Cook-a-thon 3!

Well, we are resigned to the fact that everytime we do this, it's going to take the WHOLE DAY and part of the night! We tried to make it faster by having everyone bring something already finished...which we did. But we still cooked all day and into the night. This time we did a few things alot better though.

#1 - we had pizza for dinner so we didn't have to worry about it

#2 - we used frozen water bottles to cool off hot soups faster

#3 - we didn't simmer soups for very long (if at all) so they could cool much faster!

#4 - we didn't have any cars get broken into! Yay!

Things we can probably do better next time.

#1 - Get a food processor so certain things take less time

#2 - Get a babysitter to watch the kids

#3 - Get someone to come and just wash dishes all day long! (man, you should have seen the pile)!

#4 - Don't have a concert the same night as the cook-a-thon (ok, we had no control over this one...it just happened).

#5 - cooking eggrolls at 11pm leads to injuries - cook them when you are less fried! (ok, I'm the one with the burns on my fingers. It's my own darn fault).

#6 - stir the baked beans in the crockpot, even if you don't think you need to! (oops..my bad)!

It's funny how much we look forward to just frying ourselves for one whole day. Even our kids were really excited for this cook-a-thon. We think we figured out why though. They get to spend the whole day with friends, watching movies and playing and eating yummy food!

Thanks, to Karen Olds who brought us sustanance! (best darn snickerdoodles I've ever had)!

A few pics from our crazy day.............

Kids who don't go to school should not use scissors!

This is what happens when a 5-year old steps too close to a pair of scissors........

Thanks to Brenda who rescued Cameron from looking like an imp for at least several weeks! Oh ya....lest you forget. We had this same crisis right before Halloween last year. At least he waited until AFTER Halloween this year!

Halloween 2008

It's probably about time I post something about Halloween (I mean, Thanksgiving is only 2 days away)!

The kids were so excited to carve pumpkins this year! This included watching mom scrape out the seeds, watching mom poke the design in the pumpkin and watching mom cut out the design. It was alot of work for them!!! Haha! They did enjoy poking the carved pieces out of the pumpkin (which was quickly brought to a halt when they started punching out the wrong part of the design). Better luck next year boys! Maybe then you'll get over your phobia of pumpkin seeds and wet, stringy pumpkin innards!

Trick-or-treating was lots of fun. We had breakfast for dinner (quick and easy)! Francelle and kids and Kenna and kids joined us for the festivities. We wandered from house to house (it was more like 1, 2 skip a few....like 10....and then there was some candy). Lots of dark houses this year. Cameron wasn't really feeling well the whole day, so after an hour we had to throw in the towel and call it good. I took Cason and Cameron home at 7pm while Channing stayed out with the other kids. They found 1 street that loaded them up sufficiently and they called it quits at 7:30 or so.

I think my kids enjoyed having other kids come to the door more than they enjoyed trick-or-treating themselves. Weird kids! Bob seemed to enjoy giving away all our candy so I had very little to eat. (what are you trying to say here...???). Hmmmm..... Ok, well, it's almost Christmas. I'm sure Santa will bring me some candy since the boys' Halloween candy is hidden somewhere in the house and I don't know where it is! (thanks alot Bob)! Hahaha!