Math & Science Night

Each year Fairview-Clifton puts on a terrific Math & Science night that our family just loves attending.  To be fair, I’ll mention a few perks for the kids including a homework pass when they complete a certain number of activities and some of those activities involve the science of making sno-cones, cotton candy and popping popcorn.  Of course you have to learn how this works and answer some questions… and then someone has to eat the science!  There are a long line of volunteers for that.  There are tons of other great things as well with activities filling the cafeteria, gymnasium, art room, music room, teacher’s room and hallways.  This night is a big deal.  And it is FREE FUN!

Here is a lizard of some sort that the kids got to pet.  And a 100 lb. African turtle.

Next to Nathan’s shoes or the man’s hand, it gives you a little perspective on the turtle’s size.

Lindsay handles a snake… she is at home with animals.

Tristan and Kaitlyn tried out making a milky kaleidescope.  Using whole milk they added three drops of food coloring.  Then they put dish detergent on a Q-tip and put it in the center of the bowl of milk.

Detergent changes the water tension and gives the color in the milk a beautiful tie-dye effect.

Lindsay with one of her friends that she will still attend school with at SCPA next year.  Lindsay was very happy that she can still eat cotton candy.

Popcorn!  Sno-Cones!  Cotton Candy!  Sign me up for that science class!!!

Sunrock Farm filled the end of the hallway with their wonderful farm animals that we got to view and pet.  My kids have all enjoyed field trips to this cute little Kentucky farm through the years.  It was fun to have the farm come to us.

Besides chickens and pigs there was a goat and sheep in the hallway to pet.

And we loved this soft bunny.

Nathan finally got to see his favorite farm animal at the end of the evening.  This was the first farm animal that Nathan began imitating several months back.  So funny!  And Kaitlyn went back for a second cotton candy!  Only at Math & Science Night!

All Smiles

This young lady spent the morning at the orthodontist and came home with her braces on!

If this were for mild cosmetic reasons we would have decided to forego the expense of this 2 1/2 year procedure that is costing us a small fortune and a good percentage of the worth of our home in this charming economy.  But when we stared reality in the face with impacted teeth, oral surgery and tooth pulling as an alternative there was really no choice in the matter so we are doing what needs to be done and making it work.  The result?  She’ll have all her teeth that she should have along with the nicest smile in the family.

To top off her day, Lindsay got her signed acceptance letter to the School for Creative and Performing Arts in the departments of Drama, Instrumental Music and Vocal Music where she will study the first two listed as a double major.  She was also accepted to Walnut Hills High School with her high acadmics and was ready to go and register with them tomorrow night but she declared SCPA her first choice and so with note in hand is going to withdraw from that process.  Good work Lindsay and congratulations!

An Old Favorite

When I left home I made sure to arm myself with a few of my very most favorite recipes from my childhood years including my Mom’s recipe for “Whoopie Pies”.  I saw a morning news segment last week featuring a NYC restaurant owner who serves these old favorites on his dessert menu and it reminded me that it has been years since I attempted making these.

Mmmmmm!  How many times did I bounce down the sidewalk a block and a half to my elementary school in Berkley carrying a tupperware container full of these goodies to share with my class to celebrate my birthday or a classroom party or help my younger brothers do the same??? 

I’ll admit that I’ve only made these one other time since I’ve been married.  That first time was in the beginning before I had any children to help me eat them… but I was also a budding chef/baker at the time… and for some reason they were nothing like my Mom’s and just didn’t turn out too great.  Disappointed, I was leary of making them again.  But having been reminded of them and with needing to bring a refreshment for the Pinewood Derby I decided to attempt the recipe again.  If they turned out well I’d have others helping to eat them too.  And this time I made them with no trouble at all while I did five other things at the same time.  I don’t know what I did wrong the last time I made them.  Perhaps I didn’t follow my “cookie rules” that I’ve developed over the years or maybe I didn’t heat the flour and milk for the filling the right way to properly thicken it but this time they were fantastic, just as they should be!  I brought a baker’s dozen to the Pinewood Derby and they were gone in a wink.  I had set a few aside at home and my own family had to come home to try one out.  I will also add that as I taste tested one before leaving home I felt transported through time back to my childhood days with Mom in the kitchen making these for me and all was right with my world.

