This weekend

It's been a pretty lazy/fun weekend. Friday night Jamie was at Starbucks studying when we had a huge storm and the power went out briefly here and there. He said he is a math hero because he used his cell phone light to continue studying. Claudia and I watched The Soup after the littles were in bed and then Jamie came home and we gave Flight of the Conchords a whirl, but weren't too thrilled with it. We'll give it another chance, though.

Jamie spent most of Saturday studying. I think he did nine hours of practice tests. Claudia and I spent most of the day watching the DNC discussing the mess they've made of the Florida and Michigan delegate situation and making refrigerator magnets! The little girls mostly played outside but they spent a lot of time creating magnets, too.


Last night Claudia went to see a movie with a friend and I took the littles swimming.




I made a seriously unhealthy dinner last night--homemade corn dogs and french fries. We hardly ever buy hotdogs and I actually cringe when I see the children eating them because they're SO bad, but you know what? Those corn dogs were DIVINE.


Today we're skipping church because I want to watch the morning news shows. I'm hoping the McClellan thing comes up (I so think he shouldn't profit from that book) and I want to hear what's said about Florida and Michigan.

Spring Break Part III

Ok, so generally speaking, really the only reason to make your own soft pretzels is if you have a whole lot of extra hours on your hands or for some reason you can't get to the mall. However, we did have a lot of time on our hands today and I'm in the process of teaching the girls to cook so pretzels it was.

We started on the pretzels this morning and by 3pm, we had some. We made dough, the girls played outside, we did more stuff to the dough, we ate lunch, the girls went outside, we did more dough stuff, the girls went outside, more dough stuff, more dough stuff, then we boiled them, decorated them with course salt or cinnamon sugar or grated parmesan and then baked them and then I made frosting and that got drizzled on. All this work resulted in a supremely *OK* baked....thing.

Sammy and Jordan kneading the dough.


Making the dough into pretzel shapes.



Claudia decorating her pretzels.


Boiled and decorated and ready to bake.


The finished product.

Spring Break Part II

This morning we had Baked Alaska for breakfast. Hey, it's better than donuts!! Yesterday I made a pound cake (I need to find a better recipe because the texture of this one was weird) for it and then the girls made a very nice meringue this morning and we baked it. We put it on the top rack so the peaks burned but the ice cream survived and the kids all liked it. Success!!






Magic Rocks are growing like crazy.


Day one of playing with homemade gooze. This has been a big hit and played with a lot. It's also, apparently, something Bo doesn't like to eat, so that makes one thing!

Day two of playing with the gooze.


Sammy and Jordan cutting out homemade dog biscuits to bake. They mixed up the dough out of whole wheat flour, powdered milk, egg, chicken broth, and oil. Bo loves them! (The girls and the biscuits)

Spring Break Part I

Yesterday we went online, found photos of animals, printed them on transfer paper, I ironed the photos onto unbleached muslin and then we made pillows.


Sammy did the running baby elephant, Claudia did the baby tapir and Jordan did the baby ostrich.


I did emperor penguins.


Today we harvested moss out of the back yard and made terrariums. We threw some slag glass in for color. Claudia made one out of a big water bottle so she can use it for a habitat for her turtle.

The only people not going to Florida.

It's us. We're not going to Florida for spring break. The children tell me that Everyone is going to Florida.

Whatever.

Anyway, I'm on vacation Wednesday through Friday this week and I'm super excited about it. I have a tons of things planned and it will just be so nice to be able to spend time with the girls just having fun.

Last night Claudia's band performed and they sounded awesome as usual. Here's Claudia in the bleachers waiting for another band to warm up.



Tonight Sammy and I made tortillas. Here's Sammy on flipping duty, learning what they look like when they're ready to turn.


The next two weeks are going to be kind of crazy (but crazy good!). We have my dad's birthday, my friend Jana's birthday, my birthday, Sammy's birthday, Easter, Claudia has a band contest and a youth convention in (glamorous!) Dayton, Ohio and while she's there, Jamie and I got tickets to the Opera (Tosca) and I guess I should find a sitter for that, shouldn't I?

My mom and dad primaried and caucused in Texas on Tuesday night. The littles were asking how a caucus works so we had a mock one at our house. Obama won (Bobo was persuaded to go over the the side with the little girls--it's possible they promised him treats). Obama won at the place where my parents caucused, too.

We're having a tamalada!

Oh, my freaking Lord. That's just it. I'm inviting everyone I know (within driving distance, anyway) over for a tamale making party very, very soon.

Jamie and Claudia are at church, Jordan and I are skipping out, and I just stumbled across a blog that I love--Homesick Texan--and she blogs how to make tamales. I've long wanted to learn and now that it's completely necessary, since I live about 1000 miles away from the Baldaras Tamale Factory, there's nothing else to be done. Anyway, it should be a blast! We'll drag out the Shiner Bock and margaritas on the rocks and roll! I've missed it for this Christmas season, when they're a must-have (in Texas, anyway), but that's ok. I'll take good tamales any time of the year.

Claudia doing math homework and what's for dinner

That's a henna tattoo infinity symbol on Claudia's hand.

It's chicken fried steak!



Last night we had vegetarian lasagna. We've had non-stop healthy stuff for DAYS! Sometimes, I crave food from home *so* much, so this is what we're having tonight with garlic mashed potatoes and cream gravy.

July 4th

This year we did pretty much the same thing we did last year (traditions!!), except that Sam was at her mom's this year.

Jordan painted a tshirt and a hat







Claudia painted me and Jamie each a shirt (she didn't want to do one for herself),

Jamie's:



Mine:



We popped confetti balloons and those fireworks things that pop when you throw them on the ground. The kids baked and decorated red white and blue cupcakes and the flag cake we make every year (but this year I made the pound cake from scratch and it was fabulous, if I do say so).







(that's Claudia in her new shirt from Threadless that she's very in love with right now).

For dinner we had watermellon, fried chicken, lemonade and corn on the cob (thank you for the corn holder things, Beverly and Walter!). After dinner we drove downtown to go to the Canal Fest, which apparently got rained out, and to watch the fireworks from on top of a building.