, and grateful for small miracles among many other things!

Care Bear's Castcapades!

If you remember in previous posts, Care Bear broke her leg on July 29! She had been jumping on our neighbor's 24 hour old trampoline when she got popped up, hyper extended her knee, and broke her tibia across the top of the bone. Care Bear has always been a very busy active girl so we almost looked forward to her having to sit still and be calm. That only lasted for a couple days and once the pain eased, she learned how to move, and our busy little girl came back in full force!

First she figured out how to scoot with the cast held out in front of her. Inside, outside, grass, carpet, asphalt, it didn't matter! She scooted across anything. In fact, she managed to wear holes in two of the casts from scooting so much!

Then we were able to borrow a child sized walker from a friend and she became vertical again. She liked the walker for few days but then she learned how to hop. She could hop clear across the room and decided not to use the walker because the walker just slowed her down. She climbed rocks, hills, slides, and learned how to swing with a long leg cast on.

She ended up with 4 different casts. We went from pink & green to pink and purple to solid purple, to solid blue. Thankfully Dr Daddy was able to change the last two for free! The first cast change came because Jaco spilled water on it and the other times was because she was just so busy! Playing outside in the mud and weeds is not very good on casts!

45 days after she broke her leg, Care Bear had the cast removed. She hated having the casts cut off and screamed and screamed each time! I guess I expected her to be all better when the cast came off but that was not the case. It took almost a week before she would really walk and she limped for several weeks after that. Now two months later and she walks pretty normal but she still limps and hops when she runs.

Having a child with a broken leg is an adventure I hope to not repeat! I am so glad she was able to heal and pray it will all be a distant memory in the not so distant future!

Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Hannah Montana, the Dead Bride, and Percy Jackson!

This Halloween season got rolling for us at an adult game night with couples from our church. The house we went to was completely decked out in everything Halloween from a dead guy who jumps up from his coffin, to a spooky talking butler, to count Dracula. It was a ton of fun until we got the text from Jaco saying La-La had thrown up all over our friend's couch. (We had shared a baby-sitter and all the kids were at their house, not ours!) Thank goodness the party was pretty much over!

Justin and I dressed up as a BP oil worker and the oil spill. The party was dimly lit and since I was in all black, people did not know what to say to me. They couldn't figure out who I was and then with just the whites of my eyes showing, it was a little eerie. I had fun and was just happy that Justin agreed to dress up!

One of the nearby cities did trick-or-treating Friday the 29th. It was from 3-5 and included all the downtown merchants. It was fun and nice to do it in daylight hours and the weather was perfect!

Jaco had wanted to be Harry Potter but I was not on the ball to find him a robe in time so HP was out. He has been re-reading the Percy Jackson series so I suggested dressing up as Percy and Jaco loved the idea! I hand painted the shirt, made a lightning bolt with duct tape and cardboard, painted an old sword gold, and glued some feathers to some old converse tennies and BAM...Percy Jackson came to life!

La-La decided really early on that she wanted to be a dead bride. I found fun material at Jo-Anns for the veil and we recycled a white dress that was getting a little too used, tore it and made it dirty and we had a perfect wedding dress! Add some black and white make-up with a wig from last year and La-La became the prettiest dead bride I have ever seen!

Little Care Bear chose to be Hannah Montana. We already had a Hannah dress but then this sparkly dress was found and she just *HAD* to have it. I agreed that it was perfect so with the sparkles, some much loved make-up, and an itchy wig, Care Bear magically turned into Hannah! She even won cutest costume at her school!

After trick-or-treating we came home and carved pumpkins. I helped the girls with their pumpkins but I was very proud of Jaco because this was the first year he took full responsibility and did his 100% by himself!
Look closely at this picture and you will see mama cat walking on the roof above us! We had no clue she was there until we looked at the picture on the computer!

Spooky glowing creations!

Saturday night was the ward trunk or treat. It was supposed to be out in the parking lot but since we live in the great northwest, it was raining! The party was moved indoors and I did feel a little weird with my dug up graveyard directly in front of a portrait of the Savior.

The girls had fun making sucker ghosties and coloring pictures. Care Bear decided to take a break from her itchy wig and went as a cute monkey.

Jaco throwing bean bags at a large pumpkin face

Justin did not feel like going as the BP gang so I went all out as a witch. So many people had no clue who I was until either Justin talked to me or the kids called me mom. I handed out the candy from our room and some of the kids would not take candy from me. I wasn't even saying anything! One little girl was obsessed with my nose, it was so cute! I used tole paint on my face and neck so I was able to match it to the rubber nose. To get the nose to stay on, I filled it with modeling clay and it was sticky enough to hold my honker in place!

Finally on Sunday the real Halloween was here! Poor Jaco and Care Bear woke up Saturday night throwing up so trick-or-treating was questionable. Thankfully they both perked up just in time to pound the pavement since we had not received enough candy from the previous 2 nights!

I decided it would not be fair to have our fun Halloween dinner on Sunday with two sickies, so we waited and extended the holiday one more day to Monday night! Pumpkin brains, bones, severed toes, graveyard dirt and blood to drink! When I told Care Bear the menu before I made it, she told me there was no way we could really have it because stores do not sell severed toes, blood, and brains! Guess I got her!

Hope everyone had a fun and sweet Halloween! I know we did especially with it lasting several days!