2011 Pinewood Derby

This was Tristan’s first year racing in the Pinewood Derby and Lindsay’s last of three years racing.  Both kids had a great time anticipating, designing, cutting, sanding, consulting with Dad, painting and being with friends. 

3-2-1-GO!  And the flag came down.

The kids get right up close but are forbidden to touch, of course.  This proves difficult with a toddler.

Tristan is pleased with the design and speed of his car. 

Nathan decided to join his big brother and the other boys.  It’s so hard not to touch or not to jump the track to get to big sister!

Lindsay’s car was not the fastest but she enjoyed the experience.  And she won the “Team Bieber” award.

Tristan came in 2nd place with his “tool mobile” and won a ribbon.  He is now eligible to go race at the next level.

Here is Tristan with his Cub Scout buddies after the race.  Tristan has been looking forward to this for a while now and he had a really great time.  We are proud of his sportsmanship.

Nothing Much

The news around here is snow.  4 1/2 inches of the stuff!  Yes my backyard looks like a wreck because the oak lets its leaves go at the last minute of autumn and by the time it let go and my husband finished working his 16 hour days six and seven days a week there was snow.  Rick states that “at least” he cleaned up the front and side yards.  He did… and thank you for that.  The rest will become a spring cleanup project.  This year is the first in the 17 winters I’ve spent here now where there has been snow on the ground pretty much since the week after Thanksgiving.  There still isn’t a great deal of snow but it’s enough to shut this city down.  And usually it snows maybe three times giving us a snow day where everyone who wants to brave the elements runs out quickly to get a little sledding in and then the snow promptly melts and everyone goes back to the regular routine.  I must say I like a blanket of snow on the ground for winter.  Usually it looks so stark and dead around here in the wintertime.  By February I’ll be quite ready for Spring however. 

With the snow came two snow days.  I’m sure you can still see the blades of dead grass sticking up in the backyard but it got everyone two days off of school.  Tristan would have had two days off of school anyway since he came down with strep throat.  And Nathan decided to join him on antibiotics with a sinus infection.  Kaitlyn is running a fever of 100.1 for no apparent reason so she has to stay home as well.  Between cold, snow, sickness and lack of funds it’s beginning to feel like I may never leave this house again, except to run to the pediatrician and possibly the grocery store. 

So what are 10 of us (if you include the cats) doing roaming around the four walls of this five room home for days on end?  Some of us are miserably trying to regain health of course.  When can I open those windows again?  Tristan has voluntarily been in bed a few times and for anyone who knows him at all, that’s pretty serious.

Sandy looks for every opportunity that the kids might have left the lid off the JIF peanut butter.  It’s her favorite treat even if she has to feed it to herself.  Don’t tell my grandma!

Everyone has made a stop in the kitchen each morning three days running for Lindsay’s famous eggs which are a knock off of Pop’s famous eggs that she learned from him over the summer minus the “secret ingredient” of Greg’s famous eggs.  She is our official egg cooker now and loves her new job.  “Self employed”, she conscientiously washes all her pans and spatulas so they’ll be ready to go at the next breakfast.  We went through so many eggs that Rick and I had to pick up another 3 dozen yesterday when we made our “great escape” to Sam’s just to get out of the house and pick up a 25 lb. bag of flour.

More eggs?  And we dug in the freezer and found some english muffins which Nathan approved of as a breakfast treat.  He hasn’t been feeling too great so we are happy when he eats or drinks anything right now.  Beyond that we’ve been eating a big pot of homemade soup with homemade bread and apple butter, a few kids played out in the snow, I fed the squirrels and we’ve been playing games, reading, watching movies and keeping the front walk shoveled and salted so the mail can arrive with a window to the outer world and so we can keep the car cleared off for the next run to the pediatrician… 4 out of 5 kids in a 48 hour period made that run!  I’d like a season pass please!  And I might be ready for spring NOW!

