Murder Mystery Party: At the Vineyard

February is such a good month for an indoor murder mystery party!  I was able to find a time for the Sandbergs & Olmsteds to come over and party!

The setting was a Napa Valley Vineyard, with Italian ties!  So, for our main course, I made up baked Ziti (one of Billy's favorites.)  I ended up making a second casserole, because I definitely overbought!

I don't make this super often, because it is not my favorite, and because Billy likes the sticky noodles lain out in neat little rows, which is very time consuming.  I've tried the dump method, and he didn't care for it as much, so rows it is!

My mom scored 3 dozen or so wine glasses from the free bins at MSU. I only needed 12 for the party, so when it was time to decorate, I pulled out some 'vineyard' looking decor, and used the extra glasses as accent pieces!  Taking inspiration from the audio cookbook that I listened to a year or so ago, I went outside to see what I could pull from nature to add in.  The dry, decorative grass in our flowerbed was perfect!

I painted some cardboard to make signs, and finally got to display my wine bottle basket!!!  The flowers were an impulse buy.  They were dead looking and sad in the Kroger clearance bucket, but with a little love and water, they were beautiful for the party!

Grace helped me cut some blooms to add to our nametags.

Wine corks are few and far between these days, most of the wines we buy have the screw top, but we still had a small stash from years past that I was able to pull out to add to the effect.

Winking Owl no longer uses corks, so this will totally be vintage in 25 years! 

I made a glass storage box to keep these in my sister's basement for future parties.  I am super impressed that my mom was able to snag all of these for free!

I'm starting to think that Grace loves to party as much as I do!  She wanted to help with decorations, so she made some favors for our guests to take home!  She worked hard to make the notes look 'old.' = )

Next time I will split the cheese/crackers, olive, and grapes onto two boards, because it was tough to get the tasty treats at the other end of the table!

Aldi let me down on the Napa wines front, so I ended up with a generic "California" blend.

I borrowed William's Christmas gift to play the cassette.  Grace tried to help set it up, but this antiquated technology is difficult!

I boiled water and used our fancy flower mold to make ice cubes, but they still had white in the middle. = (  They were an improvement over our regular ice cubes though!

Our party crowd!  David was the new owner of the vineyard, Ralph Rottingrape, Kristy owned the vineyard next door, Hedy Shablee, Kim was the wife of Ralph, Tiny Bubbles, Mark was a German wine merchant, Otto von Schnapps, Billy was an old vineyard hand, Papa Vito, and I was the local successful movie star come home, Marilyn Merlot!

We had a great time, and since I didn't give this game to anyone I know, the murder was Billy!  I got it right, but I feel like I always think it's Billy.  I need to tally up how many times he's been the murder, because I'm pretty sure it's a handful at this point!

We finished in record time, and decided to play a second game!  Billy bought me the Hunt A Killer: A Wealth of Murder for Valentine's day.  It was labeled "hard" and they didn't lie!!!  We solved all the mini puzzles, but were worn out by the end, and ended up just guessing at the murderer with minimal evidence, getting it totally wrong.  Oh well.  It was still fun!

Looking at every piece of evidence, using technology!  This was the bottom of a pill bottle, but was not a clue, just part of the manufacturing process, I guess.

It was a really great night, and I'm always so thankful for the time and energy people put into their costumes, and solving all of these murders, that Billy loves to commit! ; )

later days 

edit 4-2-25: backdated for continuity

Valentine's Day

We didn't do much anything special at all for Valentine's day.  I didn't want chocolates, so Billy bought me another to Hunt a Killer game, and I gave him a big heart filled with Reece's. 

I refilled some candy boxes with an assortment for the kids, and they got bath bomb roses, roblox gift cards, and valentine cards cut from a little debbie box. = )

I found some heart shaped ravioli, so that was our dinner!

I don't think any of the kids had parties, and I'm pretty sure that Emily and William's valentines, that I pre-ordered, were delayed because of a snow day!

Even so, I think it was a pretty happy Valentine's day!

later days

edit 4-1-25: backdated for continuity

Snow in the New Year

It's been a snowy, wintery, winter this year!

Emily and William attend a more rural school than Alice, Grace, and Juliet, so they've had a few extra snow days (hence the dinner making), but on days we get snow that needs to be moved, we all go out and take care of it!

1st January:

15 January:

21st January: 

Snow day for all 5! (so was 22nd of January!)  These days were dangerously cold too, hovering around 0F as a high.

Willam's boots were not going on over all of his bundling, so he borrowed Billy's boots.  Their comically large size brought me back to the days of William wearing oversized shoes that would fit over his leg braces!

23rd January: 

1st February:

2nd February:

We have been getting some dustings, but nothing substantial enough to register on my snow gauge, with all of the unmeted snow still piled up on the deck. 

The forecast is calling for more gross weather starting tomorrow, which I do love a good snow day, but Thursday day would go much faster for me, while impatiently waiting for Billy to get home so that we can watch Strike, if everyone goes to school and I do some chores and shopping!

Either way, winter is still in full swing, so you can expect at least one more of these snowy posts.

later days

Fun Moments to Remember

This is the collection of all the events that are too small to merit their own post, but are beloved memories none the less.

Juliet's bff, Kennedy, gave her a big bag of goodies for Christmas, but her favorite was the Flounder Squishmallow that is a perfect match for her Ariel Squishmallow!

Juliet recruited Grace, or maybe Grace volunteered to help her craft the gnome decorating kit, and once they finished the craft, they used the leftover as nail stick-ons and bracelets. <3

I found a more appropriately sized bin for our water bottles, and repurposed one of our food safe buckets to hold the chips!  It's a snug fit, but I was happy to use something that I already had.  Looking at this picture I realize how badly the inside of these cabinets need repainting, but I have a much more pressing list before we get to that!

