The picture that almost wasn't ... Week of Celebrations, Part 3

Saturday was the one day of the weekend when the entire family would be together and my Mom really wanted to get a family picture taken - one of her gifts to daddy. Our only window of time was at 10am (Mom was subbing for someone at the temple and needed to leave at 11 and wouldn't be home until 4pm). To add to the impossibleness of this task, the weather forecast for the day called for 100% chance of rain all-day-long! Mom had suggested a great park near their house and Friday GR and I found a good spot for the picture there.



My parents decided to use this picture as their New Years picture with the story of it's miraculous occurrence as their letter. I'm going to share a slightly edited version of my Dad's write up and hopefully this won't ruin the surprise for any extended family that reads this blog ... if you haven't gotten their new years letter, stop reading and wait till your envelope arrives, OR promise to act just as excited and read every word like you would have if I hadn't spoiled the surprise.

"This picture is worth a thousand words, but a few hundred will have to suffice. It was taken Saturday morning, December 27, 2008, and the forecast indicated a 100% chance of rain. Although threatening, it wasn’t raining yet, so we went ahead with our plans for a 10 AM family picture at a nearby park. Then we realized we had neglected to give an exact time to our son Joe and his fiancée, Katy. (If you look closely you will see the ring on Katy’s finger—we are all looking forward to their wedding in September.) about 40 minutes away, but, as you see (at the far right) they made it!

We really wanted a picture of all of us, since our daughter Barbara (above left from Katy) has plans to serve as a missionary and would thus be unavailable for the next year and a half. She has been living in the St. Louis area for the last year and recently got a job that could put her psychology degree to work at a local University.

While waiting for Joe and Katy, the grandchildren had a good time in the playground until Stella got a really bad bump on her forehead. Through the excellent parenting skills of her father she was coaxed to join the picture. Matthew and our daughter Mary Ann, Stella (upper left corner—note the bandage on Stella’s forehead) along with the youngest of their family, Danielle (next to Stella but looking away from her), have a house about 25 minutes from us—a lot closer than their former home in Beirut, Lebanon.

We also needed to get the picture taken because our daughter Suzanne (sitting left of Barb) needed to go back home that evening. Among her duties working for a Mid Missouri Health Care Organization is driving the 44-foot long mammography van for its visits throughout central Missouri.

We were also happy to have Kathleen and family make the trip from Kansas, to be with us for Christmas. GR (far left in front of Matthew) was the photographer who—with tripod and timer—got the shot ready to step into. He and our daughter Kathleen (between Suz and Katy), now have five children: Rebecca, Emily, Sam (in a row from Suz to Stella), Alex (on Suz’s lap) and baby Anna (guess where she is!).

Art and Mary Sue are the ones left over in the picture, and if we look happy, we really are. We are thankful for the blessing of good children, fine sons-in-law, a lovely future daughter-in-law, and grandchildren, who all bring happiness into our lives. We are reminded that heaven is but an extension of the ideal home, and are grateful for the Redeemer of all, whose birth we celebrated at Christmas."

After the picture was taken ... we promised everyone as the rain drops started to fall, that we would only take two shots, so smile and look at the camera, cause the least offensive of the two would definitely get used ... we headed home for sandwiches and a little rest time before some of the children and a few of the adults went to see the movie The Tale of Despereaux. I enjoyed the movie, but the film is much darker and scarier than portrayed in the book. I have really come to love Kate DeCamilo's style of writing. I listened to Tale of Despereaux back in September and loved it. On the way to St. Louis we listened to another one of her stories (The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane) which is equally as charming and just as full of life lessons as Despereaux.

Following the movie the entire family met at a deluxe burger restaurant (a birthday dinner of sorts for my Dad) before everyone had to go their separate ways for the evening.

Week of Celebrations, Part 2

Friday (12/26), Katy had a couple of appointments to go dress shopping and Joe ended up spending the day in bed not feeling well, but the rest of us decided to take advantage of some of the free fun at Forest Park.

Forest Park is home to the St. Louis Art Museum, and on Friday admission is free. They currently have a Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940–1976 exhibit Mary Ann had seen and enjoyed. I thought the kids would enjoy seeing this type of art ... especially with Aunt Mary Ann's extensive knowledge of art history around to tell them fun little tid bits about the art. And since it was free, if it took us all of 15 minutes to walk through the exhibit, so be it, the children were exposed to the art and hopefully would walk away from the experience knowing one or two things they hadn't known before.

Rebecca, Emily and Sam really enjoyed the exhibit. My parents rented little iPods that gave some of the background on a selection of the pieces in the exhibit, and Rebecca and Sam would borrow those iPods whenever they came to a piece they really liked and wanted to know more about it. It's really too bad traveling exhibits like this one don't have recordings like this geared toward kids 5-16. The iPod recordings were done in the same "voice" as the descriptions next to each work of art, so it's a wonder the kids took anything away from what they heard. To my amazement and delight, the children really enjoyed their brief exposure to Action/Abstract art, and had a number of favorite pieces of art they could actually describe after our visit during lunch. (Mark Rothko's Red, Orange, Orange on Red; Jackson Pollock's Number 3, 1950, were two of their favorites.)

In retrospect, I think I would have done a couple of things differently to enhance the kids experience. First, I would have had my sister talk about more of her favorite paintings from the exhibit, so the children would have had things to look for - a mini scavenger hunt of sorts. They instantly recognized the one painting they overheard Mary Ann talk about and they each got very excited when they discovered it for themselves. From a distance the painting looks like a completely black canvas, but as you get closer you realize it's not black, but squares of really dark colors. (Ad Reinhardt)

Second, I would have rented an iPod for each of the kids. At the time I didn't think we would need them - we had Mary Ann after all - but Rebecca and Sam really enjoyed the freedom and the novelty of using the iPods they commandeered from their adult buddies, and I think Emily would have enjoyed it too had she had the opportunity to do the same.

A Week of Celebrations, Part 1

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas filled with friends and family and cherished memories. We spent Christmas with my parents, arriving late Tuesday night and staying a whole week. It was one of the longest trips the kids have had at my parents house in years and they enjoyed every minute of it. All of my siblings were home for Christmas and our kids had such a good time playing with the cousins, aunts and uncles.

