October Recap

Oh, my! October is NOT going to be easy to remember... But I still want to do the recap, for journaling purposes. Luckily, thanks to my very recent (and LONG overdue) Halloween post, I think most of the important stuff has been covered. Or, at least, the stuff that I have pictures for!!

* Date-night-movie-of-the-month: Well, I don't think there was one... But I could be wrong! I really don't remember. I even tried searching through movie releases, but I'm pretty sure we didn't see anything.

* New calling: Have I mentioned I got a new calling?? Well, actually, an in-addition-to calling. I'm still the Primary teacher for the 10-11 year olds, but now I am also an Activity Day leader. They kind of go hand-in-hand, since I already work with a lot of the girls on Sundays. We have Activity Days twice a month, which makes Thursdays a bit hectic at our house on those nights. Sean has a vocal lesson at 6pm and we have to leave right after that. Dinner is usually a quick bite to eat before Sean's student comes or we pick something up on our way home from the church. It also means no chance at getting Ethan to bed before 9pm. We're making it work, though! My very first activity was spent making decorations for a Daddy/Daughter Halloween party and then two weeks later we had the party.
* More jam! If you'll recall from September's Recap post (clear back at the end of November!), I made jam for the first time - strawberry. Well, in October, I made peach jam - or, as I like to call it, golden goodness!! I love peach jam - especially on buttered toast.
* Green smoothies: I have turned a new page in my smoothie making. I have added SPINACH!! A nice, healthy handful (probably about a cup) of spinach in every smoothie. You can't even taste it and I love that I'm adding a green, leafy vegetable serving without even trying. Even Ethan gulps down these smoothies! This particular one was with banana and pineapple, but my usual smoothies are banana, frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup orange juice, any other berries we have on hand and spinach. YUM! Try it!
* Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider cookies: I didn't mean for this post to be so food-based, but I guess that's what it's turning out to be. Thanks to Pinterest, I found this little beauty of a recipe and had to try it! Spiced apple cider packets in the dough and each cookie formed around a caramel square. I tried them out for the first time for treats for our ward's Super Saturday craft day thing and they were a huge hit!!! Like, empty-plate, people-begging-for-the-recipe hit!Word of caution, these cookies get stale quick and start to crumble and fall apart within just a couple days. Make them the day you plan to eat them!

* Mummy Bars: Another idea via Pinterest (and one of my favorite crafting blogs: The Idea Room) that I made for my Primary class since Sunday was the day before Halloween. Cute, easy and cheap AND the kids liked them! [Photo and idea found here: http://www.theidearoom.net/2010/10/halloween-mummy-birthday-party.html]
* Stuff I Already Blogged About:
Pumpkin Patch
Surprise Oregon Visit for my Parents' Birthday
Ethan's First Primary Program
Halloween

Alright! Done with that! Now I just have November, December and January recaps.... :/

Cultural Night: BRAZIL (i.e. land of beans and rice)

Sean served his mission (2 years) in Brazil. Did you know that? Two years embraced in a new culture.

He was bound to find some new foods to love.

And he did.

Beans and rice.

Fast forward a few years or so... Sean and I meet, fall in love, get married, etc. And in 6 1/2 years of marriage I never once made beans and rice for dinner. Mean, I know. {But, it's not like he ever requested it... At least, I don't think he did.}

I like rice. Plain.

I'm not a big fan of it mixed with other things {other than Spanish rice} - it's a texture thing.

So, imagine my surprise when reading my favorite cooking blog {Our Best Bites} a few weeks ago and the post of the day is "Black Beans & Rice With Chicken And Apple Salsa" and it actually looks good to me! Knowing my hubby's love of beans and rice, I decided to make a night of it.

Cultural night at the Southworths!

Destination: BRAZIL

I made the beans and rice - though I subbed pinto beans for the black beans.
I even made the apple salsa. It was good, but next time I'll probably just do some fresh pico de gallo.
Sean loved it.
I loved it.
{Ethan was cranky and went to bed early that night. He had something else for dinner.}
Sean said it tasted authentic.
Took him right back to Brazil.
I scored mega good-wife points.

