Hey Pumpkin...Let's Carve a Pumpkin!

Thanks to the Werretts, we had a great evening carving pumpkins and eating yummy Carmel fondue! (So Good! Check out their cooking blog... http://experimentalchefs.blogspot.com/) Katelyn and I got to go to a cute little pumpkin patch in the morning and pick out our carving pumpkin--we had a good time! We missed Daddy, but it was fun to get a pumpkin!

This one Mom?

The wagon was for carting around pumpkins and children--but not my child!! She's a pusher!

What's it going to be? What's it going to be?

The whole crew, hard at work!And the finished products...can you guess which one is ours? The "Y" of course! :)

Happy Halloween!

The Project This Week...

I admit it. I'm a dumpster diver! :)
People in Texas get rid of some really great stuff. I guess it's because they aren't frugal and resourceful Mormons, they get rid of stuff that can be fixed. And I happened to be find one of these great pieces of "garbage" on the side of the road! Check it out!!

Before--not too bad, actually, but it didn't match

After--Cuteness!
I refinished Katelyn's desk a month or so ago. They match!


Katelyn's room is coming along nicely. Decorating her huge room is lower on the budget, but we've been doing some things here and there. When it's all beautiful and done with yellow and beadboard, it will be SO cute! Until then, it's still cute! :)

Crazy Eights...

I was tagged (I love this tagging thing!) Thanks Cass!

8 TV Shows I Love To Watch...
Bones
The Office
Charmed
Jon and Kate, Plus 8
House
Good Eats
Burn Notice
Battlestar Galactica

8 Favorite Restaurants
The Olive Garden
Chili's
Applebees
Mimi's Cafe
Red Robin
The Spaghetti Factory
Subway
Cold Stone

8 Things That Happened Yesterday
Refinished Katelyn's shelf
Vacuumed the whole house
Made a yummy new-recipe dinner
Watched Good Eats with Mike
Blogged
Searched for free stuff on Craigslist and Freecycle
Read books with Katelyn
Slept :)

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To
Decorating my bedroom and the gameroom
Our Young Women and Excellence evening
Elena coming home so we can start more projects
Buying a Vinyl Lettering machine
Our Halloween Party
The Garden to grow
Thanksgiving
Christmas

8 Things on My Wish List
A date with Mike
Money to decorate with
A trip to Utah (or maybe a house there...? :)
A trip to Hawaii
A Vinyl Lettering machine
A date at Six Flags
Katelyn to stop living in destructo mode
To lose 20 pounds

8 People I'm Tagging
Andrew
Elena
Steph
Christine
Rachel
Melanie
Emily
Kat

Have a lovely Thursday!

I'm a Winner!!

So, here's a shout out to KILT country, my favorite country station here in Houston. (Seriously, it really is the best one around...the other one advertises that it is more liked, but it's not my favorite!) I won, I won, I won!! I've been trying all month to win their current contest, and I finally did! What did I win...

$500 BUCKS! Wahoo!



We should be responsible and spend it on things like debt and the such, but we're going to buy stuff for the garden and decorating and get a freezer. Yeah!

Good luck to all of you...you could be the next winner! :)

Trunk or Treat...

Halloween is so much more fun with a little kid around! And having themed costumes is GREAT!
This year for Halloween Mike was the Man in the Yellow Hat and Katelyn was Curious George. And who was I, you might ask? Why, the Woman in the Yellow Hat, of course!
We attended our wards Trunk or Treat evening...my YW girls had a face painting booth and I must say, Missy has some incredible talent when it comes to art! She was drawing amazing things!
Katelyn and Mike checked out the booths and then we all three went and enjoyed the Trunk or Treating experience. Katelyn didn't really get it, but liked getting the candy and got good at saying Thank You to everybody! We had lots of fun!


We might dress up again sometime before Halloween, and if so I'll get some better pictures! Enjoy these for now!

The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden...

