Chicken Pot Pie

Savannah and I stayed up late last night making this recipe.  The estimated prep time was 30 minutes, but it took us 3 hours.  We had big plans for these pot pies – one for a friend, one for us, and the rest to take to the coast for our Lughesworth Thanksgiving weekend.  Would we recommend Ina Garten’s chicken pot pie recipe?  No -- At least not if we are the cooks.  The result was chicken pot soup and a very messy kitchen.  Thankfully the soup is tasty.

Halloween Loot

Since Halloween is on Sunday this year, we’ve begun our festivities early.  Last night was our ward Halloween party.  We missed the first part of the party because Yuhua and John had Chinese class, but we made it in time for the most important part – trick or treating through the hallways.  Everyone came home with a lot of loot and a sugar high.  I encouraged the kids to hide the candy from me.  John had asked me before the party why I had been eating the Halloween candy we were supposed to be giving away.  Well, I said, “Because I paid for it?”  Not a good excuse, I know, but I was just going to eat one miniature Whopper package, and that led to a few more, and then to a minature Hershey bar, and eventually the Kit Kats.  It was a slippery slope.  I obviously bought the Halloween candy too early this year.  The good thing is that I’m now sick of it and hope it disappears as quickly as possible.     

Our Halloween box has already moved to Idaho, but the kids managed to come up with some fun costumes.  Yuhua opted not to wear the disco wig that I was sure would be a big hit.  Instead he went as himself and still came home with a pile of candy. 

Hillbilly and Cowgirl

Football Player

Starfleet Officer

A small sampling of the loot.

A Good Day!

Yesterday Yuhua ran in the 5K race at districts in Oregon City.

  This was his competition. 

Amazingly, he finished 12^th with a time of 18:09.  I love watching my kids participate in their various activities, but I especially enjoyed watching this race. 

Pulling ahead

   

After Yuhua’s race, I raced... back to McMinnville and arrived just in time for John’s soccer game.  Thankfully my support crew -- Jackson, Savannah, and Brooklyn -- assisted in getting John to the soccer field (Jackson is now driving our beater “third family car” which Yuhua informed me tonight that he “hopes he will not have to inherit because it makes really weird noises.”) and making sure he had everything he needed (cub scout uniform, water bottle, and pumpkin) for the rest of the evening.  It was rainy and cold, but John didn’t seem to mind.  His team lost.  They’ve lost every game this season, but John didn’t seem to mind that either.  He ran back and forth across the field propelling the ball with his feet, chest, knees, and head.  It never ceases to amaze me how John instinctively uses his head to stop or change the direction of the ball.  My natural impulse is to duck which is probably why I was never any good at soccer, basketball, softball, volleyball, dodgeball…  : )

We capped off the evening with a pack meeting.  We were wet, hungry, and tired at this point, but there is nothing like a bunch of cub scout cheers to pep you up : ) We shouted lots of silly cheers to celebrate the boy's achievements.  John was in heaven.  And then we hurried home, inhaled dinner, practiced spelling words, and collapsed.  It was a good day!

Worth it!

The navigation app on my Driod saved the day, and I made it to see Brooklyn run her last cross country race of the season.  It was cold and rainy, but she persevered with numb appendages and then convinced me to buy her a cinnamon melt on the way home. 

I think my pictures are blurry because I was so cold, I was shaking.

I love Brooklyn's stride when she's racing for the finish line. 

Pumpkin Tradition

One of our favorite family traditions is carving pumpkins together.   Each of our kids designs and carves their own pumpkin and James and I each help in the carving and goop departments, respectively. This tradition always endures despite life’s craziness because James and I are both on board with this one.  James came home this weekend just in time for our pumpkin festivities. 

For the past several years we have grown our own pumpkins making this tradition even more fun, but this year we thought we’d be living in Idaho by Halloween and didn’t plant any pumpkin seeds.  Lesson # 159 learned from our garden  --  Continue to plant seeds even if you do not plan to be around for the harvest.   Besides some late tomatoes, we are sadly missing our usual fall harvest.   Lucky for us, for a lot of moola, we can buy pumpkins that someone else grew.   So we did, and here are the results:

Yuhua's pumpkin is a replica of R2-D2 and resulted in pumpkin flying everywhere.  The kitchen still hasn't fully recovered.

Brooklyn stirring (not pumpkin) tomato soup from our garden. This soup also created a huge mess that welcomed James home for the weekend.

Boo!



Backlog

I’m experiencing a side effect of blogging.  It’s called backlog – too many good things to remember.  Here are just a few things that we’ve been up to…

• Lots of soccer ~ This was the only rainy soccer day we’ve had all fall.  We love rainy soccer games and especially the hot chocolate afterwards.

• Lots of running ~ Yuhua finished 2^nd in his race yesterday only after being overtaken by a runner at the last second.  It was exciting, and I was yelling so loud I missed the photo opp.  This photo was taken a week ago.

