October October, how I love thee

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I'm slacking this year as far as my decorating is concerned, only because I REFUSE to go in the garage and get bit by a black widow or stung by a scorpion. Call me crazy, I know. However, I have done some pretty darn fun treats for my kids! I've also discovered, I'm not very good at mummy wraps. Oh well! I can't wait for Payton to be old enough to have a halloween party, I have so many fun ideas now. Anyway, we got the kids costumes, and surprise surprise, Ben is Woody, Payton is a SWAT guy, and Savannah is Supergirl (totally cute, and got it on clearance last year after halloween. Tony carved Ben's pumpkin today, and surprise again, it's Woody.

On to other things...

Ben is FINALLY starting to get into the potty training thing! Peeing is his area of expertise, pooping...not so much. Small strides, he'll get there, eventually. So, I finally gave in and went to the doctor. First time since who knows when, other than my OB obviously. Turns out I'm not going crazy, and I really do feel like crap for a reason. I did an ekg at work the other night for fun, showed an elevated t wave (could mean too much potassium...not good), but the one in the doctor's office a few hours later showed premature atrial contraction. Not a horrible or uncommon thing to have, but she's sending me to a cardiologist and also ordering a holter monitor for 24 hours. That just records my heart rythmns and junk, which the cardiologist will read and decide what's next. I didn't even bother telling my primary about my other symptoms since I'm seeing the specialist anyway. So for now, no more caffeine for me. So sad I know. Other than that, we're poor, and everything is breaking. On the bright side, we're all alive.

Life as we know it

I'm not so great at keeping this blog up. Sorry. I'm a busy woman. Our vacation was good, with no one breaking into our car or anything like that. Our pool pump motor died, the pool turned into a pond, motor got replaced, and something else broke on it, pool is turning back into a pond. Work has been surprisingly busy this summer, off and on though. So rather than camping tons this summer like I changed my schedule to be able to do, I've been working. No complaints there though, I'm grateful for the hours, knowing last year it wasn't the case so much. Tony did manage one trip up north though a couple of weeks ago, his bff from high school invited us up to their parents cabin for the weekend. I didn't intend on going since I had to, well, work. I ended up going up to Pinetop anyway though Sunday morning because Tony's car broke down on his way home. Needless to say, I didn't go to work that night, and we're now a one car family for now, which is hard especially for our schedules and how far we both work. Oh well, so far it's been OK. Tony now does 10 hour days so he gets Fridays off =] And he'll be telecommuting some days. This could actually turn out to be a good thing! On to more exciting things. Payton starts 1st grade in a week and a half. I love him, but I am so ready for him to go back to school! Savannah starts preschool on the 30th, 2 hours a day, 4 days a week. She's super excited and can't wait to go. Tony and I have been thinking and have decided that we're going to renew our vows next year for our anniversary. It's the big 10, and after an incredibly rocky year last year, why not? We haven't decided if we want to make a big deal out of it and have it locally so friends and family can actually come, or just go away for that honeymoon we never got, and do it with just the 2 of us. Either way, I'm excited. I love that man!! That my friends, is life as we know it right now. Full of ups and downs, but it's ours and that alone is enough to make me smile =]

Mickey Mania

So here we are folks, on a Disney countdown again. Someday when the kids are older, we'll take more exciting and original vacays, but for now, disneyland it is. We leave June 25th, spend 5 (!!) days there, and the beach, then head over to Legoland for 2 days. Such is the content of our trip. The kids are ever so excited, and ask everyday if we're going to disneyland that day. NO, no we're not. Please stop asking me. In other news, I ordered Payton one of those butterfly gardens, where you get catapillars and watch them metamorphis into butterflies right before your eyes! I just ordered it yesterday, and he's already asked me like 20 times if it's here yet. I sure hope they ship it out very very soon, for my own sanity. Enough of that. I signed back up with my trainer again, because quite frankly, I'm tired of being fat and need someone to kick my butt. And he does, a lot. I'm getting more motivated everyday, and it's much easier to find the time to go to the gym since work has slowed down and I'm not working 60-72 hours a week. I also signed Savannah up for preschool starting in the fall. It's through mesa public schools, and it's pretty cheap, and the best part is it's right by the gym. I'll have absolutely no excuse not to go since going hoe would be pointless for that 2 hour block of time she'll be in school. And it's during my spin class time, so I can go everyday! Whoohoo! Can we tell I'm majorly excited about this? =] Ben is still not talking all that great, and I can't understand a lot of what he says. Everything else, only I can understand and no one else usually lol. That's about it for us for now. Hopefully the summer will be filled with camping trips and fun.

