Wall Christmas

Lund Ladies-Mom, Grandma, Kim, Aunt Vicki, Ashley and Jackie

Aunt Vickie and Mom

"the Men"

Pretty Fairy Princess Cousins

He's determined to open this

Cool shades Brady!

Tyler and Finley observing the festivities

I am excited about something

Popo and Nana with the lil' ones

Pictures for our sister and bro-in-law who enjoyed a Canadian Christmas instead. :o)

Burrito Game

If you need something to entertain the kids on a cold winter night, I would suggest the burrito game. You roll the kids up in their tortillas and garnish them with different burrito toppings-just use various objects found around your living room. Then you pop in them in the oven- a couch or chair will do! This is one way to keep them contained and your hubby occupied too!

In the oven

Pictures of Snow Play

Building Snow Bos

Fin and Backpack exploring the icy tundra

Happy cold boy

Cousins having fun with each other

The Grandkids are in town

Showing off their new sippy cups from Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Laura

Enjoying the first big snow of the season~our little angel

It has been awhile since I have updated this thing b/c we were able to go to Lustre to visit family and friends and hunt (unsuccessfully) but when we got back Justin and I got sick and I just haven't felt up to doing much for awhile but here are a few pics. We are kind of enjoying the snow if it would just get above 0 degrees! Finley did not want to walk in the snow for the first week-too strange I guess- but now he enjoys tromping through it. We put up our Christmas tree last night and Madelynn is really enjoying it.

Bobcat Game

Fin riding high on Uncle Jonathan's shoulders

They loved the popcorn they gotNumber one fan
One tired little boy

Finley Turns 2

Fin is pretty excited to be 2! He probably wasn't too impressed with my plain bday cake~he did enjoy eating it though!Madelynn was messier than Fin after eating cakeThe cool motorcycle motor from Gparents Skillman-the kids have spent a lot of time assembling and disassembling this

Daddy and Fin reading the "Nee Book" aka the Truck Book

Candy Time!

Justin and the kids carved some pumpkins-unfortunately all the pictures turned out blurry b/c there was a finger smudge on the camera lens (hmmm...I wonder how that got there?)

Fin the soccer player-I think he is in a punch stuporMadelynn the fairy princess

We had a nice weekend. On Saturday, the elementary school down the road had a "Trunk or Treat" and the rest home in Churchill had a open house for the treaters. It was a nice, easy way to get the kids a lot of candy with out a lot of work!
Sunday night our church had a Harvest Party which we attended. First, there was a potluck and then food, games, and candy!
Madelynn played a lot of the games so she came home with a lot of candy but Finley had enough after about 1/2 an hour. He did manage to entertain himself with the food and drink table though. All he wanted to do was get pretzels and drink the punch that was served in pumpkins.

Pumpkin Pie

I found a different pumpkin pie recipe a few weeks ago and it looked delicious so I thought I would try it out! It was the best pumpkin pie I have ever had (besides pumpkin cheesecake) so I thought I would share! This recipe is from that Relish insert in the paper.

Recipe:

Topping:

1/2 c butter, room temperature
1 c all-purpose flour
2/3 c packed brown sugar
1/ c chopped pecans or walnuts
1 tsp vanilla extract

Filling:

1 1/2 c packed dark brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger (i didn't have this but it still tasted great)
1/2 tsp clove
1/2 teaspoon allspice
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsp orange finely grated orange rinds
1 (29-ounce) can pure pumpkin (not pie filling)
2 (12 oz) can of evaporated milk

For the crust, I just used a recipe a friend gave me.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425
2. The directions say to "blind bake" the pie but I didn't have the pie weights or dried beans to do it so I just baked the crusts until they were firm. Let the crusts cool for 5 minutes before adding filling.
3. Combine all topping ingredients in a small bowl:mix with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.
4. Combine all filling ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk well. Pour into pie crusts.
5. Bake pies 15 minutes. Reduce oven temp to 350 and continue baking 30 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle on topping. Return to oven and bake 15 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. If fluted edges of crust begin to brown too much, place foil rings or metal pie crust shields over edges during last 15 minutes. Makes 2 pies and serves 16.

*I like pumpkin pie and usually one piece satisfies me for a year but with this pie I have already eaten more pieces than I should! *

P.S. Deidre and the kids also helped in the making of these pies!

