Halloween '11

Well, we made it. It was quite a Halloween. Kaelyn was a porcelain doll, Rory was a porcelain doll, Logan was Luigi, and Marley was Wonder Woman. Kaelyn had to work, and the rest of us went trick-or-treating.
I don't know what's going on with the lip and the legs crossed, but I LOVE it!
We got them to put on their coats without noticing. Logan's has reflectors. It looks funny, huh?
Happy Halloween!

Floods, Snakes, and Birds

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Walk

Can you see this? It's lime green which is the color for Non-Hodgkins' Lymphoma, but I'm worried it might be too light, so I'm going to change colors. Purple is the color for Hodgkins' Lymphoma, so we'll use this. :) Last Saturday my family of six went to the Light the Night Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Walk at a local park. All I knew about this was that registration was at 5p, there would be things for kids to do, and the walk started at 7p. We got there right on time. I registered with over $500 in donations! For every $100 you got a T-shirt and food for free. Since I'm a survivor, I got a different shirt than the rest of the family, but they got a free shirt too because of the amount of donations. It was really cool how it worked out.
The kids didn't eat anything because they didn't like the sandwiches. I should rephrase that. Kevin, Kaelyn, and Rory had sandwiches. The rest of us had bananas, SunChips, and a cookie. We hung out and got faces painted, went on the moonbounce, and played at the park. Finally we started seeing everyone with balloons. We went and got ours. All the supporters got red balloons, the survivors got white, and in remembrance got yellow.
We got our glow sticks out and they handed some out when we started our walk and lined up. We started walking around the park. It was dark, and the balloons had lights in them that blinked. It was an awesome sight to see, and I love that my kids experienced it. We were kind of in the front of the pack, so to look back and see everyone was breathtaking. The walk was only a mile and a half, so it was over in about a half hour. Did I mention it was a little chilly? We started out with just the kids' sweat jackets. I dashed around at the last minute and got Logan and Marley's heavy coats, but Rory didn't have one. By the end of the night, Logan and Marley we layered in long sleeve shirts, sweat jackets, their short sleeve Lymphoma shirts, and their heavy jackets. Rory was wearing two sweat jackets and her two shirts. Everyone was cold except for Kaelyn. She kept offering everyone her jacket. Even our feet were frozen!
After the walk was over, we went to Roy Rogers. :) The kids love Roy Rogers because they call it Rory Rogers. And it's funny because when we try to say Roy we end up saying Rory. We ate, we thawed...it was really nice. I'm so glad it all worked out as it did, and I can't wait to go back next year especially with what we learned...heavy coats, check in at 6p instead of 5p, and feed everyone before we go. Enjoy the pics.

Happy Birthday, Daddy! (A Little Late)

My dad turned a year older last Friday, the 21st. I don't know if he would appreciate me telling his age, so I won't. I can tell you that a life of fish and rice has done him good. He's Asian and apparently that's very good for your skin. I got a thorough mix of both my parents, so I'm a young looking gray haired lady. :) Anyway, sorry this is late, Daddy. Here is your birthday acrostic.

(Here is where I try and decide whether to use "Daddy" or his name. Commence Jeopardy music)

A- Artsy. Haha! His name is Art! I kill me! Anyway, my dad is just that. He has always prided himself on artful writing (not Calligraphy) but something like that. It looks fancy. He has a flair for fancy. He also has good taste in paintings and furniture...from what I can see. He likes the best of the best.
R- Regimented. Routine might be another good word here. My dad is very consistent in his daily routine. When I was growing up, he was like a clock I set my day by. I had to have the car that I had taken to school without permission back by 330p because my dad would be home right after that. :) We would eat at 4p. After Jeopardy, it was his bedtime. He's not very adaptable...although he's loosening up a bit with age.
T- Tidy. My dad keeps things very neat. He likes it that way, and I wish I had gotten that trait from him. Not that my mom's not neat, but my dad is a neatnik.
(I'm going to do his whole first name, but people normally refer to him as Art (if they're being nice) HA!
E- Experienced. He has been there, done that, on just about everything you could name. He's not afraid to tell you that either...or the outcome from him doing that. He has had some crazy life adventures. It's always fun to hear him tell his stories. When I was growing up it wasn't so fun to hear his stories because they were ghost stories. Filipinos have traditions about things that happen when people die, and my dad would tell us what to look for. I seriously think he is why I can't watch horror movies. :)
M- Mellow. Ok, so he didn't use to be. I could all but hear my sister and mom scream, "WHAT!?" while typing that. Seriously, from growing up with him to now, he has gotten a lot more mellow. He was very strict and can still be, but I think he's softening. Maybe it took the bundles of grand kids to do it, but it's happened.
I- Intelligent. There are a lot of good ideas that other people beat my dad to making money off of. (That sentence could have been written better, but I'm tired and sick) He knows his stuff and will be the first to tell you that. It might have to do with the experience part of it, but he's smart.
O- Opinionated. Who isn't? My dad takes it to another level. If you don't agree with his opinion, that's your problem. :) Maybe opinionated isn't the right word. He's very open about his opinions and will fight to defend why he's right until your eyes roll back into your head. Hey, I had to get it from somewhere. :)

