Halloween Pics

Don't let the following pictures fool you. Deep, deep down I'm a true Halloween Humbug. Personally, I just can't stand to spend money on the holiday. I don't love to dress up and I don't like to spend my energy dressing up the young ones. But my little Chan LOVES to dress up; always has and probably always will. From a very young age he has found things around the house to make costumes and ways to be different characters. In fact, I made this layout a couple of years ago about how he loved to dress up everyday. So when he started asking (since summer) to be this Lego guy, how could I possibly make an excuse? I couldn't. So we went to DI, got some blue pants and shirt and I managed to iron a bit of silvery and green fabric to them. Then we made this little ID tag for his pants. When it was finished, it is an understatement to say he was thrilled. As for Tess, I had a very nice sister come to my rescue and send me a costume for her. She made me look REALLY good! (thanks Andi) Everywhere we went, Tess was just doted over because she looked so adorable. And it helped that she had a very cute "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you". The only problem with her trick or treating antics was she wanted to go in to everyone's house. . .not just stepping in, but all the way in! One house she hurried in and tried to shut the door behind her. It was just too funny.Tessa saying "BOO!"I have to admit, it was actually fun. I can't promise pull off similar results another year, but at least we have one year of this Halloween Humbug mom softening.

Food for College

Each of our boys have got some eating quirks that merit recording; some come about because of pickiness and others stem from an extreme liking of certain foods. We always tease them about what they will need to have in order to survive college (and missions) without Mom's cooking.

In order for Cache to survive without me, he will need to take a rice cooker and a bread machine. All other foods are secondary. With rice you can get frozen egg rolls and a little soy sauce and call it an outstanding meal. There are oriental sauces and mixes you can buy and whip up quickly if you have rice handy. With bread (store-bought bread just doesn't seem to do) you can make peanut butter toast, grilled cheese and other sandwiches. He could thrive off of these two items.

In order for Caleb to survive, he will need a LARGE selection of condiments, sauces and spices. This will include, but not be limited to season salt, garlic salt, barbecue sauce, ranch dressing, poppy seed dressing, vinegar types of dressings, soy sauce, Teriyaki sauce, Tabasco sauce, Tabasco Chipolte Sauce, A-1 Sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, Taco Time taco sauce. . . okay, you get the picture. ANYTHING can be made edible if the sauce/spice selection is adequate!

In order for Chandler to survive, he will need a can opener, a bunch of canned fruit and a subscription to a Fruit of the Month Club.

Tessa hasn't shown her colors yet, but so far, she is leaning to needing a rice cooker also.

Another faith book

Here is the book I sent to my friend, Brooke, who won the Kindness Begins With Me prize. Just thought I'd share some of it. The cover is made from a texture template so you can see through to the 2nd page. They make such fun covers. Here are just a few of the pages. Most of them are singles so you can read the quotes but one is the spread so you can see how it looks as a whole. (you can click on them to see them larger if you want)Thanks for winning, Brooke, this was super fun to make!

Food Storage

In the fall of 1999 amongst the big to-do about Y2K, I was in a bad situation. I was pregnant with Chandler, living in a home that rent was $700 a month. My husband at that time didn't have a job until Decemberish (and then it was only at Burger King). My teaching wages were being garnished for said husband's unpaid bills so my paycheck was just over $1,000 each month. (As memory serves me it was something like $1,024.) I paid $270 in tithing and if you are any good at math, you can see that there wasn't much left. What was left bought gas and groceries for a month. So at that time, the concept of needing food storage for reasons created by computer glitches worried me because I didn't have any. Tough, worrisome times.

