Halloween Party

Yesterday was Spencer's Halloween party at school.  Rick went and took amazing pictures!  I'm so glad Rick can go to his parties and Spencer loves seeing his Daddy!  I'm clear across town and it's hard for me to get away from my classes.  Thank you Rick for seeing how important these events are to Spencer and us and going to be there with Spencer!

I made these for all of Spencer's class and his teachers.  I got this idea from guess where???  Yep, a blog I follow called Mega•Spooky.  What I love about this blog is that it is Halloween all year long!  Oh man, right up my alley!

And this is what you get at home after your sweet son has be ingesting sugar all day and can't understand why it can't continue at home.  Well, it did continue at home because how can you tell him that he can't have a cookie with 2 inches of icing on it??  It had so much icing on it that Spencer thought it was a cupcake, not a cookie!

Chicken & Spinach Bake

Wow.  Wow.  Wow!  Wow!  This is a keeper for sure.  I got this recipe off of a blog that I follow down to the right, Wearing Gackey's Apron.  I could go on and on about this, but I won't.  Spencer ate it like there was no tomorrow and yes my sweet son, you were eating loads of spinach with every, single bite!  He even ate it Monday for supper again.  I mean, you could even eat this stuff cold it's so good!  I did double some things, but kept everything else the same!  Enjoy!

8 ounces uncooked rigatoni (used a little more than a 3/4 of a 16 ounce box)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion (about 1 medium)
1 (10-oz.) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed (used almost two packaged of frozen spinach)
3 cups cubed cooked chicken breasts (4 large chicken breasts)
1 (14.5-oz.) can Italian-style diced tomatoes
1 (8-oz.) container chive-and-onion cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 cups (6 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup of sour cream


1. Prepare rigatoni according to package directions.
2. Meanwhile, spread oil on bottom of an 11- x 7-inch baking dish; add onion in a single layer.
3. Bake at 375° for 15 minutes or just until tender. Transfer onion to a large bowl, and set aside.
**I sauteed the onions on the stove top...to me that was easier.
4. Drain chopped spinach well, pressing between layers of paper towels.
5. Stir rigatoni, spinach, chicken, and next 4 ingredients into onion in bowl. Spoon mixture into baking dish, and sprinkle evenly with shredded mozzarella cheese.
6. Bake, covered, at 375° for 30 minutes; uncover and bake 15 more minutes or until bubbly.

Image from Wearing Gackey's Apron



Oktoberfest

Hope (Spencer's school) had their Oktoberfest celebration this past weekend.  Spencer got all gussied up in his Halloween costume and was ready to go!

They had games, a bake sale, horses to ride, cotton candy, boothes to shop at and most importantly a HUGE bouncy house.  Lets just say Spencer didn't get past the bouncy house.  We all went together and Rick had to head back to work, so we had to get Spencer out, go home and then him and I went back up there. 

Look at that hair!! 



Spencer & his buddy Mati

 And this video sums up the day for Spencer...

(sorry it's a little grainy...I filmed it with our digital camera)

Salsa baby!!!!

I'm pretty sure Rick and I could eat Salsa on anything we cook.  We go through so many jars and gallons (yes gallons) of salsa.  And, we like it hot!  Rick has been wanting to make salsa for awhile now and finally did this weekend.  OH. MY. GOSH.  The best!!!!  Rick has now made a batch twice since Saturday.  The basis of the recipe is here by Paula Deen.  Anything from Paula Deen is greatness in my book and this didn't disappoint.  Rick did add some things that I think are so necessary and they're in red.

Ingredients
3 large ripe tomatoes, diced, or 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes with their juice
1 small onion finely chopped (yellow or white)
1 small green bell pepper, seeds and veins removed, minced
1/2 cup chopped green chilies, with juice (small can)
1 clove garlic, minced (2 cloves)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (3 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 diced jalepenos
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped
Salt

Directions

In a large glass bowl, combine all ingredients. Stir well with a spoon. Cover with plastic wrap and chill until serving time.

Enjoy!!

Sweet Dreams (well, sometimes)

We made the big step up to big boy status by buying Spencer his first pillow.  We have huge floor pillows in his room that he loves and Rick and I just felt it was time.  And this is our sweet angel every night now...

All of my favorite things...blankie, paci and pillow!

Well, along with sleeping so sound with the new pillow comes massive dreams and a nightmare thrown in here and there.  The first nightmare was terrible.  We were watching Swamp Men one night and Spence loves it because he LOVES alligators.  Well, about 12:30 that morning we were awaken by blood curdling screams from Spencer's room.  I went in there and he was crying so hard and all he kept saying was "alligators, alligators".  Poor thing!

Then the next two nights have been just hard core dreaming.  He woke up at 5:30 and 6:00 the next night mad as fire.  We're talking full out screaming, hitting fits.  One of those nights he was screaming, "outside, outside" and then he started screaming "spaghetti, spaghetti" (one of his ultimate favorite foods).  I asked him if he wanted to come to bed with mommy and daddy and he screamed no and kept kicking and hitting the bed.  Finally, he cralwed over to me and laid his head down and the went to sleep.  He was screaming donuts this morning to Rick when he went in there.  I don't even think he's realizing what he's doing.  Is he mad because he was dreaming about being outside, spaghetti and donuts and woke up to realize that they weren't there?  Who knows, but he sure likes his pillow! :)

Oh to be 2 again...

Spencer gets every bit of fun out of every second of the day.  It's usually written all over his face. 


Check out that tongue!



Spooky glasses!

Good fun with Zach!

Flip!!!

So, I'm part of a great mentoring group through our education service center.  We mentor science teachers along with a ton of other things.  Well, we had our kick-off meeting for this school year in September and we always get tons of goodies, including this, this year...

HD FlipVideo camera

Talk about a huge surprise!  I have so many plans for this little beauty in my classroom!  Well, you know I had to try it out at home first so I got a great video of Spencer playing in the backyard with Zach and Rick.  Spencer loves for you to chase him and then make him fall down (as you can see).  Kicking the ball is also one of his favorite things...um, hello soccer player???

For the love of phones...

To say Spencer loves phones is the understatement of the year!  That kid has more phones than he knows what to do with.  He even has an old cell phone that his brother Zach gave him that still works (no SIM card) and we have to charge it at night with our phones!  Well, when he gets on the phone he talks and talks just like he's talking to someone on the other line.  I've tried and tried to get this on video, but when he sees the video camera he stops and starts saying, "I see it!  I see it!"  Well, I finally got him the other night on the couch without him noticing because I was using the video on my phone (hence the reason for the lack of clarity & it was dark).  Too cute!!!

House Renovation Update

I haven't updated on how our home's renovation is going.  We still haven't made it to the inside, but shortly.  We have places of our grass that need to be replaced because for some reason it "didn't take" when we had the sod installed.  They are coming to replace that this week.  Last week we had the concrete borders laid in the backyard for our two flower beds.  We weren't going to do that, but decided to.  We are planting both of those flower beds this weekend.  After that, our sprinkler guys will come back and hook up the drips in all of our flower beds.  Whew!  Then we shall go into the inside! 

Spencer has been quite the little helper with everything & ANY chance he gets to help his Daddy, he jumps right in.  Watching Spencer and Rick together melts my heart every time.  I love those two boys so much!!!!

Watching Daddy

Helping Daddy hammer tree fertilizer stakes into the ground