Overlapping Blogs!!

In order to avoid not having any posts until Friday this week (something that would sorely disappoint my sis back home) I am posting about the only thing that is going on with me at the minute . . .  knitting! Finished knitting to be exact. 

I recently showed you this hat I knit for Kristen. . . .

Well I finished the mittens that match it at the weekend 

It is such a cute set, I am seriously thinking I might make one for myself.  I took Kristen out in the back garden for a few minutes today to get some modeled shots!

 I still have one hat I need to knit to send home (as a belated Christmas gift, to mail with 3 others that are late too) but I have to get more black or gray yarn. 

No school til Thursday this week,(for teacher/staff development!) and Jason is away in Denver til late Thursday night. It will be a few cozy days at home for me and Kristen and I'll be doing the usual.... housework, gym, knitting!  What are you up to?

For Nenna!

I was talking to my sister last week and mentioned the chair Kristen bought with her Christmas and Birthday money the family sent her. I put a picture on Facebook when she bought it just after Christmas but didn't post pictures here, so these are for you Nenna :-)

Kristen fell in love with this when we were out shopping just after Christmas. She used all of her birthday and Christmas money to just buy the chair! I had to buy the cushion for her, which I said was a little extra Christmas gift from me ;-) She wanted to sleep in it the first day she got it, but she didn't! She sits in this every day though to play her wii games.

Papasan Chair from Pier 1 Imports!

Busy Monday!

Hi everyone, thought I'd make just a quick post today. I'm up to my eyes in Christmas decorations! Now I really do wish I'd started a week ago, and it would all have been done by now!!!  I started getting boxes out on Friday but I'm finding a lot of lights not working this year which is slowing progress down! I've had to go to Target twice for new lights, and I still think I need one last box today. I won't even go in to the details, I'm sure I'm not the only one with lights out on a prelit Christmas tree!!

Someone asked to see my desserts from Thanksgiving, so here they are. The pecan cheesecake pie turned out really well and it got great reviews from hubs and mom-in-law, but I still prefer my pumpkin roll ;-)

and despite my good intentions of taking lots of photos, all I got was the table and one of Kristen, wearing her new furry jacket!!

Here's my stairs all decorated . . .

I've used the deco mesh for the first time this year, and I'm happy to say it was easier to use than I thought. I'll show more pictures once I do the whole house.

Party pictures . . .

After more help from Becky at CBOTB, I've changed the template back to 'Picture Window' and still managed to add one of her wonderful seasonal backgrounds, AND center my header. I used to have 3 columns but I actually like this two column look, so I'm leaving it like this for a while. It all looks good to me now, please let me know if that's not the case, and you're not seeing the Christmas background.

We had Kristen's birthday party here on Saturday, with our neighbor friends, inlaws and a couple of Kristen's 'girl' friends from school (and their moms). We all had a great time, the kids just entertained themselves either running around the back yard (in the pitch black) with flashlights - who knew that could be so much fun!!! and playing upstairs on the Wii. We had pizza and cake, and I also borrowed Cheryl's chocolate fountain :-)

We didn't start the party til 5pm, so I could serve the adults 'seasonal cocktails'. Cheryl found us a cocktail to try called a B28 which was Baileys, Kahlua, Amaretto and Butterscotch Schnapps! We changed the name of it (to go with our seasonal cocktail theme) to B-Thankful :-)  I also served Pomegranate Fizz, which was pomegranate schnapps and champagne, and fresh pomegranate seeds. I wish I'd remembered to take pictures of them! 

Jason took a lot of the photos of Kristen blowing out her candles and opening gifts but unfortunately I had the camera on the wrong setting (again!) and a lot of the pictures turned out blurry :( Here's a few of the 'not so blurry' ones. . . .

friends (I forgot to take another picture when the rest turned up!)

Pizza 'al fresco' - it was such a warm night, the kids sat outside to eat.

 

she blew all 11 candles out in one go :-)

Boo loves to help open pressies!

