This week's words

This week's words for spelling/language arts are:
Which
Whole
Without
Won
Won't

And here are the sentences that Giselle wrote today:
Which one is your favorite team?
The whole sky is dark and windy. It might rain today. Oh no!
I am without a mom or dad.
I won the prize at the game.
I won't go to the game.

this weekend? GONE!

Saturday started out cold and raining. It stayed that way for the entire Farmer's Market. I was a good mommy and brought a 1 quart thermos filled with homemade hot chocolate and some insulated cups for drinking out of while we worked at Finc Pura Vida's booth. I brought my travel mug with a piece of La Popular chocolate in it for making mocha out of the decaf coffee from Katz's Coffee. It probably never got much above 45 the whole day, even though it was supposed to be 62. Gayla brought some calf bones for sale as dog bones so I got some for our dog and got the heart for my sister's dog - we were going to see her on Sunday.

FINISHING THIS POST ON THURSDAY MORNING!

Sunday we got up at 6:30 AM and were on the road by 7:15 to go to a dog show in San Marcos. We had to get there by 8 to see the Staffordshire Terriers and the American Staffordshire Terriers show at 8. The were all beefier versions of our dog and we got to pet a few of them - they were soooo lovey and full of kisses.
I'll post more about the dog show later - got to help Giselle with school.

More Disney

After we got rained out of the park this afternoon we came home, broke out some Necco conversation hearts, large sized, and proceeded to start to watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I've actually never seen this movie before, strange since it came out when I was 5 years old. We stopped briefly for hot dogs & chili and have resumed the viewing. Gotta run, Joe's got friends coming over soon to watch a movie and I've got to get the kids to bed before then.

From the January issue of Real Simple

Chickpea Pasta with Almonds and Parmesan
(NOTE FROM NATALIE: all of my changes and notes are below the recipe)

1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
7 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Kosher salt
1 pound angel hair pasta
1 15.5-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1/4 cup unsalted roasted almonds, chopped
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the broth, red pepper, and 3/4 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil. Add the pasta and cook, stirring, until the broth is nearly absorbed and the pasta is al dente, about 6 minutes. Stir in the chickpeas and parsley. Divide among individual bowls and top with the almonds and Parmesan.

Yield: Makes 4 servings

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 652(22% from fat); FAT 14g (sat 1g); SUGAR 6g; PROTEIN 26g; CHOLESTEROL 8mg; SODIUM 782mg; FIBER 7g; CARBOHYDRATE 110g
Sara Quessenberry
Real Simple, JANUARY 2008


So, my changes were:
I used 2 HEAPING TBS of minced garlic
I added 1 tsp dried oregano
I added 1/4 tsp dried Italian Seasoning
I used 3 cups of vegetable broth and 4 cups chicken broth
I didn't use any red pepper flakes
I used 1 lb of whole wheat farfale pasta
I used a 25 oz can of garbanzo beans that after draining and kid snacking was just over 1 1/4 C
I used basil instead of parsley and chopped it fine
I didn't use any almonds
I used 1 cup of freshly grated Parmesan

I added the salt while cooking the garlic
I cooked the garlic for 5 min
I cooked the pasta for 9 min because at 6 min it was still too al dente
I poured off the remaining unabsorbed broth into a 2-Cup measuring cup so I could add it back in after I poured and stirred in the Parmesan cheese
It must have been good because both kids had seconds!
Joe did not have any since this is an Atkins unfriendly dish


AND I'm halfway through my February issue of Real Simple. They sent me the March issue yesterday but I'll have those read by next week and then I can start on all the unread issues of MS Living that have acumulated since September. I'm getting LOTS of reading done while the kids ride bikes every day!

Disappointed in HEB

So 'my' HEB has stopped carrying our favorite hot dogs (Oscar Mayer Natural (nitrate and nitrite free) Hot Dogs) and I'm NOT happy about it! I had to get Pederson's this week and I'm not enthused about the pork/beef ones - we tried them for the first time tonight with our homemade chili. Maybe the all beef ones will be better, I hope.

Birthday

Today is your birthday, we're so glad you came along!
Today is your birthday and that's why we'll sing this song!

check it out, it's in the Bible

find it all at www.bible.cc

Proverbs 26.11 - as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.
New American Standard Bible (©1995) Like a dog that returns to its vomit Is a fool who repeats his folly.
GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995) As a dog goes back to its vomit, so a fool repeats his stupidity.
King James Bible As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
American Standard Version As a dog that returneth to his vomit,'so is a fool that repeateth his folly.
Bible in Basic English Like a dog going back to the food which he has not been able to keep down, is the foolish man doing his foolish acts over again.


Romans 13:9 For this, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." (NASB ©1995)

I have no name for this one

It's 82 in the sun here, the kids are out playing on the driveway in the runoff from the sprinkler - it's been so dry this winter that I'm having to water to keep the grass alive. The Market was good and while there I picked up two birthday gifts for myself under Joe's orders - a wonderful pair of sterling silver earrings (I adore the ones I got a Christmas so much that I had to get another dangly pair), and a pink fresh-water pearl necklace that has a big pink quartz pendant on it. It's double strung and with the extender that I had Mae put on it, it hangs at the perfect length. With the small teardrop shaped pearl that came off of the first extender Mae made a cute little necklace that we'll give to Giselle for her birthday. Secret (I'm having Mae make a braclet for the little girl for her birthday that matches my necklace) Don't tell!!

Gayla had TWO QUARTS OF MILK for me today!!!!!!!!!!!! And two dozen eggs! I can eat cereal again (if I want to)!

The kids have a friend over and it sounds like they are having WAY too much fun out there so I'm gonna run.

screaming balloons

Giselle is hard at work on school so that we can get to the park ASAP. Paul is running around blowing up and then releasing those super long screaming balloons. He loves it so much, it's so funny to watch! Fortunately the dog was already outside since she is so afraid of balllons that it's sad.

A Day of Nothing

It was a perfectly nice day today so I cancelled school and stayed in bed all day while the kids watched TiVo. I'm not sick nor am I pms-ing, I just felt like staying in bed because I could. I didn't get out of bed until 3:35 pm. I was a bit light headed from not eating since last night's dinner so I ate a baby banana, drank some green juice and I'm now eating Kettle brand Salt & Pepper potato chips.
Enough chips!
It's supposed to be sunny and 76 degrees for Park Day tomorrow so we'll be there all day.

wrapping up first grade

We're just about finished with all of the first grade books and have been tip-toeing into the second grade ones. The next two weeks will finish it all off and then we'll dive into 2nd grade full bore. Not to say that we'll load on the work, I don't want to overwhelm her, but we'll be doing only 2nd and 3rd grade work from that point on. Actually, I take that back. We still have to read the book "What Your First Grader Needs To Know" but that should only take us about a month to cover since most of it is just reading classical literature. I'm hoping to knock out most of 2nd grade by the end of May so that we can just do science all summer long. Then in the fall we'll review 2nd grade and start on 3rd grade by Thanksgiving. School has been going well recently, even with tardiness each morning we are getting all the work done by 12:30 or so.

Paul has been participating in our daily geography lesson - we are learning all about maps - in addition to doing art with us and practicing writing his name. Next week we'll start on the alphabet with him.

I'm considering ballet summer camp for Giselle but I don't know the details of the program yet so I haven't even mentioned it to her.

see ya!

so much for that!

We did the Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday bike parade at church this evening and ate at the Pancake Supper afterwards. The kids had fun, I took pictures. Those pancakes could have used some cinnamon to jazz them up though.

After closing the bedroom door on the kids at 8, I seriously thought that I was going to join them shortly. Unfortunately, I opened Turbo Tax to work on the 1099's and I got sucked into my former life as an accountant. Not that I did taxes for a living but I did work with numbers all day long and I do still really enjoy working with numbers (and spreadsheets, boy I LOVE playing with spreadsheets, and graphs too!). So when I start playing with numbers I loose track of time and now it's 11 pm and I'm still up. I forced myself to quit at 10:30 and then I checked in on CDW, PW and SJ so now I'm off to bed.

Oh, it's not just me - it's a Blogger-wide issue that the spell check isn't working.

B+; It's not just my blood type!

So last Thursday we went to the Blood and Tissue Center to give them my bi-monthly pint. I filled the bag in a speedy 4 minutes and 53 seconds! This is amazing since whenever I get cut or scratched I stop bleeding immediately. I'm just a good bleeder and a good clotter!

