My favorite Reuben Sandwich recipe

I don't even like Reubens and I like these! Steve says they're pretty smashing, too. :) And they are quick and cheap!

Ingredients

Sandwich
10 slices Russian rye bread
2 cups grated mozzerella cheese
2 - 2 oz pkgs Buddig corned beef (or deli meat if you can afford it)
2 - 2 oz pkgs Buddig pastrami (or deli meat if you can afford it)
1 -15 oz can sauerkraut (again, you can get higher quality if you want)
1/4 cup Russian Dressing (recipe below)
butter or margarine

Dressing
Combine the following ingredients. Makes one-half cup.
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 Tbsp ketchup
1 1/2 teaspoons spicey brown mustard
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

Butter one side of the bread. Spread Russian dressing on the unbuttered side. Place 1/5 of the corned beef and 1/5 of the pastrami (about four slices of each) on top of the dressing. Sprinkle mozzerella cheese on top of the meat. Use the top of the can to squeeze out as much of the saurkraut juice as possible; spread 1/5 of the kraut on the cheese. Top with a second piece of rye and butter the top. Fry in a frying pan until browned and mozzerella starts to melt. Enjoy!

To Tristan's comment that my daughter looks more like an Ewok than Princess Leia...

I say: WHATEVER! :) She totally looks like Princess Leia

She's so funny

Emilia cracks me up every day. Here are some of the reasons why. :)

Hooray! It's here!

Each April and October our church holds a semi-annual General Conference. The leaders of our church, through satellite broadcast throughout the world, speak to the members about subjects that they feel are important to our happiness and spiritual well-being. In May and November, these addresses are published in the church magazine, the Ensign. We have a subscription to the magazine and I LOVE getting these two special issues, so I can read the words that I heard again and try to apply them in my life. And our November issue just arrived. Yea!

They also make the addresses available online both in written and video/audio format at www.lds.org. I haven't had a chance to read many of the addresses yet, but one that I liked especially can be read here. It is titled "The Love of God," and it talks about the love that God has for us, and how we can become better disciples of Christ by increasing our love for Him. A quick quote: "We increase our love for our Heavenly Father and demonstrate that love by aligning our thoughts and actions with God’s word. His pure love directs and encourages us to become more pure and holy. It inspires us to walk in righteousness—not out of fear or obligation but out of an earnest desire to become even more like Him because we love Him."

Thinking about a way to explain General Conference to my family members who are not LDS, I decided on this analogy: It would be like, if you're Catholic, the Pope and the Cardinals and the Archbishops (you can correct me if I'm not getting the hierarchy correct--I don't know a lot about the Catholic leadership), all getting together, choosing a number of them to address the church, and then speaking to a body of the members about matters they see members struggling with. These addresses would be recorded, and then made available so that they could be shown instead of regular church services at any Catholic church in the world.

You can imagine how great it would be to be able to hear the leaders of your church directly every six months. And that's why I was excited to get the Conference issue of the Ensign. If you're interested, I hope you check it out.

I must have busy friends...

...because only one person has done a book review for my other blog (THANKS! Nicole!). I know. I know. I have a busy life, too. I don't blame you. I'm just sad that it isn't going to pick up any steam--because if I'm the only one posting reviews, it may have enough reviews to help someone in about 20 years. But if that's the way it has to be, so be it! I'm not a quitter.

Also on my mind is my humorous daughter. Today was kind of a laid back Saturday. We didn't go out of town, I didn't have to teach Sunday School, no one came to visit, Steve didn't have a big school project to work on, I didn't have a photo shoot...you get the idea. The unfortunate part was that it got pretty boring for Miss Emi. After Steve came home from a quick tech support job, Emi ran into the kitchen (his computer is in the kitchen because our kitchen is huge and we didn't have anywhere else to put it) and kept yelling "Die! Die!" as she pointed at his computer. Steve likes to play Laura Croft: Tomb Raider or Jedi Academy with Emilia sitting on his lap using one of his controllers to "help" him play. Whenever he dies and has to respawn, he yells, "Oh no! I died!" So Emilia was trying to tell us that she wanted to play a computer game with her daddy by yelling "Die! Die!" and pointing at the computer. It's sweet and a little disturbing all at the same time.

Something else to share: I saw these cute fairy dresses online that this lady was charging almost $90 for and I thought, "Hmm. I could make that." So I did. I think it turned out pretty good. Since Emi throws a tantrum every time I try to put it on her because she hates the tulle, I got my neighbor to let me use her daughter as a model. I think I'm going to put them on my website.

If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the dress better. I'm trying to figure out how to make the wings, too. We'll see how that goes.

My game

It would take a way more work than I want to put into it in order to get my game that I made to show up on my blog. So...I uploaded it to my website and you can go play/see it here. Let me know what you and YOUR KIDS think of it. Also, if there are any glitches, let me know and I will try to fix them. I wanted the game to be way cooler than it is, but it turned out to be WAY!!! harder than I thought it would be. Just this simple version probably took me over 20 hours to do. Oy.

1st---err---2nd Halloween!

I kept thinking all day on Saturday that this was Emilia's first Halloween and how exciting that was. Then I realized yesterday that it wasn't her first Halloween. She was born before October last year. Garr.

But...she was only 3 1/2 months old, so I say it didn't really count. This year she was big enough to dress up and carry a candy-gathering pumpkin basket and go to a Halloween party. It was pretty fun. :)

Our playgroup had a party that was poorly attended, but well planned. Since I was one of the two people that planned it, I threw a costume together, too. Grandma and Grandpa Watts came up and stayed for the whole day and we had a lot of fun just hanging out with them.

The businesses along Main Street in Logan every year hand out candy from 10 am to 6 pm. It's a great place to take little ones trick or treating. It was really nice that day, so it was great to get outside and walk down Main Street with our adorable daughter meandering around us. :)

Emi walking with Grandma and Grandpa Watts on Main Street

Emi liked weaving in and out of the bike rack.

Me in my costume with Princess Leia. :) I was channeling my punk side with a fairy flair (I'm wearing wings, but they're hard to make out unless you're looking for them). haha

Emi at one of the businesses getting candy. She didn't know they were giving her candy, but she thought it was pretty cool that people would give her stuff to carry around in her basket.

Emi and her proud daddy. She was really ready for a nap at that point.

A close up of her hat.

A good full view of her costume. Didn't it turn out great?

Our pumpkins. Steve's was a minotaur, Emi's was a pumpkin tatoo that Nana Frohlich gave us and mine is just your normal jack-o-lantern.

Emi has been big into "hats" lately, which is part of why I think she was so good about wearing her princess leia hat. Here are some others.

She has also discovered that if you wrap her blankie around her, it looks kind of like a dress. We tell her she looks very pretty and she struts around the house hauling her blankie everywhere.

If you haven't noticed, she also is big into being naked lately. Every time I change her diaper or her clothes, she wants to run around clothingless for as long as possible. The other night she was butt naked except for one of her bracelets, strutting around like she was the coolest thing ever. It was so cute! I got pictures, but I'm not going to post them here. Sorry.

I also realized today that Emi finds the noises I make while changing her poopy diaper REALLY funny. She giggles every time I say "Ew!" or "Gross!" or "Phew! That's stinky!" She tries to imitate the sounds and then I laugh because it's funny to hear her say, "Ew! row!" (Ew Gross).

Well, that's about all I have time for for now. Enjoy!