Pizza and a Movie Night

My kids love pizza and love to watch movies, so why not do both in one night? This summer my kids made a list of fun things they wanted to do this summer and Pizza and a Movie night was one of those. I really like to do these nights because it's a time for my family to spend together doing something fun. We usually get our movie from the Redbox, which cost $1.00, but we have also gotten movies from the library for FREE. I don't cost the count of the pizza because I make it homemade and we would have had dinner anyways. So, I think this is a pretty frugal summer activity.

Here are the recipes that I used to make our pizza, pizza sauce cheesy breadticks, and Monkey Munch (our movie snack):

Pizza Hut Style Pizza Dough or Cheesy Breadsticks

1 1/3 cups water

2 tsp sugar

1 1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp cornmeal

3 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp onion powder

1 1/2 tsp yeast
Add ingredients to bread machine, according to manufacturer’s settings, and run dough setting. After the machine beeps, roll out the dough. You can roll the dough into two 9×13″ pizzas (great for kid’s lunches!) or into two medium pizzas or a large pizza and an order of breadsticks (as instructed above). Parbake the crust with a drizzle of olive oil on it at 450 degrees for ten minutes. Remove the crust and add sauce and toppings. If making breadsticks, add your breadsticks at this time. Place into the oven for another ten to fifteen minutes or until golden and bubbly. Enjoy!

You can freeze your pizza dough for an easier night.

Easy Pizza Sauce

2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
2 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons dried parsley flakes
4 teaspoons dried onion flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
2 cups water
Combine tomato paste, garlic, parsley flakes, onion, oregano, basil and water in 2 quart saucepan. Cook over medium high heat until mixture boils. Reduce heat to low and simmer 10 minutes. Cool a little and spread on your pizza crust and proceed with remainder of your toppings.

Makes 3 cups

You can freeze this pizza sauce easily.

Monkey Munch

9 cup Chex

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup butter

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Put cereal in large bowl. Melt chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour over Chex cereal, put into a large plastic bag with powdered sugar and shake well to coat.Spread mixture evenly on wax paper and allow to cool.

This does not last long at my house!

We will be doing this several more times this summer. I hope you get to plan a Pizza and a Movie night for your family this summer.

Pine Cone Bird Feeders

Our family gets together once a week, usually on Monday night and does something fun together. It's a great way to make sure that you take time for your family. So, each week, I'll post something about what we did for fun.

On our summer fun list (that my kids made) they wanted to make pine cone bird feeders. They love the birds and were really excited about this. We have two huge pine trees in our yard and I kept seeing these beautiful pone cones on the ground well we started collecting them and I knew I was going to do something with them. So here's what we did.

Pine Cone Bird Feeders

Materials you will need:

Pine Cones

Peanut Butter

bird seed

string

Directions:

Place string on the end of the pine cone leaving a loop to place the feeder on the tree. Place peanut butter on the pine cone and get into the underneath parts of the pine cone. We made 4 feeders and it took a whole jar of peanut butter. Next, I got a casserole pan and place the bird seed in it and the kids rolled the pine cone in the seed. Then we hung them on a tree.

Cost-

Bird seed- $1.00 (we used half a bag)

String- $1.00 (from Dollar Tree and there is lots left over)

Peanut Butter- FREE (for me but this might cost you a little more.)

Pine Cones- FREE

Results:

So, for under $5.00 we had a really fun family time and also accomplished an activity the kids wanted to do this summer. The kids were really proud of their feeders and can't wait to see the birds eat from them. I am really glad that I waited to do this activity when my husband was home because every kid wanted you to help them. The extra hands came in handy.

So, if you want to have fun this summer with your kids, consider pine cone bird feeders.

My Brother-In Laws Wedding

We went to my brother-in-laws wedding this past weekend and I am pretty tired. 3 of my kids were in the wedding and my dh was the Best Man. My twins were the ring bearer and flower girl and my older son was an usher. It was hard getting them all ready and taking care of a 2 year old, but we got it done. My dh and I danced for the first time at the reception after being married for 10 years! lol!

Nathan and Katie Sue were so tired while waiting to take pictures. Katie Sue feel asleep and I love that picture of her! I can not wait to see the professional photographers picture.

Family Easter Picture

Halloween

Another Before/After Picture

December 2007

May 2008

New Family Pictures

The Young Women at our church had a fundraiser so they could go to Girl's camp. They took family pictures. These were the ones taken on my personal camera and I am really hoping that the real ones come out better. But, I still like these!

Family Christmas Pictures

We tried forever to get a family photo but all the kids would not cooperate, but here are a few that I liked. None really came out great. We were using a delay so David could come in the picture, but the first one caught the table it was on.

Family Bake Night

Last night we had Family Home Evening. We usually have this one night a week and do something fun together. Last night we told the story of The Legend of the Candy Cane (we have an ornament on the tree with this story on it) and then we made Candy Cane Cookies. They were really hard to make but the kids had a fun time sifting, using the mixer, and rolling the dough into snakes. Above this post are pictures of the night and the recipe that we used follows:
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Here is the recipe:

Candy Cane Cookies

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1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sifted confectioners sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp almond flavoring

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red food coloring

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Mix well the shortening and butter, sugar, egg, almond, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt and add to shortening mixture. Divide dough in half.

Blend red food coloring into one half. Roll one teaspoon of the red dough and one teaspoon of the white dough on a lightly floured board into 4 inch strips. Place strips side by side and press lightly together and twist like a rope. Curve the top of rope down to look like the handle of a candy cane.

Note: Make one complete cookie at a time. If the dough of one color is shaped first, the little rolls become too dry to twist.

