Sewing class #2

Kate and Sarah went to their sewing class again on Monday night. This time, they made their pajama pants. They came home so excited! I just wanted to share.

Just a few pictures

Last night, we were taking some pictures. I thought I would share a few. Hayden had a little mishap with a friends dog yesterday. They had been playing and she was pawing at him trying to get him to play with her again. Since she is so big, her paw is at face level for him. He looks much better today.

Sew much Fun!

Emma and Sarah busy on their pillow cases.

Sarah hard at work.

Kate is concentrating.

Kate's pillow case

Sarah's pillow case

Okay, there are many things I can teach my children, but I decided that sewing was not one of them. I learned how to sew in 4-H when I was about 8 years old. I had somebody else teach me and I loved it so much that I started making doll clothes and then later in Junior High, I made some of my own clothes (mostly mini skirts and shorts). I loved going to fabric shops and choosing just a yard to make something. Learning how to sew was probably one of the most valuable things I ever learned. I thought about teaching the girls and had asked them if they were interested, but they didn't really care to learn. Last month, in the local paper, I found an article about a sewing class for kids that was two nights, two hours each and they would make a pillow case and pajama pants. The cost was relatively inexpensive, so I asked if they were interested. This time, they actually acted excited about learning to sew. Last Monday was their first class at Sew In Style in BeaverCreek. They had sew much fun! Sarah's friend Emma was able to go also. As soon as we got home, Kate and Sarah both put their pillow cases on their pillows. The next morning, they both commented about how well they slept. I thought that was so funny. They are talking about making pillow cases for their friends for Christmas.

They found out about a sleepover in January that they really want to go to. They will go to the shop at 4:30 on Friday and stay until the next morning. They will get to make some fun sleepover items and their choice of American girl doll clothes or Build-a-bear workshop clothes. They will have dinner and breakfast provided. I signed them up this week and they are thrilled. They have already been talking about it. If you are looking for a Christmas gift, neither of them have a sewing box. Also, there are monthly classes, and clubs that they would love to go to. It is great to have extra ideas.

Getting into the holiday spirit...

Sarah and Rachel decided to be funny and give Jingle Bells a new twist.

One man band

Hayden would sleep with the drumsticks if we'd let him. He wants to drum all day. We did have to tell him that he can only drum on cushions, carpeted floors and beds. Without limits, he would drum on everything! This tells you why he wants "Rock Band" for Christmas.

Elbow pads...

We had been talking about going to the basketball courts to practice bike riding. Hayden told me that he needed elbow and knee pads. I told him that if he practiced more, he would be more comfortable with riding his bike and wouldn't need elbow and knee pads. This was one of those 'I told you so' moments for Hayden. At the end of the video, Rachel rides up and says, "Um, Hayden, it's not going to look good on video if you're cryin'."

Two Wheeler!

Okay, he recovered! That is one thing about boys that if different. He is determind to get 'er done. He doesn't want to be defeated by a bike. He is able to see that if he keeps on, that he'll get it. Girls, on the other hand usually fall into a puddle of tears and cry all the way home that they are NEVER going to ride a bike again. Here is Hayden's excitement in riding his two wheeler... At the end, Rachel is being silly. She says that she wants to win 200 bucks so she can buy a pony.

Thanksgiving 2007

The spread...

Desserts-Yum!

Aminda's new dance team

Getting ready for Black Friday!

I love Thanksgiving! When we get together with family for the holidays, we have a huge number of people. This year was no different. We hosted three other families for Thanksgiving and had a total of 15 people. We split the cooking and it made it so easy. I love getting together. We had our neighbors Ward and Dawn and their girls over. (Yes, Ward made another fried turkey) We had our friend Linda and her girls over. Linda's husband is currently deployed, so we were here adopt-a-family for the holiday. We also had some other friends Spencer and Aminda over. John and Spencer worked together in Albuquerque and now Spencer is here for AFIT. We love making a big deal out of Thanksgiving. We were invited to go to Centerville to have dessert with some other military friends, so we carpooled all 15 of us over to their house and they had some other friends join them as well. We had such a great time! I think there were close to 30 people in their home. We had several different desserts to choose from. We looked at Black Friday ads, watched football and Aminda entertained the kids by teaching them dances. Aminda is a dancer for the Indiana Pacers Pacemates. The girls thought it was so cool to have a real dancer/cheerleader teaching them stuff.

