4 years old!



Birthday Boy - HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY COLEMAN!!

Coleman is four today!  What a big boy.  We celebrated his birthday at Steve's Pizza in El Dorado Hills.  His party was Mario themed and all he wanted was Mario stuff and boy did he get lots of it! I am so happy he lives close to me and that he comes running into my arms yelling Grammy everytime he sees me!  Love that boy so much!



Age One

Age Two

Age Three

A thankful time

Jack and Linc working on their coloring contest

 J

 

 

 

Megan's Cookies

Two beauties and one tired old lady!

Shauna, Megan and Coleman checking out the Black Friday Ads

 

 

 

 

Fudge-Bottom Candy Crunch Pie

A yummy Chocolate and Oreo Pie

Ingredients

2 packages (3.9 oz.) chocolate puding 1 tub cool whip 2 cups milk 1 cup Heath Toffee Bits 2 TB Hershey's syrup 1 Oreo Pie Crust Instructions

Make pudding as directed. Add half the cool whip as well as 3/4 cups of Toffee bits. Mix well. Pour into crust.

Drizzle Hershey's syrup over pudding mixture.

Top with remaining cool whip and toffee bits. ENJOY!

Halloween 2012

Owen was the cutest little tiger!




Jack as Dracula - Coleman as Mario - Lincoln as a Knight



Patrick's Pumpkins

Fall is finally here!

It is so nice to finally feel the cool weather and to be able to open the windows and enjoy the breeze and the smell of rain.  The forecast for the next ten days calls for cool weather so let's hope summer is over for good...  I love this time of year!  I love fall colors of brown, gold, orange, and red.  I love anything made with pumpkin.  Last night I made these delicious pumpkin donut holes and took them to work for our staff meeting.  They were a hit!  They are so moist and filled with yummy spices.  They are actually baked and not fried which is a plus.  I will definitely make them again. 

Baked Pumpkin Spice Donut Holes

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Yield: 40 donut holes

Serving Size: 2 donut holes

For the donuts:
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/8 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 1/2 cup low-fat milk
  For the Coating:
• 1 stick of unsalted butter, melted
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a 24-cup mini muffin tin with nonstick spray.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves. In a separate large bowl, combine the oil, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, pumpkin and milk until smooth. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Be careful not to overmix the batter.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, about 1 tablespoon in each cup. (You will have batter left over for about another dozen.) Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until passes the toothpick test.

Remove the muffins from the oven and allow to cool for 2 minutes, or until just cool enough to handle. With the melted butter in one bowl and the sugar and cinnamon combined in another, dip each muffin into the butter then roll in the cinnamon sugar to coat. Repeat with remaining batter. Serve immediately.

 

(I put the cinnamon and sugar in a gallon size zip log bag and added a dozen donut holes at a time and coated them by shaking the baggie)

Utah Trip

 

I had a great trip spending time with some of my favorites in Utah.  It was Megan and Justin's 10th anniversary so I watched the boys while theyenjoyed some time together in Park City.  We had lots of fun making mummys filled with treats, making a spooky dinner of mummy dogs and witches fingers with dirt pudding and gummy worms.  We played and watched movies and just loved spending time together.  On Saturday morning we made ghost pancakes.  I sure love these boys and am excited for them to live close very soon!!  I also spent time with Jordan and his little family.  Owen is such a sweet cute little guy.  I loved being with him and trying to keep up with him!  He is a very active, fast, smart little boy.  He is growing so fast and it was so hard to leave him.  Can't wait until Christmas when I can see him again.  I love being a Grandma to four of the cutest little boys in the world!

 

Jackson and Coleman displaying the ghost pancakes



Coleman building a tower for the angry birds.

Jack enjoying his spooky dinner



Lincoln proudly showing off the mummy he made!  I love the pudding moustache!

Lincoln and Coleman with more Mummys

Lincoln being so reverent during the opening prayer of General Conference.  Such a sweet boy.

