Sloppy Joe Jack-o-lantern pie

We had this sloppy joe jack-o-lantern pie last night. It was really delicious even though it didn't turn out very orange.

I used a regular can of sloppy joe mix plus I added in three chopped carrots and the rest of a green pepper that we had in the fridge. It really added something to our regular sloppy joe mix. Russell didn't even know he was eating green peppers!

This is probably going to be added into our regular dinner rotation except I don't think I will carve a pumpkin face into it each time. 

Eyeball Spaghetti

Wednesday's dinner was eyeball spaghetti (or halloween spaghetti). It was popular with Russell until it was time to actually eat. Ben liked it, especially with the green olives. I ate mine without eyes in it.

I had to buy black food coloring to color the spaghetti and mine didn't turn out nearly as dark as the picture. I did doctor up the spaghetti sauce like she suggests, and it was really good.

We didn't get around to carving a pumpkin last night. Ben came home from school about 4:45 and had to leave for Patrol leader Council at 5:30, so it was a pretty quick meal. I didn't have much stamina to handle Meghan and Russell while trying to carve a pumpkin. Maybe we'll do two tonight.

Mummy Dogs and a Kitty Lantern

Tuesday we had Mummy dogs for dinner. It was a huge hit with Russell! I decided to make my own dough, which tasted great, but didn't wrap around the dogs nicely. Store bought crescent dough would probably be easier to work with.

 Ben also liked the dogs and the dough wrapped around them. He ate 4. Here is today's jack-o-lantern. A kitty. It was fun to carve.

Halloween Week

This week we are doing halloween dinners each night of the week. Last night we had Zombie Taco Salad.

Chips on the bottom, taco meat and beans next, salsa, lettuce for hair, cheese for skin falling off, sour cream eyes with olive pupils, and a tomato mouth. It was a toss up on whether or not it was a hit. Russell is on and off about whether he wants to eat dinner these days.

We also decided we would carve one pumpkin a night this week since we ended up with  five pumpkins. Last night's pumpkin was a traditional style jack-o-lantern.

Russell was much more into carving the pumpkin this year, though he still didn't want to stick his hand in the pumpkin.

Fall

Sister Missionaries

WARNING!!! This post has some personal opinions that some could find offensive. I do not mean to offend.  I do know that President Monson is a prophet, so don't start worrying that I am going astray.

I think most people are familiar with my mission story.  I wasn't ever going to go on a mission. Ever. Then upon graduating I felt very strongly that I needed to go on a mission, and being obedient, I went. For the first little while I kept wondering what could happen that could get me sent home honorably (so did the mission president's wife), but in the end, it ended up being one of the best experiences of my life that I would never skip.

When it was announced that sisters could start going at 19, I was shocked. I know they have played around with mission ages before, but that was a long time ago. I wondered what it would be like.

Since then, I have watched, interested, by the sidelines as this change took place. We had sisters in our first Rochester ward for maybe a month before we moved and haven't had any in our current ward, yet I am always intrigued by what I see and hear and read.

Once when we were visiting Mom and Dad, we went to church and before Sacrament Meeting started I was looking around to see who I knew. I saw some girls and didn't recognize them. I asked Mom who they were and she told me they were the sisters. I could see no differences between them and all the other females in the ward (the name tags must have been hidden or something).

Shortly after the announcement, I saw something on BYUtv about the lowering of mission age for sisters and during one interview one girl said something along the lines of "I think more girls would go but the mission age is so old that we all get married before we are old enough to go. If the mission age had been 19 when I was 19 I totally would have gone." Something about that irked me.

It seems like it has become the newest trendy thing for sisters to serve missions. It isn't a huge sacrifice. They can pretty much wear anything. What do I know. Maybe I am just bitter because it was not the cool thing to do when I went. It doesn't look like a cop out of something to do when you aren't married and have graduated from college. And, I know that there are those sisters who go at 19 who have sincerely felt the need to go.

Sister Scoresby returning in all her honor and great glory. See how I am glowing? 

So, I was happy to hear President Monson say the following, "We reaffirm that missionary work is a priesthood duty, and we encourage all worthy and able young men to serve. We are very grateful for the young women who also serve. They make a significant contribution, although they are not under the same mandate to serve as are the young men." Amen. I will gladly tell our kids this and make sure that the girls feel no pressure to serve (though Meghan's baby blessing did talk about going on a mission).

We have heat!

We got our furnace and water heater installed last week. Yay!

Pumpkin time

Early in the spring, we managed to snag an awesome deal on some 'expired' seeds at the market here in town. 5 cents each. Ben bought $2.00 worth of seeds with the defense that if they didn't grow we would only be out $2.00. So, we planted some and the pumpkins were some of the only ones that came up.

And, they kept growing.

The pumpkins were very fruitful. It seemed like every time we went to the garden it had grown another branch to take over yet another part of the garden. Then pumpkins started showing up. It was very exciting. We even had new pumpkins show up a couple weeks ago. Russell always got excited to count the pumpkins.

Imagine our despair when Ben went out to check them Saturday and they were all gone! Every last one!7 pumpkins gone with the littlest one which was rotting left behind. Ben and I were ticked off because the pumpkins were one of our more  productive plants. We told Russell and he was sad that the pumpkins were gone. I also emailed the lady in charge of the gardens and asked her if  she knew if someone had mistakenly taken them. When Ben got back from the priesthood session of conference he scoured the garden and found one pumpkin that was hidden under leaves and by the very edge of the garden next to the fence where the weeds grew really well.

Today after dinner, one of the old ladies knocked on our door with one of our pumpkins! Apparently the son of the lady in charge of the gardens had taken them because he was afraid they would get ruined from the frost. He had more of them in the his car. He must have forgotten how many he had taken from our garden because we only got 4 from him. Oh well. We now have enough pumpkins for each of us plus one extra.

And, in Meghan news...last week she rolled over from her front to her back. Then yesterday she rolled from her back to her front. I couldn't believe it, but Ben said she had done it earlier, too. But, never fear, she hasn't done any rolling at all today.

We took a fall drive last week to look at the leaves. They were not great, but it was a nice Sunday drive in the fall.

Don't mind the sideways view...