These are a few of my favorite things

1. Rick

2. Julee

3. Alexis

4. Fall in New York

Hot Stuff!!

Hello Everyone, Rick Here.....

So... the other day I was feeling culinarily adventerous, and missing the Southwest in general to boot, so I decided to try out a variation on Jalapeno Poppers that I discovered.

Basically, you take the Jalpenos, slice 'em in half, fill them with a grated cheese/cream cheese mixture, wrap them in Bacon and bake them in the Broiler for 15 Minutes.

WOW!!!

They turned out super-yummy! The combination of pepper, cheese and bacon is a literal taste explosion. I do think, however, that we were lucky this time around. The jalapenos had all of the flavor, but not too much of the searing heat (They must have been East Coast jalapenos from NEW YORK CITY, or something....)

Steph, being the great sport that she is, took on the role of sous chef as she did all of the slicing, de-seeding, and bacon wrapping for me. I think it's the only time in almost 3 years that I have been in charge.....

Below are a couple of pics of how they looked as they were coming out of the broiler...

Anyways, I was wondering ...what are some of your favorite regional foods? Or dishes that make you think of "Home"?

Tag - You're It

I got tagged so all of you are tagged too!

The point of this tag is to list 5 joys, 5 fears, 5 obsessions/collections, 5 surprising facts, and tag 5 people.

5 Joys...
1. Movie night with my family
2. Hanging out with my friends
3. October in New York
4. A long bath and a good book
5. Music

5 Fears...
1. Heights
2. My girls' saftey
3. Our basement (or the dungeon as the girls refer to it)
4. Snakes
5. Rodents

5 Obsessions/Collections...
1. Chick Flicks
2. Scrapbooking
3. The need to organize everything
4. Emailing
5. Staying up late

5 Surprising Things about you...
1. I hate shopping
2. I dislike surprises
3. I can never tell you what I want for my birthday or Christmas
4. My DVDs are not currently in alphabetical order
5. I can change the oil on a car

Tag 5 People...
1. You
2. You
3. You
4. You
5. You

Sisterhood and Service

As you may or may not know, I am currently serving as the Enrichment Counselor in our ward (in the women's group at church). Our stake is currently working on a joint Relief Society/Young Women Humanitarian project. The project is to make T-shirt dresses or simple A-line dresses that will be sent to the Humanitarian Fund in Salt Lake City; and then ultimately to little girls in less fortunate countries. What fun it has been to be part of the planning in what has turned out to be a very successful and spiritual experience. It has been so exciting to see the sisters (both young and not so young) serve in such a capacity. We planned a couple of joint Enrichment/Young Women activities where sewing machines were stitching, gathers were pulled, and wrinkles were ironed out ~ all to the less than silent hum of laughter and sisterhood. There were older sisters teaching the Young Women how to sew, and Young Women teaching older sisters how to sew. Many of the sisters who were not able to participate in our Enrichment night activities, took it upon themselves to make dresses at home out of fabric pieces found in sewing closets or just recently purchased at the fabric store.

A couple of weeks ago, our ward had a project celebration dinner in combination with the Relief Society General Broadcast. At this dinner, we chose to hang up (in the gym) all the dresses (88 to date) that had been so selflessly made so that the sisters could see the impact that they can make by opening their hearts to others. Since I was mostly in charge of the project and partly in charge of the dinner, Rick and the girls (and my good friend Cindra, the RS president) were lucky enough to get to help me hang the dresses What a treat that was for our family. With EVERY dress that was hung, Alexis would say, "Oh mommy, some little girl is going to love this dress! This one is the cutest!" Little does she know how loved those dresses will be and how much they will be appreciated. Anyway, it was a fun evening with a yummy dinner (we introduced the sisters of the eastern US to Hawaiian Haystacks), a sight to behold, and wonderful messages from our church leaders! How blessed my life is to serve and how fortunate I am to partake of the strength of Spirit that comes through sisterhood and service. I hope these pictures tug at your heartstrings of service like they did mine!

Primary Talent Show

This past Saturday morning the Primary had a Talent Show. Julee and Alexis both participated and did an awesome job! They wanted to share their performances with all of you.

Mom's Favorite - Full Disclosure

It was brought to my attention that it seems that there is always more of Alexis in the blog than Julee. A hint of potential favoritism was even suggested.......so let me take a moment to dispel any and all rumors on either side or in favor of either girl. If you were to ask Julee who is mom's favorite, she would say Alexis. If you were to ask Alexis who is mom's favorite, she would say Julee. Typical sibling rivalry. If you were to ask Rick who is mom's favorite, he would say whichever one didn't leave their bath towel or dirty clothes scattered on their bedroom floor. He would add that if they both had clean bedroom floors, not only would it be likely that the world would certainly be coming to its end, but they would both be my favorites. Little do they know, they are both my favorites though they are likely never to see or understand that.

Having said all that, it is true that there are more appearances on this blog by Alexis than Julee. The reason for that is Alexis' attitude is 'hey mom, check this out - you can put it on the blog'. While Julee's attitude tends to lean more towards 'DO NOT put that dumb picture of me on the blog for the whole world to see'. Anyway, the other night we went to dinner at our friend's house. The 2 dads worked on computer stuff, the 2 moms chatted all night, and all the kids played Legos and Game Cube. It was lots of fun. As part of the evening, the other mom straightened Julee's hair just so we could see what it looks like. It came out really pretty and made Julee look so grown-up. Julee has never had straight in her whole life. When she was little, we wondered if her hair would ever grow in. When she was about 18 months, it started growing and out came these huge bouncy curls (lucky girl!). So here are a couple of pictures of Julee and the debut of her long, straight hair.

Bonus picture: This other picture is a framed collage that we made of Julee's trip to Arizona this summer. She brought home some postcards that she wanted to hang up in her room somehow so we ended up with this. We think it turned out awesome and adds a touch of the Southwest to Julee's otherwise upstate NY bedroom.

1st Day of School

Julee was less than thrilled to go back to school today. Being in 6th grade now, she switches classes and teachers for each subject. She is happy to have some of her friends from last year in her homebase and seems to like all of her teachers (so far). She's bummed that the classroom notes state that each child should expect 60 minutes of homework each night. "It's just wrong," she said.

Alexis on the other hand, was filled with excitement and anticipation. She is now in a "grown up" grade (2nd) and her teacher is "super nice". The highlight of her day was when they went out to play on the playground and it wasn't even lunch; and that there is no homework for the whole week. Any other questions posed about the day were met with a shoulder shrug and an "It's all good, Mom. Can I play on the computer?"

Here are some before and after photos of the big day. Looks like they both survived rather well.....

Smiles, school supplies, and all.....

Waiting for the bus

Whew - I made it through.....

So good to be home!