Surprise in the mail

I was so excited to get this in the mail the other day. A very special lady from First Christian, Ann Taylor, was so thoughtful to send it to me. She had mentioned this cookbook just a short while before we moved away from Monroe - I had no idea they even existed and said I wanted to get one before I left, but then I guess I got busy and forgot about it. She was so nice to remember and take the time to send it to me with a nice note for our family - thank you Ann!! And thanks to everyone else at FCC who has sent us notes - Teresa, Lee, Marsha, Tony - I'm bad about replying but they've meant so much to us! We miss you guys!!!!

Thanksgiving

Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone! We celebrated at my Grandma Hosselton's on Saturday and then stayed home on Thanksgiving. All but one of my cousins were at my grandma's and all but one of the second cousins were there, too, so the boys got to have tons of fun with them - I'm pretty sure they liked climbing and jumping the hay bales the best. It was so nice to get to spend Thanksgiving with family - I don't think we'd done that since Elliott was about 8 weeks old (he screamed for four hours on the drive home and we didn't brave it again after that!).

Thanksgiving Day was pretty uneventful. We ate (well, Elliott just picked at his food - except for the pumpkin pie) and then got Christmas decorations out. Of course, we had forgotten that we had had to leave the Christmas tree behind in Georgia (wouldn't fit in the truck - whole other story!) so we ended up at Walmart getting a new tree. If you ever want to go to Walmart and have it pretty much to yourself, I suggest Thanksgiving Day. Anyway, we're still getting decorations up but the tree is done.

Hope everyone else had a great holiday also!

Live Action!

The other night I was watching all the boys, and as I was feeding Sam the older boys came downstairs and announced that they had a show for me! Still not sure what it was all about, but it was entertaining! From what I could tell, Ben must have been the narrator/singer, Elliott was the actor, and Ethan was the acrobat/entertainer. Just had to share!

Baking

Lately I've been in the mood to bake. Ever since we got back from Arizona I've been trying to figure out how to recreate the chocolate chip cookies we had at Paradise Bakery, so we've had a few batches of those (some good, some bad!). And I like to try new things, so tonight I made Andes Mint Cookies. I saw them on Becky Higgins' blog (those of you who scrapbook will probably recognize her name)and thought they sounded really good....they are!! Unfortunately the boys did not eat their dinner so they were pretty upset about not getting any of the yummy cookies, but there's always tomorrow. I'm going to post the recipe below in case anyone is interested. Let me know if you guys have any fun baking recipes!

ANDES MINT COOKIES

3/4 c. butter (or margarine)
1 1/2 c. brown sugar
2 T. water

Melt in a saucepan over medium heat until melted and then add:

2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips, stirring until completely melted.

Cool for 10 minutes. Pour into a mixing bowl and beat in 2 eggs.

Add:
2 1/2 c. flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix together and chill for about 45 minutes. Roll into balls (like 1 - 1 1/2 inches big), flatten slightly, and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes (for my oven, this is the perfect time, keeping my cookies soft; your oven may be slightly different).

When cookies come out of the oven, place an Andes mint (or a few Andes baking chips) on top of each cookie and allow to melt for a few minutes. Swirl the melted chocolate like icing. Allow to cool.

Halloween

We had an awesome Halloween! Last night the Martins and Aunt Meemer came to trick or treat together in our neighborhood....the boys had a blast!! ALL of us dressed up - we had pirates, a fireman, Sully and Mike from Monsters, Inc (way cute costumes!!), a mummy and Albert Einstein himself (I wish he would have stayed and fixed all of the light bulbs that keep burning out around here lately!). It's always so much fun to trick or treat with friends! The big boys were done after 2 courts, but Ethan trekked on for a few more houses and kept asking tonight when we were going to get ready to trick or treat again tonight - he really liked it!

We managed to squeeze in a few other Halloween activities, too. Made it to the pumpkin patch a few times and even took on pumpkin carving(thanks to the Martins' encouragement). Funny how the kid activities end up being adult activities - for example, pumpkin carving after the kids have touched the "innards" a few times and then announce they're going back to the basement to play instead of carve.

Anyway, hope everyone else had a great Halloween too! Would love to see everyone's pictures!