Snoopy, Come Home

Tonight, our kids are watching "Snoopy, Come Home." They loved the Thanksgiving special and now have decided that they are Charlie Brown fans. As I looked around at them I thought they were all sitting kind of funny and thought you may need to see it too!

Mattelin turns 8...at our house!

Mattelin is my niece. She loves to art of all kinds. She wanted to do crafts for her birthday. But...she was sick with a cold. But we still had a fun time. The kids made Christmas decorations, ate angel food cake cupcakes, and watched movies.

Blinca was gone but...now she's home.

Blinca was gone for almost a week. Melanie was heart sick. We made flyer's, called the micro chip people and listed her missing, and knocked on every door in our neighborhood. Melanie wasn't sleeping and we were all so very sad. Then one morning a man called with a number we didn't recognize. We almost didn't answer it, can you imagine. They had found Blinca under a car only blocks away. She wouldn't come out for two days. They were visiting family here and when they got in their car to leave Blinca jumped into their car. They took her home and treated her like a princess. They bought her a new caller, food, and kitten treats. Finally, they decided that she must belong to someone they drove back through our neighborhood and found a sign we had posted and called us. The picture above is of Melanie moments after Blinca came home.
As you can see she has fit right back into her roll.

How to Purify the Air Using Plants

I came across this on-line a bit ago and thought you may like this info. I love my house plants and have actually kept my plants alive for a year and a half now. I even have one that survived the move from Auburn.

How to Purify the Air Using Plants - wikiHow

Dancing at our house!

5 hours in the Kitchen

Today, after school I decided that it would be cool to make Swedish Polt. If you don't know what that is don't feel dumb it isn't a very common dish at all. You grid up potato's mix it with flour and salt. Then you pat it flat and put meat inside. We use salt pork, bacon, and hamburger. You take the potato flour mixture and wrap it around the meat making a ball. Then you boil it. The thing most people find strange is how we eat it. We serve it with butter and...jelly. Yep, jelly. To be more specific we like lingonberry preserves.

Today, I thought I would make enough to feed an army, literally. I used twenty pounds of potato's, two pounds of hamburger, a pound of bacon, a slab of salt pork, probably ten pounds of flour. The reason why it took so long is the meat grinder that I used on my kitchen aid isn't very powerful and it took forever to grind up the twenty pounds of tators. To top it off I forgot to send some home with my parents. We are going to have left overs for.....ever!

Snipits from the day

Bowls, Bowls, and more bowls.
Emma was cudling with the dog and I thought it would be a cute picture. When I went to take the picture I asked her to unplug her nose and this is what happened. Tears (she is a little tired). It was so funny that I couldn't not share it with you. Jake just had a bath the other day but he has some yucky smelling breath, ewh.
So I let her plug her nose for this picture.
These are the turkey's the kids made today. I love crafts that capture the kids, like with these hand prints. They are looking forward to next year seeing how much there hands will have grown. Oh, and those are my toes, hehe.

Graham Crappers

Yep, that is how my kids pronounce graham crackers, 'Graham Crappers'. I know I should correct them but it is so funny I haven't brought myself to bring attention to it yet. I am kind of waiting until Jason hears them say it so he can hear how funny it sounds.


I was so excited about making them for the first time I had everyone come look when I started to cut them out. Jason had the idea of writing their names on crackers. They are really good but don't remind me of graham crackers I buy in the store.

Tami I wanted to let you know that I finally made them off of the recipe from your blog.When I went to a homeschooling seminar recently I was told that there are free websites that make word searches out of customized lists. I found one this morning and entered the girls spelling words. They really liked it but I think I will try a few more sites. This one was hard to find words diagonally because of the extra space they had between rows. I am always looking for something to make learning more fun. Please feel free to let me know if you have any tips.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Grandpa Wakefield's birthday is today. On Saturday we went to their house to celebrate with them. For sometime I have noticed how the kids run in their house and go straight to their favorite toy or activity. The last couple of weeks have been a little rough with Buddy not taking naps. I didn't fully realize how tense I had become until I was able to sit and relax while the kids played and played and played. Megan picked up the camera at one point and started taking really beautiful pictures of the birds in their backyard.

Thank you Grandpa and Grandma for making a fun safe place for our kids to come to. We really appreciate you!

Playdough

Some of my earliest memories are playing playdough at the kitchen table. I have always loved playdough and making new creatures but I hate how much it costs and it irks me when the colors get mixed together. My friend Alison from church has been making playdough for the nursery for a long time. The kids have really enjoyed playing with it so I finally asked Alison for her recipe. She brought it to church yesterday and the girls and I made it this morning. We pulled out cookie cutters and our playdough toys.
Even the big girls are having a blast creating.
What is so cool about this recipe is that you can use coolaid for coloring and for scent. We used Lemon-Lime coolaid this morning. We are already planning our next colors and scents. I thought that you might want to try it as well so here is the recipe.

Playdough

1 cup of flour
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 cup of water
1/2 cup of salt
2 tsp of cream of tartar
food coloring or a package of coolaid

Mix all of the ingredients in a sauce pan. Heat, stiring constantly until a ball forms. Knead until smooth. (I cheated and used my Kitchen Aid Mixer)

This recipe felt like it took no time at all and was really easy!

Mom's Birthday Tea Party

Josie, my brother Jonathan's wife brought us to a tea room in Ridgefield to celebrate my Mom's birthday. I had my girls get dressed up. Emma has out grown all of her dress shoes so she wore her dress up shoes. :)




This picture is of our desert. The scones were hot out of the oven. My scone was shaped like an oak leaf with a maple glaze, super yummers.

Josie gives us a tour of Ridgefield's Wildlife Preserves Plankhouse

From Yesterday and Today

Buddy was out by 5:45 tonight. He decided in the last couple of weeks that he no longer needs a nap.

As you can see in the above picture he does need a nap. Look at Mel I think she agrees.
But then he sits down and reads a book and we all think, oh ain't he cute.


I couldn't find the dog after the kids gave him a bath. I went in Mel and Meg's room to talk with them and was startled to see Jake in Mel's bed. Then I went to my room and found he had dried off on my bed. I sure must love him because he is still alive.