Sometimes we are fast, and sometimes we are slow.

January was Alex and my turn to plan playgroup. January weather in Kansas over the last 10 years or so has proven to be much like a yo-yo, fridged one day, summer like the next. Thankfully the yo-yo swung in our favor all month long, since we picked these activities on the 1st of January and for the life of me all I could find was a 10 day forecast.

Our first playgroup activity for week one was a trip to a local museum. Alex and I had the entire museum to ourselves and discovered little treasures we'd never seen before - and didn't feel the least bit bad about breezing through the entire four level museum in 30 minutes flat. Sometimes we are fast, and sometimes we are slow.

Week two we scheduled an open play day in the church cultural hall, hoping everyone would be looking for an opportunity to get out and run. The weather performed beautifully - all weather forecasts were hoping for a HIGH of ~10 that day. Kids played and played and played for two hours! before mama's and kids finally headed home for lunch and naps. Our little band of boys (I had picked up 2 extra cute boys for the morning) stayed a little later and enjoyed the big empty cultural hall all to ourselves.



Week three brought warmer temperatures (high 40s) and a hike around the neighborhood lake and playing on the playground. For this activity, Alex and I held up the rear of the group the entire time, never actually making it to the playground. He wanted to look and see and explore every possible inch of the nature trail. We listened to birds sing and watched them fly, we found frozen Osage oranges starting to thaw, and fuzzy green moss, and hoof tracks in the mud, and lots of sticks.



[Please note Alex's hat. GR made it for him to replace his rainbow hat which he's worn for the last two years, which of course is now way too small.]



Week four was our Kansas Day celebration. We planned a couple of simple crafts - a tissue paper sunflower (glue squares of yellow and brown tissue paper to a blue sheet of construction paper) and a Kansas facts coloring page - and had balloons kids could bounce and kick and throw around the cultural hall. Then we shared a simple but bountiful potluck lunch/snack before cleaning up and heading home.

I must say all the 2009 playgroups have been very well attended (including this weeks trip to Baker Bob's - by far the most popular!) ... other than our museum trip (which I understand not everyone heard about in time to come) we've had the same 20-30 kids at each one!

CPSIA Update!

CPSC Grants One Year Stay of Testing and Certification Requirements for Certain Products!

Etsy article: http://www.etsy.com/storque/craftivism/breaking-news-the-cpsia-mand...
Etsy forum post: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6022029
CPSC press release: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09115.html
The actual CPSC document: http://www.cpsc.gov/library/foia/foia09/brief/stayenforce.pdf

Happy 148th Birthday!

A great opportunity for cake AND birthday candles! Thank you Kansas!



* * * * *

The more and more I learn about the CPSIA and how it will potentially impact my life and my little business the more and more I pray the government will not turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to all the concerns being voiced with how it is currently laid out. If you're not sure what I'm talking about ... read this. It's what hundreds of bloggers posted yesterday, hopefully you saw it on someone's blog.

For information about the CPSIA and how to make your voice heard, I found this CPSIA Action Kit made up by Etsy extremely helpful. I'm extremely frustrated with Dennis Moore at the momment. I've sent him three seperate emails and I've heard NOTHING back from him.

Microchips Not Included

I seriously need to move pictures off the mini Nikon so I can share what we've been doing around here lately ... but in the mean time more about our Winter Break ...

My brother's future father-in-law gave him a fantastic vintage popcorn popper for Christmas and he allowed my kids to experience it our last night in St. Louis. The three of them had seen one at a small diner on one of their road trips and Joe commented how cool it was. 6 months later, it was his Christmas gift, and we were thrilled to spend the evening with Joe and Katy helping them test it out for the first time.



It is a truly amazing little machine that pops a perfect batch of popcorn everytime! It's a bit like a mouse trip I guess, in that it operates on the tripping of levers. To start the machine, the operator lowers a lever which puts everything in to action ... the heating of the heating element, the shaking of the popcorn tin, and then once the popcorn has finished popping - popping up to just the right height so every kernel is popped, the height of the popped popcorn trips the lever, stopping the shaking of the tin, and turning off the heating element. Amazing and fun to watch!



