Saturdays in February

I love to go out and eat at restaurants. So, I'm spoiled and we usually get to go out to eat dinner together once a week. Occasionally more...hee hee...but at least once a week.

But, that gets expensive and really Mike and I were getting slightly annoyed at paying $5+ for an 95 cent box of mac & cheese for each kid. Also, we all like to cook and I was trying to think of a way that the kids could be more involved in the dinner process. So, in February we are trying something new.

Each of us has been assigned one Saturday to prepare dinner. We can make anything we like - to some limits. It has to be real food that could be considered dinner or at least a close imitation by most families. Hence, the idea of popcorn and M&Ms is out the window. Last Saturday was my day.

Being the mom I felt it was my duty to include vegetables - Jake's arch enemy. The adults made regular fajitas, but Maddie and Jake had more creative allowances with only a couple rules. They had to use ONE of every vegetable (red/green pepper, mushrooms, onions) and they had to eat all the dinner in order to get dessert. BUT - they could make more of a cheese quesadilla with whatever design using the vegetables that they wanted. That's right...they could play with their food.

Jake made a face. He may have resembled this grimace...

Madison made a Christmas tree. She loves mushrooms...

Jake nearly didn't make it to dessert, but did finally finish. Dessert was chocolate shakes, thanks to Mike and our worthless blender. But, we weren't done with the festivities. Everyone had to pick a slip of paper out of cup that revealed someone's name at the table. Then we had to say something we liked or appreciated about that person and we all toasted that person. I think it went fairly well. My dad got my mom's name and gave her a compliment to which she got teary. I think the kids enjoyed clinking glasses.

I do think they need a little more work in toasting though. Mike toasted Maddie in that he loved that she liked to be tickled. Jake's turn was next and he toasted Mike and said that he loved when Mike tickled him. Maddie ended the round by toasting Jake and saying that she loved when she could tickle and scare Jake and he liked it!

And I'll still get to go out this month. Mike and I can go to lunch. We split food without fighting and no kids makes the meal a whole lot cheaper.

Too Nice to be Inside

Last Thursday Jake told me, "It's going to be really nice on Saturday. About 32 degrees. I've been watching the weather. It's going to be a great day to be outside!" I'd been watching the weather too and had brainstormed that if Saturday ended up as nice as they were saying then we should all be outside.

So, Saturday we got our snow gear on and headed to Lion's Park to go sledding. It was actually closer to 40 degrees by the time we got there and I thought we'd all be sledding without jackets or hats, but the top of the hill proved to have quite a wind and we stayed bundled.

It was actually really muddy at the top so it felt like you were halfway down the hill by the time you got settled in a sled. We noticed Maddie had a few mud stains on her face and only made things worse when she went to wipe them off with her filthy gloves...

Still fun though. There's always some jumps scattered around that someone has taken the time to create. And Jake ALWAYS wants to go off the one that is about as tall as him. And then we ALWAYS tell him we didn't plan an ER visit into our schedule.

With the melting snow and wind it was occasionally hard to get back up the hill - more than once we were sliding back down on our butts after almost reaching the top. Unfortunately my camera was never ready for those glamorous moments.

I did manage to catch Jake by surprise when I pushed him down the hill. His revenge came when I somehow got my glove caught under his sled and he managed to drag it halfway down the hill with him...

Towards the end Madison thought it would be fun to try to sled like penguins - on their bellies. Soon they had completely ditched the sleds. They did NOT try to go off jumps when sledding like this though!

The last run of the morning consisted of a race - that we totally weren't prepared for. Mike and I each laid on a sled. Maddie was going to lay on top of Mike and Jake lay on top of me and we'd race to the bottom. Surprisingly Jake had other ideas. Mike and Maddie started on their race and Jake decided he was going to take a running leap onto me, except he forgot to tell me. So, as I'm about to wonder where he is, I feel this "PLOP" and all air rushed out of me and we were headed to the bottom. Mike and Maddie in their glory had ended up going way faster than they thought and flew over the built up snow along the walking path and had a heavy landing for Mike which he thought he'd feel the next day. At the last second when I saw that I knew it wasn't how I wanted to end the morning so I steered Jake and I too quickly and we ended up rolling down the last bit of the hill.

Bake-off

On Saturday morning I got up and made a new recipe for breakfast that involved biscuit dough rolled up around little chunks of cream cheese and baked with syrup. They weren't a total hit; not even something we wanted to fiddle with to make better in the future.

Later that day, Maddie and I decided to make a new pie. It's an apple-pear crumble pie. I don't know if that's the official term, but that's what it involves. It also involves cream cheese and Mike thought it was daring to try yet another cream cheese experiment in the same day.

In this case though, Maddie was the head baker. I was just the assistant. She did almost everything herself and I was mostly in charge of double-checking - making sure she'd done it correctly.

