Texas cousins

My brother is in Iraq for another 6 weeks. So to break up the last stretch of his absense my sister in law, Jeana packed up 3 kids and came to visit. It was a great Thanksgiving treat. Now they can head home, prepare for Christmas and New Years, then he will be home the first half of January!

We made turkeys one day. There was all kinds of goodness to decorate them with. Lunch wasn't a big success after the activity. It seems more candy got in tummies then on the popcorn turkey balls!

This is cousin Seth helping Ella with her turkey. Tyler and I took Seth skiing one day. It was SOOO cold- as in, 9 degrees cold but it was his only chance and it was only for an hour and a half.

Grandpa took all of us to the dinosaur museum at Thankgiving Point. It was a huge sucess.
We could have stayed for longer but the adults were tired and hungery!
Tyler got to hang out with Cousin Spencer. There are 5 cousins all about the same age and when they get together they have fun.
Ella and Sophie had a great time. Ella really is happy in this picture, I must have just caught her at a funny point. Both girls didn't take naps for 3 days and wow, they were done by the third evening together! Too much fun!
We also spent Thanksgiving in Logan with the Balls family. I love Skype. We talked to Ranell in Minnesota, and Jason and Whit in Florida. My parents and Renee were in Washington having Thanksgiving with the Allen's and the Thomas's. I will be there soon!

Green Eggs and Ham anyone...

I follow my cousin's cooking blog.

asianflourgirl.blogspot.com

I love the recipes and try most of them. One of my favorite things she does in her posts is say what she learned while cooking each thing. I always check this before I cook it because I tend to make lots of mistakes while cooking and want to avoid anything she points out.

Well I made her zucchini fritters- This is her photo from her blog- They look GOOD!

http://asianflourgirl.blogspot.com/2010/10/recipe-39-zucchini-fritters.html

So we made some. But I knew my kids would eat it better if they couldn't see the healthy zucchini in it. So (mistake #1) I pureed the zucchini. Then added the other ingredients like cheese, ham and eggs.

Then Darren helped me cook up the fritters (or the mess, the glop, the whatever you want to call it- it was pretty scary looking)

Here is my picture- It looked the same before we cooked it as it did after we cooked it. Still not wanting to give up- Tyler has been reading all the Dr. Seuss Books. So we pretended to have made the crazy dinner just for him.

He tried a bite or two. Darren and I ate some- and the rest went in the garbage.

What I learned: Dont puree Zucchini- It makes a big watery mess!

Carmel Apples

I have wanted to make carmel apples for a long time. Finally we got to it today.

We used extra Halloween Candy to decorate some of the apples. They turned out wonderful!

Halloween Weekend

We went to the Natural History Museum the other day. Ella really wanted pig tails.

This is my husband who I love so much. His boss.... His boss came up with the idea that the whole accounting department should dress up the same. Then he chose the theme---- they should all dress up Gothic- you know all in black, earrings, piercings, etc...

So if Darren has to do something he does it right. His poor children wouldn't even hug him good bye.
Tyler dressed up like a soccer player. He really likes soccer. and Ella dressed up like a cowgirl. Really- neither child cared much about dressing up they just wanted the candy.
We made it trick or treating for about an hour and a half. - in that time we made it down our street and one other. WOW!

Two things I learned

I seem to always have recipes that call for Sweetened Condensed Milk and Evaporated Milk- and I never have any on hand.

I have found two great recipes- and they are cheaper than buying the stuff

Sweetened Condensed Milk

1/2 cup hot water

1 cup non instant dry powdered milk

1 cup sugar

1 tbs butter

combine ingredients and mix in blender. use immediately or store in fridge or freezer

Evaporated milk

1.5 cups of water

.5 cups +1 Tbs dry non instant powdered milk

combine ingredients and miz will before using your recipe. Yield:1.5 cups- the equivalent of a 12 oz can