I think we polished off no less than 6 little trays of popcorn before we all agreed it was time to walk away - but it was so hard. Hot fresh, perfectly salted popcorn - ummmmm good.

Another Inauguration Fumble

Remember my special Election Day Dinner? I thought it would be fun to do something similar for the Inauguration. I'd heard that the Inauguration luncheon was going to be duck w/sweet potatoes. I had pork chops - I know it's not a substitute for duck, but I had them and they *needed* to be cooked. Instead of going with the tried and true family favorite recipe, I opted to try an experiment. An experiment that sounded quick and yummy and different and special. The unanimous consensus from everyone - not so much.

It was on Monday's Martha! that I heard about the inauguration menu - duck breast with cherry chutney and sweet potatoes - and they shared the recipes. I personally love sweet potatoes, but my family - not so much. Although everyone tried these molasses whipped sweet potatoes, I'm the only one who finished her serving and a lot got put into the trash - grrr, I hate that! They were a bit too sweet, if that's possible. I've decided I didn't have enough sweet potatoes. The recipe called for large sweet potatoes, and my grocery store had the dinky-est sized sweet potatoes I've ever seen.

At least the broccoli was properly cooked and everyone enjoyed the apple crisp I made for dessert!

Pictures from the last few days.

All the grandma's and the grandpa's are out of town, so my typical picture sharing method ... the amazing Ceiva photo frames we got them for Mother's day last year... isn't helping them stay up on what's going on with the grandkids. So here's a little of what they have been up to in the last couple of days ...

While I'm nursing the baby, Alex seeing Mom's threats will be idle ones, builds a tower with the spices, dumps 2 partial bags of chocolate chips on the stove along with a bag of red pepper flakes. He quickly learned red pepper flakes aren't too tasty ... "Mouth Ouchy, Mom! Kiss it!" ... I gave him milk instead.


Climbing on the counter is his new favorite thing to do. He can manage to do everything fromt his position. Thursday night, he helped me make corn muffins for dinner.


One of my favorite toys for babies is a spool of ribbon. Give baby ribbon, they shake and play with it until it's all unwound, you wind it back up, and repeat. Here Anna's playing with all my burp cloth bundle ribbons.


Alex seems to be transitioning out of nap time. We're doing one or two naps a week, not a daily nap. If we do daily naps, he's laying in his bed talking or singing for nearly two hours, making it nearly impossible for Sam to get a good nights sleep. Consequently, Alex occasionally will fall asleep in the evening ... here, he fell asleep after eatting dinner while everyone was watching playoff games.


** By the way, if any of you are interested in getting someone you love a digital photo frame you can upload pictures to via the internet, we highly recommend Ceiva. If you decide to go this route, email me before you purchase. I'll send you an email via Ceiva (friend referral offer) that will save you $50 and I get two months free. **

A few FYIs about Me

My college friend Topper sent me this list of "getting to know you" questions, questions you weren't suppose to over think or analyze - just answer them straight from the hip. I love reading other peoples answers ... they are always so interesting. Unfortunately I never return the favor! I typically want to, I intend to, but they get flagged to come back to at another time, you know, when things are quiet or I have extra time, and I never get back to them. So if you've sent me one of these and I've never responded, consider this my response.

1. What is your occupation right now?
Stay at home mom

2. What color are your socks right now?
White, but they are pretty dirty

3. What are you listening to right now?
The children *cleaning* the basement and the baby cooing

4. What was the last thing that you ate?
Reheated chili from ... hummm I'm not sure when I made it last week.

5. Can you drive a stick shift?
Yep, my first car was a 5 speed.

6. Last person you spoke to on the phone?
My visiting teaching companion

7. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
Very much

8. How old are you today?
33

9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV?
Football and College Basketball are the two watched in this house ... favorite implies enjoyment and I'm not a sit and watch an entire game kind of gal. Highlights, replays and the last 5 minutes of an exciting game are my favorite parts of a game to watch.

