Bats & Cobwebs......yummy!

I found this recipe from Martha Stewart a few years back. And it has become a favorite, any time of the year, but especially at Halloween! This is not one of those "low fat" ones. This one is full of yummy cheese, and gooy-ness! This is what you'll need.

1 box of bow tie pasta

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 garlic clove, minced (or a bit more if you're trying to keep the vampire's away! )

1 can (28 oz) whole peeled tomatoes in puree

1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes (can buy the seasoned, but I usually add my own)

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil (unless you have fresh around)

1/8 teaspoon sugar

salt

1 pound of chicken breasts, diced (or you can use canned chicken-that's the way Kelle likes it)

(Martha's recipe originally called for chicken sausages........um....no thanks!)

8 oz mozzarella cheese, cut into small cubes (I usually just use the whole dang 16 ounce...cause it just makes it goo-ier!)

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese ( I REALLY like to use the shredded, but you can use grated if that's all you have)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain; set aside. Meanwhile, while the water boils, cook your chicken, season to taste. (I like to use a salt-free all purpose seasoning and some pepper) Set cooked chicken aside.

2. Meanwhile, in the same large skillet, heat oil over medium. Add garlic, cook until fragrant, about one minute. Add tomatoes, oregano, basil, and sugar. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer; cook, stirring and breaking up tomatoes until slightly thickened, 5 to 8 minutes. Season with a pinch of salt.

3. Add pasta, chicken, and HALF of the mozzarella; toss to combine. Transfer to a 9x11 pan. Top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan. Bake until bubbly and top is lightly browned 10-15 minutes.

**Just remember that if you make this ahead of time (like I did tonight), when you bake it, just put some foil over the top and cook it a bit longer. Then remove foil and put the rest of the cheese on. That way you won't get the blobs of cheese that aren't quite melty enough to make cobwebs, but the tips of the pasta were starting to burn! OOPSIE! **

The magic happens when you dish it out and the cheese sticks to the noodles. Really hard to capture that on film, so you'll just have to make it and see for yourself!

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!
You are thoughtful and care very deeply for your family. A loving home is of great
importance to you and you always try to make people feel welcome. Although you have a great capacity to love, you also have a great capacity to hurt, so at times you can be
sensitive. You're firm when you need to be, but people trust your judgment and
appreciate the kind way you always handle things.


Well I've got my tickets to the November 21st showing! I'm super excited! I just hope it does the book justice!

Go take the quiz!

"Stinker-Bell"

I was so excited when Carissa started learning about Fairies, and really learning about TinkerBell. She loves to rewind the opening of the disney movies just so she can see Tinkerbell fly by! (OK, maybe not so cute OVER & OVER again) But when I saw this little green fairy costume, I bought it hoping that she would be willing to wear it. Well she kept talking about wanting to dress up as Ariel, so I rushed around trying to find an Ariel that would fit her. When I finally found one, I brought it home, showed it to her, and she promptly told me she was dressing up as TinkerBell! (if she had just told me that to begin with, I could have saved myself some stress AND a whole lot of GAS!!!!!)

So last Friday was our ward Halloween party. Got her all dressed up. Got the TinkerBell hair thing going on! She looked adorable! Took her out to the porch to get some pictures........and she gave me MAJOR attitude! So I thought it was only appropriate that I scrap it! (maybe someday she'll learn, that if it gets captured....it's gonna get scrapped!)

So here she is with the PERFECT TinkerBell impersonation! If only she'd been folding her arms or putting them on her hips like she's been doing lately! But hey, at least I got pictures of her face this time!

Proof.....

that she's not a MONSTER ALL of the time!

She was eating a snack at the table, went and got her blanket, pushed the chairs together, and before I knew it, she was got quieter and quieter. When I finally went over to check on her, she was totally asleep! Enough that I moved the whole table out of the way so I could take the pictures! And she didn't wiggle at all when my camera was inches from her face, and clicking away!

And since sleeping on chairs in not an everyday occurance here, I thought I would explain that for the past 17 days she has been going nap-free! It's something that I fought for a VERY long time (I'm still fighting to keep her in the crib though! I see NO good at her coming out of that little cage!) mostly because I thought I "needed" the "me" time in the afternoon. But since she was not falling asleep until almost 11:00 EVERY night, I decided to try it for a few days and see how she did. Well she has been doing fabulous. Sleeping almost 12 hours, and going to bed by 8:30-9! Which is such a relief! It was really hard on the big people of the house, cause if we wanted to start a movie we had to wait until she was in bed....so we were frequently starting movies at 10:30 at night! That means we were ALL getting to bed too late! So now she is going to bed pretty early, which is definitely my preference, and I enjoy my evening/night time as much as I enjoyed my afternoon time! Now with daylight savings time coming up, we're hoping it will be an easier transition this time!

