Fall Baking

Fall means holiday baking and thinking about gifts! Every year my family does ravioli with Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's just not the same without it. The recipe comes from my great-grandfather who was born in Italy. There was no written recipe, he just knew how much to put in, so the year before he died, my aunt sat down as he poured spices into his hand, she measured and wrote it down. It's a labor of love, and this is only my second time trying it on my own, and it is so rewarding. I think I ended up with over 12 dozen, I even had to pull off a gluten-free one for my hubby, we'll see how they turn out come Thanksgiving, meanwhile, until then I get to admire them in my freezer! Someday the kids will get to help out a little more, but for this year they just got to play in the flour and make it snow! Fun to clean up, let me tell you.

Last year at Wendy's awesome family and neighbors brought over some yummy treats, so I tried making some of them too... Tomatillo Salsa turned out great, but I wasn't too thrilled with the recipe I found for Jalepeno Jelly... guess I have to really hunt down Debby's recipe :) Meanwhile, anyone else have one they tried and love?

Aren't they so pretty? I love seeing the nice clean, jarred foods :) Call me grandma, but it brings back so many memories!

Happy Halloween

For me an important part of each holiday is fun/good food!!! Yay, so for Halloween we started the day off with Pumpkin Pancakes :) Banana eyes, raisin nose, and of course, chocolate chip smiles.

With all of our sickness we didn't get around to carving pumpkins until the day of, and somehow mom and dad seem to end up doing all the work, that's why we only did 3 this year.

Our creepy, fun dinner... eyeball soup, monster bites and zombie toes. Tally wasn't too excited about it, we had to un-disguise the food before she'd eat it. We'd watched all the Indiana Jones movies recently, so the eyeball soup was a little too creepy for her.


Our dressed up gang... the whole run of princesses... Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine, Belle, Cinderella, and their brave protector, Superman! Thanks to trunk-or-treats I don't think we need to buy any easter candy, because it probably will last us that long!

Fall Fun

A couple Saturdays ago, before we all got the flu, we got together with some friends and went to a pumpkin patch and another of the local lakes. We found a few turning leaves!

Tally's 3rd Birthday

Tally had the funnest birthday ever... seriously who wouldn't give to be 3 again! Everything was so exciting. She got a huge butterfly baloon, presents all day, and even a package from Uncle Brian. She wanted her favorite color, green, cake, and mommy was a "best friend" all day long because of how excited she was about everything she got. We even got lucky enough to have Wendy and sisters Penny and Cindy come by for dinner... good timing. After dinner we did a fire in our new fire-pit dad made and it was the end to a perfect day. Now she can't wait until it's her birthday again, too bad it has to end.

Kids Chore Chart

I LOVE the world of blogging... I ran across this today and thought I'd pass it along. Cute and free and easy. You can fill in your own chores and print out for your kids:

Just click here if you want to make one yourself!

Open House

Here you go Andrea (and anyone else who wanted a peak), the pics of our new house :)

Small towns are Awesome

I lived in a really small town for a good amount of my growing up and it was so much fun... so being here in Chino Valley, AZ I'm loving the small town feel and events. On Saturday we had a window in the rain just long enough to enjoy the town parade and activities. They had a blow-up bouncy castle and waterslide that probably went up about 10 or 12 feet. Sammie was content to just watch, but Tally was all for it... she went down the waterslide 3 times. It was hilarious.