Sweet Little Candy Canes

Kristen's dance group performed tonight at a festival. Their recital is in 2 weeks, but this was fun anyway. I took Kristen's best friend, Hannah, too. And of course, the girls were hyper and excited. Their costumes this year are sooo cute! They look like sweet little candy canes. The girls danced to the song "Jingle Bell Rock" and they did such a cute job!! I thought they saved the best for last---these girls were awesome!! I wish I could find my cord to get video on here..... Anyway...after they performed, we walked around for a few minutes and Santa happened to be walking by. He took a look at them, handed them a candy cane, and wished them a Merry Christmas. I think it made their day!

Jarren and Anakin Skywalker

Jarren is obsessed with looking like Anakin Skywalker, from Star Wars. He wants his hair long and curly. He's also obsessed with not liking Jenna and the reasons? Because she poops her pants and has curly hair. I think he's jealous that her hair looks like he wants his to. Yesterday, Kristen comes out of the bathroom and asked who cut their hair in the sink. We figured out it was Jarren. He showed me a picture of Anakin and told me that he doesn't have long hair in one part in front. Well...that's because his hair's so long that with the part, it goes over to one side or the other. He cut one little part of the front of his hair so it would look more like Anakin's. It's not too noticable, but it's pretty funny. Can anyone see the similarities? I just hope Jarren doesn't turn to the dark side. :)

Finally!

Jon went out and bought us a new dishwasher yesterday!! Our water is sooo hard here and really does a number on things. This house was without soft water for while and I think the dishwasher was about as old as the house is--16 years. It was rusted out inside, the seal was dead, and we haven't been able to use it since mid-April! The only bad thing about it is, it really shows how shabby our cabinets and floor are. The plan is to re-do the kitchen in the spring, so we'll make do until then. I'm just so excited not to have to wash dishes by hand several times a day.


The tadpoles really aren't changing too terribly much. In the picture, you can see something kind of red--it's the arm bud. I guess soon they'll grow the front legs and then the tail will absorb into the body and they'll get the back legs. They sometimes get really hyper and I think they'll jump right out of the pool, but they haven't yet. They are a lot of fun to watch.

Thanksgiving

I took another picture of the tadpoles on Wednesday morning, but then in the whirlwind of trying to get packed and out of here, I never got around to putting the picture on here. I'll take another one tomorrow and put them both up. When we got back today, we thought Skipper was dead, but luckily, he wasn't.

We had such a nice Thanksgiving! We ate dinner with my family and everyone was there but my sister, grandma, and uncle. We missed you!! We headed over to Jon's parent's house later that day and the kids got to see all of their cousins--only one of his sisters was missing. It was a really busy, but fun couple of days.

I really do have a lot that I'm thankful for. A few of them are: a great husband and wonderful kids; awesome siblings, parents, grandparents, in-laws, and extended family; Jon's job; and terrific friends. There are just too many things to list right now. And now with Thanksgiving over with, we can really start to enjoy the Christmas season. YAY!!

They're Named...

I probably should have made my blog more fun by letting everyone name our new tadpoles, but the kids took care of the names already.

Our new tadpoles are named......Skipper and Popeye. I'll post some more pictures in the next day or two. I have NO idea how we'll tell them apart, but we'll try. For now, they're in separate pools so it's easy. I think Skipper is more hyper, but when they're together, that may be hard to tell. Maybe we'll have to put fingernail polish on one of their feet or something like that.

Surprise!

A while ago, Jon found a frog house somewhere--a garage sale or something. We just stuck it in the garage and Kristen dug it up back in June. You send some money to some company and they send you two tadpoles to raise into frogs. I forgot all about it until we got a postcard in the mail a couple of months ago saying it was too hot and they'd ship them out when the weather got cooler. Again, I forgot about it.

Yesterday, I went to the mailbox and there was a square package in there. I went to grab it and it said to open immediately. Then I noticed it said something about tadpoles. I started screaming for the kids to come. Surprise! We are the new owners of two tadpoles! We had to run and buy some spring water for them and then had to get them adjusted to the temperature. They are still alive this morning! YAY!
It said they are about 7-10 weeks into their growth. When they start getting back legs, we get to move them to the frog house. But in the meantime, they stay in these little pools. I will update every 2-3 days on their growth. This will be a fun thing for the kids to observe.

Grape Jelly

Wow! I can't believe how I'm slacking on the picture-taking lately. We have this grape vine along our back fence. About 2 years ago, we finally got around to picking the grapes to do something with them. It sounded like too much work to make jelly, so I decided to make grape jam. The kids HATED it!!! And it was a pain to make. You have to wash the grapes and then squeeze the insides out of the skin. You have to boil it and then strain it to get the seeds out. Then you put finely chopped skins in it, which make a texture that the kids didn't like. I made one batch without skins and it was a weird color without the purple in it.

You can imagine how my heart sank when last week Kendall and his friends went out and picked all of the grapes (without being asked) and asked for me to help them make jam. I decided to try jelly this time around, thinking it would probably be gross. They rounded up some Pectin and we went to work. It was still a lot of work, but MUCH easier than the jam was. And it tastes soooooooo good!!! We ate almost a whole jar in one day and I only made about 8 jars for us. Next year, we're going to make tons more for sure. The kids want to sell it--give people a sample and then sell the jars for a little bit of money, although most of the money will go towards sugar, jars, and Pectin. So....be on the lookout for our little jelly stand next year and you'll definitely be in for a yummy treat.