Katie's Birthday Party

As I mentioned, I'm a little behind on posts.  Katie celebrated her 5th birthday on January 24th.  Hard to believe she is 5 already! 

We had a family party for her.  Mom, Dick, and Becky came over, and Brittany's boyfriend was here.  We had dinner, which was yummy...homemade ravioli, flower shaped noodles, eggplant parmasean, salad, and garlic bread. 

After dinner, Mom read stories to the girls, while we did dishes and got ready for the rest of the party.  All of them decided to wear party dresses.  I have such girly girls!

Then came presents.  (Katie loves dresses and skirts...wears them almost every day, in fact.)  So I'm sure she was hoping that's what was in her packages! 

Emma and Abby "helped" Katie quite a bit.  They handed her the presents and kept track of the cards.  They actually were very helpful, and genuinely happy for Katie's day. 

After sending everyone upstairs for pajamas, it was time to play with the favorite present:

Abby is teaching Katie how to play with her new computer, which my grandmother sent her.  It was a huge hit, not only with Katie, but with everyone else too.

Even Maddie!  And she was having such a tantrum over not being allowed to play with Katie's present, that Brittany got out her computer for Maddie to play with!  (No, she's not at all spoiled!)

Next was cake time:

Katie's ornament series features gingerbread houses.  You can put a light bulb in the bottom, adn they light up, and are really cute.  So, Katie's cake usually features lots of extra candy!




The birthday girl with her cake.



I wonder what she wished for!

And so we enter another year with our Katie.  Next stop, kindergarten!  And believe me, she can't wait!



100 Days of School!

I'm a little behind on posting events of our family the last month or so, so I'm trying to catch up.

On January 21, Abby and Emma celebrated 100 days of school.  They each had to make a paper bag vest with 100 things on it as homework.  My poor children are blessed/cursed with a mother who's always trying to think of things that are different from what anyone else might too.

While Emma was in Southern California with Don, Abby and I got started on her vest.  The first step was a spelling test, to see how many words she knew how to spell.  (Can you see where this is going?)  She was able to spell a whopping 110 words!  She told me, in no uncertain terms, that she didn't want to write 100 words on her vest.  So, we compromised on 50:

She did a great job, and selected which words made "the cut".
She also used her markeres in a pattern.

That left us with an empty front, and a deficit of 50 objects.  So, we decided to tint butterfly pasta with food coloring.  Abby used them to make a picture on the front, which she detailed with markers:


It's a little hard to tell in this picture, but she has grass, flowers,
a sun, birds, and butterflies.  Ignore her facial expression, apparently,
I exasperate her!

 So, of course, my desire to have my children be originals was thwarted as soon as Emma got home and saw Abby's vest.  She decided to use the same ideas.  Sigh.  Emma's spelling test resulted in her being able to spell 105 words, and she chose which words to use on her vest.

Emma chose to use only a red marker for her words.

This is the front of Emma's vest, using her colored pasta:

Her pasta is in more of a pattern, and she drew spots on the red noodles for ladybugs!

Both girls together.  Apparently, Abby wasn't in the mood to pose for me that day.

When I picked the girls up from school, all the teachers told me that in their years of doing this project, they'd never had anyone use spelling words before, so at least I hit that one!

After school, I decided we needed a special "100th day" dessert.  So, using Alton Brown's recipes, we made 100 day doughnuts.  I made some in the shape of 1's, and some 0's.  The 1's were glazed with a plain glaze, and the 0's were glazed in either chocolate or maple glaze.  We made 9 sets:  one for each of us, and one for the kindergarten teacher.

That left us with the holes, and with plenty of leftover dough.  We made some regular doughnut holes, and some "Maddie" doughnut holes, and rolled them in granulated sugar.

That still left us with leftover dough.  What to do with it?  Then, it hit me!  I made circle doughnuts, stuffed them with vanilla pudding, and glazed them with chocolate.  Here is a picture of the results:

And here is what our dining room table looked like that night:

The girls asked me to make up a sampler plate for their teacher, who told me she'd never had homemade doughnuts before.  I thought that was very sad for her, but on thinking about it, I guess she is more the norm than we are.  Probably most people don't make homemade doughnuts.  There are no doughnut shops in Brentwood; a couple of bagel shops carry a small selection, and you can get them at our local grocery store, but there are no specialty shops.  Brittany suggested that we start one.  Hmmmm......

