Halloween and Pumpkin Mania!!!!

So I think I lost the spirit of Halloween the day after I turned 14 and it wasn't "cool" to go trick or treating anymore. I asked Robbie if this year we could dress Cassie up as a princess and go and get lots of candy and he said no. He's no fun!!! But instead my sister bought her this really cute shirt that says Trick or Treat and it glows in the dark. We've never put anything like a shirt on her before so I was scared that she wouldn't really like it. At first she tried biting it and after like 5 minutes she got used to it and now she won't really let us take it off. So what are we suspose to do after Halloween???? We did see a really cute poofy coat at Petsmart I think we're going to buy her for the winter!



Anyways, so here's a picture of her in her cute shirt! It made it a whole lot easier to spot her today amongst all the brown woodchips.





So as most of you know I love to bake. It seems that my days off I end up baking something. Whether it be cookies, bread, breadsticks, etc I'm usually in the kitchen. In the last few weeks since it's getting closer to Halloween and Thanksgiving (or I'm just in the mood to use pumpkin I think) I've made a lot of......





Pumpkin cookies,









Pumpkin Rolls,









and Pumpkin Bread!!!!!






So I figured that since I've found some really good recipes for each of them I'd share! I think the pumpkin roll is gonna be a signature when I own my own bakery one day. The rest have just been awesome to eat and to make!!!! I hope you enjoy.

Pumpkin Cookies

1 cup sugar 1/2 cup shortening
2 well beaten eggs 1 1/2 cups-2 cups pumpkin
1 tsp ginger 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 bag of chocolate chips 2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt 2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp Baking Powder 1 tsp Vanilla

Cream Sugar and shortening. Add eggs, vanilla, sift flour, salt and remaining ingredients. Add chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. Makes about 30 cookies



Pumpkin Roll

3 eggs (beat 2-3 minutes)
1 cup sugar (add gradually)
2/3 cup pumpkin
1 tsp lemon juice
Stir in Pumpkin and lemon juice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 cup walnuts


Stir together dry ingredients and fold into pumpkin mixture. Spread into a well greased and floured 11x15 cookie sheet. Top with 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional). Bake at 375 for 12-13 minutes (or until it springs back to the touch). Cool 15 minutes and turn onto a powdered sugar towel (be generous with the powdered sugar so the roll doesn't stick to the towel when unrolling) and roll. Chill. Unroll and fill roll with filling. Wrap in plastic wrap. Can store in fridge for 10 days (if it lasts that long!)

Filling

1 cup powdered sugar
8 oz cream cheese
4 tbs butter

Beat all ingredients together and spread on pumpkin roll.


This is seriously the best dessert in the world. If you've never made one or had one....try it and you'll love it!!! They don't last very long around my family's house!!!!!! Yum yum!


Pumpkin Bread

2 cups sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup oil
4 eggs
2 cups pumpkin
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves (I don't use these and it's still really good!)
1 tsp soda (don't forget this....I did that once....didn't turn out good at all!!!!
1 1/2 tsp salt
chocolate chips
Bake at 300 for 1 hour and fifteen minutes. Makes 2 large or 3 small loaves



So if anyone tries these recipes let me know if you liked them!!!! I love to hear that people love what I bake and if I could share with everyone I would. If you ever want any baked goods let me know and I'd love to make something for you!! Sometimes I even ship!!!! :) Happy Halloween. (Oh I do have an awesome Maggot Soup recipe which tastes awesome. Robbie asked me to make it again so that's a good sign!!!)

New Presents for us!!!!!

So over the weekend we decided it was time to get an actual bed instead of sleeping on a matress on the floor! (When we moved from Texas our bed was way too big and heavy to bring with us so we just brought the mattress!!!!) So for the last 3 months we've been sleeping like the Chinese with just the mattress.
We decided to go to Ikea first just because we have heard people rave about their great prices and just what a great place it is....well it took us like 20 minutes just to find the beds and then they were just not anything that we really liked (or I guess I should say that I liked....and what I say goes...right?) So we decided let's go to RCWilley's. To find the exit it probably took us a half an hour. They have you herded through there like cows and you can only go certain ways and it was so irritating so we swore we'd never go back.
We went to RCWilley's and found something we liked right away and the salesperson gave us an awesome deal on it. We got the headboard, a frame (for free), boxspring and 2 nightstands for such a great deal! They weren't suspose to be a set but they look so good together. And the best part is we had a jar full of change and I figured it would be cool to change it in and use it to help pay for it. I was thinking there'd only be like$100 or $125 cuz we had used all the quarters for the laundrymat but there was $184 in there!!!! Yay for change.

