The Alphabet Revisited Part 1

We are celebrating the alphabet again this month. I decided that I would post all our modifications to Abbi's original idea for doing this.  Abbi posted most of this list about 5 years ago.

A.a.
Dress in; apricot, azure, amber, aqua or almond or anything.
How to act; Adorable, with Agape, and like Angels
Things to do; Admire and Appreciate things and people, Aerobics, Adventure Around, or/and Act like Animals.
Breakfast; Applesauce or apple doughnuts
Supper; Au gratin potatoes with ham, Aylmer bread, Apple juice, Alfalfa sprouts on salad and angel food cake.

B.b.
Dress in; black, blue, brown, beige, beads, or bags. Wear braids, and be beautiful.
How to act; Be bright and brave.
Things to do; Blow up balloons and bubbles, ballet.
Breakfast; banana bread, or blueberry buckle, or blueberry muffins or bagels or blinis.
Supper; Burgers on Buns or Burrito bake, Beans, Beverage and Blackberry pie.

C. c.
Dress in; Cream, cobalt blue, cotton, crowns, costumes,capris, clean colorful clothing and wear curls.
How to act; Carefully and compassionately.
Things to do; Clean, climb and celebrate.
Breakfast; Crapes, cantaloupe, cold cereal, cheesy eggs, coffee cake, or corned beef hash.
Supper; crab casserole, carrot and/or cabbage salad, cottage cheese, candy. Or, Curry chicken and cake or cookies.

D. d.
Dress in; dark colors, dots, denim, dungarees, or a dress.don't forget deodorant!
How to act; Daring and delightful.
things to do; dance, dig dirt, dominoes, dress up, decorate, Do dishes.
breakfast; doughnuts or danish puff
supper; doggies in a blanket, dill pickles and dairy drink.

E. e.
Dress in; earth tones, eggplant, everything.
How to act; Entertainingly.
Things to do; Enjoy...eating, Encourage everyone.
Breakfast; Eggs.
Supper; Enchiladas, or Egg rolls.

F. f.
Dress in; fuchsia, floral, flags, flip flops, flannel or furs. Wear a french braid.
How to act; Forgiving, fun.
Things to do; Frisbee
Breakfast; fresh fruit, french toast, or flap jacks.
Supper; fish fillets, fruit salad, french fries.

G. g.
Dress in; Green, gray or gold.
How to act; good.
Things to do; Play Games, give gifts, gymnastics.
Breakfast; Grapefruit and granola, grits, gravy with biscuits.
Supper; Goulash, garlic bread and green salad. or gumbo, gingersnaps.

H. h.
Dress in; hunter green, hats.
How to act; helpful.
Things to do; give hugs.
Breakfast; hash brown quiche.
Supper; ham, herd roasted potatoes, hush puppies, hungarian green beans.

I. i.
Dress in; Indigo.
How to act; be Inspiring.
Things to do; make an ice sculpture.
Breakfast; Individually wrapped pop tarts, incredible edible egg.
Supper; Indian tacos, individual pizzas, ice tea, ice cream.

J. j.
Dress in; Jewel tones, jeans, jewelry, or a jumper.
How to act; joyful.
Things to do;Tell jokes, jump rope, jujitsu.
Breakfast; jam on bread, juice.
Supper; Jambalaya, jello

K. k.
Dress in;khaki,
How to act; kindly
Things to do; give kisses, karate.
Breakfast; kalaches, kiwi
Supper; kabobs, Kentucky fried chicken, kohlrabi.

L. l.
Dress in; lavender, lilac, lemon, linen,leather, lipstick, loose clothing.
How to act; Loving.
Things to do; Learn to Love, leap frog, lemonade.
Breakfast; lefse.
Supper; lemonade, lasagna, lettuce salad, lemon bars.

