A Call for Recipes

I went to the doctor today for my thyroid issues, long story short I guess I'm addicted to sugar and I have to change that before my thyroid will get better. So, he put me on a diet and for two weeks all I can have is: chicken, fish, turkey, nuts and veggies. No potatoes, corn, dairy, bread, etc. I feel like no dairy?! No bread?! What am I going to eat? After 2 weeks I can add in fruits, by the 8th week I can have wheat again, but for now I feel at a loss for ideas on what to make for myself. I know a few of you have had to cut things from your diets, so I'm hoping for a few delish ideas within my restrictions.
I have to admit, the timing on all this is terrible with the holidays around the corner. No Christmas fudge for me, I guess. I'm tempted to wait until the holidays are over, but the desire to feel better is stronger, so I guess I'm starting soon. Darn it.

Has anyone seen Wicked?

We bought the Wicked soundtrack last week and the girls and I are LOVING it! I haven't seen the musical so I've been trying to piece the story together. Has anyone seen it? I have a few questions:
* Is the Wicked Witch really wicked or just misunderstood? or both?
* Does it all end with you feeling bad for the wicked witch?
* What actually happens to make her bad?
* Is Glenda not so good after all?
Like I said, I haven't seen it. I could have this all wrong. I need a little story summary to help me understand it better. I want to see it SO bad! Thanks for your help!

Seasons

I have to say I have LOVED having fall. Or at least a fall where the leaves turn colors and end up in a mess in my yard. The other day we raked up the leaves into a big pile and the kids had a blast junping and throwing and playing in the leaves. Super Girl even said "Why do people think raking leaves is work? This is so much fun." I wonder if she'll feel the same way next year. We were actually having a lot of fun and making it into a much bigger production than it needed to be. But it was fun and it was creating a memory.

I bet our neighbors were just laughing at us and thinking, "first timers."

Happy Halloween!

There is actually a funny story with this picture. Our neighbor's dad has a farm where they board lots of horses. We thought it would be fun and look kind of "fall-ish" if we took pictures down there. So we loaded the hay and the kids in the back of the truck. Well, the horses saw the hay and came RUNNING! They totally swarmed the truck with the hay and kids in back. The kids LOVED the up close experience with the horses, it made me nervous. Horses are so big and powerful and unpredictable. Anyways, it all turned out OK and we got some cute pics. Super Girl is a Snow Princess, Little Princess is Alina from Fairytopia, and Little Man is Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. I think that is what we are going to change his code name to, Calvin.

Drumroll Please. . .

Ever since I saw the idea to use a carrot for a nose, I have been SO excited to carve pumpkins! I don't like scooping the slimy stuff out, so Mike is in charge of that. He does such a fabulous job! Our Little Princess wanted to do the skeleton face, she surprises us and likes creepy things sometimes. She even insisted that we draw blood on it. Creepy. Super Girl wanted the stars and Mike did the jagged teeth. Mike's brother and nieces joined us for the fun.

First Snow

We woke up to a winter wonderland on Sunday! There was no time to put clothes on, of coarse, so the girls threw on their coats and hats over their pajamas. The kids have never lived in a place with snow before, so they thought this was great. Super Girl said, "Mom, there is like 2 inches of snow out here." She said it like that was SO MUCH! It made me laugh, just wait, there will be more. We realized how unprepared for winter we are. None of us have snow shoes, we don't have a snow shovel or those little scraper things for your windshield, I guess I need to go shopping.

I love this picture of our Little Princess because it just says winter to me. The pink, freezing face, complete with a little drippy nose.

Monster Cookies

Thanks Heather for this idea! I think it is always fun creating in the kitchen with the kids. We really had a good time creating and eating our "monster cookies!" It was interesting to see the different ideas everyone came up with.

BOO!

