Enchilada Pie

1 lb. ground beef
2 tsp cumin
1 3/4 C salsa
1 C chopped tomatoes
1 (4-oz) can chopped green chilies
1 C frozen corn (I use canned corn.)
3 flour tortillas
1 (8-oz) pkg 4-cheese mexican blend (I use mozzarella and cheddar mixed when I don't have the other on hand.)
Top With: sour cream and chopped tomato

Brown beef with cumin. Stir in salsa, corn, chilies, and tomato. Bring to a simmer and cook 10 min. Preheat oven to 350. Coat a 9-in. deep dish pie plate or a round 2 1/2 - 3 quart casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray.
Put tortilla in prepared pie plate. Spread with 1/2 of meat mixture, then sprinkle with 1/3 of cheese. Repeat layers using 1/2 remaining cheese. Top with remaining tortilla; cover with foil. Bake for 30 min. Uncover, sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake 10 min. Let cool 5-10 min. before cutting into wedges.
Serve with toppings.

Kids JCPenney Photos

Well, aren't we on top of things... we actually got the kids together just before our Thanksgiving trip for their own pictures. Here are a few individual teasers from the Smiles by Wire pictures we ordered...

We will be sending pictures to family in the upcoming weeks.

Sara 2-month checkup

Sara had her 2-month checkup this week (shots included - yay). Here's her current stats:
Weight: 10 pounds (49%)
Height: 21 1/2 (38%)
Head Circ: 14 1/2 (20%)

Heather also took her to get some pictures done last week. Here are a few from that session.

Fall weekends

We recently changed from Spanish Fork cable to Comcast and we're pretty happy so far. We especially like how we still get more channels in HD as well as the coveted MTN network for BYU football coverage all for less than what we were paying before - double bonus!!

Whenever schedules allow, we still have people come over to watch football and play Rock Band. Heather snapped a few pictures from this past weekend... Bryant is helping me with one-liners for these pictures.

"Papa can make Sara smile!"

"Sara makes Colin cry."

"Sara was crying for this picture."

"Sara wasn't crying."

Fun With Hair! (by Heather)

Rachel and Kaylee have been fixing their own hair more and more lately. Usually they do pretty good. Here is one of their more interesting "do's." (Rachel helped Kaylee with hers.)

Halloween Pictures (posted by Heather)

Until the kids are old enough to carve their own pumpkins we've decided to paint ours. (Yes, Caleb's a Halloween party pooper and I wouldn't get much help in pumpkin carving.) Here are this years works of art. Rachel's is a vampire, Bryants.... well, we don't know, and the others are pretty self explanatory.

Ballerinas, Spiderman, and a kitty cat. Thankfully all the kids chose to be something out of their dress up box so my job was very easy this year. Rachel and Kaylee were stoked to be able to do their own make up. Bryant loved being Spiderman, but only wore the mask for about five minutes. Due to potty accident, and some quick thinking at Granny and Papa's, Bryant finished the evening as Darth Vader.

A Sara Update (by Heather)

I've really enjoyed having a baby again. They bring such a sweet spirit to our home. It's so fun to be able to cuddle them and watch them grow. Sara has started making noises this last week, especially when I talk to her. She'll look at me and coo like she's trying to talk too. She also has started to really smile the last several weeks. It's so fun. It makes all the sleepless nights worth it.

The kids are still a big help. They love to give her kisses and hugs. They still like to hold her, although it doesn't usually last very long. Bryant likes to get right up in her face so that his face is only inches from hers. He'll just sit like that and smile at her. I'll tell him to talk to her and he'll say, "Hi" with this look of "now what Mom?" It's really cute. A couple of days ago when I was feeding her he was sitting by me and just started randomly poking her cheek. I don't know if he was checking to see if it was squishy or what. He would poke his finger in, and then pull it out, poke it in, pull it out. He must have done it like ten times. It was really cute. Kaylee also told me the other day that she "really likes having a baby sister." Occasionally one of the kids will come over and ask to hold the bottle while she's eating. I'll say yes and they'll hold it for about 5 seconds and then tell me their arm is tired. Bryant will do this several times in one feeding, but for the girls once is enough.