I also made "Quick Brazilian Cheese Rolls" or Pao de Queijo.
You just have to have tapioca flour.
Which you can buy in the bulk section at Winco. About a $1.10/lb. And a single batch only takes 1 cup.
Quick and easy to whip up the batter in your blender.
Just don't overbake them - it's easy to do.
The hubs loved these too.
More good-wife points.

And, of course, to drink we had to have Brazilian Lemonade.
Which is made with limes.
So it should probably be called Brazilian Limeade, but whatever.
Fresh limes, water, sugar and sweetened condensed milk.
SO GOOD!
If you are going to take it slow and only make one thing, start with this!
Sean and I love it.
{We've gotten all our WA peeps to love it, too!}
Good-wife points were off the charts!



We will be having Brazil Night at the Southworth home again. And, if Sean has anything to say about it, the sooner the better!
[All recipes from Our Best Bites.]

Out of sheer embarrassment I'm SO not going to give you the real title to this post!

Because it should be:

Halloween 2011

There. I typed it. Stop laughing. Please. Really. It's bad enough that I am THREE months overdue with this post. And that I finally took pictures of Ethan in his costume in January... Your laughter does not help!

But, really, I couldn't leave out Halloween because we had some rockin' costumes! Sean was a zombie and did all his own make-up AND clothes slashing/dirtying. Ethan was a knight - my mom helped me make the costume and I think it came in under $5. And I was... Well, you'll just have to wait a minute. First, let's talk about pumpkin carving, a Halloween party and the Trunk-or-Treat we went to.

10/26/2011 - Pumpkin Carving at the Dahls' House
Spaghetti dinner. Six families. LOTS of kids. Pumpkin guts and some super-cute jack-o-lanterns.
10/29/11 - Halloween Party

Like, I said, Sean was a zombie...


And did his own make-up and open-wound creations...

Creepy, huh?

Ethan was a knight. My mom helped me make his tunic {note: this was pre-learning to sew} and, although we already had a foam sword and shield, we found a plastic sword, shield and helmet at the dollar store and that's what he used.

I love this shot. One of the other kids at the party just happened to be dressed as a dragon (same costume we have - Ethan wore it two years ago)!

And me? Well, I kept my costume hush, hush up until the party. Not because I was trying to keep it a big secret, just because I was afraid I wouldn't be recognized! So what, or should I say, who was I? You tell me.

Recognize her? A lot of people instantly recognized the look and the sign, but couldn't quite think of her name. I was Rosie the Riveter! How'd I do??


And here are some scenes from the party.

Vicki inflicting wounds on those who didn't dress up but added some fake blood and called it good!

Death-related costumes.

The group.

The kiddos.

10/29/11 - Trunk-or-Treat

Our ward had a combined Halloween carnival and trunk-or-treat, which the kids always love. Especially with that one car that gives out full-size candy bars.

Albert Einstein... Or Doc Brown. Take your pick.

He wore that pumpkin (which he carved himself) all night!

Family pic.

10/31/11 - Trick-or-Treating with friends.

This was Ethan's first time door-to-door trick-or-treating and he had so much fun going with all the kids!

Ethan's haul. I'm pretty sure over half of it is still in a bag in our cupboard!

Ok. That's done! I can finally cross "Halloween" off my "to-blog" list!

Team Geo-Trax

Just a little glimpse into some of our everyday stuff...

Background story: Ethan got a Geo-Trax train starter set from my parents for (early) Christmas last year and then Sean and I added to it a little for Christmas. Then, it got added to a little bit more for his birthday. And then Grandma Mary gave Ethan a cool track set for Christmas this year with lots of turns, straight pieces, a cool ramp and even some RR crossing signs!
Last week, Ethan commissioned me to build him a new track.

I take my train-track-building very seriously. It takes the brain of an engineer, I tell ya!

EVERY piece must be used.

All ramps, bridges, the tunnel and the crossroad must be taken advantage of.

Oh, and it can't be boring. i.e. Ethan likes lots of "wiggles," or S-curves, to make it interesting.


Challenge, accepted!

Here's what I came up with. It took up the bulk of our living room floor.

