BOO!! Happy Halloween!

Due to a few people bugging me about wanting to see Em in her costume, I have moved this post to the front of the line of those waiting to be posted. See? I can be nice sometimes! Hope you're happy ;)

Halloween 2010

So we kinda "Scrooged" the whole Halloween thing this year, in a sense. Meaning we were out of town Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But that does not mean that Em did not participate in many fun Halloween type activities. 

First she was able to attend a birthday party for my friend Marci's little boy Brighton in her costume:

 Em had such a blast just watching everything!!

 The cute birthday boy eating his cake ;)

 Getting ready to decorate her pumpkin

 Brighton with his pumpkin

 Laughing at the kids playing on the tree swing

 "Yeah this is a pumpkin, so what!"

 All finished decorating

After the party we joined daddy to see one of his friends playing with his band (Code Hero) at the "Fork Fest"

So Em wore her costume there too :)

We also went to the PEIP "Trunk or Treat" with the girls we watched (I already posted this, but here it is again)

And then, last but not least, Emarie joined my afternoon class for our party and parade on Wednesday! Oh, and daddy came to watch the parade (that's who took the pictures) and grandma Karen (my mom) also joined us that day! (I don't know how I didn't get any pictures with Grandma, but you can hear her on the video!)

 The Pumpkin Fairy and her Little Witch! And yes I know my hair is in my eyes, time for a bang trim already I guess!

 I'm always in charge of the music for the parade since I have the Halloween playlist on my iPod

 She got mad being in her stroller, so then we just let her dance on the table ;) so "Em-esc"

One with daddy before he had to get back to work

And of course a video of my dancing witch, because when she hears music (even scary Halloween music) her little body can't help but groove! ;) Love this girl!

Hope everyone else's Halloween was just as fun!

Good things to report!

I need to thrive and hang on to that thought, because right now, I'm more than slightly worried about one beautiful little girl that just doesn't deserve anymore (insert dramatic, maybe four letter word of your choice here). As I am hulled up in a tiny cabin next to my sweet girl waiting with baited breath to make sure she doesn't throw up that precious, much needed antibiotic that was just placed in her system. 

On to the good things though, which would be

growing!!

Yes, that's right, my little sprout that everyone's first comment on her use to be "She's tiny!" or, "She's so small!" or something else to that effect.

Well, she still might not be where she's supposed to be for her age, but she's the closest she's ever been!!

That's right, this little girl, who a mere 6-8 months ago was still sporting 3-6 month clothes, is now in a healthy 24 month and 2T size (mostly)! Which is freakin amazing if I do say so!!

The only draw back (because yes, there has to be one!), is the fact that she has needed all new clothes. Not so bad, you say, right? Well it's just new for me, for a mom who's little girl could wear clothes 2 or 3 years in a row. And don't even get me started on shoes. So yes, she needed a whole new wardrobe, and thankfully we have had many nice people step in to help (since money has been a bit tight for awhile).

So here ya go, some recent pictures of my little girl that now actually resembles an almost 3 year old, in some of her new clothes that our wonderful family has supplied!

Hair is growing too! and gotta love the Halloween representation, ghost clips! 

And as I mentioned, those feet have grown as well, for the first time since she was born. At the beginning of this year, she was still fitting into newborn shoes, but now, she is mostly a size 2, sometimes even a 3! Still very disproportionate though to her size, so I mentioned this when she was getting fitted for her new daphos (orthotics), so they made them formed to her feet but sized so that she could have bigger shoes. So, that meant that overnight (when she got her orthotics), she went from a size 2 to a size 6!! So, no, she's not really a size 6, but that's what size shoe we had to get to fit over the new orthotics. 

So we spent around $80 buying an all new wardrobe of shoes as well.

And yes there's pants in there too, but who can pass up darling corduroys for $1.99 each at Kid to Kid?!

 Here are the ones we got dirt cheap at Kid to Kid! The ones on the left are barely used, but the ones on the right, I'm %100 certain were never worn, and Gymboree normally $40 shoes, we got for a fraction of the price!! They also had an adorable purple pair as well that were never worn, someone should snatch up fast at the Provo Kid to Kid!!

 The boots were the most expensive at $30 from Payless, but they were practical because she can wear them with anything from pants to dresses and skirts! The other two were from Shoe Carnival and we got for a good deal of $15 a piece, but one ended up being $7.50 because of "Buy One Get One 1/2 Off"!

