Family+Thanksgiving+Martha Stewart=Good Stuff!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  We will just get right into things here.  

Monday night, I had another cooking class- this week we made sweet potato souffles that were very, very good.  I also have decided I no longer like goat cheese but I did educate mom on how to clean pomegranates without making a mess (do it underwater) and then made her buy two at the grocery store.  I ate a few of them today and they were pretty good.  Mom is just happy this class is making branch out from mac-n-cheese and rolls.

Dad was off all week and my first day of vacation was Wednesday.  We had a fabulous daddy-daughter day starting with a snow girl pancake breakfast complete with whip cream and sprinkles.

Then, while mom was slaving away at work, he and I headed to Lollipop Park, an indoor amusement park where I rode and rode and rode the teacups.  After I was too dizzy to walk, we headed to McDonald's and then to the movies.  It was just my kind of day- junk food, movies and spinning.  Mom got home around 5 and brought some order back to our day- boo!  She and I made a pumpkin pie that turned out especially pretty.

Mom and dad were up bright and early for running and biking, while I got caught up on my Mario Cart Wii.  But, when mom got back, she forced me to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is one of her favorite things to do.  I actually really liked it especially the part where we pretended we were the Rockettes.
 It was such a super, duper beautiful day here (we thought we were in Tucson!) that we all went for a great bike ride to the park and spent some time burning off some calories before the big feast.  I'm getting to be really good on my bike, so it isn't quite so nerve wracking for mom to watch me.

We got back and got to cooking and I have to say, we put together a really great dinner.  Dad was in charge of the mashed potatoes and carving the turkey (or in reality posing for a picture of carving the turkey but then letting everyone have at it themselves).   The potatoes were smooth and creamy with not a single lump.  I was in charge of setting the table and putting the wine charms on our wine glasses.  Mom got the ship's helm, dad got the golf club and I got all of the 37 other ones we have.  Needless to say, we knew which glass was mine and it was the prettiest.
Mom was in charge of the turkey, gravy and corn pudding.  Mom doesn't like to brag or anything but considering that she has only made one turkey and has never made gravy in all of her 25 years, they rocked!  The turkey was beautiful and the gravy was fairly lumpless and very tasty.  We can thank good old Martha Stewart for our successful dinner- God love her!

Now, although it sounds like Dad's vacation was nothing but a bowl full of cherries, he really spent the majority of his time getting our house ready.  It basically involved a lot painting, trips to the hardware store, cursing and installing of fixtures and appliances.  It was not a fun time for him but mom and I definitely, really, truly appreciate it.
We met another one of our neighbors.  Apparently, we live in a very chatty neighborhood because this guy talked dad's ear off too.

Saturday, I had my tennis lesson again but mom took me this time and had a new strategy.  She dropped me off and left the premises for awhile.  She snuck back later and spied on me and amazingly, I was doing just fine.  It looks like I will be attending tennis on my own from now on.

Sunday was a quiet day.  We got our itty bitty tree up and decorated.  I think it is going to be a minimalist Christmas this year because we can't find any of our decorations.  Oh well, less to pack/unpack.  It looks nice though, when we can actually see the tree.  Next year, we have room for a huge tree so I'm sure it will be a little insane!

I hope everyone has a great week back at work!

Home Owners!!

Whew!  We have had a good, fun week here with all kinds of happenings.  Where to start....

I had another cooking class on Monday and I was much more mentally prepared for this one and so did much better with the whole "not swinging my knife around and keeping my feet off the counter" thing. This week, we made naan bread with cream cheese and goat cheese and it turns out I LOVE goat cheese.  So much so that I made mom go out and buy me some so I could eat it for breakfast.  Delish!

On Tuesday, we did a final walk through on our new house.  It was only mom's second time seeing it and thank goodness, she liked it even better than she remembered.  That is always a good thing.  The previous owners had a thing for baby blue and it is EVERYWHERE in the house.  Outside, the trim is blue, the patio furniture is blue, the plant pots are blue, the inside walls upstairs and downstairs are blue, the window shades are blue, the window valances are blue, even the towels are blue.  Needless to say, there is a lot of painting in our future.  They still had a lot of there furniture left in the house so it was a real test of my control to keep from jumping on the couch but I made it.  We are so very excited about it!

