Project Day - Take 1

Every Wednesday my sisters, mom and I spend the afternoon going to lunch and hanging out.  This "hanging out" usually involves the mall and spending ugly amounts of money on things we don't need (my latest weakness: kids clothes).  In an effort to control this spending before the husbands rally together in protest of sister day, I created "project day."

Here is the idea:  we all meet at my house, we each take an assignment for lunch and we bring a project that we need to work on.

Here is what we accomplished:

Erin made an acrylic scrapbook and Cyd painted a metal garland (no pictures - won't happen again) 

Mom made necklaces for each of us girls:

I made a flower garland.  It is a great project for all the scraps you have around the house.  

Want one?  Here is the link

And Ella painted this:

Here is what we ate:

Warm Bread

Chicken and Brown Rice Salad

Dressing:

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 T. Dijon mustard

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1/2 t. each salt and pepper

1/4 t. sugar

Salad:

1 cup whole grain brown rice

4 cups chicken broth

1/2 lemon, juiced

2 whole chicken breasts, cooked and cubed

1 bunch green onions, minced

6 to 8 ounces snow peas, ends trimmed and cut into thirds

2 ripe avocados, chopped

1/2 cup pecan pieces or slivered almonds, toasted

Combine the rice, chicken broth and lemon juice in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat.  Simmer, covered for one hour, or until rice is tender.  Drain off liquid, if any is left.

Add the green onions, snow peas and dressing to the rice.  Chill for two hours or more.  Add avocados and toasted nuts just before serving.

 

Strawberry Shortcake for dessert

Girls ate, babies played. It was awesome!

Conversations

8:02 am

Call from the school:

Zach:  Mom, my planner and my homework folder are not in my backpack.

Me:  Zach, I watched you put them in there this morning before you left.

Zach:  They are not there.  Could you look outside to see if they fell out.

Me:  I watched you walk to the bus stop.  I promise they did not fall out.  Did you take them out on the bus?

Zach:  No.  I have looked everywhere.  They have to be outside . . . Oh, wait.  Ya, I am stupid.  Here they are.

Me:  Where were they?

Zach:  In my backpack.  I'm really stupid.  See ya, mom.

12:47 pm

Ella:  Mom, why do you do stuff you do?

Me:  What do you mean.  What stuff do I do?

Ella:  Stuff that wastes time.

5:14 pm

Grant:  (after staring at me for a moment)  Wow, mom.  You are really getting old.

But I did find these little dinosaur replicas made from pipecleaners all over the house as a "mom present" for me.  That makes it all better.

Colors in Quechee

I have a horrible case of Spring Fever.  Today is one of those days where it starts to get a little warmer, I get used to the nice weather, but I know more snow is around the corner.

I have been thinking back to the trip to New Hampshire Ella, my mom and I took last June.  We went to stay at my 

long lost brother, Brett's house. 

Brett is the world's most fun person to travel with.  

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to go on trips with Brett.

While we were there, we took a day and went to the balloon festival in Quechee, Vermont.  You show up, find a place on the grass among the many, many balloons being prepared for flight.  

Notice the boy poses (funny faces) and the girl poses (fancy, fancy)

While we waited, the kids ran around inside a partially inflated balloon.

The balloons are filled with hot air all around you.  Some flew so close over head we could touch the bottoms of the baskets.

We laid on the grass until the last balloon was out of sight.  The Quechee balloon festival is something everyone should see.

Self Portraits of 6-year olds

We had Ella's 6th birthday recently and her first birthday party with friends.  Because this was such a big deal to her, she changed her theme every day, from princess to fairy to "cooker."  Finally, this is what we came up with.

I bought a bunch of tank tops at Target and skin colored acrylic paints.  I cut a potato and stamped a "face" for each girl on the tank tops the night before.  The next day, the girls used fabric markers and drew self portraits on one face on each shirt - assembly line style.

Some drew two dot eyes, line mouth and quick squiggly hair (Ella) while some drew bow details and glasses (Molly).  In the end, each girl got to take home a shirt with all their friends' self portraits.  It has been really funny to see these shirts on Ella's friends at the movies, Chick-fil-a and Target.  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my angel!

100 Days

The kids with cousin Trey

Ella's responses to her "100 Day" questions:

I wish I had 100 "prens" (presents).

I wouldn't want 100 "fir" (fire).

I can eat 100 "rasi" (raisins), but

I could never eat 100 "cucaks" (cupcakes.

If I had $100, I would "prifet jet" (buy a private jet).

When I am 100 years old I will "bi a wilher" (buy a wheelcheer).

Here is the plan:  

We find the biggest hill possible, drive the kids up on the snowmobiles, let them sled down, do it again.  Fun day at the cabin.

Here is what really happened:

I get stuck at the bottom of the hill.  Cory gets stuck at the top of the hill.  I hike up the hill to help dig him out.

Zach loses his sled at the top of the hill and has to hike down and retrieve it.  

Grant cruises down the hill sideways.

Ella crashes mid-hill, rolls head over heels three times and yells, "Dad, you turned me into a snowball!"

I drove Cory to the top so he could snowboard down.  I almost ran into that patch of trees at the top.

The kids made snow angels and found "ice dinosaur bones."  After several runs, we made our way back to the cabin for warm pasta and bread.

We are just starting up our blog. For now here are some pictures.