Our "Happy Thanksgiving" & an oven fire...

Here we have "The Jamie Turkey" as I like to call it (thanks Jamie for doing it for your FHE so I could copy it for team activity for my students!). All 50 students wrote three things they were thankful for on their piece of paper & then we (my teacher partner & I) taped them on the feathers (my very favorites were the ones that wrote they were sooo thankful for me, their other teachers, & school...yeah, riiiggghhhtt. Well, I guess a little brown-nosing never hurt anyone :) Honestly though, out of the three years (& don't get me wrong, I've absolutely loved every student I've had, I feel very blessed) I've taught, this class is just such a sweet, kind & helpful class. I'm really grateful for them!

Don't let some of their serious mugs fool you, they are simply wonderful!!

Here is my new favorite dessert I mentioned in an earlier blog. A new recipe I tried for Thanksgiving that went over quite well, I must say (though no credit of my own, it won 1st place in a contest & was in a magazine, where I found it :). It was easy, just make sure you have enough time to cool it & refrigerate it, that's what makes it over the top, baby!!!!!!

Candied Apple Pie Cheescake

1 cup crushed ginger snaps
3 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. sugar, divided
2 pkg (8oz each) cream cheese, softened
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 cup apple pie filling, divided
1/2 cup walnut pieces, divided
1/2 cup toffee bits, divided

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix ginger snap crumbs, butter & 2 tbsp. sugar; press onto bottom & up side of 9-inch pie plate. **I used about another 1/2 cup crumbs, w/ more butter & sugar because I like a little thicker crust & it worked great.**

Beat cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar & vanilla w/ mixer until blended. Add sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each just until blended. Stir in half EACH of pie filling, nuts, & toffee. Pour into crust.

Bake 35 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 4 hours. Top with remaining pie filling, nuts, & toffee.

And now for the fire...I was cooking some butter dips for dinner, which requires melting the butter in the oven first. Well, it slipped out of my hands, spilling all the butter into our gas oven---whoosh, instant flames! I stood there dumbfounded & uttered one brilliant syllable, "Fire." Luckily my brainy sister was there & reminded me to throw baking soda on it, which I did (with the fire alarm blaring in the background), & it sizzled out instantly--whew! The best part is that I was stubborn enough about still wanting those butter dips for dinner so I sent my blessed husband to go ask a neighbor if we could use their oven. After trying 3 different neighbors who weren't home, he went to our landlord's house! The boys were with him & as soon as they opened the door they yelled, "We had a huge fire in our oven!!" But the good news is they too had a fire in their oven once so they could sympathize, ANNNNNDDD...I got my butter dips :) The End.

'Tis the Day After Halloween

This is what I spied & quickly got the camera because Jyson was being so happy & goofy (he sings all the time!) while he was dusting. I'm sorry, I switched the angle so you'll have to cock
your head awkwardly to see half of this little video (I thought my camera adjusted it).









And this is what Jaydon was doing meanwhile. And now it is time for haircuts, a perfect post-Halloween activity!

Is Halloween Really Over Already??

Niece Kelsi, Tony, Me, Rambo 1 & 2 at Tony's sister Dina's house, one of our last stops of the evening. We had a great time visiting a few older ladies (the boys shyly sang their cute skeleton song for them), and wow, Tony was as excited as they were. Nostalgia hit him in great force & he ran--literally--all over Dina's very generous neighborhood with the boys (one house gave every child a dollar--what the??).





Us at Heritage Park for the "Trunk-or-Treat." Great idea Sugar City, but apparently the citizens decided to do their own thing because there were only about 8 cars there :) See Jyson's bag? Isn't it awesome? He forgot his cute little pumpkin at home, so we rummaged in our trunk & came up with two options--ginormous bag or girly basket. You see his choice.








"The looking at" of the loot with Dina's kids: Carson, front skeleton (he was one of my students last year); Garett, back skeleton, Jaxon Spiderman/Power Ranger/Superman (he put a conglomeration of costumes together to come up with THE ultimate super hero!); and Kelsi Cinderella. Then after we got home Tony introduced me to his Halloween tradition, "The Trade." It was an intense 20-30 minutes of trading for, trading back, bargaining & begging between the three (yes, Tony too) piles of candy. Incredible!








Me, far left with some of my little darling 5th-graders at the Straw Maze yesterday. For those of you that don't know the story...a student at BYU-I wanted to start up a Straw Maze to make some money/do a business, so he listed his request on Craigslist and received a response! Isn't that wild? So he splits the proceeds with the partner & they have a lovely symbiotic relationship :) At night they even have scary chainsaw guys chasing you into the dead ends & strobe lights to make it even more spooky. I have to say, it was pretty darn good. It was easy at first, but the end is so confusing, & there are a million turns! It was so fun to go with my 4 giggly/screamer girls. It was so easy to scare them in order to get some great scream-age & laughing (a bit of an imp am I, admittedly).

Tomorrow we're going to have family over to have our traditional "Dinner-In-A-Pumpkin" and carmel apples. We're adding a new one...cinnamon-sugar bats with apple-butter/peanut butter dip. I also have a new recipe I'd like to try for Apple Cheesecake with gingersnap crust that looks delicious that I might post (if it's good, that is). What about you? What are your traditions? Have any yummy recipes to share?