NEW MOTTO!

"I want to have a nice body but not as much as I want dessert!"
Amen! Amen! Amen!
I love yummy treats....
So my niece (BRITTNEY) comes over and tells me has this yummy recipe that she is going to make for me...so her and her "friend" make us this oh so yummy Halloween treat! It was so yummy! Did I tell you that it was super YUMMY?? I could not stay out of it. I even took it off my counter and put it in the pantry...ya know outta sight outta mind...NOT! It was like a little person in the pantry was in there calling my name! So I would HAVE go in there and get a piece! I am ashamed to tell you this is all that is left and she just made it on Tuesday night! (In my defense, I did however share it with my YW on Wednesday night when they came over...)
SOOO..when I go to Weight Watchers in the morning I was thinking of taking the last three pieces to "Julie" our director and letting her have a taste and then she will understand why
I did not lose any weight this week! Sound like a good idea? Here is a picture that Kacey took of me and what we now call "the devils candy"

Since misery LOVE company here is Brittney's recipe...and no I didn't ask her if I could post it oops!
THE DEVILS CANDY
15 oreos crushed
1 1/2 cup pretzel sticks broken up
candy corn--a hand full (I don't even like candy corn and this stuff was YUMMY)
Toffee Bits (optional)
1 lb. vanilla almond bark
Halloween sprinkles
mix together oreos, pretzels, candy corn and toffee bits spread on baking sheet covered with wax paper
melt almond bark in microwave for 2 minutes, stir and microwave for 30 seconds...until melted
pour over mixture and give it a spread.
Top with a handful of candy corn and sprinkle with the Halloween sprinkles.
Refrigerate until firm...(or put in freezer like we did, because we just had no patience to wait any longer!!!)
break into pieces and ENJOY!!! (I suggest you share with a friend or it will call you name in the pantry!)
Thanks Brittney for this yummy recipe that you didn't even say I could have, but hey...you left your sticky note with the recipe on it sitting on my counter!

What's for dinner?

Some of my friends have asked me to post some of my Weight Watcher recipes, so here is what's for dinner tonight at our house! I am so happy it is finally soup weather! (it's really not, it is gonna be in the 80's today, but I am gonna pretend!)

This is a recipe I have had for a long time, I just lightened it up! Some of you have probably had this at my house, it is one of my "pantry stand bys"

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Taco seasoning packet (0r 2 TBS Costco Taco seasoning)
1 1/2 cups water
1 can tomato sauce
1 can 98% fat free Cream of Chicken Soup
1 cup fat free milk
2 large chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)
2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can corn, 1 can Rotel or (1 can diced green chili and 1 can diced tomatoes)

In crock pot, mix the taco seasoning with the water and the tomato sauce. Add cream of chicken soup and milk. Add in whole chicken breasts. On top of the breasts dump black beans, corn and Rotel. Don't stir!
Cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 6-8 (check your chicken after a few hours...my crock pot cook HOT)
Shred chicken (you can pull it out, then dump back in, but I just do it in the crock pot).

Top with fat free sour cream, shredded cheese (if I use cheese I use 2%), diced avocado, a squeeze of lime over the top is also yummy!
Flint eats this with tortilla chips and if I want some I use baked Tostidos!
YUMMY! YUMMY!

If any of you have some yummy recipes that are WW friendly, I am ALWAYS looking for some new ones, please share! I believe that the way to stay eating healthy is to have some options!

UPDATE!!!!
I just shredded my chicken and made a few adjustments... I added another can of black beans (so a total of 2 cans and added 1 1/2 cups of wheat berry's ( if you want to know how to do wheat berry's I can tell you) I usually make a batch of the berry's in the crock pot so I have them ready to add to things! YUMMY!

Catching up...

I canned 40 lbs of pears a few weeks ago! I also froze and made freezer jam with 30 lbs of peaches! (oops no pictures of the peaches) YUMMY, YUMMY! I absolutely LOVE looking in my pantry and my freezer and seeing all the delicious food! Yes, as a matter of fact FOOD does make me happy!
Don't I look so happy pealing and pealing ALL of the pears?!?
The pears BEFORE


AFTER

This is sweet Arlee bug playing with her toys while I am pealing pears! She is such a GOOD baby!

FALL BREAK-
This week is "FALL BREAK" so Cooper was out of school, so we went camping. The weather was awesome and we had a great time!
This is us getting ready to leave!