We made these little glowing ghosts yesterday. They actually look kind of fun at night. The girls added their own touch to them. I got the idea and directions from family fun.com and its under "spirited jugs". If I knew how I would put a link to it (maybe some one could give me a little "how to" in the comment box.) :)

I love fall

I love fall and all the festivities that it brings. . . the football games, pumpkin patches, the phantom goodies, costumes, etc. We went to this fun pumpkin patch that had a corn maze, some animals, and some jump houses. It was so fun.

I am so excited to carve pumpkins this year! Not to give anything away, but I will be using other vegetables as well. . .

A few more

Here are a few pics of them all together. I haven't edited them yet. And the funny thing is when I was dressing them I knew I would be converting the pictures to black and white, so I didn't really care if the colors on their clothes matched. So they don't look very coordinating. Oh well.

one project finally done

Today I FINALLY got out and bought some black fabric so I could take a few pictures of the kids. These are the ones that will go in the frames above the cozy fireplace. I wish I were better at converting them to black and white.

Its begining to look a lot like Christmas. . .

Thats right, those little white dots you see are snow flakes! It snowed on Saturday. Snow in September?! Is this normal? I actually think it is so exciting! But, talk to me in January and I'm sure it'll be old by then. The snow had me singing Christmas carols all weekend (much to my husband's annoyance!). I thought it was SO FUN!

Also on Saturday (and more important/exciting) was Bill and Jodi's wedding. It was such a fun day. Our Little Princess was the flower girl. She was so adorable with Ethan as the ring bearer (sp?). It was so fun to see the family from near and far. On their way out they put a bouquet of flowers on Bill and Mike's dad's grave. I thought that was thoughtful and touching. We all shed tears over that one. It was a good day.
This is Bill and Jodi with some of their nieces and nephews.

Happy Fall Everyone!!

I busted out the fall decor the other day! This time of year is so exciting, it is the beginning of all the fun holidays! I have to say our new place is a bit colder than what we are used to! We are already in sweaters, can you believe it?!

My little helper. . .

Our little man is such the helper! He likes to pick ALL of the dandelions, and we have a lot of them. He cracks me up because they have to be perfectly round to blow and if they aren't he throws them down. If we are on a walk he'll pick the neighbor's, too. Such the helper!

Where is the comment thing?

for some reason, the comment thing didn't come up on my last post. . .

Yummie!

My first loaf! We have a bunch of wheat for food storage, so I thought we should be using it. I bought a wheat grinder and made my own flour, then this beautiful loaf of bread. It didn't taste as dreamy as I hoped it would, it was OK, but . . .Does anyone have a good recipe for whole wheat bread?

I was feeling a bit crafty. . .

Our Super Girl has been way into butterflies and moths lately, trying to catch all she can find (or get her hands onto). So we looked up stuff about them on the internet and then made a little "life cycle of a butterfly" thing.

We found out that some kind of butterfly likes to lay its eggs on aspen or apple trees. So we plucked these leaves from our yard and did a leaf rubbing, then glued "eggs" (rice) on them.

Then we made catterpillars out on pon-pons.

And we made butterflies by melting crayon shavings between 2 pieces of wax paper and cutting it out. It was all very easy and the kids enjoyed! So fun, I like to be crafty!

A few more scraps

We don't have our TV hooked up to the antenna(videos and DVDs only) so without TV I've had lots of time to scrapbook in the evenings. This is a double page layout. Its actually from Lisa Bearnson's KOTM, the black is a clipboard. I wish I could take better pictures of my pages, so they don't look all warped and stuff. Any tips?

This one isn't quite done, I want to put a "tis the season" rub-on in the red frame. Who knows when I'll actually go hunt that down, but I posted it anyway. I am a bit dissapointed at the angle of these pictures, it cuts off the tops of the pages and gives extra room on the sides. I need some advise from the experts. . .

Our Garden

This is our garden. . .its a weed patch actually, but I have dreams of it being a fabulous and fertile garden next year. Somehow, (we didn't plant it) this little corn stalk grew. I took a picure of it next to the Little Man, so you could see it only comes up to his shoulder. It is quite small and probably won't mature all the way, but we have enjoyed watching it grow and making plans for many more next year.

