Happy 4th Birthday Adam

Happy Birthday buddy!

Sorry your cake was lopsided, but you didn't seem to mind.

Check out the girls' scores on the first frame (right side). All spares!

You're growing so much.

I can't wait to see you what this year brings!

I love you.

Thanksgiving food notes

So here's what I need to remember for the next time I host a Thanksgiving dinner for 9. If I put it here, I can't lose it. If you don't care about my notes, ignore this post.

Roast turkey EARLY - like maybe the day before. 18 pounds took about 6 hours this year. And "fresh" just means they thaw it for you, so it still might have some ice inside.

Meringue pies aren't worth it if you have to make it the day before (and remember to bake crust before filling)

Make a double recipe of potatoes (use 10 pounds next time). These can be made a day early and warmed in the oven.

Make a half recipe of sweet potatoes (use 2-3 big potatoes instead of 5).

Two recipes of rolls (24 total rolls) was a good amount. Some leftover, but not too many.

Single recipe of green bean casserole was enough.

Skip the bag of stuffing. The kids like it a little, but not enough and the leftovers aren't great.

Molasses cookies were a hit.

Thanksgiving 2012: a comedy of errors

It all started with the lemon meringue pie I made yesterday. Lemon and meringue looked and tasted lovely, but as I removed it from the oven, I noticed the crust was much lighter than the pumpkin pie crust and I wondered how it cooked in such a short time. Well, a review of the recipe showed me those special little words "baked pastry shell" and I realized my mistake. So, we had weepy, day-old, raw crusted lemon meringue pie today and everyone raved about it! I have nice family!

Next, my turkey wasn't done until 1 1/2 hours after expected. I could sense unrest, so we actually ate lunch without it after it became painfully clear that waiting that long wasn't really an option. Everyone assured me it wasn't missed too much and we enjoyed the meat with dinner instead. I have nice family!

And lastly (so far), I moved the oven rack for Adam's birthday cake, which is a sheet cake, and accidentally inserted it lopsided. So now he has a ski slope birthday cake with an inch of frosting and crispy cake on one side and moist, chewy cake just barely covered with frosting on the other. Take your pick! We all agreed that Adam wouldn't care a bit and will enjoy it immensely tomorrow. I have nice family!

I am officially thankful for my patient, caring, encouraging family!

picture from a while ago...

New(est) purse

How awesome is my sister? I picked out this material and a pattern and she made me a purse in one afternoon! And she used my machine, which is a huge step down from her fancy one at home. That really blows my mind. I'm really happy with the purse, and it is exactly what I was wanting. She even modified the pattern to add a zipper. What a lucky sister I am! Thank you Kim!

Happy Halloween! 2012

When I asked what they wanted to be for Halloween about 2 months ago, they both knew instantly and never wavered once.

Laura spent one sleepless night anxiously trying to decide between a snowy owl and a great horned owl, but was always going to be an owl. Why? I can't tell you. Its not a favorite character in a book or TV show, never even been an animal she talked about particularly. But there you have it. An OWL!

And just like Laura, Adam knew instantly that he wanted to be a tornado. He's always been fascinated with them. Actually, it started out to be more of a fear of them, but has turned into an interest. For a while, I think he thought they were alive and something that you could talk to or kill. I think he's getting the idea now, though. He wasn't sure he liked wearing it at first because it's pretty poofy. But after his school parade, I think he was proud of it. It is such a novel costume that he got a lot of attention from the adults. Its nice to see him receiving positive attention, and it made him fell really good. I particularly like the houses, cows, cars and trees swirling around him, though I'm not sure he completely understood why they were there. 

Now that Halloween is over, what do I do with homemade owl and tornado costumes?

Uncle Bob and Aunt Kate!

At the end of September, we met Jim's parents at his brother's house in Iowa for his Dad's birthday. It was a great weekend, despite the unexpected cold.

As I said, I didn't pack for the cold. So we borrowed some gear for the 4 wheeler rides.

We spent some time at Bass Pro Shop and Adam stayed at the ATVs for at least 30 minutes while everyone wandered around the rest of the store.

We made a day of it and ate lunch at their yummy restaurant and...

played a game at their bowling alley! Crazy, but everyone had a great time!

Then, since it had warmed a bit, we went to an apple orchard with a ton of fun fall things to do. Giant jumpy pillows, animals to feed, the little tractor pull above...

a giant slide that everyone (young and old!) enjoyed...

an apple slingshot, a corn maze (slightly more scary, but more fun and no one got lost :) ), a hay ride, apple picking if you want, corn pit, and more. It was such a great day. 

Sever's Corn Maze (plus!)

Towards the end of the summer, we bought a Groupon to Sever's Corn Maze on a whim. What a fun place!  (Seriously, Groupon is draining our pocketbook.)

Two giant pillows to jump on

Awesome wooden train climbing structure with a real bell

Very open, simple and not at all scary, corn maze

(I've recently discovered I have a small phobia about mazes, especially about losing a kid in one, but this one was no problem)

Hay bale maze for the kids

Geronimo!

Parakeets to feed

tweet tweet!

Arggh!

(fyi Jim's not a bird fan, so of course they flocked to him (pun intended))

Corn pit!

Karate party

Laura's karate place (dojo?) had a Halloween party this weekend.

Not surprisingly, there were a lot of ninjas :)

Laura is the little owl in the middle. Gosh, she is little!

They played games and had a really great time. Here they are wrapping one kid up with toilet paper into a mummy. 

Practice Thanksgiving

OK, I just deleted my last post because it was really lame. Now that things have quieted down (read: kids are in bed), I realized how inadequate it was. So here's the new and improved post. Enjoy!

Earlier in the week, Jim requested a "Practice Thanksgiving". In other words, Jim was ready for turkey. He's a turkey man. Can't get enough of it. So, I scheduled it for this weekend so we could spend some time all working together on the meal. It turned out to be a lot of fun. We included small portions of all your typical fare. We went with a turkey breast instead of the full bird. We also had mashed potatoes, gravy (from scratch and it turned out great! my first true successful gravy!), sweet potato casserole (my new favorite), corn, stuffing (from a bag, but the kids were in love), cranberries (great, simple recipe), rolls (disaster - great flavor, but wouldn't cook all the way thru (this has happened to me before but I forgot to make notes on the recipe) think I have a work around for the real day but Linda will hopefully bring some Brown n Serves, just in case?), sparkling grape juice, a flat apple pie (tasted good, but crust was actually too flaky, if that's possible?), and a kid-decorated paper table runner. Everyone contributed and it was a full day of together time, for better or worse. In the end, it was definitely for better.

Jim and butter. Two of my favorite things in life.