Most of all, he's a great dad, and I feel blessed to have him as mine. I've learned a lot from him. I love you, Daddy. Happy Birthday!
Whoops. Guess you know how old he is now. Sorry about that, daddy. :)

Susie (Nora) Homemaker

So anyone that knows me knows that sometimes I get a wild hair up my arse and try to be all domesticated and what not. Well, I've been trying to conquer meal planning. Once I get that down, I'll be moving on to conquering debt. When I say meal planning, I mean more than just figuring out what we're going to have for dinner each night of the week. I try to do breakfasts and lunches too. So I sat down a couple of days and searched for new breakfast/lunch/dinner recipes. Then I wrote down tried and true ones that we've had.
On one of my new breakfast ideas, I came across Puffy Oven Pancakes. I think they can also be called German Pancakes. Anyway, all the ingredients were things my kids and I eat, so I tried it. The fun part about it was that it goes into the oven and then the kids can actually watch it as it grows and..puffs up.

Do you see this thing? It got huge!
I decided to add some powdered sugar. You can't go wrong with that, right?!
Well, only Logan and I ate it. Even Kevin didn't like it. Then again that sounds normal that he doesn't like something that I make. : ) It tasted like french toast to me. Here's the recipe in case you're curious.

Puffy Oven Pancakes
BTW..I added a teaspoon of vanilla to mine. :)

• 4 Tablespoons Butter
• 1 cup Milk
• 6 whole Eggs
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 1 cup Flour

Move your oven rack to the second to lowest level. The pancake will grow very high and need the room! (In the picture above, it had settled while I took pictures!)

Melt butter in a 9×13 inch pan by putting it into a 450ºF oven for 3 minutes or until melted. Watch it carefully so it doesn’t burn!

In a bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients. Batter will be lumpy. Pour into your buttered 9×13 pan. Bake at 450ºF for 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Great topped with syrup, powdered sugar, fruit, or applesauce.

Halloween Party

We found a new home school group. We've done a couple of things with them, but they have a book club once a month with an activity afterwards. This month was the first book club and there was a Halloween party after it. Rory is in a different class than Logan, so I went with Marley to Logan's class. It turned out that Marley was part of Logan's class too! The first book was about the invention of bubble gum...Double Bubble gum in fact.
After reading the book, they each got a piece of gum to try. Well, Marley was tickled with this because I don't let her have gum. Kevin does. I don't. After they tried to blow bubbles they spit their gum out. They were blindfolded and given a piece of Juicy Fruit and a piece of Spearmint (at separate times of course) and asked which flavor they thought it was. Then they threw pieces of gum into a bucket from behind a line. After they were done that (they got to keep the three pieces of gum they threw), they got to play with pink play-doh that was scented like bubble gum. I'm telling you..this lady went out. It was only an hour class, but it was put together so well! I had fun!
Next was the Halloween party. Rory dressed up like Cleopatra, Logan was Luigi, and Marley was a monster. This was her costume from last year, but other than it being incredibly short on her legs, it served it's purpose. Now Logan as Luigi....I almost don't want to show you the pictures because he looks so darn adorable that I want to keep it to myself, but then why would I blog? So keep in mind that this is without the mustache, which it comes with, because I didn't want him to ruin it before Halloween. They ate tons of treats and candy, played games, did crafts...it was a really great time! I don't mean to sound so surprised, but this is a far stretch from what my kids are used to as far as home schooling groups go. Let's roll the pics...
Good times!

Crystal Grottoes Field Trip

Last year I taught preschool at Rory and Logan's co-op. There was a little boy in Logan's class. We'll refer to him as J. They adored each other and became fast friends. Over the summer we got to know J's family. He has an older sister that is one year younger than Rory, and they seem to get along well too. Because of this J's mom and I try to get them together for outings since they no longer see each other at co-op. Last week we went to Crystal Grottoes. Our family had never been there, but J's had. They said it was a good time. In case you've never heard of Crystal Grottoes, like us, here's the link.
We had a really good time! It reminded me of West Virginia for some reason. Might have been the people wearing plaid shirts. :) We paid and followed the tour guide down some sketchy stairs. I kept thinking that I needed to get everything he said in our tour to school you guys on caves, but he knew A LOT. So, I'm just going to flash through some pics and let you guys oooh and aaah and then go there yourselves.
They had some picnic tables and a creek outside the joint. We ate and the kids got real dirty and wet. :) I'm including dads in the "kids" term.
It was a FABULOUS time as you can see. Lots of homeschooling done...just having fun. That's the way I like it. I think we might try to dive into some rock research after this. We'll see where the fun takes us!