Moon

My mom got J a telescope for Christmas. He's taken it out to look at the sky a few times but tonight was the first time I joined in. It was around 6pm so almost dusk and we couldn't find the moon. Luckily DH has the patience to sit and move around until he saw it.

It was cool to focus in and see the ridges and craters on the moon. It is a waxing crescent moon so only 16% of the moon was illuminated. I would love to try again when the moon is full.

I took inspiration from the woman in front of us at the Mavericks pre-season game.  She held her cell phone up to her binoculars and snapped a picture of Khloe Kardashian. Here's the moon through the telescope with my android.




The larger circle is the viewfinder of the telescope. It didn't focus very well but you can see some of the detail at the edge of the shadow on the moon.

ETA: later that night we went out and found Venus and Jupiter.  We could also see 4 moons of Jupiter.  I tried taking more photos but it didn't work. 
 

Garden 2012, Early Edition

It is the last weekend of February and I'm taking the advice from the garden center tomato class. I planted tomatoes today.

I put two plants (brandywine, valley girl) in the raised beds I built.




I put one plant (supersweet 100) in the self watering container from last year.




I made a couple of adjustments to the swc. I cut several inches off and angled the end of the pvc tube for adding water to the container. It was sometimes difficult last year to fill it last year and I'm hoping those changes will improve things.




The strawberry plants are doing well. I moved them around to make room for the tomatoes. I hope it doesn't mess them up. A would really like to get strawberries this year.




The onions are hanging in there.






We had a freeze with rain a few weekends ago and, despite being covered, they weren't looking so good.  They are finally look a little less straggly.

Boxing Boys

We have a neighbor who has a 3rd grade boy and a K boy just like J & B. B & their younger son play sports together. We've been doing neighborly social stuff with them recently. It is nice to have friends just down the way.

The dad is into fitness in a MMA/Cross Fit/boxing kind of way. He is organized a trip for a bunch of boys to the gym to try a boxing workout. DH took J & B and they had a fabulous time.












The guy who owns the gym was some sort of boxing champion. I don't remember his name or his title. I do know the sad story of his title fight. The guy he boxed collapsed in the locker room after the fight and died a few days later. The gym guy quit boxing for a long time afterwards. Knowing that story, I hope the boys enjoy the workout but have no desire to actually box.
 

Shrove Tuesday & Ash Wednesday

Monday night A got excited. She realized that the next day was Shrove Tuesday and I would be making pancakes for dinner. I made pancakes last year for the first time on Shrove Tuesday. The family thought I was nuts because it was Fat Tuesday not Shrove Tuesday. After a quick explanation, A has adopted it and made it another "tradition" that can't be missed. I think she just really likes pancakes.




I also surprised the kids by making a homemade King's Cake (minus the purple sugar because I was out of red food coloring.)




Yum! This was definitely way better than a store bought King's Cake. It reminded me of the King's Cake my Spanish teacher would order from New Orleans when I was in high school.

Yesterday, I almost forgot Ash Wednesday. I saw a woman in the gym with ashes on her forehead and remembered. I made the mass at noon and went to run errands. I had to order a flag football shirt for B (long story, but basically I sold my son and my sanity to the flag football team for a gin & tonic at the school auction last weekend) and was going to drive right past Sprinkles. I, at a stop light, pulled out my phone and checked Sprinkles twitter feed. Sure enough, they were giving away dark chocolate cupcakes for Washington's Birthday. Lucky Me!  I'm never over by Sprinkles when they are giving away flavors I like.

Except that it was Ash Wednesday. I contemplated giving up Diet Coke for Lent again. After going a day without it last weekend, I ended up with a horrible headache and was horribly cranky. DH told me not to drive the family mad with Diet Coke withdrawal.

I gave up sweets instead. No Sprinkles free cupcake for me.

Happy Frankie Day 2012!

I can't believe it has been two years since we came home with a dog.




A went to a cake decorating party. She used nerds to add an "F" and a heart to re-fashion it into a Frankie Day cake. We all enjoyed a small slice. She also took the dog on a walk, so he got some fun on his day too.

Wowa's birthday

Yesterday was my mother's birthday.

I spent a lot of time this week picking what to make for dessert. I finally decided on a salted caramel chocolate cake from Martha Stewart's November magazine. I have never made caramel before so it would be an adventure.





