Christmas Parade!

Yep! Christmas has officially begun. We skipped the Black Friday mess and just waited till late afternoon to go downtown for the Christmas Parade. Qwest was the parade sponser so we got to sit up front with the Grand Marshall. It was freezing! Well maybe a few degrees lower than that. I'll be using the photos from that for our Christmas cards this year. (I guess I better get going on that tomorrow huh?) So when we got home it was hot showers. ( I got a cold one, ran out of hot water) and hot mulled cider. I figured I would do this real quick before I just didn't do it. If you know what I mean. I still have to get all my Scrapapalooza layouts posted so I'll do that next.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankful for pie kit from Atomic Cupcake. font is John Handy. ATC template is from Tandika at digiscrap designer.

I know it's the end of the day but Thanksgiving seems to be a 4 day weekend thing now days. Today I made us a turkeyand stuffing, some itty bitty new potatos, a sourcream apple pie, and pumpkin pie. I am so thankful that God sent Christ to us for our salvation. He brought us here to Idaho with so many ready new friends. I am thankful for these new friends and the old ones I left in Washington and Oregon, and all my online friends that I have made. I am thankful for family so far away from us now. I am so thankful for my husband and boys. God has been good to us, and has many great things in store for us.

Monday again

It was long enough between blogs that I actually had to go look at my last post. Is that sad or what?
So that bread was a flop. I forgot to add the vital wheat gluten. Not enough gluten means no rise. Which equals something resembling bricks. So Friday I tried again and this time I remembered the gluten. Much better! I had 4 very nice loaves of whole wheat bread. It made for a very educatonal day. The boys got to see the bread happen from grain, to flour, to dough. They got to watch it rise and then formed it into loaves. Of course it was the best bread they ever had. They helped to make it. When that was all done I also made banana bread to take with me on Saturday to the womens craft time. Got the recipe out of the Cake Mix Doctor by Ann Byrn. Good recipe the kids just love it and just as good as my scratch recipe.
Saturday of course I went had a good time knitting and talking. Then I took off to go to a little class on preparing herbal remedies. Haven't done that in years. I'm going to have to get back into doing that. Then when I got home we took off to go look for a buffet for the dining room. I tell you there's alot out there that cost a fortune and is made of junk and looks like junk and the workmanship is crap!!! Can you believe the best deal was a KMart and it not only was just the right size but it was made better than the ones we saw that cost $700 and up! So today I have to finish making the chicken enchiladas for home care group tonight and move some of the dishes in these really high up cabinets. After I wash dishes! Guess I better go do that now. Oh before I leave I have been doing some layouts that I need to post I'll try to do that tonight. Bye

To long...

It has just been too long between blog posts. I don't even remember half of the last week. I really need to keep up on this posting regularly. Well Francis has a messed up back. Glad we caught it now and not later. Took him to his Bithday party. Guess he had a blast. Bryce and I went to Fred Meyers real quick. They had those scrapbook thermal cups on sale and I figured what it would cost to by them online plus shipping would be about the same. I got every cup they had in the store. heehee
Saturday Phil had to work so we pretty much stayed home all day. I did order my grain mill though.
Sunday was church and then the rest of the day I just don't remember. Is that bad or what? The boys say I have a short term memory problem.
Monday we walked over to the chiropractors office since it is like only a block away. The day was cloudy but really nice. Not too warm and not too cold.
Let's nothing special Tuesday. Wednesday though my mill showed up. It is an awesome mill. We ran some popcorn through it and VIOLA! Cornmeal. I cleaned up my kitchen and started some whole wheat bread. I'm going to play with the settings a little more and see what I get. That's all for now. Oh wait! Don't condem me for not voting, but our move was not so good for that. We will be registered for the next elections though. Just bad timing this time around. I'll try to post a little more later on. With some new layouts.

Ever have one of those days?

Yesterday sure felt like it. I must be doing good up here in Idaho. I've been waking up around 7am everyday almost. Even when I can sleep in! In Vancouver I always felt like I had been hit by a truck and didn't want to get out of bed. Now I'm pretty sure it's the allergies that was making me feel that way. So Phil slept in and I checked my email and downloaded a bunch of actions I had bought. Then I got the applebutter started. This is the recipe I put together for it.

Apple Butter

12 cups apple pulp
3 cups sugar (3 to 4)
3 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp allspice
1/4 cup vinegar

Combine and cook slowly until thick, several hours. Can; process
15-20 minutes in boiling water bath.

Makes 10 half-pints.

I also shared this on the recipe thread at the Butternug Squash Forums you should check it out.
After Phil FINALLY! Got up we went to IHOP for some breakfast. A late breakfast at that! Then we went to the Citizens Community Bank to open an account. That way we have a bank here in town not all the way in Portland Oregon. Then we needed to get money for the van we were looking at. Phil called the bank in Oregon and it was a sort of duh?! Situation. Back to the bank we went and got our money. Then we headed over to where the guy works that has the van. Figures he was at home eating lunch. So we ran over to where Desseret Industries has their thrift store. We wanted to check out about the dry canning facility there. Really cool! We will have to do some homeschool thing there. Definatly hot chocolate, potato pearls(we have potatos it would be emergancy preparedness), refried beans, and dry milk.
That was fun to see. AnyyyWayyy...It was back to where the van was, and the guy was back at work. We did our transaction, Bye,bye money. So much for savings.Then it was off to the County Courthouse. Yep we're official now. We got both cars registered. Then since the Drivers Licensing was right there we went ahead and did that too. Wow! I passed without studying! So now I have an official Idaho Drivers License! Your not seeing it either. You can tell the kids were driving me nuts. No matter how much I tried I had a wild hair that kept sticking up. But I guess that's par for the course with license pictures.
When we were done there we were late for the Chiropractors and had to run down there for our appointments. Francis had a full exam. Poor kid has had back pain really bad since the move. You know what? His back is a mess. My poor baby. Bye the time that was done it was pretty late. We came home and Francis made bean burritos. While Phil changed the car plates over. I worked on my Mexican meat mix. That took 2 trips to the store. DUH!
* Exported from MasterCook Mac *

Homemade Mexican Meat Mix

Recipe By : _Make-A-Mix_ by Eliason, Harward & Westover
Serving Size : 1 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Homemade Convenience Mixes Meat

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
5 pounds beef roast -- OR
5 pounds combination of beef and pork roasts
3 onions -- chopped
1 can chopped green chilies -- 4 ounces
2 cans green salsa -- 7 ounces each
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
4 tablespoons unbleached flour
4 teaspoons salt -- or to taste
1 teaspoon ground cumin

Preheat oven to 275=B0. Place the meat in a large roasting pan or Dutch ov
en. Do NOT add salt or water. Cover with a tight lid and roast for 8-10 h
ours, or until well done. (Alternate method: Cook with 1 cup of water for
35-40 minutes in a pressure cooker.)
Drain meat, reserving juices. Cool meat; remove any bones. Shred meat and
set aside.

Spray a large skillet with nonstick cooking spray. Saute onions and green
chilies for 1 minute. Add salsa, garlic powder, flour, salt and cumin. Re
duce heat and cook for 1 minute. Stir in reserved meat and meat juices. C
ook for 5 minutes until thickened. Cool completely.

Put about 3 cups of meat mixture into each of three 1-quart freezer contain
ers, leaving 1/2" space at the top. Seal and label container with date and
contents. Freeze. Use within 6 months.


Makes about 9 cups of Homemade Mexican Meat Mix.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


and of course my applebutter. I used the extra meat mixture to make some taquitos. That was soooo good! When that was all done I also got around to doing the credits blinkie for my blog decorations. By the time I was done with this I was just pooped. Now I have to head back to the Chiroprators to find out all of Francis' diagnosis. Then it's B-Day present shopping and a few other things. I'll tell you about it later. Gotta run now.

Catching up

Well now I guess I should post about last night. Let's see... Yesterday I got up with all kinds of plans. I spent probably half the day cleaning up and finding my dining room table. It was getting pretty deep lets just say. That and the phone sure was busy too. Then after some turkey avocado sandwiches for lunch we set the table up to carve pumpkins. Figures my kids would choose complicated designs. Here are the pictures unedited straight from the camera so sorry if they are a little dark but I like manual settings since the auto just wants to use a flash, and I wanted to show you what it looks like in the dark.
Here is Francis' Jack O' Lantern.


and here is Bryce's which took me fooooeevva!



Then there's mine. A little sloppy since I did it last and I was just a bit tired after 3 hours of carving pumpkins.



So then the boys were just to excited to eat dinner and I was too pooped. Turns out that everyone was too busy with Halloween to bother calling on their phone bills so Phil got to come home early. I guess in this neighborhood the Mormons take advantage of the park being so close and do a big shindig at the park. Then practically everyone around just parks backed up to Cotant Park and hands candy out from the cars. It was all very interesting. So maybe I bought too much candy. I really didn't know what to expect so I rather have too much than not enough. I tell you it was somewhere around 19 degrees Fahrenheit out there to so it was cold! Here is a picture of how one lady did up her car it was really cool.



Then we came home and the boys warmed up a little bit. Once they were warm they wanted to go out again! So Phil took them out.







That was my Tuesday, Halloween day!

Today was an interesting day. I forgot to mention that Tuesday Shawn stopped by and dropped off 4 big bags of sorted apples that she had picked from that tree next door. So today I had to do something with it. I first cleaned the kitchen really good got the counters picked up as much as I could. Considering how tiny this kitchen is. Then I busted out the Kitchen Aid Juicer and cleaned and chopped up apples for juice. It was going good for a bit there then the thing started to make funny noises. Something doesn't look right now. I fiddled with it for a bit then decided to just go ahead and make applesauce from the rest of the chopped up apples. Of course that was probably a good thing since Kathy called about the newsletter and if we wanted to collect for Operation Christmas Child. I made several calls and found out no collection here in Pocatello but there was one in Idaho Falls. So we will collect a few and then her husband will drop them off when he goes to work. By now the apples had cooled enough to sauce them. Phil called and said he got off work early again so I figured I had just a little time to finish the applesauce. The boys and I ran the cooked apples through the hand mill in no time flat. Phil came home so we ran to look at a van that we will most likely buy tomorrow. Then we grabbed the boys and took off for dinner. I tell you Mama Inez's is awesome! After dinner we came home and did another batch of applesauce. Bryce is like all applesauced out. He says it's the best applesauce ever. I think it's becuase he put his own hard work into it. heehee... Now I have some apple butter working in the oven and some Mexican Meat Mix cooking in the crockpot. These will cook all night and most of tomorrow. Oh and some beefjerky marinating in the fridge. When the applesauce is done I will put the jerky in the oven. The boys are just drooling over that thought. Now I need to change the blog decorations before bed. Maybe I'll have a chance to start on a layout or two. Talk about layouts don't for get to stop by Butternug Squash and post some of your Halloween pictures for the Photography challenge. That will be ending on November 10th so there is lots of time to get them posted.
Also this weeks kit at the store will be the Woody and Scrappy paper sets. They are 50% off! That's right half price! Which makes them only $1.38 each set. They are great papers for your basics. So make sure you pick them up. Well I'm going to redecorate the blog and head to bed. Tomorrow will be another busy day. Way too busy for me. For once I would like to sleep all day just for the sake of sleeping all day. Not because I'm sick or to drugged up on allergy medicine. YOU Know? Toodles for now.