Annual Fireworks Show

We had another great year with our annual fireworks show last night.  Our crowd was a bit smaller than last year, but we still served up about 270ish root beer floats.  I think this will become my new cap.  That's about an hour of serving and that's probably all that's needed. 

We brought in a port-a-potty which from the rental side was a marvelous experience.  I'm hoping it was equally as nice from the users side, but I haven't heard any feedback from people who needed it.  The rental company included a hand washing station, which we had to refill with water, so people did use it.  Hopefully they found it to be a close second to walking the additional 75 feet to the house.    

The show was spectacular, even with a pretty serious glitch in the firing sequence ... serious more for the ego of the firer not for anyone's safety.  It happens 2:22 into the show. 

So, yeah, the "grand finale" at 2:22 into the show, was not intentional.  GR was using a firing board he wasn't terribly familiar with and hit the ALL button, sending 16 cakes up into the air at the same time.  Really unfortunate cause it's hard to appreciate more than 4 cakes firing at a single time.  But he handled it really well and the show was still fantastic. 

We have lots of family in town this weekend.  We're the hub, and in a few short days we'll all be scattering for family vacations.  GR's mom and sister are spending time north, and the kids and I are heading west, meeting up with my parents and a couple of my siblings for a week in Southern Utah. 

Happy Valentine's Day

We celebrated this Valentine's Day with a late dinner ... unintentional, but allowed GR to join us since his elementary school task force committee met earlier in the evening and he went straight there from work ... of heart shaped pancakes (with pink, red and white sprinkles), fresh strawberries, "homemade" strawberry sauce and real whipped cream.  YUMM!  I made a triple batch of mom's Feather pancakes and only a couple were leftover.  The strawberry sauce consisted of one can of strawberry pie filling whirled up in my mini chopper, and diced frozen strawberries cooked over the stove until thick and saucy.  It worked really well, and used up a pantry item that's been sitting far too long.  

After dinner we opened Valentines from the grandparents.  It was a really fun evening.

The kids enjoyed their classroom parties and handing out their Valentines.  There were only a couple of casualties which everyone weathered well.  We made candy cane hearts for the kids Valentines this year, using cherry flavored candy canes I picked up at Target at the 80ish% off after Christmas sales.  A link to the tutorial I used is here.  They are extremely fragile.  I purchased 192 candy canes to make the needed Valentines, but in the end, thanks to a number of casualties, we had just enough striped hearts for all four school kids to give them to teachers and classmates.  13+18+24+25 = 80 Valentines, or 160 candy canes.  In the end this "thrifty" valentine ... $1.70 for the candy canes + $7.98 for the bags + $3.50 for the paper backing = $13.18, cost ~$.17 each.  Having never priced out the kids valentines before, I guess $.17 is pretty good for a handmade valentine?

Visit to Santa

Anna respectfully and determinedly declined every invitation to even stand next to Santa.  And that was with both Grandma's encouraging, suggesting and I'm going to assume bribing as well.  But Anna does an awesome "Santa, Ho, Ho, Ho!", you should ask her about it. 

Thanksgiving Highlights

The Lesson 

 

I LOVE this picture.  Actually, I love the story behind this picture.  

The Obvious:: This is my parents with the two little ones and they are making something ... pumpkin pie, the morning of Thanksgiving Day.  Mom had decided a day or two before that we were taking pumpkin pie off the menu.  It wasn't really needed, and no one was going to miss it.  

The Not Obvious:: Wednesday night my father made a banana cake and Sam helped.  Alex really wanted to help too, and I'm sure Anna did too, cause that kid can really crack and egg!  Apparently (according to my father), he was a complete failure at knowing how to have two children help him make something in the kitchen.  So here is my father, intently observing my mother, in order to learn how to have multiple children help him in the kitchen.  He is amazing.  I love that he wanted to learn, that he wanted to be taught, that he made it important to learn. 