Over the break we got to have Zoey over for a night.  I keep an ear out for trouble, but for the most part, I don't see much of my children when we have a guest over. = )

We went with Avia to the MSU surplus store and to the bargain basement at a consignment store!

On a different day, while out thrift shopping, we found some boots that made me think of Kristy, so she absolutely got a text!

We went out for a sushi(ish) lunch after shopping.

Grace and Juliet split a big bowl of Ramen!  Sadly, this is like the 90s over here, and this was the only picture that I took!  

Emily and I split a lunch bento box, and everything was delicious!

Update on my sandals, they came back with plenty of time to spare, and are beautiful!!!  Here's the before and after:

I'm waiting until it's time to wear them before resetting the straps, but I'm so happy to see how fresh they look!

One short Wednesday, we also got to bring Renae home with us for a few hours.  Grace was a happy little girl. = )

Last year, when my sister Sarah's insurance was rolling over, she had a lot of HSA money to spend, so she recruited us.  Amazon allows you to search for such items, and one of the items that I selected was a heating pad.  Let me tell you, it has been a favorite all winter!  In fact, I'm using while typing this up.  We'll put it away once the weather turns, but right now it's a favorite. = )

Not necessarily fun, but for the sake of posterity, I also filled out our yearly CSHCS paperwork.  Sadly, it's carbon copy paper, so I can't use my traditional cheat of filling out all of the common information and running copies. = (

Also not super fun, Billy has repaired this key at least twice, possibly three times with JB Weld, but this break was the final straw, and my mom came and picked me up from the dealership while they reset my key.  It took a couple of hours, and cost almost $200, but I do have a new key!

However, if had needed to wait in the lobby, it wouldn't have been too bad of a wait!  They had a very fancy coffee machine.

And popcorn, with toppings!  But it was way more fun to go thrift shopping with my mom.

Emily and William had a "conversation heart" theme during their spirit week, so I got Emily some special socks for the occasion!

Billy's been eating a lot of Broccoli lately, in the form of meals from Factor.  His first order, however, he over ordered, and a couple of the meals were going to go bad, so the kids and I ate them.  This one was pretty good, though I personally would have preferred a chicken protein instead of tofu.

I wrapped up a birthday gift for Kristy, but then we ended up having to cancel our day out because of the weather.  Luckily, we were able to make it up last week, and she really liked her book of herbs and uses.  And she gave me back the paper and ribbon to use another time! = )

After the twins' field trip we went to a rummage sale.  They knew exactly what to do in front of the photo op!

In December, the latest CB Strike videos came out in the UK.  I thought maybe now that HBO, an American company, is involved, I wouldn't have to wait the extra month for release.  But I did.  It was sad, but a few weeks before Christmas I marked the release weekend (it released on a Thursday) on my calendar, so as not to have any conflicts.

During my rewatch, I was reading an article that said they were releasing one episode a week, for four weeks.  I was soooooo disappointed. I know it's silly, but I feel like I went through all of the stages of grief! = (  So, on my calendar, I struck out Strike.

In any case, this coming Thursday (today is a Tuesday) the final episode of the four drops, so Billy took off Friday, since we already had Saturday plans, and we are watching it Thursday night and Friday!  I do already know what happens, since I read the books, but I'm super excited again.  Only two more wakeups!

Avia picked out a Dimondale shirt for Emily, and she wears it weekly!  Also, I had been reading the numbers as the zip code, not the date established.  Ironically, it's only missing one number from the zip code (48821!)

One of my favorite songs, Texas, by Blake Shelton, was playing in the car when I went to get a rotisserie chicken from Carl's; who knew what a good luck charm it would be!

Grace and Juliet were making up some bracelets, and made one for me!

Grace stayed home sick from school yesterday, and so when Juliet got home, she was tending to her, and stayed close to her, closer than usual, the entire evening!  Grace was feeling better today though, and went to school

And I thought, I love old-timey pictures of when buildings are being built, so why not snap a picture of the new elementary school as it's going up?  I figure the cars will just help give it that je ne sais quoi when it's a hundred year's old!  When the weather is better, I might take another one outside of the car.

What a fun time to be alive!

And one more story from our day, with no picture to accompany it.

Billy and I went on a coffee date to our local ice cream store a few days ago.  I saw on the menu that they had boba, and knew Grace would be delighted!   She was not home at the time, and I forgot to tell her until last night.  So naturally, today on the way home, Juliet asked if we could stop, but they didn't have money on them.  When we got home Juliet was pouty, but I had dinner to make, and several other immediate tasks (like hand washing the dishes, since our dishwasher doesn't arrive until Monday.)  So, I struck up a bargain with Grace and Juliet, if they would make dinner, tacos, I would take them to the ice cream store.

So, we loaded back up, and I drove them over and sat in the car while they went in.  While I was waiting, I saw that I had a missed call from Emily.  Apparently, the activity bus at her school failed to run, again.  = (  Therefore, I needed to go pick her up.  So, as soon as the twins came out with their boba, which wasn't quite what they wanted, but it was good enough to drink apparently, I turned the car around to go grab Emily.

When Emily got in the car, she was surprised that the twins got boba, because she thought the ice cream store only carried bull boba (red bull with boba balls.)  Queue my panic!  I told the twins to stop drinking, and attempted to remain calm the entire way back to the village.  Once at the ice cream shop, I went in and asked if they had given boba to the small girls who were in just a few minutes before, and apparently they won't sell the red bull to the children.  whew. thank goodness! I had visions of off the wall twins at 3am.

Next time, the twins are going to bring a picture in, so that they know more of what they are expecting, and I might just go in to make sure that there is no red bull boba. 

later days