Dang, my house smells SOOO good. I just finished baking The Milliondoller Oats N Honey pie featured on Oprah a few weeks ago. I added it to my recipe site in case ya’ll are interested. Super easy to make and it looks sooo good. Dessert before dinner maybe? No, because my dinner looks just as yummy. I have been craving a roast for months… finally got one in the crockpot today with tons of potatoes and carrots. Smells SOOO good. The pie will just have to wait, it will be a good lil snack to sit down to My Name Is Early with tonight :o)
I got this great deal on Robots today, well the movie was regular priced at $19.99 but Fred Meyer had these coupons for free items when you purchased it. 1 package of Keebler cookies, 1 package of ActII Popcorn, 1 pkg of Hunt’s pudding, 1 Kid Cuisine, and 1 pkg of Poptarts. The best part was you could pick any variety. Yes, a lot of junk that will be given to the kidlets in moderation, but a great deal nonetheless. And I’m not one to pass up a great deal ;o)

I think I’m addicted to magazines…. I have been ordering my subscriptions through BestDealMagazines.com.. get an email just about every day from them on some new offer they are having. I’ve ordered many for David, the kids and I for under $3.50 each. I get them for next to nothing and then the kids, of course, come home with a fundraiser for their school to buy the same subscriptions for $14.99 and up per year. I just can’t do it!

My point to all that is… I look through these parenting magazines and think these ideas are so cute, dog ear the page, and I stack it back on the sky high pile of mags… never to be looked through again. I find myself googling the project ideas that “stick with me”. Well, today, I remembered a cute snack idea in Parents magazine I just got and it was for these little frog apple snacks. The kids and I made them for snack today and they were such a hit, I had to take a pic to show ya’ll lol.. And no, Katie didn’t partake in our wacky snacky festivity… she “wasn’t hungry” but, I think it may have had something to do with a conversation about a cute boy she was havin on the phone?! Enjoy our wacky snackies LOL.

Today is a good day. I won Topical Feud, one of my favorite message boards, for the first time ever… and there is awesome tv viewing tonight. We have How I Met Your Mother, Wifeswap, 7th Heaven, Just Legal, Prisonbreak and Surface. Now I still have Just Legal and Surface on my Tivo list from last week. Maybe I’ll try to catch them later this afternoon to see if they are worth keeping on Season Pass.
So all is right in the world. LOL.

I was going to make something with Top Ramen for dinner tonight. We seem to have an overstock of this in our pantry. You know it’s hard to pass up a staple such as this when it is six cents a package! We don’t seem to eat alot of it, but it goes in spurts. The kids will take it for snack at school (they like to eat it dry), the 3 oldest ones are all old enough to fix it themselves (this is very nice on lazy weekends!). And well there are a million things to make with it. Of course, today, I couldn’t come up with a single one, but I did find this interesting website that has over 250 recipes featuring the famous Top Ramen. Just feeling like I need to share the wealth here. http://mattfischer.com/ramen/index.php?cat=2

Oh and we decided on mac n cheese with top ramen. This is a kid favorite and since I’m making heavy dinners all week, roast, stew, etc. they get to have something they all enjoy tonight. David came up with this and I’m not sure where it came from?? It sounds like a ‘po foke recipe, so maybe from when he was livin with a bunch of other ‘po boys. lol.. anyway, you make up the mac n cheese according to package directions. Then you cook the top ramen noodles (we suggest chicken flavor)… and mix the noodles (1 pkg of ramen to 1 pkg of mac n cheese) in with the prepared mac n cheese, throw in the seasoning packet, mix, and wala.. done!

And for dessert, the kids will all be eating McKenzie’s brownies she made with Plain Grandma on Sunday. And I’ll be eating my caramel corn puffs, which my mom brought to me yesterday. OMG, these things are HEAVENLY. I have only seen them sold at a local produce farm. They have a small gift shop with fruits/veggies/gifts/etc. And… this is one thing they sell in there. I have seen them online, I’m not sure how close these are to the ones this farm sells, as they are packaged under their private label, but they look the same! mmm mmm good! Gee, I sure talk alot about food in my entries, don’t I? I guess it’s my passion in life. LOL.. this is a sad thing to admit to!!!