10. What is your favorite drink?
Hot Chocolate or ice water depending on the weather

11. Have you ever dyed your hair?
Once in college, I did it myself when visiting a friend at KU. It was the wash out kind and no one could tell I'd done anything.

12.What is your favorite food?
Tortellini in a cream sauce with peas and diced ham.

13. What is the last movie you watched?
In the Theater- The Tale of Despereaux

14. Favorite day of the year?
Lazy days when the house is clean and there isn't a schedule, everyone's just doing what they love and enjoy.

15. How do you vent anger?
Yell and fume

16. What was your favorite toy as a child?
Mama Kola Bear and her baby

17. What is your favorite season?
Fall

18. Cherries or Blueberries?
Blueberries

19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back?
I'm not going to email this out ... I'll post my responses on my blog and let people choose to do the same if they want.

20. Who is the most likely to respond?
-Lets not name names...

21. Who is least likely to respond?
see question 20

22. Living arrangements?
In a cute two story- house with a husband and five kids.

23. When was the last time you cried?
Saturday night.

24. What is on the floor of your closet?
More than will fit on this line ...

25. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending to?
Hummmmm, Topper 'cause she's the only one I'm technically emailing this too.

26. What did you do last night?
Sewing, blogging, photo editing

27. What are you most afraid of?
Failure ... as a friend, mother, wife, etc. And yet, many of my good intentions never happen.

28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburger?
Cheese ... with lettuce, tomato, bacon, mayo, catsup, spicy mustard, and sweet pickle relish.

29. Favorite dog breed?
I'm really not a dog person.

30. Favorite day of the week?
Friday

31. How many states have you lived in?
Five

32. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds

33. What is your favorite flower?
Ranunculus

** I was suppose to send this on to a bunch of family/friends, but I'm not ... aren't you grateful? **

6 Months Old

Saturday Anna turned 6 months old and yesterday she had her well baby check up.

Weight - 17 lbs 6.5 oz.
Height - 27-5/8"
Head Circumference - 18-1/4"

She's doing all that she's suppose to do. We discovered on the 4th of January that she could sit up on her own for a prolonged period of time. Every day she's getting more and more stable on her bum. She'll down sit on the floor for a good spell and grab for toys, transferring them from one hand to another.

When Anna gets excited she will kick her legs out and pump her arms. When you're holding her you have to wrap your arm all the way around her chest and hang on tight or she'll rocket right out of your arms. Sunday evening the kids suggested we try putting her in the Johnny Jump-up. It needed a little TLC. The last time it hung in the middle of the house was when Alex was Anna's age. Sam decided to experiment with a pair of scissors, and cut two of the four straps. Thankfully some royal blue thread and a very tight zig-zag stitch restored the Johnny Jump-up to it's previous glory.

She's still a bit small for it, she loves the sensation of hanging and being able to watch all the happenings of the house.



Alex helping Anna learn to jump ... The camera caught Anna's surprised expression of being "bounced" making her look more terrified than surprised. Truly, she was quite calm while each of her siblings tried various teaching techniques on her.

The contents of just one of Sam's boots today after school ...

I am grateful that after four months of school ... and vacuuming up a good portion of the playground pea gravel in that time ... he now empties the contents of his shoes into the trash can instead of in the middle of the living room carpet.

But can you image walking home with that much crud in bottom of you shoe?! Maybe some of the other mom's and I should start a pea gravel recovery program.

We're Still in Kansas, Toto

Over the last 8 years or so, I have gotten some memorable emails via Mormonchic.com. As you can imagine, many people make lots of assumptions about the website and who is behind it. This is by no means the best, but tonight recipe[at]mormonchic.com got the following email ...

"I am the Enrichment Counselor in the BYU 29th ward. We are all newly married 2wks-5 yrs and many of us are new at food storage. I was wondering if you come and teach Relief Society sisters on how to use their food storage. Please let me know. Thanks, ______ "

Oh the cheeky things I thought of saying ... the things GR told me to say ... instead, like always, I sent this instead:

I wish I could, but I live in Kansas.

