Family celebrations

For Valentine’s Day we had our annual “Lover’s Lane Cafe” dinner over at Grandma’s house.  Here are the menu’s and matching place cards I made.Appetizers included: Tomato Basil Soup, Parmesan Breadsticks, and Cranberry Apple juice over dry ice.  (The drink also served as free entertainment for the kids, mostly Spencer, for almost half and hour!)

Main Dish: Green Beans and Lasagna (for a tasty twist on your own lasagna try using maple sausage for the meat.  You’ll be surprised how totally tasty this is!!!)

Dessert: Key Lime Pie

For an activity we all picked a paper heart that had one family member’s name on it and we wrote something we admired about this person and set it at their place.  There were also some extra hearts for making your own conversion hearts.  It was a great evening.

Then to kick off the BBQ’ing season we had our first BBQ on President’s Day.  YUMMY!!!!  We plan on having at least one BBQ every month from now until November.After the grub was gone the some of the adults played Abstracts; Ken played a couple of games with the kids and then all that family left but ours.  So Grandma, Ken, Mark and I played a couple games of Rummikub (Mark’s new love!) while the girls and Spencer played on Randy’s Wii.  It was a fun day!

Tidbit’s of life

For some reason Spencer had been obsessed with Jessie’s goggles the last few weeks.  It’s so funny to see him walking around with these on when it’s freezing outside.Jessie and her cousin had a great time dressing up as waiters after Mark’s birthday party.  That was funny!Abbie is so creative when it comes to making things…here is her tinker toy umbrella she also made raindrops from the Magnetix .Jessie readied her science fair experiment…which first started out as putting pennies in different solutions to see which would clean them the best….then changed (after we had done the whole penny experiment for an entire week) to see which thing would clean the stickers off our plastic tubs.

Her conclusion….that none of them really worked at all.  Isn’t that how most experiments go.

Jessie has also been very concerned about the people in Haiti and she and some of her friends went and talked with the principle of their school about doing a fundraiser for them.  Her principle said he would ponder their idea since the 6th graders were already collecting fleece material to make baby blankets to send with a group of BYU students who were going to Argentina.  She was so happy to show me the announcement the school newsletter that all the money from the Valentine candy grams would go to Haiti.  It even mentioned that this idea was from some girls in Mr. Tuesher’s class!Abbie celebrated the 100th day of Kindergarten!  She made the fun hat at school and then asked the teacher if she could bring home two extra ones and zeros to make some glasses.For one of our activity day activities the girls made Valentines and we delivered them to a local rest home.  We also sang  “You are my sunshine” to the people we visited.  The girls were super.

Mark’s spotlight

Here’s the cake he got for his birthday.  He really wanted a fighter jet , but I couldn’t find a good pattern to copy.  He was happy to compromise and got a rocket instead.  I only had a super tiny amount of yellow chocolate left to make the sun and was so afraid that I’d only get it half done…but it all worked out.I didn’t get any great pictures of his birthday….Mark opened each gift and looked at them hesitantly.  I’m not sure if he didn’t know what they were, or if he was disappointed.  We’ve since enjoyed all his gifts and have had a lot of fun playing together with them.  YEAH!

He got two erector sets, an addition to Carcassonne “Inns and Cathedrals” (which has been great fun), a skate board game for his game boy, a lego car racer and some money he used to buy a tackle box for his erector set pieces.

Mark also had his Pinewood Derby race.This was the most prepared and organized cub scout race I have ever been to.  That made it a lot of fun.  The boys had to take their cars over to the cub master’s house the Saturday before to be weighed in and have their picture with there car.  At the race they got a “pit pass” with their picture.  And we didn’t waste anytime waiting for late arrivals, or messing with cars that didn’t weigh the right amount.  The guy who had the track had a computer hooked up to a projector with a list of who was racing in what lane and also the boys who were up next.  And the microphone really helped keep things moving.Mark won second place in one race, but didn’t really score in any of the other races.  He was ok with that because it was fun to be there, but poor Abbie came up to me crying because she was sad that Mark’s car wasn’t winning.  What a little sweetie.  There were ribbons for the winners in each den (so 9 boys got something) and then each boy got a picture trophy picture.The whole thing was done in an hour!

Hashbrown Quiche

Last night we had breakfast for dinner and I thought I’d share the recipe in case any of you haven’t planned dinner for tonight. To make it a complete meal you’ll probably need to add fruit or maybe cook some broccoli with the quiche. Let me know if you try it!

Hashbrown Quiche

1 bag hashbrowns

6 eggs, beaten

2 cups cottage cheese

1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese

1/2 can green chilies

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

Heat oven to 400. Cook hashbrowns in a pan on the stove with a couple tablespoons of oil for about 10 minutes. Spread hashbrowns in a 9x13 pan and place in the oven. In a large bowl combine eggs, cottage cheese, cheese and green chilies. Combine dry ingredients and add to egg mixture (I used a little handheld electric mixer with a whisk to get the flour mixed in). Remove pan of hashbrowns and pour the egg mixture over the top. Carefully spread the egg mixture to make it all even. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. (Serve with salt and pepper in case it needs a little more.)

I just thought I'd add that you can freeze the extra green chilies in a little ziplock bag until you need them, or you can use a whole can for this recipe; my kids just aren't the biggest fans of green chilies, but I don't think I'd make this recipe without them.