Happy Thanksgiving!

Emily learned this awesome song from preschool. She is such a cutie! They learn a song every week, and for a singer like her, I couldn't have picked a better school. Thanks Ms. Kristen! You are awesome! (p.s. that would be Sean in the peanut gallery yelling at her to be quiet... little nerd)

We had Thanksgiving all by ourselves this year. I actually loved it! The kids each helped with a part of the dinner. This girl has an AWESOME blog with tons of decorating/craft/treat ideas. I did a few of them, and I think they turned out great.

Liah helped make the pumpkin pie! Yum!
Our Thanksgiving dinner. Big turkey=TONS of leftovers (my turkey has been in my freezer since I bought it at Thanksgiving LAST year when they were dirt cheap) Jeremy and Sean made the turkey, and Emily and I made the devilled eggs. Addison was moral support.
Our Thanksgiving table. We let the kids use the "nice" plates and cups. They were thrilled.

Thanksgiving decorations I made: Leaf cut-outs for the cups, place cards and turkey finger puppets! How fun!

Daddy and Addy (yes, even he got a leaf and place card...) Recognize the bib, Lorie? That's the one you bought for Liah 6 years ago!

Here's a DELICIOUS recipe that I always use to use up all that leftover turkey. I make a ton of pot pies and freeze them. I even make some in mini-loaf pans. It's a perfect size for just Jeremy and me. My idea growing up of pot pies were those nasty little things in the freezer section at the grocery store. THIS however, is not that at all, and it is SOOO good. (I make it throughout the year with chicken, too). I double dog dare you to try it.

Turkey Pot Pie

• 1 package (10 oz) frozen mixed vegetables
• 1/3 cup margarine or butter
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 3/4 cup chicken broth (I use bouillon & water)
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 1/2 to 3 cups cut-up cooked turkey or chicken
• Pastry for Two-crust pie

1. Rinse frozen vegetables in cold water to separate; drain.
2. Melt margarine in 2-quart saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour, onion, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in broth and milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in turkey and vegetables; remove from heat.
3. Heat oven to 425º.
4. Prepare pastry. Roll 2/3 of the pastry into 13-inch square. Ease into ungreased square pan, 9x9x2 inches. Pour chicken mixture into pastry-lined pan.
5. Roll remaining pastry into 11-inch square. Cut out designs with 1 inch cookie cutter. Place square over chicken mixture. Arrange cut-outs on pastry. (I never actually do the cookie cutter part, but I'm sure it would be lovely.) Turn edges of pastry under and flute.
6. Bake about 35 minutes or until golden brown.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Were we wrong? Maybe....

The girls have had this horrible habit lately of coming out after we've put them to bed. Then they upgraded to just turning the light on and then playing in their room until they get caught. THEN, they upgraded to deliberate deceit in putting blankets behind the crack under the door to block out the light so Jeremy and I can't tell their light is on. Clever little nerds. So sneaky.

So Jeremy and I were getting ready to turn in a few days ago, and heard singing and playing coming from the girls room. Um, it's 11:00pm. So Jeremy and I decided to freak them out. Were we wrong? Maybe, but it was way too fun.

The kids bathroom is right next to the girls room. Jeremy went into the bathroom and tapped across the wall, as if something was crawling back and forth. Suddenly the girls get silent and turn their light off. He does it again. Girls scampering into bed.

Then I go in the girls room. Mom! There is a snake in our wall! Jeremy does it again. I act scared. Let's go check it out. The girls take my hands and bravely but cautiously walk out of the room. I flip on the bathroom light. Nothing in there. We're talking about what it could be. Jeremy opens the shower curtain and steps out. THE GIRLS FREAK OUT.

They calmed down A LITTLE when they realized it was just Jeremy and he demonstrated what he had been doing on the wall. Then we made the girls hot chocolate and we all sat on the couch and drank it while we all just laughed.

They go to bed now.

Blogging Addiction

I read this on this girl's blog, and I laughed so hard. Just thought I'd share with you all.

Recognizing the Many Signs of Blogging Addiction.It Starts Out Innocently Enough...
My personal struggle with blogging addiction.

When I first starting blogging several years ago, I only allowed about 6 people to read my MSN Live account. For about two years this was done in healthy moderation. When that wasn't enough, I moved to a Yahoo 360 account. I thought I could control the blogging addiction. I was very fussy about who I let in my world of secretive behavior. My parents, sister, and a few very close and trusted friends knew of my propensity to blog into the wee hours. When I could no longer feed my tweaking and comment moderation enough I moved on to more addictive behavior. I found Google Blogger. Then 38000 hits later, my little account signing and naming became a full blown blog with blogging privileges and the sure diagnosed signs of blogging addiction.

