More like it

Matt works on the 3rd floor of a building right on the first leg of the race course so we got to get in out of the cold and hang out with a birds eye view until the race start at 7pm. Just before start time we went back down to street level to see some of the teams go by. Alex LOVED that part and seemed oblivious to the cold. If you look closely at that sled going by I am pretty sure there is an extra dog riding in the sled. The musher we talked to said they do that sometimes.

The picture at the top is what you get when you take a 3 year old, get her up early and spend half the day in the car and the other half the day outside in a freezing wind and then keep her up past their bedtime!

UP 200

Friday morning we got up and packed up and headed north to Marquette. This weekend was the UP 200 Dog sled race.

Windy, windy drive. The last stretch from just east of Munising to Marquette was crazy windy, the truck was blowing all over the road and I kept thinking how glad I was that the roads were dry.

Once we got settled in to our motel I took the kids over the the motel that was serving as race headquarters so they could get to see some of the dogs before the race and maybe talk to a musher. Alex found a musher that would answer some questions for him and we looked at 3 dog teams. She had done the midnight run (shorter race) 4 times and this was her first year doing the 200 mile run. She said her dogs were having a really hard time with the wind.

After dinner we all (mom, dad, Matt, Amy, Grandma Ruth, Ben, myself and the kids) all went downtown to the race start to see the teams preparing. The wind gusts were so strong that Maya almost got blown over a few times and Ben just ended up carrying her most of the time we were in more open areas.

The dogs were clearly cold - many of the mushers ended up putting them back in their kennels after feeding them. Some of the ones that were out were hiding under trailers or trucks trying to get out of the wind.

I had a hard time getting pictures of some of the dogs that aren't blurry. Not because the dogs weren't still or my camera setting but because of the wind! The teams that were right at the end in the more open area had some beautiful dogs but I was getting blown over trying to take pictures!

Reduce, reuse, recycle...

When I was at Alex's classroom for the holiday party some parents had donated a bunch of new crayons and his teachers were going to throw away most of their old ones - most were broken and nubby. I asked to take them home instead and came home with a gallon size ziplock bag over half full!

A cold snowy day in January with nothing to do the kids spent some time ripping the paper off and we set them aside.

The impending class Valentine party offered a perfect occasion to finish the process and make some fun new crayons to pass out with Valentine cards. I have been told that Crayola now makes a toy that melts and remolds crayons. We don't have that. We have some silicon baking molds I have picked up on clearance at Joann's and an old kitchen knife! I chop the crayons into smaller pieces and the kids load up the mold. Stick them in a 200 degree oven until they are melted, let them cool and then they pop right out of the molds.

It's done!

The sundress that is. Maya wore it the first day it was done, fresh off the needles she was so excited. So it hasn't been blocked at all yet and I could barely get her to stand still but here it is.

She is in love with the pockets. I think I need to do some reinforcing on them because at this rate she will have them pulled off in no time!

SUPER BOWL CHAMPS!!

Ben had some friendly banter going with the neighbors this week. This is the result.

Alex had a ski lesson today

Alex got my brother's old cross country skis at Christmas time. He dove right into skiing, spent a lot of time in my Grandma's yard at Christmas and has spent a lot of time in our yard and back field. We decided to schedule him a one on one lesson because neither Ben nor I really know how you are suppose to ski, we just pretend.

There were some big sprint races at Timber Ridge today so the teacher took him out a little before they started to stay out of the way. When they came back an hour later they had a surprise for me! In addition to the sprints there was a kids race with an adult in a dinosaur costume leading the way and all the kids chasing him. Alex asked if he could join in, so he did the race too and came back with a "trophy" cowbell!

Sledding party!

One of Alex's good friends from school had a sledding party for his birthday today! It was a great idea, everyone brought the whole family so parents got to meet and visit and all the kids had a great time. The weather was perfect too - upper 20's to low 30's after a week plus of single digits and low windchill factors.