Playing catch up again

Not much has really happened around here lately. Our german Shepherd got out of our backyard last month, she's been gone 3 weeks as of today =/ I'm pretty sure we won't be getting her back. I can only hope she's safe and someone is loving her. We got a new puppy, an adorable husky who we named Kodiak. He was supposed to be a camping/hiking buddy along with our shepherd, but that's obviously not going to happen now. He's 9 weeks old now , and Tony even admitted that Kodiak is a really good dog so far. Ha. He now knows how to sit, proficiently, and is getting a hang on lay down. Anywho, this past weekend we took the kids and puppy up to the snow, just a little past Pine Az, to go sledding. I think they took two runs down the hill and decided they were done. Seriously?? The puppy had the most fun out of all of us. We'll have to make more trips up north this spring and summer. Fossil Springs is on the top of my list of places to hike. Payton is hit or miss at school, behavior wise. Every now and then he just stops thinking and starts doing stupid things, like stabbing classmates with pencils and throwing mud at everyone...I dread picking him up everyday wondering if I'm going to have to talk to his teacher again. Savannah is her normal strange self, constantly singing and dancing around the house and forcing her cat to be her "baby". Ben is my cute little stinker still, who refuses to use the big boy potty. He says he wants to poop in his pants and live with mama forever. Great. We also pulled up a bunch of our annoying and messy bushes in our front yard, thanks to an awesome neighbor! I'm not used to it yet, it looks very empty (which is totally fine), but I have plans to plant different prettier bushes. We'll see how that works out.

It's been a while

Well, I finally reset my forgotten password so I suppose I can start blogging again. I'm sure there's been much to write about, but I don't really remember much that's not big or important, so I'm just going to wing it. We adopted 2 more kittens, I'm not really sure what possessed us to do that. Anyway, they recently all just really pushed my buttons too far so I threw 4 cats out....only 3 came back. Sad, yet I'm not crying. What can I say? Since that one that didn't come back has been gone, my couch hasn't been crapped on! This winter we took the kids on the Polar Express, a fun train ride based on the book, up in Williams Az. There was snow so that was pretty fun, although we froze our behinds. All I heard for the next week or so was the kids ringing their bells that Santa gave them on the train. We were going to go cut our own Christmas tree this year too, bought the permit and all. We purposefully put it in our glovebox to avoid loosing it. Needless to say, the day we were going to go, we were all packed up and in the car, even pulled out of the driveway when we decided to check and make sure it was still there, and it wasn't. How could that be? I never took it out, Tony said he didn't either....? So, we ended up going to a tree lot and buying a tree. I was a bit sad about that, but oh well. Maybe next year. Christmas came and went, and I bought way more than I had planned on, but at least the kids had a good day. New years came and went as well. Nothing special there. I worked new years eve, which is fine because I got all the other holidays off anyway. I try not to make resolutions, because lets face it, I'm probably not going to keep them. I did, however, make sort of an agreement with Tony that if I loose 30 lbs we're taking the kids to Disneyland, and 50lbs he and I are going to Hawaii. Maybe I'll finally loose all the fat from Ben...and drama. lol. Mostly drama related at this point since I did get just 8 lbs away from pre pregnancy back in March. Oh well. Anyway, this past week we've pretty much all been sick. It's been awful. Hopefully we'll be done with the sickness now for a while.

