Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I made a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving. It turned out delicious! The whole pie was devoured today at Thanksgiving dinner with Nick's family. I managed to get one piece to bring home and I decided to take a picture. I got the recipe online and it's supposed to be the Cheesecake Factory's recipe. You really have to try this. It was really easy to make too. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Cheesecake Factory Pumpkin Cheesecake

Crust:
1 1/2 cups graham crumbs
5 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 Tbsp. sugar

Filling:
3- 8oz.pkgs. cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin
3 eggs
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. allspice
Whipped Cream

Mix crust ingredients together, just till coated and crumbly. Press onto the bottom and 2/3 up the sides of an 8" springform pan. Bake for 5 min. at 350. Set aside.

Combine cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl, mix until smooth with an electric mixer. add pumpkin eggs, and spices, beat till smooth and creamy. Pour into the crust. Bake for 60-70 min. or till the top turns a bit darker. Remove from oven and allow to come to room temperature, then refrigerate. After it has thoroughly chilled, remove the pan sides and cut. Serve with whipped cream.

Family Pictures

On Tuesday we had our family photos taken by a professional photographer. I think she did a wonderful job. If you want your pictures taken too let me know and I can give you her number. "Thanks Jen!"

Moving!

Well, it turns out that we will be moving. We don't know exactly when other than it will be soon and we don't know where. We don't know if we're moving to another place in Idaho Falls (hopefully not) or if we will be moving to Washington State.

Our apartment building has forclosed and we are at a loss of what to do. The owner of this building of four units hasn't paid his mortgage since April. We moved in here in April and we've been paying $650 per month. It's kind of frustrating knowing that he never paid his mortgage even though everyone in this building has been paying him. It also turns out that we lose our deposit because of the foreclosure. Apparently renters of forclosed properties don't have rights. I am extremely frustrated about this.

It doesn't help that Nick's job is in limbo right now and I don't know from day to day if it is his last. His employer has a thing against men and LDS people, in other words- she hates Nick. They've cut his hours down from 40+ to 35 or less. They also took away his payments for doing music appreciation every Wednesday. That is $200 he used to get just for doing that. They also took his supervisor position away from him and they are doing everything they can to push him out of his job. It seriously ticks me off!!! They don't pay into unemployment so they don't fire people. This is what they do to people they want to get rid of. They (SHE) pushes the person into quitting. The next thing coming will probably be a pay cut. We are barely handling what they've already done to us. Anything more and I will be forced to get a job. Nick has been applying for about 10-20 jobs per week in Washington, but so far we haven't had any luck. My husband is a great man and he doesn't deserve this.
Well, this has turned into quite the negative post, but I really am trying to stay positive about things. I know that things will work out for us in due time we just have to press forward and be faithful. It's just hard not having a plan and know what's going to happen next. Thanks for reading. I'll keep you updated.

Halloween!!!

This Halloween was lots of fun!!! Braxton was Indianna Jones and Aspyn was a Punk version of a Lady Bug. Nick dressed up as Tony Stark from Iron Man on Friday and as a Gothic Vampire Creepy Guy the next day for a halloween party we went to. I dressed up as a punky gothish girl on Friday and as a Rexburg Girl on Saturday. We had zero trick-or-treaters at our place, but we got a ton of candy trick-or-treating. Aspyn learned how to say trick-or-treat and it is so adorable. We found that people actually gave her more candy than they gave Braxton. It was an interesting night. Also, I was really grateful for the awesome (well, awesome for Idaho) weather that we had!

A Sick Visit From A Friend

This past week my really good friend Holly came to visit me. I haven't seen her in over 2 years since I last went to visit her in Las Vegas. Normally we would've had lots of childish and reckless fun, but unfortunately we all got sick. It started the morning before she came. Nick and Aspyn had started puking at 4am. At first we just thought it was food poisoning, then that evening Braxton started puking and my stomach got really sick at a volleyball game that Holly and I went to Tuesday evening. We thought the coast was clear until her 3rd day here when her little daughter, Rylee started puking. On the morning of Holly's departure day she finally started puking too. In those four days my house saw a lot of puke!!! Except for me who can't puke even when I've tried, I just had a really sick tummy for 2 1/2 days and got off puke free. So when my poor friend left Friday afternoon I sent her with a bucket and some brownies for when it got better. There couldn't have been a worse time for us to get sick. Sorry HOLLY!!! Here are some pre-puke photos for you to see.

This is a photo of her 6-mo-old chunkster (she weighs more than Aspyn). She's a real cutie and a great puke sport. She never cried once. She even fell asleep with her head in a McDonalds cup to catch the puke. I wish I had a photo of how Sad/Cute that was. Sorry to you too Rylee.

The New Bed

On Wednesday we found Aspyn a toddler bed at the D.I. for $15. She was so excited when we got it set up. She has been sleeping on her own much better now that she's no longer nursing. What a relief. She's been sleeping in Braxton's room for almost a week now on her crib mattress so it is so nice that she has her own bed. Braxton is really happy to share his room with her. I mentioned to him that we might get a bigger place to live so he won't have to share his room, but he said he wants to and we should use the extra room for storing junk. He is such an awesome brother! We are so proud of him!

This is a picture of her praying. She had her eyes closed before we snapped the picture.

Read It

I highly recommend these books to anybody. I haven't been much of a reader for a few years now, but I found it absolutely impossible to put these books down. You've probably heard about them or at least seen them in stores. It's the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer and the movie to Twilight will be in theaters November 21, 2008. Even Nick, who never reads and even hates to read has been reading the first one, Twilight. Give them a try… You won't be disappointed.

New Photos From Sunday

This last Sunday we went and took pictures of the kids again. Our camera isn't nice so they didn't turn out as well as we would've liked them to. Aspyn moves a lot and our camera isn't fast enough to keep up with her.

Da Boots

Aspyn got some new boots today at Once Upon A Child and she just adores them. She has been wearing them around the house all afternoon and she doesn't want me to take them off of her. I finally got them off for a while when she fell asleep for a bit, but as soon as she woke up she wanted them back on again. Also, check out the troll hair.

Balanced... Happy vs. Angry

Why can't both kids just be happy at the same time? As you can see, Aspyn was extremely happy today. She had a lot of fun in the bath this morning and she's been exceptionally good all day. She has enjoyed reading her little board books we found today in Braxton's room.

Braxton on the other hand has been whiny and rude all day. At dinner he refused to eat. He doesn't understand why he can't just have something else, but he's starving because he never eats lunch at school. He throws his food away so he can go outside to play with friends. He is so wasteful. I try to explain to him that there's kids in other countries who don't have food to eat, but still he doesn't get it. So after yelling that he hates me and I'm so mean he ended up going to bed hungry anyways. I did give him a haircut after he showered since it was still early and he had the guts to say that he didn't want to have to shower again to get the itchy hair off because it would be a waste of water. WHAT??? Any suggestions on what I can do to make him grateful and less wasteful?

She really did have fun in the tub today!

New To Blogging

This blogging thing is pretty new to me, but I figured since some of our family just moved away to Washington and Alaska it might be a good idea to help them keep up with our little fam. We miss you all terribly! So, while you guys are off enjoying yourselves please take time to remember us once in a while and check our blog.

This Sunday we went to the new Snake River Landing and Taylor's Crossing and Nick took some adorable pictures of the kidders. Enjoy!