So this is one view of our headboard with the nightstands. Cassie feels like she's just a princess and the whole bed is hers. She'll try to jump up in the middle of the night and take it all up. (She's very spoiled).

Here's just another view with both of our nightstands. If you notice Robbie's has our portable dvd player on it....he has to watch Simpson's every night before going to bed. He was excited because the nightstands have like a pull out cutting board (even though that's not what it really is) cuz he says that he can make sandwiches and stuff in bed. If any of you watch King of Queens just think of the episode where Doug has like a whole fridge and stuff in there! (That's completely Robbie). Notice once again Cassie taking the whole bed!!

This is just a random pic of my mom holding a huge tomato she got from her garden. It was from the plant called the 2 lb tomato plant. That thing was huge!!! (Do you think I look like her???)








This is just Cassie. She's a cute dog just very spoiled and she thinks everyone wants to be her friend and would love to have her jump up on them even though it's not true....But we love her!!!

Fun in Utah

My nephew, Talan, got blessed yesterday and so we had a lunch afterward at my mom's house and I got to hold almost all the babies!!! It was great. This is my nephew. He looks a lot like his older sister when she was younger!!!






This was another cute picture. I thought it was funny cuz one minute Ella was awake and then next she was zonked out with her arms all sprawled out!!! She's so cute.








This is my grandma. I just love this picture of her. She looked so pretty and happy! She's one of my greatest role models. I love her so much!








This is Talan's older sister Gentry. She's quite the doll. If you tell her to smile she'll stop and pose to look like a princess!!!









Heather, Ella, Rob and Cooper. I just wanted to take a few pics of people that were there! They have the cutest family.








So Suzi handed Robbie Talan to watch and he started crying. So he gave him to Jennifer and within 2 minutes he was asleep. I just thought it was funny because it was the baby couch for a little bit. I was holding my cousin, Cody, Robbie had Talan, and then Heather had Ella. I think that's the most babies that have been in my mom's house for awhile.



Heidi holding our cousin, Cody. He's the cutest little baby and Heidi just loves them! (I think as much as any girl does right????) I was in baby heaven!!!!








So before we left for Riverton there was snow on the ground and Cassie had never been in it before so we let her play for a minute and promised she could play in it again when we got home but by the time we got home it was all melted!!! She loved it and I can't wait to see her play in the deep, deep snow!!! (Sorry this isn't the best pic, I was thinking I'd get more and my camera battery was dying).









These are just some pics that Robbie took when we went on a drive up American Fork Canyon. They turned out really good!!! I love the mountains!!!

I NEED HELP!!!!

I got a call tonight from a lady in our ward...I'm not exactly sure who she is since we don't really know anyone but I guess she's over Super Saturday coming up on November 1st. Well, a few weeks ago I was asked to make dessert for Super Saturday (I'd like to think that it's cuz I made some sugar cookies and had given them to a lady in the relief society presidency and they were really good....) So I agreed to do that thinking....I could go and drop off the desserts and then head to my mom's Super Saturday because they had a lot more stuff that I had wanted to do.....
So this lady calls me tonight and was like, "I'm wondering if you'd be willing to take an hour and discuss with the ladies how to pick a turkey, stuff it and bake it so that it's moist!!" What????? I've never cooked a turkey in my life. That's what parents and grandparents are for right??? And then she wanted me to also demonstrate how to make some pies...which I'm sort of ok with but in all my baking years I've only made one pie and that consisted of buying an already made crust and pouring cherries in it and then putting more crust on top and baking it....it turned out ok but still. So I told her I had only made one pie and I guess I could look into the whole turkey thing but wouldn't you want to have someone that knows what their talking about teach you???? So I'm confused on what to do...either I'll ask a bunch of people for advice (hence the post) on how to cook a turkey and maybe some good pie recipes and just pray really hard that it works.....