Vacation

I'm beginning to think we're not meant to go on them. I'll get to that later. Anyway, we spent 5 days at Disneyland/California adventures. We needed all of them. It was crowded! Kids did pretty good considering. We all had our moments, but that's to be expected. My mom came instead of Matt, which was great. Not sure if she had a good time, but she was a trooper and got to see some new places. The parade at Disneyland was stupid. No princesses like the good ole classic parade. The pixar parade was good though at California Adventures. Kids liked it. We got to do the character dinner and Savannah got to meet her Princesses. She is so shy though, and din't even smile...until after they had left out table! It was still cute though. While we were there, we apparently experienced out first (and hopefully last) earthquake. we didn't know it until the hostess as Ariel's Grotto told us. Oh well, nothing big happened, and we went over to Disneyland for the fireworks. The show was awesome this year! And Payton slept through the whole thing! Oh well, we tried to take pictures, and got a few good ones of it, so he has fun looking at them. After that we headed down to San Diego and did a day of Legoland. I love it there, it's so kid friendly, and much less crowded than Disneyland. There were lines this time, but not too bad. Memorial weekend...Didn't think of that one back when we were planning! Their new aquarium is pretty cool too. After a day of fun, we stopped at a you pick strawberry patch across the street pretty much from the park and picked strawberries. I'm not a fan of the fruit by any means, but I have to admit, these ones were pretty good. Even if they weren't, it was well worth it for the experience. It was fun! New family tradition. =] Spent a day at the San Diego Zoo. I think we can do without that one for a while now. Nothing really great aside from the pandas and polar bears. Seaworld....well, that day started out ok. The park was fun, the shows were great. Unfortunately, that's where the fun ended for the day. As we walked up to our car, Tony noticed the kids floaties scattered on the ground behind our car. Can we say flashbacks of Vegas?? That sinking feeling in my stomach was back as I noticed the back window wasn't shut. It was when we left the car in the parking lot. Much to my dismay, the kids' bags, all 3 off them, where gone, as well as one of Tony's. Seriously, what is wrong with people?? To steal a little girls princess bag, with HER NAME on it, and little boys' lightening Mcqueen bags, WITH THEIR NAMES on them?? Not to mention their life jackets. Oh well. All material things that can be replaced, little by little seeing how it was hundreds of dollars in clothes and bags, and Tony's razor. We still have our pictures this time, and all our personal information (aside from the kids first names of course) so oh well. To top the day off, we had reservations at the US Grant for the night. When we got there, unloaded our things and tipped the bellhop guy, we were informed that they had over booked and we were going to be staying at the Sheraton 3 or 4 miles away. Right by the airport. Throw in a sick Payton and crowds of people that took a simple drive 45 minutes! Then the outrageous parking price to park our car in the dirt! Oh yes, then the elevator the guy at check in told us to use, wouldn't go to our floor! Oh and it gets a little bit better. The next morning the firealarm goes off, and they don't know why. Not sure what is was from, and I don't care. I wouldn't recommend either one of those hotels. The Hyatt however, was great the night before. We had parked in their garage and some pigeons had crapped on our window basically. The guy at the garage gate thing was all concerned and had the head guy I guess come over and look at it. He refunded our night of parking charges, and gave us $20 to wash our car....we hadn't said a thing about the poop! Service, people. Awesome. And seriously, it was pretty much all on our window, a little bit got on our paint. Main dude seemed like he was going to have a heart attack over it. lol. Wow. All over a little pigeon poo we didn't even say a word about. I like them =] lol. Stay at the Hyatt on the 5th floor parking garage lol. Anyway, Sunday Tony and I went to the Dodgers vs Angels game. Sunday, I know. Sorry. They lost if it makes you feel any better. The temperature was nice, but man, that sun is brutal! Came home Monday to a stinky house. I thought one of our cats had died or something, but after finding them both alive and well (except for the fact that they looked scared to death hiding in corners until they figured out it was me in their house) I explored further. Upon opening the fridge, I found the source of our death smell. Apparently the fridge dies sometime in the past 9 days, and everything in there is obviously, warm rotten and moldy. GROSS. What more can go wrong?? Do i dare ask out loud? Oh yeah, I forgot to throw in my birthday, which was the 18th. I hate it. Something always goes wrong. Never fails. Well last year was a good quiet one, but this year made up for that. We were on our way back to the hotel from Huntington beach, when our check engine light and something else goes off. We've had this car for a month! Then the rpm's start going all the way to 4 or so and not shifting. Not good. Pulled into Costco so Tony could get dinner, which he also picked a cheesecake birthday cake for me. One alarm went off by the time he got back, and the next day or 2 the check engine light went off too. It's running fine now. Go figure. Anyway, after reading the manual on the car in the car, I got car sick (I always do when I read in the car) and it just didn't go away. I ended up throwing my birthday dinner and cake up that night. How sad. Great birthday. And those stupid people who broke inot our car stole my only birthday present too! Tony got me some frames that I like. Now they're gone =[ So there ya have it. Our wonderful vacation. It's all slightly funny now, although parts of it still make me mad and probably always will. That's just our luck I guess...

Bunkbed Mania

Well, we finally moved Ben and Payton up in the world, literally. Oh Savannah too. We got them all bunk beds. Yes, Savannah has her own room, but we figured in case she ever has friends...over....it would be a good thing. Plus it was so darn cute. We've had that one up for a few weeks now. Ben and Payton's FINALLY came more than a month after ordering it. Seriously, did they go cut the tree down and make it after we ordered it? Whatever, it's here, and it's up, and boy are they excited. So far tonight Ben has only "jumped" off the top bunk once. No, it's not his bed up there, but there's no stopping an almost 2 year old boy with no fear. So learn the hard way he will...and did (at least I HOPE he learned). Tony and I each have blisters from the screwdriver but oh well. Hopefully all will be alive and intact in the morning...

