Dinner Diva

Mackenzie L.O.V.E.S. being in the kitchen.  She has her own skillet, small egg pan, and small flat griddle pan, which come in handy when she makes her own breakfast or fixes a midday or even a late night snack.  She makes great pancakes and egg sandwiches.:)  When she wants something sweet . . . she will bake too – brownies are her specialty.

I am amazed at her eagerness to cook for herself and others.  As long as I can remember she has always enjoyed helping Grandma Karen bake.  Then over the last year, she has become very independent in making her own breakfast and lunch. 

She is the only one of the kids that liked the idea of helping at least once a month to help cook dinner.  She has been flipping through the various cookbooks to find recipes to try. 

So, she found some noodle Italian dish for a dinner last week.  We actually didn’t have to start from scratch with the recipe because we already had homemade sauce to use.  :)  She is looking forward to her spring cooking class she will be taking at one of our co-ops.

I love being in the kitchen with her!  But I marvel at what she can do in the kitchen at her young age! :)

Where do you nap??

The kids love using Chloe as a pillow and she obviously doesn’t mind.

When no one is around to snuggle with her, she finds a corner to cozy up to.

That really doesn’t look comfortable.

COOOOOOKIES

Can you believe it is Girl Scout cookie time????

The sale kicked off this past weekend and Mackenzie wasn’t missing it!!  She made sure Jay had her out and about on the first day. She loves going out door to door and asking, “How many boxes would you like?” 

That was the best advice we ever got when Kassi was a Girl Scout selling cookies!  Never ask ‘if they would like to buy any,’ but ask ‘how many boxes they would like to buy.’  We have even had people tell us if she would have asked ‘if’ and not ‘how many’ then they would of just said “no.”  Mackenzie is awesome too, she even asks how many they would like to donate to the Gift of Caring program.  :)

She will be selling until sometime in March, but she is off to a great start.  She set her initial goal at 500 and will go up from there when she surpasses it.  She has already made it halfway to her initial goal. :)

Nice job, Mackenzie!!  Keep up the awesome selling!!

The Changing theme

I don’t think we have ever taken down our Christmas decorations so early.  I am sure we have waited till at least the second week of January.  But this year the changing of the guard came much earlier – December 28th.

I know.  That is really early! :(  I love how our house looked with all the holiday decorations.  Jay always does such a nice job.  The kids and I help with the ornaments on the trees, but then Jay does the rest of the house, transforming it from its everyday wares to a holiday wonderland. 

I have to say, this year when we removed the ornaments from the trees, there was a new method to the storing of them.  Thanks to a friend and her share on her blog, she inspired me to make tree decorating easier. 

In the years past, we have had an angel tree, a Disney tree, a Hallmark tree, and a team sport tree.  Well, this year we had the Disney tree, an angel tree, and a miscellaneous/catch all tree.  This year the Hallmark ornaments weren’t on display.  The kids receive ornaments each year from us and their grandparents, and usually we mark the boxes and then put them all together.

Well, thanks to a friend’s share, I got each of them their own container.  As we removed the ornaments from the trees, they were placed in each individual’s container along with their stocking & Christmas doggie. 

Kassi – Zack – Kenzie .  .  .

they each have a nice collection of ornaments.  So, when they move out, they will get to take with them their ornaments.  But until then, the can decide which ornaments they would like to display on the “Family Tree” each year. 

All the boxes and containers are marked and stored nicely away for next Christmas. 

In the meantime, we – I mean Jay - transformed the house to a winter wonderland. 

Jay did another nice job!  But we need way more snowman stuff.

A Talented Eye

As many of you know, Kassi enjoys taking photos, and she is really good at it.  She has been wanting a new camera because her old point and shoot just needed some repairs.  It still takes nice photos, but it has more than gotten its use. 

So, her big gift was something we thought she would really enjoy and definitely get a lot of use out of.  She got a new camera. It was another awesome deal at Target – it was on sale AND we got a $75 gift card kicked back to use on other gifts.  Forget ‘Black Friday’ deals, we got awesome deals on other days!

Kassi hasn’t wasted any time  . . .

See what I mean about being good at it!?

The Way to Gift

The kids made their wish lists in November.  I remember a time they would go through the Toys R Us Big Book.  They were encouraged to circle two things per two page spread and each item had to be less than $50.  These would give us and family some gift ideas. 

As I have mentioned (previous post), now that they are older the ‘toys’ that interest them are way pricier.  So in years past, when they wanted a big ticket item they just asked family for gift cards or cash. 

The girls made their lists – with the cost in mind, not putting anything on it that was way out of budget.  Mackenzie had put a sewing machine on her list, but shortly before Christmas she scratched it off.  I felt bad because it was the ONE gift I made sure to have for her.  I later found out she scratched it off because she felt it was too expensive. 

Jay & I shopped wisely – stretching our dollar as far as we could.  Between Kroger’s holiday bonus bucks and Target kicking back gift cards with purchases of some items we were able to get hundreds of dollars of things without using our actual money.  We even watched certain items, i.e. the sewing machine, on-line till we thought it hit its lowest price at 55% off. 

I am SOOO glad, we were able to get the sewing machine.  I think she is happy about it too!! She started sewing on Christmas day.  She even made a couple last minute gifts.

A couple days later, while I took a much needed nap, Mackenzie made a pillow case.  She has a craft drawer full of scrap pieces of fabric. I think she is set for a while.