Thanksgiving Recap

Only 10 days too late...that's the scoop around here though:) I don't even have my tree up yet.....at the rate I'm going everyone is getting their presents for Valentine's Day this year:)

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year and we had an awesome day chilling with my brother Chad and my brother Shay and his family.

Max getting comfy on his Uncle Shay's lap.

The kids - both human and canine:)

The spread.

Is it time to eat? Is it time to eat? Is it time to eat?


I tried out a new recipe this year - Pumpkin Trifle and it was SO good!! Darling Hubby said you better take a picture of that before we eat it all:) So yummy and so easy:

• 1 package (14-1/2 ounces) gingerbread cake mix (I used spice cake mix)
  
• 1-1/4 cups water
• 1 egg
• 4 cups cold fat-free milk
• 4 packages (1 ounce each) sugar-free instant butterscotch pudding mix (I used vanilla pudding)
  
• 1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon each ground ginger, nutmeg and allspice
• 1 carton (12 ounces) frozen reduced-fat whipped topping, thawed

• In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, water and egg, beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Pour into an ungreased 8-in. square baking pan.
• Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. When completely cooled, crumble the cake. Set aside 1/4 cup crumbs for garnish.
• In a large bowl, whisk milk and pudding mixes for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened. Let stand for 2 minutes or until soft-set. Stir in pumpkin and spices until well blended.
• In a trifle bowl or 3-1/2-qt. glass serving bowl, layer a fourth of the cake crumbs, half of the pumpkin mixture, a fourth of the cake crumbs and half of the whipped topping. Repeat layers. Garnish with reserved cake crumbs. Serve immediately or refrigerate until serving.

Christmas Carols

I love Christmas music....all the way from Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer to O Holy Night and everything in between:) I love rediscovering songs I've forgotten or that just never come to mind throughout the year. I didn't get my advent calendar done. My tree isn't up. Our Christmas chain still has 25 links on it, but Miss S and I have been listening to Christmas music everyday on the way to and home from school.

I love this song that we heard today.

Do You Hear What I Hear

Said the night wind to the little lamb,

"Do you see what I see?
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
Do you see what I see?
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite,
With a tail as big as a kite."

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
"Do you hear what I hear?
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear?
A song, a song high above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea,
With a voice as big as the sea."

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,
"Do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know?
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold--
Let us bring him silver and gold,
Let us bring him silver and gold."

Said the king to the people everywhere,
"Listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people, everywhere,
Listen to what I say!
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light,
He will bring us goodness and light."

More of my favorite Christmas carols to come in the next few weeks. What's your favorite Christmas song?

Week of Gratitude: Change

I completely wore myself out last week and didn't finish my Week of Gratitude posts!!! I have been really grateful lately for change....life changing changes that I wasn't expecting that kind of came up and kicked me in the butt for a little while. When I was laid off I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do next - go back to school? try to be a stay at home mom? completely change fields? I just didn't know. But taking this new job just felt so right and I really feel like this is the place I need to be.

On a completely different note - I changed my hair:) I have bangs!!!! I literally don't think I've had bangs since high school. And I went dark dark dark with the color - I've never had it this dark before. It was a HUGE change but I'm really liking it:)

So for big changes and little changes I am grateful. We can't learn and grow and progress in life without change.

Week of Gratitude: Thanksgiving

Today I am thankful for you, for my family and for my faith.
Have a beautiful day with family and friends!!!!!

Week of Gratitude: Tuesday

Today I am grateful for music.....which fills in my life in many different capacities. Whether it's playing the organ for Sacrament meeting, playing the piano for musical numbers, singing in musical numbers, listening to music on the radio.....I literally do not go a day without listening to several hours worth of some form of music.

Exodus 15:2 tells us the Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation; he is my God and I will prepare him an in habitation; my father's God and I exalt him.

In Doctrine & Covenants 25:12 it reads For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads.

Be grateful for the music that you can make and strive to surround yourself with good uplifting music. Personally I think the best uplifting music is the Beatles. I'll be sure to ask Jesus if he's a Beatles or a Stones man when I meet him:)

Week of Gratitude: Monday

Ahhh....Thanksgiving week...one of my favorite weeks of all. An uber short work week, beautiful day with family, putting up Christmas on Friday....I'm thankful for it all.

Today I am especially grateful for my family - Miss S and Hubby especially. The three little puppies that bring joy in to our lives. My darling baby brother who is watching Miss S this week while I work. My middle brother (I suppose I should give them all nicknames since I do refer to them quite often on my blog) - okey dokey - here's my family and their nicknames I have just created:

Baby brother -Chadwick
Middle brother - Funny Boy
Oldest brother - Soldier Boy
Baby sister - Rye Bread
Middle Sister - Ms. A

So anyway....Chadwick is watching Miss S all week - and I love him for that. Miss S loves her Uncle Chadwick SO much!! They will have fun together.

This will be the first Thanksgiving in many years that I will be with two of my siblings - Chadwick and Funny Boy and his family will all be celebrating at my house. We will have a houseful of kids - just like Thanksgivings growing up. I'm SO looking forward to it.

I'd love to hear what you are grateful for today....I'll be posting ALL week about different things I am grateful for.

