Random October fun

Well, the contest is over. We are officially announcing the costume chosen. Unfortunately, no one guessed or suggested the costume that I chose, but how could you really? I found it at Wal-Mart in the bargain section, just pure luck. Anyhow, for our ward Fall Festival I was a Fire Chief. If you look closely, Gordon wrote "Officer Chrissy" on my badge. Yep, it's official.

The Fall Festival went really well! We were...exhausted afterwards, and SOOOO thirsty, but it was fun and the kids had a great time and that's what really matters. We started with dinner inside: chili (about 12 different kinds, it was a chili cook-off) in bread bowls with salad, and then we went outside to the booths. There were about 8 booths set up for the kids to go to: Arm wrestling, face painting, Guess Who I Am contest, sponge toss, lots of variety. After the games, we came back inside for dinner and to award the prizes for the best chili and for the pumpkin decorating contest (going on during the game time). It was a blast, and we really enjoyed working on it. It made for an exhausting weekend, though. We were at the church all day on Saturday and then after nursery on Sunday and choir I wanted to cry I was so tired. But, it was all worth it in the end. :)

The chair of the activities committee made this cute cut-out display for you to stick your head in and take a picture. It was three of the Charlie Brown characters. My face is a little crazy, but this was at the very end of the night after clean-up. We were pooped.

The title is "Random October Fun", so random is what you're getting. This is my second attempt at the grilled chicken pizza without red sauce. It was good the first time, but we liked it better this time. I made my own crust this time and put on fresh tomatoes, onion and green pepper. I still just brushed the crust with olive oil and that's it, SOOO good. Here's the crust recipe if you're interested. Obviously, it made a huge pizza which gave us many, many meals worth of food. I used half white and half wheat flour. You could probably use all wheat, but I was afraid it might have a weird texture.

(Oh, and I got this from allrecipes.com, just so I don't take credit for it)

1 package active dry yeast
1 t white sugar
1 cup warm water
2 1/2 cups bread flour
2 T olive oil
1 t salt

1. Preheat oven to 450. In a medium bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. Stir in flour, salt and oil. Beat until smooth. Let rest for 5 minutes.
3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat or roll into a round. Transfer crust to a lightly greased pan. Spread with desired toppings and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving. (I think ours took just about exactly 20 minutes to be ready, just FYI.)

Here is the evidence of another project we did around here. I say "we" but really I was just an assitant. Gordon designed and built some shelves for our garage! We've really been wanting to get something like this in there to store our food storage and to get some boxes off of the floor. They turned out great, and are SO sturdy.

I wish we had a before and after picture to show you the difference this made in the organization of the garage, but we don't. Actually, I'm kind of glad. It'd be embarrassing to show you how cluttered it looked before. :)

Here's the start of our food storage. If there's a disaster, we'll be eating lots of potato pearls and refried beans with apple slices for dessert. Yummm.