Flint with his most BEAUTIFUL hair-do and Arlee. This is a cute little game that they play. Arlee takes Flint's hat and then he puts it on her and they both laugh so hard. It is so funny to watch. He is such a sucker for his daughter!

Me with the kids by the fire! It was cold when the sun went down! I was SO thankful for the heater in the camper!

Flint with the kids!

We are such goof-balls! We ACTUALLY road on the 4-wheeler like this! It was a little crazy!

We need a RHINO!

Flint and Arlee on the 4-wheeler. She wasn't a huge fan of it. She would always CRY/SCREAM when he would start it!

The cutest little bug ever! She loved camping.

LOOK I took a picture of leaves...I thought Flint would be so proud of me, and when I showed him, he looked at it and goes OH leaves. That was all he said!!!!

I LOVE FALL

This is Cooper on our hike to the falls. He was a SUPER hiker.

Arlee ALWAYS has to have her feet up on her stroller, table etc..geee I wonder where she gets that???

WIND CAVES--
We came home last night from camping and then got up and hiked to the WIND CAVES at USERY PASS this morning.

The weather is so beautiful right now, we just CAN'T stay INSIDE!!!

Arlee slept all the way back!

I KNOW

I had the awesome chance to go to Time Out For Women this past weekend. I LOVED it and think that ya'll need to make plans to attend next year...YES, it was that awesome!
The theme was "SWEET ASSURANCE...the certainty that comes when you know life's truths."
One of the things they had us do was right down what I know for sure, no matter what.
Here is my list (just in the order that I thought of them, not really of importance to me)

I KNOW...
1. I love Flint
2. I love Cooper and Arlee
3. miracles happen to ordinary people
4. Jesus lives
5. the Gospel is important to me
6. the Holy Ghost comforts
7. laughter heals
8. service makes me happy
9. hugs make me feel better
10. the Savior makes hard things bearable
11. I am a child of God
12. Heavenly Father loves my kids as much as I do
13. exercise makes me feel happy
14. Families are forever
15. the Lord has a plan for me
16. chocolate desserts make me happy
17. a clean home gives me peace
18. giving is better then receiving
19. I am blessed
20. I am loved

I would encourage you to grab a pencil and set your timer for 5 or 6 minutes and write down what you KNOW for sure, no matter what. This list has really made me think about who I am and what I am...something to really think about! It is my new favorite thing I have right now...yes, a list!
Re-reading this list makes me laugh and want to cry all at the same time. Its kinda funny that I actually wrote that chocolate make me happy, but I do really know that it does! Another one of my favorites is that miracles happen to ordinary people. I know that my two kids are truly miracles, no denying it!
At TOFW another favorite was listening to Kenneth Cope sing. He is an awesome performer. I have always loved his music and was very excited when I found out that he was going to be there. I also loved John Bytheway, I have been reading his books since I was a teenager. One of the things that he talked about was the word DELIGHTFUL. He asked us to ask ourselves "What is it like to be married to me?" He said we need to "Choose to be delightful." It is such a funny word to me, but it is my word right now...
I could go on and on...It was simply an amazing conference!
Well Cooper is out of school for the WHOLE next week (for FALL BREAK...who ever heard of that??? Where was that when I was in school??) so we are loading up the RV and are headed to the mountains for one last hurrah of the year. (personally I would rather stay home and get some things done around the house) but Flint and Cooper are so excited to go...so I am choosing to be DELIGHTFUL...so off we go! Don't worry I bought a few good books at the conference so I am well armed with something to do! Nature here we come!

Cooper makes me laugh!

Okay, here is the deal...

Flint and Kacey FINALLY took some pictures of Arlee at 6 mo's, so I printed one to go on the wall going up the stairs (by Coopers pic) well I searched and hunted the valley over for the perfect frames and then hung the oh so cute picture of Arlee up. Well then I realized that the picture of Cooper was slightly OLD (it was his 3 year old picture and he is 5!) That is so unacceptable and embarrassing! Are you kidding me? My husband is a photographer!!! I can't believe that I have not replaced the picture in so many years.

So Flint and Kacey were working in the office and I go in and ask Flint if he would go outside and take a QUICK picture of Cooper for my wall. He rolled his eyes at me and said "Look at our last family pictures and see if there is one there you like" well obviously there wasn't or I would have printed IT! So I looked and I didn't want any of them for this wall...so I asked again. He finally agrees and then he goes and tells Cooper "come on Mom (I'm ALWAYS the jerk!) wants a picture of you to hang up by Arlee, lets just go take some pictures, I PROMISE it will be fast!" Well the weeping and whaling began! Flint looks at me and says "this is why we don't have a picture of him! He HATES it!" so they finally go outside and come back a few minutes later. Flint hands me the camera and says " Hope there is one in there that will work, I don't like to photograph HIM!" I say thank you and start to look through the pictures and this is what I see...

are you kidding me? I was laughing so hard but was so frustrated, ALL I wanted is one decent picture of my sweet and adorable 5 year old! ba ha!

