Costume Contest

Though it can be scary, our office Halloween costume contest is always fun. Several years ago, Shannon (a co-worker) and I challenged the office to dress up for Halloween and we would have a costume contest in which a cash prize would be given. Though participation varies each year, it is neat to see the different levels of effort and the different ideas that people come up with for a costume. Here are some pictures of Chris and me dressed up for Halloween.

Little Red Riding hood and the Woodsman who saved her and her grandmother

Popeye and Olive
The year Chris and I did Popeye and Olive, we won 1st prize.

Cow Girl

! PUMPKINS !

Here is the finished product of today's pumpkins carvin'. More to come later.

Gettin' Ready

Today, we are baking all the desserts for our Annual Pumpkin Carvin'. Chris's Mom is here visiting us this week and she wanted to make apples dumplings. So, Chris and I peeled and cored the apples and she filled them with cinnamon and sugar, covered them with dough and made a carmel praline sauce to cook them in. I made two pumpkin rolls. Pumpkin roll is a family favorite and it is really quick and easy to make. Leter today, we will go pick out pumpkins and then go to Mom's house where we will carve them. By the end of the day we will have about 10 - 15 pumpkins carved. Below is the recipe for the pumpkin roll and some pictures of us getting it all done.

PUMPKIN ROLL

3 eggs
2/3 C pumpkin
1 C sugar
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
½ t ground cinnamon
¾ C flour

Preheat oven to 375. Cut waxed paper to fit a 10X15-inch jellyroll pan. Spray pan and paper with Pam.

Mix eggs, pumpkin and sugar. Add salt, soda, cinnamon and flour. Mix well and spread in prepared pan. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Be sure center of cake is done. Let cool in pan 10 minutes. Sprinkle clean towel heavily with confectioner’s sugar. Turn cake out onto towel and roll; cool about 20 minutes.

Filling
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese
2 T margarine
1 t vanilla
1 C confectioners sugar
½ C toasted chopped pecans.
Whip cream cheese, margarine and vanilla until smooth. Add sugar, mixing well after each addition. Stir in pecans.
Unroll pumpkin roll and spread with filling; re-roll and refrigerate. Slice and serve.

Apples and Apples

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Elaine (Chris's cousin Nathan's wife) in which she metioned that the family had been to several orchards this year but were never able to pick the apples because it was too expensive. However, they were able to find an orchard that would let them pick apples for free. Here are some pictures of them picking apples. The children are Isaiah, Alethia and Hadden.

After I saw the pictures of all the apples they had picked, I asked Elaine what she did with all of them. She said, "Last year, we picked a bit more; and I made 20 lbs. of apple butter, 20 lbs. of applesauce, and about a dozen cups of sliced apples (which I froze to use for apple crisp--in fact, I still have some in the freezer). We used the rest as snacks or for Nathan's lunches. It's quite a task to peel, core, chop, and/or puree all of it. I had to carve out almost 4 or 5 mornings to do it all. My favorite thing was apple butter. I cooked it in a slower cooker over night and woke up to the sweetest aroma! So, I'll probably do mostly apple butter this year (since I hardly used the apple slices for apple crisp, and I can get applesauce cheap in the stores). "

I remember when our family went and picked peaches at an orchard here in OK. It wasn't free and between me and my four siblings, we picked our money limit in about 5 mins. But, it was alot of fun.

It's Monday

Our schedule was really busy today.

• 6:00pm Immediately after work, both Chris and I had eye doctor appointments. Chris was in need of a new pair of glasses and I have been having a lot of trouble with my contacts. The doctor said that my prescription had not changed, so all my problems were probably due to my contacts. We are going to try a different brand and see if things get better.

• 7:00pm Tutoring with Cassandra. Cassandra comes over every Monday and we work on anything she is struggling with in school. Most of our visits have been about Chemistry, however, tonight we were working on a mini-research paper. She was supposed to write an eight (8) page paper including citing works she had used. Cassandra had 3.5 pages and no cites. So I gave her some ideas on how she could expand the paper, and explained to her how, when and why you cite other works.

• 8:00pm We ate dinner . . .well, actually since it was so late I just reheated pizza.

• 8:15pm I threw a load of laundry in the washer and began making some breakfast biscuits for the rest of the week. I sliced and cooked to packages of sausage and bake one can of biscuits so we could have sausage and biscuits a few mornings out of the week. We had three skillets cooking at once and Chris and I had a lot of fun trying not to burn the sausage.

• 9:15pm Switch laundry around, check blog sites and write this post. Miriam’s blog is the only blog I check regularly because Tamra, Amber and Elaine haven’t started blogging yet (come on you guys).

After this I will probably fold the laundry, iron clothes for tomorrow, double check the menu for tomorrow’s dinner maybe squeeze time in for reading a bit and then go to bed.

So there’s a little bit about Monday, October 15, 2007.