After the donation and the subsequent consumption of sugar-filled cookies and lemonade in the canteen, we went to do some shopping at Wheatsville. While there we got lunch and dined out on the patio where we people watched. Then we cruised The Drag (the main road through UT campus) doing more people watching. It was feeling like a very leisurly day so we decided to go to the Central location of the Austin Public Library.
We put all of our nickels and dimes into the meter and came up with 28 minutes to spend inside the library. I managed to come up with quite a pile of books in that time - the kids read while I picked. At check out I had a fine due of $1 on a Henry and Mudge book that had been returned late a year ago.
Here's the list of what we got:
Who's a Pest? by Crosby Bonsall
Clarence Goes Out West and Meets a Purple Horse
Mrs Armitage: Queen of the Road by Quentin Blake
Loveykins by Quentin Blake
The Perfect Spot by Robert J Blake
Togo by Robert J Blake
Akiak: A Tale From the Iditarod by Robert J Blake
Dog by Robert J Blake
Fledgling by Robert J Blake
Mrs Armitage and The Big Wave by Quentin Blake
Simpkin by Quentin Blake
Cockatoos by Quentin Blake
Yudonsi: A Tale from the Canyons by Robert J Blake
Clown by Quentin Blake
Babar and the Succotash Bird by Jean De Brunhoff
Babar's Battle by Jean De Brunhoff
Way Out West -- With a Baby! by Mike Brownlow
The Story of Babar: The Little Elephant by Jean De Brunhoff
Babar and His Children by Jean De Brunhoff
Babar the King by Jean De Brunhoff
The Travels Of Babar by Jean De Brunhoff
On the Pampas by Maria Cristina Brusca
It's a Spoon, Not a Shovel by Caralyn and Mark Buehner
Cheyenne Again by Eve Bunting
My Brother's a Pain In The Back Seat by Dale Bulla
Armadillo Rodeo by Jan Brett
Trouble With Trolls by Jan Brett
Wizzil by William Steig illustrated by Quentin Blake

Can you see that we're Quentin Blake fans? And I got all the Robert J Blake books that they had too. Think maybe that I loaded up in just the B section?
Giselle read the Pest book outloud to us on the way to our next stop - the animal shelter.
At the animal shelter (Giselle's pick for what we did next) we cruised the dogs up for adoption. We aren't looking to get right now but we go to see what's available as far as the variety of dogs. Giselle has a thing for Yorkshire Terriers that I'm trying to get her to overcome by showing her how many other dogs there are that are just as cute and are much more appropriate for a family of tall people. We found a great dog, Lucy, that we hope ends up in a great home soon; I'm sure she will since she was so cute and nice.
From there we went on home and completed the day by going to the court and riding bikes for an hour or so until dinnertime.
BTW, we had gotten all of our schooling done before we had to leave for the blood bank at 11 am.
Every morning Giselle has been reading the Babar books to Paul before I get up, it's sweet.

I went OUT!

I put the kids to bed at 7:45 and at 8 Marie came by and picked me up for our night out (hopefully the first of many until they leave in May for 2 years). We went and shopped at Spec's for an hour then went and ate nachos with margaritas at Flores for another hour and then went to her house for coffee ice cream w/ hot fudge for 30 min and then she brought me home at 10:30. It was fun, next time we're going to Spec's earlier since we only got down 2 asiles tonight and were still in the food products section. Next Tuesday they are having a wine tasting, maybe we'll go then.

I'm tired and I need to be well rested in case school starts out tomorrow like it started out today. Oh, and we're mortgage dancing again so I need to think clearly to deal with that too.

Is it just me or is the spell check function not working on any Blogger postings?

bikes

we're off to ride bikes in the court again!
See you later!

Saturday

We flew kites in the parking lot for 2 hours after the farmer's market today. I'm beat.
Joe installed the new TV today. He's beat.

King Ranch Casserole - my take

3 TBS butter in a large pot on medium heat. Put into pot 2 to 3 TBS minced garlic, 1/2 C diced onions, 1 C diced bell peppers (or any pepper you want), 1 C chopped mushrooms. Season with a shake or four of cayanne pepper, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp dried oregano, and salt & pepper and cook until tender (10 min). Reduce heat and add in 2 cups milk, 1.5 C grated cheese, and 1/2 C sour cream. Stir until the cheese is melted. Dump in 2 to 3 cups diced COOKED fajita chicken (or smoked chicken) and stir. Dump in 6 medium seeded and diced tomatoes and stir in.
Take about 3/4 of a 13 oz bag of tortilla chips and crush them up (or an entire 9 oz bag). Take half of those chips and cover the bottom of a 13 x 9 baking dish. Pour half of the chicken and sauce mixture on top and spread it out evenly. Sprinkle some diced green onion of top of this layer if you want. Spread out the rest of the crushed chips on top of this then cover them with the rest of the chicken and sauce mixture. Bake, uncovered, for 30 min at 350 degrees F or until the middle is bubbly. Let it sit for 5 min before digging in with one of those cool scoop spatulas (I like to use my Pampered Chef one). This served 4 adults and 2 young kids with no leftovers - everyone had seconds - but I also served it with no side dishes. Had I had a side of mixed veggies there might have been 1 serving leftover.

tired

I was going to post the recipe for King Ranch Casserole but I'm tired so I'm going to call it a night early and join the kids in bed.

Today was:
Up too late again last night - had to watch the new episode of Torchwood on TiVo.
Tried to sleep in after that kids got up at 7:45.
Woken up by a crisis among kids at 8:45.
Breakfast.
School.
Lunch.
Wait for the kids to clean their messes up.
Went to pick up 2 pairs of boots from the shoe hospital that were done 2 weeks ago, neither pair were complete so I left them there.
Returns and new purchases at Garden Ridge.
Returns and new purchases at Target.
Returns and new purchases at Academy - I still don't have the right pump.
Bought 2007 Turbo Tax at Sam's.
Got 2 refills of the dog's Rx at the vet.
Watched the kids ride bikes in the court until dark for the 3rd day in a row.
Made dinner (mushroom ravioli & sauce for Giselle, cheese tortellini & sauce for Paul).
Checked eBay for Playmobil castles.
Put the kids to bed.
Posted to the blog.

Good Night!

calendar update

I got the free calendar from the Pennsylvania Lottery but each page is only 7.5 x 7.5 with each day's square barely 1"x1" so it's not good as a kitchen/house calendar or as a dinner menu calendar. I also got a free one from our local blood and tissue center (btw, I'm giving blood tomorrow because it's that time again) but it has NO spaces for writing on it - it's just a basic 3 months per page, what is today's date calendar. The one that I'm using in the kitchen currently (Christmas gift) hangs a bit too low so I can't see the last week of the month and that's not good.
So, I'm still waiting for new ones.

For Joe

lemonmelberlime
LEMONMELBERLIME

August Dinner Calendar

So, here is the calendar of what we ate for dinner in the month of August 2007. By the way, where are all of those calendars that I ordered back at the beginning of the month? At least SOME of them should have arrived by now!

August
1 - Ate out at Central Market Central - lasagna (bland) & fried eggplant (bland).
2 - Tamales from Tamaleo at the farmers market, home-made chocolate ice cream.
3 - Hot dogs, mixed veggies.
4 - Company over for dinner - Tamales from Tamaleo, mixed veggies.
5 - Company over for dinner - Shredded beef tacos, pipian squash.
6 - Dinner at Marie's - Tortelini w/ meatballs.
7 - Broiled tuna & salmon, pipian squash.
8 - Tater tot casserole (sliced bratwurst in the casserole).
9 - Leftover tater tot casserole.
10 - Hot dogs, mixed veggies.
11 - Hot dogs, mixed veggies.
12 - Ravioli w/ meatballs & sauce.
13 - Broiled salmon & tuna, mixed veggies.
14 - Hot dogs w/ canned chili & cheese & sour cream.
15 - Tamales.
16 - Dinner out - Paul & I at Taco Bell, Joe & Giselle at Trudy's Tex Mex.
17 - Baked ziti w/ eggplant and squash.
18 - Korv stroganoff, leftover ziti.
19 - Shredded beef tacos, leftover ziti.
20 - Broiled tuna & salmon, boiled shrimp, mixed veggies.
21 - Leftover korv stroganoff.
22 - Pizza - home prepared w/ olives and mushrooms.
23 - Asian noodle soup.
24 - Spaghetti w/ meatballs & sauce.
25 - Hot dogs, tortellini, mixed veggies.
26 - Tamales.
27 - Asian noodle soup.
28 - Eat out - Dynasty Buffet.
29 - Broiled tuna, boiled shrimp.
30 - Hot dogs w/ homemade chili (no more canned!) & cheese & sour cream.
31 - Hot dogs w/ chili & cheese & sour cream.

