Girls' Weekend!

Our Thanksgiving was great!  We stopped at 3 houses, ate some delicious food, and visited with nearly every in town member of our family.  After watching the parade on TV in the morning and making our dishes to bring shortly thereafter, we were out the door by 11:30 am and didn't return home until nearly 10:00 pm.  It was a long day, but a good one, nonetheless.

I've found, though, that the perfect way to follow up a super busy day is to have a super relaxing one.  So that is just what I did.  On Friday morning, I said farewell to Amelia and Jason and headed down to the Lake of the Ozarks with 6 of my college friends.

Once we arrived at the Lake we had lunch and did some shopping at the outlet mall.  The mall was hopping, but, in my opinion, the deals were just so-so.  I bought a pair of shoes for myself that were regularly $72, for $27.  Other than that, I didn't find much.  When we had enough shopping, we checked into the Lodge of the Four Seasons.  After a little chillaxin' in our rooms, we ventured out to dinner at L'il Rizzo's. 

Once we got back to the Lodge, we had some drinks around the fireplace in the lobby.  The only other people enjoying the unique circular fireplace were a few older couples.  When the couple nearest us got up to leave, the gentlemen turned to us and asked why there were so many young ladies in attendance tonight.  Then, he asked if we were the Lincoln University girls' soccer team or something.  Ha!  We all got a kick out of that one!

the fireplace area at the Lodge

The Lincoln University girl's soccer team

Then, some of us decided to hit the swimming pool and hot tub for a bit.  We had the whole pool area to ourselves. We got a little crazy when I decided to dare a friend to swim underneath the partition to the outside pool area.  She went and I followed and it was surprisingly comfortable, given the frigid temperature. Obviously, the pool was heated, but no one took my dare to get out of the pool and stand on the freezing cold concrete--myself included! 

creepy wooden head statue located at the Lodge

After a little more chatting and catching up, we hit the sack so we'd be well rested for the next day.

On Saturday, we got up and had breakfast before heading to SPA SHIKI for some spa time.  I've been here once before and again really enjoyed my time hanging around at the spa.  We dipped in the whirlpool, sweated in the steam sauna, sipped on fancy teas, and relaxed in the meditation room.  I also chose to get a Japanese Stone Massage, which was incredible!  I certainly wouldn't choose this option in the summer, but there is nothing better than having hot stones rubbed on your body when it is so cold outside.  

I thoroughly enjoyed my short trip to the Lake, it was so nice to be responsible only for myself for a little bit.  I was eager to get back home to my family, but I am already dreaming about making a repeat trip.

Fair Shares: Week Three

week 3 stash

We're still enjoying our membership to Fair Shares and we are always eager to find out what we get each week!  Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, we had a Tuesday pick-up.  There was a special surprise this week--a Kakao Marshmallow Pie.  Jason and I split this with my parents yesterday and it was really yummy!  The Hummus is delicious too!  Much to my surprise I like Japanese turnips RAW!  They are actually pretty tasty and make a good snack.  Jason used last week's turnips in the beef stew he cooked tonight and they were excellent, too.  And to think all of this time, I thought I hated turnips, who knew?

Japanese turnips--a little different than last week's version, but still pretty nonetheless.

Week 3:

• Herbs en Route--Thyme 
  
• Blue Heron Orchard Apple Mix (half gone)
  
• Japanese Turnips (half gone)
  
• Blue Heron Jalapenos 
  
• Local Harvest Hummus (half gone)
  
• Heartland Chevre (this is really soft goat cheese, not too sure about it)
  
• River Hills Poultry Alliance Eggs  
  
• Seven Thunder Bison-ground 
  
• Tessa's Peanut Butter (good and not as sweet as regular PB, definitely better than the natural stuff I bought at Costco, Amelia had PB&Honey sandwich today and didn't bat an eye)
  
• Lee Acorn Squash 
  
• Lee Farm Sweet Potatoes 
  
• Companion Potato Thyme Bread (interesting bread with chunks of potatoes cooked in, half gone, good with hummus)
  
• Esther's Honey 
  
• Kakao Marshmallow Pies (GONE!)
  