One of the great things about living in Texas (among lots of others!!) is that there are 3 growing seasons. Luckily, one of them happens to be right now! This helps to combat our periodic fall sadness disorder (i.e. the feelings of missing the Utah fall mountains, the cold weather, the snow, the smell of fall, etc). If we can't be enjoying the type of fall that we remembered enjoying while we were dating, at least we get to grow some pretty awesome produce!
Now, I say we, but truth be told, Mike is the head gardener at our house. He checks on his garden and is the singular reason that things are growing so well! Great job Babe!

We grew a garden in the summer, or at least, we attempted to grow a garden in the summer. The only thing that survived (out of the 20 + plants that we planted) was our watermelon...and although it had 5 different watermelon fruits growing on it, we actually one got to enjoy one of them. One was overripe, 2 got pulled too quickly, 1 never grew past the itty-bitty stage, and 1 was completely yummy! :)

Our One Good Watermelon

Mike researched and tried a new thing for our fall garden--and subsequent gardens from here on out: Square Foot Gardening--and a Christmas idea for anyone...the newest Square Food Gardening book. I keep checking the first edition out from the library and it's really getting silly! :) This square foot gardening thing is really cool. I'm still a bit skeptical at times, but things are growing really great so I guess I'm wrong! The premise is that you can grow lots of things in a little amount of space if you have great soil and great conditions for the plants.
And it seems to be working-check it out for yourself!


We've (i.e. Mike) planted herbs, green beans (they should be ready for Thanksgiving!), zucchini, peas, lettuce (2 kinds!), carrots, onions, shallots, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts. Mike is probably also going to plant potatoes this week.


Anyone--come and visit and we'll feed you some fresh grown produce! Yummy, yummy! :)

Katelyn loves help...its the favorite part of her day, I think!

By the way, Mike started a Gardening Blog. I don't have a link for it yet, but when I get one, I'll put it up! :) Have a great Sabbath!

I know what I'm doing November 21st....How about you?

A Picture Journal--

Here is a simple visual journal of why someone with munchkins should not ever choose this type of doorknob...they are the bane of my existence! :)






And all this before 9:00 o' clock in the morning! Enough said! :)

How To Host A Murder--

So...we've been busy, busy--but since people are waiting for this post, I'll do it before catching you up on everything else we've been doing!

Friday night, my friend Elena and I hosted a How To Host A Murder Mystery Dinner Party. It was so much fun! We invited 5 couples from the ward (ourselves included) to our house and then took a trip to another life and place; I was the town tramp, Mike a traveling carnival worker. Other cast members included the Sheriff, the up and coming music celebrity, the preacher and his wife, the man who had been abducted by aliens too many time to count, the trailer park owner, the hairdresser and makeup artist and the biker dude. We had a great time!

Elena and I borrowed a whole bunch of stuff and re-decorated my house to look like Bubba's Bar, and everybody showed up in the greatest costumes. We had great food--there was a ton!--and even better company! This is something we are surely going to do again!

The Cast


The Set


The Culprits

Preacher Jim Bob and his wife, Mary Lou (a.k.a. Bill and Melanie Curtis--she stuffed her bum for her costume! Hilarious!! And...'You can be forgiven!")

Biker Punk and Twyla, the trailer park millionaire (a.k.a. Luke and Emily Werrett--everybody pegged Emily as the killer....mmmm? Play the game to find out!)

Town Hooker and Passing through worker--Carney Folk (I put streaks in my hair and Mike smeared grease all over! Great!!)

Sheriff Sissy and Dreaming Country Star, Dusty Diamond (a.k.a Andrew and Elena Baugh. Andrew was hilarious coming up with songs all the time, and Elena has a wild side! :)

Virgil, the alien abductee, and Mrs. Bouffant, Beauty Shop owner (a.k.a. Glen and Kathryn Barney. Glen originally had his hat covered in tin foil--so the aliens don't read your thought, don't you know!)

Obviously, I can't quite remember every body's cast name, but it was an unforgettable experience nonetheless!

