HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Dinner Tonight:

DINNER IN A PUMPKIN!
1 lg. pumpkin

1 1/2 lbs. hamburger

1 med. onion, chopped

1/4 c. soy sauce

2 tbsp. brown sugar

1 (4 oz.) can mushrooms

1 can cream of chicken soup

2 c. cooked rice
Clean strings and seed from pumpkin. Brown burger and onions. Add soy sauce, sugar, mushrooms, and soup; simmer 10 minutes. Mix in rice, then put entire mixture into pumpkin. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 to 2 hours (until pumpkin is soft enough to scoop some out with each serving).

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....And a cute dessert too!

Ingredients:

1 pkg. devil's food cake mix

1 container prepared vanilla frosting

12 Nestle Crunch Fun-Size Candy Bars

white decorator icing

1 Nestle Butterfinger Crisp Candy Bar

1 pkg. Sweetarts Gummy Bugs

Directions:

Prepare cake mix according to package directions using one 13 x 9-inch baking pan. Cool completely in pan. Invert cake onto serving platter. Frost cake, using a little more frosting than usual on top ("tombstones" will be pushed into frosting). Write spooky words such as"BOO" on Crunch bars using tube icing. Press Crunch bars into cake to create "tombstones". Sprinkle chopped Butterfinger Crisp bar next to tombstones to create "dirt". Creatively place gummy bugs over top of cake! Super easy, and way cool.

~The fence is made out of sharpened popcicle sticks painted black.

Dinner Tonight

Pistachio and White Bean Chili

4 tbsp (1/2 stick) butter

1 tbsp minced garlic

3/4 cup diced onions

1 1/2 cups chopped green chiles (fresh or canned)

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, finely chopped

4 cups chicken stock

1/2 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp dried oregano

1-2 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp ground white pepper

Pinch of red pepper flakes

2 tsp sugar

1/2 bunch cilantro leaves, chopped

1 15-ounce can white/navy beans, drained

6 ounces shelled pistachios

Sour Cream

Cilantro sprigs for garnish

1. Melt butter in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add garlic, onions and chiles and saute for 5 minutes.

2. Add chicken, chicken stock, cumin, oregano, black pepper, white pepper, red pepper flakes, sugar and cilantro. Lower the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, for approximately 30 mins.

3. Stir in beans and pistachios. Cook for 20 more minutes.

4. Top each serving with a scoop of sour cream and a cilantro sprig.

Makes 6 servings. Serve with cornbread, if desired.

Goals for the week of Oct. 26th

Happy Mom Goal

Sit in a cozy place in your house and curl up with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate or cider. I love this time of year!

Happy Kid Goal

Find out some local events in your area for the Fall/Halloween season that would be fun for your kids to participate in. There are usually lots of fun things going on: haunted houses, corn mazes, pumkin festivals, etc; Tonight, I'm taking my kids to a local "Pumkin Walk." It's free, and it's something for you and your kids to enjoy together while getting into the holiday spirit!

Happy Husband Goal

Make some time to ask your husband about how his week is going at work and/or school. Allow him to go into details and get it all off his chest. It's good for them to know that you are interested in what they spend most of their time doing. This week, I also plan to take a trip into my husband's office with a few plates of goodies for he and all his co-workers. It's actually really fun to get involved a little bit.

Happy House Goal

This week, take some time to go through your Halloween decorations. We all have a few things we never put out on display anymore, things that need to be fixed up a bit, or some things that just need to be thrown out. Organize your halloween decor and clean it up. Sew up the things that have popped seams or glue back on some buttons. There's no better time than right before the holiday!

Dinner Tonight:

Boneless Pork Chops with Apple Cream Sauce

4 boneless pork chops

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp granulated garlic

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Sauce:

4 tbsp butter

1 cup packed light brown sugar

2 medium Granny Smith apples, cored and cut into 16 slices each

1 pint heavy whipping cream

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Prepare charcoal fire or gas grill

2. To prepare the sauce, melt butter and brown sugar in a medium saute pan over medium heat until the mixture starts to caramelize.