Freezer day for the Holidays...

Well, we did it again. Eight recipes(six servings each) + Ten ladies + five hours = 480 servings We tried all new recipes this time. I'll share a few.

Praline Pull-Apart Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
6 pkgs. Biscuits

Topping:
½ cup chopped pecans
1 cup packed brown sugar
3 Tablespoons Cornstarch
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup butter or margarine melted

Directions:
Sprinkle pecans into bottom of 9x13 pan (or 2 8x8 pans). In bowl, combine: brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, vanilla and salt; sprinkle over pecans. Drizzle butter over top. Cut biscuits in fourths and place on top of mixture. Bake at 375* for 30 min., or until golden brown. Let cool for 1 minute and invert onto a serving platter.

Freezer option:
Coffee cakes may be frozen before baking and thawed for 24 hours in the refrigerator. Place in a cold oven; set oven to 375* and bake for 35-40 minutes or until browned.

Nutritional Information: for each 8x8 pan
1/12 pan= 5 pts., 212 cal
1/8 pan= 7 pts., 318 cal

Lasagna In A Bun
Ingredients:
6 (3oz) French style rolls 1 egg white
½ lb. ground turkey ½ cup 2% Mozzarella cheese (divided in ½)
½ cup diced onion 1/3 cup part-skim Ricotta cheese
1 (8oz) can tomato sauce 3 Tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon dried Italian seasoning

Directions:
Cut thin slices off tops of rolls. Hollow out centers, leaving ½-inch thick shells; set aside. Cook ground turkey until browned, stirring to crumble. Add onion, tomato sauce and salt. Cook over low heat for 5 min. stirring frequently.
Combine egg white, 1/4cup mozzarella cheese and remaining ingredients. Spoon ¼ cup meat mixture into bottom of each roll; top with cheese mixture. Layer another ¼ cup meat mixture, then sprinkle each sandwich with extra mozzarella cheese. Replace tops of rolls and wrap each sandwich in foil. Bake at 400* for 20-25 minutes.

Freezer Instructions:
Freeze after assembling and before baking. Just thaw 24 hours before serving and bake as directed. In a 400* oven for 20-25 minutes.

Nutritional Information: per sandwich
6points
272 cal

Pecan Pie
1 9-inch frozen pie crust
2 cups pecan pieces
½ cup corn syrup
1 cup dark brown sugar-packed
½ cup nonfat egg substitute
¼ cup low-fat yogurt based spread or butter-melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup cocoa powder

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350*
2. Spread pecan pieces into bottom of pie crust. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, or mixer, mix together corn syrup, brown sugar, egg substitute, spread, vanilla, salt and cocoa powder.
4. Pour the mixture over the pecans.
5. Bake for 30 minutes

Freezing Instructions:
Assemble as directed above. Cover with plastic wrap and foil. Thaw at room temperature before baking in a preheated oven at 350* for 30 minutes.

Nutritional information:
1/8= 10 points & 470 cal.
1/12= 7 points & 313 cal.

Friday night is Pizza night...

We love Fridays at our house because it is pizza night. John and Hayden decided to help this past Friday, so I grabbed my camera to share the moment. Hayden loves to help cook. We got this apron and chef's hat at Circuit City with the purchase of Ratatouille.

Rachel's Princess Skirt

Rachel came down stairs the other day and told me that she had designed her own Princess skirt. This is it! Who knows, maybe she'll be a fashion designer when she grows up. I just thought I'd share this with you. It gives a little insight to Rachel's sense of humor and creativity.

Mary, Mary quite contrary, how do your brussel sprouts grow?

On trees,of course! Today, I went to Jungle Jim's (Trader Joe's on steroids)and discovered this in the produce section. I was actually looking for brussel sprouts, and this is what I found. We all love brussel sprouts, so boy was I excited to find that they grow on trees-like money. I had no idea that this is how brussel sprouts grew. Did you?

Wish list x 4

Okay, I thought it might be fun to show you what my kids want for Christmas. It is funny to see their differences. I'd be curious to know if any of their items are on your children's lists. The items on their lists are in no certain order.