Ever since then I have prayed for a way to be made for me to have food storage. I'm here to tell you that is a lot of years of prayers! For the past few years I have been able to make a lot of progress. When Tom and I bought our home just over 3 years ago, one of the first things we did was build a storage room. There was an unfinished room in the basement perfect for a storage room. Except for a little help from Tom's dad with the ceiling, Tom and I hung the sheetrock, taped, mudded, sanded, textured and painted our little storage room ourselves. Ladies, if you've never had the opportunity to sheetrock, you haven't lived!! It is very character building (well, maybe it is only character building if you're a wimp like me ;). Then my dad came and helped us build the shelves. (which was greatly appreciated because we about gave up at that point!) So we started filling those shelves. It was so satisfying even though progress to get all we needed seemed slow. Here is a picture almost 3 years ago.
I think I should state my philosophy on food storage because I have run into many. All are good. But my storage reflects why I do it. While I do have wheat and rice, dry beans and powdered milk etc. as the church suggests, my idea is broader. I want to have things on hand so we can live off of it for more than disasters and such. Personally, I want to have supplies in case Tom loses his job or is disabled or our income is changed for some reason. It also saves us a lot of money from month to month. Because I spend a lot of time shopping sales and getting the best prices that I can, and because I store things we use every day, we save money. I always stretch the monthly shopping trips out a few more days because we eat out of our storage room. And staying out of the grocery store saves us money. So for us it is good in so many ways.

Also, food storage is more important to me than nice furniture, vacations and other things. So there are a lot of things I sacrifice to keep it up. But it brings me peace of mind and when I've prayed for it for so long, I feel like I need to do my part.

So with all that, here are few a pictures of where we are now. This picture is what you see when you walk in the door. The shelves on the right are double width and you access those from the other side (we have two aisles). On the back wall, I have canned vegetables, oils, pastas and things for the kids' lunches (granola bars, drinks etc.) Along the bottom of the whole room we have buckets filled with rice, beans and wheat.This is the right side of the first aisle. I have condiments and drink mixes on the top, creamed soups and evaporated milk on the next shelf, the rest of it is canned beans, tomato sauce, mac and cheese and spices. (There is a great store close to me that sells spices in bulk. I have about a pound of every spice I use regularly in my spice cabinet.) This is the left side of the first aisle. On this side I have baking goods, canned fruits and powdered milk.This is kind of the 'junk' area, but I also use it for nonfood supplies such as soap, hygiene stuff and paper and plastic products.This is the left side of the 2nd aisle. We only have a few food products on this side, cans of potato pearls, pickles and flour. We also have lots of water. (We also plan to use what is in our water heater also in case we need water.)
I didn't take a picture of the other side because that is really the junk area! We keep Christmas stuff, camping stuff, empty useful containers, fabric scraps, clothes for kids to grow into and other accumulations on that side. I love going into this room because it reminds me what happens when you pray and work so hard for something. And I always feel at peace because there is safety in counsel.

Tessa

Toddlers change so much so fast that I need to be better at recording Tessa's little goings on because she has many. (Way too many, in fact. . . if you see her listed on eBay, please don't think harshly of me, it just meant we had a very hard day.) This is a documentary post so don't feel obligated to read!

One day she woke up insistent upon having a 'party'. It just happened on a day that I was planning on making cinnamon rolls to celebrate the coming home of Tom and Cache from their very last back packing trip so I said "Okay". That was the wrong thing to say. That just turned her on. Soon she was dancing and singing "Cha, cha, cha, ooo, laa, laa, Gooooo Monkeys!" and wanting to blow out birthday candles. So we pulled out the candles and had them on cinnamon rolls.Traditionally, Tessie has been a great night sleeper because she is so worn out from running everywhere she goes and not taking longish naps. But lately she has been giving us fits at nights. We have tried lots of different things to help her sleep through the night (getting her warmer jammies, feeding her right before bed etc.) to take care of possible reasons for wake-ups. We haven't been super successful. Often at 3:00AM, we hear a little girl pushing her stroller down the hall off to play. She has climbed out of her crib, strippped down to her onesie, put her doll in her stroller and on her way before we hear a peep. Suggestions as to how to fix this issue are welcome.

She LOVES shoes. Our neighbors gave us some cute pink Converse high tops when she was born and the smallest size they could find was size 6 (ATM she is barely a size 4). One day she was rummaging through her closet and found them. Immediately she wanted her 'boots'. She also found a jacket, even though it was quite hot, insisted on wearing them both all day. She has to change her shoes multiple times a day and often wants to wear them over her jammies to bed. (I promise that she usually wears girl clothes, but Christine gave us two brand new sleepers she hadn't used with Luke and who cares what she wears to bed---we took a lot of slack from Cache about it "How come Tess always wears mens' pajamas?"!)

