Playing Dress Up!

This lovely lady came to visit today. Do you recognize her? She was dressed rather flamboyantly, and she was having a good time!

Weekend

The weekends seem to go by so quickly don't they? We had a busy one, but filled with fun stuff!

• Friday - we went to Livermore for Nathan's Biology class where he got to do his first dissection - an earthworm. After class a bunch of us went out for lunch to McDonald's where I had a really yummy (surprisingly yummy) Asian salad!
• Friday night, Lizzy got to spend the night at her friend Claire's house for a birthday sleepover. The rest of us had Game Night here with some of our friends from our home school group! We also had ice cream sundaes; lots of fun!
• Saturday, after we picked up Lizzy, Kenny took the kids all bowling with friends from church. I got to stay home all by myself for a few hours, which I spent getting ready for this week's school assignment (I had to read three different chapters from three different History textbooks for three different kids' test reviews!).
  
• Sunday we had a great day at church, despite the fact that it seemed like half our church was gone due to sickness!

Today we are back to school...and the sun is shining after several days of rain! Hope everyone is having a great Monday!

Recipe Tag!

My cousin Caley tagged me in "Blog Recipe Tag" on HER blog, so here are my recipes!

I tag Stef, Jess and Julie to put THREE recipes on their blogs now! :o)

And for anyone who might be on the Weight Watchers diet, I have the points already figured out on the first two because these are recipes I use often. :)











Pizza Casserole
(from Taste of Home – makes TWO casseroles)

3 C uncooked spiral pasta
2 lbs ground turkey
1 medium onion, chopped
2 sm cans mushrooms (or use fresh)
1 (15oz) can tomato sauce
1 (14oz) jar pizza sauce
1 (6oz) can tomato paste
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp oregano
4 C shredded mozzarella
1 pkg turkey pepperoni
½ C parmesan cheese

Cook ground turkey with onion; drain. Add mushrooms, sauces, tomato paste and all seasonings. Let simmer for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, cook pasta. Once pasta is cooked, mix with sauce. Preheat oven to 350. Divide half of the mixture between two greased casserole dishes. Layer with cheese and pepperoni. (Can use other pizza tops.)Top with the other half of the noodle mix and the rest of the cheese. Top with parmesan and bake covered, 20 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 10-15 minutes.
~WW - 5pts = 1/16 of recipe or 1/8 of one




Creamy Black Bean Salsa Chicken

4 large chicken breasts, skinless and boneless
1 C water
1 chicken bouillon cube
1 C salsa (any type)
1 can yellow corn, drained
2 cans black beans, drained
¼ - ½ C taco seasoning
1 C light sour cream
1 ½ C shredded cheddar

Put all ingredients in crock pot, except for sour cream and cheese. Cook on low for 6 hours or more, shredding chicken during the cooking process. Shortly before serving, stir in sour cream and cheese. Serve with tortillas, or over tortilla chips or rice.
~WW = 5pts for 1/12 of pot without tortillas etc



Easy Chunky Chocolate Cookies

1 pkg dark chocolate fudge cake mix
2 eggs
½ C butter, melted
¼ C brown sugar, packed
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C chocolate chips
½ C chopped nuts-optional

Preheat oven to 350. Stir cake mix, eggs, butter, brown sugar and vanilla together with a spoon until blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired. Drop onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 12 minutes. Cookies will still be puffy. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet and then remove to wire rack to cool.

Saturday

Nothing much new here! We had a good week, filled with lots of every day activities! Kenny was gone on a business trip on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and got home late Thursday night. He went to the World Ag Expo in Tulare (near Fresno) where his company had a booth to promote their water treatment for agriculture.

Last night we had our friends' kids here to spend the night. Our kids have had a great time, and I realized this morning that it was Lizzy's first time to have a friend "sleep over" in her room! She has spent the night at other people's houses, but I don't think she has ever had a friend sleep here. So, that was fun for Lizzy! :)

This afternoon Nathan has a piano recital, so we're looking forward to that!

Hope everyone has a great Saturday! We are going to go clean our garage up a little bit so the kids can use the ping pong table!

Concert!

Last night Kenny took Nathan to the TobyMac/Jeremy Camp/Matthew West concert at UCDavis. They had a great time; it was like getting to go to three separate concerts in one! The seats we got were really good, and they both said the show was great! They got home around midnight last night, with ears still buzzing. :o)

Jeremy Camp

Toby Mac

Happy 16th Birthday Nathan!!

February 11, 2008 ~ Nathan is 16 today!

We celebrated his birthday last night, since he is going to the TobyMac/Jeremy Camp concert tonight with Kenny. Happy Birthday Nathan! We love you!




Tim lights the candles - it took him a while to get all 16 lit!

Lizzy looks on while Nathan opens his gifts. He rec'd gift cards and a nice, soft blanket for his bed. In addition to the concert tickets, we ordered him a Wii game, but it 's a new game that won't be released until next month. So, that will be a late gift!

Grandma came over and had cake and ice cream with us too!

Snow!

Kenny took the kids up to play in the snow yesterday with our friends Bob, Jon and Emmy Matt. They drove up to the Bear Valley area off Hwy 4, and had a great time. They left here at 9am and didn't get home until after 9pm!

I had a very quiet day at home, and spent the afternoon at my ladies book club meeting. Everyone had a great day!





Nathan enjoyed riding down the hill on this saucer; he said he could "take air" too! Now doesn't that sound like something Kenny would say?? :)






Tim enjoyed sliding down the hill too, and he made a snow cave!





Dan completely skipped the use of the snow toys and slid down the hill sans sled...belly run! Doesn't surprise me a bit!





Lizzy enjoyed digging and she said she likes to "eat snow." She also slid down the hill on her bottom. :)

Pictures

Here's Lizzy getting ready to sew her pajama pants!




She did a good job! This was a practice piece of fabric.




A rare moment where Louie and Belle were actually together! And we didn't pose this picture; they were there on their own strength! I had to get a picture for proof!




Trixie...she has a guilty look on her face. She probably just ate something out of the trash. :)

It's February

Okay, I know I am delinquent in posting an update. I have no excuse other than time going by so fast that I don't realize how long it's been until someone (Stef) reminds me to update it! :o) And Carol would have reminded me on Sunday, I'm sure. Right Carol? :)

So, what's new? Last Saturday Lizzy and I sewed a pair of pajama pants on the sewing machine. We even used a pattern! She's wearing them right now; very cute!

I went out to breakfast with Jess and Stef yesterday, which was lots of fun! It's so nice to go into a restaurant without any kids and eat something yummy!

Kenny is taking the kids to the snow this Saturday while I have my ladies' book club! They are all excited about that, and the snow should be great with nice weather. I'll post pictures from that next week.

Big news...Nathan will be 16 on Monday. Hard to believe! He and Kenny are going to the TobyMac/Jeremy Camp concert at UCDavis on Monday night. They are both looking forward to that!

Ah, I got a new cell phone today. A couple of days ago I lost mine while walking the dog. I went back and retraced my steps, but it was no where to be found. So, Kenny brought me home a new one today. As he was showing it to me at the dinner table, he promptly dropped it in his bowl of pork. Nice. :o) It was fine...funny...Kenny is famous for dropping cell phones into toilets, glasses of various liquids and large bodies of water at amusement parks. haha!

And, getting used to having a dog again has been interesting! She is a fun puppy, but has boundless energy and enjoys playing with our cats. Louie actually likes her and they play together, but Belle, who likes no one but herself, chases the dog. It's actually funny! :)

Okay, that's all for now. Boring I know, but better than nothing. Have a great weekend!