We need a new vacuum cleaner

We've had a Fantom Cyclone XT for the last 7 years. This expensive (at the time) vacuum cleaner was a MAJOR upgrade from the ANCIENT Royal that we were using previously. Oh it was gross, I had to vacuum 24 hours before I had company so that the stink would be gone before the company arrived. I mean it, after using that thing the house would smell like we owned 6 very dirty golden retrievers and we only have one occasionally smelly short haired dog. Joe has always had his complaints about the Fantom but I do the vacuuming 95% of the time so his opinion gets devalued for that reason. So, the Fantom is getting old / beat up / worn out and we are looking at getting a replacement. I don't want a canister style vacuum cleaner since we primarily have carpets and have limited storage space. I'm on the fence about going back to a bagged upright or not. The bags have really improved and they ARE easier to change than emptying the bagless dirt chamber (dust bomb) but I hate having to track down bags and make sure that we always have them in stock at the house. With as much dirt and dog hair and people hair that we've got around here I'm sure that I'll go through a bag every other vacuum and that adds up in $ for bags. Consumer Reports likes the Eureka Boss and two of the Kenmores but unfortunately for me this looks like something that I'm actually going to have to drive around and shop for. We want one that had a lower profile so that we can vacuum under beds and other furniture. I'd like one with a powered hand brush attachment. We'd like one with an easier to use hose extension.
So, what do you use? Do you like it? What would you get if you were buying new right now?

Baked Potato Soup

This was made from a HEB Ready, Fresh, Go! Baked Potato Soup Kit. It makes 6 cups of soup.

3 baked potatoes, cubed
1/4 cup cooked bacon, crumbled
1/3 cup chives
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated celery
1/4 cup grated onions
1 TBs minced garlic
5 TBs butter
2 cups milk
1 cup sour cream

Melt butter in a soup pot, cook celery, onions, garlic and bacon in the butter for 3 min. Add potatoes, stir and cook for 5 min. Reduce heat, add milk and sour cream, salt & pepper to taste and any other seasonings that you usually like on your baked potatoes but times 4. Cook for 5 min but don't let it boil. Mash the potatoes some if you want (I don't). Stir in the cheese until melted. Serve. If you want you could save some of the cheese, green onions & bacon to sprinkle on the top of the soup before serving.

If I ever make this again I'll do it as Loaded Mashed Potatoes not as a soup.

Crocs, eBay, Playmobil and Best Of The West

I just ordered Joe some new Crocs. These are the Specialist Vent Crocs. I got them from www.Crocs.com the official site. Shipping is $10.00 but the prices are a little less than you pay elsewhere.
Zappos is not cheap.
I don't like shopping, even on-line.
I do like watching eBay auctions. I watch a lot of auctions but I don't bid in very many. Joe keeps offering to let me use his snipe program but so far I've held off. I did do a manual snipe of my own today and won because of it. Sniping is when you come in at the last second and put in your high bid and the auction closes before anyone else can up their bid.
I got part of Giselle's birthday present - I'm trying to get all of the Playmobil Fairy Tale Castle sets and the Unicorn sets. She's rather bummed that all of the Playmobil stuff available in the stores are the boy-oriented items - pirates, knights, construction - and the girl ones are only available online. She really likes the retired Victorian mansion but I'm NOT going to pay $300 for it, even if it IS fully furnished and includes the extra level! I let myself get outbid on one today that sold for $76 but it was only the basic mansion and it was unfurnished to boot.
Where am I going to put all of this?
I got a Paul a Best Of The West Geronimo with a horse the other day but I haven't received it yet. Once I get another horse I'll give Giselle her Jane and Josie along with it. I got those for her before Christmas but she doesn't know about them, she just sees my Jane and the horse that I gave myself for Christmas sitting on our dresser and she keeps asking to play with them. I keep telling her that if she would hurry up and lose another tooth then she would get some of the good stuff that I've got hidden away for her.
Paul really likes his GI Joes (especially Duke, the one that talks) but I think that he's much more involved with his pirates and knights for the time being. He and Giselle play together with their Playmobil stuff for hours each day.

Would you look at the time! I've got to get to bed, OH and get back to work on the laundry before that! Finishing the laundry, vacuuming, dishes, school, shopping and ballet on Monday!

meat

The first Meatfest of 2008 has ended and it was a success. Only a thigh and a small breast were left, I haven't decided if the dog gets those tomorrow or not since she already ate the okra that was too spicy for the kids. The pork shoulder steak was INCREDIBLE! It was from the pig that Finca Pura Vida slaughtered back in April. The steak was striped with fat, not marbled, and boneless. We seasoned it with Lawry's Salt only and it was delicious only like pig meat can be! I could have eaten that whole 1.5 lb steak myself and that's quite a compliment coming from a former vegan. But I was nice and shared it with all the others. We used just Lawry's on the beef cutlets too, they were cube steak style, and Joe ate 2 of the 3 of those. The kids inhaled their dogs, ate some veggies, skipped the okra (too spicy) and had some pesto pasta; being sure to save room for the s'mores (Thomas came through on the Hershey's bars). Everyone had a s'more except for Mr. Atkins and then the smaller kids finished off the last few marshmallows just toasted.
I have to say that when Thomas opened the grill lid, the smell that came out of there while the meat was cooking was heavenly. I called the kids outside so that they could relish in the aroma of meat seasoned with Lawry's salt cooking over a mesquite charcoal fire. Wow!

grilling

Per Paul's request we are grilling for dinner tonight since it's 70 degrees outside right now.
The kids want hot dogs w/ buns. For the grown-ups (Thomas and Bobby will be joining us) I've got beef cutlets, pork shoulder steak and fajita chicken breasts and thighs. I'm sure that the kids will want some meat too so I'm cooking plenty. I just hope that it all thaws out in time - I really dislike trying to cook meat that is still a bit chilly in the middle. Hmm, what will be the sides? I've got plenty of okra in the freezer so maybe I'll stew up some of that with tomatoes. Maybe a small batch of spaghetti with pesto. And a 16 oz pkg of mixed peas, carrots, corn and green beans too.
It sounds like I've got loads of food, why don't you come on over and join us? If you do come, would you be so kind as to bring a bag of corn for me to add into the okra and tomatoes? I think that would add just the right crunch to the mix.

food update

The King Ranch Casserole turned out great - everyone had seconds!
We baked one batch of cookies last night after dinner and we ate them while I read 2 chapters of Little House. They were OK, nothing spectacular. The kids loved them 'cause they don't know any better. When we bake the rest we'll be sure to roll them in the cinnamon sugar first.

too slow

I gave up waiting on the butter to defrost on its own so I nuked it - 1 minute per side at 10% power. After 5 min I now have the room temperature butter that we need. Joe will be happy to know that I actually used the microwave again.

cookies

I'm killing time while the butter thaws (yes, I keep my butter backstock in the freezer. You got a problem with that?) so that the kids and I can make some cookies. We'll be making snickerdoodles and pecan sandies but in shapes not circles. Hopefully we can get them made before dinner so that they can have them for dessert. I'm staying out of the cookies - even using 50/50 flour doesn't add enough fiber to cookies for me to justify eating them.

Fever and Little House

Giselle woke up this morning at 2 with a fever of 102. It hovered at that for most of the day but by 3 it had dropped to 100 and she was cleared to leave the bedroom. She got regular doses of 500 mg vitamin C, homeopathic Belladonna and Gelsemium, and the times that the fever got to 103 I gave her some Infant Tylenol Suspension Liquid. Although after talking to the nurse at the Pediatrician's office this afternoon, we will now use Junior Motrin Chewable Tablets instead (2 tablet dosage for Giselle). The nurse explained that it works quicker and lasts longer than Children's Tylenol. Joe picked the Motrin up along with some mango ice cream for her this afternoon when he went shopping with Thomas. Fortunately it's only a fever, nothing else.

So, to make good with our day stuck in bed we read the Little House book "These Happy Golden Years" but we alternated chapters of that with shorter books and stories that Paul picked out. That Little House book is so good. When Giselle went out to the living room at 3:30 to watch TV I stayed in the bedroom reading it. I want to go to the library and check out (and read) all of her other books.

Old Dan Tucker

Old Dan Tucker was a mighty man, washed his face in a frying pan.

Yep, it's another song off of the latest Biscuit Brothers' CD called Family Favorites (and boy is it ever!) that we play at full volume. It's thanks to these guys that Joe has to keep replacing the speakers in the mini-van.

