Halloween--a bit late

The kids did some costume-swapping and last-minute changes to end up as a witch and a Swiss soccer player:




Siena's class paraded through the entire school. She's in the back right corner:
Then that night we went up to a little Halloween party with some ghosts and goblins and geishas:
After a wild round of trick-or-treating on an amazingly warm night, this is what it looked like for the ride home:

freezer cooking/once-a-month cooking

Because I am strange, I decided to give this once-a-month cooking thing a whirl -- about a month ago. I tried it for the following reasons; 1) we were eating quesadillas for dinner more than once a week; 2) I was really tired of coming home in the evening and then rummaging through our refrigerator, trying to figure out what to cook. I've only done it one time, but we've *really* enjoyed it this month. I spent about 3 hours and made 12 meals. What I loved: we didn't have to spend time figuring out dinner when we got home and clean-up was also less. Works for me!

My tips for doing this:
1. Do the grocery shopping a day or two earlier--not on the same day you're going to do the cooking;
2. Have the kids entertained elsewhere so you can concentrate;
3. Make sure you have your supplies on hand, namely: Ziploc freezer bags (1 qt and 1 gallon), a sharpie pen, tinfoil, saran wrap.
4. Meat frozen in sauces doesn't dry out--it's amazing.

Recipes I used:
Bacon-wrapped chicken (very yummy!)
White sauce chicken with noodles (just okay--won't make this one again.)
Turkey enchiladas (very yummy--you could make any enchilada recipe)
Southwest chicken casserole (also just okay--I should know that we don't love casseroles!)
Thai pork (actually a slow cooker recipe--we ate it fresh but I'd make it again and freeze it. Also I used chicken because I forgot to buy enough pork)
Pork chops -- made these with the coarser Japanese bread crumbs. Very good!
Chicken and artichokes -- from my own recipes
Sausage pasta -- an old Cooking Light recipe

Useful books from our library:
The Freezer Cooking Manual--This book has great planning ideas, but mostly the recipes are too casserole-heavy. So, I'm hopeful for this one, which I'm waiting to check out:
Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer

Goals for next month:
1. Healthier and fewer meat-based main courses
2. More soups for winter time
3. No casserole-like meals.

If you do this, let me know your tips! If you don't, give it a whirl. It'd be really fun to do it *with* someone!

October

So late last month, the outlaws showed up and introduced a new game to the under-six set:


Yep. And they win, a lot, even playing face up. The grandparents left, and so now we're doomed to endless games of Uno...

They recently spent an evening trying on our shoes:


Siena's early literacy is taking off, and we are enjoying watching it. This is her sidewalk sign for Chocolate and Honey Ice Cream, of course:

This one's for the Swiss Miss, who passed on this darling suit:


From tonight: the fourth lost front tooth. I'm happy to pass on from Siena that the Tooth Fairy must have gps and a flying machine to get around at night:
And finally: we had a super fun package waiting for us this afternoon and I couldn't find the camera when the kids tore it open! We love the boxes from Sacramento. This one had Count Chocula cereal and some special Uno cards for the kids--a Peanuts edition. The fun continues!

Daniel's Birthday!

Guess who turned 21! It sure is fun to be able to share in a few of these occasions with the Swiss boys. Adrian, Audrey, and Daniel came over for hamburgers, and then we had a yummy chocolate pie that Audrey had made. The kids picked out very special presents for Daniel at the Dollar Store. It was nearly 90 again today and so we ate outside--a pretty lucky late-September treat. Oh, and the outlaws are here and we are all loving it!

Blowing out candles:



opening presents:

Chico memories

Two weekends ago, we went to Chico for Christina's funeral. It was a special, sobering, bittersweet day.

We rode over with Becky and Lana and stayed at Irv and Aleta's. Of course I didn't do anything as organized as actually take pictures of the nice people we stayed with, so here's one of the kids reading books at their place in the morning:


Saturday evening we had a mini-early 90's reunion at--where else--Burger Hut:

$$$$What does it all mean????