Christmas Eve was spent shopping and wrapping and crafting and sewing (new nightgowns for all the granddaughters) until the wee wee hours of the morning. In true W* style, we are once again very grateful to Walgreen's for being open on Christmas Eve and in the early hours of Christmas Day. Every year we seem to manage to make it worth their while to stay open. This year it was for a plunger [one of my Dad's home teaching families called to report that their only toilet was clogged and they couldn't find a plunger. Thankfully the clog resolved itself minutes before my dad and GR got to their doorstep, and they now have a plunger.] and 44 AA and 8 9V batteries. Santa's Reindeer are also quite grateful to Quick Trip and their freshly delivered donuts (at 2:30 AM) - even on Christmas Morning.

Here are the kids with Aunt Barb, wearing their new PJs, courtesy of Grandma Mutti:


Christmas Day was spent leisurely opening presents all day long, eating lots and lots of chocolate and yummy handmade goodies (thanks to Joe and Katy!) and helping the kids play with their two favorite toys ... the Wii and 6 remote control cars (one for each of the grandchildren).

The minute we put the close on Christmas Day our families total focus shifts to celebrating my Dad's birthday which is a few days later ...

Woops

Topper - I'm packaging up your tea towel and will get it in the mail to you asap!

The class parties went really well this afternoon, but my head is pounding. It's either a lack of food, or lack of sleep or both! GR and the kids are catching up on Survivor ... tonight they're watching the last challenge and tribal council where Matty gets voted off. We won't have time to watch who wins tonight. We're going to skip the "interrogation" hour ... there is nothing said there that the kids need to hear, and skip right to the reunion show where the winner is announced.

This is what happens when I have too many irons in the fire ...



An entire bag and half of Rolo's turned in to garbage ... I tried to salvage them, but only a couple came off the waxed paper ... Grrrrrr! Note to self, 10 minutes at 300 is way too long!

We have a winner!

We took this picture last week ... it was the last in the series of "impromptu" pictures we took. Its not too shabby, and although it's not my ideal picture, it will more than do for this years picture. I ordered 100 photo cards online today, hopefully they arrive in time to at least have them postmarked December 24th. I went through the address list - good heavens a lot of you have moved in the last year!



Tomorrow are all the "Winter" parties at school. First I'm sending 19 gingerbread boys to Sam's class for the Gingerbread party, I'm hoping to make it a few minutes of his party, but I'm prepping him for me not being there at all. Then from 11:45 - 1:45 I'm helping in Emily's class room for the 1st and 2nd grade pod party. Our room is making "snowman soup" (aka Hot Chocolate). I'm leaving Emily's party early so I can spend the last hour of the day in Rebecca's room running her class party.

Yesterday, I starting making Santa Cookies. Monday night as a family we made a list of friends we wanted to make sure we delivered cookies too. It's looking like this will be the first year we'll actually get a few friend and neighbor plates made up and delivered! It will take us a few days to get them all made up and delivered, but I'm hopeful we'll get them done.

The "Cleaning Out" Christmas Giveaway

My visiting teaching appointment for this morning canceled, giving me time to make this post instead.

Remember my tea towel crafting craze? Three Christmases ago I lined up the kids and made foot/hand print Reindeer tea towels to give the grandma's and aunts. It seams only one got finished and gifted ... earlier this week I found three three unfinished ones in the craft room cupboard ... woops ... I think we'll try to finish these up this week. Alex and Anna's finger prints can be the ornaments, star and trunk of our Christmas trees.

When Rebecca was in 1st grade, I thought it would be nice for the kids in her class to make a gift for their parents during the winter party -- I don't do anything this complicated anymore, thank you Alyson! Using the Reindeer tea towel as my inspiration, I came up with this adaptation:



To make it possible for 20 kids to do this quickly, I pre-stamped the towels with a reindeer face, glued on the nose and drew on the eyes, so all we needed to add were "antlers." For the most part the project was successful and the kids enjoyed it, but as you can guess, it was way to much to pull off in the 50 minutes we had for the party.

Anyway, I found three of these pre-stamped tea towels in the craft room, ready for you to personalize with your childen's hand prints (you'll need brown craft paint, too) that I'd like to send off to three dear readers. The three I have to send only have the reindeer face, no polka-dots. They are simple enough to add, but most of you have multiple children/grandchildren so you'll probably need the space on either side of Rudolf to add hand print Christmas trees so everyone is represented. Just comment here if you'd like me to send you one of these towels. I'll chose the three winners Friday evening, say around 5pm CST - with all the school parties Friday I'm not going to make it to the post office until Saturday morning, hopefully it will still arrive by Christmas Eve.

If you won't be at the address I have for you and want me to mail it somewhere else, just let me know in the comments (don't put the address there, I'll email you for it if you're a winner, but you've gotta reply quickly so I can still mail it out Saturday AM) so you can do this project while it's still "Christmas." If you don't think I have your snail mail address, leave your email address in the comments so I can get your snail mail address by Saturday AM ...

Let's see ... tips for doing this at home either from the beginning, or using one of my "kits:"

* The nose is a large pom pom from the craft store, hot glued on. You may want to put a few stitches through the nose so when the glue finally gives way in the wash, the nose doesn't get lost.

* The eyes were drawn on using a Sharpie.

* Plain acrylic craft paint works really well for this project. Some say to use fabric paint, but it is expensive and hard to find in the same colors as acrylic craft paint. Craft paint is permanent and washes well - it will fade a bit with lots of washes, but not so much that it's worth the extra bucks for fabric paint.

* Use a thin sharpy to label each hand print once the paint has dried, and put the date down in the corner so many, many years from now you know what year you made it.

* If you want, add a couple rows of red and green ric rac to the bottom of the towel for some added festive cheer.

Our Annual Christmas Brunch

The weather cooperated beautifully this year, and we had a really nice turn out. Diane and I both estimate that about 70 women came, which was really nice. Everyone who came seemed to want and need the time to sit and talk and enjoy the warmth of good friendship. Every year, Diane sits back and chuckles when she watches the little chatting groups that form, and this year was no different. We had the "Methodist" room and the "Mormon" room with a few who didn't fit in either category bridging the gap.

Each year I have good intentions of taking pictures, but I never get to it. This year to insure I had a better record of the event, I asked my friend Lori to bring her camera and take a few casual shots. Thanks to her, I can show those who live far away, a little glimpse of what the brunch is like. Thanks Lori!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I am coming to accept the fact that we will always have leftovers, no matter how carefully we plan the menu and calculate quantities, that's just part of the tradition of having the brunch. But this year we found a wonderful use for some of the extra platters of food. A friend who has taught for many years suggested taking a couple plates to the kids school and putting it in the teachers lounge. That was a fantastic idea! We took a large platter of sweet breads and two cheesecakes with us Monday morning and the teachers were thrilled! The kids have already had recipe requests for Grandma Mum's Magic Marshmallow Puffs.

