Tree cutting

Yeah, so I made it a whopping three weeks before my blog schedule got thrown out the window.  I am not one for excuses, so I won't make any.  But I will promise to try and make this a little more of a priority in the future. Once I got off track it was pretty easy to let it keep sliding....Oops!

I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving!  We sure did!  We headed down to visit my in-laws down in Durango.  There was wonderful company, amazing food and a chance to get our family portraits done by EllaBelle Photography!  I will share them when I get them!

Since then we have battled the stomach flu, cut down and decorated our Christmas Tree, welcomed our resident scout elf, Josie, and been getting into the holiday spirit big time!

Since my blog schedule is pretty well shot, I will not follow it for this week (but will pick it back up next week).  Instead I will leave you with this picture from our tree cutting adventure.

We went down to Pikes Peak Tree Farms and had an incredible experience.  Even though we live in a city now, I love the idea of chopping down our own tree.  The trees weren't as symmetrical or gorgeous as a store bought tree, but the boys LOVED it!  And the farm owners couldn't have been nicer!

 I sure do like these guys!

Pumpkin French Toast

Our Wi-Fi was down this weekend....so we are starting the week with a recipe!   I will try and get a project post in tomorrow....


My boys could eat french toast EVERY morning if we let them!  I have come up with several variations to make french toast 1. a little better for us and 2. tasty and different.  Here is our fall variation, Pumpkin French Toast!

ingredients:

• 1 loaf of sliced bread (the better the bread, the better the french toast!  Our favorite is a local bakery's flax seed walnut bread!)
• 1/2 C pumpkin puree (canned or fresh)
• 4 eggs (if you use 2 eggs and 2 egg whites, that works too!)
• 1/3 C milk
• 1 t pumpkin pie spice
• topping of choice

directions:

Mix the pumpkin with the eggs, milk and spice.  Preheat a non -stick skillet on medium heat.  Coat a slice of bread with the egg mixture and place in the skillet.  From here, make it like you would regular french toast.  Cook about 4 minutes on each side.  Serve with your choice of toppings (our favorites are syrup, butter & powdered sugar, apples and Greek yogurt, or whipped cream and crushed walnuts).

Shutterfly

AND, I never got caught up this week....  So, my product love post will be short, sweet and to the point today.  As the title of the post would indicate, Shutterfly is the object of my love today!  Really it is the object of my love most days, if you haven't ever checked it out, you should do so immediately, especially if you have kiddos!  

http://www.shutterfly.com/

Now, I know there are about a bazillion photo sites out there, and I have used several of them.  Some of them have better print quality and more options for photo books, but Shutterfly is my favorite site to recommend.   It is ridiculously user friendly, it is free (LOVE that!), requires no purchase to store unlimited photos, and has guaranteed happiness with your purchase.  

I have a picture addiction and Shutterfly satisfies most of my picture needs.  They always run great promotions and they have tons of amazing products!  I love that I can share my photos easily with anyone I choose via email, they also link nicely to facebook and help create amazing share sites.  Everyone should have a Shutterfly account!  

Here is my most recent creation for any that would like to see it...

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0QatG7Ju3bsWl6

Elephant cards

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I don't know about you, but my Monday was very much a  black hole of time and energy  Monday!  None of our errands went smoothly, our sewing machine (which they called to tell us was fixed) wasn't ready to be picked up (and require about 45 minutes of paperwork and testing!!!), three different stores did not have the basil we were looking for, and the car wash snapped my windshield wiper off....Needless to say, I didn't get as much done as I thought I would, and started my week off behind.  Oh well, there is always tomorrow!  One of my favorite parts about being a stay at home mama is that our schedule is fairly flexible and very adaptable!  We started over today and it is going well (although I am still behind, but really, that is not unusual!).

To explain today's craft I will let you all know that here in our family, we L-O-V-E the zoo!  We have a season pass and go an average of 3 times a month.  My kiddos know several of the animals given names (Mihala the hippo, America the flying fox, Cheyenne the black rhino, Agnes the python, ect.) and have an obscene amount of animal knowledge.  So, when a beloved elephant passed away a few weeks ago, they wanted to do something for her elephant friends.  I suggested we make sympathy cards (none of them had any idea what the heck sympathy was, but I did my best to explain and they were happy to make cards!).  Vince (and Kurt) decided to make a heart elephant similar to the animals found in one of our favorite books, My Heart Is Like A Zoo by:  Michael Hall.  Here is how those turned out

And Damon chose a black elephant die cut that we pasted on a printing/stamping project.

I like that my boys were thoughtful enough to want to make something so Mimi(the deceased elephant)'s friends wouldn't be so sad.  They make me proud sometimes!

Macaroni & Cheese!

My husband's father came from a family of 8, 7 boys and 1 girl.   Maudy, the matriarch of this family, is quite a lady!  I am sure she has many incredible stories to tell of motherhood and one day I hope to get out to see her in Baltimore and hear them.  She is this tiny, sweet, kind, person who raised all these big guys (I think they are all over 6'1"!) and a wonderful daughter (she was the baby of the family), plus she came up with the beginnings of the recipe I am sharing today.  So here we go with Maudy's Macaroni and Cheese!