Tess loves when the kids come home from school. She always wants to 'do math'. So I have to give her a paper and pencil and she gets up to the table and says things like "nine" "thirteen" as she writes. Pretty cute.I think it is pretty typical of this age to start inserting independence for what they wear. Tess is no different. She loves her shoes, her skirts and her swimsuit. You can't see it, but in this picture she has a swim diaper on too, over her onesie. Of course, how is a swimsuit not complete without the swim diaper???? One day Tess heard us talking about going to the temple. Anytime she hears the word 'go' she squeals at the top of her lungs "I want come!" even if we are just discussing and not actually going at that time. Which was the case this day. And somehow she decided she had to go in the truck. So the rest of the night she was a broken record "Want temple, in truck. Want temple, in truck."

She loves, loves, loves people and learns names very quickly. She knows most of our neighbor's names and asks where they are nearly every day. After I've exhausted the "They're at school, they're at work" answers for everyone she can think of, she goes to cousins or others she knows. When we are at stores or out and about instead of asking 'what' everything is, like most kids, she asks 'who' everyone is. Sometimes she is so insistent about it that I just make up a name and she is happy with that.

She also loves to be on everything. The counter and the piano are the worst. I have moved stools, kept them on their sides etc. to try to keep her down from things. That worked for a while, until she learned how to stand the stools and chairs back up and push them to where she wants and climbs. There were a few days that I got thinking that she was getting better in that department but has started back up again at greater force than she was before. (which was why she almost was listed on eBay the other day)

Like most kids with older siblings, they want to go to school. She has a little back pack that she puts books in and wants to go to school. This is just one of her pictures of 'school'.
She loves books. Thankfully I have a lot from my teaching years (about 8 plastic bins). When I need a quiet moment, I can pull a new box and keep her occupied for 20 minutes or so. She is also getting really good at 'reading' her board books. Although she usually only says a few words for each book, you can tell that she has got the gist of the books and knows which book has which story.

Just a few more pictures: Made this skirt for her a couple of months ago and just never got it posted.Since she is on the small side, we are really looking forward to that 20 lb. mark so we can upgrade to a forward facing carseat. The other day we took her to the post office to weigh her (at the little do-it yourself machine) and I was discouraged that the first number was 18. But I didn't pay attention to the ounces until Tom pointed it out. It was 14. So she is close to 19 lbs. When I came home and charted it on her growth chart, I was greatly encouraged because she is on the upswing. Such great news!! (and we finally went up to size 3 diapers!)
Despite all the exhaustion she causes me, I really do love her! Tom's patriarchal blessing says he'll be blessed with energetic children and Tessa sure fits the bill, so often I curse him for the circles she makes me run, but she is SO much fun and I'm very blessed to be her momma.

Caleb's birthday

I'm SSSOOOOO behind on this post! Caleb's birthday was on the 6th! But so many things have taken priority, and unfortunately, too often it has been keeping my food inside. I will catch up, even if I post too many times in one day. We had such a busy day on his birthday because of football games and it was a Monday so we also squeezed in FHE. But I think we were still able to make it a fun day for him. The meal he requested was Won Ton Salad and rolls. For his cake he wanted a red velvet covered with caramel sauce and Cool Whip then sprinkled with crushed Butterfingers. For cake toppers, I have always just gotten a small toy the kids would like, but as they have gotten older, it has become more challenging. (Hence uglier cakes!!) But I can't break tradition! This cake has colored electrical tape for candler holders (Caleb loves stuff like that) and some house numbers for him to use on a go cart he is building.

