Halloween Treats

Look what we made (Frankenstein cupcakes).



Look what Katelyn got into ( a little bit of everything).



Note the special new haircut.

A girls best friend

Most of the time Jake.
Sometimes Bella Dancerella.

I trimmed Katelyn's bangs on Saturday.

Katelyn trimmed Katelyn's bangs on Monday.

Sewing

Kyleigh wanted to sew her own Halloween candy bag. I just happened to have some extra halloween fabric waiting to be made into something fabulous. She pinned the fabric and did all of the sewing by herself. I just stayed close by to help. She isn't tall enough to reach the pedal, so we had to be creative. She stuck herself with pins about 12 times, but didn't sew her fingers up. I would call that a success.

She loves to make things herself. I wish we were close enough to Aunt Karla so she could learn to crochet.

Avacados

Rusty has a friend that grows big avacados. They are hybrid avacados. He says that he sells them to Mexican restaurants, and if you can find them in stores they cost between 5 and 8 dollars apiece. One of these things is too big to make guacamole in a regular cereal bowl. He gave us two huge buckets of them. We have been eating the most delicous guacamole and we have enough of it frozen to last awhile. Another reason to love living in Hawaii.

Tea party

We planned a tea party.
We made a miniature loaf of bread.
We made tiny snickerdoodle cookies.
The girls practiced setting up the dishes.
They made special invitations for mommy and daddy.
Kyleigh taught Katelyn how to hold her tea cup properly (with her pinky finger out).
Daddy came home.
They excitedly gave us the invitations.
They quickly set up the tea set.
They left the food unattended... momentarily.
Jake ate the food.
All of it.

Daddy saved the tea party with a snickers ice cream bar cut into fourths.
We had our tea party.
At the table.

Next time we will practice manners before our tea party.

What the girls learned today...

1. How to make a fluted edge on a pie crust.

2. How to knead bread dough.

3. Don't forget that you have bread cooking in the oven and change the temperature to broil.

Our little monkeys don't just jump on the bed...

The Cooks cooking again

Tonight we made pumpkin sugar cookies. It can't really be fall without pumpkin cookies, right? My favorite is the sheepish grin on Katelyn's face when she is getting caught sneaking frosting out of the bowl.

Today's art project...Layered wax bead citrus candles.

6 "B"'s

We are studying one of President Hinkley's 6 B's each week. This week we are studying be grateful. For our school cooking project we made cinnamon roll beehives. I got the idea off of sugardoodle.net. They suggested using the store bought cinnamon rolls, but we made ours from scratch. We made the dough, rolled it out a little thicker than usual, and cut the rolls. Then we rolled aluminum foil into a cone shaped ball with a flat bottom. We unrolled individual cinnamon rolls and loosely wrapped them around the foil balls and cooked them. When they were done we pulled out the foil and drizzled yellow dyed frosting over them. To finish the look we printed bee clip art, cut it out, glued it to toothpicks and stuck it into our beehives. Katelyn mostly snitched the dough and cinnamon sugar. When I told her to stop she looked me right in the eye and said, "I tant, I dust lub it (I can't, I just love it)."

Be Grateful

Be Smart

Be Clean

Be True

Be Humble

Be Prayerful

Finishing the unfinished

Project # 1 - Continuing education requirements to keep my RRT.
Note - If I were working this would be complete, but as it stands I needed 27 hours.
Plan - Online distance education.
How long have I put this off - 5 years
How long did it take to complete - 9 months
Status - COMPLETE!

Project # 2 - Get my blog posts formatted for a blog book and ordered.
Note - I have wanted to do this for some time and finally found a website that could do it.
Plan - Work on it at night after the girls went to bed.
How long have I put this off - Since I started my blog in October of 07.
How long did it take to complete - about 3 months
Status - COMPLETE!

Project # 3 - A dress.
Note - my mom made this dress for Kyleigh and left it with me to do the very, very, very few finishing touches.
Plan - I either consciously or subconsciously forgot about the dress.
How long have I put this off - about 2 years.
How long did it take to complete - less that 15 minutes (Ouch).
Status - COMPLETE
P.S. It fits Katelyn now.

Project # 4 - Matching aprons for me and the girls.
Note - they match the aprons I made for Holly and Naiya for Naiya's first birthday.
Plan - Get it done when I have time.
How long have I put this off - about 6 months.
How long did it take - 5 hours (one afternoon).
Status - COMPLETE

I love it when I am on a roll.

School Projects

We have been having so much fun with home school this year. We do the traditional subjects including math, reading, worksheets on various subjects, handwriting, spelling, spanish, computer work, geography, and typing. We have also been having lots of fun with art, science projects, and cooking. Last week we sucked an egg into a jar using matches and the principle of air pressure. I'm not sure that Kyleigh gets the principles now, but the experiments are cool and both of the girls enjoy them. Art has always been a favorite of ours and we have been finding lots of fun projects on familyfun.com. That is where I got the idea for this bat that flaps its wings.


To help motivate Kyleigh we have a secret task every day. I have a poster that has all of the ingredients to a recipe of her choosing on the wall. Each day I write down a subject on a sticky note and hide it under "the secret task" panel on the poster. If she does well in that subject (ie. she doesn't whine or complain, focuses on the task at hand and tries her best) she gets to mark off an ingredient for that day. Her first recipe that she got to make was oreo cheesecake. She did all of the work to make the treat, with help from myself and Katelyn. She was very proud of herself.