Countdown...

We're on the countdown for VACATION!! Yay! We're giving the whole California thing another try, with hopefully better results than last year. I anticipate a much better drive to and from, thanks to the wonderful dvd entertainment package in our new car. Which, if I might add, makes my drive into work soooo much nicer as well. No more whining or crying! Anyway, we leave the 16th...only 9 more days! We'll be doing 4 days at Disneyland/California Adventure, a day at Seaworld, Legoland (and they're new aquarium next door) and then going through the Sequoia National Forrest. We would go to the Redwoods, but that's just too far for this trip. Someday though. Savannah is so excited to see her Princesses again, and Ben jumps up and down going "yay" when we ask him if he wants to go to Disneyland. Does he know what that means? I highly doubt it, but he does whatever his big brother and sister do, so cheer we will. Payton says he is excited, but lacks the enthusiasm the others have. I hope he's not a party pooper. And since I am too chicken to try and tag team 3 small kids with just Tony and I, we're bringing my little brother Matt along since my mom can't come. Maybe next year I'll be brave enough and they'll be old enough to do it on our own.

I'm crazy

Yes, that's right, I am crazy. No need to pint it out, I'm already quite aware of it. We like having a little dog so much, we got a little 12 week old daschund puppy to join our family too. It's nice having little dogs the kids can actually play with and can't really jump up on me or knock them down. Yes, we still have our shepherds, and our cats, and our birds. BUT, one of the cats will probably be leaving since she seems to think it's funny peeing on our floor, and hopefully the birds will find themselves in better homes soon too. They are too messy and too loud for me anymore, they need homes where they get all the attention they could ask for. Anyway, I'm addicted to taking pictures of my kids, and occasionally I get a good one. I would love to take a class, and figure out how to use my cool camera to it's entire potential. I must say though, I LOVE my new lense Tony got me for our anniversary, it's awesome! If anyone has a cannon rebel and you have any tips on the manual setting or anything like that, let me know! Or if you know a good place to for classes, that would be awesome too!

Greetings from us

Just a quick update on the little Kosta clan. Tony and I are doing well, and the kids just keep growing. Savannah keeps talking more and more everyday, and saying some pretty funny stuff. Ben is a happy boy as long as he has a hat or a ball...or a car. Payton is loving scripture study every night, and he and Savannah enjoy saying the prayer. Easter was pretty uneventful here. I had worked a lovely 72 hour week and had Sunday off, so I pretty much slept all day. Bought eggs and dye, but never got around to putting the 2 together. Oh well. In other news, we added to our family, again. My friend from work moved and couldn't take her dog with her, so we said we'd take him. He's a little min pin named Gunner. It's quite different for us to have a teeny weenie little thing, seeing how we're used to our 2 german shepherds, but he's a good little dog. We also upgraded our vehicle. With 142k miles on our last yukon, we decided it was time to say goodbye, before it was too late. So now we have a 2007 GMC Yukon Denali. Same thing we traded in, just newer and totally loaded. Love it! Second row captain seats too, which is great for cutting back on how much the kids annoy each other, and me. That's about it for now I guess.

Where do I start?

Geesh, where do I start? For starters, I'm proud to announce that Savannah had FINALLY decided she wants to potty train. She hasn't had any accidents in her panties the past couple of days so yay! We've also begun something we should've started long ago in our family. Scripture study! I got the kids the books I remember having growing up, a summary of the big stories, with pictures. We also started up with the Living Scriptures series. I loved them growing up and Payton at least really like the one we watched last night. Worked out well since it was on the Journey to the promised land, which we just read about the night before. Anyway, onto other news. Tony got me a new camera for Valentines Day, I love it! It's the Canon Rebel. Awesome. I need to figure out how to re size the pictures though because I can only send one at a time via email. =[ Blah blah blah. Other developments....Tony and I have reached a point in our marriage where we really don't know if it will survive. We both want it to, but I'm not so sure I can get past some hard feelings, and lack of feelings that should really be there. Relationships have been severed and honestly, even if we work things out, I highly doubt other relationships will ever mend. I have been incredibly hurt after my integrity of being a mother and a wife have been questioned and challenged. I loved my husband, and I love my kids. I have done everything for them that I could possibly humanly do. I am not perfect. I cannot stay home all day and night everyday, I have to work. It's part of life. MY LIFE. My children are happy, healthy, and loved. I sacrifice my own wellbeing so I can stay up with them as long as I can during the day. I pretty much only sleep when they take their naps for a couple of hours. Yes my house is messy at times. Sorry. I am not Wonderwoman. Anyway, as for the rest of the family, I love them all dearly. Enough of my ranting and raving, I really shouldn't have to explain or defend myself to anyone, but there ya go.

