Funny pictures

I was looking for a specific picture tonight and I stumbled upon these two funny ones of Nathan.

This was just after he was born.  I don't remember seeing this picture before...isn't it funny?

And, I love this one because it is pre-teeth...and I just love "gummy" smiles.

"I am Thankful for..." Turkeys

This morning, we made Thankfulness turkeys.  Nicole did hers almost entirely by herself.  I drew a few of the shapes but she did all the cutting and glueing (um, when did my baby get big enough to be able to cut REAL shapes and designs?  Oh...yesterday, she was outside playing with a neighbor, and she told me I could go inside because I didn't need to watch her.  Um...no no little one.  You are still to young to be through with me:-)

Hannah did some of the cutting, and most of the gluing.  Obviously, i wrote what they were thankful for.  Did you notice that Candy was one of the things that Hannah is thankful for....cute!  And Crayons too, and the alphabet and her food. 

I was so overjoyed when the first thing out of both of their mouths was "That Jesus Loves me" OK...it was the first thing out of Nicole's mouth, and I'm pretty sure Hannah just copied Nicole.

This is Nicole's turkey.  She is thankful for her friend Alex, her doggies and that God made the world...and of course for each member of her family.  Sweet girl.

Hannah's friend

This is one of Hannah's very own friends.  Her name is Aleya, isn't she adorable!

These two look forward to playing together at church on Sundays and during MOPS.  They have similar personalities and dispositions. 

Indian Curry Chicken Recipe

Back in 2003, I went on a 10 day mission trip to Russia.  While there, I helped to conduct Vacation Bible School with children from 3 missionary families in the city.  It was odd to go to Russia, on a mission trip, to minister to children of American missionaries.  Now, though, I understand the sacrifice that these families, including the children make, as their parents pour into the lives of people who don't know Jesus.  It was a wonderful week of encouragement to these kids.  Anyway...while there, one of the moms cooked us an Indian dish. 

Last night, we ate it at our house.

So...here is the Indian dish I learned from Americans while visiting Russia (a truly ethnic dish if you ask me!)

1/2 C. Flour
2 Tbs. butter
1/2 C. chopped onions
2Tbs. lemon juice
3 C. chicken broth
1 tsp salt
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp red cayanne pepper
2 C of cooked, shredded or cubbed chicken

1. Brown your flour over direct heat and stir until lighting tan. 

Honestly...this is odd to me,  I don't usually brown the flour all by itself...but this was how she made it.

2. In another sauce pan, heat the butter, add onions and cook until soft and yellow. 

3.  Add chicken broth and flour and stir well (I use a whisk to help break up the flour)

4. After the mixture has thickened, add lemon juice and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Once the mixture has thickened, add salt, the spices and chicken. 

Heat thoroughly, stirring occasionally. Serve over hot rice.

Serve the dish wish any or all of the following:

Coconut, bananas, grated cheese, nuts, rasins, tomatoes, apples, onions, green onions, pineapple, grated carrots, red pepper...whatever else sounds good to you.  ***NOTE - I believe the apples and pineapple are a requirement.  The sweetness tastes so good with the spice of the cayanne pepper.  It sounds crazy, but it's super yummy!

This is Nicole's plate.  She added all the extras she wanted.  And, she ate every bit of it!

This was my plate

I only put in 1/4 - 1/2 tsp of red pepper so the dish wouldn't be to spicy for my girls.  One time I put extra in and it was nearly to hot for us to eat...but, we don't like spicy foods.  This is a fun dish to serve for company.   I hope you try it....it really is good...I promise!

oh...and this is a killer gravy recipe too. Just don't add the spices and you have a yummy, thick gravy.  Thanksgiving is just around the corner....you could look like a genius!  I'm just sayin!



ABCs, funny words and random silliness

This morning, we just needed to spend some time playing in the kid's bedroom.  Granny brought Nicole a really cool rocking cradle to put dolls in a few months ago.  Nicole mostly uses it for her doggies...until today...when Nate discovered that it's a great boat!

If you would like to catch a glimpse of our children just being themselves....you can watch this video.  Hannah says her alphabet, and shares some funny words.  Nathan crawls all around and occasionally screams.  Nicole tries to count by 15 and other random moments.

I really do love my children so very much.  They are blessing in our lives and I am thankful that God chose me to be their mother. 

