Work, Eat, Play – Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Amy

We just had one of the best Thanksgivings ever.

It started bright and early in our kitchen this morning. We started baking pies right after breakfast. The girls helped me sort the contents of some old change jars to get pennies for weights on the crusts.

Then they sorted much of the rest of the change into their piggy banks while I made the fillings. They thought this was pretty neat. Miss even said, “This is the most funnest thing ever!”

Phase one completed:

I always want pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, and my husband’s favorite is pecan pie, so we did both. They’re not pretty. I can never seem to create an aesthetically pleasing crust, but they were delicious.

My husband also started his sausage making venture today, so for most of the rest of the morning the big girls helped him prepare the ingredients to mix with the meat. Before the weekend is over he will be making 90 pounds of pork sausage, including the following varieties: breakfast, sweet Italian, chorizo, garlic, andouille, and brats.

The girls are so excited about helping him with this.

He also has a ton of venison to grind into burger. Last night we had a date night while we trimmed it.

Wine for me. Beer for him. Raw meat and big knives.

It was romantic.

Okay. Anyway. I’m writing about today. Thanksgiving. We were all busy in the kitchen all morning, except for poor Sis. She become a little frustrated a couple of times about not being able to join the crowd in the kitchen.

But most of the time she played perfectly well by herself. She is so chill. I walked into the playroom to check on her and found her playing pretend in the castle with Prince Phillip and a baby doll.

And my favorite part of the food prep:

Breaking bread.

We made savory bread pudding instead of stuffing, so we were actually cutting it, but I like to say we were “breaking bread.”

There’s something very holiday-ish and family-ish and together-ish about that phrase.

^^ That’s a Thanksgiving photo I can’t wait to show my girls when they get older.

And the big item for the big meal? Well, we aren’t real fans of turkey. For Thanksgivings past I have made prime rib, cornish game hens, etc. I have never cooked a turkey. And last week my husband went and butchered an enormous pig for us to eat. So the only natural thing for us to have for our Thanksgiving feast is… Ham!!

Ham smoked in our Big Green Egg. For 21 hours.

This is the first time using the Big Green Egg and the first time smoking a 20+ pound ham. First time smoking anything, actually.

My hubby is giddy about his new trick. The ham turned out wonderfully.

After our meal, the best way to finish the evening was with a family dance party.

The girls loved the Peanut’s Theme Song for dancing. We played it over and over and over.

Today was a day of giving thanks.

We gathered in the kitchen and worked together. We ate together. We played together. In my mind that’s what families do.

Every day I think about how fortunate I am. Every day I thank God for my life and its joys.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Singing In the Rain, Part 2

Posted on May 11, 2013May 11, 2013 by Amy

Many years ago, my Grandma embellished these umbrellas.

She was in a performing group. They did all sorts of musical shows, and she made all her costumes for their acts. When the group stopped doing performances, she gave me many of her costumes and props. I’ve been holding on to them for years, just waiting for the time to pull them out.

These umbrellas were just right for us this week.

We used one for this little counting and number identification game:

Cut off the “raindrop,” count the dots on it, find the right number, and stick it up.

Even better, was how perfect they were to dance with while “Singing in the Rain” again.

I mentioned in this post how Miss was asking me to sing rain songs while we played outside in the actual rain with their regular umbrellas, and all I could come up with was “Blame It On the Rain.”

This time, it was raining outside again, but it was cold and windy, so we opted to dance with our special umbrellas inside.

I pulled up some Gene Kelly on You Tube and we danced and sang.

It makes me smile to see them dancing with my Grandma’s fancy umbrellas.

I think they have some of her musical talent too.

Thanks Gram.

Doing Summer

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Amy

We’ve been doing summer a little differently this year. Last year we spent several days each week at the pool in the mornings, and were outside playing constantly. This year, with the arrival of Baby Sis, plus Miss having school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, swimming on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and our standing play date on Fridays, and with naps in the afternoons, well, we haven’t been outside as much so far this summer (except for the two weeks we’ve spent at the Farm already, of course). This summer we’ve been chilling out around the house a bit more when we are home.

It’s different, but still fun. The big girls have taken to putting on their own dance parties.

The little baby play table next to Miss is what she was playing the music on. My little budding DJ…

Lass initially just wanted to watch.

I won’t dance. Don’t ask me.

But of course she started to get into the music before long.

And eventually really let loose.

Miss is really into playing her games and being crafty.

She and I made the “crown” she’s wearing from rolled up strips of a Snow White page she colored and yarn. The idea came from our summer babysitter, who brought over this craft and made necklaces with the girls one day. Yep, I now have a babysitter who does crafts with the girls. Her own crafts, that she prepares and brings with her. And cleans up. This is huge. I love this.

Baby sis is just such a little lover. She’s the happiest little baby.

She has started to giggle a tiny bit. Here is the progression of one of her giggles:

Miss takes an art class on Wednesday mornings before her swimming lesson. Yesterday Lass and Sis and I ran a few short errands and then sat outside and had a snack while waiting for her class to finish.

