Thanksgiving 2011

This year we really wanted to go somewhere for Thanksgiving.  My parents are on a mission in California, and we didn't want to travel that far. Kent's parents were going to one of Kent's brother's house in Boise and wouldn't be home.  That pretty much just left us at home. I asked several friends and family members if they all had plans to see if we could have some company for Thanksgiving but everyone was busy.  I was kind of disappointed that we didn't have anyone but our little family to spend the holiday with.  I had seriously considered going out to eat instead of cooking just to do something different this year but I got a turkey for cheap at the store and pretty much had everything I would need to make the dinner.  I decided to try to do the best we could to make it fun and memorable for the kids even though we didn't have guests.

Emilia the pie maker

Elise was the cinnamon roll and dinner roll baker

Adele and Ian made our favorite appetizers:  Ham, pickle, cream cheese roll ups.

The potato man

We had appetizers and fancy drinks while we played games and waited for the turkey to cook.

The family during the feast

I was the chef-in-charge of course, and lastly, the whip cream whipper.

PaRtY!!!

We had quite the time picking a theme for Ian's birthday party.  He kept changing his mind about the theme, the games, the activities etc.  The one thing that didn't change was the donuts.  For awhile he wanted an Indiana Jones party.   While I.J. IS cool, we thought it might make things a little bit complicated since he, (and probably none of his guests) had ever seen Indiana Jones.  We finally agreed on a Harry Potter party. 

The kids were sorted into houses, given wands and worked on some "schoolwork" puzzles with their wand pencils.

 We made potions that bubbled and "smoked"

Played "Bertie Bott's-- Guess the Flavor"

Opened presents and ate our donuts.   We had "pumpkin juice" punch bubbling with dry ice and had glow-stick straws. And just like on his birthday, no cake and ice cream anywhere to be found.  Ian's friend Dylan gave him 2 jars of pickles.  Just what he had asked for.  Happiness.

All the guests!  What a funny picture huh?  I can't get Ian to stop looking at his toys and smile for a picture!

Ian's 7th Birthday!



 It's a tradition at our house to have a candle and sing "Happy Birthday" at breakfast.  Usually this involves whipped cream and strawberries since that is a favorite around here.  Ian wanted Swedish pancakes for breakfast, which is another very popular birthday food.

Ian also got to pick what we were having for dinner.  He wanted to have mini pizzas that everyone could make themselves.

And here we are, having a dinner picnic with our pizzas.  Ian's birthday was very non-traditional, but he had a great time getting to pick all the food and getting to eat dinner on the floor.  Instead of a cake and ice cream he decided we should all go out for ice cream.  Works for me.  (Check out Emilia's awesome outfit!)

My Deleterious Offspring

I just learned a new word. I looked it up for the woodpecker post that is located just below this one.  As I was thinking about what to call this post I realized that woodpeckers aren't the only ones that have deleterious offspring. 

Deleterious- adjective
Definition: causing harmful or damaging effects
Synonyms: destructive, harmful, damaging, pernicious, noxious, toxic, injurious  (I also use pernicious later. I like that word.)
Antonyms: helpful, salubrious, advantageous
Tips: Deleterious comes from the Greek word deleterious, "noxious." In its modern usage, it can mean that something is noxious and therefore harmful to someone, or simply that something is harmful or destructive, without necessarily being noxious.

The inspiration for this post came when I was in my office cutting gum out of Adele's pillow pet and I looked over at my desk and saw the rotary cutting guide/ruler that Adele broke the other day.  She was jumping on it and it snapped in half.  Moments later Kent called me into to Adele's room to ask me if I had seen the next item.  Exhibit #2.

 Exhibit #2  Crayon marks on Adele's bedsheets.  Nope. I had not seen it. It must have been freshly drawn today.

THEN, as if that wasn't enough, I was walking out of Adele's room and saw that she had drawn on the molding outside the door.  ****BIG SIGH*** 

Good thing I still have 2 brand new magic erasers. We are gonna need them. Never mind that she is 4 now, and most kids have outgrown this "drawing on the wall and everything else" phase. 

And the night she got gum on her pillow pet (I think it was Halloween night) she also got it in her HAIR and we had to use the old PB trick to get it out.  I think someone wanted my last kid to go out with a bang so we didn't feel like maybe we should have had more kids.  Adele counts for 2 thank-you-very-much.

Deleterious.

Hole in the House

This is a woodpecker.  They like to peck holes in things.  The sound they make sounds like someone is knocking on the door or the side of the wall.  How do I know this?  Because we have one that is trying to make a nest in our house.  We have heard it knocking on the house for a couple of weeks now and we would always go out and throw rocks at it so it would think that it picked a dangerous spot to nest.  Unfortunately it could not be deterred.  Actually, there are 2.  I am assuming they are mates.  This is what they have done to my house.  Not. Happy.  About. This.  Kent is going to get the ladder out and cover the hole with shiny metal and hopefully our two love birds will go find somewhere else to live and have their deleterious and pernicious offspring.  (Yes I used the thesaurus for those words. I couldn't think of anything appropriate, mean and fitting enough on my own.)

3rd Annual Fall Donut Fest

This year we invited our friends the Enas over for our "Donut Fest".  I tried a new recipe this time and it worked out better than the previous 2 years. I think we have found a keeper.

The donuts were SOOOO good. I think we each ate 5.  Kent said they were better than Krispy Kreme.  Lots cheaper too, I say.

 Adele loves Justin. She always brings him books to read with her.  He is a good sport and lets her snuggle up to him and read.  And I love my friend Dana.  She's an awesome friend. 

Happy Halloween 2011

The weather was beautiful for Halloween this year.  No rain.  No snow.  No freezing wind.  We trick-or-treated longer than we ever have in the past because it was so nice and the kids were having a great time.  We coincidentally met up with a group of our friends and had fun trick-or-treating with 3 other families.  I think Ian had the most fun of everyone.  He kept saying over and over, "This is the BEST HALLOWEEN I have EVER HAD!!!"  And we definitely got more candy than we ever have in the past.  I think it might have been the best Halloween I have ever had too because I stocked up on tons of stuff last year when it was 90% off so I didn't have to buy anything this year except candy.  And we re-used the rest of the costumes and just used stuff we had. I did have to make 1 thing:  Emilia's pirate vest, but that was easy.  There was one sad thing for me though.  Every year we get really excited about our pumpkin carving and Kent and I take it pretty seriously.  We love to do fancy pumpkin patterns for our Jack-O-Lanterns.  I decided to do Agent P from Phineas and Ferb.  I taped the pattern on the pumpkin, traced it with a pin and started carving only to find out that my pumpkin had skin that was about 1/8 of an inch thick and was SUPER hard to cut through. I had planned on doing the light orange parts by scraping the skin off so the light orange showed underneath and cutting out the white parts.  I could NOT get the skin to scrape. It was like trying to scrape wood so I gave up and carved a Frankenstein instead. It was very sad.  Next year I will try again.

Happy Halloween!