Sunday Activity

Some of you may know that I made the decision to start going to church again over the summer.  This post is a little update on the church that we are going to, how it is working out for us, and other little tidbits about our new... ahem... Sunday activity.

History:  Many of you {{being strangers and all}} do not know that I was raised in a Christian home.  No one forced me to be Christian any more than they forced me to eat spaghetti and like it.  Christianity was just part of what we did.  I went to a religious-based school and I was raised by my grandmother who was the church organist, and treasurer, as well as a Sunday School teacher.  "Church" was just part of every day life.  

Somewhere along the way I went to college, got married, and had kids {{not necessarily in that order}}... and stopped going to church because I was too busy.

Sometime during the late summer of 2011 the Spirit moved me {{well... more like hit me over the head with a club}} to start going to church and this is probably the single best parenting decision I have made EVER.

Although I was raised and baptised Lutheran, we allowed our teen-aged daughter to find a church for our family.  We felt like one of the main requirements was that she needed a place with peers whom she felt comfortable with and so we let her have a big say in where we went to church.

She found this Baptist church right down the street from our house and it has been the great fit that we have needed.

Here are some things that I like about our church, in no particular order.

1.  The songs are great.  They use real words that we all know.  They are catchy.  They are thought provoking and inspirational.

2.  The sermons, albeit 30-45 minutes long, are inspirational as well.  The pastor is a great speaker and I walk away with good information every single Sunday.  My apologies to my past pastors - I am sorry for the glazed over look I had during your sermons; you started off great but always lost me mid-way through - sorry.

3.  The kids can go to Sunday School WHILE I go to church.  This might be the single best thing about this church and the main thing that keeps me going back.  I don't have to work to keep my kids quiet during the service.  They have their own Sunday School lesson while I get my lesson and we all leave recharged and re-energized at the end of the service.  SCORE!

4.  My kids -- all of them -- enjoy going to church on Sundays.  Let's face it, it's no fun dragging your whole family out of bed bright and early for a bummer activity.

5.  Our church offers tons of activities during the week to share with other Christians.  We have traditional Bible study as well as a runner's group, a knitter's group, and so on.  My kids and I all participate in the Wednesday evening activities.  They have youth group and kids club while I... wait for it... go to a Mom's Group.  The purpose of the mom's group is to encourage and equip moms to be the best moms that we can be.  We have guest speakers, good food, and plenty fo tiem to chat.  I feel like such a rejuvenated and re-energized mom when I leave my mom's group.  Think about it?  How do you feel on a mid-week night at the end of the night?  Worn out?  Exhausted?  Tired?  Like giving up?  I used to feel that way but now I am totally re-energized for the rest of my week.

6.  Over all, I feel a different vibe and a different energy in my home.  There is a greater sense of calm and unity and fun that is just a tad bit different than it was before. We are spending more time together as a family... laughing and playing... it's just great.  I don't know if all of this wonderfulness is a result of going to church but I'd like to think so.

So, now you know a little bit more about my church and how going to church is impacting my family.

Does Dear Husband go to church with us?  No.  He does not.  He was raised in a very strict Catholic church; although he does not want to go to a Catholic church, he says that this contemporary church feels more like a cult than a church.  Ouch!  He says that he would compromise and go to a Lutheran church.  I still pray that he will attend church with us every so often.

Any advise on how to coerce my husband

into going to church with us is greatly appreciated.

Halloween 2012

Halloween was such a hit!  Everyone had a blast and it wasn't too cold outside.

Lulu - She was an amazing shufflebot.  She was uber proud of her costume which also included audio of the songs that the shufflebot dances to.  While all of the adults thought she was a robot; the kids new exactly who she was!  Score!

Bro - What can I say about Bro?  He is the perfect age for trick-or-treating.  Here are the highlights of his night: 

~ He talked in a deep Spiderman voice all night long. 

~ He greeted everyone with "Happy Hallo-sneakers!" and would look at his candy and exclaim "for gosh sakes" each time he got candy.

~ If the home owner was not positioned outside with the candy then Bro would walk up to the door, stare at the home, and shout "NEXT!"  It was hilarious!

Bri - Well, we packed a stroller for Baby Bee, but she didn't need it.  She waddled around in her tutu, going from house to house, all night long.  She was extremely cute and definitely got tons of compliments on her cute costume.

I'm loving that I am blogging every day this month. I would like to thank you all for confidence that I can start to lose some weight.  The Halloween candy in the house is NOT helping my efforts though.

What do you do with your leftover Halloween candy?

Let them eat... pie???

For those of you who are still eating pumpkin... I made this pumpkin goody for a dinner party I went to.

It was delicious and easy.  I used regular pancacke syrup from my refrigerator instead of the "pure maple" that the recipe called for.  I added the spider web design from melted chocolate in a ziploc baggy.  Since Halloween is over, you can skip that step.

I also made these to-die-for blueberry pie bars for my mom's birthday.  Yes, they taste as good as the picture looks.  Also, this makes lots of pie bars.  The recipe made enough to: celebrate with my mom, leave her with leftovers, have leftovers for my house, and share with the church mom's group as well.