Happy Veteran's Day

Soldiers and Jesus by James Otto

Grand-daddy came home in a B-52
In a pine box covered in red, white and blue
He was one of the brave and the proud and the few

Twenty-one guns helped us say goodbye
I stood there in silence tryin' hard not to cry
As the preacher, he quoted, lines written in red
And then he folded his bible and in a broken voice, he said

There's only two people who's every died for me
Laid down their lives just so I could be free
They both went through hell, beared crosses and shells
And both got back up again after they fell

They never picked the fight, but they're there
To pick up the pieces

God only knows who we'd be without soldiers and Jesus

It seems like the news loves to run 'em both down
But whenever we need 'em, they're always around
So don't hand me a party's political views
'Cause they're a left side, a right side, and then there's the truth

There's only two people who's every died for me
Laid down their lives just so I could be free
They both went through hell, beared crosses and shells
And both got back up again after they fell

They never picked the fight, but they're there
To pick up the pieces
God only knows who we'd be without soldiers and Jesus

To me, they're both heroes for the path that they chose
'Cause one fights for my life, one fights for my soul

There's only two people who's every died for me
Laid down their lives just so I could be free
They both went through hell, beared crosses and shells
And both got back up again after they fell

They never picked the fight, but they're there
To pick up the pieces

God only knows where we'd be without soldiers and Jesus
Soldiers and Jesus

Lukcy Shoes

These shoes shall henceforth be known as my lucky shoes:) Cause I wore them to a job interview and totally got the job! Yep - I go back to work on Monday. I've enjoyed my three weeks as a stay at home mom....but I feel really good about this job:)


PS my lovely shoes are from Savers - $6.99 and they are Enzo Angiolini's - one of my favorites for dressy shoes:)

Sleeping Beauties

I can't even remember if I've mentioned that we've added a new puppy to our family - we adopted Izzy from a breeder down south and traveled to Socorro three weeks ago to pick her up. She is absolutely darling! She's a Yorkie/Affenpinscher mix, and weighs a whopping 5.50 pounds. She's feisty, and spirited and super lovey dovey. She loves to cuddle and give kisses. And yes, I kiss my dogs on the lips. I love me some puppy kisses. She gets along well with the two boys - though Max gets pretty rough with her sometimes. She fights right back and stands her ground.

I went in last night to turn off Miss S's light and found this little scene. See Izzy all cuddled up there amongst the Build-A-Bears??? My two baby girls all snuggled up together.

Cub Scouts

I had an all day cub scout training yesterday....kind of one of those that you grumble about going to but then have an awesome time once you get there:) My favorite quote shared was "No person goes about a more godly purpose than he who is mindful of the right upbringing not only of his children but of other people's children." Socrates about 400 BC

The Boy Scouts treated us to an awesome Order of the Arrow presentation ceremony -

And I got to hang out with my fabulous co-leader, Carla.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Happy Halloween from our family to yours!

Big Changes

For the first time in my adult life I am unemployed. As of 5:00 p.m. Friday I am officially out of a job. I'm taking this week to regroup, organize our finances and figure out just what the hell I want to do next.

Crafting

I'm so excited for the Fall TV lineup....now that all my beloved shows have premiered again I'm getting in some serious crafting time. I love to watch marathons of CSI, NCIS, How I Met Your Mother and Glee on the weekends at my computer with my headphones on just crafting away.

This weekend I got out my beads and made a couple new bracelets.

I can never have enough beaded bracelets:)

And I'm almost to the end of Season 4 on Dexter....I'll be so sad when I have to wait forever for Season 5 to come out on DVD. I really can't stand John Lithgow....I don't think he's funny at ALL but he is doing an excellent job as the Trinity killer.

What's That I See?

You know it's Fall in New Mexico when you smell green chile roasting and you see hot air balloons in the air. The Balloon Fiesta every October is one of my all time favorite events....but Hubby is not a fan....he's not that into crowds. So the last several years my brother Chad has come in to town and we've spent time at the Fiesta with him. This year he surprised Miss S again - we had told her he wasn't going to make it this year. He snuck in to the house and woke her up at 5:00 a.m. the morning we went to the Fiesta.

There could not have been a more perfect day for us to have gone. There has been years when you have to dress in parkas it's been so cold but this year we only took sweatshirts. Some years the wind blows too hard and the balloons can't go up - there was barely a breeze this year so ALL the balloons got to go up.

Chad took these pictures and he is one damn good photographer.

Pumpkin Patch

Miss S and I went to the Pumpkin Patch last week (our little annual tradition)....the weather was perfect.

We played, ate and took a wagon ride out to the field to pick our pumpkins.

These baby goats kept nuzzling up to the fence...I want a baby goat SO bad!!

And this guy cracked me up...say cheese:)

I Made It Monday

Why hello there my poor neglected little blog. Life has gotten exponentially busy again and blogging has been at the bottom of my priority list.
Oh well!! I blog because I love it and I blog when I have something to say....so I guess I haven't had a lot to say lately:)

I had the day off for Columbus Day and I took advantage of having a nice quiet house ALL to myself while Hubby was at work and Miss s was at school and finally finished Miss S's Twilight Quilt!! Holy cow I love the polka dot I used for the binding.

Isn't it beautiful?!?!