A Polish Home: January 2012

New Year's Eve - Kannon made our dinner of nachos and we all enjoyed "clinking" our bottles of sparkling cider. My sweet visiting teacher gave us those little bottles and we stashed them away all month so that we could celebrate on New Years Eve together.

I hate the way I look in this picture, but I'm pretty sure it had been a long day for me. I know I was putting away Christmas stuff most of the day. On my way out to the garage (for probably the 10th time) I saw the fireworks that were going off at the County Fairgrounds. We could see them pretty good from our backyard and the kids grabbed blankets and watched for awhile from the trampoline.

We got the baths done while the ice cream maker went to work. We had a package of ice cream mix and we used up some expiring evaporated milk. This was super-yummy cherry ice cream. We ate it while watching something fun on Netflix.

We try to get out to my mom and dad's once a week. That usually is on Sunday evenings. It's a bit harder to do when we are on the afternoon church schedule. But, every time we are there, Joshua heads for the pirate costumes. He makes a great "argh" and is an expert at dueling!

I like to do something during the school breaks to beat the monotony of having nothing to do. And since we weren't traveling anywhere we decided to have a Winter Brunch Party. We made invites on a puzzle card so that the kids we invited would have something fun to do to (besides just coming to the party!)

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out fun food. Sometimes I think that time is so wasted. The kids never appreciate it that much. Most of them had already eaten! The powdered sugar on these donuts was so hard to work on. Can you spot the one-eyed snowman? I used frosting for the eyes, but it wouldn't stick! I cut up jellied orange slices for the nose and poked mini chocolate chips in for the mouth.

These bagels were cream cheese, olive halves and baby carrots, halved. We also had a pot of hot chocolate!

My festive mother came over and helped me out, too. Here she models our snowman pancakes - complete with chocolate chip face and buttons, bacon scarf and whip cream snow! They were fun and yummy!

We went outside (definitely not a snow-day!) and played a game of snowballs! I took our white socks and rolled them together to make snowballs. (We counted how many there were so that I would not end up with a lost sock or two!) Half the kids were on the trampoline, the other half on the ground. The kids on the ground threw the snowballs at the ones on the trampoline. If they got hit with a "snowball" they had to get off and join the throwers. When they were all out, we'd switch teams and start over.

I thought this game was fun and could have been played in a lot of ways.

Everyone had a piece of paper and pen. They took turns rolling the dice (the first player was the one who's birthday came next). Each number gave them a different part of the snowman to draw. So, one person might end up with a hat, but no head! Yet. They all got to play until they'd rolled their whole snowman. Some of them were so cute. Joshua even played!

They got to take these marshmallow snowmen home. I put three marshmallows on a stick and dipped them in melted white chocolate. I used a Hershey kiss for a hat and mini recess pieces (baking aisle) for the face and buttons.

We decided to have monthly dates with our kids, this year. I'll do Sarah one month, while Kannon does Ben. We'll switch the next month. So, for January, Sarah and I made a cake together. She picked it out and helped me get some ingredients at the store. Then we put it together. It was a lemon meringue cake. It was super rich, but really good, too. We shared it with my parents and then gave them the leftovers!

Ben and Kannon worked on Ben's Pinewood Derby car. I'll post about that in February.

Ben also did try-outs for the local Swing Kidz team. There were so many interested kids, this year, that they made another kids team. Ben made the team as an alternate. He has practices every week and seems to enjoy it. He is a bit tired on those days, though. He goes from school straight to his 2-hour practice. It makes for a long day.

I found Ben and Sarah playing chess one evening. What? Don't your 8- and 5-year-old's play chess? For some reason it's their game of choice around here. Except when Joshua wants to play, too. Then there is some extra excitement. Anyway, I guess a few pieces were missing, so they substituted! Ben had some Lego guys and Sarah had a few dolls and animals from her stash of toys.

I also had a super nice visit to Utah this month. My mom wanted to make the trip back to see her brother, my Uncle Tom, who wasn't doing too great. We were able to work things out so that I could go, too. My parents drove their van and took me and the kids on a Friday (before the Monday holiday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day). We dropped the kids off in Winnemucca with Kannon's sister. We went the rest of the way to my sister's house in Salt Lake City. Kannon went to Winnemucca after work and stayed the night. They went up to Elko for the rest of the weekend. Kannon had to be back at work on Monday, so he left the kids in Elko where we picked them up on our way back through on Monday. They had a lot of fun with their cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma and grandpa. I had a GREAT weekend with my parents, Janet and Levi. We visited my Aunt Nancy and her kids and saw Uncle Tom. We played some great games and ate good food and I felt renewed.