Ok, I have a wasp problem, no bees all summer long and all of a sudden my back deck is swarmed with them. I’ve got to get someone out there with some wasp killer spray stuff…. I can’t believe how many are out there. Hundreds I’d say (of course, you know how I tend to exaggerate on the subject of BEES/WASPS). Yuck. I had to grab a pic off a website just to insert in this post, but omg… I about died doing it. I kid you not… my heart starts beating fast, can we say PANIC ATTACK. Oh my… I need to call my daddy to come take care of it for me.

Weather: 70ish
Tasks of the Day: Organize and go through my 8ft tall stack of catalogs and magazines. Clip coupons from Sun. paper, figure out what girls will wear for picture day tomorrow and get checks ready to take to school.
Dinner: Sheppard’s Pie, Broccoli, Bisquick Biscuits
TV Tonight: My Name is Earl (looking forward to this one!), BB6 Finale, Biggest Loser, Supernatural, Wifeswap, too much on tonight to catch House.

Can I have a little “hoooohaaaa” for Fall TV? I’m in heaven! The sad part of it all is, David and I used to watch all these shows together and now he watches NOTHING. We watch 24 together and that’s about it. Now, we are watching Prisonbreak together and I think I can talk him into watching Lost (we’ll see)… and tonight is My Name Is Earl and we’ll watch this with the kids. Good family tv viewing for all LOL.

I uploaded the pictures from our 5th annual Clark/Ullom Family Party. It was alot of fun. We were a little worried about the weather holding out, but it turned out just gorgeous. This year we had family and friends camping down by the creek so we ended up having a big campfire and the kids roasted marshmallows and had a great time! I have two other people’s pictures still to upload, but there is a starting link in our photo gallery.

Ashlyn and McKenzie have picture day tomorrow - woohoo… I cannot believe the prices of these packages and by the time they get around to taking the kids’ pics, their hair, clothes and faces are all messed up anyway. But, as always, I will order a medium size package and hope for a decent pic! Tanner and Katie have theirs on Thursday.

I am in the processing of adding recipes from this weekend’s bbq (we started cooking Friday… and made so much food it was insane) to my recipe site… David did a pork tenderloin, cedar plank salmon, a roast and chicken/steak skewers. The food was fabulous, as always. :o) The Ulloms know how to eat LOL

Weather: 70ish
Task of the day: Pay some bills, Dust all of the downstairs and the staircase banister
Dinner: BBQ for David’s football team
TV Tonight: I’m not sure what’s on tonight, but last night it was Biggest Loser, Big Brother, Gilmore Girls, Supernatural

I took some pictures of Bailey and Tanner yesterday that came out REALLY CUTE - and also added a few school pictures to the gallery - click here to go to our photo gallery. Nothing else to report at this time, got too much junk to do today. STRESS!!!!!

Weather: 73, beautiful gorgeous weather….
Task of the day: Costco shopping trip and reorganize my pantry.
Dinner: Mini Meatloaves, bowtie pasta, corn & garlic bread
TV Tonight: Prison Break & Wifeswap

On the agenda today, a quick trip to Costco to get things like diapers for Bailey, baby wipes, laundry soap (giving the Kirkland brand a try 9.99 for the 96 load liquid - Tide is like $8 more!!), etc. They had some really good coupons in the mail not too long ago. I stocked up on a lot of things, which made me realize I needed to reorganize my pantry to make room for all that stuff. I took all the canned stuff out and put it in another cupboard. So as I’m reorganizing that I find 3 bags of chocolate chips, Halloween shaped chips (from last year - ya think they’re still good?) and yep… BUTTERSCOTCH. I made scotcheroos last week because I had found the recipe and they looked delicious. I paid $3.19 for that bag of butterscotch chips. What a waste of money! GO FIGURE!!! Trying to figure out what yummy treat I want to make tonight - Cocoa Krispie treats, Apple Crisp, or Brownies. I just can’t decide! I found this pantry list online while looking for a good list of things that my pantry may be “missing”. And I also found this neat worksheet to keep inventory of your pantry

McKenzie’s bus flew by us again today. Unbelievable, what a bunch of morons over there at the bus company. This is a charter company, outside of the kids’ school that they use. Arg… I put another call in today and finally reached someone with a little cheerful attitude. The last ladies I’ve spoken with have all been SNOTS. I think we have it figured out now, and if all goes well, they will actually stop and pick her up tomorrow. One of these days we’ll get her to school without any mishaps!