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty quiet.

Friday, mom and dad got to close on the house.  In Colorado, you have to sit in the same room across the table from the sellers and all sign paperwork together.  Definitely a little bit awkward to start but it was even more so when everyone got to the part in the contract where it stated the sellers would leave behind the washer, dryer and fridge.  The seller "forgot" that they had agreed to that in writing and had already packed it all up in the moving van.  Soooo, mom and dad were then asked to take cash for the appliances and "how much do you want for them?"  It is hard to be subtle with that kind of conversation.  Mom wanted $100,000.  Dad was a bit more reasonable.  Once that was decided, the seller turned over the keys to mom and dad BUT they still weren't done packing up, so they had our house until about 8PM Friday night when they finally vacated.  Crazy stuff.  We all headed out to dinner and Home Depot after to celebrate.

Saturday was another miserable tennis lesson- mom is going to look for a new coach- and then we spent the afternoon at Lowe's picking out appliances, counter tops, light fixtures and paint (but not blue paint).

Sunday, dad got up early and headed to the house to start painting while mom and I headed to church.  After, we ran home, changed into our grungy clothes, picked up some donuts and headed to the house to help dad.  Unfortunately, the sellers left the place pretty messy so mom spent a bunch of time cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, emptying closets of "left behind" stuff and removing blue valances.  Dad, meanwhile was having almost as much fun painting the cabinets in kitchen and replacing the really beautiful light fixture.

 
I earned my allowance by helping mom vacuum, pull out contact paper from and clean out the kitchen drawers and then I tried my hand at getting the furniture divots out of the carpet (not so successful at that one).

Once I got a little bored of that, mom and I headed to the park for a bit (since it is right in our backyard!) and we met our new neighbors who were really nice and updated us on all the other neighbors and where the kids are.  We didn't stay long because it was %^#^* cold outside today and we didn't have our coats.
We are very excited about our new house and will post more pictures as we get things done.  We are hoping to move in over Christmas.
Hope everyone has a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving!  See you in a week!

New Stuff

Well, here we are at yet another Sunday evening.  The weekends just go so dang fast but at least we had a good one.

Our week was pretty decent too- I thought it went really fast but mom and dad thought it kind of dragged out.  Monday night I had the first of my four Thanksgiving Treats cooking class.  I came home with apple dumplings with caramel sauce and cinnamon vanilla ice cream.  Pretty darn good, I have to say.  I was a little intimidated by the whole thing though because my original class was canceled and that was for 5-7 year olds so I got put into the big kid class for 8-12 year olds.  Mom was spying on me and aside from waving the cutting knife around and putting my feet on the counter (she's so proud!!), I held my own and plan on going back for more- if the teacher will have me.

On Thursday, we went to Family Game Night at my school.  It was really just another fund raiser disguised as family fun but we had a good time.  There was all you can eat spaghetti and then we headed to the gym to play (and buy of course) board games.  We walked out with Ringo Flamingo and so far it has been a good investment.  We've played it a bunch of times and it keeps me out of trouble for a few minutes.

On Friday, mom and dad went out to dinner to celebrate their anniversary.  They found a great little restaurant not to far from home and had a great time- their first date night since May.  I had an even better time back here at the fort.  One of dad's coworkers has a daughter who came to babysit for me.  She is young- almost 13 and I'm her first official kid so her mom tagged along to make sure I didn't tie her up and run screaming out into the street.  We hit it off great and I can't wait for her to come back.  I told mom and dad to go out again so Liz could come back.  She will probably turn out to be as good as Ms. Colleen in Tucson (the best sitter ever) but Liz can't drive yet so mom and dad have to take a few points off for that one.

Saturday was all about me (but when is it not?).  I started up tennis lessons again and unfortunately, I got put into the "advanced" group with the terrible instructor from my first lesson.  It was awful again.  At least dad took me this time so he had the pleasure of experiencing it.  It may be time to look for another place to take lessons. 

In the afternoon, I went to my friend Madelyn's birthday party.  It was at a huge jumping castle place and I had a blast!  2 hours of cake, lemonade and jumping- how could you not have a great time.? Mom and dad had a great time because it was "drop your kid off and leave" kind of party so they had a relaxing few hours at home catching up on home improvement shows.  And considering that I hadn't stopped talking since I got up at 6:30 AM, it was truly relaxing!