Gnocchi!

Growing up, gnocchi was not one of my favorite foods:  gluey, heavy, little lumps of dough...yuck!  Then I married into a family where gnocchi seems to be a family favorite.  Sigh.  In the interest of keeping everyone happy at the dinner table, at least occasionally, I found a recipe and learned to make them.  Lo and behold, that recipe I LOVED!  So now, on occasion, the kids and I make a giant batch of gnocchi and freeze some.

A while back, Don decided to surprise me and make a batch of gnocchi.  In the end, I think he used a full ten pound bag of potatoes, so we had lots for the freezer, which is one of my favorite things.  Don and I make these completely differently.....


...he boils his potatoes, I bake mine.



Draining...

...and peeling the potatoes.

Mine contain potatoes, eggs, cheese, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.  His contain potatoes, egg, and....

...flour.  That's it.

I cut mine and roll them on a fork to give them the distinctive ridges.  He...

...cuts them and pushes them wtih his thumb.

We both try to let the kids help.

And we both end up with trays of yumminess!

I think, on this day, he wound up with enough gnocchi for 5 dinners or so.  I love that!  Having things on hand for those days when life gets in the way of cooking dinner is priceless in this family.  And even though our recipes and methods are totally different, having him take the initiative to have a "gnocchi day" with the kids goes really, really far towards bridging the gap. 

Even Maddie got to be at the table "helping"!

And any smart woman will tell you, if your husband decides to surprise you and cook dinner, only open your mouth to put in more food!  (And Don is a good cook, too!)

Our first Daisy Scout Meeting!

Among the things that are keeping me ridiculously busy these days is our brand new Daisy Girl Scout troop. Daisies are the youngest girl scouts- kindergartners and first graders.  Our troop is only kindergartners, and we have only 5 girls right now.  I've mentioned this troop before, but between one thing and another, it has taken us a long time to get off the ground.

We actually had our first troop meeting on February 5th, and it went very well!

Here are my little Daisies:

Emma

Abby

I really needed to get this troop moving, so we could take advantage of the Girl Scout Cookie sale.  That's right, it's cookie season!  From February 11 to March 27, Abby and Emma are selling Girl Scout cookies.  Hooray!  (No big sales pitch, here, I promise.  However, I do have all of your favorites available!)  This is a picture of the stock of cookies left AFTER the other 3 girls picked up their cookies:

Doesn't look too bad, does it?  The week before, I had 41 cases of cookies stacked in our entry.  I wish I could show you a picture of that!  I ordered enough for each girl to have 5 assorted cases of cookies, with 3 extra girls' worth left over.  I think we may get another girl or two in the near future, and I wanted to be ready.  Plus, this will keep me from having to run to the Cookie Cupboard quite as often.

Anyway, back to our first meeting.  I spent the better part of the afternoon making this:

We are holding our meetings in one of the preschool rooms at our church, and are unable to have a permanent bulletin board, so I made a portable one.  The space underneath the colorful letters is reserved for our craft project at our next meeting, so I will be sure to post a picture when it is full.  Here are the other components of the board:

One of the first things the girls learn is the Girl Scout Promise.  This is the craft we did at our meeting, to help the girls learn it.  I figured if they were hung up in a strategic spot, they could learn it while they were eating breakfast, brushing teeth, etc.  I hung one on the refrigerator, and Abby and Emma seem to know it already!

At this age, the girls don't earn badges, they earn Daisy petals.  They earn the center of the flower when they know the Girl Scout Promise.  I made a spot on our board to track their progress:

This is a black and white, 200% enlargment of the patches they will earn.  As every girl in the troop completes a petal, we will replace the black and white image with a copy of the colored image.  As I said, the center is for the Promise.  Each petal is a different color, and corresonds to a different aspect of the Girl Scout Law.

Here is the Girl Scout Law, with the words printed in the colors of their corresponding petals:

The girls will get to choose which petal to work on next.  It would be nice if they chose according to the words, but I have a feeling they will choose based on their favorite colors!

Since I've never been a Girl Scout myself, and neither has my co-leader (or, I think, any of the other parents!), I've made a section called "Did You Know?"  I will be putting up facts about Juliette Gordon Low, the woman who founded Girl Scouts in 1912.  Although the girls need to learn about her too, I really like this part for my own knowledge. (As a girl, Juliette's nickname was Daisy, and that is why the little girls are called Daisy Scouts.  Do you feel enlightened?)

We're also going to have a "Song of the Week".  This is the song I thought I was going to teach them at the last meeting, but I chickened out.  Instead, we learned "Make New Friends".  But, Abby, Emma and I have been practicing this one for next time.

If there are any current or former Girl Scouts reading this, or any current or former leaders, I could sure use some ideas!  Email them to  me, leave a comment on this post, or otherwise contact me.  It won't be long before the girls know more than I do!

Well, It SEEMED like a good idea!

The last week of January, I got a new knitting magazine in the mail.  As I always do, I sat down right away and marked any projects that caught my eye.  Frequently, I mark projects, then get sidetracked, or come to my senses, or otherwise change my mind.  This time was different.  I found this:

from the March 2011 issue of Creative Knitting,
designed by Sara Louise Harper

I instantly thought this outfit would be so cute for each of the little girls, in their "signature colors" for Easter.  After talking to Don, I ordered the yarn.  Not the exact yarn called for, but a more affordable option.  Then I set out to finish a few more WIPs (works in progress), to "clear the decks" for my new purchases.  (Yep, so much for the New Year's Goal!)  And then, The Box arrived.  It had to have been the biggest box I've ever received from JoAnn.com.  I unpacked the yarn:

I guess I should have expected it, but some how, 5 balls of blue, 5 of pink, 5 of purple, 4 of yellow, 11 of cream and 1 of green sounded like a lot less in my head.  Unpacking that box, I felt totally overwhelmed.  What had I gotten into?  And I stretched the budget to buy it; I was committed now, or the girls wouldn't have Easter dresses. 
That night, I got started on Katie's dress.  She gets the blue, of course.  This is the beginning:

Ten rows of cream colored 2x2 rib, and the beginning row of the blue color.  So far, so good.  I think I can do this.  After getting to this point, I decided that I'm not really skilled enough to knit separate pieces of a dress at different times, and have them come out exactly the same length.  So, I cast on the back piece at the same time.  This means I was knitting 2 different pieces, on the same needle, with 2 balls of yarn.  Are you with me so far?  The first 17 inches were easy:  identical directions.  The hardest part was keeping the yarn from tangling, which still wasn't bad.  Time to cast off for armholes and neckline.  Different for each pieces, but still pretty easy.  Time too finish the arms.  This is a sleeveless dress, so it was really just armholes.  Now, I was knitting 2 pieces, on one needle, from 4 balls of yarn.  A little more challenging!  Just about the time I was thinking the twisted yarn was going to win, I discovered I was done!  Yay me!  I sat down that night and seamed the two pieces, which was a first for me.  Then, I had to pick up and knit the contrasting ribbing for the neck and sleeves, and presto, I was done, except for the embroidered details.

Yay!  And it fits her!!  Double Yay!  From the time I unpacked the yarn until I took my last stitch was only 8 days, and 2 of those days I never picked it up at all, so I'm thinking that this is very doable!  Especially since Easter is late this year.  My plan is to knit the 4 dresses, then the 4 sweaters, then do the little details.  If there is time and yarn left over, I will make them little purses too.  And yesterday, Emma asked if I could knit them hair bows.  I feel like it's all possible!

Yesterday afternoon, I started Emma's dress, but modified the pattern.  Instead of knitting 2 separate pieces and seaming them later, I joined the pieces to knit in the round.  Not only is knitting faster for me than purling (which is eliminated by doing this), I won't have to do the seaming either.  This is how far I got last night:

Almost to the halfway mark.  Not bad for about 3 hours of knititng!  I will definitely keep you posted!

Homemade Pasta, Brittany style

After our homemade ravioli day, we had some extra pasta dough left, so Brittany agreed to roll it and make fettucine with it.  She agreed to let me take pictures, so long as I didn't show her face, so here she is!

Rolling the dough.



As usual, there's never a shortage of people waiting to help!



Cutting the noodles.



Emma has a turn with the pasta machine.



Sprinkling the noodles with flour, so they won't stick.



Separating the noodles.






Look at those fingers fly!



Rolling the noodles into "nests".

Ready for drying!

I love having children that can function in the kitchen!  Such a nice treat to be cooked for once in a while!