Great Find!

I have to say these are a great find if you have Pre-schoolers or one in K or 1st grade. They are very simple consonant-vowel-consonant word books. If they know just a few letter sounds they can sound out/read the books. They are great! I found the collections at Costco and Barnes and Noble.

First Day

It was our Little Princess's first day of Pre-school. She is so social, she has been begging to go for weeks! The day finally arrived and we all couldn't be happier. The only down side is that between dropping her and her older sister off at their different schools, my Tuesdays and Thursdays are broken up into little 2 hour blocks. Oh well, the price we pay. . .

Grandparents are so fun!

Thanks for the great week!!

My parents came down for a week! It was soo wonderful to see them, I really wish we lived closer!

My mom got me busy in kitchen! She taught me how to make blackberry jam, can applesauce, and I made my first pie crust in a food processor. Thanks Mom!

Unfortunately, their car was over heating on the long 15 hour drive down and the mechanics couldn't find what was wrong. They didn't trust it to drive home, so they left it here for us to sell and flew home. Looks like they will be buying a new car. . .Bummer.

Labor Day

We had a Gygi family picnic at a beautiful park. It was fun to see everyone, although we really missed those who were not there!

a few scraps

These are the September and October pages for my mom's calendar that I have been working on.

Second day

Just a quick update to let you know that Super Girl's second day of school was much better. When I picked her up today she was smiling and happy. She had some one to sit by and play with at lunch today. Hooray!

First day

It was our Super Girl's first day in a new school in a new state. She was a little nervous and a little excited. When I picked her up at the end of the day, she looked tired. She said, "It wasn't very exciting." I guess she couldn't find anyone from her class to play with at recess time, so she didn't play with anyone. It's hard being new, but it will get better. Making friends takes time.

Has anyone seen the Little Man?

With this Camo hat on I'm sure you had hardly see him! We accidentally left some things in our hotel and they were kind enough to send them back along with this hat! Who knows who that belonged to! (That's kind of gross. . .) He would NOT take it off and he wore it just like that. With it half way over his eyes. It was crackin' me up!

I've been tagged!

Thanks Carol. I have to admit that these are not my favorite things to do, but I am willing to play.



1. If you could swap faces/bodies with a celebrity who would it be?

I always think that Jennifer Anniston (sp?) has cute hair and her arms are nice and toned. I might change faces but not lives. I am quite happy being a mom and not a celeb.



2. What is your favorite room or decor in your home? (picture appreciated)

I would have to say the upstairs fireplace. I just think it looks rustic and cozy, like you want to sit around it drinking hot cocoa while it snows out side. One day I will put pictures of the kids in the picture frames and maybe some color on the walls.

3.What city or state fascinates you?

I don't really know! I just like to travel and see new things learn about their history and take pictures of it all.

4. Did your wedding turn out the way you hoped and what was your favorite part?

My wedding was nice, my style has changed so much since then that there is a lot I would go back and do over. My favorite part was the cake and the honeymoon.

5. Was there anything that happened in high school that you thought was horrifying or terrible, that you look back on now and laugh about how upset you were about it?

I can't say that there was anything too terrible that happened to me in high school. I am so boring.

Ok, so now I guess I tag Nicole, Amanda, and Jill and give you 5 new questions. You pass 5 new ones on to the poor people that you choose. Good luck. Your questions are:

1.What is your funniest/ most embarrassing childhood memory?

2. What dessert just makes you feel happy?

3. Which of your children is most like you and why?

4. What would be your "dream job" and why?

5. What color best matches your personality?

Hot Rocks are HOT!

Thanks, Heather, for the idea. We have really enjoyed doing "hot rocks" this summer.

Ahhh. . . Nature

We went up the canyon to take a hike through some cave, but there was a 2 hour wait. So, we went exploring up the canyon and found this cute reservoir in the middle of these rolling hills/mountains.

As we were hiking along the river we came accross some butterflies eating thistles. They let our Super Girl get so close, she caught one! Amazing.