A Visit From Brittney!

Brittney is Dan's niece. She and her husband, Phillip were in town for a few days and came to say hi and visit for a few hours. We were so glad that they stopped by! It was fun to hear about past Halloweens and how they finally got together. We love you Brittney and Phillip, please come again soon!

I am so behind in blogging! But I need to get some activities recorded before I move onto more current events.
For October break, we went to California. We brought our tent trailer and camped near the beach. We went to Knotts Berry Farm for the first time as a family. We had a great time!

(Sidenote: I HATE the way that you can't move pictures around inside a blog post. It makes me crazy!)

Our tent trailer is very special. It sleeps all nine of us. Here are the girls eating breakfast at the table. We had lots of rain while we were there so the outside campground table was all wet. We were grateful to have a dry option.

Here are the sleeping quarters: Maranda, Andria and Ruthie on one end king size bed, Chandler on the bench bed, Hanna and Danica on the table bed, Zan, Jan, and Dan on the other end king size bed. Everyone slept great.

We stayed at San Clemente State Beach. It was a short walk from the campsite to this path down to the beach. It was a pretty steep path and I wouldn't want to do it too many times.Here is the beach when you get to the bottom of the path, gorgeous!

The campground: a table, a campfire, lots of dirt, what more could you want? The water hose to the sink in our trailer broke as we were opening the trailer so we had to do dishes outside. Chandler and Dan were awesome dishwashers. We realized on this trip how much we will miss Chandler when he leaves us. He is so great to tie stuff, start fires, move heavy objects, and do the dirty work. Plus he is always so willing to do whatever awful thing I don't want to do or can't do myself. It is great to have another man around. We will really miss him! We went to Knotts Berry Farm for one day. It was so fun. It was empty maybe because of the rain or just because it is off season. Anyway, it worked for us. We could ride every ride with no wait, as many times as we wanted.

There was a little place there with live frogs, hissing cockroaches and other creatures. My girls had as much fun there as on the rides. The sure love animals, all kinds. After a long day, we ate dinner at Mrs. Knotts Chicken Dinner Restaurant.

Our day at the beach started out cloudy and rainy. The girls woke up early so we took a walk down to check out the ocean before breakfast. It was chilly but they didn't seem to mind. After breakfast we played in the fire and had smores. Then we decided to put on swim suits and take boogie boards and head down to the beach and hope for some sun. Our wish was granted and the sun came out for several beautiful hours. What a perfect day on the beach almost all to ourselves.

This and That

Homecoming date; Chandler and Ashlee Hanna and Ruthie

Zanya and Ruthie

Hanna working the Mountain View/Highland football game. (She's in the middle with the white flower in her hair.)

Maranda and Andria goofing around with the camera--one of them took this picture, I love it!

Danica always runs or turns away when we get the camera out, I hope she grows out of that soon. Our other children clearly don't have that inclination.

Happy 13th Birthday Danica!

Hey, I'm only a month and a half late posting this but we did celebrate her birthday. Danica turned 13 in September but she has been acting 13 for a few years now so it was no surprise. We love having Danica in our home for many reasons. One reason is because she is so musical. She sings all the time, plays the piano beautifully and is even learning the guitar. Danica also keeps us on our toes making sure we are sanitary and not spreading any germs. Danica is a talented tumbler and recently broke the light in the toy room while doing a cartwheel, because she is so tall. She is currently the tallest girl in our home, but Hanna and I won't admit it. We love Danica and her righteous choices and good example. She is also smart, beautiful, funny and talented. We are so grateful to have her in our family!

Danica's birthday is only two weeks before her cousin, Kinsey's. So for their birthdays, Kinsey's mom took them shopping. They had a great time!

Healthy Fall Cooking Idea

This month, I tried a new recipe that called for only a small amount of pumpkin. Then I had most of the can left over, but I HATE to waste food. So while I was making pancakes the next morning, I decided instead of substituting applesauce for half the oil, I would use the pumpkin. I figured it wouldn't be a very strong taste and it sounded good in whole wheat pancakes. My family didn't even notice any difference! So then I decided to use the rest of it in everything I was making. Some went into the bagels (no difference), and Hanna used some in these ginger snaps which are also half wheat.

Pumpkin would actually be very complimentary in ginger snaps but there really isn't any noticeable difference from the all shortening recipe. They are still soft and delicious. So if you have some pumpkin left over, don't be afraid to try it in all your baking. It is very easy to use in place of the fat and it's good for you too. I think I'll open another can :)

Birthday Cakes

Hanna has graduated from cupcakes to full sized cakes. Personally, I still like cupcakes better because they are less temperamental. Hanna has also graduated from butter cream frosting to fondant. Fondant is fun because it is like play-doh. Fondant from the store tastes yucky. So, Hanna found a recipe for homemade fondant. It is made from marshmallows and tastes yummy. So now we are on a wonderful adventure becoming familiar with fondant. Hanna's cousin Kylee turned 16 this month so Hanna made her this cake. I especially liked the roses. Hanna doesn't mind if I help her with mundane tasks such as rolling fondant balls.
This week Danica turned 13, so here is Dani's birthday cake. Hanna designed it to display Danica's talents and interests (tumbling, music and daisies). We decided to try cake fillings this time but we learned a lot about what not to do. Next time it will be better. On the bright side, the fillings were delicious. We had chocolate cake with caramel cream cheese filling and vanilla cake with whipped chocolate ganache filling. Very tasty.

(I forgot I took these pictures- the insides of the cakes)

Little Patients

Hanna spends a lot of time in her sports med program at school. She is learning many new skills. One night she needed to practice wrapping ankles. Lucky we have a lot of ankles here. Wrapping Dan,

Zanya

and Andria.

I think Hanna wrapped 6 ankles that evening. We are glad Hanna has found something that she enjoys as much as baking treats. Medicine is more useful, and hopefully more profitable, but not as delicious. Luckily she still finds time for both.