Veteran's Day

Nolan's school recently hosted a Veteran's Day program.  They invited students to bring in pictures of their family members who have served in the military.  We brought in a picture of Great Grandpa Ralph in his uniform to be displayed on their veteran wall.  The program itself was nice. The kids sang some songs and there were some skits and speakers.  The school actually raised almost $3500 to send six different veterans on an Honor Flight to Washington DC, simply by collecting change for a few weeks.  They did a great job!  

Doe Camp

My husband is pretty amazing.  This year Eric volunteered to stay home deer hunting weekend to watch the kids, so that I could go spend a girls' weekend with my Mom and Grandma Edie.  He knew how important it is for me to spend time with her and with her recent diagnosis, we just don't know how much time there will be. 

One thing Grandma has talked about for years is making a cookbook of all her favorite recipes.  I decided to use this girls' weekend time to work with her on it, pulling together her favorite recipes, hearing the stories behind them, and entering them into her very own cookbook.  We had a blast looking through the many recipes.  There were many amazing and special dishes, like her sweet and sour cabbage and poppy roll, as well as some more "interesting" items, like the Roast Raccoon recipe from the days when Grandpa Arnie used to hunt and trap raccoons.  We found Great Grandma Louisa's handwritten recipe notebook and along with it, her famous Gingersnap recipe.  Grandma Edie was feeling pretty plucky on Saturday night and decided that we needed to make some caramel corn.  It was unsurprisingly delicious.  I can't wait for this cookbook to be completed, and to see the beautiful compilation of the many recipes, stories, and pictures that are so near and dear to my family.

We spent the rest of the weekend eating (lots!) of good food, working on various craft projects, and trying to convince Grandma that it would be a good idea to get some rest. (She didn't want to miss anything!) I'm grateful to have had this time together with these beautiful and special women, and I'm grateful to wonderful husband, who put himself second in order to give me some time away.

Thanksgiving Day

We had planned to go to Eau Claire to have Thanksgiving at the Weisenbeck grandparents' house this year, but our kids picked up a cold and we made the choice to stay in Rhinelander to protect Grandma Edie's weakened immune system.  Because Eric's family doesn't gather until late in the day, we had a very relaxing morning.  It was one of the only times I've ever gotten to watch the entirety of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  The kids had hot chocolate and excitedly watched for the character balloons and Santa Claus.  It was a nice, relaxing way to start the holiday.

We also tackled a few Thanksgiving day crafts.  Nolan's scissor skills have drastically improved since the start of 4K, and he had great patience cutting out all of the items for our projects.  Livi (of course) was determined to use the scissors, but may need a bit more practice. ;)  We also made some adorable turkey candy desserts, and Nolan had a blast putting them together.  I had more fun eating them. 

Later that afternoon, we headed to Steve and Patti's for the Thanksgiving meal.  All of his relatives were there; it was a big group!  Everyone brought a dish to pass.  I brought my Great Grandma Louisa's scalloped corn dish, which was  licked clean.  We also enjoyed turkey, mashed potatoes, three different kinds of stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and some amazingly delicious pies and cakes.

We give thanks for our abundant blessings: the love of our family, fulfilling and rewarding work in and out of our home, rich friendships, and our cozy new home.  We've been blessed.  We are thankful.

Another School Success!

We got another awesome postcard home about Nolan's excellent performance at school.  This time it was from the kindergarten teacher for his great behavior in the hallway.  Great job, Nolan!

Too old

This morning we were watching tv and a hospital commercial came on showing many sick people, both young and old.  Nolan looked up at me and said in his sweetest voice, "When you're too old, I'll take care of you and push you in your wheelchair.  Ok, Mom?" He's such a sweet boy.

Locked in

This is your view when your two year old daughter locks the door in her room and you can't get her to unlock it.  After about 15 minutes of trying to explain to her what to do, she started to cry and I wanted to, too.  So I sorta went nuclear when my mama bear instincts kicked in and decided that no door was going to stand between me and my baby.  I dismantled the entire door knob and used a combination of a bamboo skewer and a credit card to bust the door open, just in time for Eric to walk in the door for him to try to help.  Never again.

Date Night

In this stage of life with two little kids, Eric and I have had a hard time finding time to go out on dates or even just spending time together as just the two of us.  We decided we were going to work on that, and so we started instituting a Sunday date night in.  We decided that after the kids went to bed, we would make our own meal of real, yummy grown-up food and enjoy the meal together without kids talking over us and the chaos that comes from that.  We decided to start by going through one of Rachel Ray's cookbooks, recipe by recipe, trying each one along the way.  Our first night was delicious Croque Madames, which I wasn't too excited about in theory, but ended up absolutely delicious.  I'm excited to try all of different food, and to spend more time with my guy!

Winter Wonderland

Our beautiful (yet disgusting because it's the first week of November ) view.

4K goes to Hanson's

BRRRRRRRRRR!!  I think I'm still frozen from Nolan's 4K outing to Hanson's Garden Village earlier this week!  It was in the mid-20s, so definitely more winter-like than fall-like, and despite bundling up, I felt like a human popsicle after our hay ride and corn maze.  The kids had fun though, and I had fun seeing Nolan interact with his teacher and a few of his classmates.  I just wish it had happened about a month earlier! ;)