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

Halloween 2025

 Halloween felt pretty simple this year, not much on the table.  Even the toothbrushes were downgraded from electric, because the kids all said they weren't even using that feature and wanted the ones with sticky bottoms.  = (

We tried our best to make Grace's hair into a pumpkin. It wasn't much of a pumpkin, but it still looked cute.

I volunteered at the twins' school to run the Bingo station for their fall festival.  For some reason, they both got on the bus after school, but Kennedy listened to the plan, and so she ended up riding with me, while the girls took the bus.

They did beat us home, because I'd spent so much time waiting for them in the bandhall, which was where the Bingo was played, so I figured they'd come back through there, but no. = 0

Juliet's new friend Charlotte was able to come by later, after going home and changing into her costume.

The sun was extra bright, casting relfections from Emily's saxophone,

...as well as a bright reflection from Grace's shirt!

Where is the best place to play a game that you really can't easily move once you've started? Definitely in the path of the front door!

I made a homemade pizza out of some clearance bread that I got at Walmart.  It was quite enjoyable as pizza!

My crew.  Thought it's a weird angle, so they all look short and wide: Ender Dragon, Megan, Woodland Fairy, Zombie, and Dragon!

The sixth grade crew!

During the holiday, the Cornishes came by, as well as Jennifer, so us ladies passed out candy, while the dads took around the crew.  Eventually, Emily's friends stopped by, and once she found that out, she was off with them instead!

It wasn't the coldest of Halloweens, but I wouldn't have minded another 15 degrees or so.

I found some clearance cookies at Walmart a few days after Halloween, so I grabbed them for my crew to color.  Sadly, they were not very good cookies, and the food coloring tasted awful. = (  I think we threw out most of them.

They were easy to color though!

We got to give out some fun stuff this year: potatoes, canned beans, bottles of water, and even tuna!  The kids thought it was great fun, and usually choose one of those in addition to two pieces of candy for one of their "choose three."

I did feel like October went by pretty slowly, since Halloween fell on a Friday, but November absolutely flew by and we are staring December in the face!  As we finish up the Thanksgiving break, I'm already feeling tired and ready for Christmas break!

later days

edit 11-30-25: backdated for continuity.

Other Little Fun Moments

This post is a collection of all the other little moments in our lives that weren't big enough for a special post, but they were special enough that I wanted to remember them!

Grace was cleaning out her backpack, because she was having trouble fitting it into her locker.  Want to know why?  She was hoarding six of my containers, SIX!

Emily was clearly working hard on her Saxophone practice.

Billy saw that a new Cuban restaurant had opened up in Lansing several months ago, and we'd not made the time to go.  Well, a few weeks ago, they had a vintage Cadillac out front, which I thought was just too apropos for a Cuban restaurant, so we made the trip!

Only Grace and Juliet wanted to join us, so they were the only ones on our adventure! Turns out the Cadillac was for sale, which is a shame, it made a great advertisement.

Their interior decor was also really well done!

These two are adorable!

One of our neighbors was doing a garage clean out, so we stopped to check it out.  Sarah had just set up her new pop up then that my mom pulled off of one of her neighbor's curbs, so when I saw the screen, I asked if she wanted it.  When she enthusiastically accepted, I looked down to see that they were also giving away a collapsible wagon!!!!  

I have wanted one forever, and I'm so excited that we now have one!  I put it to use immediately, to pull the screen back to my vehicle!  The case is in excellent condition still, and I was able to repair the clip that had come off.  It's seriously one of the best things that I've ever pulled off of a curb!

The mechanic came out to diagnose why our washer will not power on, or start sometimes, but we were unable to recreate the scenario.  While he had the lid off, I sent a picture to Billy.  Well, as these things go, now that we've paid for the technician to come out, the following weekend, the circuit for the kids' computers, my computer, the basement lights, and the washer all turned off!  

Sure enough, when we flipped the switch marked 'washer and dryer' the power to the washer did not cut off!!!! I guess all of these new machines take up just enough power over what the old ones needed that it is finally a problem. = (  The electrician is due out in a few weeks, on my birthday, to see what can be done about getting the washer off of the circuit, and possibly splitting some of the other computers too.

Grace and Juliet's school hosted a 'breakfast tailgate' before school one Friday. It was really fun! We packed our coffee and waffles and went to play some yard games!

Grace was pretty good at cornhole!

 

It started out pretty slow, and there was no wait in the pancake line, but by the end, there were more people in line than could get through before the day started!

In honor of football season, I used my 'special occasion' nail polish stickers.  I think my mom got them for me at a garage sale.  I tried to be pretty good about using the seasonal ones, that I bought from Natalie, right away!

My mom treated us to a trip to the ice cream shop!  If you look closely, you can see the cream from the treatment of the nettle sting covering Grace's hand.

It was warm enough between cutting the pumpkins and Halloween, so Grace's pumpkin started growing some things.  This sadly spread to many of the other pumpkins too!  After moving the dilapidated pumpkin to the trash, I ended up using bleach to kill off the circle of mold that the pumpkin left behind. = 0  Then I toted tubs of water to and from the stairs to rinse away the bleach, so that it wouldn't be tracked in on our shoes.  So, this pumpkin was a lot of work!

These two woke up early, but weren't quite ready to get up yet, so they snuggled together on the air vent.

My favorite use of the plastic spider rings!!

The girls (sans Alice) made a fancy tent for movie watching.

Kristy and I met at Horrocks, because neither of us had tried pawpaws before, and I saw a post that they had gotten a shipment of them in.  Sadly, they were gone by the time we got there (a week or so later) so no pawpaws for us. We enjoyed a leisurely shopping trip, where we each bought a honey acorn squash!  

I made mine up according to an online recipe, and it was delicious!

Last weekend, Grace and Billy did the majority of the work when it came to setting up Billy's Halloween village.  Thanks to the bag of  miniatures that the kids divided up and gave to him for Christmas last year, he had quite the busy little town this year!

The twins were pretending to be shorter than they are, which is kind of how I imagine them anyhow.

Haley & Chris' business sponsored William's Robotics Team, and were listed on their t-shirts!

After cleaning out all of the full containers into my car to drive around to all the recycling locales, a few swipes with the vacuum, and cleaning out a few things that were no longer serving us, our mudroom looked fantastic!

I helped volunteer at William's Fall Fest on Friday.  Our primary job was setting up the table and passing out cookies.  The teacher who was in charge of the event brought her sixth period class down to help set up and decorate!

The set up looked pretty good, and we had so many cookies to pass out.  I also learned a new trick: how to turn the napkins using just your palm and wrist!!!  They came out so cute.  We were able to use some of the boxes to tier the cookies too, which made it look even fancier!  Each student got one to start, then could come back for more once everyone got their first one. = )

William came to say hi a few times.

After the event, Grace had her new friend Kenzie over for a few hours, which she greatly enjoyed!

And lastly, this weekend, we hosted Billy's workmates over for a party!  The weather could not have been better for this time of year.  We never got the fire going, but the bounce house was a big hit.  Once we moved inside for the Mario Kart tournament, I finally realized that I'd taken no pictures at all, so this is what y'all get!  Kyle, directly to Billy's left, was the winner of the trophy!

After this we played some Taboo, then Pictionary, and then I convinced everyone to come back for a murder mystery party in January!

I think everyone had a good time, even Grace and Juliet who missed out on Luna's party.  Maybe next time we can get the fire to cooperate!

later days