Week 45 Pie Party

This week started out with Stake Conference. It was a regional conference from Canada to St Louis, Missouri and discussed ministering, Sabbath day holy, and following the prophet. The meeting was only an hour and a half. Our Stake President spoke at the beginning about how God hears and answers prayers He shared an example of how that happened for him when he was a young man.

Underfoot continues to meet his responsibility to attend Cub Committee meetings for his Den Chief responsibility. He made a commitment to help with Scouting for Food. He volunteered to bring a box to church to gather food for those neighborhoods who don't get sacks on their doors. He posted the note on the church Facebook page for our ward and is hoping that people will bring food on Sunday.

Since I have had my concussion in March and the root canal in October, I have been struggling with tinnitis. I went and saw the ENT to check and see if something else is going on. They tested my hearing and pressure in my ears. The result is that it will take a few months for the ringing to go away and learned I had near perfect hearing only a slight loss in my right ear. I also returned to the endodontist because of pain in my jaw. He placed me on a steroid and said that it will be time for the muscles to relax in my jaw.

Weekday practices have started at the school for Battle of the Books. Our first meeting was getting to know other teammates and learning the titles of the books. The children laughed and learned.

Hurricane had Pack Meeting this week. He was awarded three belt loops.

His den was in charge of a skit. During the middle of the Pack meeting their den left and planned the skit with the help of a Den Chief a.k.a. Underfoot. The skit turned out really cute about sucking the venom out at snake bite.

Our Pie Party preparations went into full swing on Thursday afternoon after getting the house organized and clean. We started making pies that evening. Sweetheart has a new toy called a sous vide. He made individual pots of New York cheesecake at night. I left for the book club to discuss "The Mountain Between Us" by Charles Martin while Sweetheart finished making a few pies.

On Friday the bulk of the pies were made.

We made some new ones this year. One is called Double Chocolate Pie - a chocolate truffle pie.

On Saturday Hurricane participated in Scouting for Food by placing the bags on doors. We finished with the last three pies. A few last minute details needed to be taken care of for the Pie Party of purchasing fresh berries and fresh vegetables. We had everything ready early and decided to take a nap before a party this year. It is a first time. This year I took time and got completely ready.

The Pie Party brought lots of fun people.

They are always amazed about the different pies out. Sweetheart's favorite dish brought was chicken strips.

We are great great book for the kitchen help that came to help us set up and clean up.

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 Harvest Cobb Salad

 Pumpkins from Our Garden

 Chocolate and Cherry Pie - Black Forest Pie

Cookie Pie

 Cookie Pie - Caramel and Chocolate Decorated

 No Bake Oreo Pie

 Key Lime Slab

 Pavlova Trifle

 Group Shot

 Sous Vide Items - 

New York Cheesecake (top left)

Chocolate de Creme Pots (bottom right)

Week 44 - Halloween

On Monday I went to celebrate Lisa Miller's birthday in Colorado Springs. We had a wonderful birthday lunch and were able to reconnect. I learned that one of Lisa's college roommates lived in my neighborhood. I took her with me to Lisa's lunch as a surprise.
Our chiropractic office changed insurances and no longer carries our insurance. I found a new chiropractor and went to visit him for the first time this week. It was good to be readjusted.

Hurricane took the cookies in from last week's fiasco. He brought cookies for his class each an individual bags. He was so happy that he could share his cookies.

On Tuesday the root canal is finished that happened almost a month ago. There was still infection in the lining of my mouth. It was cleaned out completely and patched with a filling. Now hopefully recovery will happen, and I can move forward with life.

Sweetheart wants to make our home as efficient as possible. Our electrical company will come do an energy audit on our home to tell us where we need to improve to have the best efficiency. The auditor who came said that the one thing he could do is to add some caulk around the window panels that are loose and to add insulation in our basement on the ceiling. Beyond that he has done most everything that he could.

Sweetheart helped the boys make Viking helmets. They decided they wanted to be the Awkward Avoidance Vikings for Halloween. They had a lot of fun creating their helmets.

I volunteered to be Hurricane's room parent. A Halloween party was planned for the entire grade. We had a treat room with veggies, apples, and homemade caramel, the game room with bingo using candy corn's as the placeholders on the bingo cards, and to wrap the mummy room.

I made the carmel the night before putting it into Dixie cups because I couldn't find the condiment cups with lids. The party turned out to be fun.

Since Underfoot is in middle school now, there is no class party. In place of the party, I bought donuts for his class. There is a donut shop here in that does gluten-free and dairy free donuts. That was a lifesaver since there are students who need gluten-free and dairy free.

For Halloween, I wasn't feeling well to take the boys around trick-or-treating since it was 20° outside and my mouth was still hurting from the root canal the previous day.

Sweetheart took the boys around and I made for him a birthday pie. He had found a recipe for pots de creme to be cooked in a sous vide. When they arrived home, the pie was almost done. It was quite the birthday surprise.

We didn't eat the cake/pie until the next morning for breakfast

Sweetheart for his birthday wanted a sous vide cooking bin. The bin arrived on his birthday and he was so excited to make something in it.

I have a small obsession with Trader Joe's advent calendars. I have called three times that week to see if their advent calendars were out. After visiting the temple, I went to Trader Joe's and bought lunch. I also bought peppermint Jojo's which are a favorite around here.

Saturday was the beginning of our Pie Party preparations. Sweetheart organized and clean the garage. We even bleach the floor to get the spilled grape juice off the concrete that had stain the floor. We cleaned in the house and created our plan for the next week.

Earlier that morning the men went to move chairs for the stake conference the next day. After the stake conference they helped one family moved to a new house and then help to move the dining room table to another house. They provided a lot of service that day that morning.

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 Candy Haul

Dia de Los Muertos Suspenders from Aunt Jill

 Dia de Los Muertos Marshmallow

 Hurricane had a reaction at the allergist.

Snowy Morning

 

 Awkward Avoidance Viking

 Awkward Avoidance Viking