Double Digits

J turned 10 on Sunday. We had scheduled a slumber party over break but the flu canceled it. Since his party was canceled, he requested green egg pizza for this birthday. No way I could say no to that.

I got up early to get started in the kitchen.

First up, pizza dough for 14. I wasn't sure how much I had made the last time we made pizza for a crowd. I ended up with 3 double batches of dough.


It ended up that SIL & family were sick so we only made pizza for 11. I had 13 individual balls of dough left over. Two double batches would have been fine either way. I need to remember that for next time.

After dough was left to rise, I churned a batch of chocolate almond ice cream. I made the vanilla ice cream the night before.

Finally, I started on the vanilla-vanilla cake he requested. I picked a recipe that I tore out of the December Southern Living magazine, mostly because it called for whipped egg whites and I would get to use my copper bowl.






I put some thought into the pizza making process. I used a couple of cookie sheets that have no lip plus some parchment paper so I could have 5-6 piece of dough pre-rolled. I bought more corn meal and used it liberally to stop the dough from sticking. DH got a wooden pizza peel for Christmas that greatly improved the process of getting the pizza off the grill.


Over all, it was much less hectic than our last pizza party.

J got cash for his birthday. We went to the Apple store on New Year's Eve and he purchased a new iPod touch. He's hardly put it down since he got it.

Merry Christmas 2012

Our Christmas wasn't so merry this year. When we were driving home from our day trip on Friday, DH called to say he was going to the doctor. Later he called to say he had the flu.  He spent the next 3 days in bed dying.  A ran a quick small fever and had a sore throat on Sunday. J woke up with a fever and upset stomach on Monday.

Before the illness spread, we managed to make Christmas cookies


On Christmas Eve our Christmas plans at the cousins' house were cancelled, we skipped mass and celebrated with the family via skype.




We decided to do a nice white elephant gift trade with the family. We skyped to the cousins, who in turn skyped to the Iowa cousins. With laptops facing each other, we were set.  It wasn't the clearest picture, but it worked. And I have Fran's Chocolate coming my way soon! Thanks S#1!

J rallied and we had a nice evening. I made a mexican food dinner since we were missing fajitas with the cousins. A made hot chocolate, the boys readied the cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer.






By Christmas Eve evening, I wasn't feeling so hot. I tried to pretend it was all in my head. I made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. I stayed up late to finish up last minute wrapping and get some laundry done.

By Christmas morning it was all I could do to sit upright and pretend to smile while gifts were opened.

Before


Frankie enjoying his new frog


After

DH & the kids (who had recovered) headed to the ILs house to celebrate. DH apologized for ruining my Christmas. I reminded him that I never get a chance to spend a quiet day in bed watching whatever I wanted and sleeping as much as I could.  A little flu wasn't going to ruin my opportunity. I watched the BBC miniseries North & South, the movie Sliding Doors and slept in between.

I almost slept through our white Christmas. DH sent some pictures of the kids playing, so I got up to look our our window and headed back to bed.










I spent about half of yesterday in bed. Today I'm up and moving. Kids are enjoying their presents, especially the air pogo. A knocked another item off the to-do-on-Christmas-break list, making crepes.








Hopefully the illness is over and we can enjoy the rest of our Christmas break. Unless I kill the children for asking again if we can go ice-skating/geo-caching/to-the-mall for the 800th time. Why did I ever let them make a to-do-on-Christmas-break list in the first place?

Christmas Break Day Trip

The kids got out for Christmas Break on Wednesday afternoon. While I would have preferred they stay in school until today and not go back to school until the 7th instead of the 4th, (3 weekends/2 full weeks off sounds way better than 2 weekends/2 half weeks/1 full week off) I have no say over the school schedule. I decided to deal with my disappointment and planned a day trip.

We've gone west, south and north/northwest on our day adventures. This time I decided to head east. I invited the cousins to go with us, but I think my plans didn't sound that great. Even my kids were grumbling. I kept telling them to trust me because we haven't had a disappointed day trip yet.

