Music Anyone???

The kids enjoy playing instruments and singing.  I would have to say they get their musical interest, or love for music, from the Jackson side of the family.  Sure I did the junior high choir, but only a year or two while we lived in Broken Bow, NE.  Then in high school I wanted to play the saxophone, but my true interests lied in volleyball and basketball, so I never had the opportunity to learn an instrument. 

All three kids take piano lessons and I love listening to them progress through each new level.  Cassie started when she was seven when we lived in Parker, CO.  She actually started taking lessons over the cell phone with Grandma in Ohio, while her father supervised.  Then Zack started piano a few years later after we returned back to Ohio, and then shortly after that Mackenzie was on the scene. 

One day Cassie said she wanted to learn another instrument.  Well, as we all know musical instruments, along with private lessons, are not inexpensive. So, we weren't too open to the idea.  Then one day while we were in Omaha, NE visiting my mom, we went into a thrift store and they had some instruments for sale.  We walked out of there with a flute for $9.99.  We got back to Ohio, and Grandma Karen took it to a gentleman she knows that overhauls instruments, and for only $100 more Cassie had a working flute. 

A couple of years ago, just a few short months after starting piano, Mackenzie decided she wanted to play the violin.  WHY??  There's no one I know that plays the violin and why she had such an interest I have no clue.  Well, we ventured over to The Loft Violin Shop and rented a quarter sized student violin and Grandma Karen started teaching Mackenzie.  Shortly after that, one day we were at Ohio Thrift and they had a full sized violin for $34.99. It was missing all the strings, the bridge was broke, and it had some other minor defects, but we figured it could be overhauled.  For less than $150 we have a full size violin for her when she gets there - she is currently using a half size and she loves her private teacher her in Bismarck. 

Okay.  So for the musical students in our house, Cassie plays the piano, flute, and tinkers with the guitar; Mackenzie plays the piano and violin; and Zack plays the piano, and oh yeah, the drums.  They all take piano lessons from Grandma, currently via cell phone but soon via Skype, Cassie was taking private flute lessons, but will soon start taking those too with Grandma, Mackenzie takes private violin lessons, and Zack takes drum lessons from his dad - who too plays the drums. 

That should be enough music, right?  Well, apparently not.  Cassie has been talking about wanting to take on another instrument, but for obvious reasons it really hasn't been an option, besides I would really like her to focus on the flute and piano.  Well, today we walked into one of the local thrift stores, mind you looking for bean bag chairs for a youth movie night, and the girls gravitated toward two clarinets, two trumpets, and some other instrument. 

We walked out of there with one trumpet for $16.99 and a clarinet for $34.99. I have already placed a call to Grandma to find out how to make arrangements to have the instruments overhauled, and oh yeah, now she has something else to work with the kids!!

I think they look pretty good.  So, here's hoping they can be overhauled and then we'll be hearing some other fine sounds through out the house.

Our Winter Feeder

One of our favorite things to do is watch the birds at our feeders.  When we arrived in North Dakota, we set-up our feeders in the front of the house on a shepherd's hook right out front our front picture window.  Well, we had heard about the winds of North Dakota, but were not familiar with how their effects were.  The high winds emptied our feeds within a matter of minutes.  The feed was all over the dried ground, but we still had not attracted any birds to the feeders so the feed went to waste.    As the temperatures continue to drop and it gets frigid outside, we have noticed some birds in the back field along the fence line in the trees.  So, just recently, we decided to put a feeder out there and see what would happen. 

Cassie was the one that went out and found the perfect spot.  Hopefully one that won't cause the feeder to shake rattle and roll when the high winds arrive. 

We have noticed a lot of birds at the feeder over the past twelve days, but as you look closely at the above picture, yesterday we actually had pheasants feeding there, too.  You can see the males close to the feeder and in the open, but the females aren't as easy to see - they are camouflaged within the branches.

Cassie and Zack went out this morning to fill the feeders and place around some corn cobs that we had for squirrels (back in Ohio).  We read that pheasants like cracked corn, so maybe they'll eat the corn cobs.  So, now we'll to continue to enjoy watching the birds.  