A special thanks to those who came and shared their Saturday morning with us, and to those who couldn't you were definitely missed.

- - - - -

While the women were at the brunch, GR took the kids to IHOP for breakfast. He called a couple of friends with kids about the ages of ours who's wives were coming to the brunch to join him ... four dads and twelve kids. The joke among the mom's was that if anyone drove past and noticed police cars in the parking lot or the roof blown off, we didn't want to know about it until at least 12:30. Thankfully everyone had a good time. The kids all ate their breakfast and the dad's are actually talking about doing it again next year!

Preparations

Saturday is the brunch and boy oh boy does the house smell good!



I'm looking forward to seeing lots of good dear friends Saturday, sharing good memories and stories and laughing and hugging and loving one another. It's been an unbelievably difficult week for a very dear family who got crushing, heartbreaking news. I've been grateful for the time I've had this week to stand and bake in the quiet of the afternoons and reflect and pray and cry for my friend and her family. I am hugging my children a little tighter and saying "yes" to more of their simple requests. I'm finding my priorities shifting back into their proper place and I am pleading with the Lord for many small and mighty miricals to happen in the lives of those around me.

Dust and Dirt

Monday the Young Women's President called and asked if the girls could come over and serve the Bishop's family... cleaning, organizing, playing with the children ... "anything you need done, we'll do it." I swallowed hard and called GR for a pep talk. People in my house ... all over my house ... seeing, cleaning ALL OUR DIRT?! I don't think so. Not in this life time. Not this week. ... But it's the young women and they are wanting to serve. I was so torn. Like a good husband, GR convinced me it would be okay ... I would survive.

So before they came I tried to get caught up on laundry, get things put away that had been waiting for months, get some Christmas decorations put up, and the worst surfaces dusted and vacuumed. On the list of "chores" for the night ...

1. sweep kitchen floor and spot clean, wipe down kitchen table
2. help girls straighten room and put away laundry.
3. help boys straighten room and put way laundry.
4. clean mirrors and counters in bathrooms
5. dust, first floor
6. wash windows
7. vacuum first floor

They did all this and so much more, truly exemplifying the principle of going the extra mile. The house is clean, and it feels oh so good! Add the couple of Christmas decorations we've gotten put up this week and I'm starting to feel the spirit of the season, and that's a good thing.

I told the YW I would take care of the treats. Apple cider, and one of my favorite Christmas cookies ... Reindeer Cookies, using my Brown Sugar Spice Cookie recipe. Oh so yummy, quick and simple to make, plus they look super cute.

BROWN SUGAR SPICE COOKIES

1-1/2 cup softened butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 egg
4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Cream butter, sugar and egg. Beat until light and fluffy. Stir flour with spices and soda, add to creamed mixture; mix well. Cover and chill until firm, about 2 hours. On floured surface, roll dough to 1/8" thickness. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350ºF for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

For Reindeer Cookies, before chilling dough, shape in to a rounded triangle log, wrap in waxed paper and chill. Then slice, re-shape if needed and decorate with pretzel twist antlers, chocolate chip eyes and a red nose (gum drop, red M&M, etc.) before baking. Cool on baking sheet ~1-2 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Gingerbread Houses

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the entire family was at Grandma Mum's constructing and decorating gingerbread houses. Each year we try and invite new friends to join us who haven't come in the past. This year we had school friends, work friends, church friends, and friends we've known for many years join us, and it was a lovely time.

I made houses for each of the four "big" kids ... Alexander and I teamed up to decorate his, and this year we didn't have ANY housing catastrophes! No collapsing roofs, no caving walls ... we had four structurally sound houses and that was a very nice thing!

A big thanks to my amazing mother-in-law who spent her entire weekend surrounded by gingerbread houses, first with her church group on Friday and then all Saturday morning with about 6 families coming and decorating houses together ... in total 12 houses and 1 train were decorated, pretty cool huh!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

30 Days Hath November

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. This year was my families turn to come here and enjoy the holiday with us and Bob and Diane. My parents and three of my siblings came along with my future SIL. We had a great time baking and talking and relaxing and playing with the kids. I'm so grateful they were all able to come and enjoy a few days with us!

For Family Home Evening last Monday night, the kids and I talked about gratitude. I'd read the idea somewhere to create a turkey with 30 feathers (one for each day of the month), each feather listing something someone was grateful for. The turkey never got made, but I did make 30 feathers and I did write down 30 things the children said they were grateful for, and I did get the feathers taped to the fridge with a huge space left in the center for the imaginary turkey body. I thought I'd share the unedited comments the children gave when asked what they were grateful for ...

S: My family, because some people are just nice to me.
E: Mom & Dad. They are nice and don't yell that much.
R: Anna, because she is funny.
A: Mommy & Daddy. Daddy work.
S: Grandma & Grandpa, they are making our special dinner on Thanksgiving.
E: Holidays - spending time with relatives.
R: Friendship
A: My guys - Emily, Rebecca & Sam
S: Water because we can drink it. [This after having asked 100 times if he could get a drink, and being told to NO!, 101 times.]
E: Clothes so we can keep warm.
R: Food. My mom makes the best food.
A: My blankie.
S: Carson, he plays with me a school and we have fun together.
E: Trees, and the color they turn in fall.
R: Mom, you always get stuff done, laundry, dinner, shopping, ...
A: Baby Anna. I love her.
S: Action figures 'cause I can play with them a lot and they are really cool.
E: Color. If we had no colors everything wouldn't be colorful.
R: Books they help you entertain yourself and some are easy and some are hard ...
A: Swings. I like to play at the park.
S: Balls, you can bounce them, kick them, catch them, throw them.
E: Animals, sounds and crickets
R: Toys, they are something to play with
A: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
S: Horses to ride
E: All the work Grandma and Grandpa did so we could make gingerbread houses
R: Dad helps us get ready for school in the mornings
S: My healthy body and my lungs
E: That some books are funny.
R: Our house, my shelter that keeps me warm and I can sleep here.

From the Other Half...

Best non-family quote so far about being bishop: "The good thing about you being called as Bishop at such a young age, everything you screw up you'll get to fix when they call you again later on!"

My wife has been bugging me to post these little tidbits of information, so here goes...


Best quote from Sam: (We were in my office at the church) "This is so weird, coming in here now to get candy."
Me:"Why is that?"
Sam:"Because this is the real Bishop's office, not yours."