Cub Scout in the Kitchen

Tristan told me last week that in order to get his badge in Cub Scouts he needed to help plan a meal and he needed to learn how to cook something.  So I planned a lunch date with him in the kitchen on Saturday cooking for seven.  We decided to make Quesadillas and he was excited.  It’s one of his favorite meals.

First he washed the fresh spinach while I chopped onion.  Then he stir fried those two vegetables in a little olive oil with some garlic, salt and pepper.  After we heated our tortilla on both sides, Tristan sprinkled on cheddar cheese, two or three spoons of rinsed black beans, put our spinach mixture on top with a shake of cumin and folded the tortilla in half heating it with the lid over the pan briefly until the cheese was melty.  We did this six times.  We have two kids that don’t eat so much and share food well.

Then Tristan figured out the rest of a well balanced meal could include a “black and blue salad” (blueberries and blackberries) which he made and named himself, some cheese crackers, vanilla yogurt with sprinkles for calcium and a tall glass of ice water. 

These quesadillas were easy and fantastic!  They are our new favorite way to eat spinach next to eating it just plain as a salad.  Everyone loved Tristan’s meal.  Great Job!

Then on Monday we moved on to dessert.  It was Tristan’s assignment to make treats for Family Night so he got out his favorite Star Wars Cookbook and decided on cookies made with molasses, ginger, cinnamon and sandwiched with Apricot Jam mixed with powdered sugar.  Tristan learned that you must have enough flour to roll out your cookies and still be able to peel them off the table.  He also cracked eggs and dumped ingredients into the mixing bowl.  It was handy to have the day off of school so he could spend a little more time on this project.

Tristan cut his cookies and loaded them onto the baking sheets.  I handled the hot oven.

Introducing “Qui-Gon Jin-ger Snaps”.  Very clever!  Tristan spread the cooled cookies with the jam mixture, arranged them on a tray and then collected various Star Wars Lego figures to decorate the pile of cookies.  It made everyone laugh with surprise when they saw the treat that Tristan had created.

These cookies were so good that after two of them, Nathan himself turned into a power droid!  Tristan and I enjoyed our time in the kitchen together over the weekend.  He was a great chef, a big help and he had some creative ideas that we all enjoyed.

Nice work Tristan

Busy Redecorating (Toddler Style)

I don’t use the TV as a babysitter often but my children do like to watch a little PBS while I take advantage of the opportunity to make lunch and they’re not so busy thinking about their hungry tummies.  So while Nathan is standing in the emptied book basket and watching TV he still finds time inside of the 10 minutes that I’m out of the room to do a little redecorating of our living room. 

One time when I left the house suddenly without cleaning up, Rick came home from work before I returned and thought we’d been robbed.  Am I aware of what Nathan is doing while I’m out of the room?  I will say that usually I am.  “Usually” is the key word.  Kids who are hungry usually make great “cleaner-uppers” since they know there is a good meal coming their way as soon as the work is done.  Having a place for everything and singing our “Clean-up Time” song make this impossible looking task complete in five minutes or less!  Thank Goodness!!!  Some children are a little more destructive at this age than others.

This redecorating job won’t be quite as easy to fix.  Nathan has been busy peeling off my border print next to his bed… and they aren’t great big pieces he’s pulling off that can “easily” be pasted back into place.  He will not leave it alone and I keep trying to keep his bed pulled away from the wall where he can’t reach.  Tristan insists that his little brother makes the crib roll closer to the wall all by himself.  Now, this was the first room in our house that we decorated (nearly 15 years ago now) so I guess that is a good long time for a kid’s room to survive, especially one that has served 5 babies.  But I’m a little sad. 