Why don't you buy a copy for yourself? http://www.biscuitbrothers.com/shop-for-stuff

Thanks

Just wanted to say thanks to those 13 of you that have kept coming to check the blog for the last several days. Sorry that there's been nothing new posted here. I was off of the computer for brain decompression from Wednesday thru this afternoon.
Paul's been acting like a 4 year old and it's been an eventful few weeks. Giselle's been trying to expand her bossiness boundaries and keeps coming up against a big wall named Mommy. Paul has been expanding his vocabulary and his self-assertiveness and quite often around the house we hear "NO GISELLE, YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" He's been listening well during his anger management classes and has done a great job of keeping his volcanic explosions from destroying things about the house.

I promise to finish the post about the baked potato soup this next week. I think I'm making King Ranch Casserole for dinner tonight.

Baked Potato Soup

So yesterday while grocery shopping with the kids we sampled the

to be finished later

Jessi's coming over!

One of Giselle's best friends is coming over this afternoon and she will be spending the night. It's Giselle's first time to have a friend spend the night. Since Thomas has moved out of the front bedroom, the girls will have their own room for giggling all night in. Because the office is in the playroom now, the playroom is not such a good sleep-over room anymore. We've re-rented The Jungle Book for us all to watch after dinner and I'm sure that the girls will be giggling until midnight!

The comida is all gone!

Paul turns 4 in a few days and at this point I think that it's safe to say out loud that he officially fully weaned on New Years Day. I haven't told HIM yet that he's weaned but the few times that he asked those first couple of nights of the new year I just reminded him that I've been empty every time that I've let him nurse for the last several weeks. And then I remind him again that I'm happy to love on him and hold him close to my heart but that he best keep his hands out of my shirt! Of course, this conversation happens at 2 in the morning which is the only time that he's been nursing for the last 3 or 4 months anyway. I haven't mentioned it to him in the daytime since he hasn't asked to nurse in the daytime in forever, so we haven't really had the 'You're weaned now and that means no more trying to drink comida.' conversation.
Giselle was fully weaned on New Years Eve also, although that was 2 years ago, but hers was a weaning that involved much talking and tears. She really didn't want it to end but Joe and I felt that 4 and 1/2 years was long enough.

Since I started writing this a few days ago, Paul and I have had 'the talk' and he's totally OK with all of it. Although at yesterday's La Leche League meeting he was trying to be very touchy with me.

So, it's all over now. I've spent the last 6 years and 7 months nursing, and for 2 of those years I was tandem nursing (so does that count as double time?). I've known that Paul would stop nursing at an earlier age than Giselle. Mainly because she had to wean when there was still plenty of milk while with Paul the supply has been dwindling down for the last 6 months. I'm actually surprised that we made it to the end of the year. I'm not upset since I've seen this coming for a while. And he was always a bit of a pesky nurser whereas Giselle was much more gentle in her persistence.

Another era ended, with many more just beginning.

mentally busy

not physically busy so I haven't posted in a while. I've got one in the works but the mental business is keeping me from finishing it.

tomorrow

I'll post tomorrow.
We made 4 cups of hand-squeezed orange juice today - it tasted very good.

Garden Ridge

I have to say that I'm not at all pleased with how Garden Ridge has remade itself. I used to be able to find anything there and now I can't.
They got rid of their whole arts & crafts section and filled it all in with fake potted plants. Now if I want any of that stuff I have to make an extra trip to Michael's. Their storage container section is greatly reduced now also to make way for 4 more rows of Bedding In A Bag. I'm NOT driving all the way to North Austin to get plastic boxes at The Container Store. Most of their cooking supplies are gone and I'm not going to Bed, Bath & Beyond because even with the 85 coupons that they send to me each month it's still too expensive there. Fortunately for them, what I needed this evening was bedding. They are down to only one side of a row of window treatments to make room for more pillows. Or maybe they just moved the pillows to make room for all that extra furniture that they sell now. Oh, it's just not the great store that it used to be. I don't see how carrying purses, shoes, clothes and luggage makes them a better Home Decor store.
Blah!

Late night with Little House

Even though it was already 7:45, the kids convinced me to read a chapter of Little Town On The Prairie. That chapter was a long one and it was after 8 when I finished it. The kids were having fun playing with my hair while I was reading and I was enjoying it so I consented to another chapter. The chapter after that one was pretty short, only 5 pages front and back, so I read a third one. The NEXT chapter was only 4 pages front and back so I read a forth chapter. The fifth chapter was more than 8 pages long and it was already 8:45 so I finally closed the book after reading four chapters.
It was a really fun evening, especially since Paul was 'too tired' to finish eating his supper but he managed to stay awake for the whole reading. They really had fun with my hair and I love it when they play with it. We also have fun when I allow them to do makeup on me but we didn't do that tonight. I really enjoy reading to them and fortunately they do too.

Chitty Chitty Mary Poppins

So, did I mention that we watched Mary Poppins the other day? Well we did. And did I mention that we've watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang about 4 times over the last 3 weeks (I know that's nothing for some of you video/DVD families out there but that's a lot for us)? Well, Step in Time from Mary Poppins is the EXACT same song as The Old Bamboo from Chitty Chitty. We spent a good 10 minutes yesterday doing the dance from the song/s. The dog kept trying to get kicked while we were dancing but we managed to not let it happen without falling down. I need to go to iTunes and get all the songs from Mary, Chitty and Sound of Music downloaded onto the computer so that we can all dance at will. Oh, and get us all some canes for dancing with.
I think that next rental session will include Bed Knobs and Broomsticks.

Well, I gotta slam out some breakfast, get some school done, do the grocery shopping and get school finished so that we can get over to Marie's after lunchtime.
We've got our 7 words for the week to write sentences for (Outside, Paid, Phone, Practice, Quit, Rain & Really), 6 pages (3 pages front and back) of Doring Kindersley 1st Grade Math Made Easy (we've only got 6 days of work left in the book), in our Evan-Moor Draw Then Write 1-3 we will be drawing a bunny today, in School Specialty Publishing Total Reading Grade 1 we'll be doing pages 175 thru 182, and there's a chance that we won't start Volume 2 of Story of The World today (that depends on if we eat lunch at home or not).

Sunday activities

Sunday school has been cancelled until next week since all the teachers are on vacation so we didn't have church today. So instead, this morning we spent 2.5 hours at Krispy Kreme watching them make donuts. Paul said that he wants to do it every week. For the record, while we bought 1 dozen donuts (2 blueberry, 2 chocolate glazed, 2 lemon filled, 2 glazed cream filled, 2 chocolate covered cream filled, and 2 glazed covered with chocolate and green, red and white sprinkles) and got 3 freshly made glazed, we had 5 left when we left (we threw them out since we couldn't bring them home since Joe's on Atkins again).
Giselle got all of her clothes hung up in the closet and put away in the drawers. I took care of all of Paul's clothes last night before bed. Mine aren't done yet and today's laundry day again.
After taking care of her laundry, Giselle played at Grace's for 2 hours then at Jessi's for 1 while Paul helped me stuff the pinata and do the laundry. Paul, Joe and I played hide and seek for a bit while Giselle was gone.

Gotta go, I still have to do the dishes - I made Joe some poached salmon for dinner so the kitchen (whole house) smells like fish. I sprayed the house with that odor remover spray but until I actually clean that pan it's not really going to go away.

Insects

This is the unlikely trio of teenaged spiders that got stuck in a bucket that was under the front porch light one spring evening.

One of the many damsel flies that I was tracking down at the creek this summer. The way that you can tell the difference between a damsel fly and a dragon fly is that when at rest, the dragon fly has it's wings out flat while the damsel fly has it's wings together. This was really tricky to photograph since I couldn't get my face near him so I had to hope that the camera would focus on his head and not the rest of him. This shot was as good as I could get. I would have loved to have a blowup-worthy shot of his head. Oh well, maybe next year.

Well, you can see what these damsel flies were doing, along with a few friends waiting in the wings.

Joe noticed this guy out under the front light during the summer. He was too cool to not photograph and he just stayed there for hours.

I saw this common household pest hanging around out on the church playground one Sunday this fall. I'd appreciate it if no one comments about the clothes combination of beige shirt, faded khaki shorts, olive socks and black desert boots.

This butterfly/moth/fritillary was enjoying the sprinkler on New Year's Eve along with the kids. It took a while but he finally got used to me getting close to him with the camera; so comfortable was he that he almost got himself stepped on by Paul (purely accidental).

