thanksgiving, winter and beyond!

First of all, thanksgiving! Wow. I managed to not take a single picture once all the final cooking was done. Not a poic of our guests, our table or our fat bellies afterward. But here are plenty of pics of the pre cooked fun.

Apple pear pie

Pumpkin made from my own puree and pecan ( my fav)

Homemade cranberry sauce still steaming

the green beans and red pepper that would later be cooked with bacon and garlic. Yum

The prime rib roast. I made ( thanks to my dad) a garlic rosemary salt rub, and this year I added alittle red chile because I can't get enough. I have to say......double fantastically yummers.

The spuds ready to go in the oven. I purchased 3 or 4 packs of butter especially just for this dinner. Ha!

The old style sweet potatoes with the marsh on top.

This is the next day. We were finally almost done digesting from the night before and decided to go out and have some fun. Boo likes to help daddy.

They were attempting to eat my snow fort.

She thinks she's real funny

Our snow man

snow angels

that snow man spontaniously spawned another smaller version of itself. Kinda creepy

Ah Brother and sister, sledding and talking of something very serious I'm sure

Denali blue eye

Cousin Sara. The girls had a blast out sledding with their cousin Sara. We couldn't have asked for a better time unless there was hot cocoa and a flask involved.

Daddy got his work out. I can still hear Elsie yelling "AGAIN"

Then we got our xmas tree. We had to be patient and wait for Denali to get homw to decorate it.

After we did there was of course much dancing.

and hugging, this is a before the decorating tree shot but whatever you get the point.

Our little tree with my mostly handmade decorations. Looking at this I realize I have much more work to do making more.

Our stockings. Yay. Let the madness begin. This is such a crazy holiday. I was getting relly bitter about it before the kids came along and now I am happily back in the christmas spirit of love and insanity. My only wish Is that we could be closer to my side of the family. I miss you all so much. Love and hugs.

blue monday

Alright, Its been a crappy weekend. Today was not shaping up to be much better....but this is what I suggest. Hang with some princesses. Their always good for some smiles.

Make some ultimate comfort food. I wanted mashed potatoes and homemade chips. This goes back to my high school days, I was over at some chicks house who I didn't like but my friends all did. She brought out some leftover mashed potatoes and some crinkle chips. I don't ever talk to that girl anymore and I'm okay with not liking her now but man I will never forget some good buttery spuds and chips. This and the princesses really helped imrove my mood.

Then get out some paper sit on the floor with the girls and color. Forget about the dishes and the laundry and color.I'm not all better but alittle. It doesn't help that I have to go to work tonight and then start really planning for a thanksgiving dinner I don't really want to cook in the first place. I'm kinda crappy that way myself. If we're fighting around the holidays the first thing I want to do is throw the holidays out the window. I don't like portraying a happy face when I don't have one, but I think they call that selfish right?! So tomorrow the dinner planning. ugh. Hoping everyones day is better than mine.

my day yesterday or Lazy mama tartan

After dropping Denali off at school we had to start getting ready for some friends to come over. Soooo it was time for a bath. They usually play some variation of JAWS, with sharky attacking and reeking havoc on all sorts of helpless polly pocktes. We have alot of fun

After that we cleaned the house, kinda, and started cooking. This is my lazy mama apple tartan. Basically you slice up some apples and lay them in a heavily BUTTERED dish

And this is where the lazy and cheap come in. You take one of those .99 cent boxes of cake mix and add some honey and more cinnamon to it

Once the mix is ready just leave it alone in the bowl and move on. Take about 1 cup of sugar and about 1/2 cp of H2O and dissolve it over high heat. Don't stir it just swirl your pan. Keep swirling until it turns a beautiful amber color. Don't underestimate how long this part of it takes. You'll want to walk away but trust me....don't do it. Once it starts turning color it'll go in a flash.

Heres that color

Dump it all over your apples

Put the cake mix over that. There will be mix left over but just put it in the fridge. I made pumpkin muffins for breakfast for the girls with mine this morning. So put that in the oven pre heated at 350 and bake for about 35-45 min or you know until its done. I always use the toothpick trick. If it comes out clean its done.

But....in the mean time while its baking you might as well fry up some bacon. It is going to be brunch after all and everything really is better with bacon.

Heres The lazy tartan, Sure I bet all homemade is better but sometimes things just need to be quick and dirty right.

On a complete side note...heres my kitchen. I ripped all my upper cabinet doors off. I should have gone through and actually organized my stuff before snapping this pic but...we all know the chances of that happening ever are slim to none. Anyways, we ate bacon and apple cake and drank tea and coffee and let kids run around screaming and it was great. Today, cold, leftovers and the whole family at chuck-e-cheese for Denali's school night fundraiser. chuck-e-cheese = parental hell.

brrrrrr......you've got to be kidding me.

Its about -5 degrees out there right now. This is what used to be my favorite window and I want it out! Last year during a -20ish snap the ice was atleast and inch and a half thick. It reminds me of a death train I once took to Germany.  I don't want to leave the house and I have to admit I am alittle resentful of the fact that I have to bring the girls to school. This is one of those days where I want to make warm pumpkin soup. I roasted the rest of the pumpkins I had and made puree. Pure baby, pure puree.

Anyways, on days like this I want the outside world to go away and leave us alone. I want my house to have better insulation, I want the sliding glass door GONE. Those things get mold in the cracks and what a heat suck. I want someone to come over and do my dishes and laundry and dust my corners and clean the toilet so I can lay in bed all day under the big down blankets reading books to the girls and watching cartoons. But no, thats not how it goes down. I get into bed @ 3am due to work and get back up at the crack of 7am to start getting all 3 girls up and fed and dressed in all their winter gear to get girl 1 off to school in -temps. Come home only to vaccum and clean up the results of fun night with daddy while mama's at work. Now I'm typing this and seriously thinking about sherking my duty of getting girl 2 to preschool but I know I won't so at 10:17 am its time to start thinking about what to cook for lunch. but thats life. Here are some outstanding sippits from this morning I can't seem to stop complaining about.

So, shut up mama and be happy right? Right. I just don't like the weather. I love that picture of Elsie up there.

In other news, Sean and I are starting to revisit the idea of moving to Seward. We both seem to think that we'd be pretty happy there and neither of us are that picky about jobs as long as our family is taken care of and happy, warm and fed. I could work at the grocery for all I care. Also important is where the girls are brought up. Spending alot of time in Seward as we have the community seems really close and we like that alot as well. Sean will be vested in may and as sad as it would be to sell this place I would do it to move to Seward. I think both of us would. He could still go through Avtec.

Could we really be small town Alaska people though?

I guess I need to get on that lunch now, baked sweet potato wedges and sandwiches. Sorry for the completely disjointed post here people.

* Tomorrow is my dad's Birthday

happy birthday William Alfred Hayes!

* For some reason I am now drinking more tea than coffee

I'm down to sometimes less than 1 cup of coffee a day

sure sign I'm getting old

* Love the life you live, live the life you love

More horribly boring POSTS surely to follow.