A Week of Fave Foods

As I have mentioned, we are eating a lot more soup than we have eaten in years.  If I have calculated correctly, we have had soup six days out of the last ten.  That's a lot of liquid!!  There have been some old favorites and now some new favorites!!

One of our favorite things too is tilapia, okay not Cassie's, but we have a hard time finding it around here.  We usually get it from the seafood area in Sam's Club's meat department.  It is a little pricier here, so maybe it costs more to ship in here so they don't carry as much.  We have only had it twice since November.  I check for it when we go to Sam's but they just don't seem to have it by the time I get there.  We really like it grilled, Cassie seems not to mind it as much when it's grilled, but due to the weather conditions around here we have only grilled once since November - and those were those delicous cheeseburgers a couple of weeks ago. 

Since we can't get out to grill, I used one of our favorite recipes the other night to prepare the tilapia.  It's a recipe from Rachel Ray's Just in Time! called "Tilapia Club Stacks."  Instead of just eating the tilapia over a bed of salad mix with bacon strips, we decided to put it all on a hoagie and eat it like a BLT.   It was very yummy!!

Then we had some of our favorite homemade soups, Hot & Sour Soup.  This is one of my favorite soups, minus the tofu, that I get from the Chinese restaurants when we eat there.  Luckily I found a recipe that is very easy and it tastes very similar to those I have had.  Now, the kids don't like it and they difinitely don't like the way it smells. That's okay, Jay & I like it and with the right amount of red pepper flakes it has a "kick."

One of the kids' favorite homemade soup . . . homestyle chuncky chicken noodle soup.  I have made it so much in the two months, probably once a week, that I could make it in my sleep.  I really don't have a recipe.  I read a few and then just made what I thought would be easy and tasty.

Well, now I have to think ahead to next week and what the menu will be.  Our evenings are starting to get busy so I have to have dinner ready between 5:00 - 5:30 p.m., which is really early to eat, so we can eat before everyone is out the door to meetings, children's choir, catechism, youth group - gymnastics requires us to not eat until 7:00 p.m. which is way to late in my opinion.

Our upcoming 33 day long Field Trip with Multiple destinations . . .

The kids and I are so looking forward to our visit HOME.  We have been busy talking with friends and family making all kinds of plans. 

We are leaving ND on April 5th to go to Iowa for a week.  While we're in Iowa we're going to hang out with my side of the family and throw an AWESOMELY fun baby shower for my sister-in-law.  My mom, sister, and I have already started planning and buying decorations for the shower.  You see it is going to be a  Nebraska Cornhuskers football themed shower so we have to stock up now on all kinds of football gear/decor.  Mom-to-be's family are HUGE Husker fans, so this should be fun!!

On April 12th we will arrive in Pickerington and get to spend some quality time with family and friends.  The kids already have get togethers and overnights scheduled.  We are very fortunate that it looks like all our friends are going to be around so we will get to spend some quality time with them. 

We were originally going to leave Pickerington on April 23rd, we're going to Dayton to stay with family the 23rd-25th, but then I jokingly said to Jay, "We should stay till at least Wed., April 28th, because it's the last Wednesday of the month."  Well, for those who don't know what the last Wednesday of the month is . . . it is the best thrift store shopping day in the Columbus area!!  Ohio Thrift, which has multiple locations all over Columbus, has 50% off ALL clothes and household items. 

You see, that's how we do, I'd say at least 80% of, our wardrobe shopping and unfortunately the thrift stores here are a little pricier than back home and their clothing, especially for kids, is not a very good/big selection.  We've checked several of the thrift stores out here and haven't had much luck finding clothing.  I've had to buy more new things from Target, Wal-Mart & Kohl's than I have in the past couple of years because we just can't find the right things at the thrift stores.  I just realized while we're in Iowa we can hit a couple of their awesome thrift stores, too.

