It's officially Fall! We've been to the Pumpkin Patch

Saturday afternoon we headed out to Lone Pine Farms with Jeff's sisters and mom. The kids fed some goats and posed for outhouse pictures. Then we road the horse pulled "hayride" out to the pumpkin patch and picked pumpkins. It was so much fun to be all together as a family!


Alona feeding a goat.

Ashley grossed out by the saliva the goat left on her hand!

Ashley in the outhouse.


Trevin in the outhouse.

Natalie in the outhouse.

Ashten in the outhouse.

Alona in the outhouse.

Dylan in the outhouse.

Natalie came up to Dylan and grabbed his hand. They started walking together and it was too cute!

Ashley and Alona. It was a bit windy!

Picking our pumkins!

Alona found a big one! Made a good seat!

Jeff and Natalie. Jeff needs a haircut! (Did that the next day.)

Trevin, Ashten and Natalie found a half green pumpkin and decided to check it out.

I handed the camera to the kids! That never happens! Ashley took this one of Alona and Trevin.

Can you believe ther is actually a picture with me in it? We plan to get the kids a small digital for Christmas!

Alona took this one! See all the pumpkins! This was the ride back to pay for them.

Tagged (times two!)

7 things.....

1. I have lots of gray hair! (and I am not currently covering it up)

2. Anything pumpkin (food that is) reminds me of my Dad, and then Thanksgiving and Christmas and then Christmas caroling and sitting in the back of the van wishing I wasn't caroling because I was being a difficult teenager......

3. Jeff gets the kids off to the bus every morning while I sleep in! (I'm livin' the life!)

4. My childhood dream was to be a famous singer.

5. I love asparagus. yumm

6. Even with all the mistakes I've made, I wouldn't change anything even if I could. (I wouldn't have my life now if it weren't for all those mistakes)

7. I'm high maintenance! (but who didn't know that about me?)

I'm not tagging anyone this time.... You can do this if you feel up to it!

Next Tag:

4th and 4th Tag

So here are the rules of the game. Go to your pictures folder and take the fourth picture from the fourth file and post it. That's it.


This is a picture of my Mom (on the left) in Florida. She and my Dad went to the Hippocrates Health Institute to learn about a raw diet. This was one of her last pictures. How appropriate since this is breast cancer awareness month and she died in October as well! To all you women, please do self exams and get regular mammograms.

Zucchini Bread Yummmmm!

I made zucchini bread the other day, using the recipe Charles tried when he was here. Remember that disaster? Of course, I know what everything in my pantry really is, so it turned out well. I made another batch today. It is very moist and wonderful.
Here is the recipe:

4 c shredded zuchinni
3 c flour
2 1/2 c sugar
1 1/4 c vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
4 T + 1 t vanilla
1 T cinnamon
1 1/2 salt
1 1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 c nuts, optional

Preheat oven 325. Grease 2 9x5x3 pans. Blend all ingredients on low speed for 1 min, scraping bowl. Beat at medium for 1 minute. Bake 50 min to 1 hour or more if neccesary. Cool for 10 min. and remove to cool completely.

It has arrived! (Rock Band 2, that is.)

12:01 Saturday night found Jeff at Walmart buying Rock Band 2. I was asleep in my nice warm bed, by the way. Sunday, Josh came over to play with us. As we were playing (Jeff on guitar, Josh on drums, and myself singing) Josh complained that his drums weren't picking up all the beats. He and Jeff decided to go to Best Buy to exchange them along with a guitar. They came with the original Rock Band and we had the protection plan on them. They got there and the service manager offered to exchange them for Rock Band 2 with the instruments for $29! What a trade! It is normally $180! And we didn't have to return the Rock Band disk. So now we have the newer instruments as well as several microphones (cause you know I break those all the time with my awesome vocal ability, hehehehe...). So now we have played it Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. Maybe we'll play again tonight. I have to say, Spoonman by Soundgarden was THE MOST awesome and fun song to play! A little rough on the vocals, but not too bad since I already knew it. The kids love that one! The best part about RB2 is that the kids can play now that they have a no fail mode! If you think the original Rock Band is enough, RB2 has some awesome songs and really neat features! We just participated in a Battle last night! We were ranked #211. Not so great, but we also don't have a bassist right now, so we can't get as good a score as a full band. We are raked #27 on Moving to Seattle by The Material, with only 3 band members!
Can you tell I am obsessed? I just love singing. And music in general!
Thanks for reading my ramblings!

