Performing Monkeys

Notice how they say "Cheese!" when they think I'm taking a picture and then automatically start performing for the camera when I tell them I am making a video...

Pumpkin Bread

Last month I cut up our Halloween pumpkins in preparation for making pumpkin bread as Christmas goodies this month.  Every year I puree the pumpkin in the food processor and freeze it for use throughout the year.

Here is the recipe for our family's version of pumpkin bread.  I traditionally make this every year for Christmas.

Pumpkin Bread

3 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon all spice

3 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

2/3 cups water

2 rounded cups of finely mashed fresh pumpkin (or you can use 1-1lb can of pumpkin)

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup raisins

Preheat the over to 325F.  Mix the flour, soda, salt, spices, and sugar in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients.  Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the well-mixed wet ingredients.  Blend well to make the batter.  Pour into 3 well greased and floured loaf pans.  Bake at 325F for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center is dry when removed.  Cool slightly in the pans, then turn out onto a rack until thoroughly  cool.  This freezes well.

"I don't want to go shopping"

As I am trying to get the kids dressed this morning, I mentioned to James that we need to go shopping for his sisters.  He still needs to get his present to them from him.  His response? "Mommy, I don't want to go shopping.  I want Santa to do it all."  I think he gets it from his Daddy.  Santa is feeling very overworked this year.

Texas Trash

This year's holiday goodies included several batches of our family's version of Texas Trash.  It's like Chex Mix, but way better.

Texas Trash

2 pounds of pecans

1 - 1 pound bag of pretzels (I used the sticks, not the twisty kind)

1 small box of Rice Chex

1 small box of Cheerios (not the honey nut kind)

1 small box of Cheese-Its

2 cups (1 pound) of butter (do not substitute margarine here)

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons garlic salt

Preheat the oven to 250F.  Mix the pecans, pretzels, Cheerios, Rice Chex, and Cheese-Its in a pan (I used two disposable aluminum roasting pans).  Melt the butter and mix in the Worcestershire sauce and garlic salt.  Pour over the dry ingredients and blend well.  Bake for 2 hours, uncovered, stirring every 15 minutes.  Cool before storing in an airtight container.

A New Tradition

Today was Madeleine's kindergarten girls ornament exchange.  Each of the girls brought one wrapped ornament to be exchanged for another ornament brought by another girl.  Each package was randomly assigned a number and the girls drew a number out of a hat to see which package they would receive.  The event was hosted by several kindergarten moms and held at the home of one of the hosts.  Both kindergarten teachers were in attendance as well (much to the girls' delight!).  There was food and drink (mimosas for the moms!), cookie decorating and letters to Santa.  As soon as we walked in the door, the shoes came off, there was a group hug and lots of shrieking, followed by much hand holding and running about.  And this was all before the sugar from the donuts and cookies set in.

After all of the ornaments had been exchanged, one of the hosts explained that a tradition of giving out charms to the girls had been started several years ago with their older daughters and they wanted to continue this tradition with our class.  Each of the girls received an identical Santa Claus charm to be put on a necklace or bracelet to keep.  Every year they will receive another charm to add to their collection so that when the class graduates in 8th grade, all of the girls will have a matching set.  What a wonderful keepsake of their time at Christ the King!  I feel so blessed that Madeleine is going to a school that has such a strong sense of community.  And even better, so absolutely loves it too!

Being an Adult

Lately James has been very concerned with getting older.  He just can't wait until he is bigger...every day he asks "Mommy, am I four yet?"  Today in the car he proclaimed: "Mommy, I can't wait until I grow up and become a grown-up.  Then I can stay home all day long!"  Ummm.... I guess our talks about where money comes from and how you need it to pay for things like food and shelter has not really sunk in yet.

So Sweet!

Y'all - he fell asleep cuddling with his Kitty-Kitty... doesn't that just melt your heart?  He really is such a sweet little boy.  I think I'll print this photo and keep it close when he is a teenager to remind myself that deep inside he is still the boy that cuddled with his stuffed animal and not just the numbskull who got another speeding ticket (because you know that is going to be a problem...especially if it is his father that teaches him to drive).

Extracurricular Activities

This morning Brannon took Madeleine and James to the toy drive at the RUF dealership in Addison.  There were over 100 cars participating, including lots of collector cars and exotics.  The kids rode with Brannon in his "new" Porsche (a 1996 turbo) - they LOVE riding in the back of his car since they actually get to sit together (unlike in my minivan) and much silliness usually ensues.  Both kids enjoyed seeing all the cars and Brannon continued to teach them about the different manufacturers.  (In case you didn't already know, by age 2 James could identify Porsche, Ferrari, Mercedes, Lexus and BMW.  There is no doubt he is his father's boy.)  They even got a lesson on how an engine works.  Mommy stayed home and did some holiday baking and house cleaning with Charlotte. :-)

Finally!

