Tis the season...

We had a busy yet fun Christmas. Melissa and Wes and their four children arrived from Illinois on Friday, Christmas eve. They brought a stow away in their van, my dad! We were grateful that PaPa was able to come out for Christmas, what a blessing (especially for my mom!) We went over Friday afternoon to my mom's house, and got busy cooking. We made gingerbread cookies, spritz cookies, and sugar cookies. My mom had already made a batch of chocolate swirl caramels, and we also whipped up a large batch of BBQ Chex mix. Brandon got into some goodies, we had left the sprinkles on the counter and he had dumped them out and was in the process of eating them. Silly boy.


Later that night, Kimball and Brandon got into their pjs and shared a bowl of icecream with their Papa. The kiddos watched a movie and the adults got in a good board game or two. My mom bought some new games, and Guesstures was one of them, great game.

When we got home from Mor-Mors and Papa's house that night, we set some cookies and milk out for Santa, and we also wrote the yearly Santa letter and left it by the milk and cookies. After the kids were in bed, Mike and I enjoyed eating the cookies and drinking the milk...hehe. The boys woke up and we had Egg Nog french toast, yummo! Following that, we had our annual Matusek Christmas Devotional. The boys were a bit restless during the singing, and scripture reading, but it is important to our family. Then came the boys favorite part, opening presents!


We joined up with extended family at Grandma Moore's house that night for dinner and presents. Here are my mom and dad enjoying the company while we opened gifts.
On Sunday night, the 26th, the whole crew had joined up at Mor-Mor's house to hang out. We had Katrina and Matt's 3 children, Melissa, Wes, and their four kids, me and Mike and our two boys, and of course my mom and dad. Here are the kids listening to Mor-Mor tell silly stories before movie time.
Comfy and cozy, ready to watch Despicable Me...
We joined up again at Mor-Mor's house, but this time the crowd got bigger, with Corey, Daymi and their three kids joining us! All the kids were excited to eat Norwegian Pancakes (now lovingly known as Mor-Mor's special pancakes.)
After the sugar high of breakfast, we gathered in the living room for... you guessed it, more presents:) Here is a good pic of all 12 grandkids (it will be 14 after me and Kayla give birth!)
My mom made a temple board, with the temple that we were sealed in and the date we were sealed and our names. It is beautiful, and I can't wait to hang it on our wall!!!!
I thought this was cute, Kelvin with his Star wars ship, Kaydien with his Halo toy, and Kimball with his transformers... all playing together!! Weston was sharing Kimball's transformers.

It was a wonderful Christmas, how blessed we are to have a big family that we are close to! We are grateful for our Savior, and feel blessed each year to celebrate his Birth. Hope that your Christmas was enjoyable and memorable!

Everthing in between, which is a lot right?

Here is my "I'm to tired to make individual posts for all events" post. So here is the space of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, in a nutshell. We decorated the house and trimmed the tree. We have a special ornament for every year since we got married. We go out as a family and pick out an ornament together. This years ornament was a stuffed gingerbread man that we bought in West Yellowstone when we went there with Mike's parents and sister this past summer. There is a cute little shop there that sells Christmas decor year round, what a great store huh?

Kimball and Brandon had so much fun preparing for Christmas this year.
They got very excited at times, ok super excited...
Mike and I took some time out one Saturday night to ourselves (thanks to my mom for taking the boys!!) We made a scrumptious pasta meal together, and set the table for two... with candles, low lights, and romantic music, compliments of Frank Sinatra.
We were able to set up our camera on a box, and take some pics of our family for our annual Christmas card. This is the best pic we got, in my personal opinion.
My niece Abigail turned 2 years old on December 23rd, and we were invited to a little party for her. What a sweet girl she is, and doesn't she look darling all dressed up in her gifts from Mor-Mor and aunt Tiff?
Corey setting up Abigail's baby gear....
And Mike trying to help:)
It is so fun to see Mike with his boys, they are so close, and he loves them so much! These three have so much fun together. I snapped this pic a few days ago, and it is such a great pic, love it!
Next post: Christmas

Thanksgiving 2010

These last couple of weeks have been heaven, and it all started with Thanksgiving. It is such a blessing to spend time with family, even if we just get to speak with them for a few minutes at a large get-together. We are grateful for the friendships that we develop in these family relationships, my sister is one of my best friends. I love love my sister in-laws, Daymi, Mia, Alyssa, Chris, Katrina, and hopefully soon Kayla! My brothers rock, and my brother in-laws are just as awesome. More than that are my parents and grandparents, Mike's parents and grandmother. Each of them has done so much for us, and we are who we are because of them. Speaking of Grandparents, I love any pictures that I can snap of my boys with their great-grandpa, and this is no exception. It is a great pic!

