I Love Thanksgiving

Well we had a great Thanksgiving. My Aunt Pat and Uncle Dale hosted a great party. We met at a church not far from their home in Idaho Falls and we visited and the kids got to play and we had great food. My camera was semi burried out in the trunk of the car so I don't have any pictures of the actual event, but we were there and it was a lot of fun.

Here is the view off of the balcony of our hotel room. It is the "falls." My Brother in law Justin walked around them and read all about them. He was pretty disappointed that they were man made. I still think that they are quite beautiful. I prefer to walk around them in the summer months.

Here is our hotel room. I was really worried because Tyler had to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor and most places don't have enough room for that. Our room was nice and big and there was a fridge and a microwave. It really was nice, especially for the price.

Just in case you are in a hotel room and on the toilet, and feel the urge to make a phone call. These guys really thought of everything.

Let The Holidays Begin!

I am so excited that Thanksgiving is this week. Tyler has an ABC feast at school today. He has the letter T, so I'm making him take Tomatoes. He hates them and wants to take Tacos. I told him that there was no way that I was making 21 tacos for him to take to his class. Then there is no school tomorrow (at least no kindergarten). And on Thursday morning, we are off to Idaho for Thanksgiving with my Grandma Carver. Now there is a real lady. I've really missed her, so I'm totally excited for the couple of days that I get to spend with her. When I get back I'm going to put up my Christmas tree and really go all out with the decorations, and I get to post my new Christmas Playlist for all of my blogging friends. I've been working on it all month. And I must admit that I am pretty happy with it. I had to make a few adjustments this morning, but now I'm pretty sure that it is complete and how I want it. You'll have to stay posted for that. I just love this time of year. I love Christmas shopping. I've already started, and I think that I have a lot of it done. Tomorrow, I am expecting a shipment from some online shopping that I did last week. It is like you get two Christmases when you do online shopping, because it is so fun to have stuff delivered. I am also exploring the world of Handmade gifts this year. I'm starting small with just a tu-tu and an activity book, and a blanket. I'm already feeling the pressure for these though, so we may need to stick with only a few small handmade gifts every year. I have also considered baking things to take to my neighbors...I might not get around to that. Anyway, I don't anticipate another post until after I get home so Happy Thanksgiving to all!

They Say It's Your Birthday!

Today is Tyler's 6th Birthday. I got to go to his school and help out. I was in charge of the worksheet called Will It Float? and we got to experiment with different objects and see if they would sink or float. It was a lot of fun. I didn't tell him that I was coming to his class and I think that he was suprised. Anyway, I like to see what he is doing in school and how things work in the classroom (rather than just wonder), so I had a great time.
Tonight later we are having a small family birthday party. Mostly just the grandma's and grandpa's, and Chels and Josh and Hallie. He really wanted a friends birthday party, but I think that I am still burned out from the one last year, so I told him that he had to wait another year. Now I feel a little bad about that, but I think that it is ok if I don't let him host a huge party every year. Anyway, I hope that he has a fun day. His cake has a Transformer on it. It looks pretty cool, I'll post some pictures tomorrow of his party.
I can't believe that I am old enough to have a six year old. I hate the fact that I can CLEARLY remember more than a decade of my life.

Caramel Christmas Rolls

Yesterday I made some rolls for lunch at my Grandma Judd's house. I put the frozen roll dough in the pan and covered them and let them rise while I was at church. When I got home I found that I had left the remainder of the bag of frozen dough out on the counter as well. They were thawed but still cold, but I couldn't re-freeze them. So I put them in the fridge until I got a second to do something with them. Just before bed I made my favorite Christmas breakfast... the caramel rolls.

You need: 18 frozen rolls
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of packed brown sugar
1/2 package of cook and serve butterscotch pudding
nuts (but we don't do nuts here, so I just leave those out)
and a Bundt pan

First you butter your bundt pan (with different butter than what is listed on the recipe, you'll need all of that for later). Then you sprinkle in the nuts, and put in the rolls, then sprinkle the pudding mix over top of the rolls. Next melt the butter and brown sugar together and pour it over top of the rolls too. Then leave the whole thing out on the counter overnight and in the morning bake on 350 for 30 minutes. You won't be disappointed I promise.

