"Martin & The Kings" and more...

Our little baby turned three at the beginning of the month.  He requested donut balls instead of cake and ice cream sandwiches.  It was an easy birthday for me!  Mark moved him from his crib to a big boy bed, against my protesting.  I'm just not ready for him to grow up.

Evan started basketball a couple of weeks ago.  It's his first time on a team and Brett volunteered to be an assistant coach.  They are both learning a lot this season.  Here is Evan playing good man-to-man defense.  We are hoping that he learns when he is on defense and when he is on offense instead of guarding his opponent the whole time.  The first few games are always entertaining to watch.

Kehli has another week and a half to go before she sees the orthopedic doctor again.  We were told that not only did she crack her knee cap, but she also had a pulled tendon with a piece of detached cartilage floating around.  That is the main concern.  If that cartilage doesn't re-attach during these 4 weeks, they will have to do surgery to remove it.  She has been pretty good about keeping her knee straight and the brace on at all times.  She is getting stir crazy having to sit down all the time and is anxious to get back to dance class.  We will have an update on her knee on January 30.

Erin joined the Channel Cats swim team this month and is enjoying being back in the pool.  She only practices an hour per day, 4 days a week.  She is enjoying her coach so that is good.

Brett is gearing up for Track season and has started after school workouts with some of the team members.  He is going to play church ball and practices with the "old men" on Wednesday evenings.  Youth games just started and the first game is on Saturday.

Evan came home very excited from school on Friday to tell me everything he learned about "Martin and the Kings" (Martin Luther King, Jr.).  He told me these things: "Martin had a dream that everyone should stop riding the bus until the rules changed.  It wasn't fair that the white people made the colored people move from their seats.  So everyone walked to work until the rules changed.  I wouldn't have made people move because that is just mean.  Also, people were rude back then because only white people got to go to school, use the drinking fountains and go to certain restaurants.  Martin said that we shouldn't fight anger with anger, only with love.  He was a good dreamer.  We have to celebrate Martin and the Kings birthday with cake."  I wish that I would have had a video camera ready for his explanation because I really got a kick out of it.  He was very serious about the whole thing.  So we made cupcakes today - giant ones.  Each one equaled 3 regular size cupcakes.  Adam had his all eaten before the other kids were even done decorating.  Fun times!

We are close to starting on the new house.  We have all the bids done and are working on all the stuff that the bank wants turned in.  We have turned in to the county a vacation of easement on the property and when that is complete we can get started on the well and then excavation.  Crossing our fingers that this all happens sooner rather than later as I am loosing my mind more and more with each passing day in this apartment.

Christmas 2012

We spent this Christmas in Quincy at Mark's parents house.  Brad flew in from Hawaii and we were able to be together for over a week.  Santa came to visit us on Christmas Eve and give the kids their pajamas.

We enjoyed a white Christmas for the first time in many years.  It was beautiful but too cold to stay outside for too long.  The kids did build snowmen the following day and they were still standing when we left.

 

One Christmas tradition that our family has is that we choose a new menu for each Christmas dinner.  We make things that we have never made before - everyone helps choose the items and helps in the kitchen to prepare the meal.  This year we chose to have an Italian dinner.  None of us have ever been to Italy so I don't know how authentic these are but we found most of the recipes online.  For reference we fed 6 adults, 3 teens, and 2 little kids.

Here are the links to the online recipes and a few notes from us: 

• We started with Herbed Meatball Soup - I was worried that this would be tastless (based on the picture - it looked pretty plain), but the meatballs were very flavorful. Everyone liked it and it would be great with salad & bread on a cold winter evening.  I will make this again. 

 http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/herbed-meatball-soup-3904 

• The main dish was Rack of Lamb with Warm Apple and Lentil Salad - We tripled the recipe for the lentil salad and cooked 6 racks of the lamb.  We cooked a few racks on the grill so they would all be done cooking at the same time.  This recipe was delicious and everyone enjoyed eating it.  The apple and lentil salad was fantastic and we ate leftovers with some barbecued beef the following night. We had 2 racks left over (there was more meat on the bones that it looked like) which was actually good warmed over for lunch the next day.  We will make this again - maybe for Easter or another special dinner.

 http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/rack-of-lamb-warm-apple-lentil-salad-recipe-8931

• Marinated Vegetable and Olive Salad - No body's favorite dish.  The olives were the best part.  We probably won't ever make this again.  It was a cold salad and not full of flavor.

http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/marinated-vegetable-olive-salad-3855

• Garlic Broccoli Rabe - this was good but we will add more garlic next time.

http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/garlic-broccoli-rabe-rbk0108

• Rustic Italian Bread - super easy recipe.  We doubled it to make two loaves and used the Bosch mixer instead of a bread machine. 

http://www.food.com/recipe/rustic-italian-bread-95086

• Mostaccioli - these are a cake-like cookie.  They were easy to make and stayed fresh for several days.  I will make these again - great flavor!

http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/mostaccioli-607

• The girls found this pie recipe in a dessert book we have so we tried it as well.  I was happy because lemon is my FAVORITE!  We made this again yesterday and doubled the recipe for the filling so we had more of the yellow layer.  But I didn't double the vanilla chips or cream cheese.  It was better that way.

 

Lemon Truffle Pie

Baked 9 inch pie shell

1/2 cup water

2 T. sugar

1 egg

1 T. cornstarch

1 T. sugar

1 1/2 T. fresh lemon juice

Zest of 1/2 lemon

1 1/2 t. butter

1 cup vanilla chips

8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup whipped cream, sweetened

1 T. toasted almonds

Put water and 2 T. sugar in saucepan and bring to a boil.  In large bowl, mix egg, cornstarch, 1 T. sugar, and lemon juice.  Slowly add hot water to egg mixture in bowl then pour entire mixture back into pan.  Heat until thickened, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and add zest of lemon and butter.  Stir until mixed and cool.

 

Pour 2/3 of filling in bowl.  Add vanilla chips to the filling remaining in pan.  Stir until chips are melted.  Place cream cheese in bowl.  Add filling with vanilla chips to cream cheese and beat together until smooth.  Spread this mixture in bottom of pie shell.  Spread remaining 2/3 of lemon filling on top.  Chill for two hours.

 

Top with whipped cream and garnish with toasted almonds or sprinkle toasted almonds over whipped cream and serve on side.

 

 No visit from Brad would be complete with out a trip to the bowling alley.  Everyone had fun, except for poor Kehli, who watched from the side with ice on her knee.  We finished our Christmas vacation early so we could come home and take Kehli to the doctor.  She and Evan were running and tripped over each other.  Kehli fell hard on the sidewalk and ended up breaking her knee cap.  Her tibia hit the back of her knee cap and fractured it from behind.  It stayed super swollen for several days from all of the blood filling up the knee cavity.  She goes to the Orthopedic doctor tomorrow for a new brace and the official course of treatment.