When we leave Dayton on the 25th we will be heading back to Columbus for another week.  So, with the decision to stay and shop we decided to stay another weekend so Cassie could try and get together with some of her non-homeschooling friends.  Now we are scheduled to leave the Columbus area on Sun., May 2nd and arrive back in Iowa on May 3rd.  Luckily I have an aunt that is about halfway between Columbus and Council Bluffs, so we are breaking up our drive and staying with her.  Thank you, Aunt Janet. 

Well, we were going to leave Iowa and head back to ND so we could see Jay on May 5th, but then I realized . . . HELLO, it's my sister's birthday and I haven't spent a birthday with my sister in I don't know how long.  So guess what, we are staying for her birthday and will head back to ND on May 7th.  So, did you get that?  We are leaving ND on April 5th and will return on May 7th.  We will be away from Jay for more than a month.  That's a LONG time to be away from him, BUT we all so need to get away.  We are ALL a little, okay A LOT, homesick and are so looking forward to being someplace familiar.  This is definitely one of the many perks of homeschooling . . . when we need to get away and rejuvenate we have that flexibility. 

We are definitely excited about the trip, the plans, and the visits we'll get to have, but we are so not looking forward to the drive.  It is a round trip of 2,850 miles.  Luckily we get to break it up!!  AND we are definitley not looking forward to being away from Jay that long - we will be homesick for him!

Digging out . . .

Well, I don't think we got as much snow as they had originally forcasted, but it was enough to give us a hassle.  This morning when we left to go deliver papers, first we got up and evaluated what we could see and it really didn't look all that bad.  Jay shoveled the main concrete part of the driveway so we could back out.

We got out of the garage and then off the concrete driveway onto the gravel.  When Jay put the van in drive we DIDN'T go anywhere, the tires just kept spinning.  Well, we were trying to decide if I should call the carrier hotline and let them know I couldn't get out of the driveway and I'd go out once the sun started to come up.  Jay worked on digging out around the van and I walked all the way down the driveway to see what the road looked like.  There were deep ruts where a truck had already drove through.  I think it stopped snowing by eight or nine o'clock last night and then thankfully didn't do anything else over night.  I told Jay if we could get out to the road we could just follow the tracks, but he'd have to probably dig out the end of the driveway because the snow had blown enough into a deep drift.  We spent about 40 minutes working on the driveway - just parts - so we could get out.

Once we got out of our subdivision and on to the main road, we hesitated because they were pretty well snow covered.  Keep in mind our whole area was under a "no travel advisory."   We were only driving about 30 mph and kept contemplating turning around, but we got half way to our pick-up location and decided to go on in.  It took us a little longer than normal to deliver because we had to bag the papers and then I had to drive a lot slower in the neighborhood.  On our way home, we had hoped the roads would have been plowed, but they hadn't been so we drove slowly again.

When we got to our neighborhood we were just hoping we'd be able to get up the hill.  We decided to go a different way, that is less hilly, but the road we had to turn on hadn't been traveled so it made for an interesting drive - panic dialogue, "Jay, the road's this way . . . NO, not that way. That's the ditch line. NO. NO. The other way!"  Thank goodness he was patient with me and didn't yell at me for losing my cool!!  We made it home safely!

Believe it or not, not one plow ever came through our area.  Apparently we didn't get enough snow to warrant a plow, but what happens when you don't have a four wheel drive vehicle to get out.

Luckily, one of the congregation members has a snow blower and he called today and asked if we needed any help getting out of our driveway.  Well, Cassie had already gone out and shoveled the main concrete area, but there was no way we could get the gravel part of the driveway shoveled.  To the rescue . . .

Mr. M arrived with his snowblower, and believe it our not he got stuck in the same area of our driveway that we got stuck in earlier this morning. 

Jay helped unload the snowblower and while Mr. M took care of the driveway, Jay dug out the snow around his truck tires.  I'm sure he would have gotten out without Jay's help, but at least Jay felt like he was helping.  LOL

The kids had a fun time playing out in the snow, and watching the snowblower at work.  THANK YOU!!  Mr. M, we so appreciate you helping clear our driveway to make getting out easier!!

