Cooking and Crafting

The holidays are filled with events and food and expectations and schedules, but spreading a bit of cheer as our days dwindle to a mere 10 hours of sunlight feels imperative!

I made these cheesy pull apart bites a couple of times, for William's robotics, my mom's meeting, and for new year's!  They went over pretty well each time, and the peppers helped balance the platter, I thought! 

These cracker penguins were a Kroger magazine recipe.  They were so cute!!! 

Despite all of my other children requesting seasonal things, Alice's big request was for me to make egg fried rice, in the middle of the day, to offer to her history class.  They had been researching cultures, and the teacher said that they could bring in themed food one day, which turned out to be a snow day, so this was a week delayed.  Alice did all of the prep work, so I just had to make it and deliver it, though that was a cold job!

My mom signed up to bring cookies for cookie time, and picked some fancy recipes for her and the girls to make!

As the new year approached, we changed our Christmas star decoration into New Year's star decoration.

I finally remembered to not remove the random sugary items in my cart, so that Alice could make her donut snowmen!

I tired my hand at woodburning, but didn't love either result.  

Grace made molly a tiny handkerchief from some scrap fabric and a sticker.

Billy's exceptionally fancy, interactive birthday card from Juliet.

Billy did the CAD work on some adorable charms to give to Kristy for her birthday!  The goat was a shelf decoration that he was able to resize and make into a charm.  The Olmsted Homestead he had to modify a few times before we got a working product.

Both of them came out so cute, and I was so happy to present them to her when we went out for coffee!

Once we tore down the murder mystery party decorations and Billy opened his birthday cards, I broke out the Valentine's boxes to fill for my dear ones.  Refilling them is cheaper than buying new, and I get to pick the candies!

Since I could smell the artificial fruit flavors coming off of the air heads, I took those out and wrapped them up to keep the chocolate from being tainted.  I did have to put a cardboard placeholder, to keep the chocolates from sliding around.  Having the next holiday ready to go, even though it's a month early, makes me very happy!

Another Kroger magazine recipe was to cut a tortilla into snowflakes and bake it.  We added some cinnamon sugar, which made it tasty, but the addition of honey took it to another level!

My cooler bag handle ripped off one day, when I was just getting out the Aldi returnable!!! I was quite sad, but thought I could probably repair it.  It seems to be pretty sturdy at the moment, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before the next handle goes. The bags are around $30 on amazon, and while I would wait to find one second hand, I'm happy that I get to keep my Texas bag a little longer!

Sometimes the organizational hacks online are brilliant, and one that I saw for organizing seeds looked awesome!  I found an old photo album for about $1.50 at the thrift store, and while it was bigger than I liked, it did have flowers on the cover!  It absolutely transformed my garden basket in the mud room, and now the seeds will be so much easier to find!!! 10/10 would recommend.

When my mom fell and broke her wrist on New Year's eve, they had to cut her out of her Alaska sweatshirt.  This saddened her enough that she cut the applique off  'to use for something.' So, at my next outing at the thrift shop, I tracked down a sweatshirt in her size whose color would complement the navy blue of the original swatch.

Once I trimmed and applied the cut decoration, it looked like someone had cut out a piece of sweatshirt, and put it on a new sweatshirt.  Which is exactly what I was doing, but in order to make it look more intentional, I cut a piece of handkerchief fabric that I had, to allow it to fray and act as a border.  I was super pleased with how it came out, but only secured it with a single line of stitching, in case my mom doesn't like it, or the sweatshirt is the wrong size.  When the single stitch fails, I can go back around and secure it in place a second time, with a more robust stitch.

I washed it after the application, to start the fraying process, but it's going to be stringy for a few washes.

Since my mom is currently (1-19-26) in Texas and hasn't seen this yet, I'm going to schedule this to post sometime next week. = )  Grace has a whole package planned to surprise her with it!

It's been a nice season of creation, and in this new year, I'm happy to already have some completed projects under our belts!  Here's to a crafty new year!

later days

Snow

It has been snowy since November!  We'll get snow, it will stick around, melt, then we'll get some more.  Last winter spoiled me, because we must be way up on our snowfall!

Started the new year with two rounds of snow.

1-1-26:

1-2-26:

The next round of snow was deep enough to see all of the animal tracks: squirrel, deer, bird, and maybe even the neighborhood cat!

I've skipped over a few dustings, but today it was bitterly cold, so we were fortunate that it was a small amount, because even 10 minutes outside was quite uncomfortable!

 If the snow wants to taper off and give us an early spring, you'd hear no complaints from me!

later days

School Spirit Days and Other School Related Pictures

For spirit week, Alice and Emily dressed up each day, but William's themes were kind of difficult for him to join in on!  As rushed as our mornings are, the only pictures I have time for are in the car.  But for day one, it was grinch/green day!

The twins had flannel day, but we only had a single shirt, so Juliet went looking very 90s grunge, and Grace borrowed a plaid shirt from Alice, that was huge, but at least she was kind of themed.  Kristy gave me some of Zoey's old flannels for the next round of dress up days!