Contact your Stake Relief Society Presidency and ask if they have good resources for you to use. More than likely they know of many sisters in the Provo, Orem area who are experts at home storage on any income, especially as newly married students living in small spaces. I'm confident they will be able to help teach the sisters in your unit to use their food storage given current circumstances, as well as prepare them to do the same once their circumstances change after graduation.

My best wishes to you and your sisters.

Warmly,

Recipe Chic


* * * *

On a slightly different note ... but relates to the subject of replying and writing to people ...

Have you all heard buzz about the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act that will go into affect 10 February 2009? If you haven't, it's time to jump on the bandwagon and make your voice heard and known to your state representative ... In an effort to protect children from harmful toxins, specifically harmful levels of lead that have been found in toys manufactured overseas and sold in the US, stricter product safety guidelines are being set forth in this act to go into affect in less than a month. Sadly, while well meaning - hello who doesn't want our kids to be safe!!, as the Act as currently written, has the ability to wipe out most small cottage industry businesses (like mine!) that make and sell handmade clothing, toys, and textile accessories for babies and children because they simply cannot afford the testing required to prove that their products do not contain more than 600 ppm total lead.

Cool Mom Picks has a good collection of articles and recent media stories about this issue, as well as links to sample letters you can use to send to your state representative if you'd like to let them know how you feel about the issue.

What kills me is that many of these cottage industries who will no longer be able to make and sell their wares, started their businesses in an effort to provide children with high quality, fun, imaginative, practical, handmade and most importantly safe, things to have around them. Hopefully the outcry of those who make and buy handmade articles for babies and children will be heard loudly enough to make a difference.

Going, Going, Gone

This is what happens when GR offers to cut Sam's hair ... doesn't offer to me to cut Sam's hair, offers to Sam to cut Sam's hair ... just like Daddy's ... and Sam agrees.



I begged for a 1" compromise, and to the cutters credit, he tried it, but it wasn't going fast enough for him, and so ... after asking me repeatedly if I was going to get mad - what am I suppose to say, it is only hair and it does grow back ... off went the 1" guard and on went the 1/4" guard.

Sam loves it and really that is all that matters.

Alex's Song

It took nine solid months, but by late August of '08, Alex was finally willing to attend Nursery without screaming the entire two hours. He will now gleefully go to nursery when someone other than Dad takes him. Yesterday after church (Hallelujah, we're now at 9am and tithing settlement is OVER!!! We got our papa home at 2:20!!) while we enjoyed an afternoon and evening with Grandma and Grandpa, Alex went skipping around the house singing.

At first I wasn't quite sure what he was singing, and asking him doesn't help, he just repeats it the exact same way. It took a few times of carefully listening, but I was finally able to figure out he's saying "Jesus Christ." All through the house, Alex was singing, "Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ." I have no idea what Primary song he's taking this from, any takers?

Today his song is now an odd mix of, Choose the Right; Clean, up Clean up Everybody clean up; Jesus Christ; ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It's been quite amusing to sit back and listen to him sing. I asked if "Jesus Christ" was the song, "I belong to the church of Jesus Christ," and I got a silly "No Mom" smile from him. I think I'll give Shannon a call to see if she has any clues about the song. :)

* * * *

I haven't talked with Shannon yet, but I think I've found the song Alex is singing ... "I'll Pray in Faith." It's a sweet song that teaches children how to pray. All I could remember was the very last line of the song ... "...In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen" but when I sang that line to Alex, he lite up and said, "know that song!" So I think we have a winner. Tomorrow we'll sing the entire song so I can help him learn the rest of the words.

The Cat's out of the Bag

Thirteen years of carefully "guarding" his real name all came to a screeching halt this week when two very large boxes arrived addressed to the Bishop. Apparently church head quarters doesn't use preferred names when addressing tithing envelopes.

* * * *

The kids head back to school tomorrow and so I'm slowing putting the house back together from our two weeks of Christmas celebrations. I hope to make lots of new posts in the coming days, so be prepared for bloglines/google reader/etc. to go crazy and to scroll down, since I'll be doing my traditional post posting.

Wishing you all a blessed New Year!

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.

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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!