Don't add more rolls either because I had two dozen that I had to use up last night and so I put them all in there and I had to cook them for about 10 minutes extra and the rolls were pushing the caramel mixture out of the pan all over the bottom of my oven. It doesn't look like 18 will be enough, but in the morning your pan will be full. I promised myself that I wouldn't make these until Christmas morning this year. Oh well, I've made them now and I'm loving them. I think that I've eaten about seven of them today so far and it is only 2:00!

Happy Birthday to my Dad!

I would like to say Happy Birthday to my dad. I hope that he has a great day. I would like to thank him for everything that he has done for me. I was talking to my grandma the other day about how he taught us how to drive. He would take us out to the feild across the freeway to feed the sheep (and later cows), and horses and he would put us in the truck on our knees and unroll the window for us and we would steer the truck while he would throw the hay out. Then he would yell out from the back of the truck "go to the left" and we would crank the wheel as far as it would go and next thing that we knew he was screaming "NO! The other LEFT, The Other LEFT!" and so we'd crank the wheel all the way the other way. I love how he calls me his "little Sara," and I love the way he plays with my kids. They beg me to go for a walk up to his house everyday, and I think that it is so he can chase them around the pantry in the kitchen.

Every Summer when school let out I would go and get a new summer job, and every year when I'd get the call saying that I had a new job, my dad would come home with a pocket full of bills and change and he would make up story problems for me. I bought $13.87 worth of bagels. I paid with a $20.00 bill. Now count back my change to me. (When the computers went down at the bank one day, believe it or not, but I was the only one who could count back people's change.) So there's just a few memories that I have about my dad. I love you.

Tyler has to do a report about buffalo for his kindergarten class on Monday. So yesterday we went to the Library to get some resources. Next to the animal encyclopedias that we were looking at was the seasonal children's books and I picked up (for Brooklyn) "A Pussycat's Christmas" by Margaret Wise Brown. My kids love "Goodnight Moon," and cats and so I figured that they would love this book. I read it to Brook around 2:00 this morning while we were up and IT WAS EXCELLENT. It is so well written about everything that the cat is experiencing at Christmas. The pictures are excellent, it is very descriptive. Brooklyn was totally in to it. I was not expecting so much from this book. I looked it up on Amazon and it is only 6.99. I'm totally recommending this to all of my cat loving readers.

P.S. Pretend that there is a picture of the book right here. Stupid blogger.

Disney On Ice Memories

Here is me and Tyler. He is sticking his tongue out and having a great time.

Here is Tyler with his $12 Snow cone that we'll call Bruce. He was a little mad that I wouldn't let him get the light up sword, but in the end (the next morning) he was glad that he had the new mug. And it is microwave, and dishwasher safe which is more than I expected.

Here is our family (well most of us) having a fun family activity. Maybe next time we can get a smile out of Shane.

Bottom Line: I LOVED the Disney on Ice. I will be returning again. And the Disney Company has found yet another way to separate me from my dollar.

P.S. I didn't dare take my nice camera to the ESA, so the poor quality photos are a result of my camera phone. And just a side note about the ESA, I think that they probably have enough funds to hose the place down every once in a while. The floor was really sticky and gross from the moment we walked in the doors, yuck.

I'm not done yet

I forgot to mention two things in my earlier post. #1 A couple of weeks ago I was riding in the car with the twins and Tyler and they were watching a movie in the backseat, and I was just driving along, listening to the radio, when it occured to me that there was talking going on in the backseat. You know how you just kind of tune stuff out. Well I started to listen to what was being said and it was Chris. So I looked back and said "What?" and he looks at me and puts his hands out and says "Where my binky at, Bebe?" I laughed so hard. What a funny kid. And #2 is that I got the new Nursery manual. I read that the Church was recommending it to use for family home evenings, so I wanted to give it a try. I have the FHE lesson manual that I was using, and adapting the lessons for my family, and it was getting the job done...but I am totally recommending the Nursery Manual. It has short lessons that are complete. They have all the pictures, songs, something to color. My kids loved it. And it was simple enough that they were participating. I just wasn't getting that from the other book. I know that I've only used it once, but I'm looking forward to next Monday when I can try it out again.