Jake is normally the kid in our family that will drop everything to help bake. However, last Saturday he had a yucky cough and was not allowed to touch the food. Not a happy camper at all. We finally relented and allowed him to photograph this momentous occasion. Here's a few of his shots; he's apparently more into the abstract pictures...no cheesy smiles. Or faces for that matter.

The crumb mixture on the bottom...

The sink after peeling....

The garbage....I just think it's funny he took a picture of the garbage...

Maddie was SO excited to get to mix things with her hands...

This picture was after we suggested to Jake that he actually take pictures of us...

Right before the oven...

And the pie? Four thumbs up! It's definitely going into the recipe book for keeps; but we'll have a notation that says Maddie is in charge of making this one.

Future Author

Yesterday Maddie walked in the door and yelled, "MOM! My story won the Young Author's Competition!"

Last week Maddie decided to write a story for a contest at school. It had to be around 150 words (short story!) and had to involve a kid who gets the hiccups on a special day/event. The top 10 stories (after grading) get to go to an all-day conference at Bethel where they will meet authors and illustrators and get to interact and learn from them. Maddie LOVES to write stories. We have notebooks GALORE all over the house containing her stories.

And I'm happy to report she didn't wait until the last night to do it either! Major victory! She actually worked on it all week and spent the final night EDITING. She learned quickly that 150 words isn't much!

So...enjoy one of Sun Path's winning entries....

**********
"Concert Time"
by Madison Murphy

"Class," announced Ms. Nelson, "We will be having a concert in a few days. Who's interested?"

Hailey's hand shot up. She loved to play the flute! "Hailey?" Ms. Nelson said, "Are you inter..." "YES!" Hailey exclaimed. Soon everyone in Hailey's class had a part.

Hailey went home and practiced and practiced until she knew the song by heart.

Finally the big day arrived. While she waited, she hiccuped and hiccuped! "Oh no!" she moaned. "How am I supposed to play the flute hiccuping?" She hurried to the water fountain, slurped a big gulp and ran back to the gym just in time for her part. She swallowed and began to play her song.

"Doo doo...hiccup. Toot toot...hiccup!"

After the concert, Hailey's mom hugged her and said, "How were you able to make that flute hiccup?" Hailey just smiled.

Years later, as an adult, Hailey composed the "Hiccup Song". Children loved it!
**********

Embracing the Cold

On Friday when Jake got home he really wanted to go outside and play. It was cold on Friday, and we tried to tell him this, but he had work to do and wasn't going to be deterred. So, he bundled up after practicing piano and headed outside.

After about 15 minutes of him out there I went to check on how he was doing. And, true to his word, he was hard at work....

He's building a snowball holder for future snowball fights. He's really proud of this so far and has worked hard. Not only was it about -7 degrees when I went outside, but a lot of the plowed snow had melted, then refrozen so he was really trying to dig through half snow-half ice conditions.

When I suggested that he come in, he said he really didn't want to, "Don't you think I'm working really hard?" I agreed he was, but that it was also really cold. So, I gave him 15 minutes more because he was having a good time and really? I appreciate the fact that he can go out and have fun in minus-something weather. I'm actually really glad that he can do that.

A friend and I were talking about winter in Minnesota and how you could either embrace that it will come and go along with what you know will happen or you could fight it, but it makes for a little more miserable 6-7 months. I happen to really like winter. And I'm thrilled that someone in my family agrees with me; Mike and Maddie prefer summer.

Big Problem

This week I started and finished knitting a hat for Jake. I was really pretty excited about the results and how fast it was done. I thought I'd start making hats for everyone. Jake had picked out the colors and was excited to see the finished product.

Last night my knitting-guru at church helped me figure out how to seam the edges so it was, in fact, a circle and I was able to complete it.

Jake was excited this morning to try it on....

Small problem. Or rather, too large of a problem. Oh well, I was afraid this might happen. It's actually a man's hat, but on the model it looked kind-of small on the guy...barely touched his ears. So, I asked Mike what he thought and he thought it would be fine for Jake.

So I guess we'll say this is Mike's fault because the knitting part is actually pretty awesome.

PS: Jake didn't actually wear this to school...he thought he might want to, but we convinced him to wait a year...or 10.

Sleepy Honesty

The other night Jake and Maddie were running around in the basement - actually I think they were racing around using hands and feet. Anyway - somehow Jake rounded a corner and ran his head right into the corner of the post. He did fairly well through it - a bit of crying, but Grandma and Grandpa took care of him and Maddie made an ice pack for him. He told me all about it after I finished teaching and showed me the bump on his head.

About an hour or so after he went to bed I thought maybe I should wake him up just to be sure he was okay. So, I went upstairs and shook him a little, then a little more. I continually repeated his name and he was NOT waking up and just as I was getting nervous I said, "Jake! Are you awake?"

He did a little jump and mumbled, "Yep."

I said, "Jake...are you listening to me?"

He answered, "Nope."

And he was out for the rest of the night.