Outside My Window.....
These past few weeks have been a mixture of chilly days and gorgeous days. This weekend was gorgeous!
We started spotting a few birds around our property these past couple of weeks.
The girls took this picture of a bluebird on one of our fruit trees.
What We've Been Watching.....
We finished the Little House on the Prairie DVDs Seasons 1-4 that Annie got for Christmas.
What I've Been Reading.....
I started this this month and it's not for a review- just a book that's been on my to read list for a while now. I love the Love Finds You series. I have read a few for reviews. Each book is written by a different author and the settings are places around America. This one appealed to me before I even opened it's pages as I love Branson! I'm not that far into it yet, but it has been so far to read about all of the places that we have been and loved while in Branson ourselves.
Recent Happenings.....
February is always a really busy month for us and these past few weeks have followed suit. Between Annie's birthday, the Chinese New Year (which we always enjoy celebrating), Mardi Gras, the start of Lent, & Presidents Days we have been keeping busy. Not to mention all the normal school stuff around here.
At the start of February Camden got really sick. He spent 24 hours straight throwing up and got to the point that he couldn't keep even water down. None of our children had ever been that sick. In fact, we have been pretty fortunate when it comes to stomach bugs or the flu through the years. It scared me when I realized he couldn't even keep water down but some nurse friends of ours gave me some tips on how to slowly get him hydrated again and thankfully it worked. He slowly began to recover and we never had to go into the hospital for fluids. It took him about a week overall to recover. He slept A LOT during that time. We were told that the virus going around is a fierce one that can last up to three weeks on a surface and your typical household cleaners like Lysol wont' kill. Only bleach gets rid of the virus. I used bleached on the bathrooms really heavily after I heard that and on other areas throughout the house that I thought might have been affected. I did a lot of washing of blankets, pillows, etc. and I still sprayed Lysol everywhere despite the warning that it did no good on this virus. Bryan and I both had a couple of days within 2 weeks of Camden being sick that we felt nauseated and had a loss of appetite but we never started throwing up like Camden did nor did we have the diarrhea that he had for days after the throwing up stopped. Right at the three week mark Houston had one day that he didn't feel well and he threw up once and the same things happened to Natalie. I have no idea if they caught a mild form of the virus or if they both ate something that didn't settle with them. I was really surprised yet very thankful that the rest of us did not come down with the virus though. We are past that 3 week mark now so I am really hoping we are in the clear. I hate seeing my kids sick!
Natalie & Ally had their 1st sleepover this month! Of course, it was just right next door, at my friend Maria's with their friends Julia and Fatima, but it was a big deal for them. *Grin*
Here is a picture that Maria took of the girls that evening.
If you have seen our sidebar here on our blog then you may have noticed the countdown that I added a couple of weeks ago. Emmy, Annie, and I are getting ready to head out to California in a few weeks to spend a week with my family. We will be staying at my parents home. The girls are super excited as am I. It's been too long since I have seen my parents, brother, and granny. Looking forward to seeing everyone and getting to show the girls the places they have always heard about from Bryan and I. They have both been to California but they were so young at the time that they don't remember it.
Two weekends ago we attended a birthday party in town. The party was to celebrate the 1st birthday of my neighbor Maria's brothers daughter. I was honored that we were included. I love getting to know other cultures and Maria and her family are Hispanic, are from Mexico, and have been in the states for about 14 years now. It's always interesting to see how other cultures celebrate birthdays and holidays. Annie, Natalie, Ally, & Camden went with me to the party. We have noticed that birthdays are a really big deal and a huge celebration within their family. Every family member is in attendance as well as many friends. Many of her family members live in town right next to one another. The community has around 10 mobile homes set up in a horse shoe around a dirt road. In the center is a large piece of grass and they set up tables and chairs in that area with a canopy of tents over the tables. Their were 12 long tables set up under the tent.
This is the daughter of one of Maria's close friends. They live out here near us, not in town, and we have spent time with them at Maria's house on several occasions. Isn't she adorable! She loves Emmy & Annie.
In my estimation there were around 100 children at the party and probably around 60 adults, maybe more. We had met many of them prior at celebrations at Maria's house. Most of the women speak only very broken English if any at all because they are home with their children and do not have a way to learn it. In many ways I think this makes the community among them even stronger as they are limited to what they can do and where they can go due to the language barrier and most do not drive. Each other is therefore all they have. The men know English pretty well because they are out working and have picked up on it through that. Since we have gotten to know Maria and her family and spent so much time with them I have noticed her English has improved greatly as have her young girls who are not in school yet. All of the women are eager to learn English and feel the need to learn it, but are limited as to how they can learn it. The party started at 2pm. The food seems to be of high importance at their celebrations and they serve a lot of it. Meat to go in tacos along with rice, beans, peppers, and salsa. One thing that is strange to Bryan and I is that no cheese is used as a topping on their dishes. I grew up putting cheese on my burritos and tacos and even though I have traveled to Mexico I didn't really realize that cheese was an American thing. Maria said that where she comes from it is hard to get cheese and costs a lot which would explain the reason that they are not used to putting cheese on their dishes. The food was of course, delicious! Juanita, Maria's sister-in-law and Maria's brother (the hosts of the party), stood at the main food table serving food for close to 2 hours. From 2pm until 4 pm people were still trickling into the party. I noticed that other family members helped with the serving, including Maria. They never even thought about eating themselves until all of the guests had arrived and been served. From what I have seen at celebrations at Maria's, this is the norm. Once everyone had been served they sat down for a short time to eat themselves. During that 2 hour time period the adults sat around and visited with one another at the tables while the kids ate and then played soccer or road the bikes on the dirt road. Some of the girls, including Ally and Natalie found a rope and played tug of war with it. Some of the young kids had fun playing hide and seek around the tents. Once everyone had eaten, it was Pinata time. They had hand made two very large pinatas for the party. The birthday girl was taken inside and came back out in her special birthday dress and she had the honor of hitting the first hit on the pinata. The kids lined up youngest to oldest for their turns. Two of the dads stood on a latter holding and moving the pinata using a rope.
