Birthday, Kiddie Carnival and two class parties!!

My brain is a little fried....I don't even know how to describe the last couple of days other than BUSY BUSY BUSY. The latest on "Magali's To Do List" I am now enrolled in school. AHHHHHHHH!!!! Can I just say that I'm terrified? I haven't been to school in 10 years! It will be online, but it will be a full schedule. I will be doing General Studies for now, until I figure out what I want to do when I grow up :) or at least when my kids grow up. I start in January.....ready or not here I come! So yesterday was Rick's birthday, he was neglected and I feel bad. We had so much going on yesterday that the best I could do was make a homemade cake and homemade frosting, which by the way, he had to frost the cake himself....oops, and I bought him Pei Wei for dinner (Orange Peel with Brown Rice) YUMM! When he got home from work I was in the middle of finishing the chops sticks for my girls' hair for their costume, doing their makeup and hair for the kiddie carnival, which we were an hour late for anyway...ugh! When we got home Rick and I had an appointment to go to, so we didn't sing Happy Birthday to him till 10pm.....poor Rick, it was crazy yesterday and he didn't get the recognition he deserves....We love you Honey! I stayed up till midnight last night peeling grapes (eyeballs) for Mic's class party today. Of course since I went to bed so late, I woke up late, we were late to school for the Halloween Parade, had to rush Roman to my friend's house so she could watch him for me, then rushed back to school for the parties. So it began.....a room full of first graders....they really are cute kids, I just could never be a teacher, hats off to teachers! I supervised as they made their little craft I had planned for them we made pictures using Foam sticky shapes. I smiled, I spoke in a high pitched excited voice, took pictures and then I was off. I rushed home got all my supplies for the scary story that I planned for the third graders and was off, rushing back to the school, which I was late for again! Ugh. Got there, helped the other moms with their stations and then it was my turn EEK!! I'm not a story teller, I simply gave a suggestion to the "room mom" that it would be fun to tell a Halloween story that used props...such as, touching spaguetti for worms, grapes for eyeballs, a rubber latex glove filled with water and frozen for a dead cold hand, dog food mixed with other things to make it smell yucky as if "someone had died", ramen noodles broken up for dried up bones and spaguetti sauce for blood. I learned something, don't suggest things unless you are willing to do it LOL. So I found a story, I prepared the props and tried to practice how I would do it before hand, but there's so much pressure sitting in front of 25 third graders all staring at you, sort of saying with their eyes " you better entertain me!" So yeah, I got stuck a couple of times, and lost my place but the kids really did enjoy the hands on experience of touching and smelling stuff that went along with the story. I think I did a good job, my daughter told me I did, she's my daughter, and doesn't like to hurt my feelings so she could have just been lying....Haha, I'm just glad that it's all over! I do not like to be in front of kids, they are your biggest critics LOL, again Hats off to teachers, because I could never be one! I will post some pics below from the last two days.

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Our Family Night

 So I'm not a fan of the cold Utah weather, every year after August, I start dreading the upcoming months, but if I had to say what I love about the Fall Season, my first answer would be Halloween! We are on the last week of October, so I thought it would be appropriate to carve pumpkins for Family Home Evening last night. I also wanted to try making Apple cider, I had never made it, but I wanted the easy version, so after searching online and looking at different recipes I kind of combined a couple of recipes and made it for us to drink while we carved pumpkins. I cannot think of a better drink for the fall season than Apple Cider, LOVE IT! My kids loved it also, well except for my picky girl Mic, but I learned to just expect her not to like something new, that way when she does like something it makes me extra happy. The kids' favorite part of the night? Cleaning out the guts of the pumpkins, they had a blast getting down and dirty, what child doesn't like getting dirty??  Andres chose to carve Trick or Treat on his, Micaela had chosen a haunted mansion, but her independent "I do everything on my own" self would not let me help her so it collapsed, I had to just carve a scary Jack O Lantern on the other side of it....she was pretty upset so I told her she could try again today with another design, Summerlin chose the Skeleton, I carved BOO! on mine, and Rick decided to do his own thing, his is the one that looks like the pumpkin has a big mustache instead of a mouth....he was being "unique" that's what he said. Roman helped everyone by poking holes in every one's pumpkin whenever he got a chance, he enjoyed himself. Oh and how can we forget the chocolate chip cookies Rick made for us...overall it was a very fun and successful Family night. We have a very busy rest of the week, all leading to Halloween which is actually on a Sunday this year, so of course since we are in Utah the kids will go Trick Or Treating on Saturday. I will post my Apple Cider recipe on the left....Enjoy!!

The Cromars' summer fun!

So of course I'm way behind on keeping this blog updated so now I have to post everything we did during the summer, since I haven't posted anything before today and the last thing I posted was on Roman's birthday, which was May....boy, I'm not good at this...why did I think I would be, I've never even been able to keep a personal journal. So here it goes, May we celebrated Mother's day, without Rick, because he was traveling, by the way he was gone quite a bit during the summer. We celebrated Summerlin's kindergarten graduation, then celebrated her 6th birthday with friends and family at the Recreation center, went to Fourth of July parades, watched fireworks, went camping with the other Cromar family (Rick's brother's family), and got eaten alive by mosquitoes! Celebrated my 30th Birthday surrounded by lots of friends and family, I had 25 people at the Cheesecake factory and we waited 4 hours for a table! I have great friends and family for waiting that long. Did lots of swimming with the kids, zoo trips, Chuck e cheese trips, first boat trip as a family with our good friends, first day of school, County Fair fun, and we welcomed fall celebrating Micaela's 9th Birthday, and then Andres' 14th birthday. Another major event these past months was that Rick got a promotion at his job, and now doesn't travel as much, so he gets to be home with us more. Huge blessing! The kids are enjoying having him home. He did get to go to China in September and brought us back lots of great stuff. Well that's summer and beginning of fall for the Cromars in a nutshell!

My Projects

 So this year, I have really unleashed my creative side...(which I didn't know I had by the way) but I'm so proud of myself for the projects that I have done this year. First of all, we had the privilege of having a garden this year. We grew tomatoes, green peppers, Anaheim peppers and zucchini. I thought everything would die for sure, since I have never even been able to keep a simple house plant alive, but to my surprise it all survived and we got so much! What did I do with all this? Well I canned! Did I ever think I would be a canner? NO! But I actually quite enjoy it. So I made salsa, spaghetti sauce, and I shredded most of the zucchini we got, to make zucchini bread throughout the winter time. I also was able to can peaches, and made some peach jam, raspberry freezer jam, and my latest, I got apples and canned apple pie filling. Yay for me! Now on to my crafts....I've been making hair accessories like crazy! I learned how to make corker bows, satin flower bows, fabric and felt flower headbands and crochet ear warmers/headbands. I also made a Halloween advent calendar for the kids, they really have enjoyed the treats in each of the pockets. This is our last week and I really want to make one for Christmas...we will see. These are great because they will enjoy it every year, I will have to make a few adjustments on it when I get it out again next year, some on the stuff has been falling off, so I have to glue it all again and get more stickers for it, and of course get the treats for it again next year. My next venture? Tackling the sewing machine! I've used my sewing machine, but I really want to master my sewing so that maybe next year I can some clothes for the kids, and maybe even their Halloween costumes. I'm excited!