PANORAMA!

I was really excited to find a FREE program that would stitch together multiple photos into a panoramic view and thought I'd share.

These first two pictures were each two images that were taken side by side. The pictures were taken at the mountain cabin we stayed at last summer with Heather's family. You are seeing a panoramic view of the Great Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee.

This picture was a combination of 5 vertical photos combined taken from the deck of the cabin we stayed at.

I can't wait to try this out in some other settings. the program seems to do a really good job. The program is called "Hugin" and is available here if you're interested. By the way, these pictures were trimmed down to a web-friendly size. The actual size of this last picture in its TIF format is 4331 by 1847 pixels which is pretty stinkin' big.

Leaves and Crazy Hair Day

The funniest thing happened last week. The kids decided to get all the leaves they could gather from our two little trees and make a pile of leaves to jump into. They actually jumped into this massive pile of leaves... their little bums covered the entire pile!

Rachel and Kaylee had a crazy hair day for school last week as well. At first Rachel interpreted this to mean "don't brush your hair day" but we finally convinced her otherwise. Both girls decided to do multiple braids, pony tails, and hair clips. I just couldn't convince them to gel it up into a mohawk...

Sara's Blessing Day

Sara was blessed at church this past Sunday, November 2, 2008. My mom made her blessing dress and here are a few pictures of Sara showing it off.

The dress on display.

Pensive

HIIEEE-YAAH!

Another random pose...

Cache valley - take 2

Apparently there was an invalid reference to the pictures when I posted the Cache valley pics. I've updated the previous post.

Backwards day

The girls have spirit week this week and today was backwards day. They were so thrilled to be able to wear their clothes (and backpacks) backward. Doesn't Kaylee make this look believable?

Bryant, on the other hand was not so happy sitting in timeout - he was messing with the computer when he was specifically told not to. He's really pushing the boundaries lately...

Sara's swing

Cache valley

We went up to Cache valley this past Saturday to Lauren Johansen's (our niece) baptism. The fall colors had gone from the mountains and canyons and had started in the valley. We were on the west side of the valley between Wellsville and Mendon when I took these pictures.

Trunk or Treat

Our neighborhood trunk or treat party was last Friday at the church. The kids lucked out at the grocery store and got free candy baskets. They had a good time, but it was pretty chilly that evening.

The girls decided to be ballerinas and Bry was Spider-man (of course).

Here's Sara all bundled up.

Unexpected visit

We got a surprise visit from grandma and grandpa Hanks. They were in town for a funeral (one of grandma's sisters we didn't really know). They stayed at Aunt Lu's for a couple of days, called us up and asked if they could come over. Grandpa's doing okay after his most recent treatments. It's hard for him to travel now and will be increasingly more difficult for them to come up to see all of their family in this area. We took the opportunity and got a picture of them with Sara and Colin.

Bath time!

Time to catch up a little. Heather wanted me to take some pictures of Sara getting a bath. We tried to keep her decent. :0)

Note the really curly hair here - it's only been dried.

Catch-up #2

Part of the fun of Heather being sick is trying to keep track of the kids in addition to the busy workdays. Here we find Kaylee who decided to do her own hair. She could probably make a crown with all her barrettes.

In other news, Bryant is doing great at preschool - apparently he's one of the brighter ones in the class! He can count the highest, knows all his letters and can recognize most very quickly. He's great with colors and is working on getting along with the other kids (he's always been slower to warm up to other kids, new activities, new foods, etc). That's great news - now if only he would listen better...

Rachel is doing well at school as well. She showed me a paper yesterday which I think was her first spelling test. The teacher would say the word and the kids would have to write them down. Rachel said she was one of a few kids that didn't need to make corrections on her paper! She still struggles a little with math problems but we're working on that. She's working on 1 and 2 more than (e.g. 7 and __ more is 9) and 1 or 2 less than (e.g. 3 is __ less than 4). She continues to be a good helper with Sara.