I updated my recipe collection website, though it’s not completely finished yet. I will add more recipes as time permits!

I’m off to start dinner and get the kiddos started on their homework. McKenzie’s sad that she doesn’t have any yet, so I will print something for her to do. How funny that attitude all too quickly changes. Although, I was a weird cookie and LOVED homework!

Weather: 80, but it does look like cool weather is on it’s way. :o\
Dinner: BFD: Breakfast For Dinner, which will be either bagel breakfast sandwiches, hashbrowns & applesauce, or pancakes, eggs, & sausage… the kids will vote on it when they get home from school. I am guessing they will go for the pancakes though :o)

I have made it through the day so far without shedding a tear for Kenzie’s first day of school. Of course, the day isn’t over, I still have to get her off the bus! The bus… oy…. what a disaster. I have been trying to get some type of answer as to WHEN they are supposed to be picking McKenzie up at her stop. They don’t have us on route, even though her older siblings are picked up in the morning and dropped off at night. So, I guess I will be taking her now until I figure all of this out. It’s impossible to get answers out of these people!!

I created a back to school page for the kids’ pictures… http://www.theulloms.com/bts05.htm Check it out!!

We have the ice cream social to go to tonight… hopefully the kids will behave for me, as David is working until 9:00. Last week of this crappy schedule though!!! YAY!!!

Weather: It was chilly this morning - the kids were FREEZING, but it warmed up nicely to 80!
Dinner: Was Tacos w/fresh tortilla shells and spanish rice BUT… David got home late so we had the kid pleaser…. good ole fashioned mac n cheese, oven baked fries, and apple slices. Quick dinner after a busy evening! :::yawn:::

Nobody came home crying from school today, so I considered their first day a success! Ashlyn was beaming ear to ear. She has a really, really good teacher - she is SO full of excitement and positive energy. So great for kids! She was so excited because they get to eat lunch in the middle school cafeteria while theirs is being renovated. Tanner is now in middle school and I walked him to his class. They had a stack of books waiting for them on their desks so tall, he could barely see over them. His teacher seemed nice, we were running late and class had already started, so he quickly got seated and I got my noisy 5 and 2 yr olds outta there. He only has 1 teacher, he’s not switching classes like Katie does, so I was happy to hear that. He has reading, language arts, math, earth science, PE, and will take Band next semester. Katie is big dog this year, being in 8th grade… though she’s so tiny, some of those kids are freakin huge!!! But, she came home already asking to go to some event tomorrow, so she had a good day. She also is taking Life Science this year and she’s stoked about getting dissect all kinds of things. I remember dissecting a cow heart and a frog in jr high… and I don’t remember being excited about it! LOL. McKenzie starts tomorrow with an orientation. Please pray that Bailey is good for that. OY! We worked on her “first homework”, that the teacher had sent us in the mail over the summer. It was a little get to know you sheet with what she likes to do and her favorite things are. Hers says that she likes horses and likes to draw. I think, at that age, Ashlyn said the same exact thing. She wrote very very well. I was surprised. We hadn’t been working much on the proper way to write her name, with the capital first letter and rest lower case. But the teacher requested this, and McKenzie did it perfectly! I’d catch her making little mistakes on purpose, just so she could use her cool eraser. LOL.

I can’t believe I have 4 kids in school…. I am not sure how I will handle Thursday, McKenzie’s first real day. I know I’ll be sad, but right now I’m so excited for her to go to school. She didn’t have a formal preschool setting, and she has been so excited about school pretty much since she started talking. She’s watched her brother and sister go for years, crying that she couldn’t go with them. And, finally, her day has arrived. AWWW….

