A Fun Day

My sister-in-law Wendy invited everyone over to her house for a playdate today, but I was the only one who could make it. So, we went over to my new house to see it and do some measuring. Alicia and Tanner met us there to see it as well. Then, we headed over to Alicia's new house to see it. Then, Wendy and I and the kids headed back to Wendy's to hang out and let the kids play. The kids ended up in the irrigation:



(Bridger put on swim shorts but didn't get wet or dirty at all. Funny kid.) The weather was gorgeous. It felt so good (in the shade with a breeze, but still). It reminded me of Utah summers with the kids playing in the grass and water and the air feeling nice.
They had a ton of fun and Wendy and I had a ton of fun chatting and cooking. We made taco soup for dinner and she made homemade pumpkin pie for me to take home. Was such a fall meal. I mentioned my mom's Meal-in-a-Pumpkin so Wendy asked for the recipe. In honor of the first day of fall (yesterday...) here are two nice fall recipes. Both easy, delicious comfort food.

Taco Soup (this is actually thick for a soup - we served it on top of chips, with sour cream and cheese)
1 lb ground beef (we used ground turkey)
1 large onion, chopped
1 (1 1/4 ounce) package taco seasoning mix
1 (1 ounce) package hidden valley ranch dressing mix
1 (16 ounce) can pinto beans
1 (16 ounce) can chili beans
1 (16 ounce) can refried beans
1 (16 ounce) can whole kernel corn
1 (16 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
1 (16 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (4 ounce) can green chilies, chopped

Directions
1 Brown the beef and the onion together.
2 Drain the grease, if necessary.
3 Stir everything together in a large pot and heat through.


Meal-in-a-Pumpkin
1 pound ground beef
1 onion, diced
1 can sliced mushrooms
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup (or more) cooked rice
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large pumpkin, cut a lid on top and clean out the seeds and strings

Brown hamburger and onion. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms, and soup. Simmer 10 minutes. Add cooked rice. Spoon the beef mixture into the pumpkin. Place pumpkin on cookie sheet. Bake 1 hour or more at 350. The pumpkin should easily pierce with a fork or toothpick from the outside of it. We serve it in the pumpkin and people scoop out the beef mixture and then slice off some of the pumpkin to eat (we serve butter and brown sugar on the table to eat on the pumpkin, or you can just eat it with butter, salt and pepper, or just with the beef mixture or however you like :)

Looks Like We Have A House

Yay! We accepted the bank's counter-offer, so this house is ours! I'm really excited! It's on Signal Butte and Baseline (Villages of Eastridge). It's 3900 sq ft. with 5 bedrooms (we'll convert the living room to an office) and a huge game room (which Jared loves)!
I love so much about it: The space, 2 pantries, built-in garage cabinets, soft-water loop, RV gate, 3 car garage, shutters, no houses behind (greenbelt) and no houses in front (block wall-great for parking guests), maple cabinets, granite countertops, pre-wired for surround sound, brand new appliances, pre-plumbed for BBQ in back, 3 air conditioner units, etc, etc. Like all bank-owned homes, there are some downsides: no fireplace, laundry downstairs, previous owners removed fans, lights, pool equipment, needs one wall and 2 doors to make the den area, they removed the BBQ, took the mirrors, and the toilet seats (!) so it requires some work.
We're supposed to close on October 23, but we probably won't move in until the beginning of December. Here are some pictures of it.


Game Room


Front of the house (The trees need majorly trimmed!)


The view out the back windows (one of the bedrooms)


The backyard grass patch. It also has a pool, which we're not sure if we're keeping.


The kitchen!

Back to School, Part 2

I'm going back to school, and my kids started preschool the same week! Here they are on their first day walking home with Dad. It's 4 doors down from our house which is so nice!




There are 7 kids in their class (only 2 are girls). The ended up sick after the second class. Croup (and one other kid in their class got it too) and it's gone through the whole family all week!

They love it so much! They love that they have homework (coloring, tracing letters, learning numbers and letters, etc.) and I'm sure they love their teacher and the other kids. I was doing the math and realized that Bridger won't even start school for 3 years, so he has a long time to go! Oh well, he'll be REALLY well prepared.

Back to School, Part 1

I'm back in school. Sort of. I decided to take the H&R Block Tax Preparation class. It's 69 hours long, has a 1000 page textbook (or so-I didn't actually count), costs $99, requires 80% or better, has 4 quizzes, 1 mid-term, 1 final, and is full of 70-year olds. I went to my first class on Thursday, and got my textbook. It's crazy-thick, but thumbing through it I got excited about learning to do the paper forms for taxes, and then learning to use their software to really understand it all. People who graduate are eligible to work for H&R Block as a Tax Professional. Even if I don't end up with a job, it will be a fun class.

Jared has to get the kids to their preschool class and pick them up every Tues/Thurs for the next 3 months. He's extremely supportive of me doing this. He knows that I need a chance to engage my brain and that when I get breaks from the kids, I come home a better mom. He's excited for me because I'm excited about it! It's weird to be back in school, with homework and all, but it will be good for me!

Our Labor Day Weekend

We had a good Labor Day Weekend. We had promised Kellen we would take him to the big water park (Sunsplash), but Saturday we woke up to pouring rain so they closed the park. We decided to go up to Scottsdale to the McCormick Stillman Railroad Park and into Scottsdale Fashion Square to try P.B. Loco Cafe (gourmet peanut butter flavors, served just about every way imaginable).

http://pbloco.com/
http://www.therailroadpark.com/index1.html

Monday, Jared decided to work and take a different day off some other time when we had more planned. Kincade took a long nap (like over 4 hours), so when he woke up, we went to get new phones at the T-Mobile store (Jared jumped in the pool with his last weekend). We ate dinner at Chipotle and then took Bridger and Kellen to meet their preschool teacher.

It was a nice weekend!

Here are some pictures from the railroad park:

Kincade "Jumping" Off the Stair