The caramel sort of seized when I stirred in all the butter so it was grainy, but it still tasted good. After reading lots of comments about falling cakes, I reduced the size from 6 layers to 4 layers and it stayed up just fine.





I love the sea salt sprinkled on top.





Mom called on Monday to request homemade pizza for her birthday dinner. I've made a it a few times recently and it has turned out delicious. The crust on the cheese pizza was just average, but the crust on the sausage/mushroom/onion and the bacon/tomato was excellent. Good thing the kids eat the cheese pizza, no need to waste the good stuff on them.





I have been working for a few weeks on a hat. Mom has worked in neurosurgery for years. I thought she needed her own brain hat. Of course I didn't finish it in time so she got half a brain hat. She loved it anyway.







And just in case she doesn't want to walk around with a brain on her head all the time, I got her a hot pink mannequin head to sit on her desk.





After the thrill of the birthday presents (she also got a chewy praline and a bottle of champagne), we had the cake.





It was good, rich but good. I'm still disappointed in my caramel, but overall, I was happy with it.

Finally, for entertainment, ArmyGuy-Pirate-Spiderman-Aggie guy came to entertain. Silly B!

homemade oreos

The girls scouts came over yesterday for a meeting. They are working on their new cuisines badge. This meeting's requirement was making a processed food from scratch, so they made homemade oreo cookies.

I had a recipe from my Flour cookbook but it was complicated and required resting and refrigerating the dough, not possible in our hour long meeting.  Luckily I found this recipe from the Annie Eats blog.




I wasn't sure how it would go with 6 girls trying to bake a batch of cookies. It turned out fine. They all took turns measuring and mixing. They had fun rolling and squashing the cookies and didn't eat too much dough. The hardest part was probably waiting for the cookies to cool. Talk descended into who is the cutest couple in 6th grade (when did they start having "couples") to how overrated is Taylor Swift and what should Adele do with her hair? It is so funny because I remember their chatter from a year ago and it definitely has grown up.




Once they finished making their cookies, they were inhaled. I guess they were good. Next on the list, potluck supper with the girls making the dishes. We'll see how it turns out.

Central Market

If you're from Texas, you probably know about Central Market. The first one opened up in Austin years ago. It was always the highlight of my list of must-dos when I went to visit my friend down there. They opened two Central Markets in the Dallas area about 6 years ago. Despite them being in town, they are still quite a drive from my house and I haven't made the trip very often. I discovered that the kids think it is a very special treat so I take them a couple of times a year.

Well, the much anticipated Central Market opened at Preston Royal yesterday. It is just down the way, an easy drive from our house, one I would actually make. I think that worries DH and our grocery budget. We headed over yesterday morning to check it out. We got there around 10:30 and it wasn't crowded. There are lots of concerns about parking. It is a crowded strip center and there were already parking issues. Luckily mid-morning wasn't too busy. By the time we left it was getting to lunch hour and business was definitely picking up.














This Central Market is a compact format. It isn't nearly as big as the others, the size of a smaller grocery store. The deli, bread, cheese (so sad, I love the giant cheese section) and chef-prepared areas are much smaller, but over all the store is very nice. I'd love to shop there more often, we'll have to see how much my budget can handle.

Even better, soon Trader Joe's will open and I'll be able to drive to get dark chocolate caramels anytime I want.  I will definitely make the drive for those. 

P.S.  CM fans - can you tell we walked in the exit and went backwards through the store?

bargain

I've tried couponing before. I've spent time going through the sunday paper. I've cut out the coupons and organized them. I've even put them in my purse before heading to the store. Invariably, I forget to pull them out and actually use them. I can be good at it for a week or two and then I forget and they expire.

S#5 has gotten into using CVS Extra bucks lately. She gets all excited when she gets a load of candy for work for just a few dollars or bargains on her favorite lotion or various stuff for free. Saturday I needed to buy new lipstick for the school auction. I called S#5 to see if she wanted to go to cvs with me and get my extra bucks. She was busy so I went alone and used DH's card.

I was surprised when I checked out to find there was a special running on the brand of makeup I bought. I earned $4.00 in extra bucks for buying lipstick and eyeshadow.

Fast forward to Sunday evening when I had to buy valentines for J to take to school. He wanted nothing to do with making his own like his brother. Since I had the $4.00, I headed to CVS instead of the usual Target. He picked up two boxes of valentines and we paid.