The Hootenanny

Many years, when we were young, my mother made this egg/butter/flour concoction and we loved it.  We loved it's taste, but more importantly we loved what it did in the oven.  How crazy is that?  A couple of years a go my brother revived the hootenanny, tweaking the recipe a bit, and adding blueberry sauce/compot to the recipe.   De-lish!  Thanksgiving morning, I made a hootenanny - learning later that 6T of better is better than 8T.  No blueberry sauce for this one, but we did discover than ikea lingonberry jam is a perfect pairing with a piece of warm hootenanny.  


The Turkey

Brined (Whole Foods), bacon wrapped, and smoked.  Yumm!

The simple spread and a few of the guests (and you can see the kitchen paint color). 

The Strategist

My little sis brought her beau for the holiday.  His first big introduction to the family.  He survived and we like him.  My crew can be a bit intense and he handled it well.  Beau is a game buff ... a strategy, game buff.  They were only here for less than a day and half and yet we played lots of games and he won lots.  We're going to have to do something about that winning streak if he's going to last.  Here, we're introducing Beau and the family to Scotland Yard. 

Pumpkin Carving

Remember our chili and pumpkin carving get together a couple of years ago.  We wanted to do it again this year since we'll be out of town next weekend.  With no school Friday, and Papa's schedule clear, last night was the perfect evening to have everyone over.  

We did some quick decorating yesterday afternoon.  I saw a cute idea on MADE with bat cutouts taped to the wall.  I thought our entry way would be perfect for a swarm of bats, and it was!  The kids loved this project, and with four of them working, they quickly had 50 cut from construction paper ready to use.

We had such a great time with everyone.  It was fun and relaxed, and some amazing pumpkins were carved. 

Rebecca did the ghost/grave yard on the far left, Sam did the bat flying in front of the moon, Alex and GR worked on the dragon, Anna's is the baby pumpkin to the right of the dragon, and Emily's is the skull on the right.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Initially, I planned on setting up the craft/sewing room last. This week has proved that I cannot leave this portion of boxes for weeks and weeks. My kids, especially my girls, are very art oriented and they need their supplies.

Weeks ago, I purchased Valentine pencils and made sure I knew right where they were so they could get taped to store bought Valentines this week. Easy peasy, no stress. I got out voted. They all wanted to make them. So I went digging for boxes marked 'kid craft supplies' and 'scrapbook paper,' and 'craft/sewing room' to retrieve the needed supplies. I am more than a little embarrassed at how many boxes of supplies I have ... and they all need to fit in one room. We have now created a plastic tub to contain all the Valentine supplies. This years Valentine's turned out very cute and the children are all very pleased with what they created this year!

I'm so proud of Alexander! Look, he wrote his name on each of the Valentine's he gave his preschool classmates! Then he wrote each of their names, too!

The big kids spent Wednesday afternoon totally in the zone. The entire kitchen island was covered in paper, tape, glue, pencils and lots and lots of Valentines!

Tomorrow we're having GR's parents over for dinner - spaghetti and meatballs - and the girls are making dessert. They haven't narrowed it down yet, but the clock is ticking so I'm sure they'll figure it out soon enough.

Hope you have a fun filled Valentine's day that includes good chocolate!

P.S. Look at these paper boxes! I went looking for the MS Craft supplies necessary to make them at Michaels this week ... no luck. I'm making them just using my basic supplies ... they aren't prefect, but oh so cute! Wouldn't these make sweet shower favors, or little gift boxes for oh so many things! I love how easy it is to make them exactly the size you want for the contents.

Wishing you and yours, a very Merry Chirstmas!

Well folks if you were hoping to get a Christmas card from us, I can tell you right now it won't be coming in 2009. I'm thinking, "we've moved cards" with our new address around Valentines Day might be nice. All of us crowded around a mound of moving boxes could make for a charming picture ...

So let this be our heartfelt wish to you and yours for a very merry Christmas! Know that we love you and cherish our association with each of you whether you are near or far. It's been great fun opening all your wonderful cards, reading your Christmas letters, and seeing how much your beautiful children have grown, while you haven't aged a day!