Best quote from Rebecca: (I was putting on a shirt and tie to go on teamups with the Elders)
Rebecca:"Why are you putting on a tie?"
Me:"I'm going on team-ups with the missionaries tonight."
Rebecca:"Well, that's odd."
Me:(laughing)"Why is that odd?"
Rebecca:"Well, you hardly ever go out with the missionaries"
Me:"True, but I'm the Bishop now, so you just have to do these things."
Rebecca:"Oh, so you don't have a choice anymore?"

Our Blockbuster Weekend

The kids were out of school Thursday and Friday for parent teacher conferences and we stuck a deal with the children that if they got their homework done, rooms cleaned and all their laundry put away we'd do something fun Thursday night. Did you know that evening AMC movie tickets during the week are $5 instead of the $10 weekend price? I'm definitely tucking that little tid bit way for the future!

Thursday afternoon, I scheduled all the kids for flu shots. The doctors office is on the way to GR's work and the movie theater isn't far either. So we did flu shots (and all the kids qualified for the flu mist, so no shots!), met GR at the hospital and ate dinner in the cafeteria -- 6 meals for $18, gotta love home cooking that doesn't break the bank!, and headed to the theaters for the 6:30 showing of Madagascar Escape 2 Africa. The kids loved it and since it was a Thrusday night, the theater wasn't cowded, allowing Alex to have more freedom that he otherwise would to walk around a bit during the movie.

Saturday night GR and I got together with some friends and saw Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond movie. So intense, but good. We really enjoyed it and little Anna slept through the entire movie!

Sunday was Stake Conference, so we had more time than we typically do Sunday afternoon to watch a movie. This summer we had wanted to take the kids to see the new American Girl movie, Kit Kittredge, an American Girl, but with all the travel, and Anna's birth, etc. we never made it. We found it on pay-per-view and watched it Sunday evening. The kids enjoyed it and GR was quite surprised that he really liked it too! I'm hoping to find a couple of the other American Girl movies at the library. The girls really enjoy the books and if the others are like this one, I think the entire family would enjoy watching them.

One more step on the road to becoming a REAL Mormon family

Remember my little wish to make applesauce? The kids were out of school a week ago Friday and earlier that week I'd gotten an email from the orchard saying that with all the winds we've had here in Kansas lately, they had lots of beautiful windfall apples available for people to come and pick for $9.50 a bag.

They weren't giving them away, but the kids were still interested in picking apples and making applesauce, so we bundled up and went. We all held it together for the hour and half or so that we were there. The kids weren't happy that they HAD to pick up the apples from the ground and not from the trees, and it didn't matter how many times I tried to explain how to systemically go through the apples on the ground, I had two worker bees and two who wanted to be but easily got distracted.



We picked 6 bags of apples ... about 3 bushels. One of the bags went to my friend April and the rest we turned in to applesauce.



I borrowed a food strainer/sauce maker from my friend Julie and Friday night we started cooking and saucing apples. My gadget loving husband who was the crank turner on the food strainer/sauce maker went in search for the equivalent KitchenAid attachment Saturday and came home with one. It's quite nice, although I think the manual version is a bit more efficient, it spits out only waste and no sauce with it, while the attachment spits out applesauce with the peel/core/seeds.

It took most of two Saturdays, but thanks to GR and all the kids working really hard together, we got all the apples sauced and bottled by Saturday afternoon!



When it was all said and done, we ended up with 16 quarts and three pints of bottled applesauce (we would have had one more quart, but the bottle broke in the hot water bath - what a huge mess). The kids love the homemade applesauce, and I love the fact that I know exactly what's in it ... pure apples and nothing else!. We could have easily had another 4-6 quarts if we'd been able to bottle the applesauce faster. Over the last week, the kids have eaten at least that much applesauce!



I don't think anyone was more excited about making homemade applesauce than GR. There's no way we would have gotten all those apples cooked and smashed and sauced and bottled if he hadn't been so supportive of the entire project. Growing up he watched his good friend Rob's mom bottle and can everything - they were and are his example of a real LDS family. So for him, making our own applesauce, in addition to trying to do a better job at having family prayer and family scripture study and real family home evenings where we actually have a lesson and not just playing games, is just one more little thing we're doing to try and become a real LDS family.

4 Months Old

It's hard to believe this little one has been in our family a full four months now! She's growing up so fast!

She talks up a storm, mostly in the evenings when she has my undivided attention.
She loves to smile and her entire face lights up when she does.
She drools a lot, totally soaking a bib or shirt, because she prefers to not have a pacifier in her mouth 24/7 to plug it all up.
She has a very pointy tongue and likes to stick it out a lot.
She is content to watch all the happenings of the household.
When she's upset, and mom can't get to her, she's content to be held by her older sisters.
She thinks the world of her big brothers and loves to watch them.

How was your Sunday?

In case you're wondering, the three signatures were each done in a different color of ink or type of pen.

Heaven help us all ... the answering machine message and GR's cell phone voice mail message are getting changed today ... if you've ever called his cell phone and gotten his voice mail and listened to the entire message, you'll understand why it MUST be changed very, very, very soon!

In the Kitchen with Kate

GR and I have been testing a few new recipes lately and I thought I'd share our results.

My friend Katrina over at Baking and Boys, posted a recipe a couple weeks ago for Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta that I suggested to GR we try. Saturday was our first open night and so he purchased the needed supplies and set to work making them. We cooked ours on the grill, and everyone cleaned their plates. I used the leftover chicken for Sunday nights dinner. Rotini noodles, cream of chicken soup thinned with milk and leftover chicken diced up - also very yummy.



I've been looking through past issues of Food & Family (the free Kraft magazine) for new recipes to try. They had basic instructions for an "old fashioned" poke cake ... make a cake, while warm, poke it with a fork, pour a hot, concentrated solution of jello over the warm cake, chill in fridge for 3 hours, frost with cool whip and serve. They had a little chart with suggestions of flavor combinations. They had a spice cake paired with orange jello and since I had all the ingredients in the pantry I gave it a try ... the jury is still out on this one. GR described it as a lot of intense flavors, and Sunday night that was true. It mellowed as it sat in the fridge over night. The kids loved it, even Rebecca who typically avoids intense tastes.



Our All-American dinner was oh so yummy, although I don't think anyone got the correlation. And we did make it over to Ben & Jerry's for our "I Voted" ice cream cones! I made my own patties this time ...


