A-Z of Brie!

A: Age: 22 almost 23
B: Bed size:Queen :( Needs to be a king... Make that a Cal. king! Greg doesn't like to share.
C:  Chore that you hate: I hate lots of chores! ;) Kitchen clean up, that includes dishes, sweeping, mopping, cleaning fridge, stove, counter, microwave, etc.
D: Dogs: Love, but if ever I get a dog it will be a dog, not one of those yappie lap dogs. Give me a lab, Germain shepherd, Great Dane, Mastiff and I'll be happy
E: Essential start to your day: Waking up to both girls calling my name and telling me the sun is up. :)
F: Favorite color: I am loving Light Greens, Blues, and WHITE! Light, airy colors make me happy.
G: Gold or Silver: Silver
H: Height: 5'3"
I: Instruments you play: I used to play the violin. Now I want, ever so badly, to play acoustic guitar!
J: Job title: Home maker, Wife, Mother. :)
K: Kids: Aliesha--almost 4, McKenzie--almost 2!
L: Live: In an apartment... :( hopefully, someday, a house.
M: Mother's Name: Jill Marie Earl
N: Nicknames: Brie, Boo, Breezy, Denis...
O: Overnight hospital stays: Just when I had my girls.
P: Pet peeves: I have lots. One of them would have to be dirty people! People who don't clean up after themselves and aren't hygienically clean disgust me!
Q: Quote from a movie: "ULTIMATE PUNCH!!!" --Hot Rod
R: Right or Left handed:Right
S: Siblings: Erika, Me, Kindra, Lindsay, Shaylee.
T: Time you get up: On average 8:30-9:00. Sometimes 10:30! Depends on my girls
U: Ultimate dream: To be able to provide my kids with the necessities of life with out having to worry about money.
V: Vegetable you hate: Cooked spinach
W: What makes you run late: Trying to find things. Seriously every time I'm ready to go I lose my keys, or wallet, or phone!
X: X-Rays you've had: I fractured my pinkie finger so they took X-rays of my left hand.
Y: Yummy food that you make: Chicken enchiladas. :) This is seriously the only meal I can make and not have something go wrong!
Z: Zoo Animal:Giraffe!

Pumpkin carving time!!!!

 Saturday night we went and bought the girls a pumpkin and told them we'd carve it Sunday. Sunday came and Greg woke up with a bad sore throat, runny/stuffy, chills and a fever.  So we really didn't do anything Sunday. Monday came with the promise of carving the pumpkin then. Greg once again woke up sicker than Sunday, so he stayed home from work. Poor guy couldn't even talk without his throat throbbing. So I decided to do some crafts with the girls. Aliesha loved doing the projects, Kenzie liked them but her attention span isn't long, so I ended up doing all of hers.  Here's what we did:

 Since Kenzies attention span isn't long she was not willing to get her picture taken.

 Kenzies Ghost: Left; Aliesha's Ghost: Right

Aliesha's Candy corn. Kenzie also made one... Once again short attention span = no picture.

Aliesha also made a pumpkin one, by that time Kenzie went down for her nap so she didn't make one. And I was trying to get crafty and make a spider to put on the wall.  The next morning, Tuesday, Greg woke up still sick. So we got to stay home again. To show case the girls' work I taped them to the wall. I did this when Aliesha was up stairs and when she came down she was so excited to see her work up on the wall. Kenzie was really excited to see her ghost and candy corn up there too.

I hung the spiders up and Kenzie thought they were real. haha.  The little one fell off and Kenzie went over to pick it up but freaked out when she touched it, thinking it was real. It was funny.

Since we didn't get around to the pumpkin on Monday we decided we WILL do it Tuesday! So after some delicious, warm chili for dinner we prepped for the pumpkin carving. The girls were really excited. Aliesha dug right in scooping out all the slime. Kenzie was more hesitant. And she hated touching the slime, but was fine grabbing the seeds.It was funny to see her reaction to the slime. If she would touch it she would pull her hand close to her and shake while making a funny noise. :) I can't really explain it but it was funny. Any ways Daddy and Mommy carved out the design Aliesha picked out and then it was done. Both girls were really happy to see the finished project. Here are some pictures...