Last pictures of 2007

These are some of the last pictures that I took in 2007


This big pot of mums sits at the end of the driveway so it gets the full brunt of any frosts that come along - that's why the leaves have turned purple. I think that the green/purple leaves are a wonderful compliment to the pink/purple flowers. The ISO was 64 on Super Macro, 9mm.


I know that some folks actually pay people money to come pick these out of their trees since they believe that they kill the tree. Actually they thrive on trees that are already in decline (just like mistletoe) so if you improve the tree's health then the parasitic plants are no worry at all. Whatever, the ball moss can be really cool looking if you let it get big and flower like this one is. It's about 12 feet up in our largest crape myrtle and I'd say that it's at least 8 inches across. Lots of kids use them to make fairy houses. The ISO was 100.




I'll post some insects in a few minutes.

New Year's Eve Bubbly - Frizzo

So this year for the toast at midnight I tried a new-to-me bubbly. It's a carbonated white wine from Germany called Frizzo and it cost a mere $6.99 at HEB. It was fairly sweet but it mixed well with the left over sparkling apple juice that I got for the kids (half and half). I'm finishing the last of that mix tonight, mixed half and half with the pomegranate juice (thank you spellcheck for that one) and it tastes really good as this final mix. The Frizzo came with a twist-on/off champagne top that was perfect for resealing the unfinished bottle. It was non-vintage but there is a small 04/07 printed on the label. I'd bring it to some one's house as a good summertime sparkling wine - I think it would be good with melon or pineapple.

Saturday

We got out of the market early today - Finca Pura Vida had sold out of everything by noon and we had helped them pack up early too so they were gone by 12:30 and we were gone by 1 pm. We came home, tried to play with some friends (they weren't home) and proceeded to watch 3/4 of Alice in Wonderland (all the end was too damaged on the DVD so we couldn't watch anything after the introduction of the Queen of Hearts). We just finished watching Mary Poppins (what a FABULOUS movie) and now they are going to start on the Fraggle movie.

Yeah, it was a beautiful day today and we spent 5 hours out in it earlier. The silly thing about here is that there are so many nice days that when you get one you don't have that great of an urge to go out and take advantage of it since there will probably be another one tomorrow.


UPDATE 2 HOURS LATER:
Yep, this is the forcast for the next 5 days:
Sunday: Areas of dense fog before 9am. Otherwise, partly sunny, with a high near 78. South wind between 10 and 20 mph.
Monday: A 20 percent chance of light rain. Cloudy, with a high near 79. South wind between 10 and 15 mph.
Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 70. North northwest wind around 15 mph.
Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 66. East wind around 10 mph becoming south.
Thursday: Partly sunny, with a high near 72.

I think that we've got some good kite flying weather for the next several days - about time to try out the kites that Joe got for the kids back around Halloween.

School is back in session

After a break that was WAY too long for my stress level we started school back up today. We did about 4/5 of a usual day and we may or may not make it to the park this afternoon. I want to try to get there but the kids want to stay home. Stay home instead of going to the park? Are they insane? No, they're just refusing to clean up their messes from earlier and we can't go to the park if the house isn't clean. And they really want to watch some of the DVDs that we got last night.
If I was a betting woman I would put money on us NOT getting to the park today. I would be happier if I lost that bet but I've been burned by this one before.

Hey Rechelle, Thanks for the wine!

Today's gripe session over at www.countrydoctorswife.com had a cathartic effect and later in the day I was totally up for going pinata shopping with the kids.

"Pinata shopping?" you say? With my fair city being this close to the border we have LOTS of pinata stores to pick a peck of pinatas at. For some silly reason, I think he was looking through that catalogue Birthday Express, Paul changed his mind last week to wanting a Star Wars pinata. Yeah, exactly, where the * am I going to find a Star Wars pinata without ordering it from that place? Well, we went to my favorite pinata store, Pinata Party Palace @ 1704 East Cesar Chavez St 236-0975, and lo and behold but what to my wondering eyes did appear? A miniature Darth Vader, all 3 feet of him. They had a larger version but there is no way that 9 kids need that much pinata. Let's see if I can remember some of the different pinatas that they had this time. Oh, they are all hand-made in Mexico and they are SUPER STURDY (you need a bat to break into these). There was: Diego, Dora, Mickey Mouse, Minni Mouse, Shrek, Mrs Shrek, a penguin, Cinderella, Barbie, wedding Barbie, Snow White, every Power Ranger, every Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Pooh, Tigger, a rabbit, a kangaroo, a lion, a tiger, the standard stars and fruits and vegetables, a donkey, a bride, a groom, several different Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, a pirate, the Hulk, Nacho Libre, many versions of aliens, a bunch of old Easter ones, and even more that I can't remember. So I got some junk to put inside of him: snakes, frogs, dinosaurs, bouncy balls and one bag of candy (plus our leftover Halloween candy, shhh!) and some items for the gimme bags some orange spoons and black bowls and we were out of there fairly painlessly.

We made a not-so-quick trip to Toys-R-Us to check out the facilities (Holiday items are 50% off) and then ate dinner out. We FINALLY used up all of our gift certificates for Satalite Cafe (why does that always look like it's spelled wrong even when it's right?). After dinner we ran to the other end of the strip mall to Blockbuster to use some more gift certificates (I still have $8 left on a card from Christmas 2005). We rented the 40th anniversary edition of Jungle Book, Disney's Alice in Wonderland, the 40th anniversary edition of Mary Poppins, The Muppet Movie and Fraggle Rock Where It All Began. For me I rented Tim Burton's Corpse Bride; the movie in which Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter play a gruesome couple in love. Wait, isn't that the movie version of Sweeny Todd? Is that already on DVD? I thought that just opened last month. Oh, maybe this is the animated version. Is it my imagination or does Tim Burton just keep remaking the same movie over and over and over and over and over and over and over again? I know that Rechelle has an in with him since he keeps using Johnny Depp over and over again so I'm going to ask her about that the next time she has an open question session.

2008 Resolutions

No, I'm not making two thousand and eight resolutions - that would take a whole year to come up with - I'm just making 3.

1 - Stop taking the easy way.
2 - Smile when angry.
3 - Eat appropriate-sized portions.

bacon ends

Mmmm, just thinking about the bacon ends for tonight's black-eyed peas and rice is making my mouth water.

Giselle just go up. Paul got up at 10:30 or so.

down for the count

Paul is laying in his bean bag chair breathing deeply; I think that he has called it a night. Giselle just started watching the Christmas special that has the song "Put One Foot In Front Of The Other" in it. I think that after I post this that I'll have to tell her to shut it down for the night.

I unplugged the Christmas lights a few minutes ago - this was the last night for them until next December. I plan on taking them all down tomorrow. I've got to get moving on Paul's birthday party and I need to get all of the Christmas things out of my mind.

UPDATE:
PAUL WAS, IN FACT, SOUND ASLEEP. I PUT HIM IN THE BED AT 2. GISELLE AND I CRAWLED UNDER THE COVERS AND TURNED OUT THE LIGHTS AT 2:20.

How we spent New Year's Eve Day

We spent the day in the front yard playing in the sprinkler. Well, I played with the sprinkler and the kids played in the dirt and mud after running through the sprinkler for 30 minutes.

The thermometer on the west side of the house showed that the high for the day was 82. Too bad that, as is usual, winter starts tomorrow. Historically, the cold seems to come to stay for 6 weeks starting tomorrow.

Giselle drew the most wonderful picture on the driveway today. She had me trace her body and then she colored it in.



The kids are watching TV for the next 6 hours (Reading Rainbow and Super Why, thank you TiVo) while they try to stay up as late as they possibly can - on New Year's Eve we let them stay up as long as they can. Paul made it to 11 pm last year while Giselle had to be shut down by me at 2 am. Maybe if I let her have more champagne this year she'll fall asleep sooner.

Totally out of the blue, Giselle just informed me that she likes it when people scratch the bottom of her feet but she doesn't like it when they tickle them. I keep thinking that she and Katie would make good friends, maybe we should start them as pen pals. What do you think, Donna?

picture deleted

funny stories

Go check out the contest and entries over on Kelly Jean's blog Laughing Always Helps. The contest is for an awesome organizer that she bought at Barnes & Noble this past weekend and to enter you have to give your most embarrassing/funny story.

Calendars

Where are all my free calendars?!
By this time each year I usually have way too many calendars and am sharing the extras with friends. Not this year. We have exactly 2 wall calendars for 2008. One of them is Giselle's Highlights calendar and the other is a Georgia O'Keeffe one that I got as a present from one of my sisters. Where is my USAA calendar, my Kraft Family & Food calendar, my Dr Richard Schulze calendar, my National Wildlife Federation calendar? Where are they? 2008 starts in only 2 days! What am I going to do? I need more calendars!!! I knew I should have bought them when Woot! had them on sale last week!