Sprains, food poisoning, and colds!

Last week was a nightmare! It started off with my cold. It was now the second week of my cold. It was getting better, but now I was coughing like crazy. Tuesday, the 14th was my Mom's birthday. I went on a field trip with Ashley's class. We had a good time. I got back around 12:30 and went to pick up Alona and Natalie. My friend made a pork chop for me. I haven't had pork in at least 2 1/2 years. That night, I started feeling sick. I woke up in the middle of the night with food poisoning! It was awful. I lost 8 lbs on Wednesday. Thursday I was feeling better, but still weak from dehydration and lack of food. Ashley came home from school that day with tears in her eyes. She had twisted her ankle at recess. The teacher forgot to look at it when they got back to the classroom. I didn't think much of it since she had just walked home from the bus stop. But a little while later I looked over and could see how swollen it had become. I called her doctor and talked with them about it. Since we don't currently have insurance due to Jeff's contract position for 6 months, I didn't want to do an x-ray if it wasn't necessary. We decided to wrap it with an ace bandage, elevate it, and ice it. The nurse said it wouldn't make it worse if it was broken, but it probably wasn't broken from just twisting it. I talked to my brother Charles. He had just learned about sprains that day. We decided that it didn't really seam to be broken. She is doing much better now, but we have to keep her from trying to run and play too much!

On a positive note, I went to Portland Friday and Saturday for Time Out For Women with some friends! We had a great time. It was very motivational and uplifting. And it is always great to spend time with friends!

Tagged!

First, I would like to thank Kristi for this one!

Four things I love about my husband:
1. The way he takes care of our girls!
2. He cleans, does dishes, and does laundry! He even folds it!
3. His work ethic. He works very hard!
4. His smile!

Four Movies I would watch more than once: (movies I would, or movies I have because Jeff watches them over and over and over and over...)
1. Cool As Ice (with Vanilla Ice- yeah, it's like that)
2. Iron Man
3. Stella
4. The Emperor's New Groove

Four TV shows I watch:
1. Life
2. Pushing Daisies
3. Eureka
4. Psych

Four Places I've been:
1. Washington D.C.
2. Mexico (just across the Texas border)
3. Nauvoo
4. Padre Island

Four Places I would like to go:
1. Somewhere warm and sunny
2. Somewhere warm and sunny
3. Somewhere warm and sunny
4. Europe

Four people who regularly email me:
1. Dad
2. Charles
3. Jeff
4. Fabric.com

Four things I would like to eat:
1. Ice Cream
2. Hearty Greek Pasta
3. Profiterole Puffs
4. Mashed Potatoes

Four things I look forward to in the next year:
1. Alona going to 1st grade - no more meeting the bus in the middle of the day!
2. Benefits (when Jeff's contract is up)
3. Seeing my family (there is a reunion this coming summer, right?)
4. Ashley's baptism ( and our bathroom remodel)

Four people I tag:
1. Naomi
2. Emily
3. Heidi
4. umm, I'm a loser and don't know that many people in blogland who haven't already been tagged!

Sick, Sick, Sick!!!

For the last week, everyone in our family has been sick! Alona and Natalie started getting a cold last week. On Sunday morning, I woke up with it! And boy, did it hit hard! I woke up at 10:30 Sunday morning and then napped from 1-3:30! Monday morning I woke up sounding awful. I had a fever and ached all over. Tuesday was more of the same. Wednesday, the fever and aching were gone, but it was still bad. Now I am starting to feel a bit better, but the coughing! Oh, the coughing! I feel like it will never end! Jeff has it now and it is just starting to get bad. He woke up with the fever and aching yesterday. Ashley has gotten off easy so far with just a little congestion, but we'll see if it ever gets worse for her! I feel like we live in a sea of tissues! Hopefully next week we will return to normal so I can start doing things again. I miss kickboxing, my morning walks, sewing, eating....