Early Treats!

A sweet across -the- street -neighbor invited us over tonight b/c she doesn't want the bunch of older kids on Halloween. The kids were thrilled to have another chance to dress up, see friends, of course get candy, umm I mean visit their elderly neighbor :) We had a fairy, a dancer, Luke Skywalker (brand new territory - I had to look him up online to make sure he was okay) and a cute dog. You may also notice-- we have a BUNCH of leaves! Luckily I don't have to rake them all!

You can kind of see Taye in the middle with his hood on-- seriously you just want to eat him up-- so cute! We met up with some other neighbors which was super fun!

The adorable crew of kids!
Funny story about the dog outfit-- Brecken wore the thing for 4 years. he agreed to retire it last year for a knight costume but he still wears the dog thing around the house sometimes. I hate the idea of buying costumes for Halloween-- so of course Taye has inherited the dog and it looks like it might fit him for 4 years as well. I did break down and get Brecken's pants and shirt at Target for 30% off (he had the boots and sword). I am hoping now when he is playing with the girls he can be a guard or something instead of their dog.

Weekend events

I got THIS at the farmer's market Saturday morning! Brussel Sprouts are so cool-- I have never eaten them before or even actually seen them on the stem. Brecken loved them raw-- in fact the quote of the weekend was "Brecken, seriously stop eating all the brussel sprouts"-- the child is NOT normal! Love the farmer's market! Ours closes after next weekend- bummer.

Bella got her first real haircut. At 4! Our girls take forever for their hair to really come in and thicken up. She only had a tiny bit trimmed off because she wants it to get really long.. like Rapunzel.. that should be interesting to try to comb out. You can kind of see how long it is though when you pull it straight. Almost double. I am going to have to straighten it some day for fun.

Yes... Taye is wearing underwear. I didn't want to deal with this yet. I hate public restrooms, touching everything, ahhhh! I was planning on waiting until after Christmas-- diapers with a lot of traveling are really nice. I want him to be a baby for a while. The signs were there though. Waking up dry after 12 hours (yeah, he has also been sleeping through the night consistently for a month!!!). Asking to be changed right after he would go in his diaper. He could practically change his own diaper for pete's sake. Then, we switched him from his high cal formula to lactose free milk. I was thinking about not buying formula and started thinking about not buying diapers either. The next thing I knew, I was in the basement digging out Breck's tiniest undies. The next few weeks should be interesting. :)

Some Recipes

Okay, here are a couple recipes that I am loving right now for my crock pot. These are both from Kev's A. Carla's cookbook and I changed them a little bit-- tweak them to fit the ingredients that you have on hand and what your family likes.

Sunshine Chicken

8 chicken breasts place chicken in slow cooker. combine other ingredients and
2 c. BBQ sauce pour over chicken. cook on low for 8 hours. we had this with
1 c. apple cider or o.j. rice the first night and then shredded the leftovers and froze it
1/2 c. water for sandwiches the next week.
1/4 c. honey

So this one surprised me-- I was pretty skeptical about spaghetti in the crock pot but we really liked it!

Spaghetti
1lb ground beef- browned 1 28 oz can tomato sauce
1 lb ground sausage- browned 1 (47 oz) can tomato juice
2TBSP dry minced onion pepper to taste and some ground red pepper flakes
1 tsp salt 16 oz dry spaghetti
1 tsp garlic powder broken into 4-5 in pieces
oregano
thyme
1 TBSP brown sugar

Mix everything in crock pot except spaghetti. Stir well. Cook on low 6-8 hours (or high 3.5 hrs). Turn to high last hour and stir in dry spaghetti.
Serve with fresh grated Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy ~and I would love to get some of YOUR favorite crazy week night recipes! Let me know if you are posting some! Thanks!

Five Favorites

My friend Jenny suggested posting five favorites and I love the idea! http://www.blogger.com/profile/03658729125513363988

For the most part I only get around to posting updates on Taye but I do have a little bit of a life outside of the kids (not much though). :)
So - here are a few things I'm loving right now-

1. My new French Press! Whoa-- this coffee is so good. Fresh ground Gobena in it is great!

2. Reading in bed-- down pillows, down mattress cover, and down comforter! I just finished Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Patton-- great read. Thanks for the suggestion Betsy!

3. Clean windows-- We have lived in our house for 4 years; because it is so tall and the windows are huge, cleaning the outside is a daunting, somewhat unsafe job. I saw someone doing an awesome job on the windows at Chick- fil-a the other day and asked him to do ours. A friend that was with me there laughed, BUT when they came to clean them the other day-- she happened to be here and they are going to her house soon. It inspired me to clean the inside really well and I love it! Especially with the awesome fall colors outside!

4. Honeycrisp Apples from MI-- the best-- practically dessert! The fact that they come from just down the road from one of our favorite places (the lakehouse) makes them that much better!

5. My Slow Cooker a.k.a. crock pot. Having minimal food prep to do b/twn 4 and 6 pm is a sanity saver! I have found some really good recipes lately and probably use it at least once a week.

So, what are your 5 favorites right now?

Taye's "ears"

We got Taye's hearing aids (ears) last Wednesday! I tried to get a picture with them but they are really hard to see. He loves wearing them and pretty much leaves them in except for when he's is sleeping- which is great! He is so persistent that if he didn't want them it would be a full time job to make him wear them! We have already noticed him making some new sounds and responding to loud sounds! He is also much quieter - really nice!! ;)
It is so cool how well they stay in-- he wears them when wrestling with Breck, to gymnastics, jumping in the trampoline and they are usually fine!

At this point we are not increasing the number of days of speech/ listening therapy, just trying to increasing the intensity of the therapy and obviously us working with him as much as possible. Hence, the delayed post-- it is intense sometimes! I feel like he has missed so much and want to try fill every extra minute with giving him as much as possible-- he is such a little sponge! What fun to see new little pieces of his personality unfold! My current favorite is-- he will hold his pointer finger up as to say-- just a minute, then he will start to walk away to get something and after a few steps turn, hold his finger up again and nod at me like-- keep waiting, he runs to get what he wanted and then runs back-- totally excited that he told me what to do!