Not such a great year afterall

This will be fairly short as I'm posting it via my wii. We went to Las Vegas for a few days last week to celerbrate my new job and hopefully a better year. Our car was broken into and our laptop was stolen. Thousands of pictures of our kids are now gone forever. Not to mention every piece of personal information since Tony had pretty much done our taxes on there. Yay. There's just been more and more negatives coming our way since then too. Awesome. Can it be 2010 yet?

It's going to be a better year...

Belated Merry Christmas and early Happy New Year. Just a quick recap of our holidays. We spent Christmas Eve with Sarah's family, opening presents over there. Christmas day was spent as simple as could be at home with our little family, with Tony's parents and most of my family coming over to watch the kids open the rest of their presents in the morning, and the rest of the day all to ourselves. Payton loved all his gifts (except the clothes...), Savannah insists on taking all her babies, new and old, everywhere she goes, and Ben....well, Ben loves to play with everyones toys. Tony surprised me big time with a Tiffany's bracelet. I didn't notice till the next night while I was at work that the charm had pink (my favorite!) writing on it. Not only was it from Tiffany & Co., but he put more thought into it looking for one with pink on it! In other news, I got a new job (second one....the hospital is so slow this winter, and bound to be worse in the summer) at a long term care facility for mentally retarded/ physically callenged peds. Lots and lots of trachs! But, they seem to really care about the patients there rather than just going through the motions day after day like at the hospital. I start there January 12. I'm excited.

One happy Payton Christmas morning

Ben playing with his little car thing...he loves steering wheels!

Coming down the stairs to see what Santa brought

Presents! How cool!

Christmas was a pretty special one for The Fisher family. It was the first time in maybe 4 years that we have all been home. 7 grandkids and 12 adults make for a lot of noise at Fudruckers, celebrating Matt's birthday.

Jonny also surprised most of the family (Danny/Julie, and Tony and I knew) with a trip home. His army people weren't going to let anyone go on leave for the holidays, but he somehow managed to get them to let him.

Surprised mom! How sweet!

A little bit Kosta, a little bit Fisher

We've had a fun weekend spending time with both Tony and I's family. Saturday we spent time at the playground with Tony's family. The kids had lots of fun playing together, and of course, everything the big kids did, Ben wanted to do too. Like, the monkey bars, the little rock climbing thing, and climbing the fence.

Sunday we went over to my sister's house for dinner. My brother and sister in law are in town for Christmas, so they got to meet Ben, plus my other sister's new baby, and i think maybe even the one before her. It was good to see them again, even if it reminds what a retard my brother Danny is. =p Love ya bro.

Nick names

My sister in law posted nicknames for their kids and wanted to know everyone else's, so here's ours....


Payton: Bubba, Buddy.....and Little Dude. That's about it for him.

Savannah: Princess, Savannah Banana, Savannah Pants, Nana, Pumpkin...I can't think of anything else we call her...to her face. lol.


Benjamin: Ben, BenBen, Benny Boo, Boo, Booboo, Sweet Boy, Dum dum (Savannah's version of BenBen...it's funny) Handsome/Boy. There might be a few others that occasionally come out, bu these are the ones we always call him.


What are your kids nicknames??

Christmas Cheer

Mrs.Claus come to Fiesta Mall every night now till Christmas and reads a quick story to the kids, and then it "snows". They dance around and have fun. Soooo, since Mrs.Claus is the wife of one of my co workers, we decided to go this year. The kids had fun. It was maybe 20 minutes or something like that, so not a huge time commitment. It's something fun, festive, and best of all free, to do for the night. Starts at 7, take your little ones!

Yet another trip to the "park", which this one is really the school playground. It's totally fenced in so Anke can just run around and play with the kids without having to worry about her running into the street at the wrong time. Someday we will take our other puppy too. =] They're both about 8 months old now, feels like it's taking forever for them to grow up!