We are looking forward to spending lots of quality time with family both here in Kansas and in St. Louis over the next week. We are all looking forward to talking with my sisters who live far far away - I am so grateful for amazing technology that makes it possible for time and distance to vanish even for just a handful of minutes.

I'll leave you with pictures from some of our Christmas Eve festivities with GR's parents:

Playing B-I-N-G-O! This was great fun and a game we could play a few rounds of, walk away and come back to repeatedly throughout the day. Diane picks fantastic prizes (could be done in lieu of stocking stuffers if you have an older crowd) ... chocolates, hand lotions and sanitizer, small pocket games, flash lights, cars, lip gloss, etc.:




Birdseed Wreaths:




Very fitting since it's snowing right now, and 'it doesn't show signs of stopping'. Use refrigerated bread sticks, roll into a ~10 inch snake, brush with egg white and roll in bird seed. Connect ends to form O or wreath shape. Bake bread as directed on the wrapper. Thread string through, tie a knot to create hanger. Hang on branches of trees for birds. .



Merry Christmas!

Santa's Elves

We are mailing holiday packages this week, and so this evening we made a couple batches of our favorite holiday candy ... square pretzels topped with melted Rolos and M&Ms:





I'm hoping to also make peppermint bark, having now found white chocolate chips made with coco butter, but we'll see how the week plays out.

On a side note. Yesterday I woke up to no voice .... whispered, clapped and snapped my way through the day. Answering the phone was a joke. More than one person thought they'd dialed the wrong number. Today my voice worked enough that I could teach preschool, but after talking nonstop for 90 minutes, my voice was pretty much done for the day. Thankfully I sound much worse than I feel - I just hope it stays that way!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We wish you were here to enjoy this:





with us:




We had a lovely time with family and friends in our home, and are so grateful to each of them for spending this special day with us. The meal was delicious and simple, with everyone's favorites ... turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry jello, fruit salad, green beans, carrots and even roasted brussel sprouts (Katy brought them and they were quite yummy!). And Daddy made six pies ... two pumpkin, two blueberry, and two apple!

Since it isn't really self explanatory from the pictures, GR smoked the turkey this year. First he soaked the turkey in a simple brine (I think it was Paula Dean's recipe) over night. Then wrapped it in Hickory Smoked Bacon (not quite 2 lbs covered a 12lb bird) and then smoked it with apple wood for roughly 6 hours. Ahhh, it was amazing! Very moist with a slight hint of sweetness to the meat. I expected the bacon to really flavor the turkey but it didn't. We'll definitely be trying this one again.

Gingerbread Houses 2009

The Saturday before Thanksgiving continues to be Gingerbread House day at Grandma & Grandpa's. We invited friends to join us again this year and many were able to join us which made the morning a lot of fun. As I've mentioned before we try and include new families each year and we had lots of new additions, young and old, to our long standing family tradition.

The weather this week didn't help my gingerbread much. It's been unseasonably warm - fantastic for kids playing outside, not fantastic for gingerbread that needs to be brick hard. With Emily's help, we made 5 batches on Monday, and by Friday, after sitting out on the counter all week long, they were still VERY soft. Typically a week on the counter and those puppies are dry and ready to get loaded up with all the candy a kid can cram on the roof. An additional 15 minutes in the oven Friday night and the gingerbread, albeit slightly smoked, was ready.

I still make my gingerbread using Sharon's recipe from 30 some years ago. At some point I might go to the kits, but when you need 5 houses, even buying them on sale ... well I'd just rather put that money toward something else. I got three of them done before the kids got home from school and then Emily made the remaining two before dinner. Now that there are multiple bakers in the house, I can foresee years when the kids each make their own house - the whole blessed concoction.

Thank you to all who were able to join us!! In all we had 14 kids decorating houses and two babies sneaking candy. I think that's a record for this branch of the tradition. We had tables set up everywhere. Rebecca is already planning out next years house, and Sam has requested an additional batch of gingerbread be made so he can build a garage. Yeah, it's a good thing they are getting old enough to bake their own.