~2lbs of hamburger meat
1 envelope onion soup mix
1/3 cup dry onion
1/2 cup bread crumbs
a little water (1/4 cup)
salt and pepper

Mix all together and gently form into patties and cook until desired doneness.

After my request for a Dutch Apple Pie recipe, April called and gave me her families recipe. They don't exactly measure anything over there ... it's just done to taste and feel. But I think even with that handicap, after an eatable first try, I've produced a really good version of her family's recipe. Don't you love the dish I baked it in? A birthday gift from my sister ... LOVE it!


I used a made-from-scratch, pie crust (Heather's recipe that's posted on Mormonchic with her peach pie is excellent), 'cause I now have a food processor and am too cheap to purchase pie crust from the store if I can make it work here at home. Then 6 or so sliced apples (it was hugely mounded when I put in it the oven), mixed with 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, pinch of nutmeg, 1 tablespoon of butter, and 2 tablespoons of tapioca (the instant variety - I tried the non instant and that didn't turn out so well). The crumb toping ... 1 stick of butter, 3/4 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of sugar. I have learned that I prefer crumb toppings made with brown sugar instead of white, but they both taste quite yummy. Baked at 400 for 50 minutes.

I really should have put a cookie sheet or foil under my pan, cause it made a royal mess in my oven. Now I have to figure out how to clean my oven.
. . . .
Alexander was in a massively destructive mood yesterday. I spent his entire waking day, cleaning up after him ... so today we're taking advantage of a sunny crisp day and going to the park and hopefully meeting up with some of our playgroup friends. Then I hope to try this recipe ... I think it will make a great addition to this years brunch menu!

All present and accounted for!

I didn't think I grew up in a hugely political household. In my poli-sci class in college, I felt I was at a huge disadvantage because I really couldn't tell you if I was a republican or democrat or if my parents were republican or democrat. Nor could I really tell you more than 1 or 2 things about what made each platform different.

Now that I'm a parent, I have realized that my parents taught me more than I thought about politics, namely the importance of being an educated citizen, weighing all the issues and making the most informed choice you can when voting. In turn, GR and I trying to teach our children a little at a time about our system of government and being a responsible citizen even at their tender ages.

As a kindergartner, Rebecca knew who the candidates were and I let her fill out and cast a ballot when the kids and I went to vote. Four years later, the kids are much more politically minded, having watched much of the presidential and vice presidential debates, and talking about the candidates in school and around the dinner table. We've tried to keep our over all views of who're in favor of to ourselves so the children could form their own opinions.

Last night as we were eating dinner and GR asked the children who they were going to vote for. We've asked the question many times ... or maybe it's more that they've answered it many times ... "Mom, who are you going to vote for?" "I'm still thinking it out." "Well, I'm voting for Obama!"

This time I decided to write down their answers for posterity sake, I guess.

Sam: Obama.
Why: "Because, Will told me that if I vote for McCain he will come and ruin our house."

Emily: Obama.
Why: "When I listen to his speeches, I thought they were better."

Rebecca: Obama.
Why: "Since I've seen all the debates, I like his ideas better. He's going to give health plans to everyone, but McCain's just going to give everyone a $5,000 credit."

Tonight we're going to watch the election coverage (on Comedy Central - GR refuses to watch it on any other station) while eating an All American meal ... hamburgers, corn on the cob, and homemade apple pie and chocolate chip cookies. And if I can pull it off, we'll take a small break and head to Ben & Jerry's for free cones (5pm-8pm - Thanks for the reminder Elspeth!).

Trick-or-Treating

When we talked with the kids about what they wanted to be for Halloween at the beginning of October, I encouraged them to look at costumes and supplies we already had to reduce the crazy amount of money that can be dumped into costumes that are poorly made and rarely get enough use. Early on the plan was the costumes would go something like this ... Becca - Princess or queen; Emily - Cheetah; Sam - Superman; Alex - Pumpkin; Anna - Pumpkin. Our cheetah costume was defiantly too small for Emily, so I found a cute velor "sweat" suit $9/piece in cheetah print for her to wear, and found a great classic Superman costume on eBay for $15 (including shipping).

When everyone changed into their costumes, Sam decided to wear his Buz Lightyear costume from 2 years ago; Becca had her heart set on being a vampire (what?! - it must be an 8 year old thing Kris and Renee?) wearing her witch costume and a quickly pinned and taped "grim reaper" cape of GR's; and we all felt with Alex's Diego obsession, that he really should be Diego - even though GR was going to keep him home with him to pass out candy instead of having him go around with the big kids.

They all looked super cute even with the last minute changes! And FYI - if you don't have face paint, washable markers work really well for painting on animal faces and fake blood.



Our friends the L's called Thursday night when their plans fell through, to see if they could trick-or-treat with us, and I'm so glad they did. The kids had a great time together, and I was grateful for some company! The weather was amazing, perfect for being outside. A mixed blessing. The sidewalks were full of kids and parents, but it kept the car traffic through the neighborhood to a minimum which was nice. On cold Halloweens, you can't get in or out of our neighborhood between 6 and 9 because the streets are packed with cars three across. The kids got great candy ... very little that they don't like or that I call "junk candy" and automatically throw out.

GR and Alex between the hours of 6:30 and 8 when the big kids got back in and we turned off all the lights, handed out ~200 pieces of candy. He did his best to limit it to 1 per, but wow that's a lot of candy!

Fall Parties

A couple of weeks ago Emily's teacher emailed me to see if I would head up the festivities for their classroom Fall Party. The 1st and 2nd graders were going to do one big combined party with a different activity happening in each classroom. They've been working on measuring lately and wanted as many of the activities to involve types of measuring. Since there are three 1st grades, and three 2nd grades, the teachers came up with six different activities and needed lots of parent helpers to pull it off.

1. Measure pumpkins
2. Weigh pumpkins
3. Make a trail mix
4. Craft - Make a pumpkin with strips of construction paper
5. Leaf Rubbings
6. Decorate Cookies

Any guesses on the room they wanted me to head up? ... 6. Decorate cookies ... here's where the project got tricky ... they want the kids to measure out all the decorating ingredients, there are 140 students AND it needs to fill 20 minutes.

Lots of thinking, lots of calculating, lots of conversations with GR and my Mom about how to make this doable without turning my kitchen into a massive bakery. We realized that with 20 minutes to fill, one cookie per child wasn't going to be enough, really we needed 3 cookies each, which meant 420 cookies and this is where my mind started to whirl uncontrollably!

