51 Today

Anyone else old enough that they have the portraits that were painted in over black and white?

Guess my mom liked this color on me. Not sure what it is -maroon? cranberry? I never know what the difference is.

Happy Three Kings Day

Happy Three Kings Day

Tyler put out a shoe for his cat. Thankfully I had one little sample size bag of kitty treats, so she got it. But then that meant the dogs needed treats too : )

Adam, Kaleb and Scrappy in this room.

Jessica, Jasmine, Kayla, Kiara and Caspian in this room!

I'm not going to say much else about Three Kings in this post because I said it all in past posts. You can read what I've said in the past:
2009
2010
2011

Jasmine got her braces on Thursday. There was one tooth they didn't do because it had a weird  finish on it so they wanted it filled even though it wasn't decayed. It would have decayed under the bracket. There is also a tooth erupted in the area where the cleft was that may or may not come all the way in.

Jessica and I took Jasmine to Wonder Works after she got her braces on to take her mind off of them. We let Kaleb tag along since he's tried very hard to cooperate during vacation even when another one was trying to get him to go along with her sabotaging behaviors.

Pulling himself up with pulleys.

Extra large piano!

Extra large bubbles too!

I love the look of wonder as he sees the huge bubbles.

Space shuttle

I keep meaning to leave up one Nativity and put the wise men in it on Three Kings Day, but I never remember.

Remember the daily challenges? No one had to do them, but those who did were rewarded with food court dollars. Unfortunately I am dealing with sinus grunge and didn't feel like going to the food court, so Ty and Jessica did a fast food run for us.  The kids could choose to do all of the challenges or none or anything in between. Not only did we do Presidents, States and Capitols, math and countries of the world, we also awarded points for running time by how close each person came to their personal best. Tyler, Jessica, Adam and myself all scored in the top range. Kaleb tried almost all of the challenges but didn't know much of the information so we doubled his points including his running points so he could earn a treat too.

Tyler chose taco bell.

Adam chose Chinese.

Jasmine chose Chinese.

Jessica chose Chinese.

Kaleb chose Wendys.

Last night Jasmine's basketball coach took the team to the local college basketball game. They had fun and plan to do it again in two weeks.

Kaleb had his first game yesterday. Unfortunately he got a really bad attitude with Coach Daddy and had to be removed from the game for a while. It's weird, but sometimes privileges give the twins an unhealthy feeling of entitlement which turns them into brats. We remind them that they got the privilege because their behavior showed they could handle it and that the present behavior was not showing that. Does anyone else have that with their children? Not all privileges at our house have to be earned, but some do and sports that cost a lot of money is one of them.

Yesterday was my mom's 81st birthday. Unfortunately I don't have pictures since we're 900+ miles apart, but I hope my sister took some.

Tyler received notification that he has been accepted for Job Corps but has to wait until there is an opening. They gave no indication of how long that wait might be, so I don't know if it'll be in a month or six months. It's been helpful having him home to help with errands and school pick up duty, but he needs to get on with his life and this looks like the best option.

The kids are back to school tomorrow. Hopefully with a daily challenge each day their brains didn't turn to mush.  When does your schedule go back to normal? (If there is such a thing as normal!)

What's Cooking?

Last month Tyler made pulled pork using the McCormick slow cooker  seasoning pack using the recipe on the back. It came out so well that he tried the slow cook ribs this month.

They came out well too.

Jasmine made chicken helper this month.  They don't always have to make something from scratch. Realistically,  my boys could live on microwave hot pockets and burritos. I don't picture them cooking a whole meal from scratch. Not sure about the girls. The goal is that they can clean a house, grocery shop, cook something to survive on and be able to do laundry.

I let them do as much as they are able to safely do.

She chose broccoli as her vegetable.

Kaleb made broccoli soup using the recipe on the back  of   a family sized banquet meal in the frozen section.

Broccoli Soup

1 family size package banquet creamy broccoli and chicken over rice

5 slices of bacon chopped (we use bacon bits)

11 oz can of corn drained

28 oz chicken broth (we use bullion)

Slit film over banquet package and microwave 8 minutes.

While that's cooking, cook the bacon. Mix bacon, corn, broth and the banquet meal in a pot. Simmer ten minutes.

Jessica made chicken pot pie from a family sized package of Banquet turkey. I need to find the recipe card for it. The recipes on the back of the Banquet meals are fairly easy and they are good. At least the ones we've tried.

We made two pans full, but it goes a long way so we had lots of leftovers for those who worked during mealtime and needed something to heat up before or after work.

Jessica brings home large bags of popcorn on the nights she closes, and she made popcorn balls by adding marshmallows and Karo syrup. I posted this on an earlier post too, but this was the night she cooked.

So that's what they cooked in December.

Happy New Year

Adam hanging out New Year's Eve

Kaleb, Adam and Jasmine show their moves on Just Dance Disney.

Kayla isn't sure whether she'd rather eat or play.

I forgot to buy cake mixes for the Birthday cakes for Jesus, so we did happy New Year cakes instead.

The boys' cake.

Rummikub

First picture of the new year

Caspian is two!

Kaleb's first picture of the new year.

Practicing basketball. Jasmine's season started in October, and Kaleb's starts on Saturday.

We had pulled pork cooked all day in the crock pot along with black beans and rice. Weird combination but everyone was happy.

What do you most want to accomplish in 2013?