Birthday girl taking the first hit. Look at how big that pinata is!
Julia, Maria's oldest daughter, taking a turn.
Ally's turn!
Camden's turn!
Nattie's turn
The rush for candy!
All of the parents sang a song each time a child stepped up to swing at the pinata. I asked Cruise, Maria's son, what they were singing and he shared that it's a song that is supposed to bring them good luck in hitting and breaking the pinata.
Ally waiting for a turn with the 2nd pinata.
Look at that 2nd pinata!
One of the really long tables under the tent was just stuffed full of desserts. I have noticed that everyone brings a dessert to the party and the hosts provide all of the food. Most of the women get together the day before the parties to cook all day together in preparation for the party. Maria went over to Juanita's the day before to do this. I took one of my cheesecakes to the party.
After the pinatas it was cake/dessert time. This is the birthday princess in her special birthday dress. Isn't she adorable!!!
The dessert table had a cupcake tower, a 2 layer cake which was the birthday, my cheesecake, a chocolate cake with Spanish flan on top, a huge dish of Mexican flan, a jello dessert, and several others that I cannot remember. I have noticed that almost everyone takes one of each dessert and they slice the pieces huge!! The girls were waiting in line to get some dessert and I was sitting at our table and Maria brought me over a plate and it had one of everything on it. Their was just no way I could eat it all. The plate was overflowing! LOL! The Mexican flan is out of this world. I have only attempted to make a Mexican/Spanish flan once and it was when we were living in North Carolina. The kids and I made one during our study on Spain one year. It was yummy but I don't remember it being as yummy as Maria's family flan. It is always my favorite at these celebrations. When Maria asked what dessert I wanted to bring home with us that was the dessert I requested. :) Maria's oldest daughter, Julia, love my cheesecake. By the time she got up to the dessert table it was all gone. She cried. I felt bad for her but had to laugh a little too as this dessert table was so stuffed with goodies it was like a dream come true for kids yet she was crying over not getting my cheesecake. The only thing that calmed her down was my telling her that I would make another one here at home and share it with her. *Grin*
Happy Birthday is sung to the birthday girl and then the candle was lit to blow out. I noticed this at Maria's daughters birthday too. In our family we always light the candles, sing, and then the birthday child blows them out. The candles are not lit until after the singing is finished in their family though.
Natalie waiting in the dessert line.
The party was really fun. It was very cold that day and I felt bad for them that it was so cold but everyone seemed to have a lot of fun despite the weather. I know we did.
I just had to share these homemade treat bags that each of the kids at the party were sent home with. Did I mention that their were around 100 children at this party!! I was so impressed that they made these and the pinatas! These are tin cans they had saved and wrapped in burlap and they used metals to create the butterflies. Such a sweet treat bag!
We had some other big events this month but I am making separate blog posts for each of them.
In My Kitchen Recently.......
My neighbor Maria brought us over some deer meat a couple of weeks ago. On New Years Eve they had shared some soup with us that had deer meat in it. That was the very first time that I had ever tried deer meat. It was delicious! Maria told me that this was from a different part of the deer. She brought it over vacuum sealed packs and I noticed the meat looked like it had been ground up- much like ground beef that you buy in the store. I decided to make deer meat hamburgers with it. It was very interesting. The meat on New Years Eve was very yummy so I didn't think about seasoning this meat. It cooked up exactly like hamburger meat does but it had very little grease that flowed off of the meat. Even less than the 80/20 meat that I buy at the store. The texture seemed exactly the same as a hamburger to us but it really could have used some flavoring. It was a bit plain tasting overall which surprised us. I still have some in the freezer so I am going to try the hamburgers again with it but season the meat this time.
Not a very good picture but as you can see the patties looked just like regular hamburger patties.
Here is a another new recipe from Pinterest that I tried recently.....
White Bubble Up Pizza
2 cans (12oz) golden layer buttermilk biscuits (Pillsbury Grands! Jr)
1 jar (15oz) Alfredo sauce
2 cups mozzarella cheese
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 cups chopped chicken (or 1 pound of shrimp)
mushrooms (optional)
cooking spray
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut biscuits into quarters and place in medium bowl. Toss biscuits with Alfredo sauce and garlic powder. Add chicken and mushrooms (or shrimp) and half of the cheese. Toss until well blended. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Pour biscuit mixture into pan and top with remaining cheese. Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes, or until biscuits are done.
I have made this twice now and everyone loves it. The first time I didn't have canned biscuits on hand so I just made up a batch of homemade and they worked fine too. The canned biscuits are nice if you are in a hurry at lunchtime, like I usually am. We didn't add the mushrooms and we used chicken, not shrimp.
A Few Recent Favorite Pics......
Annie and Ally playing around one day.
Ally with 2 of her friends at dance class one Friday.
Ally & Natalie dancing together at dance one Friday.
That is Annie in the purple pants-- at dance class one Friday.