 Climbing on the pumpkin

 This was when Kenz touched the slime.

 Slimy Hands

Finished project.

Even though Greg was sick it was fun having him here during the day. I think I need to do better at doing crafts/art projects with the girls, cause they loved doing them. Now that Halloween is almost done I'll have to think of some Thanksgiving ones to have them do. Any ideas?

Haunted house!

Saturday night Greg and I had a date night. We haven't had one in a while so it was so nice! Greg's mom watched the girls over night and we went out to eat and went to Nightmare on 13th with a group of friends. Greg and I have made it a tradition to go to a haunted house every year for Halloween. Last year our good friends Angel and Chris tagged along, and now it's tradition that they go with us each year. This year we added to the group. Chris' yourger brother John and his wife Sasha. Since Sasha is from Russia she hadn't experienced a Haunted house in America so we made her and John lead the way. She did very well, I think I only saw her jump a few times. Angel is a little jumpy in the haunted houses. And I screamed as well in some of the rooms... The one room was dark and there was a T.V on viewing the video that's played in the movie "The Ring" So I knew that that scary girl was somewhere in the room waiting to jump out. So of course I'm looking around and not seeing her anywhere. Suddenly as we were about to exit the room She jumps out from behind the T.V! Scared the heck out of me, and I screamed. The other time was we were coming out of one room and Angel and Chris just took off  so I was thinking, "Oh that must be the end." NOPE WAS I WRONG!!  I'm walking a head of Greg and all of a sudden I hear a chainsaw roar to life and a scary man running towards me with the chainsaw in hand. I turned around and ran into Greg, I then proceed to Jump up on him wraping my arms and legs around him, burrowing my head into his chest and closing my eyes! He then carried me out of the room. When I felt safe I got down appoligized for my quick reaction and noticed Angel and Chris waiting at the end of the hall. John and Sasha were right behind us laughing their heads off at my reaction. I quickly realize that we are in a hall way with clown pictures hanging on the wall. I let go of Greg and continued walking towards Angel and Chris and then all of a sudden OUT POPS A CLOWN from inside the wall! Still scared from the chainsaw man I screamed Jumped into the opposite wall and about fell on my butt (Luckly Greg was there to catch me before I actually hit the floor.)! I'm not scared of Clowns but it was the element of suprise that caught me. It was seriously the most fun I have had in a long time!!!!! I am looking forward to next years tradition. After that we all decided to go watch a scary movie at Angel's... Lets just say I will never pick out a scary movie again! IT WAS LAME! But we did share some fun memories!

New calling

I went from Young Women's Miamaid/Laural advisor to 2nd counselor in primary to Primary 1st counselor and all within 2 1/2 years. Yeah for some reason I don't stay in callings for very long... Maybe that's a bad sign... Hope not. So anyways I was released from my primary calling two weeks ago, in fact my last day was the primary program. Then it was conference week, so no church. Then Yesterday, my first day in Relief Society in like 3 1/2 years.  I walked in sat down, looked around and it was a sea of gray! I was the youngest one in there! I felt oddly out of place. Then as more people filed in there was like 5 out of, I don't know like 20 with color hair. Still I feel out of place. I get into sacrament and on of the bishopric men sits down next to me and says he wants to meet with me... I came and he gave me a new calling..... Any guesses as to what it is??? I cannot say, you'll have to wait till next Sunday, but for now, any guesses????

YAY!

Yes another post! Don't judge. I just have to tell you how very excited I am right now.

First, it's fall.

Second, I get to wear my sweaters, jackets, and BOOTS!!! :) 

Third, Hot Chocolate mornings. 

Fourth, Cuddling up in a warm blanket watching movies, reading books. 

