The BEST pumpkin muffins ever

This recipe was given to me by a friend and is the perfect way to use up some of my stockpile cake mixes. I used a carrot cake mix and these are to die for! Even the boys loved them....they were moist for a week and maybe longer but we ate them all.

1 box of cake mix (I used carrot but spice would be good too!)
1 egg
1 can of pumpkin (the small size)
1 shot of oil
1 egg

Mix all together and put into muffin tins. Sprinkle with nuts if desired. Bake at 350 until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Mine only took about 20 minutes. Let me know if you try them!!

A list making trip to the toy store and more...

We have spread our Christmas list making trips over the last two weekends this year and today had a little bonus. We were done looking and Steve was paying for the new snow boots and I took the boys over near a bench to wait for him to finish paying. There sat two little old ladies who were VERY old. They were poking at each other and pointing to the boys and of course as all triplet mom's expect ...they started up a conversation with me. They wanted to know if they were twins, how old etc...They were very sweet women and I answered all of the questions politely. Now during all of this Landon hadn't been paying much attention. Well..unfortunately that changed. He took one look at the ladies and said..."TWO old ladies!!" I could have died but they were hard of hearing and his speech (fortunately today!!!!) isn't always very clear so they didn't understand him. Then he pointed to his mouth and loudly said...."Did you swallow a fly AND why?!" If you are a regular reader of my blog I have previously mentioned his obsession with that book. It all came together today! Apparently these are the first old ladies that he has ever met and he has been wanting to ask this question. I really wanted to crawl under the check out desk but instead just smiled pleasantly and said "Time to go boys!!" and we were out the door with me laughing so hard that I had tears streaming down my face. Never a dull moment around here.....In case you are wondering...the nice little old ladies didn't seem to understand any of this so I think we are ok...

Football Sunday's

Last weekend when we were emptying the master closet Steve pulled the never used exercise bike out and set it up in front of the bedroom tv for its first use ever!! We had lots of takers for rides and Steve was worn out after the first kid. It must be some sort of guy thing to watch football and exercise? Or maybe it was just a way to get out of the work of moving all of those clothes?! At least the boys waited patiently for their turn...

The finished year long project...

Here are the long awaited Master Bathroom project. A leak started the project last December and then between finding someone who could figure out what was wrong (I KNEW the boys don't splash as much as one guy insisted!!) getting a 2nd opinion, ordering parts and then finding and scheduling tile installers, painters, electricans and plumbers the project went on and on. It was kind of like being back at work except for the 4 little guys running around asking tons of questions of the workers. I believe I mentioned them asking workers where there teeth, hair etc were? Besides being pleased with the final result I am sooooo glad this project is over!

Wordless Wednesday...(Just because he is so cute!)

My Closet

Here is my freshly painted closet. The closet is gigantic and was the main selling point on buying this house. When we first moved her from Iowa the window treatments hadn't come in yet and we ended up throwing a mattress on the floor in the closet to sleep. Since the window in the shoe nook is high up it gave us privacy and a little bit of darkness. It was a HUGE job moving all of the clothes out of the room and I ended up donating two HUGE trash bags full to charity. I have way too many clothes that don't fit but still never have anything to wear! This is my proof that my boys didn't get their closet stuffing habit from me!

Are you a closet stuffer?

I am a decent house keeper. It isn't perfect all of the time but I am working on it all of the time. Now I will admit if a guest knocked on the door I may have a tendency to stuff something out of site temporarily but my guys have taken it to an all new level! For the past couple of weekends Logan says (all on his own) that he is going up to clean the toyroom. Well..in my all day quest today looking for a lost library book here is what I find...




I can't even get the door open. I am going to have to reach my hand in and pull all of the items that are blocking the door before I can even attempt to clean it up. It looks like an all day project doesn't it? Ugh...off to work on it....no wonder the rest of the toyroom looked so clean! I would like to add that my closet doesn't look like this. In fact I just had it painted last week so I will post a photo tomorrow of the new color. I've had a couple of requests for the finished bathroom so watch for those too!

One little, two little, three little indians...

Last night Logan came home from school telling me about the unit he is studying on indians of the Great Plains. I listened and then hoping to impress him I mentioned that we have some indian blood in our family on my dad's side of the family. I expected him to be excited but for some reason he was horrified! His first reaction was "Indian Blood?! How do I get it out!!??" I thought I was going to die from laughing so hard! Needless to say Logan found no humor in it...I quizzed my dad today for more information and we think that he is part Cherokee indian which lived in the Kentucky region that he is from. Well...if anything else ...the boys act like indians on some days!

