More October Fun

Lorina and Christina sent the girls these adorable pumpkins for Halloween! They are super cute and fit right into our little "Autumn Display" to beautify the LeFevre home.Oh, and I made another pie! This time it was a chicken/leek pot pie right out of the People magazine I got for my birthday! The pie was FAT-TASTIC! 2 sticks of butter, heavy cream and plenty of shortening in the crust, but it was delicious.
By the way, for those who were wondering, we had a great time at my little 40th birthday party Friday night. 4 out of the 5 couples we invited were able to make it. We had Lucy's pizza (reheated on our pizza stone), guacamole and chips, cream cheese with chili sauce and crackers, sour cream lemon pie (the Ricks' brought it from Frontier Pies; I didn't make it!), and 7-layer bars. We played that charades-type game that Sara taught us a couple years ago when we were all together at Mom and Dad's house in the backyard. We had a lot of fun! I didn't take any pictures, so you'll just have to believe me.

October Highlights

I've been lazy and taken a break from the blog since our Yellowstone trip, but we've still been doing fun stuff! Here's the rundown:
The last day or so of Harvest Break the girls and I created a bulletin board for Mr. LeFevre's classroom:It looks like an average bulletin board, but it took us a LONG time to make it. I was sore the next day. Pretty pathetic.We hung out at Landon's classroom and worked on the bulletin board, ate lunch, and Landon worked on his driver's ed. class that he's been taking this semester. It's a 4 credit class and he'll be certified to teach driver's ed. beginning in January. We had our first snow! It's since warmed up, but the snow was a big reminder of what we'll be seeing soon:

Last weekend Lauren and Emma went to Caroline's birthday party, then later Lauren went to another birthday party that had an 80's theme. The outfit worked so well for 80's day at school, that she dressed up the same way for the birthday party.Emma had YW in Excellence last Sunday night. She displayed her tomato plant/planter box project and another project she completed during the summer, which was a scrapbook based on the Family Proclamation. I was sustained and set apart that same day as the Stake YW secretary, so I got to attend her night of excellence as a mom/stake leader. Our ward did a great job. We were lucky enough to be given a box of apples, 2 boxes of pears and a big variety bag of hot chili peppers from Judy Miyasaki, the librarian at Kennedy. She always has so much extra fruit from her trees, so she calls people who like to can and gives us whatever we can pick. We made 13 quarts of apple pie filling, 15 jelly jars of chili sauce and 10 1/2 quarts of pears. Free food! The chili sauce is AMAZING. We like to pour it over cream cheese and eat it on crackers or tortilla chips. We'll definitely be making that again.I turned 40 last week and I got pie plates for my birthday! (Which is the only thing I asked for.) Jenny gave me a stoneware-type pie pan and we picked out 2 pyrex pans/plates at Bed, Bath and Beyond when we went to Idaho Falls on Friday. I made an apple pie for dessert yesterday: It turned out pretty good, but next time I'm rolling the crust thinner. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough, so I doubled the recipe. That was a mistake, because although the crust was tender and flaky, it was just too thick. I'm going to keep trying and perfect my pie-making skills!
According to Pampered Chef, pie is the new cupcake. Okey dokey!

Yellowstone 2011

We spent some fun days in Yellowstone this week! I created a little slide show with pictures and videos from our trip. Here are the highlights:

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  We had a soak in the Boiling River, which is a hot river that dumps into the Gardner river and creates the perfect temperature for bathing. It's about a half mile walk from the parking lot, which is the only drawback.



• We didn't see very many animals compared to what we expected, but we did see some wolves eating on an elk carcass. We had to see it with our binoculars to make out all the details, but it was pretty cool. We also saw a couple of bald eagles hovering around the same spot. We probably spent two hours watching that scene by the time we stopped to watch on our way one direction and then back again the other direction.



• In one of the videos within the slide show you can hear some cow elk calling and the bull elk bugles back. So cool!



• We enjoyed some good picnicking in the truck...we particularly enjoyed some smoked salmon mixed with cream cheese, served up on crackers.



• We walked across the bridge in Gardiner to eat a good dinner in town and enjoyed staying in a super cheap motel with a great view of the Gardner river and bridge. (note: the town of Gardiner is spelled one way and the river is spelled another...interesting.)



• We drove through the south entrance of Yellowstone on our way home. We drove all the way south, through The Grand Tetons National Park, where the leaves were breathtaking. In Jackson we always like stopping at the Yippi-I-O candy store.



• Oh, and Emma had a cold the whole time we were gone and drove us crazy with her nose blowing.



• Enjoy the video! I had fun making it.
  
  
  
  
  
  

General Conference Cookout

Last weekend was the beginning of Harvest Break, as well as General Conference. We were home all weekend so we watched all 4 sessions and Landon went to the Priesthood session. It was wonderful as always. The girls colored and colored and colored. Every now and then I'd ask them what the main idea of a certain talk was and they always knew!After the Sunday afternoon session we went to the BYU-Idaho Henry's Fork property and had a cookout with the Bates, the Jones and the Stewart families. There were 8 adults and 13 kids between us. We roasted hot dogs, ate potluck salads, and cooked s'mores. The kids did a scavenger hunt, played red rover, and just explored and ran around. It was sunny and warm until the sun went down. It was one of the best cookouts I've been to! I love having such fun friends.