Here are a couple of pictures from the kids first day…. we were running late, but mom still made them stop for pics - thus, the reason Katie looks so “thrilled”.

Did our Costco trip today with the two younger girls. I can’t wait to kick into cooking/baking gear. I’m so excited!! And I got a new curio type cabinet from my dad/Elaine yesterday… early Christmas gift. It’s so nice and I can’t wait to fill it up with goodies. I got all my cookbooks organized in there and now will have to hunt for some more. My collection of cookbooks is not very big, probably because I know I can find ANY recipe ONLINE. :o)

Thanks for reading!

Weather 72 degrees, clouds rolled in this evening, I hope the rain passes us by though!
Dinner Menu: Tuna Casserole, corn in butter sauce, ice cream bars for dessert.

I tried a new recipe today for Tuna Casserole. I got it from my Gooseberry Patch cookbook. I do not really care much for cream of mushroom soup or cream of celery soup. I will eat it, but I don’t really like it, so this recipe looked like it would be a nice alteration of a dish my family all loves. They all wolfed it down too! I have posted it in my recipe collection if you are interested. Click here.

I spent 3 hours this morning organizing coupons, putting a coupon file together, looking through cookbooks, making a master meal list, etc. I still have some work to do, but I’m getting there.

I can’t believe my kids go back to school in two days! My mom and I are taking Katie (who’s bringing her friend Jordan) and Ashlyn shopping tomorrow. We are starting off at Value Village, because they are having a 50% off sale and we are weird people that like to scour that store for neat finds. I’m usually shopping for eBay finds during that sale, but not this time. I have too many things to list here at home that I’m just not getting around to, so we’ll just shop for the girls, some books, and anything else that calls my name. Then it’s off to the mall, Target, possibly one of the outlet malls, etc. We’ve got lots planned, and we’ll only be calling it quits when either our debit cards start getting declined or we fall over from exhaustion. I am not a big shopper (honest, i’m not!!), but I love bargain hunting… and there are just too many good deals to be had out there tomorrow! 80% off at Meier and Frank and a 15% off shopping pass - who can pass that up!?!?!?

Happy Labor Day!

Weather: 72 degrees - could I ask for anything better?
Dinner Menu: Barbecue chicken, beans, cornbread and apricots
GDA (Good Deal Alert): If you have a Fred Meyer’s near you RUN RUN RUN over there. 60% off lowest marked price on all their clothing and shoe clearance! I bought Bailey a pair of leather clogs for $8.xx and Tanner a pair of Skechers tennis shoes for $14.xx. Oh and Bailey got a Barbie nightgown for $3.xx. Also got the girls some girlie jewelry and hair ponies for around a buck each set. Some really great deals to be had there!

Freebie from Libby Lou: Call 1-866-894-BARK take a short automated survey (mine took 3 minutes and I answered questions about our dog and cat) and receive a free dog or cat food 30 day challenge kit featuring Purina One. Libby is hoping it comes with some yummy treats

Katie asked me today if we could change her website around so we played with that for awhile… she came up with some cute ideas - check it out! I also added two pictures to Libby’s page.

My email loop was recently passing around a recipe for “scotcheroos”, a type of rice krispie treat, with peanut butter in them for those of you who have never had them. I’ve never had them… but they sounded delicious, so I made them today. YUMMY! Of course, they didn’t pass the “David Test”… oh well more for the kids and I, I suppose ;o) Here’s the recipe: “Scotcheroos”.

Another neat food find I discovered today… I was making grilled cheeses for lunch and I tried something a little different. Instead of margarine on the bread, I used mayo to grill it. Threw a couple of thin slices of ham and real cheddar cheese.. absolutely scrumptious! The bread toasted up crisp and perfect! Katie tried it with light mayo, hers burned a little quicker, so I suggest only the real fatty good MAYO be used if you give it a try :o)

So tomorrow I have given myself a mission: GET ORGANIZED with my meal planning, grocery lists, coupons, etc. Time to get serious about a grocery budget, menu plan, etc. I have some awesome looking recipes I want to try, and I will post them here as I make them! I’ll also posts any links I find to helpful sites in this task. I’m sure someone out there reading is like me… wanting to get organized with this stuff but not knowing where to start!