Baking season is upon us!

My only regret is that my homemade vanilla extract is not ready.  boo-hoo.

Halloween Part 1 and Vanilla Extract

We made it through Halloween.  Someone was going to be Taylor Swift... but at the last minute opted for Shufflebot instead.  Why does she always do this to me?  Can't we just go out and buy a costume like the rest of the world???  The Shufflebot is the mascot of a hot teen pop group right now.  It is a person who dances in a robot costume.  She informed me that she needed a "rock star" shirt with the words "Excuse me for Party Rocking" (in a certain font) on it, and she also needed the robot head.

Luckily, I read more than my share of craft blogs.  I decided to use the "freezer paper stencil" technique to stencil the correct text and font onto the shirt.  There are tons of freezer paper stencil tutorials online.  Basically, freezer paper is paper on one side and plastic on the other side.  You draw your stencil onto the freezer paper and cut out the center as necessary.  Then, iron the freezer paper stencil to your shirt.  Color in the letters (or picture) and then peel the paper off.  It works like magic! 

So, here we are with the freezer paper stencil on a black shirt and Lulu is spraying silver glitter paint onto it.

While we waited for the stencil to dry, I dove into the Madagascar vanilla beans I ordered on the Internet.  Yes, this is Dear Husband and I splitting vanilla beans while the Halloween shirt dries on the ironing board.  I made him take a picture of my hands covered in vanilla. I was really touching the insides of the beans from Madagascar for crying out loud.  It was uber-cool! 

So, back to the vanilla beans...  I am making my own vanilla extract. Why?  Because I can.  Ok - well, it is a fraction of the cost of store-bought vanilla extract and I am also going to give it away as gifts this Christmas.  It is important to start now because it takes two months for it to finish.  After that, the vanilla extract supposedly just gets better and better with age and makes your home-baked goodies taste extremely yummy! 

Next time, I am going to make the extract from rum, not vodka. 

Stay tuned as we show off our Halloween creations tomorrow.

Weight

I've been getting some pressure to lose the... ahem... baby weight that I gained with my last two pregnancies.  I get it.  I need to lose some weight.  I also have some very good excuses why I am still a ton wee bit overweight. 

1.  I have a desk job.  That is, it is my j-o-b to sit on my bottom all day long. 
2.  Since I work all day long, I spend my free time with my kids... not at the gym.  Don't get me wrong - I totally love going to the gym.  I am just NOT going to go to the gym in lieu of playing with my kids.  End of story.

Oh, there is this other little issue too.  It is called, "I love baked goods."

In all honesty, I found this picture somewhere online and saved it for myself.  I really laugh an audible laugh every single time I think of this picture because it TOTALLY represents the voice inside of my head! 

Not sure where I found this pic,
but I would love to give proper credit if anyone knows where it came from.

Christmas is coming baking season is upon us.  I do not have any delusions that I will lose weight any time soon.

Speaking of baking, I have so much to share with you... like I am making my very own vanilla extract.  Oh gee - so much to say!  I hope you stick around.  I've been challenged to post every single day this month.  Yikes!  I don't know if you really want to hear from me that often, but I intend to be here if you need me!

Is it really possible to lose weight during baking season???

Someone we know is learning to ice skate.  Daddy bought him a pair of hockey skates.  We have since learned that it would be easier if he learned to skate while wearing figure skates because they have the toe pick for stabilization, stopping, and pushing off.  Either way, he's still doing very well.  Below is a portion of a clip that Dear Husband filmed when he and Bro recently went ice skating.    

Note:  I hope this video loads correctly.  If it does not, I will try again and repost later.

One of Bro's classmates (now age 4) had an ice skate birthday party.  It has been my experience, after 13 years of being a parent, that ice skate parties are not successful because there are typically several kids who can't skate and just aren't going to get it.  The party is a real bummer for these kids.  However, in the most recent case, the skating portion of the party was a lesson from the rink instructor.  FABULOUS idea!!!  Bro and his classmates did sooooo well with the instructor.  After seeing how well Bro did with the instructor, Dear Husband decided that maybe Bro would learn better in a class setting. 

We hope to have more ice skating info for you in the months to come.  Bro is eager to learn so that he can be on a hockey team.  Hockey??? Really???

Pumpkin Patch

hmmm...

Our annual family trek to the pumpkin patch had its highs and lows this year.

I like the annual visit to the pumpkin patch because:
1.  this is where I get some of my most favorite pictures of the kids;
2. everyone (little ones, teen, and parents) is guaranteed to have a great time;
3.  it's cheap inexpensive (the only cost is the pumpkins); and
4. it is one of our last opportunities to have fun outside before it really starts to get cold.

Let's recap our 2011 visit.

Goal 1.  Get a great family picture.  FAIL.  See evidence below.

Goal 2.  Pretend to live in a pumpkin house.  FAIL.

Goal 2 has now been changed to:
Plank in the pumpkin house windows.  SUCCESS.

Goal 3.  Pick the perfect pumpkin.  SUCCESS!