Aloha Chicken

I found this recipe today and thought it looked good. What better place to put it where I can find it then here? I plan on trying it this week. I have almost all of the Goosebury Patch Cookbooks and the recipes are typically excellent. I'll let you know how it tastes.

Aloha Chicken
From Gooseberry Patch’s Slow Cooker Recipes



4
lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts

20
ounces pineapple chunks

11
ounces mandarin oranges, drained

1
green or red pepper, chopped

1/4
cup onion, chopped

1
garlic clove, minced

1
tablespoon soy sauce

1
teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and grated


Arrange chicken in slow cooker; set aside.
Combine remaining ingredients; pour over chicken.
Cover and cook on low setting for 8 to 10 hours
Serves 8-10

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day! Thank You Veterans for all that you have done or continue to do to protect our freedom and our country!

Frog and Toad and Logan...

Logan has been bitten by the reading bug. I suspect he has been able to read for quite some time but enjoyed the attention of someone reading to him. Who can blame him with three younger brothers? I picked up a book of Frog and Toad at a thrift store for $1.21 and although I had never heard of it I thought since it said Easy to Read that it would keep someone entertained around here. And I guess I should admit that it was book fair week at school and they were dying to buy books. A book fair with 4 kids is not a cheap excursion. The $30 that we spent there balanced out nicely with the new favorite used book for $1.21! Can you believe that I spent $30 on new paperback books that I haven't seen anyone read since the first day but the $1.21 used hardcover treasury collection is a big hit?! So anyway...Logan has been reading Frog and Toad aloud to me wherever he can catch me. I have heard it while in the shower, while cooking, while trying to watch tv...everywhere~! I have to admit I was a little excited when we were at story number 14 out of the 15 that it contains. My entertainment was almost over!! I mentioned it to my friend Theresa and she said these were a favorite of hers when she was growing up so I was glad that I had it. Well...Logan is a thinker and started wondering if the author had written any other Frog and Toad stories. I told him that we would go online and check sometime and maybe we could get more someday. Well...my children aren't really known for their patience and Logan was very persistent wanting to go online and look. Sure enough there was one more book and he wanted to save up and buy it. How can any parent make their child save for a book? I caved and we had a "date" last night and went to Barnes and Noble and bought it. He wrangled another book out of me too (about bugs...) but who can say no to an excited new reader?! Now to go and listen to 5 more Frog and Toad stories...

Chef Landon

Landon loves to be my helper. He follows me around asking if he can "help" me and is very persistent. Besides wanting to "help" me all of the time he also likes to play restaurant (resternaut is the pronunciation here!)...he gets a towel and puts it either around his waist to be the Chef or over his arm to be the maitre d. I finally got him an apron (missing from the picture) and a chef hat so he could pretend more easily. Here he has gone past pretending and is actually helping make some soup. It really tasted good too!

Popcorn anyone?

Our school teaches our kindergartners that the name for words that keep "popping" up in reading is a popcorn word. The boys talk about them all of the time and Lake's teacher sent home a special popcorn bag to keep them in. She sends one home each week (they are on yellow popcorn shaped paper..very cute) and we are supposed to put it in the bag and go over them. Well...she also said keep them safe so we really don't get ours down from the top of the refrigerator very often. We did happen to get them down over the weekend and here is a picture that I captured. Lake was eating popcorn, studying his popcorn words and copying them onto paper. He is such a good little student!

Election Day!!!

In honor of election day here is a video of Lawson saying the Pledge of Allegiance. He does it flawlessly and I'm guessing he probably does a better job with all of the words than some adults that I know! I had a hard time selecting which version to use because Logan tried to edge in on the show. The other version is just a nice tame one but I decided on the more true version of our life at this time. They kind of remind me of the candidates this year! I know that I'm probably biased but I think Lawson did a great job!! Enjoy!

Ewwwww.....

For the last 6 years we have bought pumpkins but really never get around to carving them. Fast forward to this year and the boys begged daily to see if today was the day that we would carve the pumpkins...I finally caved and we brought in the pumpkins. Of course the boys aren't capable of using knives to carve the pumpkins yet but were capable of cleaning them out of seeds. Who do you think cleaned out the pumpkins? Lake and Lawson did a decent job but Logan lasted about 30 seconds and then needed gloves. Landon liked looking but wasn't really very interested in scooping out pumpkin guts either! There was lots of boy humor joking about the "guts" and pumpkin "poop!" They did chose the carving that they wanted me to do...it was an all evening job. Can they do it on there own next time? Maybe next year right?