Halloween Carnival

All ready for the elementary school's Halloween carnival! I hate going to that thing, but the kids love it!

Pics I like

This is how we spend our time:

Beastie is such a cute goalie:


Dressing for downtime:


Making some yummy cookies:

Eva's visit

My sister is here from Puerto Rico!!! I took Beastie out of school and we made the trip to Idaho Falls to see her and her family. I love my family. On Tuesday we went to Island Park to see the grandparents, we fed the fish, and we went to Mesa Falls. I love my sisters and was sure glad to see her.




Aren't our boys so cute? They are going to be best buddies, if they don't beat each other up.



I just like this picture.

Trip to Utah with Marcia

Every year, TJ's aunt, Marcia, takes each cousin and their family to do something fun. This year we decided to just go hang out with her for a weekend. We ate a lot of food and shopped and went to the Aquarium (yep, my kids are nerdy!) It was lots of fun. Marcia, Beast, and TJ got to feed the stingrays. Beast was a bit nervous, but she did alright. TJ, though, got bit. He must taste good!




Afterward, we went to temple square.


Thanks for a fun trip, Marcia!!

This isn't a food blog, but.....

What is so good I have to hide it under a pan from my kids?

There aren't many things that I will freely admit I am good at, but I have a sixth sense and knack for one thing - I can find and make dang good desserts. Nothing else, really, but I rock desserts.

These Raspberry Ribbons are some of my all time favorite cookies, not to mention easy and fancy looking (I made them for Christmas last year). Did I also mention they are easy? So easy.



I originally found this recipe as bars that you cut into fancy sticks at allrecipes.com, here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Raspberry-Ribbons/Detail.aspx

Here it is in cookie form:

Raspberry Ribbons

Cream these:
1 C Butter (no substitutes), softened
1/2 C Sugar

Beat in these:
1 Egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine these:
2-1/4 C All purpose flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp salt

Gradually add dry ingredients into the butter mix. It could look like crumbles and you'll think, "what the...?!" But just knead it for a minute and it'll clump together.

Grease a cookie sheet or cover it with foil. Roll dough into small-ish balls. Use your thumb to make a thumbprint in each. Bake at 350 for 7 minutes. At seven minutes, remove from oven and put a small spoonful of your favorite jam (the recipe recommends seedless, but I used my home-made strawberry-blueberry jam) into the thumbprint depression. Put back in the over for 3 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool on the pan for 2 minutes. Remove to cooling rack.

In a small bowl mix this for the glaze:
1 C Powdered Sugar
2 Tbsp Evaporated Milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Glaze your cookies. Eat then and there- angels will sing! So amazing and decadent!!!!!!

This last picture? Can you see B sneakily sneaking the frosting? Ha ha ha ha!

I love, love, love San Diego!

Spring break is one of my most favorite times ever - to leave the State. I just love leaving the cold and finding somewhere warm to spend time with my family. This year? San Diego. I have fallen in love with San Diego - I love the zoo, SeaWorld, the ginormous Balboa park, the beaches, the weather, and the myriad activities available. Too bad there are so many people, though! I'd never get my hubby to move there. Oh well, I'll have to settle for McGill.

So, the first couple days we went to the beach, the zoo, and the safari park. It was fun, but my camera totally and completely busted. Jerk of a camera. I have pictures on my phone, but I can't find the micro-SD adapter. It's in my house somewhere (in that safe place I put it so I'd be able to find it later). So, for now, I just have pictures of the other stuff we did. The hubby's sister and brother-in-law met us there and we had a great time. It was sooo hard to come back to the cold.

After the zoos we went to SeaWorld. Of course we had to go to SeaWorld! My all-time favorite show was SLL- Sea Lions Live! Sea Lions are funny.

Shamu's buddies during the Shamu show (sooooo cheesy!)


Beastie got to feed the sea lions. Ew.


My hubby is a sad little land-locked beach bum! Just for him, we hit Ocean Beach, Mission Beach,and then Ocean Beach again, and then Coronado Beach.

B hated the ocean at first and wouldn't get out of the stroller.

When he finally got out, he started to eat the sand. Weird kid.


One of my new favorite places is Balboa Park. Balboa Park houses the zoo, a bunch of museums, the science center, and other things. It's soooo nice. We visited the Botanic Garden thingy while we were waiting for the science center to open.

Science Center. Eh.



My new favorite beach in the United States is Coronado Beach. The sand is amazing fine, there is no smoking allowed, and it's very kid friendly. My kiddos liked it too.





After we found out the Science Center wasn't so awesome, we decided to check out the New Children's Museum. I don't know why it has "new" in the name- it's not new; but it was awesome.

City of Rocks

We have had a couple of wonderful days of wonderful weather! So, taking advantage of this, my little family decided to spend most of it outside.
Friday after I worked, we hosted a barbeque, which I don't have pictures of. Several of our friends came and we all hung out until it got to dark and cold to keep the kids outside anymore.
Saturday we listened to conference then went exploring again. We found a place called City of Rocks. Idaho has a real nice City of Rocks, Nevada has the poor man's City of Rocks, but it is fun anyway. Our friends, the D's, came with us. We stayed and let the kids run around until it started to rain. We've had such a nice couple of days!

The D girls, my Beast, and B:


Beast:


I am bound and determined to shoot a piece of paper, the D's are watching and laughing:


T is in that little cave thingy looking for rock art:

Playing catch up again and other cute pictures

I am lame. That's all there is to it. Well, that and I'm trying to work, go to school, teach piano lessons, and still spend some time with my family - it makes me a bit busy for blogging.
But I do want to post what we've been up to the last couple of months. We've done a little of this and that and been here and there, but here are the highlights:

During a weird warm spurt in February, we decided to to take the kids and one of Alyssa's friends to Cathedral Gorge. It was still a bit nippy, but nothing we couldn't handle. The kids and dog ran and climbed all over the place. We then took them trilobite hunting - fossil hunting. Below are the girls holding their fossil-riddled shale. That was all followed up by pizza at Pioneer Pizza in Caliente (yep, we have to drive 2 hours or so to get good pizza).






For my birthday we decided to go to Idaho Falls and then cross country skiing at Harriman State Park. It was so nice and peaceful - we had a realy good time (at least for the first four miles, until we got really tired)!




Best photo series ever! Mike trying to ski down a little hill:




Molly

Starting the manly child early:


We went to St. George to get away from the cold. We love it there. This time we were trying to find Coral Sand Dunes and ended up finding this cool place in Arizona. It's called Pipe Springs and it was an old LDS ranch. They have renovated it for the tourists. They even make you pancakes in the morning and bread in the afternoon. They were also teaching people how to make sandals out of agave, but we didn't spend the time to do that.




Zion National Park



B loves appliances; I think he's been in every one of ours.