Kayden's Saturday Soccer

Kayden had a game early this morning. It was actually a fun way to start our Saturday off. Got up, had biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and headed out into the perfect fall morning to watch soccer.

My younger sister Abbie is staying a couple of nights with me for the weekend so Kayden had a good sized cheering crowd this morning. Abbie and her boyfriend Mike, Daddy, Mommy, brother, sister, and Uncle Thayne all went to the game to cheer him on.

He had such an awesome game and made two of the six goals that helped his team win. It was a pretty brutal game and Kayden got knocked down several times, smacked in the nose once, and tripped and smacked his head bad towards the end. He jumped up ready to cry and then when he saw all of us cheering him on instead of running off the field crying he got "mad"......next thing we know he ran up to the ball, knocked two guys from the opposing team over and scored his last point. There is the Jensen competitive blood coming out in him :).

Here are a few pictures from our morning!

Mike playing soccer with Ori and Jaycee on the field next us that wasn't being used.

Uncle Thayne getting "schooled" by Jaycee in a little soccer game.

Mike and Thayne put Jaycee and Ori inside our blanket and started swinging them around. The kids thought it was great, it made mom really nervous.

Kayden, Andy, and Dalin after the game.

I LOVE FALL!!

I know, I know, I say this every time fall comes around and here it is again....

I LOVE FALL!!

I love when the air gets cool and crisp. I love all the fall colors, the dark reds, oranges, browns. I love when school starts again because everything seems to get back on a schedule and I LOVE organization. And last but certainly not least....

I LOVE FOOTBALL SEASON!!

For those of you who do not know I am a huge football fan and a HUGE COWBOYS FAN!! WOO HOO!! And for those of you who missed it they looked AWESOME last Sunday!

So back to the subject...Our family also gets very busy this time of year with sports, scouts, etc. So I am trying something to see if it will help make my life a little easier and so far it has been great!! This has been my first attempt at "Freezer Meals" or "OAMC (once a month cooking)". I found this cool website Freeze Happy!and thought I would try it out. I am LOVE LOVE LOVING it. And my kids think it is great too. I started with the cookies and made both Chocolate chip and Peanut butter and jelly (both on her site). Now every day when my kids get home from school I cook up 8-10 cookies and they get hot homemade cookies and milk for a snack everyday not to mention I received the "best mom ever" award from them. :)


(PS - try the little trick she has on her site about dropping the cookies after pulling them out of the oven, it TOTALLY works)
(used mom's homemade raspberry jam for the middle of these YUM-O!)

So then I decided to try a little more and figured I would continue on with another simple recipe....mini pancakes. This was super easy and my kids just love that they can have hot pancakes every morning if they want. I just stick a few on a paper plate and nuke them for a few seconds and then give them a little bowl of syrup and a little bowl of jam for dipping. Besides being a warm breakfast it is a fun one too.



So after tackling breakfast and cookies I was really getting into the swing of things. I made my normal monthly menu and then went through and picked out everything I could make into a freezer meal. Here are the results from my first attempt at freezer meals.

Two pans of lasagna:
Three containers of Taco Soup:
Two loafs of Meatloaf (I totally understand this does not look appetizing, but after it is cooked and served with baked potatoes.....yum-o!):
And Two pans of Chicken enchiladas:

Everything is covered with foil (after the flash freeze process) and all cooking directions are labeled on foil with marker. All meals also have a green or red sticker on them. Green means "GO" take directly out of freezer and cook and red means "stop" need to thaw before cooking.

These meals are so great on nights like last night where we had both scouts and soccer. I pull out a freezer meal and after all the running I am not slaving in the kitchen but my family still has a warm, good meal. Try it, I am sure you will love it and I can't wait to hear from you after you try it.

Ori's First Day of School (FINALLY)

Yesterday was finally Ori's first day of preschool. I am not saying "finally" because I am ready to get rid of him, I am saying it because this kid has been ready to go to school for three years now. Ever since his older brother started school. He was SOOOOOOOOO excited. He is in the afternoon class (I was hoping for the morning class, but there wasn't enough room for everyone who wanted it, so they had to split the kids up) so he doesn't go until after lunch. Let me just say I think that was the longest morning EVER!!! Every five minutes he was asking how much longer until he could go to school.

I am so excited for him and I know he is just going to love it! He is such a good kid with such a FUN personality. Here are a few pictures of his first day.



These pictures are from the other night. Gary, Amber, and Regie stopped by to share some yummy dinner they had made with me. Ori was still awake and begged to come out into the livingroom and say hello. Him and Regie have such a cute connection and always have. He wanted to give Regie a ride on his motorcycle so we walked out into the front yard and watched them for a few minutes. Regie LOVED it and would just smile and giggle the whole time. She was even upset when she had to get off.




(not sure what happened to this last picture, but it was the only close up of both of their faces so I still used it)

"People's Choice"

I have been wanting to post this for awhile, but I haven't had the chance. I am so proud of my husband and his business and I am taking this opportunity to brag for just a minute.

Modern Construction won "People's Choice" on their parade home this year. After all the hard work and dedication Troy puts into this business, this was a HUGE pat on the back.

Since I don't like to post without sharing some pictures of our cute kids :).... These are just some random shots I took of the kids. I try to do this every once in awhile. Notice they really got into the whole "posing for the camera".

Labor Day Weekend

This is the first time in a lot of years that we didn't go camping on Labor Day Weekend. We decided to just hang out around here instead. We spent one day with Troy's mom and step dad, one day hanging out at our house with some good friends, and one day as a family. We took the kids out for lunch, went and rented some movies, and came back and snuggled up with some blankets and popcorn and just relaxed together. It was a very enjoyable weekend.

Here are the pictures from our day with friends. Dave & Steph's family, Perry & Marcy, and our family hung out at our house all day. We had pizza for lunch, lots of snacks and munchies during the day, and made a big meal for dinner. We played pinochle, tennis, and volleyball. A very enjoyable day!