3. Add apples and turn frequently until the whole mixture is caramelized.

4. Stir in cream and cinnamon

5.Cover and remove from the heat, stirring occasionally.

6. Rub pork chops with olive oil. Sprinkle chops with salt, pepper, garlic and red pepper flakes.

7. Grill chips over a medium-hot fire for 7 minutes per side, or until cooked to taste.

8. Serve the chops with cream sauce. Makes 4 servings.

This Week's Pep Talk

Well, it's here ladies....that wonderful holiday that our kids dream about for months. You've no doubt spent the last month or two arguing with your kids over their costume choice, searching for or sewing the perfect costume, decorating your house, buying candy and hiding it from your kids till the big night, planning parties, talking to school teachers about how you can help in the classroom this week, making cookies and caramel apples, talking with other parents to make trick-or-treating group arrangements, and trying to stay sane through out it all!

It's almost over! And after Saturday night, you'll get another year before it starts all over again. You're all awesome. Moms are part of what make this holiday so magical to kids! Keep it up, but don't over-do it. Make sure your kids stay safe this weekend!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Ready to be "Mother of the Week?"

I'm working on some changes for the Happy Moms Club blog. Although I really enjoy sharing my ideas and recipes with everyone, I'm running low on them! I'm looking for moms who want to share their ideas with other women through weekly goals.

I need your ideas on the following:
1.Ways to pamper and spoil yourself as a mom
2.Fun activities and other things to do with/for your children(any age)
3.Ideas of how to make your husband/boyfriend feel loved and appreciated
4.Ways to clean your house; tips, tricks or advice
5.Dinner recipes and ideas
6.Mother to mother words of encouragement

If you are willing to be a featured "Mother of the Week" on the Happy Moms Club blog, email me one idea for each of the above areas and include your first name and last initial only! (I don't want to share any of your personal information publicly on the web.) If you would like to include a picture of yourself, you are welcome to do that as well.

Email this to:thehappymomsclub@yahoo.com

I will notify you when you have been chosen to be featured on the blog so you can tell all your friends to check out your own personal ideas!
I'm looking forward to hearing all your great advice and recipes!

~Karyn

Don't forget to vote on the poll at the top right of this page!

I've returned from the dead!

Hello Ladies!

I've missed you all. I feel I owe you all an apology and a serious explanation. I finally got my family moved to our final destination, my house unpacked and decorated, my kids in school, my husband to his new job, and settled into life as I now know it.

During the first few weeks here I kinda got a tiny taste of how life was for women just a few decades ago. Sometimes I think we forget how spoiled we all really are.

I recently moved into an old house that was built in the 1860's. It's been added on to and updated throughout the years, but when we first moved in things were a bit "old school."

I didn't have a dishwasher, so all dishes for every meal were done completely by hand for about 3 weeks. The clothes dryer wasn't working, so I hung all my laundry out to dry on the fence in the yard. High speed internet isn't offered where we live because it's a rural area, so I had to wait a while to get my computer going (the main reason for my long absence.) We didn't have the time to get cable or dish set up at first and decided during that time that we don't mind not having TV... it's actually freed up a lot of our time! Then our refrigerator broke and we had no way to keep our food cold for about 2 weeks. Luckily everything is back to normal now, but I'll admit it- I wasn't very excited to be a housewife during that time. After a few days though, it really wasn't that bad - it's just how things were and I got along just fine.

We live in a time where half the work of being a wife, mother, and homemaker is done for us with machines and help with any problem is just a mouse click away. We are extremely spoiled and I think we need to take a moment to acknowledge that.

I'm grateful to be in this day and age....

it makes me a Happy Mom!!!

I'm going to pick back up where we left off with the posts and I'll still post four goals, a dinner idea and a pep talk. This will start at the beginning of next week, Oct. 26th, so make sure to start checking back in!

Also, make sure you vote on the poll at the top right of this page!

Thanks ladies!!

P.S. Logan Branch is having an activity. Details are on Facebook.