Some Days Are Like That

I remember when Tristan was born, the day after I came home from the hospital my Dad came and took my sister home who’d been with us to help, especially with watching our girls while I was gone.  The day after that Rick headed out the door himself to continue with a class for his graduate studies.  School was to start the next week in August as well so I knew that I’d have to figure my new life out pretty quickly anyway.  Of course the baby was waking up numerous times during the night, being only four days old and that left me, a very exhausted Mommy, alone with three children to juggle for the first time.  I remember waking up in a haze at around 10 in the morning realizing that I could hear my three and five year olds out in the kitchen together but nobody had been around to get them any breakfast and here it was so late in the day already.  So I stumbled out of my bed, leaving a sleeping baby to go and take care of them.  And there I found them taking care of themselves instead.  Lemonade and Pop-Tarts were the order of the day.  My first thought was to start telling them that lemonade and pop-tarts were not appropriate breakfast fare, but I allowed my guilty conscience to be immediately replaced with the thought that I could allow my standards to change a little bit for one day.  Not everyday would be filled with lemonade and pop tarts for breakfast; for one day it would be OK.  They were happy, I had slept and they were learning to take care of themselves.   All was as it should be.  No need for a guilty conscience.  It was OK. 

Today was a little like that.  The stomach bug that hit two of my kids late last week hit the rest of my kids as well as Rick and myself starting yesterday evening.  I’m pretty much “bullet-proof” to most of what my kids bring home… but not this one.  It knocked us flat on our backs and the words “vile”, “sick as a dog” and “death-warmed-over” come to mind.  I haven’t been that sick in over 20 years.  In a haze of fitful sleep suffering from chills and body aches I recalled the time I had to sweat out a fever in my un-insulated attic bedroom under a pile of quilts in February and my Mom sending someone up to see if I was still alive.  And there was another time of collapsing in bed, sick as a dog, still in uniform after working a double shift at the hospital.

Haley and Tristan were fully recovered from their bug but were the only two healthy ones in the house.  We, the parents, were not healthy enough to leave the house to even drive them to school.  So they were in charge of everything at home and overall it ended up being OK.  They ate, they argued, they played, they complained, they cleaned up and took temperatures and changed diapers and loaded and unloaded the dishwasher and got the overflowing recycling out the door and the garbage can retrieved from the curbside.  Rick and I never made it out of bed except to stumble out for gingerale once or twice.  We could hear the ruckus a few times and once I had half a mind to just get up and take over… but I couldn’t.  I remembered the lemonade and pop tarts.  Not every day is like this.  They will live and the house will recover.  We survived.  Some days are like that.

A Birthday Girl!

On January 5th there were signs everywhere, both inside as well as outside, that it was a very special day.  Kaitlyn was turning four years old!!! 

Her siblings kindly volunteered their services to get Kaitlyn’s chores done.  They had such fun with it that the girl didn’t even need to take off her own shoes after school!  They delight in giving this treatment out and love getting the same back in return on their special days. 

The “Special” plate emerged for the birthday girl and a well padded package showed up on our front porch making the pile of presents look huge. 

We began the day by making the birthday cake that Kaitlyn and I had discussed the previous week.  We used my favorite “One Bowl Chocolate Cake” recipe.

By 9:45 a.m. the cake was in the oven and we decided to play “Caribou” while we waited for it to bake. 

We ventured out after lunch for some playtime

and for kiddy cones.  Kaitlyn is a wonderful big sister.

At dinner time Kaitlyn got her Bitty Bitty dressed for a party and helped entertain Nathan while dinner got made.

In the kitchen she found everyone waiting for her, decorations put up by her dad and her requested menu of Dogs in a Blanket, Corn, Cuties and Cheese Doodles.  Yum!

Once we were cleaned up from dinner we gathered for presents.  Her pile looked huge but part of that was a well padded package as I mentioned before.

Nathan found his camera and sat on the couch with it.  Every time he “took” a picture he yelled “EYES”.  He was so funny about it and he’d never done that before.  He is coming up with new words daily right now.

Lindsay’s offer to be official card reader and present handler was accepted. 

A Valentine’s Dress with matching sunglasses and Kaitlyn’s “Growing Up Girl” were her first presents.

Kaitlyn was excited to find a 5 little monkeys puzzle.  The one where they wash the car and sell it is one of her very favorite stories. 