Olympus Cameras - opinion

I have an Olympus 720SW (SW stands for Shock and Water resistant). This is my second Olympus - my other is an Olympus film camera, point-and-shoot. We have a Nikon CoolPix900 that we bought in 2001 and my previous film camera was a Pentax.
Olympus has a good warranty program (for one year, if you break it they will replace it and you can buy an additional 2 year warranty for only $50) and good email newsletters with tips on how to improve your picture taking.
I would LOVE to have one of the really nice digital SLRs but since I also love to carry the camera wherever I go we went with the Olympus. It fits inside of a zipable wallet. A good friend of ours who used to be a professional photographer bought one of the 720SWs when they first came out to take on a cross-country motorcycle trip. He loved it and recommended it to us when we asked his opinion on what we should get to replace the 2nd hand HP that I was carrying around in my purse. I've had it a year and my only complaint is that they should have made this one squash-proof like the 770SW(?) is. There is a lot of user tweaking that you can do if you don't want the camera do do it all for you and there are 25 different preprogrammed functions that you can use or tweak to your liking (candle light, available light, behind glass, museum, nighttime, self portrait, landscape, movie, etc). I've seen comparable cameras out there but none of them were waterproof like this one is - you can take pictures and movies with it under water up to 10 feet deep - or shockproof. Too bad my phone isn't as durable.
If you want to take REALLY nice pictures, for sale quality, then any one of those high end cameras would do you good. I would check for compatibility on add-on lenses (I think that I've read that Cannon holds the gold standard on lenses). For the stuff that I do - turning them into 8x10's for the living room wall - the tweakable point-and-shoots work just fine.

Eggs

I used the last of our Finc Pura Vida eggs this morning making breakfast for some of the family. Joe had 3 of them with his 3 pieces of bacon, Giselle and Paul each had 2 of them with a patty of sausage, Thomas had a bowl of cereal (I think that it was the Hill Country Fair Brown Sugar Frosted Mini-Wheats), the dog had 2 eggs too - she gets the ones that have broken yolks. I had something but I don't remember what it was.
I'm supposed go get some from the store today so that we have some for tomorrow's breakfast but I haven't managed to get there yet.

done

I got the list all done.
Paul was too scared to stay up at the alter with all the other kids dressed up as Marys, Shepperds, prophets, wise men and the 1 Joseph so he came running back down the aisle to me. He was dressed as a Shepperd, complete with his stuffed lamb and his walking stick and his head scarf that Giselle did up for him. Giselle was Mary again with her Bitty Baby Sarah sitting in for baby Jesus.
The craziness should start about 7 and Paul will have eaten all the candy in his stocking by 8. The Baked Blueberry French Toast should be done cooking by 8:30 and be all eaten by 8:45 so present unwrapping should start by 9. By 10 I'll have all the paper and boxes and bags put away or in the trash and I'll be ready to start thinking about working on the turkey.
Oh, I didn't tell you about the turkey, did I?
It's a 17 pound Heirloom turkey that Edgar and Gayla killed and cleaned for me last Thursday. The turkey was hatched and raised on the farm this past year. It's a beauty and you wouldn't believe the amount of fat on that bird! The skin is really thick so that should roast up wonderfully tasty. BUT I'm not going to stuff it; I don't want to loose any stuffing inside of the bird so we'll be having dressing instead. And as an extra treat, the feet were inside of the body cavity with the neck and gizzards. The kids really got a kick (haha) out of seeing the feet no longer attached to the body. Paul wanted to know where the head was, Giselle wanted to know why they had cut off the toe nails.

I'll leave you with a quote that I read in a Land's End Christmas email that I got earlier today.
"A hug. A kind word. A hand to hold. The greatest gifts of all. May you give them freely and receive them abundantly. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year"

today's list

Still to do
Get turkey defrosted
Make the french toast for tomorrow
Wrap the rest of the presents
Make meatballs (we at the last of my frozen stash last night for dinner with ravioli)
Clean the playroom
Cut the dog's nails
Go to the 5 pm church service
Make the pizza for dinner
Put the rest of the gifts under the tree
Fill the stockings

Done

Finish Laundry

Vacuum

Clean the back yard

Clean the front yard

Feed the neighbor's chickens

too busy to post

I've got too much going on to post.
- still have presents to wrap (I think I finished the shopping last night when I went grocery shopping last night after the kids went to bed).
- was going to make pralines right now but the link on Jamie's blog doesn't work anymore!
- need to do laundry.
- need to finish cleaning the laundry room.
- need to re-organize the playroom to make room for the incoming mess.
- need to finish cleaning up the bedroom.
- need to vacuum the house.
- need to make sure that I have EVERYTHING that I need to make Christmas dinner.
- Joe thinks I need to help him clean up the back yard and redo the areas that I sodded the other day. I think THE KIDS need to help him as I already have enough to do.

Gotta run!
Do YOU have it all done? Shouldn't you be taking care of that instead of reading my blog?

my head is full of goo

What with this head cold, my monthly visitor and trying to get presents wrapped every night after the kids go to bed, I haven't had time to blog.
I cancelled school yesterday since it was sunny and 72 degrees. All we did today was finish Volume 1 of Story Of The World and once we are all ready we'll be heading out to Park Day for the day - it'll be 74 today! We'll be flying kites, playing with stomp rockets, and running around enjoying our normal Christmas weather.
Not gloating, just thankful that this is where I live.

busy

I was so astounded by the fact that I had MORE THAN 400 visitors to this blog on Monday that I had to lay low for 2 days.
Yesterday, after we finished school at 1 pm, we went ice skating (indoors) for about 3 hours. Then we went looking for food, then we shopped for 10 minutes, then we actually ate food, then we went to go look at Christmas lights on 37th street. Then we drove around Central Austin looking for/at lights. Then we drove home and looked at more lights on the way. We stopped at Derick and Cyndi's house to look at their train. Then we finished driving home and I put the kids to bed. Then Paul woke up at 10 with a very horse cough so I went to bed.
Sorry about the boring post but my head is not 100% either - I think we caught this at the party on Saturday night.

Boo Mama's Christmas Tour of Homes

Welcome to Casa De Galletti. This is our first year participating in BooMama's Christmas Tour of Homes and I hope that you will enjoy your visit to our house and the view of our decorations. It's nothing fancy since last year we took down the front gutter and this year we got the house re-roofed and the fascia replaced so I can't hang any lights on half of the front of the house. And one of the two large glowing balls of lights (the red one) is shorted out from the rain earlier this week. But it's better than most of our neighbors (in real life) who have NOTHING up, not even a candle or tree in the front window.

A proper hostess has refreshments for her guests so here's your snack - a cold glass of eggnog and some gingerbread men. Be sure to bite the heads off of the gingerbread men first so that you don't hear them screaming! And try not to spill any eggnog on the carpet (keyboard) - it's so hard to get those sticky messes cleaned up.

Enjoy your visit!


These are the kid's advent calendars for this year. They are made by Playmobil and each day they get to open one of the attached little boxes. By the end they have completed an entire scene.

This is a side view of the advent calendars, our countdown-to-Christmas Santa nutcracker, the cute little momma snowman ornament that I won from Rechelle (she's too cute to get lost on the tree), and one of the two seasonal stick arrangements that are in the living room.

This is what Paul's Advent scene looked like last week, his is a king, prince and knight scene.

And this is Giselle's. Hers is a queen, princess and maiden scene.

This is the gingerbread house that we built - those little gingerbread men need to live somewhere!

This is a view of Paul's sides of the house. Notice Giselle's cute snowmen flannel pajamas?

And here are Giselle's sides of the house.

Here is this year's tree and stocking set up, and that IS an IMac Snowball there in the foreground (notice the sleek profile - it's almost invisible). The decorations are in different places on the tree and there are some some different stockings hanging up on the entertainment center because there are different people here this year...

but otherwise it looks just like last year's setup. We don't put out the gifts until Christmas eve since Mr Paul has very little self-control (he's getting it slowly) and I enjoy climbing up and down the ladder to the attic every night.

Woooo, every thing's all spinney! Look at all the pretty colors!
It appears as if you've had too much eggnog so I'm going to have to ask you to leave now.

Here's the front door. It was nice of you to drop by. Please come again next year!

Hey, you're going the wrong way, your car is up the street!

See, I told you that you've had too much to drink! Be careful not to drink and blog surf!

Ah, now that's much better!

