I recently scanned a bunch of pictures of Halloween costumes. It is really funny to see the changes in the kids and their interests over the years. It’s also funny to see the progress we’ve made on this house in the backgrounds!
(And yes - I do make their costumes myself except for the obvious things like the superhero pajamas and Darth Vader head.)
I got up at 6:45 this morning to fulfill my Easter Bunny chores. Pretty early to roll out of bed on a Sunday, but what can you do? While I was outside hiding plastic, candy-filled eggs, Dashiell and Ray tiptoed to the back door to see if they could spot any evidence of EB’s work. Ray couldn’t sleep the night before because he was worried that he might not come for some reason. Sure enough, they saw me skulking around.
They apparently went to bed to discuss matters because I had no idea I’d been spotted. About a half an hour later they confronted me. “We know who the Easter Bunny is and he’s sitting on this bed,” Ray said. I gamely looked behind me to see if there happened to be a long-eared furry rodent curled up in the covers. There wasn’t. “How do you know I wasn’t just checking to see if he had come?” I asked. They weren’t fooled.
Fortunately the lads weren’t the slightest bit traumatized by their discovery. I think they’ve suspected something was up for awhile now but weren’t quite ready to give up their childhood beliefs. We had a nice long discussion in which they also deduced that Santa must not be real either. I was relieved because it had been bothering me. They are nine years old after all and I didn’t feel right about lying to them anymore. It was different when they were gullible little kids but they’re growing up so fast now and becoming more and more sophisticated. I was also getting tired of these mythical strangers getting credit for our hard work and thoughtfulness!
Okay, here’s the last post of this year’s surfeit of video games for Christmas. I scored a bunch of these at Blockbuster of all places. I must have stumbled upon some sort of clearance sale of former rentals because usually the store I go to doesn’t have a very good selection.
Xbox
Sega GT 2000 / Jet Set Radio Future
Two bucks for two games? Count me in! I love racing games and Sega GT 2000 is supposed to be decent. That was a throw-in though because I was really after Jet Set Radio Future, which is an urban adventure that has something to do with graffiti tagging. Sounds promising.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Dashiell and Ray love to play co-op games so I know they’re going to be into this. It’s a beat ‘em up featuring the full stable of Marvel heroes. It got great reviews.
Psychonauts
I’ve read that some of the content on this one is inappropriate for the younger set so it’ll be for me. From what I understand it’s a platformer of sorts with clever writing and a cult following.
Need For Speed Underground 2
Another racer, this time of the illegal street variety. I’ve never played any from the Need For Speed series but for two bucks I couldn’t pass it up.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
I cannot wait to play this game! It’s a role-playing action adventure set in the Star Wars universe. I’m actually just as excited about this one as I am about finally playing my Dreamcast.
Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu
Another co-op superhero beat ‘em up. The lads are going to dig it.
Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter
Still more co-op play, this time a Star Wars space shooter that’s supposed to be less difficult than Rogue Squadron.
Gamecube
Viewtiful Joe
A classic Gamecube title that I’ve been interested in for awhile but never got around to buying. It’s a 2D beat ‘em up with a time shifting element.
Kirby Airride
Avatar: The Last Airbender
We already gave these to the boys for their birthdays. They played Kirby at a friend’s a few weeks ago and had been talking about it ever since. They’ve been having a blast with it for the past few days. Even Hazel plays. It doesn’t really appeal to me but whatever. They’re into it. They haven’t given Avatar much more than a few minutes but they’ll get to it eventually. We’re all huge fans of the show.
Yesterday I helped the kids and the neighbors make stained glass cookies - sugar cookies that have holes cut in them and you put crushed jolly rancher candy in the spaces and it melts and looks like glass.
The kids stuck around for the first round of cutting and filling, and Hazel helped me out for a couple more rounds, but before too long I was left with a pile of dough, 5 bowls of crushed candy, and not a lot of motivation. (I personally think these cookies are kind of gross, but I let each of the kids choose a cookie to make this year and this was what D wanted to make.)