• A scout campout ~ This campout took place on the same weekend as the rainy soccer game.  I was told by Yuhua’s scout leader that Yuhua was out digging a trench around his tent at 4am just in case a moat was needed : )

• Making fall skirts with Savannah and Brooklyn ~ We won’t show you a picture of the bags under our eyes after staying up late to finish these.  

• Enjoying exceptionally beautiful weather ~ This day was heaven.  I wish this picture captured the warm sun and the symphony of geese on their way south, windchimes, and rustling leaves. (The view from our deck that I'm going to miss so much)

• Filling out applications for college and senior pictures ~  Yikes!  Is this a good thing or a bad thing? This is exactly why I have got to keep journaling the moments I want to remember. 

Problem Solved

We’ve had a few mishaps this week.  Lucky for me, I have resourceful children.  I mean really lucky for me--because my kids solved these problems much better than I would have. 

Monday began with a clogged toilet.  After four clogs and each flusher claiming to be innocent of any typical clogging behavior, Jackson asked if I thought the glow in the dark wristband that had accidently flipped off his wrist and into flushing toilet several days prior could be the problem.  “Um.  Yes.”  I was prepared to call the plumber, but Jackson informed me that he had read in Reader's Digest that 80% of all plumbing problems could be resolved without calling a plumber if people knew how.  So, we hung a sign on the toilet, and Jackson headed to Lowes to look for a more powerful plunger.  He came home with this. 

We all gathered around the bathroom door for what seemed to be the most excitement we’d had at our house in a long time, and Jackson went to work.  Turns out, Reader’s Digest was right. After several tries the clog was removed, and I’m happy to report that the toilet is now in good working order. 

Next, we discovered that one of the water barrels in our garage had sprung a leak and flooded part of the garage creating a moldy wet mess.  No problem.  The kids got busy moving wet boxes, mopping the floor, and figuring out how to siphon water from the barrel. There were some differences of opinion about how this job should be done, and I stayed out of it.   

What you can't see in this picture is that Jackson is receiving instruction from James via speaker phone.

Yuhua was the only one brave enough to create the suction to pull the water down the tube.

Last but not least, I got a frantic phone call on Saturday asking me to hurry home quick because a quart of stain had spilled all over our garage floor.    By the time I could get home, the mess was mostly cleaned up and the kids had managed to still stain the beds with the stain they wiped up from the floor. 

I’m not sure what I’m needed for around here.  Maybe I’ll take a vacation :  ) I think I'll also try to avoid photos of our garage in the future. There are a disproportionate number of photos of our messy garage on this blog.

Piano Pay Off

A strange phenomenon is occurring at our house.  The piano is being played without my pleading, begging, bribing, and threatening.  Last week I even had to ask Savannah to please not play the piano before 6:00am!   Savannah has also decided to teach John piano lessons as part of one of her Personal Progress Value Projects.  I don’t know what’s going on around here, but I LIKE IT! 

General Conference

Tomorrow the text and video of General Conference will be available online.   I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Conference last weekend as a family.  Even James was able to be with us for the Saturday sessions.  We had a great weekend filled with conference, soccer, and Thai food, but I did not take a single picture.   So, here is my testimony of General Conference instead : ) 

A few years ago our family had the opportunity to visit with Elder Bednar at his office.  Elder and Sister Bednar lived across the street from my family when I was young and are dear friends of my parents. So, although we are nobody special, this friendship with the Bednars has blessed our family in many ways, and this opportunity to visit personally with an Apostle was one of them.  I tried to prepare my kids well for this day.  We prayed about it, I think I even fasted about it, and we discussed ahead of time what questions we might like to ask.   True to form, on the appointed day, two of my kids had a disagreement about (of all things) socks and were like ticking time bombs the whole visit.  Elder and Sister Bednar were awesome and so was our visit, but I was distracted, aware of the short fuse.   As we left Elder Bednar’s office, my mind flooded with questions I wished I’d asked.   I worried for a moment that I had missed the chance of a lifetime because, believe me, I need all the help I can get. 

Then, we toured the Conference Center, and I realized that we were being blessed to witness a technological miracle.  It was amazing to see that the Lord has provided a way for everyone to have the same opportunity we had in Elder Bednar’s office--a chance to be personally taught by his Apostles and Prophet.   I realized that if we prepared ourselves spiritually for General Conference just as we prepared for our visit to see Elder Bednar - if we prayed to have the Spirit with us, if we came prepared to listen, if we came with really good questions in our hearts - we could be personally taught through the Spirit all we need to know.  I felt better knowing I hadn’t missed the only chance I might ever have to receive guidance from an Apostle of God. I think it’s a miracle that every nation, tongue, and people has this chance too, and they have it over and over again every six months.  And that is why I love General Conference so much  : )