So today I come here with full intent to start my road to recovery. I am addicted to my blogging chains, I admit it right here.I share this in hopes that it will help others.

You Know You Are A Blogging Addict When....

• You find yourself perusing other's blogs well into the wee hours of the morning. You started at 9 the evening before.
• Your spouse starts accusing you of having an affair.
• When upset with someone, you accuse them of being "snarky!"
• Every event you attend becomes a possible posting subject.
• Ditto the above with every time your precious little one speaks, walks, or smiles funny.
• Your children really do not know their real names as you have given them pseudo names like Sweetpea, Honeycakes, and Fireball.
• You finally learn how to read and write HTML and PERL and change your page layout for each season with utter ease. You covet after other blogs cute designs and wish you could create the same layout.
• You have become far too familiar with the terms dashboard, blogspot.com, and all things that make "press Ctrl+anything possible.
• Your BFF's are all cyber-buddies with "interests" like yours.
• You start commenting on other blogs with "drive by" recklessness.
• Checking your blog for comments becomes an obsession worthy of its very own treatment facility.
• When Blogger doesn't satiate the addiction, you move onto Facebook.
• You continually tell yourself that your blogging is equal to keeping a written journal.
• Validation comes through endless numbers of comments
• Further validation is sought by installing an invisible reader activity counter.
• While spending time blogging, your severe neglect causes you to forget your offspring waiting to be picked up from school, after school activities, play dates, or _________ fill in the blank.

If you suffer from two or more of the above signs of blogging addiction, you should seek immediate diagnosis and treatment. There are resources available and many excellent twelve step programs to help. For life threatening addiction, turn off computer or laptop and slowly walk away and seek professional help immediately.

Important Information: This information within this page is in no way an endorsement for any particular rehabilitation program or 12 step program affiliated with any such home, educational institution, or religious institution and should in no way be a substitution for the advice of a Medical/IT/Editing/Legal professional. Should any of the above symptoms become debilitating, please seek the advice of Medical/IT/Editing/Legal help immediately. Under no circumstances shall the online blog known as becausemomsaidso.blogpsot.com be held responsible for any blogging addiction or any other such addictions often associated with the incessant signs of blogging. Side effects may include headache, hunger,arm pains, sore throat, wrist discomfort, eye strain, psychotic episodes, self induced hunger, dry mouth, gluteus maximus discomfort, an insatiable appetite for any Doritos. Should anyone reading this suffer from any sort of addiction, this is not meant to make light of your own personal struggles. This is clearly an attempt to make fun of myself. Only me. Me only. I thank you!

Addison is 4 months old!

I love this little boy!!!

You know you want some of this...

I'm hosting a Pampered Chef party at my house tonight! (7pm) Anyone here is invited! (All you that are far away are invited too, but a pampered chef party is a little extreme of a reason to make the trek out here...) Even if you don't want to buy anything, come socialize and eat Brownie Trifle! (How can you pass up chocolate???)

Stud alert...

Look at this little stud! We just had our ward Super Saturday where I taught a class on how to make holiday tile coasters (thus the giveaway on my blog). They are so fun to make! While I was there, my husband kept calling me from Burlington Coat factory asking my opinions on suits for Sean. Um, hard to give an opinion without seeing. So he sent me pictures in a text message, and I picked this one. Doesn't he look so handsome??

Here are the men of my house:

Also at Super Saturday, this girl and this girl taught a class on fondant. They make the coolest stuff, and here is my creation that I made in their class. I'm pretty proud of it, even if it does look like everyone else's. What can I say. I'm not that original. :)

I'm finally getting around to posting Halloween pictures. I was the most uncreative mother as far as costumes go this year. I figured, the girls have how many dress up dresses (most of which I have made), so I told them they could pick whatever they wanted to be from that. Emily chose Belle (yes, I'm sure Belle did wear that under her dress) and Liah chose to be a "Cinderella Fairy", whatever that is. Oh well, I didn't have to buy anything new. :)

Typical Emily expression (this was before Liah's school Halloween party)

This was on Halloween. Belle has upgraded to a striped sweater.

My friend Liz gave me a Fireman costume last year, so I saved that for Sean for this year. Also, I had a puppy costume that I made for Sean when he was 7 months old, so that is what Addison wore. Being the clever nerd that I am, I didn't even put it together that those two costumes compliment each other until someone noted how cute an idea it was at the school Halloween party. Oh, yeah. I meant to do that...