So here's the help I need...from a person wanting to learn something, would you wanna be taught by someone who had no clue what they were talking about? Or would it matter?
And do you have any good pie recipes that I could use????
I can really use all the help I can get.
Thanks so much!!!!

House, Cassie and fun!!!!

I kept telling people that I would post pictures of the house that we're living in and I have procrastinated. I'm sorry. So over the weekend I took a few pictures that will hopefully be ok! If you don't know the situation of where we're living...here goes....my mom works for a company named Rainbow Direct and they sell swing sets. One of the locations is run out of a house and they were only using the front room part of it so we are able to use the rest of it. It has helped us out tremendously and we love it here! We're about 15 minutes away from the mountains so we can go fishing or camping. We're close to a lot of family. So we'll be in Utah for awhile for Robbie to finish school and hopefully I can start back soon too!! Dumb out of state tuition....
Anyways, here's a few pics of the house!!

This is part of the kitchen. Kind of behind Robbie is where the fridge is and there's a pantry! (Cassie's always close by when we're cooking cuz she thinks she'll get something)

This is the business part of the office where my sister Heidi works so hard!!! :) (Right Heidi???)
This is right when you walk into the house

This is the front of the house. I think it sits on like an acre lot if not more so they can have swingsets set up. It's great freeway access. Behind the house they have a nice deck I think we might have some bbq's on. There's also a cellar (I think is what it would be called) and a barn.
We're using one room for our bedroom, one for camping, one is a tv room, another is our movie and book room and the last one we just store stuff in.

This is the back of the house. You can see 2 swingsets. Too bad we don't have kids. They would love this house!!!

This is just a random picture I took of Cassie (Just ignore our bedroom) She loves to lay on our bed or run from the front room to our room and back. I went in there and it looked like she was trying to hide from me. I'd say her name and she'd just look at me but not raise her head.....what a smart dog.....She loves to entertain herself. One day when we get a video camera I'll try to post some pics of her!!!

We had a date night with the Killion's, a couple we knew in Texas who moved here 2 months after we did!!!! (They just wanted to be closer to us I think!!!) But we went to Trafalga in Orem and played miniature golf, gokarts (which Robbie had never been on one and he loved it!!!), and we played arcade games. They have this great date night special where for $20 you get miniature golf, 8 tokens, batting cages and gokarts for 2 people. It was awesome!!!! And I found some gift cards I'm hoping noboby will claim cuz then we'll have a shopping spree at Bed Bath and Beyond!!

This is the Killion's!! Aren't they so cute? They're expecting their first baby in December...maybe they'll get lucky and have her on my birthday!

This is Robbie just posing for a picture!! He's so photogenic!!!!

All about Robbie!!

So Robbie feels that I don't blog about him enough so I figured I'd dedicate a whole blog to him and he probably won't even read it!!!! Oh well. Um, just a few things everyone should know about Robbie....he's a Sagittarius, his birthday's next month, he enjoys General Conference (He calls himself a General Conference Junkie) and feels that it's his job to own every General Conference!!! We'll be going this Saturday to the Saturday Morning General Conference Session with the Killion's which I'm so excited about!!!!
Robbie just received a calling in our ward to be the Priest Quorum Advisor and he loves it so far.
His favorite color is Blue
His favorite restaurant is Red Lobster
He loves to make people laugh
He was born in Utah but moved to Texas when he was 7 and so he claims Texas as his home
He has 2 sisters and a brother
He loves his most amazing, wonderful, caring, awesome wife Jamie
He loves to play computer games
He's going to school right now at BYU to become a history teacher
He loves to camp and fish
He has the greatest wife!
He loves to watch football whenever he can--mostly the college teams
He loves to watch movies, he hates scary movies
He loves sugar cookies
I think that sums up my wonderful husband!!! He is the greatest guy and I love him!

He loves Sour Patch kids so my mom bought him a big pkg from Costco for his birthday last year

When people are taking pictures he feels it's his responsibility to get in them just to make sure they look all that much better!!

He loves to try to trick little kids with his magic tricks

He was trying to get a badge on Pogo and was playing Makeover Madness so I told him that I would post and let everyone know he loves to play girl games!!! :)

This is him addicted to computer games! He loves to play them to pass the time!


So I'm sure ya'll feel like you know him a little better right??? I hope so.