Slumber party

Thursday night Maya went to bed in tears because she wanted to sleep with Alex. We knew it wouldn't last all night and would mean it would take extra time to fall asleep so I said they couldn't sleep together on a school night.

They are smart kids. Bedtime comes around Friday night and Alex asks right away - NOW can we have a sleepover together because tomorrow is Saturday and there is no school?

We tucked them into Maya's bed. Alex read Maya some stories and they turned out the light and turned on a little lamp. I turned on the monitor and sat downstairs listening to the whispering. It was very cute. After a while I went up and reminded them we had a sledding party the next day and they did actually need to sleep.

A little while later I hear footsteps out of the bed so I went back up and they were out of bed to turn the lamp off - ok, so I gave them the final warning. If I have to come up again then we'll have to do separate beds so everyone gets enough sleep.

For the next few minutes I hear whispering like crazy on the monitor with Alex saying "no Maya don't talk, if she has to come up again we'll get put in separate beds!"

Then quiet......

and when I went up to check the above picture is what I found.

It lasted until about 10:45 when I heard Maya crying and yelling at Alex. I went up to find Alex sitting upright in bed but NOT awake. Maya was yelling at him to pass her her water bottle. He was asleep so he was not passing the water bottle. Maya was really, really mad that "he won't give me my water bottle" and could not understand that although he was sitting up he was still asleep.

So I carried Alex to his bed and got Maya her water and settled her down.

Neither of them remember this whole episode this morning. They wanted to know why they were in separate beds.

Oh well, it was worth a shot!

Imbolc (or Candlemas or Groundhog day)

Yesterday we were gifted with a snow day! And it turned out to be quite nice for a snow day. Cold, but as long as we were out of the wind it was tolerable for playing.

We started some buckets in the morning to try and make ice lanterns ala Random-Charm. That was an adventure that extended into today. The first two we tried to dump too soon. The 3rd small bucket I emptied late last night and it looks pretty good, but we ran out of time to light it tonight (Ben is gone this evening and dinner time - bed time got a little frenzied). The bigger bucket I think could have worked but I was a little rough with it when I was trying to dump it out and the sides were a little thin so they broke down pretty low. We are still planning on lighting it tomorrow to see if the sides are high enough to look lantern-ish.

Alex and Maya played a ton of silly imaginary things inside throughout the day. They drew pictures. Alex made a placemat at school that he has been using at the table. He wanted to make Maya one and decided to make it out of small pieces of penguin shaped paper that he got a notepad of for Christmas.

We played outside and enjoyed the sun!

In the afternoon we baked braided "Brigit Bread" (recipe is from the book "Circle Round") and read some stories.

It was a very nice day, Maya didn't want Alex to go back to school today and at first he didn't really want to go either.

In progress

This is the bowl that sits near the couch and holds my knitting odds and ends, what is half done, what might come next. It's too small for everything currently so I also have a stack next to it....

But wait, isn't that purplish ball of yarn on the top suppose to be a whole sock by now? Well, yes, it would be had I not ripped the whole thing out when I was almost 3/4 done with it. I managed to turn the heel. I managed to pick up the stitches along the heel flap clumsily but at that point several things went wrong. Not horribly wrong, but wrong enough to make me want to do it over rather than suffer through. I really, really like the yarn and want to have nice socks made out of it not weird socks made out of it.

I plan to cast on again this week.

There is a lot of cotton in there. When I was pregnant with Maya I was knitting a few things for her and I think had overblown aspirations of other things I was going to get done before she arrived. And in there somewhere this kind of cotton yarn must have been on sale. I have no recollection of buying it all, no idea what I thought I was going to make out of it. I blame it on hormones.

I have already made a couple of spring/fall hats for the kids out of the green and yellow (a modified version of this pattern). I have made each kid a washcloth out of the terracotta. And I still have all this cotton yarn left!

I sure hope it was a good sale.

