BIG NEWS

Joshua and I are headed out of town this week. Mom and Dad are in Idaho watching the monkeys for us (THANK YOU, MOM and DAD!!) and I am typing from a super comfy first class seat on a huge plane, headed for Houston. Why Houston, you ask? Well, we are on a house hunting trip. Yup, you read it right, Joshua and I are looking for a new home to buy this week because we are moving again…back to Houston, TX. This is probably the point in my post where most of the readers are going to freak out, thinking “WHAT?! AGAIN?! ARE YOU KIDDING?!” And I could join in with a long lament about how much we love Idaho and don’t want to leave, nor uproot our family in general for a sixth time in just about as many years…but instead my post is going to head in the direction of THANKFULNESS. Life is all about how you look at it.

I love that quote that goes something like “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.” And I’m choosing to react with a spirit of thankful ness. We will be moving because Joshua was offered a significant promotion that comes coupled with his current position being restructured (meaning if we had the option to stay in Idaho and in his current position, it looks to be changing and necessitating a move somewhere else anyway). So in a still uncertain economy, we are thankful Joshua is steadily employed with a fantastic company that has gone above and beyond numerous times to show how much they value Joshua and will take care of our family. I am also crazy thankful for a husband who works hard to provide for our family because his promotion isn’t a handout. He has busted his behind for this promotion and deserves kudos!

So as much as we aren’t looking forward to the stress of the next few months, when we take a step back we realize how lucky we are. Our family doesn’t struggle with health issues (or even worse, the loss of a family member), hunger, homelessness, or financial stress—soooo many people out there have far worse life circumstances to deal with. We might be that family that moves a lot…but we are terribly blessed. We are healthy, we have a safe place to live, we don’t wonder where our next meal is coming from…and we have each other. We will look positively at this move to Houston, be thankful we can afford a nice home in a wonderful neighborhood that has had stellar schools for the monkeys, and smile (most days…hey, we are human haha!) as we start this next chapter.

So if you are up for more craziness, keep checking for updates on our blog and join us on our next leg of life’s adventures…as we prepare for another move…back to good ole Texas!

(Holy smokes, we just stepped off the plane…WHAT’S WITH THE HUMIDITY, PEOPLE??!!)

Super Bowl Party

So yesterday we were in Super Bowl Oblivion...we were happily ignoring the Sporting Event Of The Year and thinking of going skiing instead. But since Joshua and I are getting OLD and we were sore and tired from our recent workouts we decided to skip the mountain today. Soooo that sort of lead to "well, I guess we should do the Super Bowl thing". Emilee invited a friend over and Joshua moved the TV antenna from up stairs down into the living room (remember...we have no cable or satellite and we just have an old fashioned antenna plugged in upstairs in the loft so Carter can watch PBS).

Then Joshua started cooking. The diet is off around here today. Round one of yumminess is fried pickles and onion rings and baked sweet potato fries!



Everyone got situated for the kickoff. Carter immediately asked to play Daddy's ipad since football is a zero on his interesting radar...and Trevor whipped out his DS. (Remember, a football family we are NOT lol.)


But Emilee and her *ahem* friend, Logan, are intently watching the game and enjoying the gazillion dollar commercials with the dog safely between them.

Home made spaghetti sauce

Remember the 7 tomatoes from my veggie co-op post? Well, we don't eat many tomatoes around here since Joshua is allergic. He can have tomato paste, so we usually stick to that for pasta sauce etc. But I was faced with what is ALOT of tomatoes for our family (I still had 6 of them 10 days later)...and after the kids vetoed "baked tomatoes stuffed with rice" as one of the options...I concocted a spaghetti sauce recipe from several I found online. So if you find yourself with a plethora of tomatoes or just want to try a new recipe...here ya go!

Nicely dice one tomato and toss into empty crock pot. Dice half an onion, saute until transluscent and put in crockpot.

Then roughly chunk up several more (I had 5) and then in batches, zip them in the blender until mostly smooth. Dump into crockpot.

Add basil, marjoram, oregano, garlic and salt to taste (about a half to one teaspoon each?...I just sorta sprinkled some in today).

Cook on high for 2-3 hours. Then put 1 can of tomato paste into a 2 cup measuring cup and fill to top with hot water. Stir until blended well and add to crock pot. Add in 1/2 pound of cooked ground beef, if desired. Let simmer on high for another hour or two. Serve over hot cooked noodles and sprinkle with parmesan. We are kind of spaghetti sauce snobs...we love JoJo's sauce and we like standard from-an-envelope-with-tomato-paste recipes...so we were pleasantly surprised when the monkeys and I all enjoyed this!

And this picture is of Carter's bowl. It's included because as I snapped a pic of mine before we ate Carter slid his bowl toward me and said this...
"Mom, take a picture of mine because I'd really like to see MY dinner up on the computer later!"
LOL...here ya go, Boog!