The feast in the Crazy Kitchen

As you can see our Kitchen isn't huge, it's not small either, but it was busy and full of Great food. If you notice Taylor is eating a deviled egg, that was a big hit with the kids. Oh and you know your pies are good when your father-in-law eats a piece after each meal for the next 3 days when he really shouldn't be. He is normally very good about that stuff. That's the best compliment of all.

The pies

Oops, I should of put this first, but that's ok, what do you think of my pies? We had pumpkin, banana cream and apple (my families specialty.) If you notice Michael decided to take a taste test of the pumpkin. I was not too pleased. But like he said, I had to make sure it was ok. Silly boy. But we had a full house, 3 grandparents, and an Aunt and Uncle. But it was fun.

I think Michael enjoyed his pumpkin pie more with the whipping cream.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was great, but it's nice to at this end of it. It was a little stressful. But I have to say, Isn't my turkey pretty? Of course my presentation could of been a little better, it was a last minute picture just before my masterpiece was carved.

Play Time

Now those with Children you can't tell me your kitchen has never looked like this.

Fall

Yesterday when I walked outside I think it actually smelled like fall. It even felt a little like it here in Sunny Calironia. It was an overcast day and cool. My friend has pictures of New England fall on her website, and it made me really miss those seasons. Fall was one of my favorite. The cool crip air, the smell of people burning there yard waste, to me it always smells like smoked ham. I love that smell. Well This is the closest to fall I'll get. They are take of Drew in our backyard in a bunch of leaves, my friend inhanced the color from dull brown orange to a brighter orange, Thanks Harmony.
It's not quit New England but he is a lot cutter.

Ouch!

Ok, so I'm trying to update my blog and Drew gets into the silverware holder in the Dishwasher (which the girls had out emptying). Anyway Drew grabs one of the blades for my slice and dice thing it's like a grater with slicing blades. Needless to say he sliced off a chunk of his fingernail and is bleeding everywhere. I had put three band-aids on it and it still bleed through.

So just so you know this is why my blog is not updated very often. There isn't enough me time with four kids.

Poor Drew.

Sea World

Excersising

So I have been going to the gym and doing pretty good. I went Monday morning, only to be called by the kid care people. Drew doesn't like it at all. So 5 minutes of workout, does that count? yea me and my friend both got called within seconds. But I redeemed myself and went later that night. So for that I think I deserve a gold star. I went again today, and did pretty good.
It's funny but I was actually excited because I always feel good afterwords, which is a weird thing to say when you stink and are sticky with dried sweet (is that too much information).

This is awful, just ignore all the bad spelling, if you know me, that's who I am. A bad speller who forgets to use spell check. Oh and I forget to put in web page addresses, here is the tar pit web page. http://www.tarpits.org/ Man I'm really off today. Not very exciting but a little update.

And the Winner is....

The cute little pumpkin.

Me

This is super ebarrasing, but yea that's me. Mark had the nerve to ask why I didn't dress up. Funny huh.

Halloween

I'm so late here's some halloween pictures, Michael didn't cooperate, He didn't want his picture taken. So I don't have one of him. But Drew was one of the winners for his category. he was too cute. And just if you can't tell he had "leaves" drawn on his head.

The Tar PItts

The tar pits where very intersting. It was fun and very interestring. The kids loved it. Just in case you don't know what it is. Here's the web page so I don't have to try and explain, yea I'm lazy.

Taylor

Here's some more, Mark's Granmda is part of the purple red lady's group or whatever it's called anyway this are just some of the fun clothing the manikin wheres.

Dress Up

Here's Savannah in the wig from Grandma manikin. Isn't she funny, I mean serious. With her pet spider.

Fires

WEll this is a little late, but we had a fun time with the San Diego fires, heres an exceprt from my journal: Sunday October 21, That evening the air was pretty smoky, it smelled like we had a camp fire outside our house. Come Monday morning it was all clear and nice, I don’t even remember smelling smoke, when I took the kids to school. Well at 11 am I got a call from the school saying they where going to close and we needed to pick up the kids because of the bad air quality. When I left to get the kids I couldn’t believe how bad the air was. You could see ash falling. And some people had masks on and where covering there faces with there shirts.

Still I was not worried because the fire was far away. I later went to work out at the gym and came out my car was covered in ash. I had been talking to a friend earlier who was deciding if they would have to evacuate or not. I told her she was welcome to come to our house. Which they ended up doing.

They spent a lot the night watching the news, watching for the fire and how close it was coming to there house. When I woke up at 3 am to feed Drew they told me a new fire had broke out on Mt Miguel which we can see from our street. So we kept watching trying to decide if we should leave, the base of the mountain is about 2 miles from us (which is where the fire stopped). But you got to understand that if the winds pick up the fire can skip a mile. And we are up on a little hill. Anyway after we saw all our neighbors leaving we decided to go, if nothing else we would have better air quality. The ash was really coming down and the smoke was awful. Both Mark and I felt like we were getting chest colds.

So we loaded up our valuables, mainly pictures and scrapbooks and important papers and headed to L.A. for better air. We went to Mark’s Grandma’s house. Later that evening we learned that it was safe to go home. The areas that where mandatory evacuation around us where allowed back. WE decided to stay until Thursday (we left on Tuesday morning) Just so the air could clear up some more.

If nothing else came of this we did get a great visit with Mark’s Grandma the kids had a lot of fun, we went to the park out to eat. And the Le Brea Tar Pits. Which was very interesting. The girls had a lot of fun dressing up in Mark’s grandma’s manikin clothes and wig. Poor Drew had a fever the whole time though and didn’t get much sleep. Mark had to leave the same night we arrived, since at his work they were getting more patients from hospitals that where closing. Overall it was worth it to feel safe and breath slightly better air. Even though there was small amounts of ash falling there too.
All I can say is the devastation is awful. When we where driving home we saw a lot of burnt areas, the air from LA to san Diego was full of smoke, it was like a really bad smog day. And it got worse as you got closer to Camp Pendleton (north of San Diego). So many who have lost there homes. I’m am so thankful we were kept from harms way this time. If you know the area at all you know how dry it is hear. They are saying with one of the fires north of us that the person who started it knew what to do to cause the most damage. It’s so sad.

But not all was lost we had a fantastic Halloween party at our ward house Saturday, Drew one for his age group for the cute costumes. Poor savannah complained how she didn’t when but she was beautiful and she was a beautiful ballerina.