Here are the items from the last two weeks we still need to use:

• Chervil (still waiting, patiently)
  
• Ground Beef (frozen, so I am not too worried about this)
  
• Pie Pumpkin (turning into a pumpkin pie this weekend!)
  
• Sweet potatoes (one from last week and those from this week are going to be for our Thanksgiving dinner with my family on Sunday).
  
• Mushrooms (I need to figure something out soon, I found a risotto recipe that looks good)
  
• Mangia Tomato Vermicelli (good until 12/15--should make for an easy dinner one night)
  
• Potatoes (used 1/2 this week, will probably use the rest for mashed potatoes on Sunday)

Let's Eat the Turkey in My Big Brown Shoe!

As Adam Sandler once said, "Thanksgiving is a special night".  

And I would have to agree, although around here its been a "special month".  I don't believe I have ever reflected on the meaning of Thanksgiving as much as I have this year.  This is mostly due to the fact that I have a two year old who kind of, sort of "gets it".  But, its also because I have so much to be thankful for, it seems that things just keep getting better with each passing year.

We've read many books this month about the Thanksgiving holiday and its traditions.  Amelia, Jason, and I have had some interesting discussions about things we are thankful for during the last couple of weeks.  One day (without being prompted, I swear!) when I asked Amelia what she was thankful for, she said, "You Mommy! I am thankful for you!".  Another time when asked the same question, she said, "Me thankful for John McCain".  Regardless of the answers she gave, I was wrote them down and added them to our thankful turkey.  I am so proud that she even mentioned some of her friends by name (seriously, no prompting here people!).

These were the things Amelia mentioned as we talked about thankfulness each day:

Natalie (after seeing her at story time)

Books

Grandparents

Nate and Grace (after an awesome playdate at their house)

Andrew (after hearing a song he sang and sent to GG and Papa)

John McCain (still don't get this one??)

olives (after having them with dinner one night)

the Beast (self-explanatory)

Uncle Dave (after giving her a new set of Belle dishes)

Sean (the day after she played with him at Pump It Up)

mommy (yeah!)

Truman (our dog)

Daddy

Belle (no shocker here)

The other things from our turkey (Amelia, our health, library, and grandparents) were added by me.  I would love to keep our thankful turkey up as a reminder to focus on our blessings all year, not just around Thanksgiving time.

And so ends the turkey posts, I suppose, for another year--now THAT is something to be thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Don't Come Here if You're Sick of Turkeys!

Yes, I know, another freakin' post with a turkey. I think there is only one more.

Bear with me, Amelia can't grasp much else with this holiday just yet.  And, this is probably my favorite turkey-inspired activity so far.

I came across this idea HERE and immediately sent an email to my mom begging for her help (and scrap material and stuffing).  We doubled the material, traced Amelia's hand, cut it out and sewed it up and I already loved it so much I almost didn't do anything else to it. For the record, I did all of the sewing on the project.  Amelia's hand is so tiny that it was a little tricky for this novice sewer (hmm...is that the word?  Looks like the word that means an underground carriage system for transporting sewage).   

Then, we stuffed it and sewed up the bottom.  Amelia got a big kick out of seeing it in 3D form.

Once home, I made a waddle and beak for him.  Again, I almost stopped there--it was already so cute with her little hand, I could stand it!  

After some debating, I finally broke down and made some wings, feathers, and eyes to add to our little hand turkey.  It turned out so cute!  The pictures don't do it justice.

I wasn't able to follow the exact directions listed on the site because Amelia's hand is so tiny.  So, on my turkey, you can see all of the stitches and thread, but I actually like the way it looks. I am hoping to be motivated enough to do this on a yearly basis so we will have a whole collection to show how Amelia's hands have grown each year.