Brandon was just chillin with Great Grandpa Moore at Thanksgiving. I talk all the time about what a crazy boy Brandon is, but with all that energy and mischief comes an equal amount of love and cuddliness. This is one of his favorite things to do, find someone that he loves and chill. His hugs are the best, and his kisses are the sweetest.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful, we missed Mike's family in Florida immensely though. We had 2 beautiful dinners, one on Thanksgiving day in Idaho Falls with Grandma and Grandpa Moore.

On Friday my mom made another dinner at her house in Pocatello, and it was equally as enjoyable in Pocatello as it was in I.F. The girls had a fun time making ribbon christmas trees, a simple and fun craft. Here are our creations (Daymi made one too, but she and her family had already left Mor-Mor's house.)

Traditions, don't they warm your heart?!? One of my favorite days of the year is Gingerbread day at Grandma Moore's... simple the best! It is always the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Kimball didn't last long with his gingerbread housed, maybe 10 minutes tops... but he still enjoyed it. Here is his creation, and his handsome little grin!
I wasn't feeling creative at all, kind of nauseous though. So, I quickly threw lots of candy on mine without any thought, so I could warm up some soup and eat. A week or so after we had made the houses, Kimball came up to me and said "Mom, you forgot to put a window and a door on your house." Yes Kimball, I did... you are sweet to notice.
Rebekah's creative juices were sure flowing, and so were Amy's and all my other families as well. The green themed house is Rebekah's, so pretty huh! And Amy's is right next to it on the right. You can't see it, but she wrote her name in licorice candy on the other side of the roof, and it looked way cute. The kids loved looking at the Ginger village of houses.

News (that is not new)

We are pregnant, but that comes as no surprise to anyone because I announced in on FB. We are excited, and are hoping for a girl... but I would not be disappointed with a boy! I already have two, bring it on right? I haven't been sick at all, occasionally nauseous when I don't eat often enough. Although, I was up all night last night sick, but it definitely wasn't morning sickness! I'm thinking it was something I ate.

Even though I was sick, I still enjoyed, thoroughly, the "So You Think You Can Dance" tour. I went last night to Utah with Daymi and my mother, and we met up with Katrina and Brianna for a dinner at Olive Garden. We then headed over to the Maverick center (formerly the E Center) to see the show. It was great to see the dancers live and to see them perform. What wasn't so fun was starting to feel the food poisoning coming on and a crazy headache and cough to go along with it. My favorite dance was with Robert and all-star Allison. The storyline behind the dance was a mother and her son, and she had recently gone through a major illness and surgery. The son helps and strengthens her through it. It was choreographed by a former contestant, Travis Wall, called "Fix You". Here is what I saw last night, it was so beautiful to see live, it was very emotional to watch (or maybe its just because I'm emotionally prego anyways). It made me think of my own sons, how tender and caring they would be if I were ever physically ill. Anyways, I going to go get some more rest, I hope that after a good night of rest, I will be able to get to work tomorrow! I need to find my camera, I think I left it in my moms car. I have some good pictures to post, halloween and all that jazz! By the way, we are VERY excited to see Harry Potter, 14 days and counting! Mike says he doesn't want to go on opening night, can't blame him either. So I guess I should put 15 days and counting!

What are brothers for?

Brothers like to play with you, even if that means pulling your shirt and putting their feet in your face.


Brothers are there to lend support when you are slipping, and they still keep a smile on their face:)


Brothers copy eachother.
They always love each other, no matter what!
And they are the best of friends!

History repeats itself

Is it not true? Kimball in August of 2008:


Brandon October 2010:


What cuties they are!

Well aren't you a Georgia Peach

I guess I should say California peach, if we were to get technical. So excuse me for another post mentioning Bountiful Baskets, but I guess you could say that I am hooked. My mom and I have ordered 2 bountiful baskets so far, it is a CO-OP where you make your order on Monday at 8:00 pm, and them pick it up at designated site and time. It is operating in many western states and towns. Along with the basket(full of high quality fruits and veggies for $15) you can order "add-ons". The first week we added on a box of peaches ($10) and this last week we added on two pumpkins($3.50 each).