Before I share pictures, I will mention, that this year I decorated a house. The kids didn't quite know what to think of that, Mom decorating a house. It raised lots of questions. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I promise to share pictures, but not right now - I need a reason to get you back here.

I need to speak with our photographer ... we don't have a single picture of the kids looking at the camera with their houses. I have pictures of other peoples kids and their houses, but not ours. There's something slightly wrong about that isn't there?




The candy ... this picture doesn't include the candy canes, pretzel sticks, marshmallows, sanding sugars, chocolate Santa's, or ice cream cones ... that all has to go on a separate table.


The assembly ... we had mostly homemade gingerbread this year ... just a handful of kits. The gal assembling houses in this picture works with GR. Her husband had never done a gingerbread house before - today at 30 something, he helped make three.


Emily:


Sam:

PRE Thanksgiving Festivities

Today became a bit crazy busy with kid festivities... I as in charge of playgroup this month and scheduled a little Thanksgiving activity this morning, quickly followed by the school kids Thanksgiving feasts at school. Add to that the special snack Rebecca requested to take to school today for her party today, and it was a late Wednesday night.

In preparing for playgroup I found some really fun activities that I thought I'd share. Only two made it to our playgroup agenda, but the others might be good activities for your kids in the hours leading up to the feast.

Oreo Cookie Turkeys
Pilgrim Hat for Boys ... Pilgrim Hat for Girls
Thanks and Giving Tree family activity - a good FHE activity
Thanksgiving songs for preschoolers

Gobbling Turkey Apples (snack) was a huge hit with the playgroup kids and something small fingers could do pretty easily.


Paper Cup Turkey - I'm thinking these will make great place cards for our Thanksgiving table!


Alex, Anna and I finished up early at playgroup and headed to the elementary school to eat the annual Thanksgiving Feast served at lunch. We had a good time sitting with each child and enjoying lunch together, and I'm really glad we were able to continue this little tradition with them.


Late yesterday afternoon Rebecca explained that her class had earned a movie party and they could bring snacks to class if they brought enough for everyone. She had some elaborate plan to make sugar cookies in the shape of hands to look like turkeys and asked to make the sugar cookie dough. I handed her the recipe and she made it, stuck it in the fridge, and ran off to Activity Day girls. There wasn't time to make hand-print turkeys using sugar cookie dough, even if I do have a hand cookie cutter. But I was able to pull this off (pretty stinkin cute if you ask me) and thankfully it was an acceptable substitute:


We're changing things up for Thanksgiving this year and I'm hosting. Everyone's bringing a little bit of the meal and we're doing a bit of furniture rearranging to fit all 14 of us, but I'm excited to celebrate one Thanksgiving in this house before we move on to larger spaces next year.

Happy Halloween!

Celebrating Miss Amercia!

Our Fourth of July adventures spanned three days and we had a great time0!



Thursday night after dinner and a quick house pick up, we all went to GR's favorite local fireworks stand so he and the kids could purchased some "daytime" fireworks to shoot of at his parent's house. This is the first year that the kids have gone along and helped choose the daytime stuff we shoot off. And the picked some great things. Crop Circles and Ladybugs were some of our favorites this year.



Friday morning we took the kids to the dollar store and pick out something special. Becca and Emily both picked out cups shaped like ice cream cones with twirly straws that wrapped around the outside of the cup, Sam picked out new water balls for the pool, and Alexander picked up a new Micky Mouse baseball puzzle.

We spent the afternoon and evening at the home of Bill and Sharon. GR grew up their kids, and their son Rob is GR's best friend. For as long as GR and I have been together and we spent the 3rd of July at their house. Many of their kids were home visiting for the holiday so we got catch up a little bit, between helping kids with this and that.



Saturday morning was our pancake breakfast, at which the kids all astounded the adults around them by the number of pancakes they could each pack away. Onlookers were convinced they'd make themselves sick if they ate one more pancake, but they weren't. Pancakes are just one of those things my kids can eat by the stack!