Fifth, the holiday's. 

Sixth, SNOW!!!!!

I got a call from my awesome husband today telling me that it's snowing outside! (He knows I just love the snow, so it was very sweet of him to think of me when he saw snow!)

So anyways, that's all. :) Yay for fall and for winter and for SNOW!!!!

Well that didn't work

Okay so my shrunken heads didn't work... grr!  I kept checking up on them and they were doing great. I decided the drying process was going to feel a lot longer if I keep looking at them, so I decided to not keep track of them. Well yesterday was exactly one week from when I started the shrunken head apples. I was on the phone with my sister and she asked how the project was going, (She wanted to know how they were doing, so she could start on her own little project herself.) So I checked them and guess what! THEY WERE ALL MOLDY!!!!!!!!!!!!! DISGUSTING!  I was mad! What a waste of 4 apples! I don't know what I did wrong. The salt and lemon bath was supposed to prevent mold from happening. So I don't know if I just didn't add enough salt or lemon juice or what. But the fact is they didn't work out :( So sad, right. Well now I don't what I'm gonna do for some cool decorations... I want to have the kids paint some halloween pictures, and put them up (I had them paint a fall color tree, using their hands as the leaves, and they were so excited to see that I put them up for show.) So I was thinking I'd do the same... Maybe paint the bottom of their feet white, then having them stand on colored paper, making them look like ghosts'. I don't know.
And speaking of halloween, I have NO idea what the girls are going to be. I don't want to go out and buy a 20 + dollar costume for each of them, so I was thinking of home made costumes, but I'm limited talent. So we will see... If you have any ideas on home made costumes let me know.

Shrunken Heads???

Don't you think this display is pretty cool!! I thought so! I love decorating for any holiday, especially for fall/winter Holiday's. Makes the season more seasonal. Ha. 

Anyways, I happened to fall on this picture one day and thought, okay I'm SO doing this!!!! Then I forgot all about it. And then once again, a year or two later, while trying to find fun, easy, cheap ways to decorate your house for Halloween this picture popped up.. wouldn't you say it's fate? Just kidding.

Well I ended up having all the stuff to make them so why not do it?

But I wanted to share how to do them, just in case you think this is just as cool as I do... that or I'm just lame like that. 

So moving forward these are the ingredients/ supplies you'll need:

Salt.

Lemons or Lemon juice

Apples 

Water

A knife

A bowl

A potato peeler

(optional) Cloves

  Fill the bowl with luke-warm water. Add about 2 tablespoons of salt And 2 tablespoons of Lemon juice, or squeeze two lemon wedges into the water. Stir and set aside.

Now peel your apples, leave the stem on.

Now carve a face out, in your apple. Make the features more pronounced, cause we will be drying the apples so everything will shrink. Oh and it doesn't have to be perfect either.

See, my happy, soon to be, shrunken head family. Make them different play with it have fun, be creative... There were some pretty awesome looking shrunken head apples and it was because they carved them a lot better than me, but I'm no sculptor, so this is going to have to work. But if you are great at sculpting have at it. :)

Here's the boring part... soaking it in your nice Salty, lemon bath you mixed at the beginning. For best results and to ensure you wont rot your apples, YUCK! Soak them for 24 hours.

Fast forward 24 hours...

Take the apples out of their bath and pat dry them with a towel. At this time if you want you can put some cloves in the eye sockets, it makes them look more sunken in and dark. Whatever you want to do to make it your own.

Now tie some string around the stem... It's shrinking time! Find a nice room away from any open/bright light and hang them to dry.

It takes any where from 2-3 weeks to dry them, just keep checking on them and watch them shrink away! You can also use a dehydrator or oven, but I always seem to ruin stuff using those sorts of appliances. So I'll take the long way. 

My apples aren't done yet they still look like the one's in the picture... perhaps cause I just took that picture today! ha! So when they are done I will post a picture.

Happy Halloween