Christmas accessory day is definitely the easiest!  We have hats and headbands and necklaces galore!  Sadly, these were the only days I took photos, but there was more spirit, and William did don spirit wear at least once. = )

On the first day back at school, I was in for one of the support teachers, and we did an activity that required cutting.  Sadly, she only had five pair of scissors, and we needed 8 for one of the groups.  Ironically, as part of one of my Christmas gifts, the twins bought me a bag of two adult sized scissors, and a class set of metal scissors.  I happily dug the largest and easiest to use from my get rid of box, and donated them to her scissor bucket. = )

From her window, during planning time, I was able to watch bird and squirrel drama while eating my lunch and listening to one of my first audio books of the year.  On the day it rained, they were nowhere to be seen, but I kept forgetting to pack my binoculars for a better view!

The same tree, a week later.  No birds or squirrels in sight.

I'm not sure when the next spirit week is, but I do feel like it may be around Valentine's Day.  

Now, we'll just try to stay warm and celebrate the things we can as they come!

later days

Other Fun

Over the last month, we've had all sorts of little fun events and moments, which were not big enough to merit a separate post, so I've grouped them all together here.

First up was William's robotics party.  They had a smorgasbord of food, presented awards, and did a round robin style gift exchange.

 

Grace found all the sizes of cereal in one of our cereal containers, and ordered them for fun.

We got to have Kennedy over one night.  Juliet was one happy girl, since they aren't on the same team, and don't get to see much of each other at school.

On one of our day dates, Billy's beer had a cherry in it!  It's unusual for him to have a garnish!

During the Christmas break, the twins set up a warm, snuggly pallet, using Daddy's new heated blanket.

After seeing me taking a picture of the twins, Emily also wanted her picture taken.

The very first weekday of break, William had a doctor's appointment.  He first had an x-ray, then we went up to his appointment.  Thankfully it was just a follow up appointment, and things are looking good, so we won't return for six months.

After his appointment, we ran some errands, like dropping of Juliet's clarinet, since a piece came off of it, and went to the thrift store so that he could find some gifts for his sisters.  He found this 'um bro' hoodie, and thought it was funny.

I'm not entirely sure where the crepe paper streamers came from, but the girls had fun playing with them before they went into the trash.

 

For Kristy's birthday, we met at Starbucks, so that I could buy her a birthday coffee, and then we headed to Goodwill for some thrift store shopping.  We decided to go most expensive to least expensive, which is a nice way to do it, I think!

At our second stop, I found a stash of my reusable bags!!!! I'm super excited to add some of these smaller sizes to my stash!  And the whole pile was only $4.50, which is just over the cost of a single one!

I found a rainforest cafe parrot cup at our final stop, but Billy said he didn't want it.  Since it was almost $5, I wasn't about to buy it without his confirmation!

   

Kristy showed me some coordinating shirts on the free table during our last mom's meeting, that she had cleaned out of Zoey's closet.  The twins were excited to wear them the very next day!  If their hair is looking a little short, it's because I trimmed it.  Grace's came out awesome, but Juliet's middle area kept coming out short, apparently because she kept looking up while I was cutting. lol.  She likes it well enough, and Grace actually wants me to take some more off of hers, but it is so bitterly cold, it's going to be a while.  One of them asked for bangs, to which I replied with a laugh and a no.  I'm no cosmetologist, but I can cut a (mostly) straight line.

To celebrate his birthday, Billy wanted to take the kids to Zap Zone.  Since it was a long weekend, we took the kids the Sunday after his birthday.  Zap Zone honored every coupon that we brought, and the kids enjoyed their all-day passes.  Billy joined them for bumper cars and laser tag, while I held down the table.

The girls got some blue slushies, though they weren't as good as McDonald's apparently.  They did come in cool cups though!  Alice and William just got bottomless sodas, so no fancy cups for them.

Bumper cars!

Yesterday morning, before we left for Zap Zone was a tough one!  As I was getting dressed, I accidentally knocked my hairbrush into the toilet.  Thankfully, it was old and falling apart anyhow, but still a slight annoyance to have to replace it. Then, when I went to boil my tea water, I found that the hot pot was dead. = (   I can always boil the water on the stove, but it's not nearly as convenient, since it won't automatically shut off, if I get distracted doing something else.  I was able to order another one from Amazon, due to arrive Thursday, which is not too far off.  The final annoyance of my morning was when I went to look something up on my computer, and had no internet!!!  It took downloading an update and restarting twice, plus plugging in and unplugging the wireless card numerous times.  In helping me troubleshoot, Billy found that he had to complete the same process.

At the mall, once Alice was finished playing, she recruited Grace and Juliet to go shopping.  Knowing that there was a Claire's nearby, I asked them if they would be willing to purchase a replacement hairbrush for me.  They picked me out a very pretty one, which will hopefully last me as long as my previous one!

With many exceptionally cold days in the forecast, we will be staying inside as much as possible!  Hopefully, we can still find some fun things to do!

later days