Cowboy Casino Night

Hank Williams Sr. filling the house with cowboy music, handkerchiefs worn around the neck, a plastic cup filled with pennies….it must be New Years Eve!



The cowboys and gals included: Tony, Nick, Robin, Jimmy, Uncle Chris, Auntie, Mom, Dad, and Nana. Joe has not developed a taste of lady luck, just yet any way! Happy New Year!

Preparing for New Years Eve

Ooooooooooh, now that I have a Dutch oven I have to come up with a recipe for Cowboy Casino Night on New Years Eve. I have decided on a Food Network recipe for Chili. The menu will include BBQ beef brisket, Chili, Corn Bread, Watermelon, Potato salad, Chocolate Bundt cake, Appetizers are Cowboy Caviar, a relish tray, and spinach artichoke dip and garlic bread.  Now it’s off to shop for it all!

My first ever

Dutch Oven! Ta-da! Welcome to the family.

I’ve wanted one for about a year now and today was the day. I got 50 bucks from my MIL for Christmas and an extra $10 was floating around from an Aunt. Macy’s had them on sale 50% off. Two amazing things, I got something I really, really wanted, and I went into a highfalutin store like Macy’s to get it! 7 quarts of red beautifulness, all mine….I feel powerful, greedy, selfish, and a little giddy. Now it’s not a frenchy Le Creuset Dutch oven as I am not a $300 dutch oven cook……but I gots me one shiny red Dutch oven and that is that!

What shall I make first…..it’s look’n like chili! Yippee

Prehistoric Pet Adventure

We took the Posse to feed the turtles at Prehistoric pets, on our way to Joe’s Basketball practice. Honestly, it makes my skin crawl….shivers down my spine….and what not. However, it is not for me, so I shall report on the creepy crawly outing because it happened. They boys looked at snakes and lizards, frogs, and all bugs that hiss and slither. Then they fed turtles/fish….Nick was more into the fish, Joe and Tony fed the turtles. I’d say Tony had the most patience and got the best worm-to-turtle-fed ratio.



All and all I think they enjoyed this slimy lil pit stop….and I’m glad we could do it for them!!

Ricola or a moose call….not sure

Took the boys to Huntington Central Park and they brought their horns from Christmas….man those things are loud, and boy, did the boys enjoy making that loud noise! We walked and talked and they honked….it was good.

Ahhh…it’s over

Now it’s time to play the day away!

And the night away, too!

Uncle Jimmy came over and we did a little more karaoke(he sang Leroy Brown). This is my favorite day of the year….

Merry Christmas

My favorite morning moment….the boys and horns, Uncle Jimmy asked… since my husband couldn’t help wrap, what he could do…..I asked him if he would wrap the horns to look like horns and Uncle Jimmy didn’t disappoint! He also stayed until 2am wrapping with me!

I asked the boys after all the presents were opened and they had time to really look in the mounds of goodness surrounding them, to pick their very favorite.

For Joe it was the NERF N-STRIKE STAMPEDE ECS and a airsoft gun that Hubba glues together so it can’t actually shoot

Nick said his Guiness Book of World Records and his DSi were equally his favorites.

Tony’s laptop was hands down his favorite.

Giving

Today was a wave of emotions….Hubba was bit by a dog and had to go to the emergency room, stressed trying to finishing the grocery shopping, and wrapping, bored kids wanting attention as well…I have had better days, or so I thought. And then this…

Joe was looking busy walking around with our copy of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and a bow. He asked for a piece of wrapping paper…..he remembered a conversation with Uncle Jimmy last week in which Jimmy shared that he missed the Grinch last year and this year….he really wanted to watch it. Joe filed that information and decided to give Uncle Jimmy our copy. All on his own. He made a tag out of a 3×5 index card and decorated it himself. This one gift made the stress and craziness of the holiday worth it for me this year. I am beyond proud of that 7 year old, it restored a Christmas spirit in me that I was lacking….Joe, you rock! Thank you for hearing Uncle Jimmy and taking action to make his Christmas bright.

Logan’s Candies

I’ve wanted to take the boys here for five years! I heard about it from a scrapbook friend who was trying to get a group together for a private tour…I couldn’t go on the date she had picked out, but it sounded so interesting, I filed it for a later date. Every year for five years busi-ness trumped my desire to see candy canes made until this year! Logans Candy did not disappoint.

We had not a clue to how it worked ,so we stood around and watched the candy maker pull candy canes out of a huge blob of candy cane goodness.


Got it….you go to the back of the store and get a ticket and then they hand you a warm candy cane and you get to shape it yourself before it cools….cool! As we were leaving a demo was starting and selfishly, I stayed and watched! The boiling copper pot intrigued me so!

Then the candy scientist added liquid into a beaker thingie, oh the excitement!

He then poured out the boiling liquid right in front of the window we were watching it all from….cool(well hot)!

He flipped it around for a few minutes and separated it into two blobs.

One blob got red food coloring and one blob got pulled until it turned white


Then he put the two blobs near a heater and combined the colors

and finally he rolled out some neat-o candy canes!

Totally worth the drive to Ontario and the crowds!

Spark of Love

I want my boys to remember this….the firefighters collect toys, and they gift them to kids in need. Giving is the most beautiful part of Christmas, I hope they will pull that out of their memories when they are all grown up!
The Fireman gave each boy direct eye-contact and thanked the boys for sharing, another lesson I hoped learned….respect, gratitude, thankfullness……slow and steady teaches the lessons