Her first official steps were taken on December 2nd (the day she turned 16 months old)... and now just a week or so later she is finally up and walking around.  Watch out world! Baby Charlotte is officially a toddler now!

Christmas Decorations 2011

It took several days and there was glitter EVERYWHERE, but we finally got all of the Christmas decorations up.  This is the second Christmas we've been in our new house and it is the first year we've done all the garlands.  A big "thank you" to our dear friends Al and Sandra for helping with the design and implementation of much of what you are about to see....

The staircase and entryway as you enter the front door

A close-up of the garland on the bannister of the front staircase

my village - complete with Marlowe, TX sign

the library - on the left as you enter from the front door

a close-up of the garland on the mantel in the library

the buffet in the dining room - on the right as you enter from the front door

the living room

a close-up of the garland in the bookcases on either side of the fireplace in the living room

our Christmas card display

the garland on the back staircase

our outdoor Christmas lights

 I'll have to post a picture of our Christmas tree at another time.  As usual, we have a train running around the base of the tree (it is one of the ones Brannon has had since he was a child).  Now every time we see a Christmas tree, James checks to see if it has a train around it.  FYI - Granddad William and Grandmother Shirley's tree has a train; the Christmas tree at school does not.

I Guess It Is Genetic...

I collected unicorns as a kid - it appears that my eldest has picked up the habit as well. She has appropriated what's left of my collection and apparently she is wanting more. :-)

Let the Christmas Parties Begin!

Well, our Christmas parties for this year start tomorrow, Dec 2nd. And it turns out that we are hosting! Tomorrow evening is the St. Anne's Christmas Party - it was originally going to be at the house of another member, but she has to go out of town this weekend and had to back out of hosting about two weeks ago. They were having trouble finding a replacement host, so I volunteered. (Mind you, this was before I found out that my housekeeper will be in Costa Rica from Thanksgiving until next week.) The budget for the party allows for some catering, but we've had so many rsvp's that there are a few of us making additional food and desserts as well. Each couple attending has been instructed to bring two bottles of wine - one to drink tomorrow evening and one to donate to the wine-pull portion of the upcoming gala to raise money for our sister school Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

We still have to finish decorating the tree, but all the other Christmas decorations are up. Having the party has been a great motivator to get it all done in a hurry! I made the runs to WalMart and Costco this morning to finish getting the food and flowers. Now it's time to start cooking and assembling! I'll let you know how it goes...

Sent from my iPhone

Can we eat it yet?

On Saturday some friends of ours brought over two kits for building gingerbread houses - one for each "big kid."  It turns out that James is a big fan of gum drops (who knew?) and of course Madeleine would eat all of the frosting if I let her.  Both kids agree that the peppermints are "too spicy" and it turns out they do not like red fondant (it was supposed to be the front door).  Despite their eating quite a bit of frosting and candy decorations, both kids ended up with a pretty darn good looking gingerbread house.

Thanksgiving

Date: Thursday, Nov 24th

Location: our house

Attendees:
Brannon & Christy (Madeleine, James, Charlotte)
Ed & Diane
William & Shirley
John & Tiffany (Emily, Bethany, Taylor)
JeanMarie & Bella
Al & Sandra

Menu:

Roasted turkey (20lbs)

Mashed Potatoes

Dressing (Shirley's secret family recipe)

Gravy (made with fresh turkey stock!)

Balsamic glazed green beans with pearl onions

Salad with La Madeleine caesar dressing

Homemade cranberry sauce (Emeril's recipe with port, citrus and cinnamon)

Olives, pickles, deviled eggs

Fresh yeast rolls (made from scratch, thank you very much)

Pumpkin pie (Grandmother Folzenlogen's recipe)

Pineapple pudding (Grandmother Marlowe's recipe)

leftover birthday cake

Nanaimo bars (Canadian dessert - they are soooo good!)

We are very thankful for all the blessings God has bestowed upon us - our health, our family, our house and the ability to host the Thanksgiving celebration for our family.  Oh, and for JeanMarie, our official family photographer. :-)

Birthday Girl

Speaking of birthdays, mine was on Tuesday (the 22nd).  Brannon and my parents organized a family gathering at our house that evening - I finally got my chinese food fix!  We had an assortment of dishes from P.F. Chang's and Mom and Dad made a special trip to a Thai food place to order my favorite Thai dish - pad thai.  Dad picked up an Italian creme cake from Central Market (yum!) and Brannon opened a bottle of Schramsburg to celebrate.  It was quite a party!  The list of gifts received included a pancake pen, Star Wars pancake molds, a "how to make tamales" class at Sur La Table, gift certificates to REI (for winter weather gear since we are going to Canada with the kids in February), and three special Christmas ornaments picked out just for me by Madeleine and James (they picked for Charlotte, who had little to say on the matter).  I ate WAY too much cake, but it was a good day!