She got a couple new mix and match things for her Bitty Bitty.

She got a set of award winning picture books we love which I picked out for her from Half Price as well as a puzzle she will have to invite Lindsay to do with her.

Pooh Bear books with CD’s will be nice at bedtime.

This will be fun to draw on.  Kaitlyn loves drawing and writing.  And making music.

Everyone was jealous of this cute ladybug pillow to go with more Eric Carle books that we can’t seem to get enough of.  Nathan was immediately excited and called them “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” as he calls all of these types of books when he wants you to read him one.  Tristan said he LOVES the grouchy ladybug and is happy to have it at home now.  We have no shortage of reading material here.  Books are hard to outgrow and so much fun.

This package emerged out of it’s mailed cocoon once we got the scissors to help us.

I liked this box!

A sweet little book and a basket…

A tea set!  I had decided to wait and find her just the right one instead of just buying whatever I could find.  I’m glad I made that choice.  This little set from her Grammy and Pop is beautiful.  She loves it.  Nathan had a good time walking around with the box on his head.

Immediately Kaitlyn had to try it out with everyone.  She is very careful with it and loves the tiny silverware.  Later Lindsay helped her make a special spot for it on her shelf, when it’s not in use.

Bitty Bitty is a perfect companion for a tea party and I’m sure these two will have many.

Tristan made a Lego house for Kaitlyn for her birthday.  She told him it was so good.  I am amazed at what this boy can whip up.

Then it was time for cake with Mom’s “tea set”.

Haley approved of Kaitlyn’s ice cream choice; Extreme Moose Tracks.

Kaitlyn wanted a ballerina cake this year but it had to have chocolate frosting.  My first task was to locate an older sister’s Barbie doll down in the basement that still had nice looking hair.  I found a suitable one with a crown that Kaitlyn loved and I used it, securing the hair quickly into a bun so it wouldn’t get into the frosting.  I put the chocolate cake into a bunt pan, baked it carefully for an extraordinary amount of time due to the shape and then sliced through it two times so I could get the cake around the doll and so she would have somewhere to sit (she was a little too tall for my pan).  Having sliced the cake into layers, chocolate buttercream went between layers making it extra delicious.  And ballerinas need pink so I decorated with pink over the chocolate.  The pink flowers reminded me of seeing a chocolate cake when I was about three years old, I think living in Saginaw, that had red flowers on it just like this.  I saw it sitting perfectly on the counter and no one was around.  I could just reach it on the counter.  I examined it and determined that probably nobody would miss just one of those red flowers but one turned into another.  And I think it was either my Grandpa’s or my brother’s cake for company!  I don’t think my Mom was too pleased with me on that occasion.  My girls couldn’t believe how well this cake turned out.  I still wish I was better at cake decorating.  But Kaitlyn loved it and that is what matters.

It took several tries to get those candles out again this year.  We’re hoping that maybe she’ll be granted four wishes since those candles pretty much went out one at a time.

Kaitlyn said it was perfect and that “it made her whole life all chocolaty”. 

The next day her nearby grandparents dropped off a gift for her to open; a really cute little playhouse with some tiny mousies and even a car for them.

Kaitlyn started enjoying this gift right away.

Kaitlyn poses by the “card” door with all of her birthday cards.  She had a wonderful birthday.  I’ve really been enjoying her and cannot imagine life without her.  She is an important part of our family and I can’t believe that four years have passed already since her arrival.  When I put her to bed on Wednesday night she was happy about being four but then she remembered that after four comes five.  She’s been asking for a while when she’ll get to go to school.  This time she remembered on her own that five is when she’ll start school.  She got teary eyed as she said to me with her little arms bear hugging me at her bedside “But Mommy, I’ll miss you”.  And I will certainly miss her too but I assured her, with a lump in my throat, that she would love being at school with friends and there would hardly be time to miss me too much.  And besides, she would be “five and a half” and that is sort of a long time from now.  Well, at least it’s a long time to her.  I’m very glad I didn’t trade this time with her for anything else.  She is a great girl.  I love her.  Happy Birthday!