I am SO glad you can not tell just how dirty that floor was. See, this picture was taken after the track had been up for several days (I moved the coffee table out of the way for the picture, but it actually weaved around the legs)... It's difficult to sweep around that thing. And mopping is impossible, so the floors were in desperate need of a good cleaning - not that you can really tell! Ah ha ha ha!!

Snow Day January 2012

Two weeks ago the weather kept teasing us. Little snow flurries here and there. Freezing cold temperatures. Cars frozen shut in the morning. But no accumulation of snow. Until late, late Tuesday (17th) night. We drove home from Sean's choir practice as the snow fell, which meant we had to drive a little slower, but we got home with no slippage - despite the sparkling snow on the ground. Yay for big, heavy SUVs!

Well, it was close to 11pm and yet Ethan HAD to run around in the snow a little...

It was so cute. If you listen closely, you can hear Ethan saying, "Playing in the snow! Playing in the snow!"

The next morning I had the (slightly) daunting task of outfitting Ethan in snow gear. Except that, other than the new coat we just got him (yay for clearance!) and a hat, he had outgrown everything! Boots: too small. Snow pants: non-existent. Make-shift snow pants from last year: too small. Mittens: could only find one! So, we improvised with lots of layers... Long john jammies, fleece jammie bottoms, thermal undershirt, too small make-shift snow pants from last year, 2 pairs of socks, shoes and fleece jacket and new coat. Topped him off with a hat and then was lucky enough to find the missing mitten in the car.

So Ethan went out back and played in the snow and then the neighbor-boy hopped the fence and the two of them built a cute little snowman.


After Ethan was thoroughly chilled to the bone (actually he stayed fairly warm and dry - other than hands and feet - thanks to my expert layering!) he came inside to warm up while I threw everything in the dryer and then we met some friends to go "sledding" down a big hill. The big kids use inner tubes, but Ethan mostly just ran around throwing attempted snowballs and having fun being outside with all the kids.
Dinner that night was not what I planned, but a pleasant, hearty, tasty surprise. Flipping through my Our Best Bites cookbook, I found the White Chicken Chili recipe and discovered I was only missing fresh cilantro. Made the soup and a pan of cornbread and it was so, so good!

Seriously, quick and easy and good. Here's the recipe: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/09/white-chicken-chili/

Ice Skating w/ the Colemans

Over Christmas break we got the opportunity to go ice skating with the Colemans - they had four 2-for-1 passes and with six people in their family, they offered the extra two to us. Sweet! We only had to pay for Ethan. Sean and I hadn't been ice skating in years. And, well, Ethan had never been. We were all excited until we got to the rink - then Ethan wanted nothing to do with it! So Sean and I got our skates and laced up and so did all the Coleman kiddos and suddenly Ethan was singing a different tune!


Our first shaky lap was very slow-going, but we did it!
And we got progressively better and faster as the evening wore on. Ethan was even wanting to take a lap by himself - we let him... while we followed at a safe distant behind him!


Brian (the dad) is pretty good, Hannah and Brandon were naturals, Maddy and Ethan were pretty evenly matched and Michael and I bonded over our lack of ice-skating talent!!


We had a great time trying to keep our balance and not fall flat on our bums! Afterward we were thoroughly exhausted and rewarded all of our hard work with dollar sundaes and drinks from Micky D's!

Woody Allen & His New Orleans Jazz Band

We headed home from Oregon on the Tuesday after Christmas for two reasons: 1. Sean had to help out at a service project Wednesday morning and 2. Our friends gave us free tickets to see Woody Allen & His New Orleans Jazz Band!!

We rolled into town just before the concert started {thank you I-5 traffic!!}, dropped Ethan off at the sitter's, ran home and changed and rushed off to the concert. We were a little late {SO unlike us when it comes to performances} but luckily our seats were on the end.

Now, neither of us are huge jazz fans, but we are both fans of music and going to shows {I love tickets! Name that movie....} and we had a great time.

Check out the Woodster's {Ha ha ha!! Yeah, like I'd really call him that!} solo in the video below...

Thank you Browns for thinking of us {it probably helped that Sean is their son's piano teacher!} and for the tickets!