This is her original recipe:
2 T butter
2 T flour
1/2 t salt
2 1/2 C milk
2 C cheese, OR 1/3 pound OR 11 slices
8 oz elbow macaroni

Here is our family's version:
1/2 medium yellow onion- chopped small
2 garlic cloves- crushed or fine chopped
3 T butter
3 T flour
1/2 t salt (we use sea salt)
1 1/2 C milk
1 C broth (we use organic vegetable broth) OR skip the broth and add an extra C milk OR 1 C pureed squash (with the squash option I usually add about 1/4 cup more milk for the right consistency)
2 C cheese (we really like to mix this up, our favorites thus far are smoky cheddar and gruyere cheese)
8 oz dry pasta (I let the kiddos pick the shape, they usually go for shells or bowties!)
optional: 1/2 C bread crumbs or panko

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 375
2.  Cook pasta as directed on package
3.   Make the cheese sauce

• Melt butter and add onions.  Cook on medium heat til the onions are transparent.
• Add the garlic and saute for 20 seconds
• add the flour and mix
• slowly add milk and broth/squash 1/2 C at a time allowing mixture to thicken between additions.  Stir frequently
• Heat until thick
• Add cheese and stir until blended

4.  Mix cheese sauce with cooked pasta
5. Put macaroni & cheese (okay pasta & cheese!) into a greased baking dish
6.  sprinkle top with panko or breadcrumbs and a little extra cheese if you want
7.  Bake at 375 for 30 minutes

This recipe is not our most healthy, but everyone loves it!  It is a frequent request and the boys always ask for seconds!  And by boys, I mean the three small ones and the big one I am married to!

Our free week!

Vince has the week off school and we have been living it up!  On Monday we headed down to visit my mom for her birthday, Tuesday it was off to the Crazed Cornfield Maze and Colorado Pumpkin Patch, Wednesday the big boys and I headed to Ice Age 4:  Continental Drift, Thursday was a day to clean and go to the library and today (Friday) we got to visit the Downtown Aquarium here in Denver.  In between all the activities we made it to the gym 3 times (more than I have been since hurting my coccyx!), carved jack-o-lanterns, went trick-or-treating and got incredibly dirty playing in our muddy backyard!

Now that Vince is in school all day long, I continually find myself missing him.  I know his brothers miss having him around too.  I hung out with Vincent 1800 out of the first 1825 days of his life.  And now our time together is reduced by 7 hours every day.  I am so, so, So proud of the little man, and so, so, SO excited for his life as a grade-schooler, but there is a small part of me that wants him to be with me forever....I mean, ALL THE TIME forever and ever!  Like I could home-school the kid and turn him into a total and complete mama's boy where I am part of every decision he ever makes and in his life every single day, forever!  I could almost do that, then I remember how much I want to raise an independent, free-thinking, likable, thoughtful member of society and I don't.  It doesn't quite seem fair that I can't have it both ways...

Back to our busy, fun-filled week... I feel the need to take full advantage and enjoy every minute of Vince/3 boy time I can get nowadays and we did just that!  We had a fantastic week and made some amazing memories!  Here are a few photos from my favorite activity, the Crazed Cornfield Maze and Colorado Pumpkin Patch:

P.S.  if you are in the Denver area, this place was incredible!  We had a great time playing in the corn-pit and in the maze (there is also a haunted maze for the braver folks!).  Plus (bonus!)  the pumpkins were a smokin' deal!  We went after the official 'Halloween Weekend' (on October 30th), but we got 6 medium to big pumpkins, plus 7 decorative squash and tiger striped pumpkins for under $11!  I do love a deal!  Here is the link:  http://crazedcornfieldmaze.com/

Halloween paintings & haunted gingerbread house

Hello everyone! I love, love, LOVE this time of year!  There are so many great holidays and fall celebrations and it is gorgeous here in Colorado!  I am a little, tiny bit sad that Halloween is this week and my fall festivities are 1/3 over, but still over-the-moon excited to be having a great autumn!

Here are a couple more of our Halloween projects....

The boys had a BLAST creating these paintings!  We placed cut out shapes on black cardstock (I put a glue dot on the shapes to prevent them from moving around) and the kiddos dotted paint on the paper around the shapes.  When they were finished, I  took the shapes off and this is what was left!  Gorgeous, huh?

Kurtis especially liked this project because he likes to pound the paintbrush into the paper, and that is what he got to do for a full 9 minutes!  Each boy got to pick out their spooky Halloween shape and Damon chose the colors (which turned out pretty great!).  I love how Vince used a sole dot of purple paint to complete his painting!  

And, because it is almost Halloween and I won't share any Halloween projects after Wednesday, here is another of my favorites from this year:

Our Haunted Gingerbread House

This was a kit from Wilton.  We bought ours at Jo-Ann fabric and Crafts.  I like these kits because they are easy and come with everything you need.  Generally the rule is that these houses are not to eat, but Kurtis couldn't help himself!

Damon was actually the one who decorated most of this house.  I was very impressed with his attention to detail and his patience in creating the look he wanted (he wanted his house to look like the one on the box).  He place every piece of candy and frosted the black on the roof and the grey on the door, impressive for a 4 year old!

Hope you enjoyed our Halloween crafts!  Here's to a happy and safe trick-or-treating!!