Bake 9 minutes at 350 degrees F or until lightly browned. Remove while still warm. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup crushed peppermint stick candy and 1/2 cup sugar.

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Note my kids are in their pull-ups. They usually stay this way while we are home working on potty training.

Family Blog Update

I updated our family blog today with lots of pictures.

Go here if you are interested:http://adamsfamilymemories.blogspot.com/

Weekend in Review, Random Thoughts, Update, etc!

This weekend was a very interesting day in the kids department. You all know I have tried to potty train the twins, but without any luck. I decided to give up! People kept saying when they are ready they will do it, so I decided to just let that happen. Mind you now if they turned 4 and still did not do it, I would have done something, but I decided just not to worry about it until they showed more interest. All week Nathan has been going and sitting on the big potty for like 15 minutes at at time. Today he did the same thing only he went #2 in the potty. He got a sucker and Katie Sue wanted one I felt so bad, but I told her she had to go potty and she did go pee pee. Wow that was hard to believe! It was like a party in my house tonight. Tomorrow we start panties and under wear, pray for me!

Also, I got out this toy and Neil is walking with it. Hard to believe he can do that and he is only 8 months. I really think he is going to walk sooner than any of my other kids did. I am so happy for him, but sad too because he is so growing up and he is my last baby!

In other news this weekend, my toe has really been hurting. Yesterday my whole nail came off. I got a band-aid on it and it is a Sponge Bob one and it looks like my toe is Sponge Bob. It hurts really bad!

We also went outside yesterday. It is so pretty out, all the trees are gorgeous! It was like 6o degrees yesterday and I sat outside and read a book while the kids played in the yard on there yard toys. We had such a good time! I just love this time of year. I get this feeling in me that I just can not explain. The first time I noticed it was when I was in college.
It is kind of like an excitement! I love this time of year!

We also finally have all of the Halloween costumes. Nathan wanted to be the Cookie Monster so Katie Sue is going to be Elmo. A friend gave me an outfit for Neil it is Blue and it is so cute on him! Nicholas is going to be a soldier. He is into soldiers right now. I do not know why but he is. We went to the library and he had a Librarian find him books about soldiers and war. It kind of scares me really, but he has not been fighting or anything. When we went to Wal-Mart the other day he went to see the board about the men who have served our country and are veterans and he really liked that.

I have got to get back into menu planning, I have not done it for about a month and I can tell the difference! So, tomorrow I will be posting my menu. We cooked a spiral ham tonight. Yummy! So, we will have leftovers, anyone know any great leftover ham recipes? Well that was my weekend.

Family Update and a Funny Potty Training Story!

All of my kids seem to be growing so fast!
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Neil is almost 7 months old. He is getting so many teeth! We call him JAWS! Whenever you pick him up he tries to bite you because his upper four teeth are coming in and they are so swollen. He chews on everything, but seems to like this when it is cold, the keys have some kind of liquid in them? All I know is he loves them! We need to go buy some new clothes, he is ready for 6-9 months clothes! He is 18 pounds now.
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Nathan and Katie Sue, which is what they get called most, are growing too! We have been working on potty training, but it is really not going very far! Nicholas is so into helping them. He wants them to go so bad! Yesterday he came home and that was the first thing he did take them to the potty, not much longer, he yelled at me that Katie Sue pottied. I went in there to look and Nicholas had put water in there to make me think that she had peed. I told him I knew it was water. I cleaned it out and Katie Sue sat back on the potty. About 5 minutes later Nicholas yelled at me again that Katie Sue had peed in the potty. I went back in there and it did look like pee pee. I asked Katie Sue if she went pee pee in the potty and she said, "No, Nicholas, pee peed." Can you believe that he peed in there potty because he wanted them to pee so bad, I was upset that he lied to me, but it was a little funny! LOL! Back to Nathan and Katie Sue, they are enjoying staying home with mommy. We read books that are a different theme every week, this week is Teddy Bears. They are also counting to 5 now. Read more about what we do everyday here.
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Nicholas started the 2nd grade this month. He seems to really be enjoying it. He is joining Cub Scouts and really excited about that! Can you believe that a uniform and registration fee is over $100? I do not know how we are going to get it all for him, but he is so excited and I know that it is important for him. The problems he is having in school is talking. The child loves to talk! He interrupts his teacher a lot, but he has a really good teacher that can deal with him better this year and he is doing so much better behavior wise! He is also reading so much better now.
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David finished his summer GPS work that he was doing, but the company is going to hire him to compile all the work from the 4 counties. So, that is a great big help that he does not have to go looking for another job while he is in school this semester. He has one more semester after this!
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So that is a little family update for you! Hope all is going well with your families!

I LOVE this picture!

I really love this picture! I did not take it, so I do not know what is going on, but I like how Nathan just went and sat by his big brother and he seems to be having so much fun with him. Nathan also looks like he has grown up so much in this picture. I really wonder what is going through his head? Nicholas also looks happy to be spending time with his brother. I do not know, but there is just something about this picture that makes me feel like my children are really growing up! It makes me cry. Where has the time gone? Sometimes, I can not even remember Nicholas ever being a baby. Do any of you ever feel that way? Nathan and Katie Sue are also just growing up so fast! They are talking a lot better and just have two really different, but so neat personalities that make me laugh everyday! Neil is also growing up really fast. He will be 5 months on the 6th. He is already shooting on the floor and it will not be long until he will be crawling. Wow, it just makes me cry :( A happy cry, you know!

Family Update in pictures

Just wanted you all to know that I put a family update on my family blog, I got new pictures up. If you want to go visit. Here are a few of our newest baby. Can you believe he is already 4 months old?