Happy Holidays and all that good stuff! Thanks for dropping by! Please leave a comment (or a check for the damages) so that others can come by and egg your house, I mean drink all your liquor, I really mean so that I can get a boost to my blog self-esteem (you read me, you really do!).

No, really, please leave a comment and a link to YOUR Christmas Tour of Homes post (if you have one).

cold!

Now, I'm not going to whine about it going down to 22 here in Austin tonight since several hundred miles north of here got slammed with that ice storm and are dealing with much worse than our measly 2 nights of freezing weather. Nope, I'm going to show the varied weather that my family nation-wide is having tonight and tomorrow.

See if you can guess where they live!

1 - Overnight: Clear, with a low around 33. Breezy, with a west wind between 24 and 29 mph. Monday: Sunny, with a high near 43. Northwest wind between 13 and 20 mph. Monday Night: Clear, with a low around 28. Northwest wind between 5 and 8 mph.

2 - Overnight: A chance of freezing rain before 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 19. Breezy, with a west wind between 17 and 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 28. Breezy, with a west wind between 18 and 22 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 5. Wind chill values as low as -10. Breezy, with a west wind between 13 and 21 mph.

3 - Overnight: Clear, with a low around 28. West wind between 13 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 32 mph. Monday: Sunny, with a high near 44. West wind between 11 and 14 mph. Monday Night: Clear, with a low around 23. Northwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm.

4 - Overnight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 22. Breezy, with a west wind around 24 mph, with gusts as high as 47 mph. Monday: Sunny, with a high near 38. Breezy, with a west wind between 14 and 21 mph, with gusts as high as 47 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 22. West wind between 3 and 10 mph.

5 - Tonight: Clear, with a low around 31. Calm wind. Monday: Increasing clouds, with a high near 60. East wind between 5 and 10 mph. Monday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers after midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 51. East wind between 5 and 10 mph.

6 - Overnight: Mostly clear, with a low around 35. North wind between 10 and 14 mph. Monday: Sunny, with a high near 54. Wind chill values as low as 27 early. North wind between 9 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph. Monday Night: Areas of frost after 1am. Otherwise, mostly clear, with a low around 33. North wind between 3 and 6 mph.

7 - Overnight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 24. Breezy, with a west wind between 17 and 22 mph, with gusts as high as 47 mph. Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 39. Breezy, with a west wind between 15 and 22 mph, with gusts as high as 47 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 23. West wind between 5 and 11 mph.

8 - Overnight: Mostly clear, with a low around 25. West wind 14 to 17 mph decreasing to between 6 and 9 mph. Winds could gust as high as 37 mph. Monday: Sunny, with a high near 43. West wind between 11 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 37 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 22. West wind around 6 mph becoming calm.

9 - Tonight: Patchy fog after 10pm. Otherwise, partly cloudy during the early evening, then becoming cloudy, with a low around 46. West northwest wind at 6 mph becoming southeast. Monday: Patchy fog before 10am. Otherwise, cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 61. Southeast wind 6 to 14 mph becoming west. Monday Night: A 30 percent chance of rain after 10pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 47. West southwest wind 8 to 14 mph becoming east.

This is us here in Austin:
Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 22. Calm wind. Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 60. Calm wind becoming south southeast between 5 and 10 mph. Monday Night: Patchy fog after 3am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a low around 47. South wind around 5 mph.

All weather is courtesy of NOAA /National Weather Service.

We feel GROSS!

So, every once in a while we eat like the supposed average American. Tonight was one of those nights. Joe went to a client's Christmas party with Thomas * while the kids and I stayed inside where it's warm and dry. Since Joe was out having 'fancy food' at the party I decided to 'treat' the kids to junk so I ordered from Domino's Pizza. We got a large hand-tossed pizza with triple black olives and double mushrooms (we had a coupon, #331) and I felt greedy due to the post on Pioneer Woman Cooks so I ordered Cinna Stix. The guy on the phone said that for just $1 more I could get a 2-liter bottle of soda so in a fit of stupidity I added on a bottle of Orange Fanta. So for dinner the kids had 2 pieces of pizza, 2 cups of orange soda (diluted w/30% water), and 1 piece of dough covered with cinnamon sugar and fake butter. I had 1 piece of pizza, 1 cup of orange soda mixed with one Zima, and 6 pieces of dough covered with cinnamon sugar and fake butter. And now all 3 of us feel so gross that it's just disgusting. I don't see how people can eat like this on a regular basis.

Tomorrow night we're all going to a Christmas party together (in separate cars) in the freezing cold (and this time I'm not exaggerating - the low tomorrow night is supposed to be 31 degrees).

Monty Python

So on Saturday, while at the party after the birthday party, the kids watched the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail for the second time in 1 month. So now my 6 yr old and 4 yr old are every once in a while trotting around the house yelling "ni!" or randomly saying to each other "What is your favorite color?" and then shouting "wrong!" and making a blow-up sound.
Good thing they watch Charlie & Lola, otherwise they might not have been able to understand the accents.
Silly kids!

Alzheimers moment

Darn! While I was doing the dishes an hour ago I came up with the greatest name for this post and now, for the life of me, I can't remember it. AT ALL. It was something snappy about what I made for dinner. Oh now I remember it!

Quicker Than Take-out Homemade Lo Mien

Ok, I actually wrote this post after the other one but in order for it to read properly on the blog I had to re-do the time of the post to be 10 min earlier than the first post.

Last night was the rescheduled seafood night here at Casa De Galletti which this week meant that the kids, Thomas and I were going to share 1 pound of bay scallops and Thomas was going to have not quite a 1/2 pound sockeye salmon fillet. We would be sharing some fresh broccoli too. Giselle remarked that she was in the mood for Asian food.

***Well, not so much remarked more like demanded. See we were at her friend Grace's house and we had to leave at 5 so that Marie could go get her hair cut. As we were leaving, Giselle informs me that she wants to spend the night there that night. I said no but that Marie and I would try to come up with a night before Christmas for them to do another sleep-over. As we pulled into our driveway (a mere 2 minutes later) Giselle tells me that since she couldn't eat dinner at Grace's and since she couldn't spend the night there either that she wants to go out to eat Asian food either at Dynasty Buffet or at Buffet Palace or some new place that she hasn't ever been to before. I said no, that we were eating at home. She said to me "How come Daddy gets to eat out tonight but WE don't?!" and I responded "Because Daddy works hard for his money and he can eat where ever he wants to. I've already bought the food for our dinner this evening and that's what we will be eating." She then said "Fine, but I don't want Asian noodle soup, I want something else like we get at the restaurants!"***

So the wheels start turning in my head and I realize that I have all the makings for Lo Mien. I cleared the menu item with the girl and set about making dinner. The scallops were rinsed and drained, then doused with Old Bay Seasoning and sauteed with butter over med-high heat for 3 minutes, flipped then cooked for 1 additional minute. They were removed from the pan, leaving the juice in there for poaching the salmon (7 minutes on med-high heat, covered). The broccoli was cooked in a big pot with a bit of water and loads of salt on it but it was a bust - too tough/old - none of us liked it so I pitched it into the trash.

The Lo Mien - everyone had seconds!
I put about 4 cups of water into a 3 quart sauce pan over high heat.
I poured in about 1/4 cup of Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand Oyster Flavored Sauce (BTW, the kids tried tinned smoked oysters for the first time last week and they liked them - Giselle ate 4 of them and Paul stopped after 1.5).
When this came to a boil I added a 6 oz package of Caravelle Chuka Soba (wheat soba/ramen noodles).
After 3 minutes, I skimmed the noodles out of the pan and put them aside in a medium bowl.
I then added a 16 oz package of Central Market frozen mixed vegetables to the boiling broth/water.
After 5 minutes I drained out the broth/water and dumped the veggies into the bowl with the noodles.
I returned the empty pan to the stove, lowered the heat to medium-high and poured in several tablespoons of Spectrum Naturals Organic High Heat Sunflower Oil.
While the oil heated I poured about a quarter cup of San-J Organic Whole Soybean Shoyu (naturally brewed soy sauce) over the noodles & veggies in the bowl.
When the oil was fry-hot I dumped the bowl of veggies, noodles & soy sauce into the pan and stir-fried it long enough to evenly coat all the veggies and noodles with the soy sauce and warm it all back up.
When everything is coated, take it off the stove, dump it back into the bowl used before, set it on the table and watch it disappear.
15 minutes from start to finish if you include the 5 min that it took for the water to come to a boil (I use the double filtered water from the refrigerator so it takes a little longer to come to a boil).

wow, no post yesterday!