Happy Saturday everyone!

Weather: 74 and beautiful
Dinner Menu: Macaroni & Cheese, Ham sandwiches, Orange slices
TV Alert: Concert for Hurricane Relief http://www.nbc.com/nbc/Hurricane_Relief/ - actually watching it on Webcast right now… so I don’t have to wait until 8pm.

Like many many people, I’ve been watching constant coverage of the hurricane since Monday. I really cannot put into words, what my thoughts or feelings are with regard to this catastrophic event. My prayers and thoughts are with EVERYONE there and I pray to God that everyone gets the care and supplies they need to survive this disaster :*( I am sitting here just thanking God for the roof over my head. As much as I’d like to gripe about the rising gas prices (which I will be the first to admit I have totally done in the past couple of days), what is that? A small, small price to pay for what I have here. It can ALWAYS always be worse. Other than that, I have nothing else to say really. I don’t feel like I have enough knowledge or information to place blame or judgment on the government or the people that weren’t able or chose not to evacuate. I’ve said things over the past few days that I have had to go back and bite my tongue for, because really I have NO clue. And nobody really does unless they are down there, no matter how much you think you do. I am so tired of hearing people bitching about that - what good are they doing? Get off your ass and do something about it. PRAY… DONATE… do something other than sit around and bitch about the government… Ok, enough of that.

I can’t believe how quickly this Summer has gone by. As nice and mild our summer weather has been, I still am so pumped for Fall to arrive. I have loved this season for as long as I can remember. I always liked school, so maybe that has something to do with it.. Fall = Back To School.. My mom brought out the crafts in the Fall, we made Halloween decorations, made things like applesauce, Autumn carnivals and parties, did all of your typical holiday hoopla things that make the holidays as special as they are. Trying to pass it all onto my kids as well. As much as I love this time of the year, it’s a thousand times sweeter when I get to experience it through the eyes of my children. They get so excited about the little things. The baking cookies and cupcakes, the pumpkin patch, the decorations, crafts, and more. I cannot wait to make my apple crisp, pumpkin bars and all of the home cooked meals that Fall brings the motivation to prepare.

The cool crisp air settles in, pushing that dry hot air of summer away. I get to drag out my totes of decoratives and make the house look boo-tiful ;o) The colors of the trees change, the sky even changes - how I cannot put into words, but you can just tell in the sky that Fall has arrived. Fall has it’s own taste and flavor as well it seems. We cook out a lot in the summer, eat alot of sandwiches, salads, etc. Not as many big home cooked oven baked meals. We get to turn off the a/c and drag out the crockpot and crank up the oven. It inspires me to get organized with menus and grocery budgeting and routines of play time, homework, dinner, baths, and bedtime. Which, ok, I will share my last little reason for loving Fall, means it’s FALL TV TIME! My goodness, does the Fall lineup look phenomenal or what? I get to cuddle up next to David (for shows we watch together - which aren’t many these days - party pooper!) or get in my flannel jammies and my blankie and cuddle up with a bowl of popcorn, and a couple of GOOD hours of television each evening. A little shout out to the Tivo inventor goes :::here:::, and a BIG shout out to my wonderful husband who broke down and bought me one last Christmas. I LOVE YOU DAVID!!! My Tivo is the best!

A few little updates since my last post. We went to the American Idol concert - amazing, amazing show. My mom bought us 4 tickets (ok so my mom and I were the ones who REALLY wanted to go, but c’mon how goofy we’d look up there with no kids by our sides ;o), so we decided to take Ashlyn since it was the day before her birthday and what a perfect first concert for a little girl. She opted to take her friend Brittney and I brought along Crystal (her mom and my friend). Soooo…. last week, Ashlyn turned 9 - my girl is getting so big! I can’t believe it. Another big event… my mommy retired - today was her last day. We held a surprise dinner for her on Wednesday. So, there are 3 new photo albums in our gallery for you to check out if you have time. Enjoy!