First stop, The Salt Palace in Grand Saline.  This is a very tiny museum dedicated to the Morton Salt Mine in Grand Saline. The woman said the salt vein goes 10,000 feet deep and right now they mine at 750 feet deep. There should be enough salt for the next 20,000 years. The pictures show huge front end loaders and basket cranes in the mine so it must be huge.

grumpy children


B with his free salt rock.

You can see the unenthusiastic faces on my children. Well, except for B. I warned A that I was taking pictures for the blog and she needed to smile. She will learned her lesson because I'm putting this picture on the blog even though she is making an awful face. J is closing his eyes on purpose, but at least he smiled while he closed his eyes. I will admit that this was not much of a destination. The woman answered questions when asked but wasn't much of a tour guide!

After Grand Saline we headed to Tyler to the Brookshire's World of Wildlife Museum. I wasn't sure what else there was to do out that way until I googled things to do in Grand Saline and clicked links until I found this blurb. I knew I had to go. By the time we got to Tyler I was ready to turn around and go home. Traffic was way worse than Dallas and the address wasn't quite correct. After a couple or 13 u-turns on a very busy road, we finally arrived.

Animals dressed up for Christmas


A looks nervous


Boys getting attacked by a lion




Look at the monkeys!

At least it was worth it! Free admission, cool dead stuffed animals. Monkeys playing monopoly. What more could you ask for.

We suffered through more traffic in Tyler, grabbed some lunch at Chik-Fil-A and headed to our next destination, the East Texas Arboretum in Athens.


the school house


hiking through the woods


on the suspension bridge


running and more running, B was antsy after the car ride




cool seed pod

What a nice place this was. Definitely worth the stop. I can't wait to go back again in the spring so we can see the place in bloom and check out the museum.

Christmas Programs

B & J had their class Christmas programs this week. Since the church had been going under renovations, they split it up and held them in the cafetorium/churcheteria. Each grade had a program of its own. I liked it. The kids got to sing more and it was a much smaller affair.

I guess since the crowd was smaller, I didn't make much of an effort to get there early for a seat and ended up standing in the back. For both boys. (You think I would have learned after the first one.) I took pictures with my cell phone (forgot to charge the big camera battery again) and I only got big blurry blobs on stage. Lucky for me I had a more dedicated friend who sat in the third row at both programs. She sent me these pictures.




Thank heavens for friends.

Spelling Bee

A made it into the school spelling bee this year. She wasn't super enthusiastic about it. In fact she told me she was going to make sure to go out in the first round.

I was glad that she didn't do that. She didn't win, but she did well and made it through 6 rounds.


I hope she is as proud of herself as I was.

Secret Christmas crafting

B has an awesome first grade teacher, Mrs. F. She is a loving, hugging, compliments galore, praising, inspiring kind of teacher. She makes each and every kid feel so special and she loves each and every one of them. I realize that probably most first grade teachers are like this, but since she is my boy's teacher, I think she is the best.

She loves to sing and pray with the kids all the time. I can tell because B comes home singing and praying all the time. One of the other moms came to me and told me that Mrs. F was talking about what Prayer Warriors her class is and how she would love a sign to hang in her classroom to show her Prayer Warriors how special they are. She suggested we find someone to make a sign and go in together to buy it for our special teacher. I told her I could make it.

Once I said I would make it, I got a little nervous. What if it didn't turn out like I wanted. I had an idea in my head and thought about it for awhile. I knew I was meant to make the sign as I had imagined when B leaned over to me in church while singing a hymn, "Blest Are They". He told me Mrs. F loved that song and they sang it in class.

I went to work and finally came up with this.




Today at the Christmas party, we presented Mrs. F with her new sign. She teared up, she was so touched.


I'm so glad it turned out well and it was just what she wanted.

Birthday at Jerryworld

J's friend had a birthday party at the Cowboys Stadium. Since DH was helping drive to the stadium, B got to tag along.










Looks like they had fun!