I realize I’m a little bit late in posting Hailey’s Halloween pictures.  I’ve been busy posting my giveaways, so today is the first chance I’ve had.  Anyways- here are some pictures of our Halloween fun.

Hailey posing with her pumpkin that she painted a few weeks ago at a fall festival.

Now she is cleaning the pumpkin out so Rich could carve it for her.  Yes, he carved the same pumpkin that she painted.  It seemed silly to go out and buy another pumpkin.

Hailey looked at some various choices online and picked this face for her pumpkin.

On Halloween Rich talked all day to Hailey about how she was going to go trick-or-treating.  She had no idea what that meant, but she was excited about it.  After dinner she got ready to go.

Hailey dressed up as Tinkerbell.

Hailey was so excited that she could hardly hold still:

And then we were off to go trick-or-treating.  Hailey was so cute and said “Trick-or-treat” and “Thank You” at every house we went to.  We didn’t stay out too long and then we came home and passed out candy to the trick-or-treaters.  Hailey passed the candy out and loved it.  We get a lot of trick-or-treaters so everyone just sits outside their houses passing out the candy, which Hailey thought was just great.  Whenever there was a little break in the kids Hailey would yell out, “Come on kids!  Come get your candy!”

When it started getting late, Hailey did not want to come inside and cried and cried and yelled, “I WANT TO SEE THE KIDS!”  Every day since then Hailey has looked out our front window and said, “Where’s all the kids, Mommy?”  Apparently she thought this was a new thing we’d be doing every day.

A quick reminder before I go- please vote for me at Velveeta Casserole Challenge.  Thanks!!

One of the fun things about the age that Hailey is now is the funny and cute things that come out of her mouth.  Here are some of my favorites from this week:

After I had finished doing my hair Hailey said, “Mommy’s hair looks pretty. It looks like fireworks.”  I’m not sure sure that’s a compliment.

Just a random statement that Hailey said, “Mommy knows everything. She is smart.”  Let’s see what she thinks in about 10 years.

We were learning the letter E last week and I told Hailey that Ellie (her aunt) starts with E. Hailey said, “Ellie starts with E? Wow, that’s amazin.”

On Sunday when I told Hailey it was time to get ready for church she said, “I have to finish my business first.”  The business she was finishing ended up being a nice little surprise in her pull-up.

I noticed that Hailey had some food on her nose that wouldn’t wipe off, so I licked my finger and cleaned it off.  Hailey said,  “Don’t eat me nose Mommy.  That’s gucky.” (gucky=yucky)

Now before you go please visit Velveeta Casserole Challenge and vote for me.  You can vote one time each day and it will only take second.  Please, please, please vote for me!

Have a wonderful weekend!

It’s finally here- the day I am revealing to you my amazing recipe.  I know you’ve been on the edge of your chairs waiting for this day to arrive and it will be worth your wait!  This is one of the best casseroles I have ever had.  I loved it.  Rich loved it.  And Hailey loved it.  Hailey ate every last bite on her plate and that is unusual.

So- here it is: Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole

The ingredients

Cook about 10 oz of the Ziti noodles

Chop up 1 cup of green pepper

Chop up 1 small onion.

Cook 1/2 pound of ground beef, green pepper and onion until meat is no longer pink.  Drain it and then set it aside in a medium bowl (which will be called the “meat bowl” for the rest of this post).

Brown 1/2 pound of sausage and add it to the ”meat bowl.” 

Cook 8oz of bacon, drain and add to the “meat bowl.”

Cut up 1 cup of fully cooked ham- and you guessed it- add it to the “meat bowl.”  Stir everything in the “meat bowl” until it is well mixed.

Add 12 oz of Spaghetti sauce to the meat mixture and mix well.

By now your Ziti noodles should be done cooking so you will need to drain them.

Cut 4 oz of Velveeta Cheese into little cubes and mix it with the ziti noodles.  Be sure to do this while the noodles are nice and warm and the cheese will melt very easily.

Now add the other 12 oz of Spaghetti sauce to the noodles and cheese.  Spread that mixture into a greased 9 x 13 pan.  Then spread the meat mixture on top of that.

