A Little Adventure

As I mentioned in the previous post, we decided to have our own Thanksgiving with the four of us. In addition to the Grateful Wreath, I decided to also have Milo help me make our place cards. He didn’t want to color them, but he did write our names. His writing is improving. He wrote his name with a yellow colored pencil. He rewrote it in orange.

I found these on the internet and liked them.

Last week at school Milo had a Thanksgiving Lunch that parents and siblings were invited to. The Kindergartners had made and were wearing these turkey hats. He was really cute.

Milo in the turkey hat.

Milo and I were the only ones awake or at home when we took pictures. Milo took this picture of me

Milo also made a hand turkey at school. It is laminated and there is a poem on the back. It says “This isn’t just a turkey, As anyone can see, I made it with my hand, Which is part of me! It comes with lots of love Especially to say…I hope you have a very Happy Thanksgiving Day! By Cathy B. Griffen”

We’ve had some requests for our Thanksgiving menu. The night before Thanksgiving, Scott and I made, Apple Sausage Stuffing, Yams in Orange Sauce, Raspberry Pretzel Salad, Honey Butter and Hot Artichoke Dip. Thanksgiving morning we made Lion House rolls. We decided to go with a fully cooked turkey breast. We also enjoyed some Early June Peas in Butter Sauce (you can get them in the frozen section at the store). The night before Thanksgiving we decided to have the salad for dessert instead of the pumpkin cheesecake we had planned when we realized how much food we had already made.

Here’s the kitchen the night before Thanksgiving when we were preparing things. Scott particularly liked this photo as it is pretty typical of our standard kitchen setup. Scott’s laptop is sitting on the island because it is often our recipe and/or music source. The island is full of everything needed to make the dish and Milo is hanging around helping or looking for handouts.

Milo using his snitching skillz that he learned so well from his mother

This is what the kitchen looked like when we were done. Isn’t cooking fun?

Milo insisted on helping with the rolls the next morning. He runs the mixer like an old pro. Scott thought it would be best to cut the rolls himself, but Milo weaseled his way in. We didn’t have uniform rolls, but they still taste the same. Finally, Milo rolled the rolls while Scott put them on the cookie sheets in preparation for baking.

In keeping with a tradition we started last year with Scott’s family, we will be having Pie Day Friday a day late.  We are planning on keeping that tradition alive by participating via webcam.  We will post later about the pies we make for Pie Day Saturday…probably a sweet potato pie and the pumpkin cheesecake that didn’t get made for Thanksgiving.

Now on to our feast.  That is what Milo calls it.  We had a great meal.

Here’s the table before we began. Milo is eating some crackers with our artichoke dip. He had just woken up from a nap

Here we are ready to eat. Holly was patiently waiting and wanting to eat.

We decided to try a fully cooked smoked turkey breast. It only took 90 minutes to warm up and it was really tasty. We were impressed.

Here’s a plate of what we had. It is missing the peas and the salad. It was delicious!

The kids liked the feast, although they didn’t eat much. They both ate the Raspberry Pretzel Salad, and both had some turkey. Otherwise, they didn’t eat much. Scott and I liked everything that we made. It was a very nice meal. We enjoyed the ease and simpleness of the day. Milo and Holly seemed to enjoy themselves as well.

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving as well!

Since we were in Texas, we decided that we wanted to have our own Thanksgiving, yes just the four of us.  We decided that now was the time to make some new traditions.  I came across an idea to have Milo help me make a Grateful Wreath.  The wreath would consist of leaves in somewhat of a circle with little messages on it of what our families were grateful for.

Milo and I would like to thank all our family members who told us what they were grateful for. Milo was very excited to have so many leaves to put on his wreath. We even had to add some more space. It is residing near the Word Wall in the Study.

Here’s our wreath for 2008.

I thought I’d put in the things we were grateful for.

Holly is grateful for books.
Milo is grateful for playing outside.
Dad is grateful for our family.
Mom is grateful that we can be together as a family and that we can have fun.

Milo wanted to take a picture of his word wall in the Study.  His teacher encouraged us to create a word wall at home with the Kindergarten sight words.  Milo has really done well with this.  He colored all the letters and cut everything out.  I just added them to the wall.  We also added numbers up to 21 to the word wall.  He is accountable for spelling and reading words on the word wall. He tells me often which words are on the word wall at home and which ones are on the word wall at school.

Milo made the US flag and the Texas flag at school.  The ones on the right are the school set.  He was so excited about it that he insisted that we make another set at home.