Caleb is such a great kid. He is so friendly with everyone and has such a talent for drawing friends. He does a great job in school and works hard to keep his grades good. He is very responsible and is one I can always depend on getting his jobs done. He gets up on his own at 5:30 every morning, showers, does indexing, scripture reading and his jobs before school. But my most very favorite thing about him is he is my lifesaver with Tess. He totes her around to play with friends, takes her to his room and plays so well with her just to give me a break. Here is a picture from Chandler's birthday party (he was coaching one of the football teams) with Tessa on his hip thinking he is having the time of his life. He is a great asset to our family!

Announcement

I am laughing at how many people are thinking I'm not telling the gender. That is something I probably would do. . . .just not this time :). However I will send you on a hunt to find out. You will find one of these rattles in an old post. I think you should be able to tell from the picture the answer to the poll. Happy hunting! (when you find it, keep it to yourself so other have a chance to look too :).

Please Vote!

Check out the poll on the side bar. It is only open for a day or so :). Cast your vote!

Photo Tag

Katie tagged me. The instructions were to go to your picture folder, go to the 4th folder and get the 4th picture and post it. Problem?? I've already posted it. It was Cache's ceramic turtle box. And then I decided that I really hadn't chosen the 4th picture folder because the 3rd file in my picture folder was some Adobe something or other so I went to the 5th folder and looked at the 4th picture. Already posted that one too. Tessa riding in the backpack while Tom is mowing the lawn. So. . . I went with 4 very random photos. Is that fair? Who knows, maybe the blogging police will cite me and I'll have to make other penance. Heh. Maybe someone out there will enjoy them. Anywho, here they are:

New years party 08 at my parents. My mom had made all of the grandkids pjs.Jonny sporting an ever so lovely Bumbo tiara.
The boys decked out in excessive padding for a very rough football game.A mess I lived with on my kitchen table for a few weeks while Cache worked on the model design and building merit badge. Fun times.If you want to be tagged. I'll tag you. Just let me know:)

Conference Weekend Food

{As you can tell I'm playing catch up.}

Cache and Tom go home teaching to a cute little family and a couple of months ago the Allreds served them some Brazilian Lemonade. Cache loved it and has been wanting to make it since. So on conference weekend Tom told everyone to choose a food they wanted to make and we would have it. Here was our menu:

Cache: Brazilian Lemonade (I call it Brazilian Limeade :). We changed it up to taste after following the basic recipe. It was way yummy!Caleb: Hot Wings Tom was in charge of making these since I don't like them. He has his own recipe that includes something like "a smiley face of mustard" and other standard measurements. (this is a stolen photo since hungry children took priority over a picture for my blog :)Chandler: Twix (LOVED his choice. . . no prep for me whatsoever!)Tom: Jalapeno Poppers (I actually really liked these!)Tessa: Caramel Rolls (so Tess didn't really choose these on her own, if we left it up to her she would probably choose something like Marshmallow Mateys)Me: Yellow Delicious Apples (gotta throw something healthy in the mix:)Let me assure you, Conference Weekend was a hit! I think it just may become a family tradition!

Zucchini Boats

I mentioned in an earlier post that we were going to make zucchini boats for an FHE game, but I'm just barely getting around to posting about it. I was in charge of games that night and the boys didn't know what we were doing. When the time was turned over to me, I asked Cache to go out in the garden and pick his favorite zucchini. I got very strange looks. He did it and on his way back in, I sent Chandler out to get his. I greeted each of them as they came back with a knife and a spoon and told them to go to the compost pit and make a boat with their zucchini. I got more quizzical looks, but they're obedient because they are used to me being on the weird side. Once they got going, I told them that they needed to decorate them and that at 7:30 we were going to launch them. (they had about 25 minutes or so to work) They had a lot of fun---I was actually surprised with how much they got into it--sometimes with teenages you just never know! Then we piled into the van and found a small creek and let them sail them. I don't know if you can tell, but Cache has birthday candles (yes, he lit them), a little Lego dude and a Russian flag on his boat.Yes, this water was VERY cold! But that didn't stop Caleb or Chandler from stepping right in so they could get a good launching postition!Just liked this picture of Chan trying to balance on the rocks. . . he eventually gave in and got his shoes and socks wet.Definitely cheap family entertainment if you still have some zucchini left!