Conference Weekend-

One more post today...
We headed to San Antonio for Conference Weekend. It was a special treat to get to spend Conference Weekend with family again!
Wasn't Conference great? It started off with an awesome Relief Society Conference and just got better from there. I loved Sister Daltons talk, and with me being in Young Womens now it had a special pull on my heart. I hope my girls were listening--we'll go over it again, I'm sure, even if they were! I also really appreciated President Eyrings' talk on unity. It's something we are really working towards in YW's. It was a very uplifting and relaxing weekend (too relaxing, maybe. I'll admit I fell asleep at times!). Can't wait until next April!
During Priesthood Session us girls dropped Dee off at the airport and then headed to Bass Pro Shop for some deliciously huge dessert and touring of the fishes and animals. Katelyn loved it! And so did our tummies!
Thanks for the great weekend! We're so glad to have you so close! :)

A Week with Miss Deanna Louise!

So...our fun traveling adventures aren't over yet! :) Deanna flew home with Elena and I. We had a LOVELY week, although I felt guilty most of the week that I was busy playing catch-up from being out of the town and so Dee had to spend way too much time with a book. Oh well! :) Hopefully she'll come again?!
Here's her e-mail about the week. She sums it up really well, so I'll just let you read it that way!

"Hello everyone!

I just got back from my week long adventure in Houston. It was fabulous. I flew down with Mindy and Katelyn early on Monday morning. It was a 14 hour travel day for us. Between the two flights, getting lost on the way from the airport to the in-law's, the car not starting and the search for jumper cables, the ever-so-slow fast food place who gave us the wrong order so we had to go back, and the 3 hour drive from San Antonio to Houston, it made the trip a little longer than planned. Next time, we'll spend the extra $100 and just fly into Houston.

We had a fabulous time. We went shoe shopping and found some fun t-shirts. We also went to the Galleria- the 2nd largest mall in the US. We found a scarf for $600! We also managed to knock down an entire sunglasses display by simply touching it. I don't know how it happened, but the store clerk was irate and we were laughing so hard we couldn't talk. We left very quickly after we picked up the sunglasses and put them in the tupperware containers that the clerk thrust under our noses. We watched the old videos from Bear Lake and Park City. We were the biggests dorks, but we sure had fun.

I got to go to YW's with Mindy and meet all of her girls. I think you'll do great Mindy, but you certainly have a challenge before you. We also went to the movie theatre, cooked some great food, and Mindy demonstrated her skill at accidental throwing scoops of ice cream across the kitchen. Mindy's house is beautiful. It was fun to go see where she lived and meet some of her friends.

We also drove the hour up to Marissa's, so I was able to completely surprise Marissa. that was great. We had a bar-b-que with them the next evening and played some games. Katelyn was a cutie. It thought she was great in the grocery store. Everyone thought she was the cutest baby every seen. She was pretty cute.

It was a great time. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even flew back by myself and it wasn't so bad. I met a guy on the way from Denver to SLC. Pretty sure he was about 32, but he flirted like he wasn't. It was a fun flight. And, no, there's no date. He's headed back to Kansas and flying out for Afghanistan in a couple weeks.

Thanks for letting me stay Mindy! I hope you all enjoy the pictures!

love,

Deanna"

Here are some Kodak Moments from the week!
From Left to Right: Mike, Mindy, Ammon, Deanna, Marissa, Paul, Braden
So cute nephew Miss Deanna has!
The Sexy Early Morning Look--Yeow! ;)
Shopping!

(P.S. Deanna has the most outrageous dating/getting hit on stories EVER! A 30 year old dude on the airplane is nothing! :)

A Week with Miss Deanna Louise!

So...our fun traveling adventures aren't over yet! :) Deanna flew home with Elena and I. We had a LOVELY week, although I felt guilty most of the week that I was busy playing catch-up from being out of the town and so Dee had to spend way too much time with a book. Oh well! :) Hopefully she'll come again?!
Here's her e-mail about the week. She sums it up really well, so I'll just let you read it that way!

Hello everyone!

I just got back from my week long adventure in Houston. It was fabulous. I flew down with Mindy and Katelyn early on Monday morning. It was a 14 hour travel day for us. Between the two flights, getting lost on the way from the airport to the in-law's, the car not starting and the search for jumper cables, the ever-so-slow fast food place who gave us the wrong order so we had to go back, and the 3 hour drive from San Antonio to Houston, it made the trip a little longer than planned. Next time, we'll spend the extra $100 and just fly into Houston.