Christmas 2011

Ok, ok. Here it is. What you've all been DYING to see pictures of and read about. May I present [drumroll please.....]

Christmas 2011!!!

And only 1 month after it happened!
{Sigh.... Someday I'll be more current.}


* Christmas Eve's Eve

Spent the morning finishing everything up - wrapping presents, packing and cleaning the house. {I can NOT leave the house messy...}

At this point we had picked Christine up from the airport the night before, so between the four of us and it being Christmas, we had the Explorer packed to the brim!! You can see it a bit in the picture below. I caught Ethan as he was nodding off in the car, so he was being silly.
* Christmas Eve

Uncle Tory came over for a little while and after much, much persuasion we convinced him to tag along while we braved the mall and took Ethan to see Santa.

Why-oh-why do even the minimum picture packages have to cost so much?? We opted out.

In the evening we headed over to Aunt Kay's house for dinner with my mom's side of the family. Christmas Eve used to be a big shin-dig at my parents' house back when all the cousins were little. Now, most of us are married and have families of our own and are in different parts of the country. In fact, Ethan was the only great-grandchild there. It was quiet, but fun. Papa's Pizza, salad, chips-n-dip and my dad's "famous" appetizers - ham roll-ups and little smokies (wrapped in bacon and topped with brown sugar). After dinner, everyone else went for a little stroll to look at the Christmas lights in the neighborhood (my aunt's neighbors go all out!) but my Mom and I stayed back to chat with Grandma Mary a bit.

After everyone got back from the walk, we opened presents - Ethan was so good about waiting, even though it was killing him!! The first present he opened was a Ratchet Transformer toy from Grandma Mary. He squealed with delight and I'm pretty sure it was worth the wait!

What's this?! A shot of Sean and I?! This is a RARE occurrence!

Arms straight and stiff by his side - like the giant nutcracker!

Sisters. Youngest to oldest. :)

Couldn't get Ethan to look at the right camera - but here's our Christmas Eve family picture.

Then, after Ethan was "nestled, snug in his bed" and we were sure he was asleep, Sean got to work on Ethan's Christmas present - a new bike! Despite what the pictures show, we actually did not leave the bike in front of the tree for Christmas. We hid it - to be revealed at a later time!

Meanwhile, Christine was on her laptop, my Mom was watching Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (and trying not to fall asleep!) and I was wrapping the last couple presents and making sure stocking stuffers were in order.

* Christmas Morning

We got up bright-and-early, got dressed in our Sunday best and ignored the piles of presents and overflowing stockings. First, and most important, was church. We went with my parents to their ward and enjoyed sacrament meeting and feeling the spirit that Christmas morning. Of course, after church we had to snap a few pictures with everyone by the tree, all dressed up.

My handsome boys.

The whole Toftdahl/Southworth family

You'll notice Ethan is wearing jammies - even though we'd already been dressed for church... Yep, while we all got dressed in more casual attire, Ethan insisted that to open stockings and Christmas presents you have to be in jammies!

First present - a tool set from Mommy and Daddy!

A gag gift from Christine to Lizzy - a reusable, but disposable swimsuit that the have in the medical office Christine works at. Somehow, I don't think it will hold up in Lizzy's swim practice!

And then, after all (or almost all of the presents were open) a small gold box, tied with a red ribbon was pulled from under the tree. Inside was a letter from Santa. And here is Ethan's reaction to it all. It is hilarious! And priceless. :)

"There's nothing!"

Early afternoon we headed out to my grandparents' house for Christmas dinner {which was so, so good}, a few more presents (mainly for Ethan) and the annual grandchild/great-grandchild change grab! I think {and I know my sisters will correct me if I'm wrong!} that I won this year.

After dinner, my grandparents' devotional and presents, we had dessert - including an ice cream cake for Grandpa Chuck's birthday. Yes, it really is on Christmas.

And.... after all of that, we all crashed!

Well, pretty much everyone but Ethan. He kept himself busy playing with his new toys.

That night, back at my parents' house, we opened our gifts from Sean's family. We were all spoiled and missing them so much!! We were able to skype with them for a little while and are hoping to plan a visit to SoCal soon!