It was the perfect spot for a little snack picnic.

So far summer has felt very full. Maybe it has been a little too full, with school and swimming and art and play dates and travel and all the other day to day stuff that has to fit in there too. But it has been good. Today was Miss’s last day of school for the summer, so we will have a bit of time freed up for pool and park mornings or just playing outside in our own yard a bit more. Tomorrow we leave for Kentucky to visit my parents. My Grandma will be visiting them too, so we will celebrate her 90th birthday and have a family reunion this weekend. I can’t wait for her to meet Sis. My parents haven’t seen her since the week after she was born. She’s three months old today.

It’s gonna be a great trip.

Quickie

Posted on February 4, 2012December 31, 2013 by Amy

Just returned tonight from another week in the blogging black hole (my parents’ house). We had a great visit, and I’ll post about that soon. But tonight I’m tired from a long day in the car and little sleep last night, so here’s a quickie with a few photos from last week.

Miss has gotten into wearing dresses to school. This is because she likes to wear tights, not because she really cares about dresses. I don’t have a ton of dresses for her, since she’s never really been into them before, and I tend to think they’re a bit impractical for an active girl. I didn’t want to spend a ton on new dresses for her, but I found this amazing online consignment store, where I got her three dresses for under $25. Cute, name brand dresses in great condition. I love a great deal (have I mentioned that before?).

And somebody got her very own ballet shoes to be like big sister.

Now they dance together.

No words needed for these next three photos. I’ll just say I love them.

And in closing, Miss’s new thing (besides dresses) is to inspect her feet for toe jam. It makes me chuckle just to type that. She almost never finds any. I do wash regularly between her toes. But she likes to look for it. Whatever floats her boat, right?

There. A quickie. Night.

Membership Has its Privileges

Posted on January 6, 2012January 11, 2023 by Amy

For months now, I have been saying that I want to rejoin the YMCA. My husband and I were members when we first moved here, because we lived in a rental house and didn’t have a good place to exercise at home. When we bought our current house, we set up a nice garage gym area and let our Y membership lapse. Miss was too tiny to do any activities there and we could exercise at home, so we let it go. BUT, now Miss is bigger. She’s old enough to start getting into some of the little classes they have at the Y and I really need to keep up with swimming lessons for both of the girls. There are so many good activities for families at the Y. Plus, there isn’t a whole lot else to do indoors in our town during the winter. So, this week I finally got myself in gear and went to the Y to renew our family membership. We started taking advantage of it yesterday by going to “Wiggles and Giggles.” Our Y has an indoor soccer field, and they open it up twice a week in the mornings for little ones to come and play. They pull out ride-on toys, balls, big mats, and various other things for the kids to enjoy. Not to mention there’s lots of room to run. The girls had a blast.

(Quick snack break)

I’m so glad we joined. The girls ran and danced and got to blow off some steam. And we met some other moms and kids there, so I got to visit with some grown ups.

And speaking of visiting with grown ups, my husband and I had a great date night last night. We went to a new sushi place, and it was pretty good. Of course the best part was just being able to hang out and chat with my hubby. Before dinner we went to Miss’s school and met with her teachers for our little parent-teacher conference.

It was great to hear all about what she has been doing in school and to see how thorough they are in their assessments of her. And it was pretty cool to hear someone else describe her spot-on and know how much time and attention she must get there for them to be able to really “get” her so well. I loved when they told me how much she likes to sing at the top of her lungs and to shake it when they dance.

No one needs to tell me how much my girls love to dance and that they’ve got some moves.

Miss got new ballet shoes yesterday. The ones I got her for her Halloween costume had cut into her little heels and one shoe had totally split on the side from being worn so much, so I told her she couldn’t wear those anymore. She was so upset and asked repeatedly for them for several days. When I pulled out the new shoes yesterday, I was relieved to find that she loves these just as much even though they’re a different style. She immediately asked, “Momma, can you play some music so I can ballet dance?” So I did. The Cure.

I got a question in a comment about organizing photos, related to my last post about taking at least one photo a day. Unfortunately, I’m not really great about organizing my photos. Mostly I just dump them into iPhoto. I do “flag” my favorites when I’m going through and editing them, which is how I select the pics I’m going to upload to a blog post or use for something else. Just in the past few days with the start of this new project I have begun putting photos into folders by month, so I will have a little bit better organization of them that way. I also have set a goal to start deleting photos a little bit more so I won’t have such an overwhelming mass of pictures. And few years ago I set a goal to make photo books for each of my girls for each year of their lives. Unfortunately, I’ve only completed Miss’s first year book. So making the rest of the books needs to become a priority, and I’m hoping to get my photos more organized that way too. I will make folders for each girl, each year in my iPhoto in addition to making the books. That’s it. I don’t have a great system yet. Anyone else have a good way of organizing digital photos?

Little Sister’s Got Moves

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Amy

I have done a few posts about our family dance nights with photos and videos (like here and here and here) mostly showing Miss dancing. Well, Little Sister can shake her groove thing too. Check it out.