Since neither Flint nor Cooper would cooperate with me I asked Kacey if she would take one for me. I bribed Cooper with a treat and this is what we got!

YEAH a picture of Cooper with a some-what normal look on his face!

Now to print it and hang him up!

(I really dont know if Flint or Kacey actually took this picture...thanks both of you)

You all need to feel sorry for Flints wonderful assistant Kacey. She has to put up with all the crazy ANTICS here at the Rogers house!

Labor Day - Haymore family reunion 2009

Apparently we only got our camera out for the pinata! Here are a few pictures. It was a fun reunion. Cooper loved playing with his cousins and Arlee loved having someone different holding her every second! I missed not having my parents there, it just wasn't the same! Flint loved getting to ride his 4-wheeler! Cooper cried when it was time to go home!

some of the gang!




Arlee and I...obviously I had slept in a tent and had not looked in a MIRROR!


Cooper hitting the pinata...alota good the blind fold is down around his NECK!

Hunter and Cooper! These two boys had a blast. I'm not sure who was dirtier or who ate more candy! I love that these two little boys like to play together! Hunter is my nephew Dagen's oldest son!


to CHANGE THE SUBJECT...
These are Arlee's 6 month pictures that I had printed for the house. It was so hard to decide! I am so in love with this girl!!!








ANOTHER subject change!
I LOVE this picture...there are just so many things wrong with it that it makes me laugh EVERY time!
She is sitting in her bumbo on the COUNTER swiggin DIET MT. DEW! I also love that her feet are on the jug too! PLEASE dont call CPS on me!haha

My Mamma's gonna be so proud of ME!

Okay, lets start at the very beginning--- two Sundays ago at Stake Conference our Stake President asked all of our stake to have a 3 month supply of food, water and medications by SEPTEMBER 30th. WOW WEE! Have you ever sat down and really thought about what it would take to have a full 3 month supply for FOOD? Talk about overwhelming! I was a little besides myself, but knew that it was something that we needed to do. The spirit was so undeniably strong when President Ostler asked this of our stake. Flint and I sat down and talked about how we were gonna do this and decided we needed a plan, cuz you just can go to the store and start buying all sorts of random things! So luckyfor me one of my good friends mom is the "food storage lady" in her ward and she gave me all sorts of great information. Flint and I made a plan and have been working for the past two weeks to obtain a 3 month supply. It has been a very interesting and a HUGE learning process for me. First we made a menu for two weeks, then figured out what ingredients we needed for all these meals and multiplied it by six...wow it was so amazing to figure out what we needed to have to feed our small family for three months!!! Flint has been building storage shelves, I have been VERY busy learning new things and think that just maybe I have a new hobby...here are some pictures of my most proudest (is that even a word?) accomplishments!

NOPE, not dog food, HAMBURGER! Yep I canned almost 40 lbs of hamburger! It looks so disgusting, but I just don't have a freezer big enough (who does?)for all the chicken, roast, fish, hamburger, veggies, ice cream, etc. for a thee month supply. So the hamburger got the boot from the freezer! I hear that is tastes just like chicken hahaha just kidding, I've been promised that I would never know it was canned when we eat it! We shall see.
pardon the photography, Flint was at a church meeting tonight when I wanted the picture taken!

I also figured out that you can can somethings with the "Food Saver machine", so the experimenting began...
here is some powdered milk...did you know that if you DON'T put a napkin or paper towel in the top of your jar of powdered milk before you dry can it, that it can cover an entire kitchen in a fine dust in a matter of a few seconds? Trust me on this!

potato flakes, pecans, and of course CHOCOLATE CHIPS! (I also did brown sugar, but was too lazy to go get it from the storage closet for a stupid picture)

My food storage would not have been complete without some CHOCOLATE!

YIPEE for me I learned how to can food and now I want to can EVERYTHING in sight!

The next items I want to can is chicken and beans. I really want a pressure caner of my own, maybe Santa Clause will some through for me! I do still believe!

As of today all we lack to finish is more chicken and frozen veggies, and a few more cases of water! YEE HA