I digress

And we got totally stuck.
tonight at dinner the topic of conversation began with talking about where we lived. The question then was, is that in America? yes, the USA.
This moved on to the US Army and what they do. Heidi said that pirates shoot cannons too. And, I admit I was the one to digress, I said, and forks. This began a debate on things which one could shoot. After they got over the shock that I said something so random!
"socks!"
"Pineapples!"
"Alligators!"
"Candy! Yeah, that is the tip top, We can't get any better than that." ......Well, maybe there is something else floating around up there.
Pine cones!"
And on and on and ON. They did this back and forth for all of the rest of dinner. When they are talking they take a very long time with dinner. Nearly an hour.
Kids are awesome. Have fun and laugh.

Day 38
G day

B day

Day 33

Today has Been Basically Beautiful!

• The kids tried to Blow Bubbles with their gum. Molly almost got it.
  
• We wore Black, Brown, and Blue clothes.
• We had BlueBerry Buckle for Breakfast.
• I Baked Bread today.
• We just had Burgers on Buns, Baked potatoes and Beans (green) for supper.
• The kids also watched some Birds in the front yard.

Day 3

• The kids played at the neighbors for awhile.They drove the little battery powered cars around about the whole time. They also gave Lars a little bike.
• Went to a Yesteryear Festival. It was a small colonial reenactment. I guess there was a fort or "arsenal" here at that time.All that is left of it is some footing stones. They have also made what they call a ghost tower because it is like a trellis in the shape and size that the tower was. There were men dressed up as soldiers from the revolutionary war. They did some firing of canons and muskets.Making pewter stuff. I can't remember what he was making while we were watching.

We also got to taste some fresh pressed apple cider.

• did the laundry - completely.
• the kids played at the neighbors again this afternoon.
  
• I bought two books from the author herself at the reenactment. They are historical fiction about the colonial times her in North Carolina. I read the first one this afternoon. It was a good read.

We had a busy good Saturday. thought about Keren a lot today. Happy Birthday little sister!

Sunday afternoon

The past two Sunday afternoons Derek has been called to come pull someone out of a mud hole somewhere. I somehow lost the pictures form the first time. :(
This week the girls had been playing dress up when Derek was called and Heidi was wearing a tutu. We all just jumped in the truck with whatever we were wearing on. I was still in my skirt form church and Derek had shed his dress shirt so he was wearing his "wife beater shirt" and Heidi still in her tutu. Oh what fun!

Lars

Here is our engineer hard hard at work with his new train set! This is the other toy we bought this month. It has been fun to watch him play with it. He mostly likes us to make the track and then he can drive his train around and around. He does build tracks too and is quite proud of himself whenever he does!

Monsters in my house!!!!

The other night there were lots of scary monsters running and roaring all over my house!! I was rather glad they were after each other and didn't really notice me!
The three little monsters kept asking the big one to scare them again. Silly things!

St Lucia Day

Last night before bed I read Kirsten's Surprise to the girls. It is about the Swedish celebration of St Lucia day.
This morning I made the st Lucia day bread and coffee and the girls dressed up as queens.


We also got a tree and decorated it last night.

We did go on a vacation!

Here is a small sampling of the pictures we took while on vacation!(I have posted many more on facebook!) The top picture is of us at my favorite place to visit. We hiked through the woods to a really cool mountain of fallen GIANT rocks.
At the WWII memorial in Washington DC.
Riding on our cousins pony. Lars and Heidi really loved to get to ride it.
We got to see family. What can be better than being with family in the great outdoors?
Some of us got to meet new friends. (One of us got to see old friends!)

Caramel Apples

This past week we made Caramel using a recipe that Jenny gave me last winter.
My pot was almost too small.:) It turned out very yummy. It was not very hard to do ether.
I saw the idea for mini caramel apples in a magazine at the dentist office. They made it a lot easier for the kids to eat. And we did not waste any apple since we all we happy to eat whatever was left on the core.
Tis the season for APPLES!

Derek's birthday party

We celebrated Derek's birthday by making his favorite cake. I tried a new recipe and it turned out very good.

Coffee Cake!

Grapes!