Personality

Over the weekend, my Mom told us about this personality ID survey which she had taken. We kept asking her all kinds of questions about it and eventually she said "Just get on the computer and do it yourself." So several of us did. So after Chris Hagen and my Chris took the survey they siad I should. I think these surveys are really interesting. It's amazing how you can assign a number to a bunch of characteristics which then summarize your main behaviors. Though I am intrigued by these surveys, I hate taking them. I can never decide if I'm more detailed than commanding or more loyal than detailed. These surveys aren't supposed to take very much time, but I always start out focused and then get bogged down by what they mean by tough-minded and what does that have to do with meticulous, convincing and kind?

Well, I finally made it through the survey and it said that I am a "deep thinker" and all of my numbers came back within the "mid-range". It was definitely interesting and alot of fun to see how the survey turned out for different family members. If you would like to give it a try, the survey is through Career Direct Online which is "a revolutionary assessment system that combines biblical principles of stewardship of talents with cutting-edge career guidance technology." Career Direct is somehow related to Crown Financial, but I couldn't figure out exactlt how. Have Fun!

Cooler Weather

The past few days have been getting pretty cool around here which has made for the perfect walking weather. Tonight and this past Tuesday, Chris and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. There still are not very many houses built and there are alot of trees so the walk is quite pleasant. Tonight, we had a special treat of listening to an owl hoot as we turned the corner and came back around to the house.
Below is this weeks 7 day forecast as predicted by Channel 8's Chief Meteorologist Frank Mitchel. As you can see, we are expect to get down into the 40s tonight. This is the first time this season for us to get this low. I guess fall is upon us.

Reflections in a Mirror

Just received this video of Eva from my sister (Lori) and it was sooooooo cute I just had to post for everyone to see. In the video, Eva is not quite three weeks old.

Picnic Social

About every other month, someone in our Sunday School (SS) class signs up to host or plan a SS Social. Our SS social last month (September) was a picnic. We all brought our chairs and blankets and riding toys for the kids and we met at Renaissance Ten Acre Park. There was a really nice pavilion and charcoalers there which we used to grill hamburgers. The Lord blessed us with really nice weather and even a gentle breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. Everyone sat around and visited with each other as we watched the kids play. Above are some pictures of my niece, Zoey. She is so cute I just had to post these pics of her. She is growing up so fast.

SORRY

Tonight, after some of the chores were done, Chris and I played SORRY. Chris was Red and I was Yellow. We played and ate the brownie pie that Chris made. Chris is quite good at making brownie pie. For those who are not familiar with this pie it is simply a brownie mix that is poured into a pie crust instead of a baking dish. It is quite good with Cool Whip on top. We played three rounds of SORRY; it was a lot of fun.

AWANA

I thought I would take my camera with me to AWANA tonight and take some pictures. I am responsible for the Girls Red color line which consists of 3rd - 6th graders. Last night during game time with played several combinations of relay games. First, we run several sets of 3 (3 clubbers once around) then we ran a few sets of 6 (6 clubbers once around). After that we only ran 2 sets of 3 backwards (3 clubbers run backwards once around). Our game leader is always hesitant to run this set, because he is afraid one of the clubbers will fall backwards and hit their head. Then we ran piggy back relays. Yes, that’s right, clubbers team up with older or bigger clubbers giving younger or smaller clubbers piggy back rides around the game circle. During this game the guy leaders on the Boys circle thought they should get a chance at this. So, the last race of the night the leaders participated and raced around the game circle with a clubber on their back. It is always fun with us leaders get to participate in the games. I think the clubbers really enjoy seeing us out there playing and messing up just as much as them and the other leaders who don’t participate get a good laugh at seeing us run around.

After game time, we had to our rooms for handbook time. I am the leader for the 4th grade girls and last night we were short one leader, so it was pretty crazy trying to listen to 5 girls in 20 minutes. All of my girls are doing really well this year. Our goal is for the clubbers to complete 3 sections per week. So far this year, we have been one girl short of having the whole class complete 3 sections each week.
Last night, I told the girls that if everyone in the room said at least 3 sections next week, I would declare it double buck night. As you can imagine that got a lot of attention. Hopefully next week I will be able to post a picture of our class with all their bucks.

Back to the beginning . . .
As you can tell, I was pretty busy last night, so I only remembered to take a picture once. Oh well! I think this second picture really shows how fast paced the evening is. :)

Number Puzzles

A co-worker recently showed me a really good site for printing off free Sudoku puzzles. The site is thru The Washington Post newspaper. I have never purchased a Sudoku book of puzzles because I’m afraid it would consume my time. Once I start one, I can’t put it down until I have solved it. The other day, my co-worker printed a Sudoku Mega puzzle which is a 4x4 and uses numbers 1-9 and the letters A, B, C, D, E, F and G. I had never seen a MEGA puzzle. After completing the puzzle (3 days later), I didn’t think it was really any harder; it just took longer. To the left is an example of a Mega (4x4) Sudoku puzzle. I also found that there is a MINI Sudoku puzzle which is a 3x2.

Another neat game on this site is Kakurko. Kakuro is like a mathematical crossword puzzle: the rows and columns must sum the number above and to the left. If you like numbers, you should try Kakuro. Below is a Kakuro puzzle; as you can see, this one is rated pretty difficult. If you have never tryied one, I would recommend going to The Washington Post site and selecting an easier one or play online until you get the hang of it.