My mom convinced me to give a local grocery store bakery a call to see if they could donate or cut us a really good deal on sugar cookies and frosting. They ended up selling me 420 cookies (with at least 40 extras) for $.20/cookie and donating a large 26lb bucket of orange frosting. This was such a huge help! We asked the parents to send in $.60/child to cover the cost of the cookies and we were able to collect more than enough to cover the cost of the cookies! Parents were also asked to help supply the other things we'd need for the party ... for my room we needed:

17 - 3.25 oz. containers of Halloween themed candied mixed sprinkles. ... 1 teaspoon/cookie
($1 @ Target in dollar bins. $1.88 @ Walmart in Halloween candy isle.)

6 - 1lb 8 oz. bags of candy corns ($1.68 @ Walmart) ... 15/child

5 - 24 oz. bags of pumpkins ($1.68 @ Walmart) ... 3/child

4 - 11 oz. bags of chocolate chips ... 1/2 tablespoon / child

4 - 14 oz. bags of plain milk chocolate M&Ms ... 1 tablespoon / child

I got lots of parent helpers, GR decided to have a touch of the stomach flu (wink, wink) and stayed home with Alex, Anna was a dream, and the 1st and 2nd graders had a great time with their 2.5 hour long party!





I think I mentioned last year that Rebecca's 2nd grade Halloween party was pretty pathetic ... so pathetic that she was in tears at the end of the day. Emily had had uproarious fun - tons of games, loads of treats, the works - and she, she got a small bag of trail mix and half a cookie. After that I promised her it wouldn't happen again. And I did all I could to help make the rest of her parties that year fun. It's looking like I'll have to keep that promise until she graduates.

After two notices home to parents looking for Fall party helpers, with no takers, I sent a note saying I was already committed in the 1st/2nd grade pods, but would be willing to organize the party. I tried to follow Alyson's magic formula for a successful party ... having violated more rules on her list when organizing past parties than I care to publicly admit, I followed it in every aspect, in hopes that I could pull off a successful party that would compete with Emily's 2.5 hours of fun.

I got a couple of Mom's to help by providing drink pouches, trail mix, and sugar cookies. In place of apples, I sent a cooler with green and orange Jell-O cups that had two creepy spider rings floating in each cup. They played the Halloween pairing game (suggested by Alyson), ate their snacks and went home. I was able to pop into Becca's room at the very end, and everyone seemed happy and like they'd been kept busy.

Pumpkin Carving

We've had a week of Halloween and soccer fun all rolled into one very short, very full week! I'll start with pumpkin carving, then highlight the kids fall parties and then trick-or-treating!

Last Saturday (October 25th) the kids each played their last soccer game of the season, and everyone's had a little party of some kind to celebrate the season over the last week. We've eaten lots of pizza this week and my dishwasher has greatly appreciated the week off!

After our marathon morning of soccer on the 25th, we headed out to Bob and Diane's for our pumpkin carving party. This year, we invited our entire ward and a few friends to join in the fun. In all, about 50 people came out and enjoyed an evening of amazing weather and fall family time fun!





We went through 5 big crock pots of chili, and I thought I'd share the recipe I use. It's a good basic chili that seems to go over well with kids and adults, and is easy to make in large quantities when needed since you really only need a good big pot and reliable can opener.

Kid Friendly & Adult Filling Chili

3 cups browned ground beef (a little more than 1lb.) that was seasoned with onion
1 envelope McCormick's chili seasoning
3 cans petite diced tomatoes (undrained)
2 cans seasoned chili beans (undrained)
2 cans dark red kidney beans (slightly drained)

Dump in large pot and heat through. Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, hot dogs, dice onion or any of your favorite chili toppings. Makes ~13, 1 cup servings.

* * * * *

Monday and Tuesday evenings were spent at Triple R Ranch ... aka Rachel and RJ's ... sharing good food, lots of laughs, and letting our kids (and us adults too!) get in some good, long overdue playing time together. We just found out they are expecting number five in March and it's a boy! This is five for five with our two families ... we're girl, girl, boy, boy, girl, and they are boy, boy, girl, girl, boy. RJ was joking we could marry them all off within the two families in one day and call it good ... what are the odds of that happening?

Here's a picture of all of us carving away at our pumpkins Tuesday night. Add these to the ones we worked on Saturday, and we should have a good little line of jack-o-lanterns lighting the path to the front door for trick-or-treaters.

A work in progress

My sweet boys before church. I took the picture for the express reason of documenting for Samuel what he looks like when his Mama does not fight him on all his clothing choices for the day. Before his bath, he told me he was going to wear his suit - hallelujah! Only this is what he put on ... his black suit coat, yellow and blue striped shirt with red and blue striped tie, blue corduroy pants, white socks and brown plaid deck shoes.

As for Alex ... not one of his better Sacrament meetings. One of those meetings where I walked out three or four times ... the last time I walked back into the meeting, well let's just say I wish I hadn't ... why oh why, does my row not have a trap door in the floor, where I and my wiggly, loud, amazingly cute little monster can disappear into
before anyone notices who's making all the commotion?!

Mutti's Pumpkin Bread

I'm still playing catch up ... so ignore the fact that this says it was posted 10 days ago ... we all know it's November 1st... Pictures of our Halloween Madness are coming!

The kids each took a little mini loaf of pumpkin bread to their teachers today. No school tomorrow - yippee!!

And since so many of you asked ... here is my mom's pumpkin bread recipe - it simply isn't fall around here without making loaves and loaves and loaves of this bread! Let me know how your loaves turn out! Enjoy!

PUMPKIN BREAD
2/3 cup oil
2-2/3 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 can (1lb.) pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3-1/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease two 9x5x3” loaf pans or three 8.5x4.5x2.5” loaf pans. For nice beautiful tall loaves, use two 8.5x4.5x2.5.” Makes 5 mini loaves.

In large bowl, cream shortening and sugar until fluffy. Stir in eggs, pumpkin and water. Blend in flour, soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves. Pour into pans. Bake about 70 minutes (50 minutes for mini loaves) or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

While loaves are still warm (not hot) place in plastic bags and let sit. This helps create the moist outer crust that we love!

Pharmacy Week

The third week of October is National Pharmacy Week. A couple of years ago with the welcome of a new young pharmacist just out of college, the hospital pharmacy started a new pharmacy week tradition of delivering plates of goodies to each of the nursing units in the hospital.