Jeremy was an old guy for Halloween.

All tuckered out--getting candy is exhausting.

I did at least carve pumpkins this year. The girls were pushing that from October 1st. I never carved a pumpkin growing up. My mom always did it. I had no problem with that, but since I've started doing it, I love it! It's fun to see what designs I can pull off. I think they turned out pretty good.

Liah wanted a dragon on her pumpkin, and Emily's was too small to carve, so I just let her paint it.The girls both got to go to the pumpkin patch with their school, so Jeremy and I took Sean and Add to the pumpkin patch while the girls were in school. It was so fun! That is one thing I love about living in this area! I never had this as a kid, or even knew it existed. It is so cool to be able to take my kids to stuff like this! Sean had SO much fun! Tractor rides, hay mazes, duck races, cow trains??? What??? Could this get any more fun? I submit it could not. (mostly I just wanted to use the word submit).


Here are some video clips:

My friend gave me these cute little pumpkin jammies for Addison. He looks so cute!

This is for my sister: Here is Sean using his Blue Clues thing with the decoder. I'm pretty sure it says "Remember to drink your Ovaltine."

Also, I thought you would enjoy another one of Emily's fashion statements.

Here is my new laptop that Jeremy bought me yesterday! Woohoo! I love it! (and Jeremy, too...)

Brandon is finally home!!!

5 weird things

I'm finally getting around to this tag by this girl. I'm supposed to tell 5 weird things about myself. Unfortunately, a limit of 5 things does not even begin to come close to my weirdness level, but here you go anyway.

1. I am a HUGE Beatles fan. My friend Julia and I used to have our own band in high school called the Beatlettes (pronounced Beatle-ettes). Oh, yeah. She was Johnna Lennin, and I was Paula MacCartney. I've got some awesome pictures that I am SO not posting here...
2. I am deathly afraid of driving on bridges over water. Overpasses, with land underneath, totally fine. When driving over a bridge, I have to pretend there is land underneath me, or else I start getting lightheaded. Either way, serious white knuckling across. Especially the Blue Bridge. I don't know, I guess I've seen too many movies about people trying to get out of cars while underwater, and something about trying to rescue my children in a car underwater freaks me out. I guess my logic is that at least if you ever drive off an overpass onto land, it's instant death, no rescuing necessary. (I warned you I was weird).
3. I like to write music. All of my kids (and one very good friend) have their own piano song written by me, sheet music and all.
4. I own all of the seasons and movies of The Pretender.
5. I LOVE to sing. At the top of my lungs. Because I sing ALL the time, my kids do too! Nothing makes me more proud as a mother than driving the kids to school listening to music, when the chorus of a David Archuleta song comes on (thanks for the CD Lorie), and ALL of my kids (with the exception of Addison, but not for long...) join in at the top of their little lungs.

Halloween Candy

Since Halloween is over, I'm taking this video off the sidebar of my blog at the end of the week, so if you haven't watched it yet, do! It is worth every second. It is SO funny, and SO true!

And the winner is....

If any of you decide to do a giveaway, this is the way to do it! This was so fun! Thanks, Alicia!

Here are my guesses at everyone: (winner at the end)

1. I got to know you a little better at a few of our ward's book club meetings and then later when we were both part of the "lucky" couples that got to take the marriage Sunday school class at church. We're not in the same ward together anymore, so I miss seeing you now and then. I'm glad to see you're blogging. This is Shayla T. We never did get to finish that class...

2. My first memory of you was your first Sunday in 6th ward - Liah was teeny tiny, just a few months old but the cutest thing ever. In RS we were sitting there and Sister Wohlwend asked if there was anyone who could and would be willing to play the piano. You volunteered saying you could play and were a music major at BYU - but not in piano. We were blown away by your musical talent your first Sunday in our ward! (and now Liah's the oldest of 4! How time flies!) I think this is Tiffani H. Thanks for the compliment! (I guess I guessed this one wrong... it is actually Kim M... sorry!)

3. We went to Preference together (with lots of other people) our freshman year of BYU. You kissed Chuck that year, too. (ha! remember that?) We had a lot of late night craziness in our group of friends and I was one of the first from freshman year to meet Jeremy. You and I also went to Fall Fling sophomore year together. Thank you SOOO much for bringing up Chuck... I believe this is my good friend Christina M., who was my backdoormate at Heritage Halls.