I will be the first to admit that I have a hard time understanding much about Wall Street and money management in general and this is why I was so interested to understand a little bit of the mortgage mess through an episode of This American Life a while back. You can listen online to The Giant Pool of Money It is worth a listen and is entertaining as well. I also found some further podcasts through itunes by some of the same characters that did the Giant Pool of Money show explaining some of the things we have been hearing or reading about explained a little simpler for the rest of us. The blog site for Planet Money is here and the podcasts are here hopefully you will learn something new not that it will change anything but it is nice to have a little bit of a clue or at least pretend you do. I am still too scared to look at my 401K and 403b I prefer to bury my head in the sand.

So we've been a little busy...

...because in addition to the normal hecticness of life, two Swiss guys, two kids, and I went to a friend's orchard last Saturday. We got out into that orchard and gorgeous, sweet, yummy peaches and nectarines were just hanging there, begging to be picked. So pick we did.

235 lbs worth. Yep. If you ever wondered what that looks like, here it is:

The pictures don't really do it justice; we've made 5 batches of jam and have gone through 4 containers of Fruit Fresh. So if you visit our house this winter, expect to enjoy peaches on waffles, peach ice cream, peach cobbler, and...probably peach smoothies on 20 degree days.

We picked peaches Saturday am and went to the homecoming game Saturday evening. We get to ride our bikes along the river to the game and back:

Hard to tell, but in the front row above are some suspects some of you might know. The row behind them includes some of our friends too--squinting in the sun.

Sniff, sob

So today marked another milestone on the road between diapers and acne: the first day of kindergarten. I was caught off guard by how emotional it made me feel in anticipation, but I was able to hold it together today--whew. Siena was *very* excited to start kindergarten and she had her new backpack packed last night...and her clothes are set out for the week. She goes every day, and it's all-day kindergarten. She seemed to do just fine today--they start kindergarten here by having only 1/2 of the students come, and now she has tomorrow off so the other half can come. That way they ease in a bit and get used to things. Here she is meeting her teacher again and figuring out how to attach her nametag: The highlights of today were: recess (they have monkey bars! Imagine!); practicing going to the cafeteria; actually *going* to the cafeteria; and the Hello and Goodbye songs. All of this bodes well for a good year, I think.

Remy started at a new preschool, and we're pretty excited about it. It's a small school with only 4 classes of 10, and they can do part of the day in immersion Spanish. After he gets acclimated, we may try to do that. While we liked his last school fine, we think that this will be a good move. But our babies! They're growing up.

End of summer

Too quickly, it was over. August is always a crazy-busy month; I start school early to work with the incoming TAs, and the kids get shuffled around for a bit. This year they did a one-week Shakespeare camp, which was quite hilarious. At the performance that Friday, Siena informed me that she was Spiderweb (Cobweb, actually). See if you can guess who Remy is.Puck, of course. His role consisted of running across the classroom to Nick Bottom, and back. Our kids: budding thespians.

The big wedding 2008

We arrived in Wenatchee on Friday afternoon and it *poured* rain not long after. Just what a bride needs, right? Audrey handled it all well. . . they had a rehearsal at the park and then a nice rehearsal dinner buffet at a sports club, so the kids went swimming after dinner. A few pictures from that day:Remy and Liam trying to warm up after swimming:



Then, the big day. The wedding was at 1:00 with pictures beforehand, so here are a few of various groups. Audrey's dad and step-mom:
Heidi and Markus:The kids with them--the girls *loved* being princesses/fairies/flower girls:
The colors are so bright and cheery:
It was fun watching everyone arrive...and then the procession. I was way off to the side so the picture angle isn't that good. Here are the kids coming in:Remy was a bit of a three-year old (shocking, huh?) -- he made it up front but then needed candy bribery to stay there...and then he decided to sit down, lay on the pillow, prop it up...very fun for the grandparents and parents in the front row!


The girls performed well:

And it's official!
A few suspects at the reception:





The Swiss contingent:
They had a game of "father-daughter croquet" after cake and ice cream--very cute. The kids all whacked balls around.




After the wedding we swam at the hotel during a beautiful late afternoon. Then all of us (us, mom and dad, Heidi and co., Heidi and Markus) went out to dinner at a local steak place. We sat outside on a balcony and soaked up an absolutely perfect ending to a great day. I took pics but they're so bad that everyone'd shoot me if I published them!

It was special to also enjoy meeting on Sunday with everyone. We grabbed a burger with Heidi, Shirley and kids before leaving town for the 8 hour drive home. Dylan and Siena: