Chinese night

Bradley has been really interested in Chinese food for the past few months.  I have made fried rice for dinner a few times and everyone has enjoyed it, but he wanted to try more.  So when Ryan and I took him out on a date with us he chose to go to a Chinese buffet.  We had a good time trying different dishes and I was surprised at what he tried.  Here are a few things: crab legs, craw fish (it still had a head), shrimp, sushi, and some other stir fry type dishes.  The funny thing is he ate the entire meal with chop sticks, even the jello and sherbet.  He is in love with chop sticks and grabbed enough to take home for the whole family.
A few weeks before that we checked out a Chinese food cookbook for kids from the library.  I found a few recipes that looked tasty and decided to make some over the next few months.  So tonight I made fried rice, chicken lettuce wraps, and Bradley made fortune cookies.  The lettuce wraps were really good.  I almost felt like I was at PF Changs, almost.We had a great time trying something new and eating with our chop sticks Bradley brought home.  Here are a few pictures.

Andrew even tried his hand at speaking Chinese.  I think Ryan said he was saying hello.

Happy Birthday Krista!

Krista turned 11! She celebrated her special day with family and her friend Caelyn.  I let the birthday person pick what they want for breakfast and dinner to make their day a little more special.  For breakfast she wanted a sandwich with fried egg, bacon, and cheese.  For dinner she asked for empanadas (an Argentine meat filled pastry).  For dessert she asked for lemon kiss cake (a family favorite) and vanilla ice cream.  It was fun to watch her open presents, but my favorite part of the night was watching Andrew sing "Happy birthday".

Yellow Belt

Bradley has been taking Karate since October 2011.  We went to his awards ceremony to watch him receive his yellow belt.  Way to go Bradley!

 

You can tell which one is Bradley because he is the only one wearing white.

Bradley and his Sensei.

Tough guy in fighting stance.

Christmas 2011

I'm not going to do it. I won't give reasons for why it has been so long since I have written a post, nor will I promise to do better. So here goes.
Christmas 2011 was so fun. We enjoyed being together, going to church (Ryan even got to sit next to me for part of it), playing with new toys, eating yummy food, and having 4 missionaries over for dinner and to let them Skype with their families.  I love taking a picture of the kids lined up on the stairs in the morning, just like my Mom always did.  Thank you Mom for the cute and cozy PJs you made for us.

Here are pictures of what Santa got each child.  He did a great job this year. I know he is always so nervous when deciding on just the right present for each child.

Andrew and his trains.

Melissa and her pink sparkly Barbie bike.

Bradley with his Kynex roller coaster.

Amelia "fainted" when she saw her binoculars, bird watching book, and bird feeder stand.

Krista is excited about her hiking pack and sleeping bag.

We ate our Christmas oranges and Nonny's delicious cinnamon cake for breakfast.

This is the track that the missionaries put together with Andrew's Geo Trax.  They had a lot of fun playing with the kids' new toys.  We enjoyed having them with us on such a special and happy day.

Greer as we remember it...

I spent most of today making these collages of beautiful Greer Arizona. As I started it was storming here in Bennington, NE and the sights and sounds reminded me so much of the storms we have each Summer afternoon at the cabin.
This first collage was a mistake, but I decided to keep it because the hundreds of little pictures are like the hundreds of little memories I have made throughout my trips to the cabin.
I don't know yet what the extent of the damage is, but I do know that the flames have been close to the cabin. This is a text sent by my uncle “Just spoke with a friend from the Forest Service that was just there by Allen’s cabin. Cabins all standing but flames visible very close with crews spraying area down.” The Allen's cabin is next door to ours. So as of 10:30 this morning we still have a cabin. That gives me hope. What I think breaks my heart the most though it thinking about all of the beautiful forest that is burned.
My prayers are with all of those brave enough to fight this fire and those whose houses are still in the line of fire.

Bread Machine Bagels!

I put the ingredients in the bread machine last night and set the timer for it to be ready at 8am.
The bagels were ready to bake by 9:20 and ready to eat at 9:40.
I think they were gone by 9:50.

Finished product. YUM! I made 9 total: 2 plain, 3 everything, and 4 cinnamon sugar. They were all delicious, but I think plain and everything were the most popular. Amelia asked me if I could make them every Saturday night, because we usually have bagels Sunday morning. I chose them for Sundays because they are quick, yummy, and not very messy for a meal right before we head out the door to church. I don't think I can ever buy bagels again.

New Year's Eve

Just like last year we had a blast with our friends the Browns on New Year's Eve.  We had an appetizer, or snack dinner where we just have snack foods, let the kids eat what they want, and keep going back for more.  So here is a picture of the spread.  Yum, yum, yummy! (Except the olives, I didn't eat those!)

Here are the kids chowing down.

Clockwise starting at the top: Krista, Andrew, Emma, Melissa, Bradley, Ethan, Maeley, and Amelia


The kids had a blast riding scooters around in the basement for quite a while.  Then I got them cozy upstairs in our bed with a movie on so that we could rock it out with Rock Band.  I wish I had pictures of it, I know Nicole does so maybe I can get them.

I put Andrew to bed around 8 and the others stayed up until midnight.  Earlier in the day I made sure that they each understood that if they took a nap they could have a chance to stay up.  I was amazed to have 5 kids napping at once.  So about 11:55pm we turned off Rock Band and turned on the TV to watch the countdown and ball drop in NY City.  The kids thought it was gross to see us and everyone else kissing.  Then we got them all in bed.  Emma and Maeley spent the night, so all the girls slept in Melissa and Amelia's room.  Poor Bradley felt left out, but at least he had Andrew, right?  We played a little more Rock Band and went to bed around 3:30am.  When I went to check on the girls Amelia sat up and said she didn't feel well.  So Ryan took her bed into Krista's empty room and I got her a bowl.  Good thing I did because she threw up 3 or 4 times that night.  When I was up with her around 6:50 am I heard noises from the other girls.  They were all bouncing around after staying up past midnight and without the sun even rising yet.  So I told them all to go back to bed.  Emma and Maeley were so scared they didn't get out of bed until I went in and told them they could.  Cute girls.  Then everyone, except Ryan & Amelia, went to the Brown's house for AWESOME Belgian waffles with homemade coconut syrup.  Yum!  The left over waffles I brought Ryan he said were the best he'd had.  Good food, great friends, and wonderful memories!

Even more organizing, somebody stop me!

So I did some purging the other day and ended up with an empty shelf in the cabinet over my desk closest to the fridge.  I have been trying to figure out what to put there that isn't food or cooking stuff.  Then I had the idea (while trying to take that nap earlier) to put my cook books there that I don't use often.  I have the Joy of Cooking and my own notebook full of recipes that I use daily and the others I rarely use. So those ones went in that empty space which gave me more room to spread out some precariously stacked bake ware. Why don't I purge those rarely used cookbooks?  Honestly I don't know.  So anyway here are some before & after pics.
Before pictures of the cabinet over the microwave and to the left of it.

After pictures of those cabinets and the one to the right or the fridge.

So there you have it. And now you can sleep well because you are bored to death!