New Foods & They are KEEPERS

Today was a day for some new recipes.  I have to admit, I probably have more cookbooks than I will ever be able to use.  I mean, there's probably no way I will ever be able to cook even half of all the recipes in all the books I have.  However, I do flip through them all the time looking for something new to try.  Some of my favorites include the Gooseberry Patch cookbooks, Rachel Ray's Just in Time, and The Biggest Loser Family Cookbook. 

Today I broke out Rachel Ray's book to check the ingredients for an upcoming meal, and I decided to see what kind of soups she featured.  You see, since we've moved to North Dakota, we have eaten more soup in the past four months than we have probably in the past four years.  Matter of fact, by indulging in today's soup, this was the third soup of the week since Tuesday.  Jay says soup is definitely a comfort food and great for cold days like today.  Well, I made her Harvest Creamed Corn Chouper, and boy was it a HIT!!  It was truly very easy to make, the ingredients were definitely "pantry" items or things one would have on hand regularly, and it took less than thirty minutes to make.

Well, I wanted to figure out what to have for dinner so I grabbed my latest magazines.  You see, I get the Taste of Home Healthy Cooking, Taste of Home Simple & Delicious, and Taste of Home magazines. When I get the new issues I try to make something out of them, you know to justify paying for it!!

So, tonight I used a recipe from the February/March 2010 Taste of Home issue, Tacoritos.  Okay, maybe they don't look very appetizing, but I made some adjustments to the recipe (don't tell my husband - you see I use not ever stray from a recipe & it drove him NUTS!!) - anyway, after some minor tweeking, it too was a HUGE HIT!!

One day, two recipes . . . and they BOTH are KEEPERS!!  Now I just need to come up with a system so I know where to find those "KEEPERS".

6 days ago & now 2night

Well, on January 16, 2010, it was so nice outside. Not too cold. Not too windy.  The sun was shining. The kids went out in their snow pants, boots, sweatshirts and gloves to play.  No big bulky coats needed.

Zack was even snowboarding, on what little snow was left on our hill, in a t-shirt.

The girls were enjoying the warmer temps, too.  Mackenzie insisted on setting up a space on the deck so she could eat her lunch and enjoy some fresh air.

Cassie even wore shorts and did some skateboarding on the driveway.  Later, we all actually went out and enjoyed a nice meal at Olive Garden.  It was nice to see the sun and to get out of the house!!

Well, today is a different story for the forecast.  Actually, they, the lovely local weathermen, wanted to assure us that the nice unseasonable weather was not here to stay.  They even fore warned us a week ago that this weekend could possible be another big storm. 

Sure enough, since early this morning we have been under a winter weather storm warning and it is in place till early Monday morning.  They are forecasting 6-10" of snow between now and Saturday.  Of course, the high winds are suppose to come in too and cause major drifting in the rural/country. 

I just stepped outside and took some photos of our current snow status . . .

I don't think we'll be grillin' any time soon. 

Going HOME for a visit

In April we are traveling to Iowa for a baby shower.  Well, I figure we will only be 13 hours from Ohio so why not take the kids HOME to visit family and FRIENDS. 

So, tentatively we will arrive in Ohio by April 13, 2010 and we will leave Ohio on April 23, 2010.  That way we have some time to have some play dates/get togethers with as many as we can!!  The kids and I are hoping that a lot of you will be around so we can get together!!

It will be a long trip away from Jay so we will miss him dearly, but he'll be busy with work and taking care of the dog.  You see we will be leaving ND on April 5th and not arrive back till April 27th or 28th.  The last big trip we took like this was when we lived in Denver - we left Jay on August 26, 2001 and flew back to Denver on Sept. 10, 2001 (the day before 9/11).   This time we won't be flying - we'll be driving the 2,800+ round trip miles. It will be FUN, right!??! ; )

So, if you are going to be around please let us know so we can start planning.  Also, will co-op be in or out of session?  If it's in session, maybe we can come for lunch and say hello. WE are all looking forward to our trip HOME!!

Such a sad puppy . . .

Chloe was distracting Mackenzie during school the other day.  Mackenzie wouldn't pet her so she decided to pout!!