Well, it's been a rough last half of the year. We've gotten a real tree every year for the past 5 or 6 years, and this year we really just can't afford one, and certainly can't afford a decent fake tree either. So, here we were, trying to figure out what we were going to do for a tree, when Tony's parents show up...with a tree...their tree! After the initial shock of what they've done (sacrified their own tree so we could have one) and feeling bad that they now don't have a tree, I am so grateful that I have such an awesome family, by blood and marriage. I don't know how we'll ever make up for it, but we'll find a way =] So Grandma and Grandpa Kosta helped us put it together and decorate it with the kids.

We love parks

For as much as I hate the desert (and most of this state), I must admit, I do love staring at the mountains every time I drive home. Sure beats skyskrapers and smog!

Savannah, Ben, Anke the dog, and I went to the park today. Shhhh, don't tell Payton! For being such a wild beast at home, Anke is rather well behaved out in public. For the most part she can be allowed to run around with the kids, off the leash. To my surprise, Red Rock Park (by Red Mountain Ranch) is gated in now! How great! Anke LOVES playing on the slides with the kids, it's hilarious. She really needs to be in some sort of agility thing. Anyway, we had a fun afternoon. Nothing more to report at the moment, we're boring.

yummy pie recipes

So I've been practicing my pie making for the holiday's (I'm dumb, I know) and found a couple EXCELLENT fruit pies that everyone at my work loved. Especially the cherry. Just a note, instead of a regular pie crust I use a sugar cookie crust. I'll put the recipe up as well. Very good.

SUGAR COOKIE CRUST-makes a single crust. Also I double the egg and always end up adding some water. FYI.

1/2 egg
3 tablespoons white sugar
1 pinch salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, cut into pieces

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease a 9 inch pie pan.
In a small bowl, mix egg and sugar together. In a separate bowl, combine salt and flour. Cut in butter. Stir in egg mixture, then knead dough into a smooth ball. Keep refrigerated for 15 minutes.
Roll dough to 1/8 of an inch thickness and place it in pie pan; prick edges with a fork.
Bake in oven for 20 minutes. Use with favorite pie recipe





APPLE PIE- for a little extra pazzaz, add some cinnamon, to the apples, not the sauce. Good without it though!


1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.
Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work of crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.



CHERRY PIE- I used canned tart and pitted cherried in water. Supposedly Albertson's has cherries so if they do, I am going to try it with FRESH cherries. Good with the canned though.

2 cups pitted sour cherries
1 1/4 cups white sugar
10 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 teaspoon almond extract



Place the cherries, sugar, and cornstarch in a medium size non-aluminum saucepan. Allow the mixture to stand for 10 minutes, or until the cherries are moistened with the sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Lower the heat; simmer for 1 minute, or until the juices thicken and become translucent. Remove pan from heat, and stir in butter and almond extract. Pour the filling into the pie shell. Cover with top crust.
Bake in a preheated 375 degree F (190 degree C) oven for 45 to 55 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.



and last but not least, PEANUT BUTTER PIE---I used a regular chocoalte graham cracker crust last time, but I personally think the oreo crust would be great with it.

1 1/4 cups chocolate cookie crumbs
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup heavy whipping cream


Combine 1 1/4 cup cookie crumbs, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1/4 cup butter or margarine; press into a 9 inch pie plate. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 10 minutes. Cool.
In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Whip the cream, and fold into the peanut butter mixture.
Gently spoon filing into crust. Garnish pie with chocolate or cookie crumbs if desired. Refrigerate

How long?

So call me crazy....go ahead, just say it. I know. I want another macaw. I want a greenwing (Beautiful I tell ya!) and so very gentle and cuddly. We even found the perfect one. Unfortunately it'll be weaned and ready to go before we can come up with all the money, and I'm sure someone else will come fall in love with it. Oh well, I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. While we were there Payton made some new friends. These people breed all kinds of parrots, and they're all very sweet (major reason I rather pay a little more money and get from a breeder like that than a nippy not well socialized bird from a store....) Anyway, they had some little mini macaws, and a yellow collared macaw. The ones in the picture are the mini's. So cute. Just a little too small for me, hahaha! Payton absolutely loved the yellow collar apparently. I wouldn't know as I was stuck outside trying to entertain Ben so he would stop crying. So maybe when he turns 8 we'll get him his very own. Maybe sooner...haha. Anyway, we took the kids to the Railroad Park in Scottsdale after that, and they had fun watching the toy train and the big one that they can ride around the park. Ben's fvorite activity was walking in opposite direction that he was supposed to, and throwing sand all over himself.