I realized that I should try to make something that used up as much dough and candy as possible and came up with this:
I balanced it on a window ledge this morning and now I really like it.
I searched for a link to the article online but couldn’t find it, so I ‘ll just say that I got the recipe for these from an old issue of Martha Stewart - Dec. 2003 - in which they made bird ornaments and coated them with glitter. Really nice, but I don’t have bird cookie cutters, cutting out templates takes too long, and I’d need about 15 colors of glitter and I only have 3. . .
Anyway, here is my version:
As you can see I used oak leaf and acorn cookie cutters and made them into ornaments and gift tags - and a few other things I’ll share in the next couple days. The recipe is 1 cup cinnamon, 1/2 cup white glue, 1/4 cup applesauce, all mixed together, bagged or wrapped up and left to sit for at least an hour. It sounds like a good recipe for kids, and I started out doing these as a kid project, but this dough is really hard to mix up and the frustration (their issue) and mess (my issue) factors had me sending the kids away while I did most of the mixing. (I’ve actually made these twice now, and the second time I had a better idea of how things worked and what the kids could help with so they were more involved.)
The dough was easy to roll out later, but I had to add a little water to it to get a good consistency. I rolled it out on parchment paper and cut the shapes out and used a skewer to poke a hole for threading. I left them on the parchment paper to dry out. The first batch was made during Thanksgiving week and I’d just slide the trays into the oven after something else was done cooking, between that and the heat being on they dried out in a couple days. The second batch I put in the oven at 200 degrees for several hours - small ones dried out in a couple hours (flip ‘em every hour or so) and the big ones took more like 4 hours.
Here’s a picture of the second batch, cut out and about to go in the oven:
We painted most of the second batch - and used gingerbread men, stars, and tree cookie cutters - or cookie punches as Hazel called them.
A word of waring if you attempt these - it makes a huge amount. For second batch I made a double recipe and I was pretty sick of cutting them out and flipping them over by the time I was done. And the dough looks like it would be yummy, but I was told that D and H licked some of the first batch but they weren’t good (LOL!) and Hazel actually put a small piece of the second batch in her mouth and promptly spit it out.
These made our house smell great while we were making and baking them, and whenever the heat comes on and blows over them.
Hazel saw these dolls at Posie one day - she loves to sit on my lap while I read blogs because she loves the pictures - and asked me to make her some. I was thinking about buying the doll making kit she was selling, but they sold out before I was done thinking so I had to get my supplies at Hobby Lobby. The kit calls for pinking shears to keep the edges of the fabric from fraying, and I don’t have any so I glued felt along the edges - I started with red bias tape but it was incredibly frustrating so there are only 2 done that way.
Most of them are made to look like girls we know - Hazel is the one on the upper left. I sent a few - including the one that looks like her - to Hazel’s cousin Rebecca, I hope she gets them today!
I made these out of felted wool sweaters. I did blanket stitch around the edges and made the poinsettias out of wool felt pieces.
And now hold on to your eyeballs - the light on this table in the afternoon is just right for pictures, but this combination is a bit much . . .
Wool sweaters again - with a little extra embroidery for fun.
We went to the feed store to see Santa last night - they were having an open house (and we needed cat food) and we’ll do just about anything to avoid the mall. . .
It was really nice - D and R took a turn talking to Santa but H didn’t want anything to do with him.
They had a craft table set up for making candy cane mice, a storyteller (awful!) and a fire pit for making s’mores. 
They had horse-drawn carriage rides around the parking lot, we all liked that part the best!
The boys said that it was the best time they’d ever had going to see Santa.
I don’t know what jogged my memory, but a short while ago I remembered these white mushrooms with red tops and white dots that we always had on our Christmas tree while I was growing up. They were from my Grandmother who lived in Germany, but that was pretty much all I knew about them.
According to my dad (who grew up in Germany and moved to the US when he was 19) “In Germany they are a sign of good luck, but only the red ones with the white dots. The are actually called Fliegenpilze and they are very poisonous.”
I made my own version using white felt and polka-dotted fabric from my stash.
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