Five Brown Kids

An olympic family: Usane Bolt, super sprinter; Nastia Liukin, US gymnast; Michael Phelps, best ever swimmer; Argentinian soccer player and Venus Williams, tennis star Seriously? I just hold out my bag and people give me treats, treats, and more treats! How is this possible? Trunk or treat in our church parking lot- Scotia, Jaxon and Hailey. Trunk or treat with an Elder, Taye, Andrew and Riley.

Tis the season for yummy roasted pumpkin seeds Clean and pat dry 1 1/2 cups of fresh pumpkin seeds. Coat with two tablespoons melted butter and a generous shake of salt and/or garlic salt. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake in the oven at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes. (I did a few minutes longer) Serve with cold apple cider and eat while they're still warm!

Can you guess what we're going to be? (Don't you love how Scotia has the marker up her nose?)

Totally avoiding the rest of my days work by surfing mommy blogs, check out the cute scripture cases and hairbows on this one... Baby Blvd (I want to win one of the prizes)

Take scotia to gymnastics class Print out scotia's 2 year scrapbook from Snapfish before my coupon expires Finish typing up the primary program and making assignment sheets for kids Sell table from craigslist to help empty attic Go to craft store for six cans of sprinkles for Taye's school halloween party, gold sparkles for halloween costumes and tissue paper to wrap an item I sold on ebay and need to ship Make 12 follow up calls for last week's BYU visits, and print out maps to visit 16 schools tomorrow Tidy my house, do my requisite two loads of laundry, make breakfast, lunch and dinner Play with my kids Type a blog about it to make myself feel better

Scotia's the slowest talker of all my kids, which is a wonderful thing at this point. While she has tons of single words she is just barely starting to combine words into sentences. Here's her first, " M'ere Dadden " Translation: Come here Dad. She always calls Dad, " Dadden ". Tonight at the table Taye asks Dad about the BYU football team, "Dad, did they find out if they go to a bowl weevil yet? " (A little mix up with football bowl games and the bug that used to give cotton growers great stress....) Jaxon talks enough to make up for all others and then some. This morning he climbed into my bed at 6 am. "Mom, what's 2 plus 4?" , " Jaxon , I'm sleeping", "Mom, can you count to a hundred?", " Jaxon , I'm STILL sleeping". I wish.

I thought I would recap how I first found out that Carrie might be part of my family. Carrie was one of the best and brightest PR interns at Novell when I first met her. Later she transfered out to Rochester, NY and ended up in the singles ward where my little brother lived. He called me that first Sunday and left a frantic message. "Jess, I met this girl, Carrie from Novell, she's moving out here, she knows you, I need you to tell me everything!" He had called me back a second time before I even had time to answer his message. Of course I had to tell him that Carrie was terrific and go for it! And go for it he did. She never even had a chance. I'm so happy that Carrie is a part of our family. Happy Birthday Carrie! Carrie arranging flowers for Naomi's reception

Total Time:30 min Makes:8 servings, 1 cup each What You Need 2 Tbsp. Zesty Italian Dressing 1 lb. bulk Italian sausage 2 cans (14-1/2 oz. each) chicken broth 1 pkg. (16 oz.) frozen stir-fry vegetables (white onions and sliced green, red and yellow peppers) (I use fresh green peppers and onions) 1 can (15 oz.) cannellini beans, drained, rinsed 1 can (14-1/2 oz.) Italian-style diced tomatoes, undrained 1 cup elbow macaroni, uncooked 1 cup KRAFT Shredded Low-Moisture Part-Skim Mozzarella Cheese (I don't use cheese, just a few less calories.... and the flavor is great without it) HEAT dressing in large saucepan on medium heat. Add sausage; cook 8 to 10 min. or until done, stirring occasionally to break sausage into small pieces. ADD broth, stir-fry vegetables, beans and tomatoes; bring to boil. Stir in macaroni; simmer on medium heat 8 to 10 min. or until macaroni is tender, stirring occasionally. SERVE topped with cheese. There's something in here for everyone to pick out, and so...

Our little girl is 2 today and not so little any more. We all love her to death. Thank heaven for little girls. Tiny little preemie Growing up, 1 year Almost 2, see the hair!

The Ricks are moving. For four year we have played together and worked together and eaten together and now they are leaving us. We wish them well. But what will we ever do without them? We've spent nearly every holiday together for the majority of our kids' lives. And who will we dance around the Christmas tree with now, who will sew up my turkey at Thanksgiving, who will cook a killer roast when I'm craving protein? We'll miss you.....

Someone was telling me that they thought they had heard of a company that would print out your blog in book form. Does anyone know who it is? I would love to have a journal printed out for the year!

BYU...

You will need: 1 tube refrigerated sugar cookie dough 8 oz package cream cheese ½ cup white sugar 2 tsp vanilla extract 3 cups of fruit - kiwi, strawberries, mandarin oranges, blueberries, bananas and/or peaches a few helpful kids PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Press dough evenly into 12-inch pizza pan. Bake 15 to 18 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack. (My tube of cookie dough had to be sliced, so I laid all the slices out on the cookie sheet and smooshed them together to make one big cookie) REMOVE crust from pan; place on serving plate. Spread with cream cheese mixture; have kids top with fruit. SERVE immediately. Or, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Cut into 16 slices to serve. Store leftover pizza in refrigerator.

We've been waiting for this trip for a long time. Oct 3 we hopped on a non stop flight to SLC and arrived by mid morning. Jaxon charmed the flight attendant out of three sets of free earphones and an entire packet of airline cookies- usually they give out one, he got the full packet of 20 just from being friendly) After getting our rental car we headed down to Orem to see Tyrone's family. It was great to see everyone again. Quin and Anesha look terrific and the cousins are so grown and CUTE! The sisters declared Scotia's hair "Good" so that was a big relief :-) Note: You should be able to click on these pictures to see a bigger version. (Nevermind - You can't. Does anyone know why sometimes you can and sometimes you can't? ) What's left of Jaxon's airline freebies. After visiting, eating and unpacking we grabbed some Cafe Rio (1) and headed back up to Salt Lake for Tyrone's mission reunion. Here's Tyrone's hardest working companion and...

Here's a preview of our wonderful vacation! (More detail later once I unpack and catch up on email, work, church etc.) Conference at Temple Square Hiking the Y, and a skydiver! Pumpkin patch and corn maze Family pictures, all the grandkids Homecoming kid races and football! Fun with cousins On our last full day, enough snow to make two big snowmen! Perfect!