For those who don't know, pharmacists and nurses ... well they really don't get along with each other. GR correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it can be easily said, that each is certain that the other is at the bottom of the intelligence pool, and bound and determined to make their life at work harder than it should. So this little plate of goodies is a yearly peace offering, and thanks for their job well done in patient care.

A month ago the pharmacist who is heading up this portion of the weeks events, called to see if I could come in and help them plate up all the goodies for the 17 different units. I really enjoy the people GR works with and jumped at the chance to go spend a morning with them. Alex spent the morning with Grandpa, while Anna and I spent the morning in the pharmacy conference room, plating all these goodies!



GR wanted our contribution to be pumpkin bread, so last night once we got my dad safely on his way back home, and the kids tucked in bed, my kitchen started cranking out pumpkin bread. Three recipes of my mom's pumpkin bread later, and I had 15 mini loaves ready for GR to take with him. When the kids saw them, they all requested mini loaves for their teachers, so I'll be making more pumpkin bread this week!

Birthday Waffles

1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons margarine
2 large eggs
1-1/4 cups milk
2-1/2 cups flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup melted butter

Cream together sugar, margarine and eggs. Add all remaining ingredients except butter and blend well. Pour melted butter over batter and do not mix. Dip batter (~1/3 cup each for my waffle iron, yielding 10 waffles) onto heated waffle iron and follow directions for making waffles.

Serve with syrup or choice of topping (although they are fantastic plain), and enjoy every mouthful with the ones you love.

A Surprise Visitor

My dad surprised me this morning with a short weekend visit. My mom's been in Utah since the first weekend of September and it looks like she'll be there until the end of October with her sister who is having some difficult health issues. We love and miss you mom!

He met us for breakfast at McDonald's after Sam's game and then followed us to the soccer fields, to watch Rebecca and Emily's games. He played lots of games with the kids, and then joined us at Diane's for a fun pre-birthday dinner. Emily took this great little picture of me with the other kids and my dad.

Hot Tamale - aka Kid of the Week

All About Emily

1. My favorite color is blue.
2. My favorite book is Love from Your Friend Hannah by Mindy Warshaw Skolsky.
3. My favorite movie is Island Princess.
4. My favorite sport is soccer.
5. When I grow up I want to be a doctor.
6. I'm special because of my family.
7. I was born in ___, Kansas.
8. My favorite food is Chinese food.
9. My favorite animal are ponies.
10. The person I most admire is my grandma.
11. My favorite thing about our school is fast math.
12. If I could travel anywhere in the world, I would go to New York City.

Apple Picking

Alex, Anna and I met up with some other mom's for a playgroup date at the apple orchard. It's been two years since we've gone apple picking. When Alex was a newborn, my family all got together for his baby blessing Labor Day weekend 2006. As part of the weekend festivities, we went apple picking - coming home with nearly 100 pounds of apples and 40 pounds of Asian pears. They were excellent and we used them to make all sorts of yummy recipes.

Today the little ones and I were not as ambitious. We held ourselves to only filling one bag with about 25 pounds of apples - Jonalicious, Fuji, Macoun and a few Jonagold. The apples are big and beautiful and delicious! All for $12.50/bag. After reading about Camie's applesauce, I'm tempted to head back with the whole family and try my hand a making applesauce, that is if I can get my hands on a free day and one of those magic applesauce machines.

First on my list of things to make is LaRee's Normal Apple Pie and our favorite Cider Pork Chops, and then I'm going to try making Sandra's apple cake. GR wants me to make a Dutch Apple Pie, but I need a recipe, so if anyone has a favorite recipe, please send it my way!

I took the camera, but the battery stayed on the kitchen counter charging ... so imagine a beautiful clear, crisp October day with a super cute Alex tasting each and every variety of apple we put in our bucket, and an alert little Anna strapped to my front in the sling enjoying the outing.

The NFL & Nickelodeon

Sunday nights, this time of year, mean football in this family. When GR and I first met I tried to fight his insistence on watching Sunday football games, with comments like, "if you can't watch the game reverently, it will have to be turned off" ... With some success on that front, Sunday afternoons and evenings you will always find a football game on at our house being followed to some degree or another.

A couple Sundays ago, a tired and very cranky Alex woke up from a less than complete nap and joined the family for dinner. While the kids ate dinner with GR in the dinning room, I was in the living room feeding Anna, and of course, a football game was on in background. The halftime announcers were updating everyone on the days highlights and at the mere mention of San Diego, little Alexander looses all interest in dinner and starts to cry and wail, "Diego! Watch Diego? Go, Diego, Go! Watch Diego!"

Kid Photo Shoot

My kids are not always the most cooperative when it comes to getting their pictures taken ... you would think that by now they would be so use to it they'd just sit, smile and be putty in my hands until I get just the right shot, so we could be done with it in half the time. But it's never, ever that easy. Our poor neighbors. I'm sure they cringe when they see everyone trooping out to the side yard, followed by the beast (aka camera), knowing that gritted teeth and tears are sure to quickly follow.

Most photographers will tell you that your best shots will be within the first few frames, and with my kids that is typically true ... occasionally it takes us 50+ frames to get use to the idea that Mom isn't going to back down and let anyone inside until she gets a picture where everyone is smiling and looking at the camera. Today I cut my losses after only 10 frames. This was frame number 9, and given everything that it took to get this picture, I am satisfied.

Determination

Today Emily came home with a Character of the Month award from school! I typically get a call a few days ahead letting me know about the awards assembly, but things in Emily's class have been super busy and it totally slipped her teachers mind. So it was a fun surprise for both of us!

The character word of the month was Determination and this is what Emily's teacher had to say about why she was given the award ... "Emily is determined to follow directions and pay attention in class. She is very patient and never bossy with other students who are not following directions. I really appreciate Emily's determination to do the right thing!"

We are very proud of Emily for the good example she is being in her class and for how well she is doing in school.

Everybody Wins

Today was an exciting day for everyone at school ... it's nice when the excitement can be shared among all the school goers in the family!


Sam had his apple celebration at school ... I think there was at least one adult per two children in his class there to "help" with the party. There was so much food there, that we got to bring home half of the applesauce muffins I took - no one here complained, we love that recipe!

The 2nd graders have been learning about butterflies over the last couple of weeks. And today as a special closing activity to their butterfly unit Emily and her classmates made this fun edible creation:


Friday's at our school are spirit day and the children are encouraged to wear the school colors, red and blue. Classrooms compete against each other to see which classroom can get the most students to participate. The class with the most red and blue, wins the spirit stick for the week. The school mascot is the bobcat ... the upper grades compete for BOB the spirit stick and the lower grades for CAT. Today, Rebecca's class won! So they will have CAT in their room for the next week.