Underneath in the back is a half done wash cloth made with the dusty pink cotton in this Raspberry Jam pattern. I have one done and enough yarn to (hopefully) make two more and will have a set of 3 for gift for someone.

The green and blue are leftover partial skeins that I am trying to figure something out for, they seem meant to be used together.

The maize yellow and terracotta are for the project pictured below. It's a sun dress for Maya. I have the back done (except the trim) and am working on the front. I think I am going to do a button on one shoulder due to the comments on the pattern I kept reading about the neck hole being small.

Other random outside...

It was a beautiful weekend for playing outside. Relatively mild temperatures, minimal wind and fluffy snow flakes.

We have clothes hanging all over to dry, mittens and hats over the heat registers and a puddle by the door.

Maya got to slide and eat a lot of snow.

Alex got to ski once yesterday and twice today.

Ben got to ski and got quite a workout pulling Maya around in her sled.

I got to ski and even went for a solo snowshoe in the woods this afternoon.

Finally.

My mom and Amy drove over this weekend and brought Alex's cross country skis. He was given the skis over Christmas break (they are hand me downs from my brother) but there was no way we could fit them in the car to bring them home. Alex has been talking about them almost daily since then.

He went all over the front yard, then Ben dug out his skis and took him out in the back field. We have just enough of a hill in the back to get some speed and practice dealing with hills.

I got out my skis and went out with him for a while this morning and then he went out with Ben again this afternoon. He's catching on quickly and has asked about lessons, so I need to make some phone calls.

Neither Ben or I have had our skis (we both have ancient, but usable, used classic skis) out since we moved here so it has been a lot of fun for us too.

Today is the day! GO PACKERS!

The logical thing to do when it's below zero

is to make homemade ice cream of course! We had fresh, fluffy snow so we decided to try both the ice cream in a bag method using snow in the outer bag instead of ice cubes and the Snow Cream method and compare the textures.

We found out very quickly that we needed to wear gloves while shaking the bags! It was pretty cool (no pun intended) how it seemed to go from liquid to ice cream within a matter of seconds and no in between.

We made vanilla (just sugar and vanilla) and chocolate (cocoa powder, sugar and vanilla). I would say that the 1 cup portion per bag that the recipe calls for is more than enough for one child. Neither Alex or Maya finished theirs.

The snow cream was delicious. I had to add more snow than I originally thought because our snow was so fluffy but it was amazing how the texture turned out. I expected it to just dissolve or melt more than it did.

When you can't play outside.....

Play on dad!

Mercedes Benz Tweet Race

A friend of the family - Todd Sanders - has been chosen to be a part of the 2011 Mercedes Benz Tweet Race. His team is raising money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Just by being selected for the race MB is giving St. Judes $25,000 up front. IF they win then MB kicks in another $20,000. Plus Todd and John have personally set out to raise another $5000 and are well on their way.

They will be driving a Mercedes from LA to Dallas the 5 days before the Superbowl. An extra bonus is that they get to go to the superbowl which is now extra exciting considering the Packers are one game away from being in the game!

The way they win is by interacting with their social network "team" throughout the race via Twitter and Facebook. Anyone can join their team and help out! The race starts Feb 2nd so now is the time to sign up and watch for updates on how to help them win.

Here is the info on their website that explains How the Race Works

Here is the info on How to Participate

Here is the Team S Facebook Page

Here is the info about St. Jude's

There will be more detailed information to follow as to what/who exactly to tweet during the race to earn them points.

This will be my first foray into the world of twitter but it seems like this is a good reason to check it out.

No school!

It's amazing what a whirlwind of activity kids can be. And what was so interesting today is that they seem to ramp it up when they know it's a "special" or out of the ordinary day. Today it has been all about big activities - they built a big bean bag and pillow "fort" in the basement, begged to go sledding at a local park despite a nippy windchill and then stayed there for over an hour and a half, then came home and finger painted, then asked to use the regular paints........Everything is labor intensive and messy! But fun, so we are just going with it!