Turkey Overload

I made the decision following Halloween that I would not overlook Thanksgiving this year and I would fight the urge to jump straight into Christmas.  But, we are loaded down at our house with turkeys everywhere!  We have a turkey on our front door, turkey cookies in the kitchen, our thankful turkey hanging on the basement door, and turkey books scattered throughout the house.  And, I am sorry to say that this probably won't be the last post about turkeys!

A turkey even waddled its way into lunch today. I was feeling adventurous, but not at all creative.  Seems that when I want to make something fun for Amelia to eat, I always want to put the food in the form of a smiley face (AKA the winking guy).  I turned to LITTLE NUMMIES for some motivation.  This site is incredible if you are looking for ways to make lunch fun for your toddler (or your spouse!).  I was just about to build a bunny sandwich for Amelia before I came across this turkey idea instead.  And because of our recent obsession with turkeys, I just couldn't pass it up.

This could be made an infinite number of ways, but here's what I did.  The turkey body is bread coated with pumpkin butter (Amelia's new favorite). The eyes are Cheerios with raisin middles.  The beak and legs are swiss cheese and the waddle is a stretched out fruit snack.  The feathers are pieces of bread covered in peanut butter and topped with Cheerios, raisins, Goldfish, and dried apricots.  

Amelia "gobbled" most of it up.  She ate the entire body in record time and ate about half of the feathers.  She rejected the cheese for what I think is the first time ever in her life--I guess she isn't into Swiss :)

Run, Jodi, Run

For the second year in a row, I decided to run the Jingle Bell Run!  I am ssssssssssssooooooooo NOT a runner in any sense of the word, but the 5K was for a good cause and its really a great challenge for me--3.1 miles seems to be about my limit.

Sure, I had dreams of running a half marathon sometime in my life, but in reality, I don't really think that is a reality.  At least not where I am in my life right now.  I don't have the the desire, time, or motivation.

And for the record, I didn't have much motivation on Sunday either.  I hadn't run in about a month (I'm kind of a wimp about running in the cold weather) and it was about 20 degrees outside when I woke up.  But, like last year, my goal was to finish the race without stopping.  I really did not think there wasn't going to be any way I was going to accomplish this, but I guess there is something to be said about race day endorphins because I made it!  My time was only about 2 minutes slower than last year's time, which I consider to be pretty good since I was actually training for the race last year.

And lucky for me, I got to share the experience with some of my Fit Momma workout friends and my running buddy, Susie.  The picture was taken post-race, tell me we don't look good!  There was seven of us this year from the group and everyone did a GREAT job--I was one very proud momma on Sunday.

Very proud and very sore that is.  By the time I returned home, I was in pain and beat.  Jason took one look at me and cancelled all plans for the day.  He built a nice fire and I spent most of the day near it on the couch reading Eclipse and resting.  

Reading, resting, and maybe milking it just a little bit.

Party Girl

Our weekends have been pretty low key since Halloween, but this past Friday and Saturday, things picked up again.  Parties were the theme of the weekend and Amelia enjoyed every bit of it!

On Friday, we were invited to attend a birthday party for two children of one of the moms in my playgroup.  The party was at PUMP IT UP in St. Charles and although we've been to this sort of inflatable party place once before, Amelia seemed even more excited this time!  She moved non-stop from the time we entered the play area:  climbing, sliding, and jumping all around everywhere.  

All of the pictures show her and Jason playing, but I got in there with her, too.  Its hard to pass it up when it looks like so much fun!  Of course, Jason bore the brunt of it, to give me a chance to catch up with some of my mom friends from our playgroup.

We were unsure how Amelia would do given the fact that the party started when she usually goes down for bed.  That, coupled with the sugar overload of cake and ice cream at 8:30 and we thought for sure we were in trouble.  But, much to our surprise, she came home, went to bed without any objections, fell asleep quickly, and slept until 9:00 AM Saturday morning.

There was a very similar story on Saturday night.  We attended a party--this time an annual bonfire in Millstadt, IL hosted by the parents of one of my college roommates.  We've been attending for several years, but this was Amelia's first time.  She behaved in much the same way--going non-stop the entire time we were there and attempting to fill her mouth (and stomach) with an assortment of foods and drinks, many of which were sugar filled.  Again, the party started at her exact usual bedtime and again she didn't seem to notice or mind.  She danced the night away and kept her parents on their toes insisting on switching from inside to outside and back every 4 minutes or so.  