Birthday Wishes

Today is also GR's birthday. After Anna's EKG, we stopped at the mall to look at suits. GR's one Sunday suit is in really sad shape ... the lining of the jacket needs to be sewn back in place, one of his back pants pockets needs someone to work their magic on it, and the hole he had the tailor repair a number of months ago while still holding up, won't last forever. JosABanks was having one of their many amazing sales and we found two good work horse suits and one "dressy" suit for him to put in his closet.

We had a nice little celebration at home. While I picked the children from various friends homes, GR picked up dinner at Jack Stacks - his favorite BBQ place. His mom wasn't feeling well so we called another family to join us in the festivities, and help us make a dent in all the scrumptous BBQ GR got. Yesterday, I made pudding filled cupcakes for his birthday "cake" allowing me to make both chocolate and vanilla (Anna reacts very negatively to any chocolate in my system and I wanted birthday cake too.). I sent all the extras with GR to work this morning so I didn't have tons of cake starring at me for days and days.

ETA: 15 October


GR picked up his suits from the tailor last week and tonight he and Sam put on their best suits to attend a memorial service for McKensie. They both look really sharp, and I was glad GR encouraged Sam to put on his suit for this occasion, and that Sam agreed to wear it.

Holding Still

I love my pediatrician. He's everything you want in a doctor for your kids ... thorough, meticulous, brilliant and loves what he does.

At Anna's one month appointment Dr. D spent a little longer than I expected listening to her chest, moving the stethoscope from one place to the next and back again, making sure he heard every millimeter of her heart. He was hearing a small murmur he wanted to make a note of for future visits. "I don't think it's anything to be concerned about. It sounds like a very common murmur we hear in babies and they typically grow out of it."

At her two month appointment Dr. D did the exact same thing. Anna was extremely quiet and calm allowing him to spend a number of minutes listening exclusively to her little murmur. Once he was done listening he explained more about what he heard and said he wanted her to get an echo done at the local Children's Mercy Hospital. He reassured me that he didn't think it was anything serious, he simply wanted the echo done so he knew how closely (if at all) to watch the murmur over coming year. He then asked me to restate what he'd explained ... wanting to make sure I fully understood why she was getting the echo so I wouldn't go home and turn Anna's little murmur into heart failure.

Today GR and I took Anna to Children's Mercy for her echo. She had to hold still for 10 seconds so the machine could accurately record her heart beating. Anna was in such a playful mood, wiggling and squirming with excitement. I finally realized that three smiling faces looking at her trying to help her hold still was just making her more excited, so we all turned around and stopped looking at her and the EKG was finally able to get a good reading of her heart.

Following the EKG, we met with the heart specialist who has known Dr. D for many years. Dr. D has a special interest in hearts and consequently has a very good ear for how the heart should sound at different stages of development. And it turns out Dr. D's initial diagnosis was correct. Anna has a very very tiny hole between the left and the right side of her heart, and as she grows it will most likely close up. The murmur - fyi, murmur simply means noise in the heart - in Anna's case was a quiet swooshing sound as blood moved through this little pin hole. As her body and heart grow during the coming months, the hole will close up on its own. Dr. D may have us go back around her one year birthday for a sonogram to confirm that the pinhole has closed up on it's own.

Another Fun Packed Saturday

We had so many fun things to do today!

The three older kids had their soccer games in a nice compacted time frame this morning ... 10, 11:45 and 12:30. We packed a budget friendly lunch ... a cooler with a couple big sub sandwiches, apples, yogurt tubes and lots of water ... to eat during the short breaks between games. This was our first "hot" game of the season, and the kids handled it as well as could be expected - they were hot and red faced after each of their games, but no one sat down of the field or gave up! The air temperature wasn't that bad, in the low 80s, but the sun was bright and hot, with little to no breeze.



After the soccer games, Rebecca had a birthday party to attend. She was to go dressed as her favorite pop star, and choose Jordan Pruitt. Since I had never heard of her before, we googled her and found this music video on YouTube, it just happens to be Becca's favorite Jodan Pruitt song. In this video Jordan wears skinny jeans, a sparkly shirt, and heels. So we went for a similar look in a totally different color palate. Jeweled tank from Sears - something I thought might make a good addition to the girls dress up tub - black leggings, and funky wedges from the dress up tub. She had such a good time at the party doing hair and make-up, singing along with friends to all their favorite pop stars.



Madison is a huge Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana fan and when we started talking about what Becca wanted to take as a gift, one of her suggestions was a Hannah Montana pillowcase. I was lucky enough to find some Hannah Montana fabric that wasn't too obnoxious or over the top, and it felt pretty good too, at Walmart - Hannah Montana centeral, and found coordinating fabrics at Hancock.

Since this was her 8th birthday and she has grandparents and cousins who live close by, I thought a little sleep over "kit" would be fun. I used every inch of the 2-1/4 yards I purchased and was able to squeeze out a pillowcase, pj bottoms and a draw string bag to put everything in.



After the birthday party GR took the three older kids to the KU football game with his parents. We look forward to this game every year! We've attended this football game - KU Band Day - for the last 4 years, and the kids really enjoy it. This year we opted to have Anna and Alex stay home with me. Alex is quite a little football fan, and when I couldn't find the game on TV, Alex and I watched Invisible on TNT instead. GR said their seats weren't fantastic, but they were down by KUs end zone and had a great view of three touch downs before leaving after half time.

Seussical the Musical

The second graders were the first to have their music program this year ... after only 7 days in music! Like the 2nd graders last year, they did Seussical the Musical, and it was phenomenal!

GR had classes to teach at the hospital, and wasn't able to join us, but Grandma and Grandpa came. Bob and Diane got us front row seats by going an hour early, allowing me to video tape the entire show so GR and Emily can watch it together later on.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

With three kids playing soccer, we have soccer practice three different nights of the week. Becca and Sam both practice on fields adjacent to playgrounds - ingenious! So while they are at practice, the other kids get to run and play! We've never spent this much time playing at parks, and it's been wonderful! At one of our latest playground nights, Emily did this:


After her second or third time up the parallel bars, I decided to give it a try ... with great effort, I made it to the top, and no I won't be posting the extremely unflattering pictures GR took of me pulling myself up this contraption. One would think lugging a 13lb baby and a 30lb toddler would be good exercise, but I clearly need to be doing more.

This was GR and Sam's approach to climbing the parallel bars: