Preparing For Thanksgiving

After daycare/work we went over to Mom & Dad’s to enjoy getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Autumn made this cute hat at daycare and she wanted to wear it around. She’s the cutest little (authentic) Indian I’ve ever seen.

She helped Dad put up the little white trees outside. I remember last year how much she LOVED the lights, so it was fun to watch her help Dad put them up this year.

I’ve been wanting to learn how to make Mom’s famous butterhorn rolls, and I’ve helped her the past few years, but this year it finally clicked and now I feel like I could do them on my own if I had to. I wanted to make sure and get a picture of her recipe card w/ her handwriting. I LOVE all the traditions of Thanksgiving.

Here we are making them together. We make a great team and it went a lot faster having both of us work on them together.

Here they are on the pans raising before we bake them. I love that Mom has old and stained pans. It means they’ve been loved and used. I made 2 different types of pumpkin bars for tomorrow and just in those 2 recipes I used SIX sticks of butter! That was just my two recipes, and I have no idea how much butter was used in the rolls and other things we’re going to eat tomorrow. No wonder I always gain weight at Thanksgiving, but it’s so dang good!

Lexie, Jon & Andrew finally arrived (they said the traffic was horrible). It was so cute to see Dad & Andrew sitting in the rocking chair and reading together.

After we finished making the rolls and pumpkin bars and got everything cleaned up it was time for the 2 grandbabies help Dad make smoothies for everyone…another tradition.

Kissing Cousins. SO TENDER!

We spent the rest of the evening watching the Biggest Loser: Where Are They Now special. It was really good. I was able to talk Mom & Dad & Lexie & Jon into going to see the 10:15 showing of The Blindside (the new football movie w/ Sandra Bullock in it). It was PHENOMENAL! It made me laugh, it made me cry, it was sooooo good. That is one I will definitely buy when it comes out on video. It was the perfect movie to watch the night before Thanksgiving. It was a good reminder of how incredibly blessed I am and to use those things I have to bless the lives of others.

In case you were wondering who watched Autumn & Andrew…we got Courtney & Nate to watch them for us. We got home around 12:45 am and all 4 of them were asleep on the couch. It looks like they had a lot of fun, and I know we sure did.

Happy Thanksgiving Tomorrow

Here's a fun Thanksgiving poem that a friend in Slovenija emailed to me. I wanted to share it with all of you:

'TWAS THE NIGHT OF THANKSGIVING, BUT I JUST COULDN'T SLEEP

I TRIED COUNTING BACKWARDS, I TRIED COUNTING SHEEP.

THE LEFTOVERS BECKONED - THE DARK MEAT AND WHITE.

BUT I FOUGHT THE TEMPTATION WITH ALL OF MY MIGHT.

TOSSING AND TURNING IN ANTICIPATION,

THE THOUGHT OF A SNACK BECAME INFATUATION.

SO I RACED TO THE KITCHEN, FLUNG OPEN THE DOOR.

AND GAZED AT THE FRIDGE FULL OF GOODIES GALORE.

I FELT MYSELF SWELLING SO PLUMP AND SO ROUND,

'TILL ALL OF A SUDDEN I ROSE OFF THE GROUND.

I CRASHED THROUGH THE CEILING FLOATING INTO THE SKY

WITH A MOUTHFUL OF PUDDING AND A HANDFUL OF PIE.

BUT I MANAGED TO YELL AS I SOARED PAST THE TREES

HAPPY EATING TO ALL, PASS THE CRANBERRIES PLEASE.

MAY YOUR STUFFING BE TASTY, MAY YOUR TURKEY BE PLUMP,

MAY YOUR POTATOES AND GRAVY HAVE NARY A LUMP.

MAY YOUR YAMS BE DELICIOUS, MAY YOUR PIES TAKE THE PRIZE

MAY YOUR THANKSGIVING DINNER STAY OFF OF YOUR THIGHS.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Pampered Princess

Tonight Autumn got the royal treatment.  Papa made smoothies for her, which she loved.  She has to use her special spoon/straw.

Then Courtney was getting ready for a date w/ Nate and Autumn got the royal treatment from her.  Courtney put a flower in her hair and then Autumn got some pretty eye makeup and blush put on.  She was so happy and loves that Courtney makes her feel special and pretty.

Here she is showing off her pretty makeup.  She also found some of Courtney’s warm fuzzy socks and then wanted to put on Courtney’s high heeled shoes.  Autumn loves feeling like a pampered princess and Courtney is so wonderful to fuss over her.

Manicure Monday

Liz had to get off work early today so she wouldn’t have overtime, and since I’m her ride I had to get off early, too.  Shucks!  I really needed to get my nails done, so we went together and also got pedicures.

I can’t remember the last time I got a pedicure, and it was fabulous.  The massaging chairs made the experience even better.