Hayden- age 5

1. Rock Band xbox 360 game ($200 incase you are wondering...I think John has been telling him what to put on his wishlist)
2. Hot Wheels Rumblers Thunder playset
3. Guitar (at Target for $10) He reminds me every day since he saw it.
4. DS game: Jam sessions
5. Webkinz little kinz lion
6. idog spiderman ($35 everywhere except Sam's and it is $7.81; I probably should have bought this already, but I haven't.)
7. Playmobil pirate corsair ship
8. Little Tikes Aircade Wall Court (Even I think this is cool. It hooks to your door, you shoot the ball and it returns it to you)

Rachel- age 7 (I keep forgeting and saying she is 8 and she just says, "mom, I'm 7".)

1. Disney Camcorder
2. Spotz maker (yes, it makes spots...kind of like little discs of paper?)
3. B Chic Nail Studio (Because painting her nails is a huge deal!)
4. dog
5. fishe
6. mukey (monkey)
7. horse
8. turtle
9. owl
10. duck
11. frog

Note: #'s 4-11 are real animals! She is too funny, maybe we'll get her a tour of a vet clinic, or a day at the zoo as a zoo keeper. She watches Animal planet every chance she gets and loves learning about animals.

Sarah- age 10
Okay, this girl has her list organized by categories:

American Girl Stuff ( she does have Samantha and Nellie)
1. Molly's 1944 swimsuit
2. Pup tent
3. Molly's dog Bennett or Emily's dog Yank or Both
4. Samantha's book strap & supplies
5. Samantha's party treats
6. Samantha's victorian lemonade set
7. Nellie's Holiday outfit or Nellie's spring party dress
8. Kaya's food

DS Games and other stuff:
9. Imagine Fashion designers
10. Imagine master chef
11. idog or ifish
12. Hannah Montana Music Jam
13. Yoshi's Island
14. Animal Crossing

Notes by Sarah: I also would like any girl DS covers, girl clothes, webkinz and a littlest pet shop and any books

Added at a later date:
Other American Girl stuff:
-really want with a big arrow to the side> 2-in-1 ballerina set + book
-sweet treats
-Wheelchair for dolls

DONE***! (She really wrote everything just like this. Ironically, she didn't include what she has been asking us for. A new ipod nano.)

Kate- age 12
Okay, she keeps it short and sweet!

1. Hero's season 1 DVD
2. Digital camera -pink (She does have guidelines though, she wants a very thin pink digital camera. She does not want the big fat ones that don't fit in your pocket.)
3. im me (We don't allow her to text on her cell phone, so she wants this to be able to instant message her friends. We said why don't you just call them, or email them?"

That's all for now from Kate. She may resume her list at a later date. If she does, I'll update you.

Rachel's Poem

Bat's are cool thay
dot drol, Bat's flly
ate nite thay dot bite
bat's lived n threes thay dot snes
Bat's eet fes that is not a ly

Translation:
Bat's are cool, they
don't drool, Bat's fly
at night they don't bite
bat's live in trees they don't sneeze
Bat's eat flys that is not a lie.

We're The Kids of The Future

Hayden is working on his air guitar! He has been playing since he was about 2. We did have a real guitar for him for a while, but he was seen regularly smashing it over his head like a rock star. We have not replaced the real one, but he plays the air guitar all the time. Last night, he decided to rock to "We're The Kids of The Future" by the Jonas Brothers. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did...

PWOC Fall Focus October 2007

This past weekend, I experienced something I'd never done before. It was a PWOC (Protestant Women Of The Chapel) Fall Focus. This was a regional women's conference with about 500 women from Army Posts and Air Force Bases in the Southeast region. We took about 25 ladies from Wright Patterson Air Force Base, here in Ohio to Franklin, Tennessee. It was a 6 hour bus ride. I had never gone to Fall Focus before and it was a great experience.

I attended workshops throughout the weekend with topics like Preparing for the Bridegroom,marriage, being a better Bible study leader, preparing young hearts for Christ, mentoring and many more. I really learned a lot in just a few short days. I met some really great ladies and had fun getting to know some of the women from our group.

During the conference, we did create a bit of drama. We caught the carpet on fire in our prayer room and the hotel had to be evacuated. The fire department came... it was pretty funny. Some of our single ladies begged me to take a picture of this tall, dark, handsome fireman so they could have his picture. Thankfully nobody was hurt and we were able to finish the conference.