How did that slip by me?
We schooled in the morning, the kids played around the house for an hour after lunch, then we headed over to Marie's house until 5. After dinner there was more playing, then one chapter of Charlotte's Web and then lights out for the kids. I'm not sure how I filled the night hours but it wasn't doing blog stuff or wrapping gifts or watching TV. Oh, I was helping Joe with an Excel spreadsheet for a while and doing some eBay searching.
Back to school and I've got to help Paul find his missing Playmobil prince from his Advent Calendar. Oh, I need to upload those pictures!

Attic Space

Since the attic got cleaned out some (most of the contents are still stacked up in the laundry room) and re-floored there is currently loads of room up there. Absolutely perfect for storing unwrapped and wrapped Christmas gifts. I just have to be sure to remember to get it all down on Christmas Eve to stick it under the tree.

Speaking of the tree, did I mention that, thanks to Paul asking for it, we have a train going around the base of the tree this year. It's either James or Percy going around on a Thomas track with a generic second engine and two box cars in tow but it works for all of us. Fortunately we have plenty of AA batteries to keep him running.

I just need to remember to unplug the outside lights before bed each night. I can't put them on a timer since the extension cord that plugs into the inside socket is a 3-prong plug and non of the timers that we have in stock are 3-prong timers. I guess I could go buy one since I'm sure that I'd use it for many years to come. I'll add it to my list.

rain delay

It was too cold and wet for me to get motivated to finish the outside lights today! But I did win 2 Jane West and 1 Josie West dolls for Giselle and me to play with. Now to keep trying to get a horse for a reasonable price.

Half Done

The tree is up and decorated. I got most of the lights up on the outside of the house. The kids' advent calendars finally came in the mail on Friday so this morning before, during and after Sunday School I was putting all the little Play Mobil toys together that go into the little boxes that I had to make. They are now hanging on the living room wall. I plan on getting the rest of the decorations and lights done tomorrow so that I'll be ready to post pictures for Boo Mama's Tour of Homes - see the button in the sidebar.

tired

I don't want to post, I want to go to bed.
Up at 8, at The Market at 9, back home at 1:30, at the birthday party at 1:40, home from the birthday party at 10:00, helped pull a tooth at 10:15, checked email at 10:30, checked ebay at 10:40, checked blogs at 11, logging off at 11:21. Good night.

GI Joe

Thanks to EBay Paul'll be getting 4 GI Joe's for his birthday in January!

It's Soup Day

Even though it'll be in the 80's here today, here is a recipe for a hearty winter soup -

Vegan Split Pea Soup
makes 9 2-cup servings

4 C Vegetable Broth
12 C water
1 C lentils
4 C split peas
1/2 lb diced carrots
1/2 C chopped green onions
2 tsp Spike seasoning
fresh ground pepper - 1/2 on fine and 1/2 on medium
4 - 5 medium/large cloves of garlic - pressed
1-inch chunk of fresh ginger minced

Bring broth to boil. Add all other ingredients. Bring to 2nd boil stirring almost constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 to 4 hours - until the soup is the texture that you like. Pour 2-cup portions into containers that will fit into your smallest sauce pan (square ones aren't good nor are the tall skinny sour cream containers). Flash freeze overnight then pop them out of the containers and tfer into a big freezer bag. When reheating, add 1 C water for each 2-cup portion as the soup really thickens up after the first cooking.


Since I'm no longer vegan, I now add bacon ends at the beginning and some diced ham. I make it a little differently every time, sometimes adding more carrots nearer the end, sometimes adding potatoes if I'm not going to freeze it, sometimes throwing in some basil or cilantro.

windy

wow, it's a bit windy tonight!

shh, I'm going to bed RIGHT NOW!

Park Day today - I hope we get there before 2!
Market tomorrow - Giselle is staying home!
Birthday Party tomorrow afternoon - I better get those presents wrapped!
Church in 2 days - I get to wear my new shoes again!

Best Of The West

OK, so my next door neighbors and I had these action dolls when we were kids. They were the Best Of The West dolls. In doing research on whether or not I can still get them I found out that they were based on the TV show Best Of The West. I never knew that!
I wish that I still had my Princess Wildflower and my horses from this. I'm looking for them now for the kids (and me too). Wish me luck!

It's A Soup-Tacular

Boomama's got this going tomorrow
Join in!

Freezing green beans

In response to a question of mine, Garden Gnome @ http://www.momskitchencooking.blogspot.com/ posted instructions on canning beans. Unfortunately I don't have a pressure canner so instead I'm freezing the 7 or so pounds of fresh green beans that I got at the market this last week. Per my friend Gayla's instructions I blanched them for 1 minute in boiling salted water and then put them in a cold water bath. Once they had cooled I put them out on a cookie sheet and stuck it in the freezer to flash freeze. Once they are frozen I will transfer them into gallon freezer bags and stuff them into the big freezer. And we'll have fresh green beans for Christmas dinner. Oh, I've got to remember to make a turkey sign for Gayla for The Market.

Still up

Still got some shopping to do so I'm doing some of it now. Actually, I'm taking a break right now. The kids are getting restless in the bedroom so I better wind things up soon.

Wednesday

We were finally going to get to play with Marie and the kids today but she woke up this morning with a mild case of what her family has had for the last week.

Last night I built the grill finally - it rode around in the car with us for several weeks and it's been sitting in the box on the back porch for the last month. Tonight I built a fire in it, using the charcoal that I've been carrying around in the back of the car since the day that I bought the grill. And after our dinner of mac & cheese with mixed veggies stirred in we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. Then I roasted two hot dogs. After they finished off the dogs they went to bed and I washed dishes. After the dishes were done I headed out to Target for their sale. I was there from 9 to 10:30 and got the rest of the shopping done for the kids. Got some for me and Joe.
I'm going to Google for them but does anyone know where I can find some GI Joes? My Joe says that they are too politically incorrect and that I won't find them anywhere. I said "There's a war going on, how can GI Joe be politically incorrect?" He said "This war is politically incorrect." I said "Vietnam was a politically incorrect war and that's when we all had OUR GI Joes." So what gives? Why no GI Joe at Target?

Schnitzelbank

Our latest favorite song is Schnitzelbank, courtesy of The Biscuit Brothers. Listen to a clip here http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/bicuitbros3-06.m3u and then buy it at their next live show or buy it on CDBaby. This version is great, firstly because it's by The Biscuit Brothers and secondly because it's in English so it's easy for the kids to learn it and make up their own lyrics.

I won!

I actually won in a blog contest! No, my blog didn't win anything, I won a contest on someone else's blog. www.countrydoctorswife.com
I'm going to keep the prize for myself since the kids won't be willing to share. Maybe we need to make our annual trip to Garden Ridge for them to pick out their own new ornaments soon.

Target is having a sale on their Our Generation dolls AND HORSES! Their horses are said to be superior to the American Girl horses according to www.justmagicdolls.com. While the dolls are not AG quality, they are great if your daughter likes to take her dolls outdoors to actually play with them. And you can't beat the sale price - $20 for the horses and most of the dolls. I need to get a sitter so that I can shop without the kids!

no more canning for this winter

at least no more tomatoes. Just before we left for ballet this afternoon I finished canning the full case of tomatoes that I got on Saturday. 18 1-pint wide-mouth jars. I bought 2 cases of jars while the kids were in Sunday School yesterday since I had already used up (by canning pasta sauce) the 24 jars that I had previously bought. My cabinet will be full and I have enough to last until next year.

Yesterday, after church, we spent the whole day working on the yard over at the new house. All the scratches that I got on my hands while trimming the lantana were screaming from the tomato juice this morning. Then we rushed home at 5, made meatballs, then ate fresh meatballs and homemade pasta sauce over mushroom ravioli, then headed off to see the live Nativity presentation at our neighbor's church. It was the 20th year they've been doing it - the church not my neighbors.

I don't remember posting on Saturday but the big news of that day is/was ...... I finally got my shoes!!!!!! On Thomas' recommendation I went to DSW. He had been dragged (drug?) there a few weeks ago by his girlfriend and afterwards he told me that they had some shoes that meet my specifications. He was correct! The kids did great, they were trying on more shoes than I was. We went to PayLess afterwards to look for new church shoes for Giselle but we found none so we went next door to WalMart where we found not just 2 pair of church shoes but also a pair of great dress-up shoes - pink jellies that look like princess slippers (no heels!).

Gotta go, Joe's already started watching part 2 of "Tin Man" and he won't pause it for me to go pee if I don't promise to watch it on the sofa with him.