We opted to do the deluxe pedicure, which included a sea salt scrub on our legs, a mud type treatment on our feet wrapped in hot towels, and the best was when they rubbed our legs w/ lotion and hot rocks.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Liz kept everyone laughing w/ her normal funny self.  We were in the total lap of luxury w/ our deluxe pedicures and Sonic drinks.  I felt like a pampered princess.

Here’s the final product.  Pretty fierce and fabulous if you ask me.

Tonight after we got home, we went out and checked the mail and there was a surprise package in there from my WONDERFUL cousin, Jennifer.  She sent these adorable gloves to Autumn, and Autumn had a blast trying to put them on and get all the right fingers in the right holes.

She sent me this cut notepad w/ the SWEETEST letter written on about 15 pages of it.  I have always had a close and special bond w/ her ever since she babysat Lexie & I when we were tiny and lived in the castle house in SLC.  I remember that she let me have an entire HALF of a Totino’s pizza.  I thought that was the most amazing and wonderful thing ever!  It was better than Christmas Day.  I’ve always looked up to her and thought the world of her.  Her gift and note meant so much to me.  LOVE YOU, JENNIFER!

Autumn saw that I had my fingernails and toenails done, and she wanted to have hers done, too.  So, I busted out the nail clippers (that’s our bargain…if she wants me to paint them, then I get to cut them first).  It works as a great way for me to cut her nails.  She is so good and holds still while I paint them and then she blows on them to get them dry.

Here we are showing off our beee-utiful nails.  She’s such a diva and I adore that about her.  She’s a girl after my own heart.

We watched Dancing With the Stars (I hope Donny Osmond wins) and I let Autumn have a little York peppermint patty after dinner.  She somehow manages to get it all over her mouth.  But look at that precious smile…who couldn’t love a face like that?

Courtney Is Here!

It was a typical Sunday today…watching cartoons in the morning, getting ready, going to church, coming home, eating lunch, taking a nap, etc.  After we woke up from naps, we went over to Mom & Dad’s house b/c Mom had made a big pot roast w/ carrots and potatoes and gravy for dinner.  It was absolutely delectable.  Courtney also flew in today to visit for the Thanksgiving week.  It’s cute to see Nate & Courtney together…ah, young love.

Autumn loves having Courtney here b/c she gets to wear her high heels and play dress up.  I don’t know how Autumn manages to walk in those super high heels, but she does great and she walks around like she’s the most awesome thing since sliced bread.

I wanted to try out my zoom lens and it works great.  These pictures were taken from the other side of the room.  Autumn & Courtney were sitting on the floor drinking some hot chocolate out of their pink straws.

I absolutely LOVE these two pictures of Autumn & Courtney just enjoying their chocolate milk and laughing.

Talk about pure and complete joy and contentment.

Autumn’s such a cute little bug.  She loves to laugh and have a good time.  Her little mannerisms make her so endearing and loveable.

Unexpected Surprises

This morning it was nice and cloudy but warm outside, so I took Autumn to the park to try out my new camera w/ different settings.  The first thing she saw when we got there was this little fish and she kept saying, “Nemo! Nemo!”  I wish my camera had more bokeh.  I had it on the lowest # for aperture (which is only 5.8).  But, I still got some cute pics of Autumn and she had a blast running around.

The playground was too wet to play on very much, so we walked over to the duck pond to say hi to the ducks.  I thought this picture was so serene and calming.

There was a man and his son sitting on a bench by the pond and they had a big bag of bread that they shared w/ Autumn & I so we could feed the ducks.  It was a nice unexpected surprise.  Autumn loved it and could have stayed there all day.

We went over to Mom & Dad’s house so Autumn could see Dad before he left for work (that was the only way I could bribe her to leave the park…was to tell her we were going to go see Papa).  Nick has the flu, so I practiced using my camera settings on him since he was just laying there.  He was a good sport about it.

We spent the afternoon watching football (go BYU) and made some yummy spaghetti.  Autumn watched Mulan at least 2 times and had fun covering up her babies w/ dish towels.

I got some angry texts today from someone in my past accusing me of something I did not do.  It was a unwanted and unexpected surprise.  Autumn wanted to eat a fortune cookie we had in a bowl and guess what the fortune inside was?  It fit the situation perfectly!  Who cares what this person thinks I did or didn’t do, b/c I know the truth and that’s all that matters.

Autumn refused to take a nap this afternoon, but once Dad got her to sit still for two seconds, she was OUT!  I ran to Hobby Lobby while she was asleep to get a few things for some Christmas gifts, but they didn’t have what I needed.  I am glad I didn’t try and take Autumn to the store w/ me, b/c the place was PACKED due to a lot of 50% off sales.

We spent the rest of the evening just relaxing and spending time together as a family.  I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is next week…where has this year gone?  I love this time of the year and I’ve been naughty and already started listening to Christmas music b/c it makes me so happy.  I hope everyone else had a nice and relaxing Saturday.