I was again surprised when I looked at the receipt.





For two boxes of valentines, originally $6.50 with tax, I paid $0.52. Now that's a bargain. I may have to start paying attention to CVS and joining the Extra Bucks band wagon.

Valentines

My first two kids were so easy. They took suggestions well, they were fairly compliant, they let me tell them were to put pictures on their school posters so everything was nice and even. I had B and things changed. It's a good thing that he is my third. I've overcome my perfection compulsion. I've learned just to hand him the glue and let him do this thing. It is way easier than arguing with him.

For example, kindergarten valentines. They have a party today and had to bring valentines in for their classmates. B decided not to buy valentines but make them himself. I'm good with that, until he said he wasn't going to use a heart pattern, he was just going to cut them out. I tried to convince him that he would get more valentines from the paper if he used a pattern. He told me he didn't need a pattern, he knew what he was doing. He also decided he didn't like the red paper we had, it wasn't "red" it was "orange". He used blue instead. Oh, that boy drives me crazy.









I've learned my lessons over the past 6 years. I gave him scissors and let him go. He did it all. I did convince him to let me write "Happy Valentine's Day" due to lack of space.  He told me to make them more valentine-y and add the word "LOVE" too. He did the rest and he was so proud.

biscuits

I tried a new recipe the other night, chicken ala king. Everything it called for I had in my fridge, except for the package of refrigerator biscuits. I didn't really want to drive to the store for refrigerator biscuits when I probably had the ingredients to make them at home.

Google to the rescue. I made these.




Chicken ala kind, ho-hum. The biscuits, quite good. The first batch got us through dinner, breakfast and after school snack the next day. I baked the rest for leftovers the next night. I will definitely be making these again.  Now I need to find a recipe for flaky refrigerator biscuits.  Then my children will be in heaven.

super bowl of desserts

Last night we went to friends' house to watch the first half of the super bowl. I was in charge of desserts. I couldn't bring just one dessert to the super bowl. There had to be a good variety.




Black Raspberry Crumb Bars, Brownies, Banana Bread, Kathy's Peanut Butter Bars

100th Thinking Day

This is the 100th anniversary year of the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas have lots of activities planned to celebrate. Last Saturday was Thinking Day.

I was excited about this event. The past few years, our area's Thinking Day celebration has been a bit lackluster. For the council wide event, the different areas each took on a booth celebrating a decade of girl scouting, and since it is thinking day, or girl scouting in another countries. Most of the girls in my troop were busy, but I took A & her friend.




Unfortunately, this event was way oversold. We stood in line for over 30 minutes to check-in.  Once we got inside, it was so crowded you could hardly move. There was probably a lot of interesting information that would have been really cool to peruse. However once you got to the front of a booth and grabbed a swap, you just got pushed along. They needed three times the amount of space they actually had.






Once we had enough of pushing through the crowd, we made our way out to the craft area. The girls found a seat and made paper lanterns from the Tunisia booth. They had fun doing that and there was room to breathe so I was okay.




In the end, they enjoyed the craft and were disappointed in the rest of the event. At least they were still smiling as we left.

Pete's

Saturday J had an 8am basketball game. It was the last one of the season. DH called after the game was over and asked us to meet them at Pete's for a post game breakfast. Yum!

A had already eaten breakfast so she just ordered a hot chocolate.




I know the cousins in Kazakhstan are jealous!

in & out

Two Saturdays ago, DH took B to Great Wolf Lodge for a "camp out". It was a last minute decision. J had a friend spend the night and A spent most of the afternoon playing with a friend. I took the kids to 5pm mass for Catholic Schools Week. If they went in uniform, they got a free dress pass on Monday. Afterwards I took them out for a "I don't get to go to Great Wolf Lodge" dinner. We discussed a couple of places and ended up at In & Out. This is my first time to have eat there since it first opened.









After eating there twice, I've decided that I don't need to go back. The burgers are good but the fries aren't my thing. We got one order regular and one order well (fried twice) and I didn't like either batch. I need to make a new "off the menu" item, medium fries. The regular were too raw and the well were almost potato sticks. Plus, they didn't have enough salt.

I can go to Burger House to get a similar burger at a similar price and the fries have that special salt. Yum!