HaPPy 12.12.09!!
It's been a long time coming but I just found out where I'm student teaching this winter finally. Pleasant Grove Highschool! :) WOoT woot. Just 20 min. away!

DECEMBER

mittens..cookie exchanges.. giving gifts.. celebrating Christ's birth..family..SNOW..Music.. christmas lights..iceskating.. decorating the tree..fires in the fireplace.. stockings..St. Nick comes to our house this Sunday!..cherry noses and faces.. snowball fights..snuggling under blankets and watching movies... mistletoe..party..being together with those you love..

We are going home to Wisconsin this year for our first Christmas!! Oh how I wish Christmas was here.. Hope you all have a HAPPY low stress December!

Easy Pumpkin Pie Squares

These are super yummy. When Mir and I went to Cami's for thanksgiving one year Cami made these and I snagged the recipe from her. They are easy and delish. I hear people who don't like pumpkin pie love these too. Happy Thanksgiving ALL!!!

Ingredients:
Crust:
1 package yellow or spice cake mix (set aside one cup of the dry mix before proceeding)
1/2 cup melted butter or margarine
1 egg

Filling:
1 can (29 ounces) pumpkin
2 eggs
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground (dried) ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup brown sugar

Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar 1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/3 cup butter or margarine
1/3 cup chopped walnuts, optional

Instructions: 1. Grease and flour a 8X11(I use a 9x13) inch baking pan.

2. Preheat oven to 350°.

3. Disregard instructions on cake mix box, you're not going to bake a cake. Mix dry cake mix (minus 1 cup dry mix) and melted butter. Add egg and mix till it holds together (different cake mixes react differently, so you may need to add a small amount of milk 1/2 tsp. at a time, if necessary to hold mixture together).

4. Pat crust mixture into pan with your fingers, coating bottom and up the sides about 1 inch.

5. Mix together the filling ingredients, along with the reserved 1 cup of dry cake mix, and pour into the crust.

6. Mix the topping ingredients (minus the optional nuts) together with a fork or pastry blender till mixture is crumbly. Mix in nuts, if desired.

7. Sprinkle topping mixture over filling and bake for 45-60 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

8. Cool and serve with whipped cream or icecream.

The DoLLar StoRe is the Best!!!

Recently I painted a cork board we had in the kitchen Red to match my few other kitchen things. I found a fun "family" block at the dollar store and painted that too. Tonight at the dollar store there was so much fun christmas stuff. Look what I whipped up for just $5. Oh the dollar store is the best!! This last one- I didn't find at the dollar store. but isn't she cute? Sadie bug my neice-we danced to disney music last night while her parents were out to dinner, and she laughed the whole time. Man if only you could pick up babies at the dollar store... we'd manage to save up for 10!

What favorite finds have you found at your dollar store lately?!

Happy Birthday Ben!

Ben turned 23 in the beginning of November!! His celebration lasted until last night when we celebrated with friend. Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate!!

Catching Up!!!!

At the end of september we were so lucky to get a quick visit from some of our favorite neices and nephews on their move to chicago. We miss you guys & thanks for playing with us!!

At the end October we got lucky again when Mom and Dad in for close to a week. It was so much fun! Some of the highlights were shopping/talking-us girls, the boys going out to shoot clay pigeons with Ben's dad- where dad shot the last three pigeons in a row!, getting surprised with a HUGE bag of CHocOlatE chips from costco, free cafe rio, taking the ol' heber creeper haunted train ride, attending the homecoming football game, etc! we weren't lucky enough to get student football tickets this year so going to the game all together was so fun even though we lost big!! Thanks for taking us M & D. We also Got to see and play games Melissa and Aaron on saturday night late too. It was great seeing everyone and we can't wait for the BIG wilson christmas to come so soon!!

Sadie and Mimmi @ deseret book. While the boys were off shooting clay pigeons, us girls got some shopping done.

Sadie in her new true blue bear hat with her Dad.

The night before halloween we carved a jackolantern, LIT it Up and watched the creepy 20/20/dateline episodes! Happy Belated Halloween!

The Best Birthday Weekend!!

Hey Birthday Buddy! Sad we couldn't share our usual celebration this year with Lazy Dazey cake and chuckie cheeses. We will again someyear soon. Hope you had a SUPER birthday!!

For those of you who don't know my dad and I share the same birthday. Celebrating birthdays with him, and being his buddy is the best birthday gift I could ever ask for!! He is just a little older(32 years to be exact). This pic is from a byu football game last fall. Happy Birthday Dad! love you!

Saturday morning we hiked up to the largest white fir tree in N America. We did this with our church ward. It was so fun!

Sunday Bens parents made a yummy dinner for us, and we celebrated with gifts and the best cake ever(Chocolate and fluffy white-Marcia you must try this- I promise it will be your new all time fav)!!!

Ben was the best! He was such a stud and made me breakfast and my favorite birthday dinner that night. French fries and ringed sausage. Yumm! He made strawberry cheesecake(no bake) for dessert! he was quite the chef. It was all delish! Then we opened gifts and went to the movies and saw "The sisters Keeper"(A good story, really sad, and quite the tear jerker for those who have yet to see it). It was the greatest night ever! Thanks for making it so special Ben! Thanks to everyone who called and sent cards, etc, too!

Saturday Night we went with our friends on a Birthday date. We did this last year too. Bens old room mate Tyler and his fiancee Mackenzie are our regular birthday celebration buddies. Mackenzie's and I have the same birthday so its always so fun celebrating with them. Don't worry Dad, you have not been replaced, believe it or not there are about 1 million people with our same birthday. In salt lake we went to Johnny Carinos for dinner, and then went to the Salt Lake Real soccer game. Ben caught a free t-shirt and black rubber bracelet. Free! we were excited.

Friday. We went with Cami and Juan to the ward grill out. So much good food, and its always fun seeing Cami and Juan. They are in our student married here at BYU, so we see them in passing quite often. Its fun. After we went to the dollar movies and saw UP. so good but I forgot to take our drinks we were going to "sneak in" in the freezer(thought it would be a quick chill option, guess not). Instead we had rootbear slushies saturday afternoon. :)