One of the best things about these annual bonfires besides the food and drink, is that it gives us a chance to catch up with some of our college friends.  Unfortunately, Jason and I didn't get to do much catching up given Amelia's need to be chased and corralled the entire time we were there.  I can think of one less bonfire attendee next year!

I assumed she would crash during the 40 minute drive home given her demanding schedule for the previous two days, but instead she just became incredibly chatty the whole way home.  This seems to be par for the course now:  the more tired she is, the more chatty she becomes.  Again she went to bed with no objections and slept until nearly 9 AM on Sunday morning.

Much of Sunday was spent resting around the house in front of a roaring fire.  But poor Amelia seems to STILL be catching up on sleep from the weekend! 

Gobble, Gobble!

Grandma came over for a little bit on Saturday to play with Amelia, so we thought it might be fun to make some cookies together.  I found them HERE and was pretty proud of myself for choosing a recipe where I actually had to bake something, as opposed to just assembling the pieces.

For this recipe you need:

Sugar cookie dough (homemade or pre-made from the store)

white frosting

black decorating frosting

orange decorating frosting

mini M&Ms

candy corn

Amelia enjoyed decorating her cookies and making a couple of abstract turkeys.

She also liked organizing all of the M&Ms.  It seemed like a lot were put directly into her mouth.

I love these little cookies, but have you noticed a theme with our holiday celebrating?  I may need to start exploring activities outside of the food realm or we are going to all end up overweight and diabetic!

Caution: Hot (Purple) Wax

On Friday, Amelia took a super long nap.  Jason and I had already decided we were going to eat dinner out on the way to a birthday party, which left lots of time (way too much, perhaps) for me to try a crafty project.

I found this idea HERE and thought these shape crayons might make a good stocking stuffer for Amelia.  Plus I like the whole reduce, reuse, recycle aspect.  We haven't accumulated a huge stash of broken crayons just yet, so I raided my childhood crayon box last week that my mom keeps at her house.  I scored some candy molds at Michael's for 40% off ($1.20 before tax), so I was on my way....or so I thought.

I broke up the broken crayons into smaller pieces, putting about 3-4 crayons in each muffin tin.  I decided on 6 colors because I wanted to make the race car shaped ones really bad thinking they would be the perfect shape to color with and there were 6 cars in the mold.

I popped the tray into the oven and the crayons were melted in no time.  Things were going good! 

I put the mold on a cooling rack and attempted to pour the hot purple wax into it.  Well, because the mold was really for making fancy candy pretzels, some of the wax poured out of the end where they was a opening for the pretzel to slide in.  I was a little nervous when some of it landed on my beige countertop that shows EVERYTHING.  So, I reached for a paper towel and slid the cooling rack over a bit.  I got most of the wax up, but needed to move the rack just a little more to get the rest.  Apparently, I moved it too much and next thing I knew the rack, mold, and all of the hot purple wax were everywhere.  

So, the next 30 minutes were spent cleaning up the wax off of everything with the help of my iron and a half a roll of paper towels.  It was such a mess since the wax dried instantly and stuck securely to whatever it landed on.

Disgusted with myself, but too proud to ditch the project altogether, I decided to give it another go following my clean up efforts.  This time, I used the transportation mold I bought and things went much smoother.  The hot wax went right in, the crayons cooled and hardened, and then when they were ready, I popped them right out.

They turned out pretty good.  I would probably try to add another broken crayon or two next time to make the molds a little fuller.  If I am in a brave kind of mood, I might attempt this project again--assuming I can track down some more broken crayons somewhere....

Turnip Pic

Wanted to post a picture of my beautiful turnips. Everytime I attempted to add it to the previous post, it changed the format in the most annoying way!  Sometimes blogger can be so frustrating!