Big Steps

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Amy

One of the hard things about moving around the country for school and other stages of professional training is that you end up making wonderful friends and then missing them when everyone inevitably moves on to the next stage of life (the real job stage). I’ve lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina, before finally settling here where my husband found a great job. I miss my friends from all the places I’ve lived. I don’t see them often enough. Fortunately this past weekend we had a fantastic visit from some of our closest friends we met in North Carolina. It was so fun to see them. It’s always good for the soul to spend some time visiting and talking in the comfortable way that old friends do. The girls really enjoyed playing with our friends’ kids too. It was a special weekend.

It was special in more ways than one, since Lass took her first steps on Friday!

We tried to get photos and video footage, but naturally as soon as my husband grabbed the camera, she stopped stepping.

She’ll be walking all over before we know it. I’m planning her first birthday party, which is so hard to believe.

Little sister is getting so big.

And big sister is too. She will most likely be starting preschool twice a week this fall. I say most likely because I am not completely sure I’ve managed to fully commit myself to the idea. I found a fabulous preschool. I really like the owner and her vision for the school. I love the way they teach there. I really think Miss would love it, but it makes me a little anxious to think of leaving her somewhere else for three hours twice a week. I think it will be a great experience for her, so I know I will get over myself and enroll her. I’m pretty sure… This is a big step for me.

I’m also thinking of enrolling her in a dance class in the near future. This girl loves to dance, as you might have noticed from my multiple posts about family dance parties and videos of her dancing. This weekend we happened to have the TV on when “Angelina Ballerina” came on PBS. She had never seen the show, but she was fascinated.

Right away she asked me to get her a tutu and she started trying to imitate the dance steps.

Plie

Pirouette

Arabesque

Not bad!

We’re gearing up to go visit some more friends from my graduate school days in Kentucky. Two of my friends are getting married and Miss is going to be their flower girl. We’ve been getting her dress fitted and watching You Tube videos of flower girls so she’ll have some idea what to do, since we won’t make it down in time to go to the rehearsal. I can’t wait to see Miss as a little flower girl! And I can’t wait to see my friends on their big day.

Three Day Potty Training – Day Two

Posted on March 20, 2011August 17, 2012 by Amy

We are potty training this weekend. No pull-ups. Not even at night. Miss threw away her leftover diapers at the start of day 1. We’re using this 3-Day Potty Training Method and it’s working like a charm. I selected this method for several reasons. One is that I know several people who have used it successfully. Two is that it doesn’t drag out the process of potty training. Three is that is makes sense to me. I could go more into detail about why I like this method, but it is a pretty intense, focused potty training strategy that has left this momma pretty tired after two full days of hovering over my two-year old, saying over and over and over “Make sure you tell Mommy if you have to go pee-pee or poo-poo okay?” So I’m too tired to do a lengthy post tonight.

I’ll just say for now that we started with many accidents and mad dashes to the potty. But today we had no accidents except a little dribbling when Daddy didn’t quite get Miss to the potty in time. She even had a couple of times when she told me she had to go in time to keep her underwear totally dry. We have had dry underwear after naps on both days, and this child who has been such a heavy wetter at night and has never woken up with a dry diaper made it through the night with only slightly wet underwear this morning. I went in to check on her at about 3 am, fully expecting to have to change her jammies and sheets (or peel off the top layer of my two-waterproof-layer-sheet system),and she was dry then. So I’m happy with the strategy we’ve chosen to use. I’m thrilled with my girl who just gets it. Here is an amazing video of my amazing girl (in her big-girl underwear) dancing with her shadow. I couldn’t stop watching this.

Fun in the Snow

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Amy

Today it wasn’t windy and it finally warmed up enough that Miss could go outside and play in the snow with her Daddy. Based on her other experiences with playing in the snow, I was expecting her to want to come back in pretty quickly, but she had a blast!

She got a little taste of the snow.

She had a bit of a hard time moving around in it as it was over her knees.

But she did not want to come in, so Daddy got dressed more warmly and gave her a ride.

And then they just rolled around in it for a while.

One last ride before coming in.

Miss was not happy about having to come in. But she soon forgot to be upset and got good and warmed up by, what else? Dancing!! Lass had a lot of fun dancing too.

Then we made some cookies for the big game tomorrow. Miss didn’t eat dinner well enough to get to have one tonight, but she’ll get one tomorrow. Go Packers!

Family Dance Party

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Amy

You may have guessed from some previous posts that we love music and dancing in our house. My hubby plays the guitar. We sing. We dance. Music is always on. Miss badgers her daddy to put her up on his knee at his computer and listen to “moosic” with her. Tonight after dinner, we had a rocking family dance party.

Miss danced with her Daddy.

She showed off some fun new moves (that’s chalk and probably a bit of dinner – homemade potstickers – on her pants, BTW)

Miss wanted to dance with her Mama. She asked to hold both of my hands while we were dancing, but since I was holding Lass, she just grabbed on to her sister’s foot.