4. This will probably be too easy, but . . . Our kids love to sing together, you were a VT of mine a long time ago and I share your name!! This is Amy O. Our kids do Brook's mininotes playgroup together. I love your RS lessons by the way!

5. We have known each other much of our lives but lost contact after high school until just recently - thanks to facebook I believe it is. We played the same instrument in high school. You came to my sleepover birthday party when we were in elementary school but your dad dropped you off at the wrong house and thankfully it all turned out to be ok! This is Julie J. who was my friend at Pierce Elementary during the 6 weeks I went there, and we lost contact until a few years later when we were in the same session of swimming lessons, then lost contact until we were in high school together in band (which I totally forgot you played clarinet!), and then lost contact again until we found each other on facebook! Maybe we can stay better connected this way?? And just a sidenote to parents: Make sure if you're dropping your kids off at a sleepover, make sure it is the right house and they get in okay!

6. We have known each other as long as I have lived in my house. You were the first to really welcome us to the area. It could be because of my husband "Clark" but it worked to my advantage. Thanks for that by the way! This is my good friend Janna G, who just had the sweetest baby girl. Thanks for being such a great friend!

7. I'm not so good at the anonymous stuff... I'm sure anyone who knows me and reads this will know exactly who I am, but I'm related to you through marriage... you came to my wedding with your 1 year old Liah doll, we held the wedding shortly after you moved away to WA, and I'll get to finally see Addison at Christmas! :) This is my lovely sister-in-law Kristen. I forgot about having Liah with me at your wedding! She was such a cutie! (still is...)
8. Ummmmm, something about the Beatles...? This is definitely my favorite sister, Lorie M. This was a funny story. We were in line at Walmart together and I was telling her something, and she was doing all the normal, uh-huhs and yeahs. It occured to me that she was not even remotely paying attention to what I was saying. So I asked if she was listening to me, and she said yes. So I asked what did I say? Yes, the above was her response. If only it had ended there, but the guy in line behind us had been listening to the whole ordeal, and started laughing when Lorie made her answer.

9. Ravioooooooooli! & late night Papa Johns pizza This is my sister-in-law Jessica L. She said ravioli once when Liah was a baby, and it made Liah laugh, so she started saying it to her all the time to get the reaction. Liah just ate it up (not the ravioli...). Also, Jeremy worked as an assistant manager at Papa Johns, so he would bring home pizza a lot. It was great!

10. We share a love for music! I think our boys will be good friends too! This is Brook B. She does the mini-notes playgroup that Sean goes to. He loves it! By the way, he requests the little dog Jack song. Also, our baby boys are 3 weeks apart.

11. We have known eachother for quite a while now, but we didn't really get to know eachother till a few years ago....and I still wish to get to know you better! :)I always thought Seans outfits at church were the cutest (cowboy boots, missionary tags...too cute)Oh, and usually at church, I usually only get to see the back of your head...lol....can you figure it out? This one actually had me stumped until you mentioned the back of my head! I believe this is Kate S., who is usually sitting somewhere behind us in church!

12. We met at BYU when we were only 14 at YMS and became fast friends. We were pen pals for the next 2-3 years until email become more accessible. My family also randomly met your sister at Great Harvest Bread Co back in '97. Also our last babies were born within a week of eachother. [I've got 3 now, so I'm still a bit behind you]. You're still making me laugh - I love your blog! This is my good friend Heather W. Ah, good times! I wish you had a blog!

13. So how did the spaghetti sauce turn out? This is my sister-in-law Jana. I went out to her mom's house in Othello and canned applesauce. Then Jana made me a ton of spaghetti sauce that I canned in my pressure cooker canner. Thanks Jana! (btw, I'm sure it's great, but I haven't tried any of it yet! I'll let you know...)

14. You saved me from potential embarrassment by pointing out that a sign I was holding in front of the entire primary was musically incorrect. (Thank goodness my sister had made the sign, not me.) This is Alicia L, who I got this idea from. Thanks! Um, sorry about the sign. I totally forgot about that. Look at me opening my mouth when I should just be quiet... sometimes a music nerd sees a musical emergency...

15. Salt Lake City Loves you SOOOOO much that we wanted for you a riddle...Jehovah is God = ? (Hebrew)Friend = ? (French)Who is like unto God = ? (Hebrew)Know who this is yet? We're in the contest anyway, right? This is my sister-in-law Amy M. I so got your riddle: Joel, ami, Michael.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...

here is my lovely assistant, Emily Meredithand the winner is.... (drum roll, please)

Jessica L!

Congratulations!