Then grate 8 oz of Velveeta cheese (I didn’t know you could grate Velveeta cheese, but I tried it and it actually grated pretty easily).  Sprinkle that on top of your casserole.

Then add pepperoni to the top of your casserole.  Add as much or as little as you like.  Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

Yummy Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole.

And again from a different angle.

And now in case you just want the recipe in regular format:

Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole

Ingredients:
½ pound ground beef
½ pound sausage
8 oz bacon
1 cup fully cooked ham
Sliced pepperoni (use as much or as little as you prefer)
10 oz Ziti noodles, cooked and drained
1 (24 ounce) jar Spaghetti sauce, divided
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup chopped green pepper
12 oz Velveeta Cheese, divided

Directions:

In a skillet cook ground beef, onion and green pepper until meat is no longer pink, drain and set aside in a medium sized bowl.
In a skillet cook sausage until meat is no longer pink, drain and add to bowl with beef in it.
In a skillet cook bacon, drain and add to bowl with other meats.
Add 1 cup of fully cooked ham cut into bite size pieces to the other meats and stir everything until well mixed. Then add half of the jar of Spaghetti sauce to the meat mixture, mix well.
After you have cooked and drained your ziti noodles- add 4 oz of Velveeta cheese that has been cut into small cubes. Be sure to add the Velveeta cheese while the noodles are warm so that the cheese will melt. Then add the other half of the jar of Spaghetti sauce to the noodles and cheese. Spread the noodles into a greased 9×13 inch dish.
Add the meat mixture on top of the noodles. Cover with 8oz of grated Velveeta Cheese and top with pepperoni slices.
Cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

Voting will start tomorrow and go until November 23rd over at Velveeta Casserole Challenge and I would love it if you would vote for me and my yummy Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole.  And you know what?  You can vote every single day. 

Also starting tomorrow and going through November 23rd I am going to be having all sorts of giveaways going on.  A new giveaway will start every couple of days as my way of bribing you to vote for me!  So make sure you come by here every day so you don’t miss any of the fabulous prizes I have lined up.

Back when I was a teenager I worked in a day care center with toddlers.  I was a potty training expert.  I had parent after parent tell me that I was the one who potty trained their child.  Parents would report to me that their child didn’t have any interest in using the potty at home and it just wasn’t working.  I gave parents all sorts of tips that I used with their kids that worked in our efforts to work on potty training.  There are several 14 and 15 year old kids walking around today who should be thankful that I worked so hard on their potty training.

Now I have a toddler at home and she doesn’t have much interest in using the potty.  We’ve bribed with M&M’s, she has a special sticker chart in the bathroom, pretty princess pull-ups, etc.  But things just don’t seem to be progressing.  Or maybe I just thought it would happen faster than it is.

First off, it takes forever to get Hailey into the bathroom.  Every time we tell her it’s time to go use the potty she responds, “I already go potty.”  Which is likely since her pull-up is usually wet.  But it’s such a struggle to get her into the bathroom.  Once she is finally in the bathroom it takes forever to get her back out.  The whole process- using the potty, emptying her potty chair bowl into the big potty (even though her bowl is usually empty), washing her hands, etc.  It takes forever.  Especially the washing her hands part.  Oh my goodness, it could not possibly take her any longer.

And I would prefer not to mention this, but last night Hailey was emptying the bowl from her potty into the big potty.  She didn’t want to put the bowl back into her potty after she was done so I was trying to “help” her do it.  After a slight struggle– I don’t know exactly how it happened– but I got hit in the mouth with the bowl from the potty chair.  And this was one of the rare occasions when she had actually gone in the potty and even though she had already emptied it into the big potty- it was still very gross and also painful.  She knew I was upset with her and immediately said, “Don’t be mad Mommy.  Be pappy.”  (pappy = happy.)  And I responded by saying, “Well it’s kind of hard to be happy when someone hits you in the mouth with their potty chair.”  And I’m quite sure I heard Rich snickering in the other room.  I have no idea why because clearly it was not funny at all.

Fun times this potty training is turning out to be.

Anyways- for those moms who are done with stage of toddlerhood, what kinds of tricks worked for you when you were potty training your kids?  HELP!  And also, so that I feel a little better about the whole potty chair in the mouth incident- please tell me your potty training horror stories.