We were on a quest for grapes on our walk, and we found some! most of the ones within reach were not ripe but we did get a few to bring home and we also ate a bunch. The ones we could not reach were high in an Oak tree(Willow Oak to be exact).
We also found a Pecan tree that we will be visiting throughout the summer and fall to get them when they are ripe. They were very green and I thought they smelled a little like Citronella.
The blackberry were, alas, way past their season so we missed out on the black berries!
On our way home the sky turned a very dark gray and we started to hear thunder in the distance so we hurried the rest of the way home. No sooner had we got in that it did indeed start to pour and be a grand storm. It ended up lasting all night.
We were very thankful for the rain.
We are getting a much needed shower again today, gray and wet weather.

Picnic List

( The girls eating good picnic.)
(Molly waiting at the picnic table.)
(Keren's lunch)
( Me enjoying string cheese.)
(Lars at Wilson Park)
(Lars and Keren picnicking)

Table Cloth
Paper towels
Hand sanitizer
Citronella candle
Matches
Sandwiches
Cheez-it's
Watermelon
Cookies
Ice water bottles
String Cheese

Info

Something you may not have known;
And I quote; "Lots of birds are girls, And the rest are boys."
As we were walking home from the pool today Heidi imparted her wisdom on us. It really made me smile and feel enlightened.

Helpers

These are our three sweet helpers who are always ready to help in the kitchen. :)

Around Here

This week the girls and I have been getting excited about Valentines day. We made cards yesterday and today we made decorations to hang on our walls. Derek has the camera today or I would have put pictures on here. We are also making cookies.
The girls love doing crafts and to help me cook so that makes all of this very fun for them.
The picture above is from a day that we decided was "We love Papa" day. The kids made cards for him and I made Pad Thai soup which he had been wanting. than we had a candle light dinner. followed be the chocolate lava cupcake recipe I had posted earlier.
The other evening the neighbor boy, Samuel, brought over a really big activity coloring book over for the girls. The girls have really enjoyed that.

Thoughts in response to Friend's posts awhile back

Here is a recipe for a very good vegetarian soup;

Pad Thai Soup
Saute: 4 Tbsp. sesame oil 1 bulb minced garlic
2 bunches chopped green onions
1 block cubed tofu
Add: 6 Tbsp. chunky peanut butter
When peanut butter is melted add: 1 1/2 cups soy sauce
3/4 cup maple syrup 1/3 cup cider vinegar
2 tsp. cayenne pepper 2 Tbsp. lime juice
4 stalks celery finely chopped Water(enough to make a somewhat thin broth)
Shortly before serving (so as to be just tender) add:
8 oz. rice threads 1 lb. bean sprouts
10 oz Spanish peanuts
Serve.

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Some of our favorite snacks;
yogurt, nuts and fresh fruit
we also enjoy things that are not so healthy from time to time like;
cookies, cheesy crackers, and cake or ice cream
Popcorn is my all time favorite though. we sometime try different things on it other than butter and salt. Like; powdered cheese (from a mac and cheese box), brewers yeast, kettle corn (white sugar), and once ranch mix. all were good. I always pop it on the stove with just a little oil.

A good deel and Z day

Last summer when we went to the zoo before we went in the gate a man stopped us and asked if we would like to buy a membership to the zoo society. It ended up costing only $10 more( for a family membership with military discount) then to just buy tickets to get in. we bought it and enjoyed our visit to the zoo that day.

then later in the summer we went to the Aquarium not far from here and got in with our NC zoo membership. That more then paid for the cost of membership. then we also went to tour a battleship and it let us in with our zoo membership.
Last week we went to the zoo again for Z day. We were not able to go on our actual z-day because it was raining and Derek had to work all night the night before.
It was a very cold and windy day but we dressed warm and had a very fun time.

Our membership will get us into most any zoo in the US and some of Canada's.
.

The Doll House

Here are the pictures of the doll house finally. These are all from Christmas morning. The girls have had so much fun with it. That day Lars was pretty sure the steps were only for his guy.





Heidi is having her new doll come through the front door in this pic.






Anyway, we've had a good holiday season.



Happy 2008 to you all!