Our last guests didn't leave til after midnight!! Thankfully they only had to stagger walk next door to get home! I'd say that was a great party, wouldn't you ;-)

Happy Friday!

Well, after much trial and error I've changed my blog back to the blogger 'minima' template so I can add a Christmas theme. I'm still not liking how close the left column is to my typing, but I tried what Marla suggested and blogger says I can't change the width settings (probably cos I'm using an old template), but thanks for the suggestion Marla. It will have to just look like this for now.

I made a new header which I think looks cute. I love that first picture of Kristen in the Santa hat :-) It was taken December 2001 when she was just one year old - it's one of my favorites. 

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Lunch at Kristen's school. Our last one in Elementary, and I have to say it was rather tasty :-)  I forgot to take my camera so no pictures. After lunch it has been 'our tradition' for me to sign Kristen out and she comes home with me. Yesterday before we headed home we decided to go get her hair trimmed.

She didn't want it styled or shaped (I'm sure that will come soon) so we just got a couple of inches taken off the bottom. After we got home we decided to go out again to Justice for Girls. I said we should go looking for something new to wear to her party tomorrow.  She was all for it, but then when we got up there she just seems bored in the store, and nothing catches her eye. I mean what young girl doesn't get excited about getting something new to wear? Mine obviously!  She picked nothing, and we came home empty handed. I have been trying to look for something that she can wear for Christmas too, but I have to say there's not much 'christmasy' stuff out there except the pretty 'party dresses', and you know she's not going to wear those!  I was blessed with a Tom Boy, and I just have to accept it ;-)

I'm off to Kristen's school again this afternoon to take in Brownies for her birthday.

Cooking with Kiki!

Kristen recently asked if she could cook with me in the kitchen – not ‘BAKE’ (as in the usual cupcakes or cookies thing) but ‘COOK’! Of course it’s something I would get around to showing her one day, I mean I don’t want my daughter going off to college and not be able to even boil an egg! But it was nice that the request came from her. I was the one that mentioned it shouldn’t be just cookies and cakes, and that she should learn some basic skills (scrambling an egg came to mind first) which she was fine with.

So, last weekend we decided to make ‘French Toast’.

So, step by step I tell her what to do. Here she is beating the egg in the dish – full of concentration :-)

She dipped the bread in the egg and sprinkled on cinnamon, then placed it in the pan.

Once both slices were cooked she wanted them cut in to strips, I guess so they resembled this . . . !!

And of course, being the sugar fiend that she is, she didn’t want just maple syrup drizzled on there with a little powdered sugar!

She wanted the powdered sugar mixed with water to make a frosting to drizzle on there + maple syrup + more powdered sugar!

I was the one that threw the raspberries on there to make it look healthy, ha ha :-) (which, I might add she didn’t eat!)

On a serious note, I’d much prefer she ate this wholewheat bread dipped in egg, drizzled with frosting, than the frozen ‘stuff’ we’ve had in the past. I don’t even want to think what ingredients are in those! We’ve had the Aunt Jemima toast sticks before (or Kristen has, I won’t eat it!) and it doesn’t even look like bread inside :(

And what’s worse is, they looked so ‘yucky’ I didn’t even want to try them, but I was happy enough to feed it to my child! That has to stop, but more of this kind of cooking is a go!

After we made our first French Toast Kristen announced later in the day that she wanted to surprise Daddy with breakfast in bed the next morning, and make the French Toast again. We nearly succeeded! Jason woke up on Sunday morning and came downstairs before we cooked it. But Kristen still made it again and we all enjoyed it together :-)

We’ve made scrambled egg since then, and chicken nuggets, but I didn’t get pictures. Next time we do them I’ll take pics and blog about it again. Perhaps I’ll make a new series ‘Cookin with Kiki’ :-)

What about you, do you cook with your kids? If they’re older can you remember what the first thing you taught them was?

Have you seen the site Spatulatta.com? If you have kids that want to get in the kitchen with you check it out. It’s kids showing kids how to cook… lots of videos of recipes on there.