Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! This is a fun year for us. Lucas and Eden are both in Preschool now. Which means they get to wear costumes to school. Lucas is an awesome cowboy this year. He won most creative costume. Eden is a flapper. Although she really wanted to be a kangaroo again.



After we got her all dressed up she began to dance and shake it. Her fringe looked really cute! Tonight we are going to David and Tammy's neighborhood party. Like we do every year. Aaron and Shawna join us and we trick or treat in the neighborhood. It is a lot of fun and the kids love getting to see there cousins!

So happy Halloween everyone and have a wonderful day!

Cake decorationg

So I am taking a cake decorating class at Michaels. 3 weeks into the 4 and I finally got to decorate a cake. We were supposed to practice a bunch of stuff we learned in class. But because Halloween was today I scraped the grapes, apples,flowers, and cherries and just did the border, dots and leaves and made up the vine. I made a pumpkin patch. I am very proud and wanted to share!

Dinomania

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So last Friday was Lucas' birthday. He is 5 now and I can't believe how much he has grown and how fast it has gone. He is a truely amazing little boy. Definitively an apple that didn't fall too far from the tree. DJ and he share so much in common. I can turn on animal planet and the two of them would be entertained for hours.
So for his birthday we had a dino party. Since last year we had the African Safari. We invited only a few of his little friends. Just the boys this time. Then I let Eden have one friend. We had a great day. The children colored dino pictures.When all the children had arrived we played pin the plate on the stegosaurus. We then we went outside and DJ made a volcano. They thought that was pretty cool. But they just wanted to play for a while.
After a bit we came in and made dino slime (flubber) DJ read some dino books and then he opened presents. When that was finally all done we had dino bites, french fries. apples carrots and dino kool-aid.
Finally I made awesome chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate butter cream frosting and attempted a chocolate filling. Which I couldn't get to fill the cupcake right so I used it on a birthday cake we had on Sunday.
Each child went home with a goodie bag of things we had done during the party, candy and the dino they picked for there cup cake. 2 hours baby I am good!

Anyway here are some photos of the day. I hope I don't scare anyone but looking cute was not my first priority!

technical difficulties

SO today was Lucas' 5th birthday that is right 5!! We had a fantastic Dinosaur birthday party and we are all exhausted now. I took a bunch of pictures but apparently my camera was set on Raw so I have to do some rearranging won't really be able to post any photos for a day or 2. Because tomorrow (sat18th) is our 7 year anniversary and we are going to Mesa to a very special friends sealing. The adopted a beautiful baby girl and invited us to be part of this special day!
So I will post pics as soon as I can I promise!!

need something to read? I got 16 out of 100

The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books. They estimate the average adult has read only six.
Here’s what you are supposed to do:
Look at the list and bold those you have read. Italicize those we intend to read.*Star the books we LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen **
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien **
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling *
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (not sure if this counts for me reading because I've never read cover to cover)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller1
4. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell **
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis **
34. Emma - Jane Austen **
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen **
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis **
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery **
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ( i did start this)
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett **
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

YUMM-O

I made this today. I guess I should have taken a picture but it didn't last long enough. I will double the corn cakes recipe next time.

Sweet Corn Tamale Cakes the Cheesecake Factory Copycat Recipe

1 hour | 30 min prep

SERVES 4

• 
  

Salsa Verde

• 2 tomatillos, diced
• 4 ounces mild green chilies, drained and diced
• 1 green onion, minced
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, minced
• 1 1/4 teaspoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 pinch ground black pepper

For Tomato Salsa

• 1 medium tomato, diced
• 1 tablespoon minced Spanish onion
• 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon lime juice
• 1/2 small jalapeno, seeded and minced
• 1 dash salt
• 1 dash ground black pepper

For Southwestern Sauce

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon water
• 3/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 pinch onion powder
• 1 dash salt
• 1 dash garlic powder

For Cakes

• 1 1/2 cups frozen sweet corn
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 cup corn masa harina flour (corn flour)
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

For Garnish

• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/2 avocado, diced
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

1. Prepare salsa verde by combining all prepared ingredients. Chill.
2. Prepare tomato salsa by combining all prepared ingredients. Chill.
3. Prepare southwestern sauce by combining all ingredients. Chill.
4. Preheat oven to 400°F.
5. Prepare the tamale cakes by chopping 1 cup of the frozen corn in a food processor until it's coarsely pureed. Combine pureed corn with softened butter, sugar, and salt. Blend well.
6. Add masa and flour and blend well. Mix in the remaining 1/2 cup of frozen corn kernels by hand.
7. Measure 1/2 cup portions of the mixture and form it into 3" wide patties with your hands. Arrange the patties on a baking sheet and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the cakes are browned on the bottom.
8. Carefully flip all cakes with a spatula and bake for an additional 5 to 7 minutes or until other side is browned.
9. Assembly: Place all three cakes on a warmed serving platter. Dollop each with one of the three sauces. Garnish with diced avocado, cilantro and a dollop of sour cream.

Seven

7 Things I plan to do before I die

1. See more of the USA and if possible the world

2. Be a grandparent

3. Go on a mission with DJ

4. read a lot of books

5. become a good photographer

6. learn to decorate cakes

7. build my dream home


7 things I do now

1. I can cook yea!

2. love my babies and take good care of them

3. organize

4. talk... a lot

5. sew pajama pants for my kids

6. clean and do laundry

7. go on play dates, host play dates, volunteer in the classroom, and be the best Mom I can be.


7 things I can't do

1. play any sport well

2. math

3. crochet, for real I've tried a few times

4. memorize

5. cut hair

6. drive in LA, very very scary!

7. draw well

7 things that attract me to my husband (in no particular order)

1. cute butt

2. kind heart

3. he watches movies and shows that I like

4. amazing father

5. patient and calm

6. devoted

7. the best person for me


7 things that I say most often

1. "This is your warning"

2. I am tired

3. That's frinkin awesome

4. Hell yeah

5. So I was thinking...

6. I love you bunches

7. Your my favorite


7 celebrities that I admire

is this really a question


7 favorite foods

1. Ice Cream

2. whatever I can put in a tortilla

3. Mom's bean dip

4. Thanksgiving.. the whole thing (stuffing mashed potatoes, pie...)

5. I like Easter too (ham, sour cream potatoes...)

6. Baked Potato with the works

7. I perfect steak


7 people who need to do this

1. Jana

2. Tiffany

3. Katie baby

4. Tammy

5. Heather

6. Shawna

7. Sara G