But the most expensive of the bunch would be these babies!! At $1,000 (our bit was about $200) she better wear them!!

In other good news, I think you may have all figured it out, but just in case you haven't- Steve and I have decided to give things another try! We're not sure at this point how everything is going to work, but is anyone ever really?! We're just happy to report we're doing our best to work through our problems and we never did have a problem with loving each other, which is most important!

Also, one more thing.... Steve was a little worried about giving me this trip since I love Halloween so much and will be missing it at home. But, I was actually a bit relieved we wouldn't be home. And I thought I would relay back my post from last year's Halloween. You can read the whole thing here if you want, but here's the point I wanted to emphasize:

Last Year's Halloween Afterthoughts

-Spray-on glitter (aka: Fairy Dust) does not easily come off the couch, the tile floor, the car, the carpet and clothes, well pretty much anything!

-No matter how much you love to dress up, your husband might not feel the same way!

-Trying to paint a two year old's face with eyeliner, is definitely not an easy task (that's why she just has the nose at this point!)

-No matter what I do to prevent it, we will continue to be the only ones on our street that get our pumpkins smashed before Halloween.

-If you get home after 8 pm, you probably won't have more than 4 or 5 trick-or-treaters!

-No matter how much you want to tell the big teenage Tongan girls with no costumes, that they don't get candy since they didn't dress up, it's probably not a good idea (they probably would have easily beat me up)!

-Last of all, watching a scary movie on Halloween, is not always a good idea, when it was as disturbing as this one was (which I won't mention!)

And since Utah celebrates Halloween on Saturday when it falls on a Sunday, I would like to wish those of you that will be doing Halloween type activities tonight, a safe and happy Halloween, or Happy Haunting!!

Coming soon!

Ok, so I don't have time to finish all the posts I wanted to before I left this weekend. But I thought I'd share the post I wrote on the Differet iz Good blog, otherwise known as DIG. If you get a chance, you should check out the whole site that the wonderful Camilla Downs has put together!

But here's the guest post I wrote click here

And then I will tell you what's to come

Emarie's rapid growth spurt

A recipe and pictures of my famous pumpkin cheesecake

My birthday bash (still ongoing) :)

All the Halloween activities of one cute little witch :)

A post much like this one (since I was nominated, thanks Candice)

See you soon! This weekend was a wonderful birthday getaway by Steve! So as you can see, those birthday festivities are still continuing! Gotta love that my birthday always stretches on forEVER!!

I know you're all going to want to......

Spend the weekend at my house after this post ;)

Well maybe not, but we did have fun!

It started off a couple of weeks ago when Diane (one of Em's wonderful caregivers) asked if I wouldn't mind taking her youngest daughter for the weekend when she took the rest of her girls to Martin's Cove in Wyoming. I told her I'd love to! Well turns out, when her second youngest daughter found out her sister was coming to my house, she wanted in as well. So that's that, we had two extra girls this past weekend, a 10 year old, and a 3 1/2 year old. And let me tell you, it was a blast!!

First off was the PEIP "Trunk or Treat" on Friday

 2 Witches and a Princess!

That first night went well, just a little sadness right at first, but nothing a little prayer, cuddle and back rub couldn't fix, and sleeping soundly the rest of the night! Until 6 am on Saturday that is! Hahaha, we're not use to that in this household, since our little one sleeps until woken up most of the time! But it was fun getting up and cooking breakfast and starting the day early enough to fit everything in! And speaking of cooking, they sure liked it when Steve cooked (chicken strips and french fries for dinner Friday night, and french toast for breakfast Saturday morning) not as much when I did (Meatloaf on Saturday night and eggs, bacon and toast on Sunday morning).

Saturday was supposed to be some sort of Corn Maze or Halloween fun center like that, but the weather was awful, so we settled on Toy Story 3 in 3D! Only Em was a little tired that day, so she stayed home with daddy. Which is just as well, because I'm not sure she would have enjoyed the movie as much as the older girls.

After we got home, Steve ventured out and got us some pumpkins to carve, and we had dinner then spread out some tarps in the living room, put on one of my favorite Halloween movies (Casper), started to work on the pumpkins and had homemade Halloween cookies and hot chocolate!

 Eww! Pumpkin Guts!! Can I just say, I love Em's look in the background here!

