Halloween Night

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
We had a great time celebrating Halloween! Uncle John John, Shannon, Uncle Sean, Aunt Bethie, & Maura all came over to help celebrate! We started the evening with Uncle Johnny hanging the "falling" spider. He put it on a pulley system and let it drop when trick or treaters came to the door! It was fun to scare the kids! Muahahahahahaha!!!! Next we filled our tummies with some yummy pizza hut pizza, then we all got dressed up to go get some treats! Uncle Johnny showed up as a pizza hut delivery guy/hick, Shannon showed up as a tube of toothpaste, Uncle Sean as white trash, Aunt Bethie as a pirate, and last, but not least, Daddy.....as..... DUFF MAN! For those of you who aren't familiar with the DUFF MAN he is a character from the Simpson's. Don't feel bad if you don't know as we had a lot of kids stopping Daddy/Casey to ask "who he was supposed to be". Casey replied have you seen the Simpson's... kid... "nope"... LOL... Now we are officially old. Noah, Maura and Gabriel loved going to the houses and REALLY loved the "free" candy! Noah was begging for a milky way right up until we were taking him up to go "night night"! What a fun night...HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Gabriel eating his first piece of licorice/candy EVER! This will be the last for a LONG time!

Gabriel, Noah, & Maura...our three little pirates!

Maura has a sword... notice Gabe and Noah's face... Can you imagine what they are thinking in this picture...??? I can... RUNNNNNNN!!!!!

Shannon & Uncle John John....

Duff Man & Gabe the pirate

And this is before the candy high!

Gabriel

Can we go yet?????

This is when the spider first fell.... They didn't know what to think...

Noah ran... Maura screamed...

Can we say twins... look how they are walking!!!

Auntie Beth & Maura

Maura getting some treats...

Noah getting some treats

Walking to the next house...

Noah wasn't sure about the mad scientist...

This house rocked! They even had a fog machine... can't wait until we can decorate like this!

Our little pirate... Don't you just want to kiss him all over!

Need I say anything???

Post trick or treating

Our group!

Halloween at the Wood's

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

As we prepare for Halloween night I thought I would blog about the family... We've had a pretty fun month! We started the month scouring stores for pirate costumes since that is what the boys will be going as this year! They will be celebrating Halloween with their cousin Maura who will also be going as a pirate! We found a great costume for Noah (pictures to follow), but had a hard time finding one for Gabriel... so I made it! HAHAHA! I really did make it! Don't laugh when you see the picture! After the costume situation was smoothed out we started decorating the house, visited the pumpkin patch, attended the neighborhood Halloween "party", watched the Great Pumpkin, and carved our pumpkins! Hope you enjoy the pictures of the boys...

Gabriel's homemade costume...ok minus the onesie... Gap gets credit for that!

Great Pumpkin

Noah watching the Great Pumpkin (funny how he never wanted to be in this car seat when it was his and now it is the perfect "movie" chair for him!)

Our neighborhood had a Halloween party which included a puppet show for the children...

At the party they gave out pumpkins... Gabe picked his... We told him whatever he picked he carried...

He wasn't giving it up!

Gabe was ready to cut!

Our boys!

Gabe can't wait to get his hands on this "stuff"....

We quickly found out that the boys aren't quite ready for carving pumpkins. We asked Noah to help us dig the "guts" out and he said "no". Gabe played with the guts...ate some and crawled away... Needless to say Daddy and Mommy finished the carving tonight... After the boys went to sleep.

Daddy finishing the carving...

We had 5 pumpkins... 2 are carved... LOL... Mommy and Daddy are tired...

How we decorated the counter. It turned out great as Noah LOVES candy corn! It has been a great bribe to get him to do things for Mommy!

The boys

We went to Bates Nut Farm which has a wonderful pumpkin patch, a corn maze, activities for the kids plus a bunch more! We went with our friends Leana, Bryan, & their family. Our boys absoulutely adore their kids so it works out great! Noah and Siah picking out pumpkins...

Malu and Gabriel

Noah finds his pumpkin!

Our friends... Bryan, Leana, Siah, Malu, and Pucah (ok I may have spelled their names wrong, but I tried!) A wonderful family and their kids are AMAZING with our boys!

Gabriel checking out the pumpkins

Mama... Mama... I want these! He wanted all of these! LOL..

Anybody ready for Thanksgiving???? Is it just me or does this make you hungry??? LOL>>>

September 24, 2011-October 7, 2011

We have kept busy the last couple of weeks. During the week we are home, but on the weekends we try to get out and go. We recently made a trip up to Fresno to celebrate Connie being a breast cancer survivor! Chaudra and I accompanied her to a luncheon for the Susan G. Komen foundation. Usually every year we walk with her in the Komen walk, but this year she is having breast surgery so wasn't going to be able to participate. Instead we went to the luncheon. While we went to the luncheon Casey & Corey took all of the kids to visit Grandma Wood who was absolutely thrilled to have her grandkids and great-grandkids come and make a surprise visit! Noah loved riding around on her walker... go figure! :) Gabriel was content sitting in her lap having her feed him a bottle. On Saturday afternoon Corey and Chaudy had to leave to take their two girls to see the broadway play Shrek.... we had a BIG outing to a local park. The park had recently opened in honor of Todd Beamer who was killed on September 11, 2001. He was a passenger on Flight 93 and is known for saying "you guys ready??? Let's roll." The park is absolutely beautiful and I am happy to report Noah thought this was the best place ever!

We also bought season passes to the Wild Animal Park/San Diego Zoo. The Wild Animal park is about 10 minutes from our house and is a great outing for the boys. It has some beautiful trails where Mommy can start walking this baby weight off! It's time!

Noah has also recently become interested in what Mommy is doing in the kitchen with all that "stuff"... So this last week he helped Mommy make pizza and chocolate chip cookies! Let's say his "help" consisted of him eating the pepperoni and then oh so politely placing it back on the pizza! Yummy! He did a great job helping Mommy with the chocolate chip cookies... he poured in the sugar and vanilla and ate LOTS of dough!

Step-Mama's White Chicken Chili

Last week we had a "cold-front" come through southern California so Casey, Noah, Gabriel and I bundled up and Mommy made some good comfort food. One of the meals I made was a white chicken chili recipe that I got from my step-mom. I made it last year and had many of our friends ask me for the recipe, but I had changed it a little and couldn't quite remember what I had done! Oops! I do, however, still have my step-mom's recipe that is absolutely delicious! Casey was bummed when I sent half home with Beth, but I couldn't risk letting him have beans for a whole week! One night and day is enough! :) If anybody is interested here is the recipe...

Ingredients

6 chicken breasts
4 cans of northern white beans (not drained)
1 large onion (chopped)
1 can cream of chicken (family size)
1 block of monterey jack cheese (16 oz/ cube the cheese)
1 block of pepper jack cheese (16 oz/cubed)
1 container of salsa (or tomatotes)... you may want to drain the "juice" & you can omit this altogether if you want... I actually forgot to add it this time and the chili was still delicious!

***can also add can of corn

1. In a crock pot mix onion, beans, cream of chicken soup, cheese, & salsa
2. cube and brown chicken... add to crock pot
3. I set the crock pot to low heat and let the chili cook for ~5 hours...