Goal 4.  Have fun pushing wagon.  SUCCESS!

 
OK... so they weren't into taking pictures this year.  That's cool too.  Maybe next year.

Fall Activities

Interesting story about my life.  Everyone in the family has decided what they want to be for Halloween.  Most of the costumes are ready.

Lulu = Taylor Swift (complete with blonde wig and guitar)
Bro = Spiderman (Remember:  you must refer to him as Spiderman - not Bro - when he is in costume)
Bri  = a bumble bee

Dear Husband has suggested costumes for us as well.  It goes something like this:

Dear Husband = party... covered with balloons and holding a fun drink
Me = all brown.  Thus, he is the "party" and I am the "party pooper." 

Are you laughing?  I fail to see the humor in this. {{smirk}}

Speaking of Fall, we have been outside enjoying the wonderful weather.

Someone has decided that she can climb up the ladder to the slide all by herself. 

We also utilized Fairy Grandmother's apple slicer.  Bro thoroughly enjoyed using his big boy dull kid knife to cut the apples. 

He even shared some slices with his sister which I just thought was precious.

We are going to a pumpkin patch this weekend. 

How 'bout you?

Pumpkin Martini

More notes from the Pumpkin Pantry!

You KNOW I have a pumpkin passion.  Yum!  Over the weekend, Dear Husband and I took a few days to celebrate our anniversary.  During that time, we went to a great dinner overlooking some very quiet views...

and a little bit of a sunset over the clouds.

When the waitress took our drink order, she mentioned their signature Pumpkin Martini!

WAKE UP!

Did she say Pumpkin Martini???

She did!  It was great! 

Here is their recipe:

     Equal portions of:

     Fulton's Harvest pumpkin liqueur

     Vanilla Vodka

     Bailey's Irish Creme

Tip:  The bartender recommended putting in a splash less vodka and a splash more of the pumpkin liqueur than the recipe calls for.

Are you enjoying

pumpkin recipes this fall?

Fall Festival

I'm a bit of a lover of Fall, but I think I don't like Fall as well.  I don't know what's wrong with me.  You know, I think I like everything about Fall except for the cold weather.  Yes - that's it!  Fall = awesome.  Cold weather = yuck!  mkay?

This past Saturday... and at the very last minute... we found out that Brody's swim lesson was cancelled.  We sprang into full-fledged Operation-Fall-Festival action.  We were out of the house within moments and headed to a Fall Festival at Greenstreet Gardens, a place that we had never visited before.

Yay for being spontaneous!!!!! {{clap, clap, clap}}

At the start of the visit we took a somewhat spooky hayride to the festivities.  This is my only complaint of the whole day and I hate to start of with a complaint but here goes.  To be honest, the staff disclosed that the hayride was spooky, but it also seemed that the hayride was the ONLY way to get to the fall festival from the main parking location.  Without going into all of the logistics about what I saw and didn't see, the conversation with the staff went something like this:

Me:  (holding toddler and standing next to preschooler) I see that your sign says the hayride is spooky.  How spooky is it?

Older-ish Man:  Somewhat.  Aliens and monsters and stuff.

Me:  (willing to skip the hayride)  OK.  Where is the corn maze and moon bounce and stuff that are advertised on the brochure?

Older-ish Man:  Over that hill back there.

Me:  Cool.  How do we get over the hill?

Older-ish Man:  Take the hayride.

I did not want to take the spooky hayride but could not see of any other way to get to the festival nor was the guy offering up an alternative.  So we climbed aboard. In short - the ride was spooky and on the verge of being too scary but we made it through just fine.  Everyone at the festival was either under age 7 or over age 35 (that is, parents and small kids).  The spooky hayride was unecessary and you could tell that the parents on the hayride were not pleased.  A simple well-placed sign like this, would be sufficient and make everyone happy, since they offer a hayride back to the parking lot and it is nonspooky!

Parents - This hayride is spooky.  However, you can walk over the hill to the festival and take a nonspooky hayride back at the end of your visit. Thus, your kids don't have to go through the spooky barn but they still get to enjoy a nice hayride.

There was tons of fun at the festival and it totally delivered.  They had a hay maze for the little ones and Bri totally made it out all on her own, which made me laugh out loud!

Bro's favorite part BY FAR was the corn kernel sandbox.  He would have played in this corn kernel box all day long if I let him.  This was a genius idea and all of the kids just loved, loved, loved it!  I am tempted to fill his Brielle's sand box with corn kernels next summer.  It was that fun. 

Lulu found the perfect mini-pumpkin in the patch...

... and she was such a great mother's helper too.  Let us be real clear here, I would not have gone if I didn't have her with me!   

All in all, it was a great day.  I highly recommend the Greenstreet Garden Fall Festival for small children.  Many fall festivals have games and stuff, but they require waiting in line to get into the action.  Greenstreet Gardens was great because there was plenty for the little kids to run and play and do!  To be honest, it might be my favorite fall festival location for families with young children. 

Be honest, should I put corn kernels in the sand box next year?