 She was very good at letting me "help" ;)

 She worked so hard!

 And this one was just lovin every second of this weekend! Uhm, maybe it's time for siblings, but then again, maybe not! Because we can always just borrow these ones ;)

And then the proud carvers with their finished pumpkins!

Isn't she adorable?! Calls me "Emarie's Mom" too even though she knows my name, love that!

She's very fond of the "peace sign" as well as the word "awkward" ;)

Other things we did were playing the Wii, a lot! And both girls were rather fond of the Photo Booth program on my laptop! I have quite a lot of pictures and videos that they made :)

See now, I am fun!

Oh and I know it's my birthday right now, but that post will have to wait.... it has been an Epic, Amazing birthday, so much to tell, and it hasn't ended yet. One of the benefits of having so many wonderful people in my life, all who want to share my birthday with me, just not all at the same time ;) But the post will be coming soon!

Just a little preview

I will just let you all think that says "21"

Due to popular demand ;)

Well it's kinda true... I have had a few ask when I post about making delicious things if they can have my recipes. So I am granting "those few" their wish and I'm going to try and post a few of my best recipes a month. More specific, I'll try and do 2 a month, but we'll see how that goes ;)

These are going to be detailed with pictures and everything, because that's the best way to do it! But I must warn, most of my recipes are a bit complex by normal standards. Because I may not cook that often, but when I do, I do it right ;)

To start off, I want to do one that's proved to be most popular with people I've had over and of course Steve!

It's my made from scratch Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients for crust (don't be alarmed, it is super easy, and unbelievably scrumptious! But you will need a food processor):

1 cup of butter (2 sticks) cubed first and then chilled in the freezer for 10-15 minutes before starting

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp Kosher salt (it's the best for cooking!)

8-10 tablespoons of ice water added one at a time until dough is the right consistency

Directions for crust:

Put the butter, flour and salt in the food processor and pulse lightly until the mixture resembles wet sand. Add the water 1 tablespoon at a time, pulsing briefly after each spoonful of water that's added. Keep adding the water until the dough barely begins to gather from the sides into larger clumps:

Then transfer to a pastry sheet or other floured surface:

Knead dough slightly (just until it all comes together although it will still be a little crumbly).

Then cut into two equal pieces and place into separate baggies. Once in the bag, knead each of the dough pieces into rounder discs and place in the refrigerator until ready to use (around 20 minutes).

Meanwhile here's the ingredients for the filling (although these may vary depending on your preferences):

1 large chicken breast or 2 smaller ones, cooked and shredded (I prefer to boil it in seasoned broth for around 25-30 minutes (or until it's all white inside) depending on the thickness, since that's the way that shreds the easiest, you can also then use the stock for your gravy)

about this much when cooked (hand shredded is the only way to do it!)

1 can of White Shoepeg Corn (Green Giant is my preference, and of course you can do frozen if you like too)

1 can of Cut Green Beans (Green Giant again, you can also do frozen here as well, it just requires more prep)

Boil together for 10 minutes

1 cup of petite baby carrots

and 2 medium red potatoes sliced into bite-sized pieces

1 can of chicken gravy or if you boiled your chicken you may add some corn-starch to the stock to thicken it up and use about 1 cup of that.

Place all of these ingredients (the cooked chicken, corn, green beans, boiled carrots and potatoes and gravy) into a medium sauce pan and slightly warm over medium low heat until ready to place in your crust.

So colorful!!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Take one of your dough discs out of the refrigerator and roll out on floured pastry sheet. Make sure it's large enough to fit into a glass pie dish

Carefully lift dough off pastry sheet and place in your pie dish

 

Pour in filling

   

Take remaining dough out of the refrigerator and roll out big enough to place over the top of the pie. When placed on top, pull edges of crust together so that you can crimp the edges (just do so with your fingers), then make an egg wash (1 egg yolk and a little warm water mixed together) and brush on top with a pastry brush

You then need to vent the pie, I like to cut in an initial for someone

I wonder who "E" is for? ;)

Place in the middle of the oven and bake for 50-60 minutes or until golden brown

Wait 5-10 minutes before cutting and serving. Should serve 6-8 and makes a wonderful Sunday family dinner meal! Serve with a nice green salad and rolls! Hope you enjoy!!

Vegetarian or Vegan? Go to my friend Marci's blog for some great meatless recipes, click here