Grandma is down

My grandma...known to the girls (and Nathan one day soon) as "Mimi" is down visiting for the next month or so.  The girls had fun with her the other day.  Grandma sat in Nicole's chair

and then they covered her up and gave her "doggies" to cuddle with:-)

CC Presentation - Russia

Nicole had school again today.  This was our third week of CC, but the 11th week of the school year.  Today was Open House, and we even had a friend come who is interested in joining...I hope they are able to.

I wanted to send Nicole's presentation again (because some of you asked).  The history timeline this week was "Tell me about the history of Russia".  I LOVE Russia since I've had an opportunity to spend 3 months there while in college.  So, throughout the week, I have been showing Nicole pictures of Russia, the Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral, and the orthodox churches there with their beautiful mosaic paintings.  Nicole shared some of these pictures in her presentation.

Science Experiments

One afternoon last week, we needed something to do and so we pulled down Nicole's science experiment kit. If you watched the video of Nicole at school last week, you will see the "fruit" from our little science time...but we had some cool pictures too.

The first experiment was determining what would clean a penny, regular water, or lemon juice. 

The girls both observed the dirty penny,

made a hypothesis, conducted the experiment and drew a picture of what actually happened.

As you can see...the acid in the lemon juice cleaned the penny.  This was neat because the middle of the penny didn't get juice on it because of the curvature of the test tube...so you could really see a before/after effect.


Then, we made the volcano.  I didn't realize what a hit it was going to be.  Since then, I've gone through half a box of baking soda because we keep making them! haha. 

Trunk -N-Treat

This year, our church tried something new called Trunk-n-treat.  They asked members to sign up for different themes to decorate their trunk, truck, motorcycle...whatever.  We weren't sure what the turnout was going to be like. In the past, our church would have a HUGE festival with all sorts of amusements and such.  I am so happy they simplified...this was even more fun.

We chose "baseball" because I knew it was the only way I would get Jeremy to help *wink, wink*.
We put our corn hole game up against the open van and let the kids toss wiffle balls into the holes.  We were busy all night long with this game.  Jeremy wore his softball outfit (I can't really call it a uniform), I wore a softball jersey and eye black...and Nate wore a little baseball outfit and eyeblack too.

Nicole decided at the last minute to wear her flower girl dress...and Hannah couldn't figure out what to do, so we just put a braves jersey on her, some eye black...and called it done.

This is what Hannah looked like all night long...her head down in the bag of candy.  I swear that girl ate at least 4 lollipops.

This is a young couple from our Sunday BLG class.  Nicole has taken a like-ing to them.

In all honesty....I am SOOOO happy Halloween is over.  I hate it.  I think it's stupid how grown ups use it as a chance to walk around town in ridiculous outfits and dress their little children as devils, witches and vampires.  I hate all of the gory decorations and the fact that it lures my children when we are out and about.  I hate that I saw someone "decorating" their home with flames of hell...it's just horrible...and I hate the date.  I am glad it is over and we can finally move on to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I know that a lot of people love Halloween and have a lot of fun with it.  But, if our church didn't offer such a fun alternative, I would order in pizza and have a movie night with my family every year and never pass out a single piece of candy.  I know...I'm a halloween scrooge.

BUT...I don't have to be so mean about it...because we do have a fun time hanging out with people from church and playing games with the children.

Nicole's debut Classical Conversations presentation

Each week at Nicole's Classical Conversations (CC) class, there is a formal and detailed schedule to follow.  Part of the schedule included giving each child an opportunity to give a presentation up to 2 minutes long.  Now, my nephew Seth is in CC up in Tennessee.  He has a list of topics for half of the weeks, and the other weeks he gets to choose what he wants.  Honestly...I wish we had that too.  But, we don't have any suggested topic.  Just...whatever the kids feel like presenting. 

This weekend, I told Nicole that she needed to be thinking about some ideas to present to her class.  Yesterday when I asked her she said, "I want to show them how to make a volcano!". 

Um.....honey....wouldn't you like to tell them what you favorite color is....or maybe share you favorite book?

"No mommy, I want to show them how to make a volcano". 

*background*  last week, we did some little "science experiments" and one of the experiments was making a volcano.  Sooo....it was relevant to her life...and it's what she wanted to present. 

We practiced a few times yesterday and she did an AMAZING job this morning. Do you want to see?  I knew you did!  It's two minutes long...and I promise you will smile:-)