We had a fabulous time. We went shoe shopping and found some fun t-shirts. We also went to the Galleria- the 2nd largest mall in the US. We found a scarf for $600! We also managed to knock down an entire sunglasses display by simply touching it. I don't know how it happened, but the store clerk was irate and we were laughing so hard we couldn't talk. We left very quickly after we picked up the sunglasses and put them in the tupperware containers that the clerk thrust under our noses. We watched the old videos from Bear Lake and Park City. We were the biggests dorks, but we sure had fun.

I got to go to YW's with Mindy and meet all of her girls. I think you'll do great Mindy, but you certainly have a challenge before you. We also went to the movie theatre, cooked some great food, and Mindy demonstrated her skill at accidently throwing scoops of ice cream across the kitchen. Mindy's house is beautiful. It was fun to go see where she lived and meet some of her friends.

We also drove the hour up to Marissa's, so I was able to completely surprise Marissa. that was great. We had a bar-b-que with them the next evening and played some games. Katelyn was a cutie. It thought she was great in the grocery store. Everyone thought she was the cutest baby every seen. She was pretty cute.

It was a great time. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even flew back by myself and it wasn't so bad. I met a guy on the way from Denver to SLC. Pretty sure he was about 32, but he flirted like he wasn't. It was a fun flight. And, no, there's no date. He's headed back to Kansas and flying out for Afghanistan in a couple weeks.

Thanks for letting me stay Mindy! I hope you all enjoy the pictures!

love,

Deanna

Here are some Kodak Moments from the week!

A Pleasant Day in Pleasant Grove

Time for a new post...more about our Utah trip! :)

Katelyn and I also got to spend a day with Becky, Ally, Kayla, and Chris in Pleasant Grove (boy, Chris...that's a lot of women you gotta deal with! :) We drove down with my mom and grandma who were going to spend the day with Aunt Suzanne in Provo. We got there earlish morning and left lateish evening. It was great!

We hung out and let the girls play, had the most YUMMY tomato soup ever (get the recipe from Becky, it's divine...)and had some shopping adventures. It was so nice just to sit and chat. Becky is that type of sister that you want living by you--you know, the one who has you over for dinner and games and the one with whom you would run to the grocery store and trade babysitting. I can see us gallivanting all over Utah county taking our girls to activities and, at times, sending them with Dads so we could go and do projects....She's one of the BIG reasons we really miss being in Utah! :(

But...our day together was awesome! Yummy food, and playtime. We took the girls to Ally's Storytime at the library and the girls had a lovely time picking out new books and causing a ruckus. Naptime was nice and quiet and then we headed to the Candle Store.

Story time...do you think we could get a smile?
Picking books at the Library

For all those lucky people who live in Utah--and especially Utah County--you have got to visit this store. For Every Body Outlet. ( http://www.foreverybody.com/ ) I discovered For Every Body at BYU when a roommate worked there...these candles are a FRACTION of the cost of anywhere else, and they really work! I always save room for more yummy candles when I go home; I about surpassed my luggage weight limit coming home this time. I think that we did very well....until the end. And then things got hilarious.
One thing about these candles is that many of them have a very soft wax, like body butter consistency, or maybe (if you're Ally), Conditioner? Mousse? Pomade? Who stores un-lidded, yummy smelling, soft candles on the floor within the reach of little munchkins (or what type of mother and aunt don't pay attention :), I don't know...but the result is wax covered hair!

By the way--check out the outfit! I'm in trouble...Ally loves to dress herself, and she has quite a sense of style. The problem is, I see Katelyn turning into an Ally--oh boy! Interesting outfits, here we come! I'm going to be learning from you, Becky!

Look Mom! I can do my own hair!


The evening was spent getting candle wax out of hair, which, in case you ever need to know, works best when olive oil is used. And a lot of holding munchkins over the sink, under water, with much screaming! Not recommended! :)

Thanks for the great day, Becky! It's sad we didn't get any great pictures of all of us...guess I'll just have to come back! :)