Surprise 70th Birthday Party

This past Sunday the family threw a birthday party for Mom.  Somehow, we actually managed to surprise her!  Dad had arranged for one of Mom's friends to organize a card game that afternoon to get her out of the house so we would have time to setup for the party.  JeanMarie, Dad, John and Tiffany cleared out the cottage and set up tables and chairs in the main rooms and the garage.  Lawren Dykema did the table centerpieces and I ordered the food and coordinated delivery of the food and drinks.  When Mom was on her way back from the main building, all of the family and friends went to the garage and waited.  When she opened the garage door, we all yelled "SURPRISE!"  She was totally shocked!  We had a wonderful dinner with over 40 people and hopefully Mom realized how many people she has in her life that truly love her.

These are just a few of pictures.  Here is a link to the rest of them:

https://picasaweb.google.com/112508138502431717293/DianeSBday?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIHG_bXNoumkygE&feat=directlink

Dinosaur Valley State Park

This past weekend we took the rPod (our tiny little travel trailer) out to Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose, TX.  The weather was perfect and we got to do a lot of exploring, climbing, and generally just hanging out and playing outside.

 Just behind our campsite was the Paluxy River.  You had to climb down the ravine to get to the water, so James and Madeleine got to work on their climbing skills.

 Not far down the river were several dinosaur footprints in the riverbed.  Brannon explained to Madeleine how to look at the footprints and tell if the dinosaur walked on two feet or four feet.

 We also took a trip to Dinosaur Word, located just down the road from the entrance to the state park.  There they have over 150 life sized replicas of various dinosaurs.  We started the hike around the park by reading all about each of the dinosaurs.  By about half way through, James declared: "Mommy, can you just read the name and keep walking?"

 Included in your price of admission to Dinosaur Word is a chance to dig for fossils - you get to keep your favorite three as souvenirs.  Madeleine found an ammonite and several shark's teeth.  James kept a sea urchin and some shark's teeth as well.  Charlotte just liked playing in the sand.

And no camping trip would be complete without playing in the water! They spent literally hours splashing around and creating games with the rocks and whatever else they could find.  Luckily I had remembered to pack an extra set of clean clothes.  :-)

The Past Week

So I just realized that I haven't posted an update in a week. Yikes! Let me try to explain why...

Friday: we went to dinner and to the theater to see To Kill A Mockingbird with our good friends Al and Sandra. They had been staying with us since Tuesday and this was our first "adults only" outing. Thank you cousin Rita for watching the kids! We ate at our new favorite upscale restaurant, Hibiscus. The food there is amazing and if you are ever there, be sure to get a Basil Gimlet cocktail.

Saturday: we hosted a party at our house in honor of a new scholarship program at the University of Dallas. The president of the University, several faculty and University staff members, alumni and friends were all there. Thanks to Mom and Dad, we were able to raise enough money to send several students to Rome for their spring semester. Without this help, they would not have been able to go. Thank you to Shirley and William for taking the kids to their house for a sleepover while we partied the night away at our house!

Sunday: we attended two birthday parties - a luncheon for Shirley at Bonnie Ruth's in Allen and a dinner for Christian Brady at Adventure Playcare in Highland Village (near Flower Mound/Lewisville). The kids caught a short nap in the car between parties.

Monday: the kids had their first tennis lesson (finally!) with Coach Betty Sue. We have has to cancel the past three lessons due to weather, but hopefully we will be able to make them up in the coming weeks if the nice weather continues. The sessions are small group lessons with several friends from school. Both kids seemed to really enjoy it and they both got lots of exercise (which really is the whole point of tennis for us...).

Tuesday: in the morning I had a St Anne's meeting (I made a sweet cream cheese and cinnamon roll dish) and that evening we hosted an "end of season" party for James's soccer team at our house. The dinner was pot luck - I made smoked brisket for the adults and hot dogs for the kids and our teammates brought salad, biscuits, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and dessert. I'd say there were about 16 kids (the team plus siblings) and 16 adults. It was a full house, but everyone seemed to have a good time. And the kids were very excited to finally receive their trophies!

So now you can see why I haven't posted an update in a while... I am going to try to do better this coming week, but it looks like it is going to be busy as well! At least I'll have something to write about, right?