The other night Milo’s homework included the task of drawing one of our Thanksgiving traditions. He wanted to draw a picture of us having a “feast.” He was a bit unsure of how to draw the picture, so I told him that I would provide him with a bit of inspiration by drawing my own interpretation. I finished and showed it to him. He immediately began to lecture me on how poorly I had drawn the people in the picture. My people did not have eyes or a mouth. And worst of all…they were naked…I had forgotten to clothe my stick figures. Big mistake. Milo was nice enough to give me an example of a properly drawn person. I will let you figure out who drew what. Good times!

Last year my brother and I did quite a bit of applesauce mainly because it sounded fun and he had access to a large number of free apples. I did a bit on my own with apples purchased at the farmer’s market. They weren’t free, but they didn’t seem too expensive either. The applesauce was a big hit in our family. In fact, we ran out and were a bit disappointed to have “store bought” applesauce lying around the house for a few months.

Apple season rolled around, so I figured I would drop by the local farmer’s market and buy some apples. Turns out that apples don’t grow very well around Austin No problem. I will just hop online and buy some. How hard can that be? Pretty hard if you want largish quantities shipped to TX for a reasonable price. I eventually found an orchard in Lubbock that would ship them to me for a not outrageous price. Based on the shipping price and the time it took them to get the apples shipped out I think we will head up there and do the “u-pick” thing next year. Anyway, I finally managed to get my apples. Woo hoo!

Then I realized that my fancy new flat cooktop was going to create a problem. Apparently you aren’t supposed to use pots on it that aren’t flat on the bottom with a flat cooktop. My hot water bath canner does NOT have a flat bottom. Well, what do I do now? I am in the south, so I might as well go southern and buy an outdoor cooker…Bayou Classic brand…of course! While I was working on the new setup I also picked up a nice 16 quart stock pot. Good stuff.

Milo and Holly loved helping with the applesauce. Milo is a big boy and can help run the peeler/slicer. Holly on the other hand just liked eating lots and lots of apples. A good time was had by all and we ended up with about 21 quarts of applesauce. I hope it lasts us the year. If you are wondering what I put in my applesauce, it is pretty simple. For about 7 quarts I add 1 cup of brown sugar, 4 teaspoons of cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon of cloves. You can adjust those to taste. Just remember that the taste changes when the applesauce has cooled, so you might want to wait for the spoonful you are tasting to cool a bit in order to get a more accurate taste.

Milo loves running the peeler. I learn patience while he does this

Holly apparently loves apples. I just wish she would eat them when she is offered them at meal time…

Using the new setup on the back porch. How southern is that! The only problem is that you have to choose a non-weathery or less weathery day to do the applesauce as wind and rain put a damper on the outdoor cooking thing. Oh, the one big advantage is that it does heat the water to boiling in about 15 minutes (it seemed like it was closer to 30 on my stove at home).

The finished product. Yum!

It was quite the exciting day when Milo brought home Ellie the Elephant for the weekend.

Here’s a picture of Ellie the Elephant.

We were suppose to write in Ellie’s draft book what Milo did with her over the weekend.  When Milo got her out, Holly started to scream and stole Ellie from Milo.  It started a “I’ll chase you until I get Ellie back” war.  It was really cute.  Here are some pictures from that.

Holly wouldn’t let go.  Notice the little smirk on her face.

Milo finally got Ellie from Holly.  Holly really liked her and was sad when she had to go back to school.

Milo is posing for a picture with Ellie.  He is in his jammies because they had Pajama Day that day at school.

Milo took Ellie outside to play in the backyard.

These are the pictures we took and the pages we put into Ellie’s draft book.  I’m sorry the pictures aren’t the greatest, but I tried.

This is the page Milo wrote.  Below is the picture and what he wrote. We are still working with him on his handwriting.  We are suppose to let them phonetically spell words, so that is why they aren’t written correctly.

I colored with Ellie.

This is the other page Milo wrote.

I slid with Ellie.

The past few weeks have been filled with coloring at our house.  We decided to move Milo’s little table down into the dining room or as it is known now, the study.  Milo is using the roll top desk we have for his coloring/school supplies.  This is also the place we do Milo’s homework, on his table.  Milo and Holly sit at the table color and I sit on a kitchen chair to supervise.

Milo has been coloring for a while now.  Holly started to really like to color at Stake Conference a few weeks ago.  She didn’t want to leave when it was over she was enjoying her coloring so much.  She gets very excited when you talk about coloring now.  I like to use the Crayola Mini Twistable Crayons with her because they don’t end up in her mouth as much.  She also can’t break them…a much better choice for her.

Holly is actually coloring on the floor here.  She seems rather grumpy probably because someone took her crayons…

She loves to color, if only she would turn the crayon around.

Milo is sitting at his table.  He has gotten very good at coloring the last couple weeks.  He colors in the morning while watching Reading Rainbow before school.

