Wordless Wednesday-VOLCANO!

Wordless Wednesday-baking biscuits

From Cheyenne's perspective

I always have a lot of fun when I clear the memory card from Cheyenne's camera. I love getting the chance to see things through her eyes. Here are some of my favorites.

Disney World:





Siblings:

Butter:



The fair:





And herself:

Another little visitor

Yesterday, Cheyenne and Sierra went to take out the garbage and came back in with a little friend.

I've only seen a few praying mantises (praying mantisus, praying manti???) up close before. We had fun watching this guy for a little while before setting him free.

Anybody else hearing the words, "Everybody was Kung Foo Fighting...", in their head now? (You know, Mantis from Kung Fu Panda)

(Oh, and just so you know, it's mantises, mantids, or mantes-all are accepted. I looked it up.)

Mmmmmmmm! Pepperoni pizza bread.

Source: mommyskitchen.net via Tiffany on Pinterest

I found this recipe on pinterest a couple of weeks ago. It was so easy and looked so yummy that I just had to try it out. I was not disappointed. It was delicious! Perfect for a hot lunch (rare around here) or a quick and easy dinner for a busy night (which is every night at our house). I changed the recipe up just a bit. Here's my version:

You only need 4 ingredients:

*Frozen loaves of white bread dough
(I used two for our family for lunch but if Daniel had been home, I would have needed 3)

*Pepperoni

*Mozzarella Cheese

*Pizza sauce (for dipping)

All you do is:
*Set the dough out and let it rise according to the instructions on the package.
(This takes quite a while, so plan ahead)

*Roll the dough out to just an inch or so thick.

*Cover with mozzarella, then pepperoni, then more mozzarella.

*Roll the dough up so that the toppings are on the inside and place in a loaf pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray.

*Allow it to rise again for 30 minutes-1 hour.

*Bake according to the package directions.

*Serve with pizza sauce on the side.

I forgot to take pictures of the process, but here is the finished product. Yum!

I love the way fresh baked bread looks! Can't you just smell it?

This is the other loaf, it didn't bake up quite as pretty, but it tasted great!

We will definitely be having this again soon.

Friday's Fave Five

It's Friday! I'm linking up again over at Living to Tell the Story for Friday's Fave Five. Pick your five favorite things from this week and link up too!

#1 Date Night-Friday night, Daniel and I left the kids with Grandpa and Grandma and went out for a date night. We saw the movie Courageous and then went out to dinner. It was so nice to get out just the two of us for a while and the movie was amazing! If you haven't seen it, you should!

#2 Halloween Costumes-The kids were so cute in their costumes! I always love how their costumes reflect their personalities.

#3 Fun and safe Halloween activities for the kids-We didn't go trick-or-treating this year because Sugartown at our church was at the same time. I think I was almost as disappointed as the kids. I love trick-or-treating! But once it was time, I don't think any of us missed it at all. We had so much fun and it was really nice not to have to worry about traffic or scary decorations at the houses or not letting the kids have any candy until I went through it. And we didn't have to walk ten million miles, either!

#4 Going to a church that has fun activities for kids-Wednesday night, the adults from our church had the opportunity to go see the movie Courageous for free thanks to a generous family who reserved the theater for the evening. Courageous is an awesome movie, but it's not really for kids. To make sure that parents could attend, the church had movie night for the kids at the church (and nursery for the smaller kids). We watched Rio (cute movie), ate popcorn, and played games. It was fun!



#5 Having breakfast cooked for me-This morning, Daniel made us pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Yum! He cooked and the kids are doing the dishes. Can't get much better than that!

Paper Saving Idea

One of the things we do every day in our schoolwork is some type of math drill. Sometimes we play games with flashcards, sometimes they play games on the computer, and sometimes I give them a fact sheet to complete.

I try not to use the fact sheets too much, though, for a couple of reasons. First, I don't have a printer right now so I have to write them out by hand. It seems like such a waste of time for something that they will finish in just a minute or two. Second, it's hard on Landon to see lots of problems on the page at once. He gets overwhelmed looking at all those problems and it's hard for him to focus on one at a time. Third, it uses a lot of paper. I don't really need to keep them but it seems like a waste to throw them away.

I have found a solution for all three of my problems.

I have several of these things lying around. You can pick them up for about $1. I always meant to put pictures in them to carry in my purse, but somehow never got around to it.

The pages are clear and are the perfect size for holding flash cards.

Just slip in the cards you want your kiddos to work on and hand them a dry erase marker. They can write the answers right on the page and then wipe it off with a tissue after you check them.
(just so you know, that is a 7. He was having some marker trouble at the top. )

I love this! It makes my life easier and saves me money, too.

I'm thinking I may use this for Landon's handwriting practice, too, by putting a letter or number card in for him to trace.

I'm also going to use it for the older girls' vocabulary quizzes.

Tons of possibilities!

What would you use it for?

Halloween 2011-part 3: the other costumes

Sunday evening, Grandma Debbie and I took the three youngest kids to a Halloween carnival at Pops and Memaw's (my grandparents) church while Dakota was at her small group from church. They had a blast! There were hot dogs, caramel apples, carnival games, a cake walk, and CANDY! We came home with a cake, four cans of pop (that's soda for you non-Okies), some cream puff things, a dozen cookies, and a huge bag of candy. There was so much candy that when it was time to go home, they were handing it out to the kids by the handful. I thought it was funny that one of the men filling the kids' buckets with candy is a dentist. Think he was trying to drum up some business? HA!

The kids were really excited to finally get to wear their costumes.

We had Super Mario,

a cowgirl,



and a monarch butterfly (somehow I didn't get a picture of her with her wings on. She's just as cute without them though.)


Monday afternoon, we worked on some decorations for the house.

I saw something similar to this on pinterest and had to give it a try. I think it turned out cute. The night picture is not good, but trust me when I tell you it was pretty cool.

The kids also made paper plate jack o' lanterns to hang on the wall.
Sierra wanted to make some ghosts. She cut them out and hung them on the back door with the word "Boo".

The only problem was that she hung them on the inside of the door so when you stood outside and read it, it said "ooB"! She thought it was as funny as the rest of us. In fact, it's still up there and we all laugh about it everytime we go in our out the door.

Monday night was our church's Halloween event, called SUGARTOWN. It was so much fun! There were all kinds of inflatables for the kids to jump on, pizza, pop, a hayride, and more CANDY, of course. The kids got to wear their costumes again (thank goodness). Landon had saved his mustache to wear to Sugartown and he was so excited to try it on.

It was so cute! (Daniel tells me we had it upside-down but we tried it the other way and it didn't look right either.) He kept it on long enough for me to take the picture and then decided it was too itchy. I painted one on for him instead.

Since Landon wasn't going to wear the mustache, the girls decided to give it a try.

Dakota opted to just go as a regular nerd this time.

When we got to Sugartown, we found one of Cheyenne's friends in the same costume. How cute are they?
(I didn't get to ask her mom for permission so I won't show her face.)

The kids were moving so fast from one inflatable to the next that I barely got any pictures of them.

Dakota mostly just hung out. She was my runner for the evening, going to put things in or get things out of the van. Even though she was too big for the inflatables, I think she had a good time.
Halloween was so much fun this year! I think we have enough candy to last us until next Halloween!

Anyone have any good recipes to use up tootsie rolls?