The Months Summed Up: October: Stella's Birthday Party

excited to open all her presents

Adorable

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It was bitty baby's birthday too

cowgirl hats from Uncle Dyl and Me

She read all the cards. It was adorable

The Men

Nana made Olive a little purse

The Months Summed Up: October

I realize I am SO FAR behind in my blogging. I am going to attempt to catch up! Unfortunately this means skimping on details and mostly letting the pictures do the talking. A photo is work a thousand words right? So sit back an relax and prepare for a multitude blog posts trying to cover the last 4 months!

OCTOBER:

Working on Cait's LONG overdue birthday present while listening to General Conference

Dylan picked me up from a particularly long and stressful day of school begging me to make
him something delicious for dinner bc he was starving. Turns out he had already made dinner!
Just had a few things to finish up when we got home. I sure am spoiled!

First attempt at cinnamon rolls. Turned out I packed them in WAAAY to tight but boy were they delicious!

Dad-you know how you like 2x as much frosting as cake when Mom makes you German chocolate cake for you
birthday? That's how Dylan is with his frosting on cinnamon rolls. 

Our pumpkins!

I asked Dylan if he would help me make some treats for our pumcarty. He asked if
bringing his guitar into the kitchen and serenading me counting as helping. I said of course!
He wanted to help anyway when he saw what I was making! He alternated playing and stirring the
pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

Dylan's punpkin

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

being a goof

I accidentally cut my pumpkin in half trying to carve the Death Star :(

Jess's pumpkin

Terrah's pumpkin

Dylan's final product

The whole crew! (mine never got completed....)

Digital Media Assignment

Just wanted to post what my Digital Media assignment was today. I'm actually pretty impressed how it turned out and can't wait to experiment more with it. I took a color picture and converted it to black and white and then moved the RGB (red, green, blue) channels to created 4 different images (same image, 4 different contrasts) then on each layer changed all the white to a color. The last image is all of the layers put together.

Red

Chartreuse

Gray

White

All of the layers put together

Daddy Long Legs, Who Did Name You?

Dylan stumbled across this website, wimp.com, and this video came up. It made us laugh so hard. I needed to share it. Enjoy.

Lately

My sister Kimberly posted on her blog a bit ago a picture Asher drew and I loved it! Next time Asher got out his markers Kimber told him I liked his last drawing. He then proceeded to draw me a bunch of pictures and sent them to me in the mail!

It reads "Dear Aunt Heather, I drew you a snake, and a duck, and two snakes. No, not two snakes,
a Rainbow! Its gonna have lots of clouds. Will you please put these on your fridge? And I want
you to come to my house. I drew these pictures for you because I love you.  Love, Asher

His drawings. Top Left: Rainbow. Bottom Left: "Hotsy Potsy Caterpillar"
Top Right: Snake and a duck. Bottom Right: A silly caterpillar

Stella came over later that day and drew me a picture too!
This is her when she was a pig and had black hair
[her words not mine!]

Dylan and I have been working on changing out diet to
eat healthier. Dylan is showing signs of dairy allergies
like his Mom and sister so we've been eating careful for a while.
I've also replaced our white rice and pasta for brown rice
and whole wheat noodles!

Quinoa replaced our macaroni noodles in my "frequently used foods jar"
and boy do we love it! 

Quinoa and Beans

1 tsp vegetable oil                                          

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 onion, chopped                                           

salt and pepper to taste

 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped              

1 can corn

3/4 cup uncooked quinoa                               

1 can black beans, rinsed

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth                            

 1 can kidney beans, rinsed

1 teaspoon cumin                                          

 1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic and saute until lightly browned. Rinse quinoa and mix into saucepan and cover with vegetable broth. Season with cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes. Stir in corn, beans, and cilantro. [I used dry cilantro bc that is what I had on hand]

Quinoa [keen-wah] is a whole protein by itself and cooks almost just like rice. It is extremely versatile and so yummy!

I made a strawberry sorbet and topped it with avocado pudding!
yes, delicious chocolate pudding made from avocados.

I tried to make it pretty and stuff.

Avocado Pudding

2 avocados

2/3 cup agave or honey

1/2 cup cocoa powder

Mix! I mixed mine in my Vitamix and had to add quite a bit of water/milk to move it around. I also used raw honey and it was a bit sweet for me so I added more cocoa powder [next time I will just use less honey]. For the STRAWBERRY SORBET I just threw a bunch of frozen strawberries in my Vitamix and added a tiiiny bit of water.

With school getting so busy I decided to start relying more on my crockpot!
It's so nice to come home from school and not have to worry about one more
thing. I made Santa Fe Chicken tonight

Served with rice [in my peacock bowl I painted at color me mine]

Sante Fe Chicken

2 chicken breasts                                         

1 can kidney beans

1 teaspoon garlic powder                            

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper      

1 small onion, chopped                               

1 teaspoon cumin

1 can diced tomatos with green chilies  [or add 1 small can green chilies]        

1 teaspoon garlic powder         

1/4 cup chopped cilantro   

1 can corn                                                    

salt and pepper to taste

1 can black beans                                         

Combine chicken broth, onion, tomatoes, chilies, corn, beans, cumin, cayenne, garlic, and salt and pepper in crockpot. Lay chicken on top. Cook on Low for 10 hours or High for 6 hours. [I did Low with frozen chicken and it was done when I got home from school 7 hours later] 1/2 hour before serving remove from crockpot and shred. Return to crockpot and stir. Serve over rice or quinoa.

Blueberry Pie

My second homemade pie! I used blueberries from Mom and Dad's. Not too bad looking! And quite tasty  if I do say so (which, I do). My first pie attempt with huckleberries we had picked in the mountain turned out veeeeerry liquidy, so I was careful of that this time. It was still a little liquidy, but not bad at all. Dylan ate the whole pie in 2 days. He did save me a piece though!