He concentrates quite a bit when he colors.

Scott has been wondering why he ever started doing this…Milo has known about the fun basket rides.  Holly just learned about them.  The best part about them in Texas is that you can go on some really great rides when you have big rooms without furniture.

This is in the beginning of the basket rides.

They get better and better.

Here’s another picture of the kids squealing and Scott with his tongue out.

This is after the ride when Dad is tired.

Now Milo is giving Holly rides.

Each week in Milo’s class a different child is Star Student.  This week is Milo’s week to be Star Student.  I made a poster for Milo to take to school so his classmates could learn more about him.  He helped me put the captions on the poster.

I realize that my photo isn’t the greatest, so I’ll include the pictures and text below.

Milo loves attending Real Salt Lake soccer games.

Milo loves playing outside with his sister Holly.

Milo’s first day of school at Fern Bluff.  He loves coming to school!

Milo loves to watch Star Wars and use his light sabers to have pretend fights.

Milo loves exploring new things.  Here he is exploring his own little slot canyon in Arches National Park in Utah.

Milo loves taking pictures.  Here he is taking pictures of the beautiful scenery in Arches National Park in Utah.

Milo loves being outdoors.  Here he is enjoying sunset at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park in Utah.

Milo loves playing in the snow.

Milo loves adventurous family vacations.  Milo loves the slickrock path to “the Wave” in Northern Arizona.

Milo loves camping.  Here he is enjoying a sunrise in Goblin Valley State Park in Utah on a camping trip with his father.

Milo loves going hiking.  Here he is posing in front of the Wasatch mountains in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Milo loved his California summer.  Here he and his parents are enjoying dinner at Crissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge.

I learned that on Monday, they showed the class Milo’s poster.  He told them about the pictures.  Although he wasn’t sure about a few of them.  His teacher told me she read the captions to the class.  The class then asked questions about it.  I believe someone asked him about the Wave picture. I don’t know what other questions were asked.  Later this week we will have the opportunity to have Ellie the Elephant visit our house for the weekend.  I’ll try to get a picture of Milo with Ellie so we can post that as well.  Milo told me he was going to sleep with Ellie.  I’m thinking I’ll suggest that Ellie sleeps next to his bed on the floor…we shall see.

Halloween was very different for us this year.  We weren’t sure what to expect.  We got a lot of candy thinking we’d also go to a trunk or treat, but the trunk or treat was a little too late in the evening the night before Halloween and Milo was too tired.

We started off the festivities with pumpkin painting, well, it was more pumpkin drawing.  We used sharpies to color on the pumpkin.  Milo enjoyed writing his name, Holly’s, mine and Dad’s.  We then let Holly have a turn.  She loved it.

Milo loved writing on the pumpkin.

Holly loved it even more.  She wanted the camera in this picture.

In this picture she wanted the markers so she could draw some more.

Please note the Milo, Mom and Dad.  He did write Holly, but I didn’t get a picture of it.

We also continued our tradition of Halloween cookies.  I haven’t been able to find a good bakery nearby, so I made sugar cookies.  We made ghost cookies and shared with our friends in the neighborhood.  They were very tasty.

Milo was very excited for Halloween.  He had been talking about it for a few days.  He did go to school and they had fun.  They weren’t able to dress up at school, but Milo enjoyed going anyway.  All afternoon on Halloween day, he was asking when it was time for trick or treating.  After Scott got home we ate dinner and we played around for a little bit.  The little boy across the street came over and rang our doorbell and asked Milo if he could come trick-or-treating with him.  We said we’d be out in just a minute.  We went outside and waited for all the rest of the kids.  We took pictures.

We’ve got Obi Wan Kenobi.

Also, a cute little Tigger.

Obi Wan and Tigger.

Tigger didn’t want to wear her head for very long.

Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi.  Our street is really into Star Wars.  We some great Star Wars costumes.  We had Obi Wan, Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, a storm trooper and Yoda.  It was really great.  Next year, Milo tells me he wants to be Darth Vader.  We shall see.

After pictures, the kids started running down the street to the houses.  They were just running in a mass.  It was really funny.  Holly sat in the wagon with the other little girl across the street and they just chilled.  We went down a road near our house.  There was a haunted house.  Milo went in it on a non-scary tour.  It was in the garage and kitchen.  It was fun.  We went back to our house and dropped the little girls off and Milo and his friend went on for some more trick-or-treating.

When Milo and I got back, Scott and Holly has already come in and Holly was in bed.  Milo seemed to have fun.  The next day he said we should go trick-or-treating again that day.  We told him we had to wait a year to go again.  He thought about that for a minute and then said “When’s Christmas…”

All in all, it was a great Halloween.