Twas the Night Before Christmas

Well, here we are the night (or day) before Christmas. Let the cooking begin! It seems i always find myself caught between a grumble and excitment when i think about the amounts of money spent on the food, time spent preparing the food, and the actual time spent consuming the food (which does not equal the money or effort). But I will peresevere.

This year's theme is Everything About Spain..We are going to have paella, spanish tortilla (made with potatoes, ham and cheese croquettes, and churros and chocolate... This is how i translate my love for Spain...and try to teach my children that love also.

I will let you know how it goes! But i did find a great recipe this year for Pecan Pie Cheesecake which will be posted here. Don't be afraid to try it...it will be the hit of your party!

Ingredients
Topping:
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon rum extract
Pie:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 un-baked deep-dish (9-inch) pie shell
1 1/4 cups chopped pecans
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine all topping ingredients in a medium bowl. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix cream cheese, sugar, salt, vanilla, and egg until combined. Pour into pie shell. Top with chopped pecans. Pour topping over pecans. Bake for 45 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. If the top of the pie has not cracked..leave in oven. Turn the heat to 250* and let cook another 30 minute. This is a cheesecake so look for the top to crack before taking out of the oven.

Buffalo RoundUp

One of our favorite weekends of the year just happened...the Buffalo Roundup @Antelope Island. Antelope Island is an Island that sits in the middle of the Great Salt Lake and we are lucky enough to live within 2 blocks of the lake. Each year the buffalo are rounded up, counted, vaccinated, and sorted and the public is welcome to visit.
We get to volunteer to work and the kids LOVE it. This year the weather was perfect (75*) and we had a great time. Enjoy the video!

GreatGrandma's Halloween Party

Great Grandma invited us over to her Retirement home for a rockin' Halloween party. The kids got to go door to door and get candy from all of the residents who live there.

After hitting every apartment with the Trick or Treat bags, we got cookies and apple juice in the dining room...some of us were waylaid by the very spunky activies director.

There was a lot of Chicken Dancing, Macarena, YMCA, and Hustling going on...Grandma loves living there and it was fun to visit..

Stacie's Halloween Bash

Last night my good friend Stacie threw a Halloween Party for some of the girls in the neighborhood. Everyone dressed up as a Witches and it was soooo fun to see the different costumes...My mother took pity on me and loaned me her witch costume. I had one awesome hat!

Everyone brought great soups and salad...there was white chocolate popcorn that I couldn't stop eating (thanks Ashley) and Stacie made great caramel apples...they taste as good as they look.

Some of us (i won't mention who)stayed til almost 1:00 am! And on a school night! Oh, well it was worth it...It's great to have good friends and they're getting better all the time!

Learning to Use my Camera

Poor Ely...he gets the brunt of my camera experiments. Today we went out on the playset and this is what came of it...

New York Trip

Last Week I went to New York with 4 other great girlfriends! What a trip...it was 4 days of FUN! None of us had really been to NYC and we had seen the bags that come from careful combing of the streets. So having been properly prepared by asking, coercing, and subterfuge we found the "best" places to buy purses in the CITY. Yes, i will admit right now..we didn't want to see the sights..we wanted bags.
So we set off in search of the $10 tables, the Chinatown backrooms, and Battery Park hawkers. And boy did we find them. At first we were timid..a little unsure of how low to go when bartering with the sellers of fine reproduction purses, but soon we were experts. No low was too low and sometimes we walked away with the prize and sometimes we (or should I say I) was rudely pushed out by angry shopowners screaming "I no like you....Get OUT of store. GO GO GO..."

Nicole(the planner of the trip), Stacie, Ashlee, Sara, and I tromped through the rainy streets of New York trying to decide on the sights to see in our limited time and funds. We saw the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center sight,and several other interesting things..ha,ha.

Pre Halloween

I know that it isn't Halloween yet...but like everyone else i seem to get bitten by the Spook bug. I got out some of my decorations (I didn't want to get to overboard) and the all important Halloween candy jar; which has been filled twice in the last week.
So i decided to Spook out my blog...it gave me an excuse to be a comp geek.
This week has gone by fast with lots of bike riding..to school and back, more canning (when will it end..)and lots of soccer, football, tumbling, cheerleading,,,,,(there must be more there somewhere) oh-yeah, volleyball, scouts, and young women.

Canning 101

Yesterday I jumped into canning...now anyone who has canned before knows that you either love it or hate it. I'm still inbetween. My family loves it..of course they do. I do the work, they reap the rewards (as seen in pics). I took 3 recipies and created my own, and it actually tasted pretty dang good. The neighbors are now trying to bribe my children for bottles.

The other recipe i canned was my Great-Grandma's chili sauce recipe. Some memories come from moments seared by smell, this is one.