A box of peaches, what to do with it? I ate a few, but before they started to ripen too much I decided to peel, pit, slice, and freeze them. When I froze them, I put them in Freezer bags and labeled them for a recipe.




Here are my two favorite peach recipes:

Peach Bread
3 cups sliced fresh peaches
6 TBS sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 TSP baking soda
1/4 TSP salt
1 TSP ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cups shortening
2 eggs
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 TSP vanilla extract

Place peaches and 6 TBS sugar in container of electric blender; process until pureed. (Mixture should yield about 2 1/4 cups), Combine flour, baking powder, soda, salt and cinnamon; set aside. Combine 1 1/2 cups sugar and shortening; cream well. Add eggs and mix well. Add peach puree and dry ingredients, mixing until ingredients are moistened. Stir in nits and vanilla. Spoon batter into 2 well greased and floured 9x5x3 inch loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 55-60 minutes or until done. Cool 10 minutes in pan; turn out on rack, and let cool completely.

Quick Peach Cobbler

Filling ingredients:
1 cup sugar
2 TBS cornstarch
1/4 TSP ground nutmeg
4 to 6 medium (4 cups) peaches, peeled and sliced

Cobbler ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar, and 2 TBS sugar
1 TSP baking powder
1/4 TSP salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg, slightly beaten
3 tablespoons milk

Pre-heat oven to 400. Combine sugar, cornstarch, and nutmeg in large bowl and add peaches, toss to coat. Place in an 8 inch square pan.
Stir together flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder and salt in medium bowl. Cut in butter until resembles course crumbs. Stir in egg and milk until moistened. Drop 9 equal portions onto peaches. Sprinkle with remaining 2 TBS sugar. Bake 35-40 minutes until golden and bubbly.

Something new

I love trying new things, there are so many things that I haven't tried that I would definitely give a shot. Like riding in a hot air balloon, running a marathon, planting a garden, eating something made with truffles, sewing a piece of clothing that I would actually wear more than once, and many other things. In the food realm there are a great many experiences that I have not yet have the opportunity to experience. Take for example 2 weeks ago: I ordered my first Bountiful Basket and received a few food items that I had not tried up to that point.

First, honeydew melon. Don't ask me why, but whenever I saw a honeydew in the store, the paleness of the fruit turned me off to the notion of trying it. When I got home after work the saturday that my hubby picked up our basket order, I noticed the pale melon in our basket and thought, I guess I get to try it finally. Let me put it this way, my relationship with Cantelope is a love/hate relationship. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it! My relationship with honeydew now... is ADORE/ADORE! The only questions I have about honeydew now is "When can I eat it again?"

Second, Acorn squash. Spaghetti squash, YUMMO! Butternut squash, delicioso! So I went in search of a good recipe to cook my Acorn squash in, and this is what I found :

Baked Acorn Squash with Brown Sugar and Butter

I'm glad that I tried these new foods, and this past week I received 3 artichokes in the Bountiful Basket... another new food for me. I'm going to make steamed artichoke with aioli to dip it in, here is hoping for another new favorite food.

The ultimate in mischief!

I speak of none other than Brandon, whom I adore... but who also is a very active, curious, and trouble-finding boy! Case in point: He loves to do what we tell him not to do... like jump off the couch.



Luckily we catch him:)
He loves acting bigger than he is, like trying to ride a bike...
And he tuckers himself out with all of his action, from the time he wakes up until he crashes, he is on the go!
We love you Brandon!

Writing recipes

My children see me all the time dealing with recipes, whether it is finding new recipes, planning for a shopping trip, making a meal from a recipe, or organizing recipes onto 3x5 cards. So it came to no surprise to me that Kimball wanted to copy me, it was so darn cute though, I just had to take pictures. He told me that he had a corn cake for me. I asked him where is recipe was, and he told me that he needed to write it down. So I grabbed him a pen and paper and he proceeded to write down his "Corn Cake" recipe......

Here is what we ended up with.....
And (use your imagination) is the finished product.... Corn Cake!
I told him that he had to test his cake before he fed it to anyone else and so he obliged.....

What a cute kid... I love every second with him!