This is what happens when your kids figure out how to record a video on your iPhone

Cousins at the Lakehouse

Brannon was out of town on his "guys' trip" this past weekend so I took the kids and their cousins Emily and Bethany to the Lakehouse for an overnight stay. They played inside, they played outside, and then back inside again. They ran up and down the long driveway just to feel the joy of running and yelling at the top of their lungs. We finished the day with a round of s'mores. Everyone was blissfully exhausted and ready to schedule the next cousin sleepover!

Legoland Discovery Center

Today was the kids' first trip to Legoland in Grapevine Mills Mall... they had a blast!  We spent hours there building towers just to knock them down, building cars to race down the various tracks, riding the rides and watching the Lego shows.  We met some friends there so we skipped the official tour, but the kids had so much fun I upgraded to a season pass so we can catch the tour next time.

Quotes from James

So James said a couple of things today that just made me laugh out loud...

This morning we were riding in the car and some catchy music came on the radio.  I started snapping my fingers along to the music and Madeleine tried snapping along as well.  She has been working on getting better at snapping and had one good one to which she exclaimed: "Mommy, I did it! I snapped!"  Meanwhile, James has been trying to get his fingers to make the noise, without any success.  Frustrated, he proclaimed: "Awww! I can't snap!  I need to go to snap school!"

Then later in the day, we were riding in the car (do you see a theme to my day?) and listening to some kids sing-a-long music.  The song "Patty-cake, patty-cake baker's man, make me a cake as fast as you can..." was playing.  We got to "... and mark it with a "B" and put it in the oven for baby and me!" to which James remarked: "What? The cake is supposed to be for the whole family!  He should have said "for the whole family.""  I guess he really has been listening to all our talk about sharing!

Rub-a-Dub-Dub...

.... three kids in the tub!  Stinking cute kids if you ask me!  And yes, this is how they normally take a bath - it is an assembly line of scrubbing, washing hair, rinsing, drying, clothing, brushing teeth, reading books, saying prayers, tucking into bed and kissing goodnight.  Whew, just writing that sentence made me tired!

James' Soccer Career

James has his last soccer game this coming Saturday and I have to tell you how far he has come since the start of the season... The first few "games" were really rough - the kids have no idea what they are doing, they just know to kick the ball.  Where to kick it and how long they should continue kicking it are advanced concepts at this age.  James' team plays through the YMCA and although his team is all three year olds, the other teams have players as old as five on them.  There is a HUGE difference in soccer skills between a three year old and a five year old, so some of our games have been very one-sided (as in the other team scored goal after goal while we struggled to just kick the ball in the right direction).  At first James would cry every time the other team scored and then he started giving up entirely, refusing to go back into the game since his team couldn't win.  So Brannon practiced and practiced with him, trying very hard to make the game more about having fun than actually winning.  Then one day James actually helped score a goal... he was so proud of himself!  The next two games he also scored a goal.  And last Saturday he was on fire - he scored five goals! It helped that the other team was also a young one and we were fairly evenly matched (finally!).  He played almost the entire game and we haven't seen any tears on the field in a long time.  I am so proud of him for persevering and learning to overcome his frustrations!

Halloween Night

Our spooktacular night started with a casual neighborhood party hosted by one of our neighbors.  Quite a few families contributed to the spread - our host made Witches Hats (crostini with olive spread), Mummy Dogs (hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls), Pumpkin Puffs (cheese balls that looked like pumpkins) and Funny Mouths (two apple slices with marshmallow teeth in between).  I made Deviled Eyeballs and Witches Brew punch.  The deserts included candied apples, cookies and Halloween trail mix.

Of course the kids were more interested in chasing after each other in their costumes than actually really eating anything.  We finally wrangled them all in for a group photo.

Mom and Dad came over to help with the treat distribution while Brannon and I helped Madeleine and James trick-or-treat.  Actually, Madeleine joined a group of girls from the neighborhood and literally ran from house to house for over four blocks.  James couldn't keep up with that pace and fell back with Brannon, eventually becoming so worn out that Brannon had to carry him home.  Needless to say, both candy baskets were filled to the brim.

This year we started a new tradition: the Candy Fairy came for a visit to trade a toy for any candy that Madeleine and James were willing to give away.  The more candy they were willing to give to the Candy Fairy, the larger the toy.  A substantial amount of candy left the house this way - Madeleine is enjoying her new crayon creator and James has a new Star Wars light saber.

Now it is time to take the Halloween decorations down.  James has suggested that we leave them up so we'll be ready for next year.  Each time I mention putting the decorations away, James bursts into tears and Madeleine begs for me not to do it.  I guess they enjoyed it!

M's Halloween Class Photo