Sledding was a lot of fun and we dressed in many layers so we stayed pretty warm except for our cheeks.

There was a family that came while we were there - mom, dad and two teenage girls. They were all running and jumping and sledding and having a great time. It really made me smile to see teenagers that were willing to go out and do something with their parents, OUTSIDE and have fun. And to see parents joining in and not just supervising or watching. And no one was texting, surfing, talking or even had their phones with them that I could see.

At lunchtime I casually asked Alex if he knew why there was no school today. He did, he said it was Martin Luther King (jr) day. I asked if he knew why Dr. King was famous and had his own day. This launched Alex into quite an explanation - they had read a book on Friday in their village meeting at school and I was impressed at how much he had paid attention and retained. He was pretty wound up and said - "MOM - did you know that there use to be laws that separated white and black skinned people?? I mean like separate drinking fountains and everything!" He then went on and talked about how Dr. King was famous because he didn't agree with those "bad laws" and tried to stop them and help people be able to work together and understand eachother. I was really impressed and proud of some of his thoughts about how Dr. King taught people how to fight against these bad things without hurting others or using violence. Alex said he thought that was the best part "because doing more bad things would just make things worse."

Hmmm...kids get it. A lot of grown ups could learn some things.

We talked about some of the kids in his class and in our own family that have different colors of skin.....and hair and eyes. And how for some reason that doesn't make a whole lot of sense some people think skin color is different than say hair or eye color.

I'm glad they talked about this at school, I'm glad we could have an easy (not forced) conversation about it at home. I wish I could find the link, but of course cannot, but last year a friend sent me a link to an article about how not mentioning race or not talking about skin color with the idea of trying to be "color blind" was actually a really good way to have your kids end up absorbing stereotypical ideas about race. It makes sense, the areas that we leave "blank" can end up being filled by other less reliable sources.

New recipes for January

I have a goal for myself this year to try a new recipe every other week, or twice a month. So far we've tried two new things this month.

Last week I made Lambchops with Rosemary and Garlic. I had never used lamb chops before. We get some beef, pork and lamb given to us every fall through Ben's work and we never know what cuts we will get. It's always an adventure to find ways to use the things that are unfamiliar to us. We only had 4 chops and were running out of "W" sauce so I kind of winged it on the marinade and the flavor still turned out very strong so I can't imagine using the full amounts listed in the recipe. Over all we liked it and if I ever had lamb chops around again I'd make this recipe again. I don't know if it's how all lamb chops are or it was just the ones we had but there was not much meat on them as a whole. It was work to cut through and find the meat that was there. That might be a deterrent for me to go out and purchase lamb chops.

Last night I made Pioneer Woman Meatloaf . I have never ever made meatloaf. I have never ever liked meatloaf. But it seemed like a good way to use ground beef other than tacos or spaghetti sauce that the kids would eat and wasn't a casserole (I don't really like casseroles and Alex isn't a fan of lots of foods mixed up just like me when I was a kid).

Alex really liked it minus the bacon on top because the bacon wasn't crispy. Ben had the same comment. I liked it alright. Maya wouldn't eat it based on appearance alone but she's been extra picky lately.

Then Ben and I had it leftover today. Wow, it's so good leftover. I warmed it up in slices in a skillet. So good. Next time I might make it ahead of time so it sits in the fridge over night.

The only other modifications I would do: cook the bacon separate and crumble it on the top so it still have it's flavor but was crispy. I would also cut down on the brown sugar in the sauce. We use natural/organic ketchup which I think has a sweeter taste than the standard Huntz/Heinz. Combined with the recommended amount of brown sugar it was really sweet.

So I have already met my self imposed goal for January but I'm pretty sure there will be at least one more new recipe I'll try this month. We have a lamb roast and some ground lamb in the freezer that I have a few things in mind for.