We Love You, Pioneer Woman

Today at work I told Liz about the Pioneer Woman blog, which I rediscovered.  I have known about her blog for a while but haven’t been to it recently.  But I discovered her AWESOME posts about photography.  They were INCREDIBLY helpful.  Anyways, Liz got into the posts about cooking and decided that she wanted to make the enchiladas.  She had Liberty buy the ingredients and then said she wanted to come over and cook tonight.  So, they brought Lola over and we got to work making the enchiladas.  This is such a cute family picture (minus the big butcher knife that looks like Liberty is holding up to Lola…he was just cutting up olives.)

When Autumn wasn’t trying to “help” us in the kitchen, she kept herself entertained by putting stickers into this book and Lola wanted to come over and “help” her.  It was cute to see them play together.

Liz also told Nate to come over and eat w/ us.  We had a great little assembly line going on to make the enchiladas.  Everyone was in on making dinner, which made it a lot of fun.  Like Mom always says…many hands make light work.

Once we had the enchiladas in the oven, we worked on setting the table.  Liberty put Lola in Liz’s hoodie and she was SOOO cute!

We were laughing b/c Autumn’s diaper was so water logged and saggy but she didn’t seem to mind and had fun running around and helping us set the table and check on the food.

The enchiladas were really tasty, but they were too much work.  It wasn’t bad b/c 4 of us were doing it together, but if I had to do all that on my own it would not have worked.  After we ate, we played Catch Phrase and laughed off all the calories we just ate.  The way Liz was explaining stuff was HILARIOUS!  It was such a fun evening and we definitely need to do stuff like this more often.

New Moon

Tonight we went and saw the 12:05 showing of New Moon.  Last year we were sneaky and went and saw another movie while waiting for Twilight to start so we didn’t have to wait out in the cold.  This year, they let everyone into the theater at 8:30 so we didn’t have to wait outside.  Dad came over and watched Autumn so Mom & I could go and save seats.  We were able to score 7 seats all together on the back row.  I thought it was going to take forever to get to midnight, but the time actually went by really fast.  I brought my laptop and just blogged for a while.  Then when Mary and the others got there we just talked and the time flew by.  Here we are eating a ton of popcorn and drinking a huge amount of Dr. Pepper to make ourselves stay awake.

This is us after the movie (yes, Ashley’s husband was brave and came with her).  I thought the movie was really good and I am totally for team Jacob.  When he took off his shirt I was one of the first people to start clapping and saying, “YEAH!”  When Edward took of his shirt I was thinking, “Eww.  Put your shirt back on.”  But, the movie was still good and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I didn’t climb into bed until 3:00 am, but it was definitely worth it.  I had such a good time and loved being there w/ Mom & Diana & Karri & Mary & Ashley & Jordan.  GOOD TIMES!

Also, I was thrilled to find out the next movie comes out in June instead of having to wait a whole year for the next one.

Crescent Rolls Galore

Tonight for dinner I decided to try something fun that I saw online.  Autumn of course wanted to be up on the counter (in her normal attire of just a diaper and t-shirt) to help.

We made these mummy hotdogs.  Ours didn’t turn out quite like the pictures I saw online, but that’s ok b/c we had fun making them together.  Autumn kept rolling the ball up in a dough and trying to cover them completely up.

They ended up looking just fine and tasting great.  Note to self: wait until they cool down a little bit to put the mustard eyes b/c otherwise it just melts right off.  EWW.

While those were in the oven we got our cream cheese sopapillas ready.  I was taking a picture of our mummy dogs when all of a sudden this can of crescent rolls that was sitting on the counter just exploded and scared the crap out of me!  I let out a scream and ended it scared Autumn.  Some of the dough went flying across the kitchen and landed on the cabinet!

After we made our cream cheese sopapillas and had them baking away in the oven, we put on some Christmas music and danced around the kitchen and living room.  Autumn was standing on the counter and was shaking her hips so cute.  But she got all shy when I got the camera out.  She’s a good little dancer and we had fun enjoying the good food we had made.  I think I had more crescent roll dough tonight (3 cans worth) than I’ve had in the past 3 years combined.  But both the mummy dogs and cream cheese sopapillas were extremely tasty.

2 (8oz) pkgs of cream cheese
2 pkg of cresent rolls
1 & 1/2 C sugar (divided into 1 c. and 1/2c.)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 stick margarine or butter
Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a sprayed 9x13 pan with one package of crescent rolls.
Mix cream cheese with 1 cup of sugar and the vanilla. Spread on top of rolls.
Cover that with the other pkg of crescent rolls.
Melt butter & mix with the other 1/2 C sugar. Pour on top and sprinkle with cinnamon.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers. This also tastes good cold (so the recipe says but I haven't tried it yet, lol). This recipe may also be halved and baked in an 8x8 pan. Enjoy!