While we were there, Ronda's son,Toby,took us on a tour of the Franklin area. We saw a couple of homes of some Christian artists and then stopped at Sonic for a little snack. After that, we headed to Nashville for a quick stop. We had to be back for dinner, so we didn't have much time. We had a lot of fun!

On the way home, about an hour out of Franklin, we got a flat tire on our bus. Thankfully, we did not make the national news. I did, however, take pictures of the adventure. We were able to drive on the shoulder and get to the next exit where we stopped at a Cracker Barrel. I picked up a couple of my last few Christmas presents while we were waiting.

Harvest Party

Last week, our church had their annual harvest party. We went last year and our kids LOVED it. They have great games and fun prizes. They have food, bouncy castles, ball pits & a hay ride. It is done as an alternative to Halloween. During the evening, families are encouraged to participate in the treasure hunt. You are given clues at various games and then you have to search for a person that has an answer for you. Once you fill all your answers, it gives you the ultimate answer for the treasure hunt. All the clues lead you to the GOSPEL. At the end of the evening, they do door prizes and have prizes from local businesses to give away. Hayden, as you can see, was Spiderman. He and his friend Noah made plans to dress up the same that night. They were so excited when they saw each other. Rachel, well, she had a gymnastic suit on with a skirt over it and her cow'girl' boots. She likes to be creative. Sarah was a cheerleader. We invited several neighbors to come and a few of them did. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a great time.

Clifton Gorge II

The dinosaur head

Hayden and his daddy

Rock climbing prohibited. (Like we were going to try that.)

The water below.

Blue hole

Wild Mushrooms

We did it, we went back! We took 2 extra kids with us, so we had quite the parade. We hiked about 1 1/2 miles up and back. We had a great time exploring and being outdoors. We saw some amazing things on our hike, but we did not see the falls. We did find a sign that said the best time to see the falls is in the spring when the snow is melting and running off. So, we'll go again. We did see some mushrooms growing out of the botttom of a tree stump; that was pretty cool. We also saw a U shaped tree. Rachel saw a rock coming out of the side of the cliff that looked like a dinosaurs head. There was moss all over the rocks and colored leaves covered the path. It was a perfect day for hiking and everyone had a good time. After our hike, we took the kids over to Young's Dairy for ice cream. Yum! What a day...

Clifton Gorge

Audra, Dede and Becky

Colors of Fall

The water below

The trail...

The top of the Gorge

My friend Becky came out to Wright Patterson for a visit and we got to go to Clifton Gorge. Another one of Becky's friends, Dee Dee, lives here and joined us also. It was a beautiful day for a hike. The colors of fall were beautiful; the leaves are just starting to change color and fall off the trees. We just took a short hike, but had a great time. It was really good to see Becky and get to know Dee Dee.

Our family is planning to go to Clifton Gorge this weekend. The kids are very excited! I will take more pictures and post them. We were not able to see the falls, so we'll be sure to get over there this weekend.

The Jonas Brothers

I have to tell you about our plans to see Hannah Montana before I tell you about the Jonas Brothers. You probably don't know that Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers are coming to Columbus and Cincinnati in December and we were going to get tickets. Apparently, large families are not welcome at Hannah Montana concerts because there is a strict limit of 4 tickets per household. Our kids were very upset to hear this. So...

We got a phone call from the Jonas brothers about 2 weeks ago (of course it was a recording). They were calling to let us know that they were doing a FREE concert in New Albany, Ohio on September 30 for kids 16 and under. All you had to do was buy an adult ticket. We went on to Ticketmaster to find out more information and found that adult tickets were $15 each. The concert was a part of The New Albany Classic Family Day. This was a fund raiser for the Columbus Coalition against family violence and paired the Invitational Grand Prix with a FREE concert in a festival type atmosphere.

So, Ticketmaster and Hannah Montana can keep their 4 tickets for $25-200 each. We took our family to see the Jonas Brothers for $30. It was such a great deal, we even invited all our friends to go. All together, we had 13 people! We had such a great time. Although, we do think it will take about a week for our hearing to come back after listening to 1000's of screaming girls.

If you are reading this wondering who the Jonas Brothers are, well, they are #1 on Radio Disney, #1 on i-tunes and in the top 40. They are Kevin, Nick and Joe. I have been told by my 12 year old that Nick Jonas is the cute sensitive one. I'll let you see if you can tell... Let's see, when I was 12, my crush was on Kirk Cameron. Does that bring back any memories for you?