We had a fantastic dinner at Bob and Diane's. Between Diane's friends, Bob's family (two of Bob's kids were in town this year) and my family that came (Mom, Dad, Suz, Joe and Katy) we had around 30 people for dinner.

The weather was so nice and mild ... we had some dark clouds roll by in the mid evening that got us worried, but it didn't rain and people came out in droves. This was one of the first years where GR and I did a better job of inviting more of our neighborhood friends, rather than having such a high percentage be church friends and acquantances.

We served 192 servings of ice cream! We moved out behind the playhouse so we were closer to the crowd. I also recruited some helpers this year. My sister Suz, soon to be sister-in-law Katy and friend Steph all helped us serve up all the root beer floats. I did up my cup size to a 12 oz. cup which helped equal out the root beer and ice cream per portions. The other thing we did this year was use dry ice to help keep the ice cream from turning to soup. It worked fantastically - that is unless it was in direct contact with the ice cream and then it worked a little too fantastically. Maybe if it were wrapped in newspaper?





The electric fire system GR, Charlie and Joe worked so hard on worked so well! In the past each shell has been hand fired, causing pauses of a couple of minutes between sets of shells. This year, they were able to flip a switch which sent an electrical current down a wire attached to each fuse, which would fire off each shell. The firing was well timed; by far their best shoot yet! His shows have rivaled professional shoots in the past, but his year, you'd be hard pressed to see much of a difference between his show and most other small town shows.

The only disadvantage we had this year was the wind. It was blowing straight south - toward the crowd - covering everyone with a layer of debris and ash instead of away from the crowd and into the woods. But everyone took it in stride and still left the show saying nothing but praise!



Every year I am astounded by the size of the crowd - well over 200 this year - and the interest people have in coming out for a backyard show and enjoying one another's company. I am also deeply touched and humbled by the number of people who over the years have asked contribute to what has been fondly coined the "Save GR's marriage fund" (aka the root beer float and fireworks fund). The thoughtfulness and generosity of our friends and neighbors, leaves me speechless and with a lump in my throat.

Summer's Official Start

This week marks the official start of summer for my kids and they look forward to it every year! Memorial day brings the opening of the pool, a place the kids and I plan to spend a lot of time this summer. We spent the morning lazily getting ready for our afternoon at the pool and barbecuing with a few friends. The weather was just warm enough for an early afternoon dip in the pool. Thankfully, no one forgot how to swim over the winter, Alex is navigating the water beautifully in his arm floats, and we discovered Anna is a total water baby! What a nice change from terrified Alex!

Our friends arrived just as our kids were getting out of the pool and the temperatures were starting to cool. The kids played and played and played in Grandma and Grandpa's field. They took a short break to eat and then went back to playing ... the boys went one direction, the girls in another. The mom's talked and visited and bounced babies while the dad's visited and supervised the driving of cars, the throwing of balls and the flight of frizbees.

Sadly, I don't have a single picture of our blissful day. I'm learning that when I'm totally comfortable, relaxed and enjoying the company of good friends and family, the camera tends to get forgotten and pictures aren't taken. Hopefully, I won't regret that in the years to come. I'm hoping that, the experience, the people and being in the moment, not distracted by other "things" will be just as important too.

Happy Easter!

Our Egg hunt Saturday was a fun, laid back, good time, nestled between a busy Saturday activities. All the kids went home with candy filled eggs, and the mama's went home with enough beautifully decorated hard boiled eggs to use for sandwiches and salads over the next couple of days. Easter Sunday brought colder weather and constant rain! The kids had an indoor egg hunt ... the boys hiding eggs for the girls and the girls hiding eggs for the boys. We all enjoyed hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's playing, eating good food and taking a load off before heading into another busy week.

I hope each of you had a wonderful Easter - or will have since some of you are on the Orthodox calendar and will celebrate this coming Sunday.

Here are pictures from our weekend:









Everyone decked out in their Spring best: