My first turkey dinner!

I bought my first whole turkey and made stuffing for it too. It was quite satisfying. (Vegetarians must lead a non-fulfilling life. ;) It was also intimidating to make. I don't like touching all that stuff inside the turkey. Cliffton stayed at the table for a long time saying, "I want food" "I'm hungry" and such every 3 minutes or so. Poor kid.

Gingerbread Houses with the Chirinos'

What a sweet day it was! I made the gingerbread and Richard and I put them together and then we all decorated the houses @ the Chirinos' home. Good times! I needed more pics of the girls though. We had a boys house and a girls house.

Thanksgiving with Mike and Michelle

M&M came to visit us for a day and then we met up with them later at Mike's sister's home. It was a lovely visit and Cliffie and Vi had a lot of fun with Bonnie and Noel's kids. I love talking with my sister in law! She's awesome! :)

Thanksgiving Dinner/Party @ Church

We had a very yummy dinner and Richard spoke about the history of Thanksgiving, quoting a lot from Pres. Lincoln. We then danced! Cliffie was soo cute! He would run around the room as everyone danced and just do his own thing, sometimes dancing, sometimes jumping and clapping. We had a lot of fun. It kind of felt like being back at a youth dance too. I haven't danced in awhile so I felt a little awkward. The picture of me is very much not my favorite.

The Aviation Museum

The museum has an awesome little kids room (ages 2-6). There are some neat parts from airplanes and helicopters and all kinds of books and toys.

Missionaries

It has been so neat to have the missionaries over about once a week. We never had missionaries over when we lived in Utah. In Florida, we only had them over about once a month. The first picture is Elder Leal with our family and the next one is Elder Parker (I'm pretty sure Cliffie took that one!). They have all been wonderful, friendly missionaries.

"You're turning violet, Violet"

Well, not literally, but of course Miss Violet needs to have a violet dress!

One of the COOLEST Christmas trees ever!!!

I think this was at Borders. I know Susie and Bryana will love this picture!

park pics

Just more pictures of them at Waterfront park.

Vi and boots

Violet likes to take Cliffton's things periodically. Clomping around the house in these boots is one of her joys, much to our downstairs neighbor's dismay.

Cliff the Conductor

Have I mentioned HOW MUCH Cliffton loves to lead music? He does it indoors and out.

Violet's hats

Even though I can't get Violet to wear a headband or hair clip for than about 100 seconds, she loved to wear her witch hat and she likes her basket hat and Cliffton's old Mickey hat.

Halloween pt.2

We went to the church building for a Halloween party and the kids had fun. They really liked candy but they also liked the streamers and the piano.

Halloween

Ok, we had to get some pictures up before we left for Utah. I wanted to take a totally empty camera out so we could take the 600 or whatever pictures our camera holds without reservation. First, here are some Halloween pics. Yeah, some 6 weeks late, but they're fun!

a quick run-down

Cliffton loves He-Man and She-Ra. He has been holding a baby monitor speaker that looks like a walkie talkie and saying things like, "by the power of greykind!" Now he will say it correctly "...grayskull." I call Violet Battle Cat because she has quite the little growl sometimes. Man, this girl is tough! She has figured out how to escape from her crib despite all of Richard's creative measures. They had a lot of fun over Thanksgiving when Mike and Michelle came to visit. We really enjoyed spending a bit of time with them and with Mike's family. It was a great time. I hope to get pictures up soon. I have been feeling pretty good but already I have a swollen area that is from a pregnancy-related hernia. Yeah, not fun. But last pregnancy it didn't start up 'till about 20 weeks. This year, 10 weeks. And even though I can still wear my regular jeans, I often wear maternity 'cause its already more comfortable. Next pregnancy? Hmmmm... The statistics aren't looking good. I have a doctors appt. tomorrow so we'll update on that later. On a good note - Richard just took 3 of 4 final exams and feels good about them. He says it doesn't mean anything though. I'm happy for him. One semester down - 5 more to go!

Yummy pan-fried chicken nuggets with curry

These were awesome but I have to admit that any kind of frying is a pain. The taste is worth it though!

1 1/2 - 2 lbs. chicken cut up in chunks (maybe 2" pieces)

1 1/4 C flour (you may need some more)

1/2 cup warm water

1 1/2 T curry powder (or any spice mixture really)

salt and pepper, to taste

Rub the chicken all over with rice vinegar (or cider vinegar). This is pretty easy if you put all of the chicken pieces in a big freezer ziplock bag, pour the vinegar in, seal and shake it up. Then add the salt, pepper and curry and shake again. Whisk flour with the water until you get a paste about as thick as yogurt. Heat up to 1/4" oil in a skillet over med.- high heat. Dredge chicken in mixture and pan-fry in batches. Approx. 4 servings and takes approx. 30 minutes. Great with steamed rice and veggies with a little curry.

Silly little Vibye!

Oh this girl loves to have fun! She's so social and loves to be a part of it all. Cliffton has always been a much more independent personality. Not so with our little princess. On this day, I was baking bread and Violet wanted to be involved. So I gave her some flour to play with. Flour power!

As we were going through more boxes of clothes and stuff we found a swimsuit for Violet and she tried to put it all herself! I think she got one foot though the hole and then I helped her with the rest.

Waterfront Park

Again, we found a way awesome park! However, this one had geese poo everywhere. Ugh! So nasty. So even though it was freezing and nasty, we still had fun. Violet wanted to give the geese a BIG HUG! We eventually scared them all away.

I sure do think they're cute!

My cuties!