But now that she is awake, she has continued her "job". My sweet sister describes it as "dump & Distribute". Which basically means she emptys one bucket of toys into another empty bucket. Then fills up the one she just emptied out. It is a tiring "job" and she does it non-stop all day long! And of course she has a non-stop commentary to go with the D&D! But how can I complain about the imagination she has going on here! It just tickles me silly!

Didn't I learn my lesson yet?

Apparently NOT! I thought getting pictures the other day would help me to feel that I didn't "NEED" any more for awhile! But with the holidays upon us, I just couldn't resist going to see the witches at Gardner Village! Plus I knew that the weather was going to get cold, and then I would NEVER get down there. However, Carissa had NO interest in the witches, OR the benches OR the haystacks OR the pumpkins OR the little photo op places! Whose child is this anyway??? (Not MINE, I love the halloween stuff). So the majority of the time was spent chasing after her, or screaming at her to get out of the street. She's just oblivious to "danger". And then there was a little boy that kept screaming and chasing her yelling "Tinkerbell, come BACK"! She was a bit freaked out by the crazy boy, and I eventually had to talk to the boy! I was just terrified she'd run off and I wouldn't be able to find her at all! But we ended up having a great time and I'm always amazed at the amount of work they put into decorating down there!

So here are what we saw the majority of the time.....running away! I'll spare you the 90+ pictures of this happening, and just show my 2 favs!

This was a backward glance at the crazy boy! Most of the time she just ran away and ignored my pleas to come back!

Here are some that I actually like! It's just a shame I have to shoot over 250 shots to get 6 that I love!

Family Pictures

We finally got around to doing a family picture! The last one we did, Carissa was not even a year old yet! So it was definitely overdue! We went to Memory Grove in Salt Lake and about 10 minutes after getting there discovered that there weren't any potties! Sooooo, Carissa got her first lesson in "camping style"!

I was really surprised that Carissa was going to be happy and not run from the camera right away. But I was wrong! About 20 minutes in, she decided she was finished! And the worst part was that Andrew hadn't even gotten there yet! Yikes! So the ones that we have with him in it, we were literally fighting with her to just hold still! Thanks Jen for working with her! I tryed to warn you that she was difficult! (And now you know I wasn't kidding!) And for the record, we now all know that bribes don't work with her either!

So here are some of my favorites! I'm sure you'll be seeing them alot in the future!

Look at the eyelashes on this girl!!!! Wowza!

Here's proof that she smiled in one picture! Actually I think this was the very FIRST frame that was shot....and then it went downhill from there! But isn't she adorable? Easy to forget when she turns into such a MONSTER!

We were trying anything to get her to hold still! I just love this one cause she is laughing, and that makes me happy! (Especially because after this one, we heard ALOT of "no's"!)

So there you have it! And now it will be another 2 years before we do this again! At least until Carissa can manage to not run off in a busy park! I'm sure there were some bridal shots that had a streaking 3 year old running through the frame! Sorry to those photographers and brides!

Another first for me

I'm really ashamed to admit this. But I have lived in Utah for 9 years and not once have I really gone downtown to just take pictures of the temple. I've gone for the lights and to conference, but this is the first time I've really taken pictures of it. Sad huh?

Well after our family portrait shoot the other night, Jen and I went to take pictures of the temple. This one is my favorite one from my first batch. She convinced me to try and shoot in RAW, but now I need a converter to look at the pictures. So I had to settle for one of my JPG shots. I messed with it a bunch of different ways, and thought I would get opinions on which one you guys like.

Thanks Jen for taking me! (Well I guess technically, I took you since I drove!) It was so much fun! And the bakery was deeeeli-sh! I'll have to go back for the yummy turkey again! So much easier to take pictures of a building than a screaming-fighting-stubborn-bribes don't work for- 3 year old! I think I'll take more pictures of things! I think it's official...I've got the photog bug!


This one just has a few retouches

This one has some awesome photo overlays from Cat Scraps

Here is the same overlays but in Black & White

Different arrangement of overlays



And this one has a few more textures and blending modes. Kinda gives it a canvas feel!

So which treatment is your favorite? I'd love to hear. Then when I get the rest of my pictures, I will share them as well!