The Pie

Just a cute little pic of our sweet boy sleeping with his bear

I was able to can apples today when Justin was at the Bobcat game. Mary came to help me and let me borrow all her stuff. I made applesauce (the pinker one has red hots in it) and apple butter. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to use most of our apples from our tree this year.
We sort of had a foster dog for one night. Thursday night it showed up at our house and was very friendly. It didn't leave and since it was cold out that night we let it sleep inside because the garage is the cat's place to sleep and we didn't want to make her angrier. She already looked mad when he was on our front porch. Justin named him Schwartzee and the kids called him Shortsie. He was gone when we came home from work the next day which we were kind of sad about but also kind of relieved we didn't have to adopt him! :o)

Finally Painted a Wall

The wall~ you can't really tell the difference b/t it and the outer wall in these pics but those who have been in the house before-it is a darker shade. And I do realize only about 2 people want to see these pictures! :O)

So we finally painted this middle wall after almost a year of procrastination/indecision! It is so nice to have it done even though I am still on the fence if I like the color or not but oh well, I am just glad it is done!
On a different note, Justin got his own paint job down on his arm this past Monday~ he got a pretty blue cast for a bone he broke in his wrist. He broke it riding motorcycle and unfortunately it is the worst bone to break b/c it gets the least amount of blood flow so there is a possibility of surgery/bone graft. But we think the chance of that is pretty low thankfully.

Kitties

Madelynn snuggling with the Sparkle

Fin cooking Sparkle

Almost done!

We finally gave away our last two kitties...to our friends and the kids' babysitter so the they will still be able to see them a lot. I am sure we will have a new batch in the spring to look forward to too.

The kitties were special too b/c they had extra toes~they looked like they were wearing mittens.

Not Much

Madelynn posing again-actually, she rarely looks and smiles at the camera these days so these pictures are few lately

Fin wearing a sailor cap

happy birthday Justin!

So we haven't been up to much or I just haven't taken photos of anything lately. Justin had his birthday and his present request was to go dirt biking with a friend-so he was able to do that. He did reassemble his bike back together and it is working great and looks pretty cool.
I am learning to can this year. My co-worker/friend/mentor is teaching me-so far we have done pears and pear jam. Tonight we are going to do salsa and we might try apple butter or apple pie filling. I got the chance to go to the Darius Rucker/Brad Paisley concert last week with some girlfriends which was a lot of fun.
Madelynn is growing out of all her clothes. The clothes that fit at the beginning of summer are short on her now. She is enjoying drawing and wants to cook waffles with me every day. She also brings up going to pre-school constantly. This past weekend she was able to dig through the dirt with our neighbor boy to look for "ta-taters".
Fin is just turning into our little boy and he is saying more and more words. All vehicles are "nees" which is the sound he makes when he is playing with cars. He also wants to dress himself now and doesn't like to be helped at all. We just discovered that he is allergic to cats which is kind of a bummer since he really likes to play with the kitties.
Other than that we are enjoying the warm fall!

The Weekend

Candace and the kids were able to come over Thursday night and spend Friday with us. Madelynn loved having Kylie here and of course it was great to spend time with Candace. Tyler and Finley are at a stage now where they have no use for each other. Friday we went to Billings with them and Justin came over Saturday night. It was amusing on the way to Billings b/c Fin and Tyler were sitting by each other and they both kept bugging the other. Meanwhile, Madelynn and Kylie were having a grand ol' time in the back making jokes and telling stories.
Saturday we celebrated the September birthdays

The Speedsters

All Done and STILL Smiling!

and Sunday Candi and Brady ran the 1/2 marathon. We were able to go cheer them on and they did a great job! I am very proud of them for the hard work they put into training and the completing the race together. Candace even improved on her time from last year.

My birthday was today and it was nice. I didn't have to work and Justin brought home Santa Fe Reds-yummy. Justin and the kids gave me a box of Toffifays and after we all sampled a few, they were put on a shelf. A few minutes later, Finley comes out with his mouth full and chocolate all over his face. We went to find the box with 5 chocolates missing but thankfully we found 3 in their room. He might have had a tummy ache if he was able to down all of those!

Rat Lake

Throwing Rocks

and more rocks

Lunch

We decided to take advantage of the beautiful Sunday weather and went on an excursion...to Rat Lake. I know, sounds beautiful and exotic, that is why we decided to go there. It was a nice little, rocky hike to the lake. We had a picnic, threw rocks, walked around, and threw more rocks. It was sort of pretty and thankfully NO rats. There was also hardly anyone there so it was nice and quiet except for the big splashes from the rocks and the kids yelling. :o)

Aunt Eloise and Fairy Madelynn

Madelynn was invited to her first child only b-day party~ she was pretty excited especially since it was a fairy party! She got wings, a wand, and a pretty headband. When she came home, she kept turning us into frogs!