 Megan, Coleman and me waiting for our table at Texas Roadhouse

Jack and Owen outside the restaurant

Jordan and Owen at Texas Roadhouse

Justin and the boys waiting for ice cream

Jordan, Kristine and Owen.  Such a cute family

Little Owen looking cute

Owen in the tiger costume Grammy bought him for Halloween

RANDOM PHOTOS

Found this photo of Jordan when he was about  the same age as Owen.  Same nose and cheeks.  Similar.  He really looks a lot like his Mama but there are a few similarities to his Daddy too.   

Cousins at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City.  Love how Owen is trying to escape Jack's hold on him!

Megan and I went to Dalelyn's wedding in July.  It was fun seeing everyone.  I know Megan enjoyed seeing some of her cousins.  (L to R Rick, Lovell, Taylor, Megan, Kim

Rick, Kim, Taylor, Tara, Matt, Megan and  Courtney
Missing are Kari, Krissy, Kasie, Erin, Shauna, Jordan, Tamara

Nostalgia

I have been having fun the last couple of weeks collecting pictures that bring me back to the 60's and 70's.  There were so many pictures that I couldn't possibly add them all but here is just a little sampling of some of the things that I had and experienced in my younger years.

This was called a wiglet and I had one that matched my natural color perfectly.  These were all the rage in the late 60's and early 70's.  I used to keep mine on a styrofoam head and take it to the hair dresser to have it styled.  I thought it was so beautiful and it make me about 6" taller!  You really had to use a lot of bobby pins to keep it securly fastened.



This is the Beatles in 1964 when they first came to the US and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Everyone was glued to their black and white TVs on that Sunday night.  What a thrill!!



This is what the entrance to Disneylnad looked like in the early 60's.  I went there for the first time when I was 14 in 1964.  I fell in love with it then and I still love it now!



During my high school years I spent just about every Saturday night during the summer at the drive in with these speakers in our car windows.  We really did not watch the movie that much.  We spend most of our time at the snack bar or outside  our cars socializing with our friends!



Ah English Leather cologne.  If you wanted to be a popular guy in the 60's you had to wear English Leather.  All the guys who were cool wore it and I might add they wore too much of it.  It was kind of strong and musky smelling, but all the girls loved it.



In case you can't tell this is an ice cube tray.  They were made out of metal and had a lever you pulled on to make the ice cubes come out easily.  (the ice tasted a little like metal)  There were no ice makers in my childhood and we used to get in big trouble if we didn't refill the tray after we emptied it and put it back in the freezer!



I remember watching Lassie every Saturday morning.  I can still hear Timmy yelling "Lassie" when Lassie wandered off to save someone who was drowning or lost in the wilderness.  That Lassie was a pretty amazing dog.  He would always come back limping with a bleeding paw!



This was just like the wringer washing machine that my Mom used every Saturday morning to do the laundry.  Mind you there were automatic washers back then but my Mom refused to have one.  She said they didn't get the clothes clean.  It would take her hours to do a load and she had to stand there and put every piece of clothing through the wringer to remove the excess water.  I used to love to go out to the garage and watch her when I was really little.  It was fascinating to me.  After she finished she would take the clothes to the back yard and hand them on a clothes line to dry.  My job was to hand her the clothes pins and I thought that was a pretty special job!



Good ole Blue Chip Stamps.  Every trip to the grocery store you received stamps depending how much money you spent.  My job was to lick them and put them in the books.  After several books were collected we would go to the blue chip stamp store and redeem them for appliances, and other household goods.  I remember our toaster came from the Blue Chip Stamp store along with glasses, dishes and pots and pans.



I had a pair of  clogs just like these in high school.  I used to wear them with tights or nylons.  They were so comfortable but they made so much noise on a hardwood floor.



These were called Ditto jeans and I had several pairs of these in all different colors in the early 70's.  They had to be really tight and hug your butt as you see in this picture.  Not cute!  Oh and the wooden bracelets were a great accessory to every outfit.



Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal.  Everyone was in love with them and this book and movie.  I thought it was so awesome but by today's standards it was pretty dumb.