Sunday was another great day.  We all slept in, dad went for a bike ride and mom and I played Ringo Flamingo for hours.  When dad got home, we headed down to the big, awesome REI.  Lucky for us, the climbing wall was open so I made my first venture up the wall and IT WAS SO COOL!!

At first I was kind of scared so mom made me put on my tough girl face and that seemed to do the trick.

Although I kept saying I was scared, you couldn't really tell from the way I shimmied up the wall.  It was harder coming down than going up!
After that, we headed over to the aquarium for some fish watching for the rest of the afternoon.  We came home and had some homemade lasagna for dinner (which I actually liked!).
It was a great Sunday!  Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Snow, Dallas, Halloween, Snow (and lots of pictures to prove it)

Yes, I realize I promised not to go two weeks between posts but it has been an exciting 2 weeks for us so without further ado.....

We had our first measurable snow fall (and the first one of my life) on October 26th.  I went to bed with the ground and the sky clear and woke up to snow!  Mom and dad snuck into my room, woke me up and made me look out the window.  Holy Cats!  There really is such a thing as snow!  I hustled down stairs got into my snow gear and headed outside (without even stopping at the bathroom first!).  So very cool!  We were hoping for a snow day but didn't even get a delay so I guess this probably doesn't count as much of a storm.

At this point mom wasn't a big fan of the snow thing (but that may have had something to do with the yucky cold she had) however, the next day we woke up to this:

 And mom decided maybe winter in Colorado isn't so awful.  There was no snow on the streets, clear blue skies- just beautiful.

After we recovered from that, dad and I headed out to Dallas to visit Uncle Tim, Aunt Dana, Brooke, Faith, Grandpa Vern and Grandma Sue.  We had a great time checking out their new house, watching Brooke play soccer and trick or treating at the fancy mall.  It was a great warm up for the real thing!

While we were having a great family reunion, mom was home holding down the fort and getting her winter clothes shopping done.  She got some sweaters, gloves and boots and feels more ready to face the winter onslaught.
Dad and I got back on Sunday and I was exhausted- always a sign of a good time and we were all in bed early.

The next day was Halloween and it was one big party from start to finish.  I wore my costume to school and when I got home, mom asked what I learned at school.  I told "NOTHING!"  We decorated pumpkins and  cookies, ate candy, had a parade and ran around the entire day!  I wish school could be like this everyday!
As soon as I walked in the front door after school, I got to work carving my other pumpkins.

When it was time for trick or treating, we met up with my entire block of friends and there ended up being a motley crew of 15 kids running around together.

Mom's favorite part of the night (besides gossiping with the other moms) was watching the looks on the faces of the people answering the door and seeing 15 of us standing there.  Classic!  We didn't make out of our little neighborhood and I came home with the hugest bag of candy.  I have more than I can eat in a year even after mom and dad cleaned out my peanut stuff.

Dad left bright and early Tuesday morning so he missed our next big snow storm and this one was kind of a doozy.  It was another evening of going to bed with not much going on and waking up to this:

 And the best part-  it was my first snow day!!  I'm only in kindergarten and I grew up in Tucson and I already completely and totally grasp the meaning of a snow day.  I was so very excited to not have to go to school! But can you believe mom had me shoveling snow at 6 in the morning?!!  Mom and I spent the day watching Scooby Doo movies, eating chocolate chip cookies, drinking hot cocoa.  The dogs finally ventured out (because mom wouldn't let them do their business on the carpet no matter how much they hated the snow).  Daisy actually seemed to like it, but Haile couldn't get back inside fast enough.

Mom and I finally made it outside about noon and had a great time (if you consider shoveling the driveway a great time!)

The best part about this storm, it was cleared out by 4 in the afternoon.  This is a picture of me standing next to a ruler I stuck in the ground- almost 12".  And guess what?  It is all melted already!  Perfect!
We recovered from that snow storm and spent this weekend really quietly.  We ran a bunch of errands on Saturday and went swimming on Sunday and are wrapping up the weekend watching The Wizard of Oz.
Hope everyone has a wonderful (and warm) week!