BIG sale at Freedom Boardshop this weekend!

Check it out!

Addictive Sweet Potato Burritos

Dont knock it 'til you try it.

These ROCK!

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 cups canned kidney beans, drained
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon and 1-1/2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons prepared mustard
• 1/2 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
• 1 tablespoon and 1-1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
• 6 (10 inch) flour tortillas, warmed
• 1/4 pound shredded Cheddar cheese

• Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Heat oil in a medium skillet, and saute onion and garlic until soft. Stir in beans, and mash. Gradually stir in water, and heat until warm. Remove from heat, and stir in the chili powder, cumin, mustard, cayenne pepper and soy sauce.
3. Divide bean mixture and mashed sweet potatoes evenly between the warm flour tortillas. Top with cheese. Fold up tortillas burrito style, and place on a baking sheet.
4. Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven, and serve. (Can top with sour cream, but they dont need it.)

Halloween 2009- Stoddard Style!

While this is the picture that seems blog-worthy,

this is the picture that is closer to reality! The top one took a few shots to get. Cute? Yes. But really, these are my kids. Not those.

We love Halloween!

Every single day for the last 20 days, Cohen would say to me, "It's taking forever for Halloween to get here!" He couldn't wait to be Buzz.

His preschool class had a costume parade on Thursday. I wish I had a picture of the 4 year old boy in his class who was wearing a turquoise Care Bear costume size 2T. It was awesome.

Let's talk about this family photo for a minute. Cohen has this shy side that I forget about sometimes. He must get that from his dad. I mean really... look at his dad...

And then there's Baby Jace. Have you ever seen a cuter dinosaur? After about 10 houses, he got the hang of trick-or-treating and would run to the door and hold his bag out. It was super cute.

After our own trick-or-treating, we came home to rest our feet and pass out candy. So this is us, in front of our new home. We moved 2-3 weeks ago. We miss our cul-de-sac but the new diggs are treating us right. And anyway- home is where your heart is or something, right?

WANTED

My boys would LOVE a marble/ball run for Christmas.

Any ideas where I can get one for less than $25?

Used is perfectly fine with me.

I just assumed there would be several for sale on craigslist but I have been sadly mistaken! New, they are $40 up to well over $100.

That's not happening at this house.

Especially not this year.

Thanks for keeping your peepers peeled for me!

To all Stewards of Children,

I attended a training last night that has changed me.

If I told you that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys would get hit by a car before their 18th birthday, would you be surprised? Would you take action to make sure your child weren't part of those statistics?

The truth is, that statistic is related to child sexual abuse. 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before their 18th birthdays. We like to think that our society doesn't allow this but it is frequent enough in our culture to suggest that it is being passively accepted.

The training taught me that child sexual abuse prevention and response are an adults job. Our kids need us. We can empower them with awareness and choice but the real responsibility for protecting kids must be shouldered by adults. Child sexual abuse thrives in an environment of denial and fear. To become conscious of child sexual abuse means to know what it is, to acknowledge its prevalence, to understand how it occurs, and to take steps to actively protect our kids. When you become conscious, you break the pattern of denial that allows child sexual abuse to take place. We dont have to live in fear but we have to live with our eyes open, talk to our kids, and be active. We, as parents, make a choice to be fearless and active or to passively hope that it doesn't happen to our child.

What might be most shocking is that more than 90% of children who are sexually abused know their abusers. This means, fewer than 10% are strangers. You may have taught your child not to talk to strangers but that wont even be relevant when someone they know and trust tries to take advantage of them. As many as 60% of sexually abused kids are victims of someone the family trusts. Abusers often try to form a trusting relationship with parents. They often go out of their way to appear trustworthy so that they can gain access to children.

You can take this training yourself at www.darkness2light.org or at the Family Resource Center in Mesa on December 1st. I highly recommend it to everyone that loves and wants to protect a child.

If you already know right now that you aren't going to educate yourself on this, at the very least eliminate one-adult/one-child situations and you'll dramatically lower the risk of sexual abuse. Does your child go to private music lessons, does your child stay after school for help, does your child spend time at a neighbors house without you present? Think carefully about the safety of situations in which older kids have access to your younger children. Drop in unexpectedly to convey the message that there are no entirely private times where you are not looking after your child.

Whatever you do friends, dont ignore or deny the prevalence of child sexual abuse. It can happen to your child. But you can dramatically reduce the risk by being informed, conscious, fearless and proactive.

Sincerely,

Jill
Mom, aunt, neighbor, cousin, social worker, Primary counselor

For family night, we took the boys to Sonic

After the spiritual and uplifting lesson, of course.

(We had coupons for free ice cream cones.)

So we're sitting there licking our cones and swaying to the ever-present Sonic music, when Cohen turns to Brad and asks,

"Is this the Jonas Brothers?"

Excuse me... what?

How old is this kid anyway?!

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!

And it's barely 11 am!!!

Today might very well be the day I lose it. For real. In a nut shell, we bought a used van from a private seller on craigslist on Saturday. It's old, it has a lot of miles, but it was what we could pay for with cash. So we did it. Today, the kids and I went to the DMV bright and early to get it registered. Of course, we had to take it somewhere else to test emissions and then go back to the DMV for the license plate. As we're doing all of this driving around, the car starts making this "bing bing bing" noise, alerting me that the engine is overheating. After a few minutes of that, the A/C is no longer blowing cold air and I cant roll down the driver side window. We head toward the only mechanic shop I am aware of but before we get there, the engine starts KNOCKING! Awesome. I walk into the mechanic shop, carrying a 1 year old and pulling a 3 year old by the hand. I tell the guys whats happening to the car and by the grace of the man upstairs, they can check it out immediately. So I pull out our coloring books and bottled water and pop a squat on the waiting room floor. Within seconds of opening Jace's water, he dumps it all over the floor. As I'm wrestling it away from him and trying to keep him from dancing in the puddle, I say to Cohen, "Man, we're having a really bad day, aren't we?!" He says to me, "We better say a prayer to be nice, Mom. I'll say it. Henly Fodder, Thank you for this great day. Thank you for we can be nice. And Jace wont make a mess. No, no Jace.... NO, NO JACE!" I open my eyes to see that Jace has grabbed the bag of crayons and is coloring all over the soda machine! Cohen always prays with his eyes open so he had caught Jace in the act! I pick up everyone and everything I can carry, walk around the corner to the counter, say to the nice mechanics, "We have ruined your waiting area. I'm sorry. We're going outside to wait for someone to pick us up." It doesn't get any better outside. I put Jace down and within nano-seconds, he is standing in a pile of biting ants! I dont know how I kept from crying. I actually kept laughing at each new mound of chaos! That's how I know it's serious. I really am going to lose my mind today. Maybe paying the repair shop $800 will make the tears start flowing. We'll see.