DEADBEAT (motley) MOM

Summer is obviously in full swing with all sorts of special memory-making moments for the Motley Moms. Karly's kiss with a curb and Liz's foray into boxing (in more ways than one) just go to prove how dangerous it is to be a mom. Especially a really motley one who has police chasing her all over town or pictures of her injuries going viral on facebook. It's the stuff summer is made of...ahhhh, memories.

While summer happenings have been heating up, our motley writing has definitely taken a "chill pill" as we said in middle school. I don't feel like such a deadbeat anymore, now that I'm in good company! But I do miss clicking over to Motley Moms for my daily peek into the lives of my mom friends. It's my lifeline to the outside world when I'm up here in the middle of the Adirondack mountains with no cell service all summer...the one-liner quips on Facebook just don't do it for me!

It is nice to take a break from it all, though, every now and then. I'm hoping our little summer break will result in lots of great posts when we've all returned to our regularly scheduled programs. For now, maybe I should find the graphic of the color blocks with the accompanying tone to alert the public that we have no Motley programming during the summer break. That would be awesome.

Have fun with your families, but ya'll come back now, y'hear?

Give SHARE a Try!

Just thought I'd do a quick post about the SHARE program, since it is one of the main things that is helping us cut our grocery bills in half. When we pick up our food boxes once a month, we go ahead and order our food for the following month. One trip and we have enough meat for a month and enough produce for a couple of weeks. I spend around $50 on SHARE boxes and SHARE select items each month, plus about $300 a month at the grocery store.

Who can participate in SHARE? "Everyone and anyone is welcome to participate in SHARE. There are no income requirements, just a desire to make a positive difference in the world." (from the SHARE homepage)

Our March food box is chock full of good stuff. I'm so excited about planning meals and not having to grocery shop for them! Check out the menu:

March Basic Package $18.00

March Distribution Day is Saturday, 3/27/10

1 lb. Lightly Dusted Chicken Breast Strips
1 lb. Bone in Ham Steaks
10 oz. Deli Sliced Black Forest Ham
1 lb. Ground Beef 85/15
1.35 lbs. Split Chicken Breasts

Plus a Produce Pack!
1- 2.5 lb. Bag Potatoes

1 Head Romaine Lettuce
1 Bag Carrots
1 Stalk Celery
4 Sweet Potatoes
1 Bag Radishes
5 Oranges
4 Apples

We ordered 2 basic packages, which come with the produce packs, plus an additional produce pack. It's a LOT of food!

Here is a preview of April's menu, available now to order through our local SHARE host site. I'm especially excited about getting frozen blueberries for $1.70/lb from the Select menu in April. I see blueberry smoothies in our future menus!

When you go to sign up and put in your order, be sure to bring cash. It is the only accepted form of payment.

I would highly recommend you give the SHARE program a try if you're interested in cutting your grocery bill and willing to design your menus around the basic frozen meats and fresh produce in the box!

You Know You're a Motley Mom When...

My aunt recently emailed me some news that would make most grocery shoppers' blood run cold. Not to make light of someone else's tragedy, but this is my actual, rather motley stream-of-thought email response to her note that "last night's murder/suicide was at MY Publix!"...

Donna: Oh my gosh! I hadn't heard anything about it here. That's scary. I wish our Publix filled online orders for pickup. That would be awesome. I'd never have to drag our two kids through the grocery store again...my own grocery nightmares actually never involve murderers. Just really whiny kids who think popping the air out of the bag of frozen peas and watching how far they scatter is what grocery shopping is all about. Aaaargh! Actually, B was trying, unsuccessfully, to be a good helper by getting the peas out of the freezer section for me. But he spent too long doodling on the inside of the foggy freezer door and when I snapped at him to "hurry up and get the peas!" he grabbed them a little too hard and, "POP!" Then he realized he could "ice skate" down the aisle on the frozen peas. Yep, we are awesome everywhere we go.

Just thought I'd share that little exchange, since you have probably had plenty of your own "Grocery Nightmares" over the years. Don'tcha just love shopping with the kids?!

What ever happened to house calls?

It's my day to post, but after three totally sleepless nights, I have very little to contribute. Our little one had a fever of 105.1 on Monday. Scary. It's apparently viral, so all we can give her is tylenol and motrin to help her manage the fever. In the meantime, she is coughing and gagging constantly, so we aren't getting any rest at night (I have her in bed with me and Paul is taking the couch...none of us are sleeping!). Just so you know, a temp of 105 is apparently not as bad as they used to think, especially if it responds to a fever reducer such as ibuprofen. Organ damage begins to occur at temps of 107-108, which our pediatrician says he has never seen in his whole career.

On our way to our pediatrician's office (the next town over), I realized I couldn't see anything in the center of my vision. And as I drove along, the "hole" in my vision was getting bigger and bigger. I was getting a migraine. So, knowing that we had a last minute appointment at the end of our doctor's office hours, I had to turn around and go back to LW to get my husband from work (on his busiest day of the month, no less) so he could drive us all to the doctor. Meanwhile, our little one is panting fast, totally flushed from high fever, coughing and gagging in her carseat, and her eyes are glazed over. I was so afraid she was going to have a seizure from this high fever! We made it to the office in time (I called and let them know we were on our way but running late...they always appreciate the call), and by the time the doctor finally saw us, our little girl was finally starting to perk up and respond to the dose of Motrin I gave just before we left the house.

We really just need some rest! Hopefully, tonight's the night.

I'm cancelling Musikgarten class today...something I really hate to do! But I'm thinking the whole family could use a quiet afternoon and early bedtime. I'm tired, my throat hurts, that migraine is still lurking behind my eyes, and Big Brother is all stuffy and froggy today, too. We are all just in rough shape. Nobody really needs to be around us at this point. I guess I better start calling my Musikgarten friends....

What I'm Reading

I don't have much that I want to write about lately, mostly because I have a lot going on and not enough distance from it to write about it very well. Suffice it to say that I'm still in the throes of the "baby craze" that I thought I had finally escaped, our outside commitments are threatening to overtake our family commitments, and time is getting away from me.

My escape: read a good book. Four weeks ago I read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, which is so witty and charming, I don't know how I managed to miss this one until now. If you haven't read it, you definitely should.

Next, I moved on to Ender's Game, which made me feel very unoriginal when I read the beginning and felt like I was reading the beginning of my own fictional work in progress, The G.E. Kid. Once I got past the beginning, though, I realized it goes in quite a different direction than I am headed with mine, so I felt a little more inclined to work on mine some more, but not inclined enough to actually do it...yet.

Ender's Game is science fiction for adolescent readers, middle to high school, and I enjoyed it. Before you start judging me for my YA fiction choices, let me remind you that the Twilight series was written for teens as well, and we all know who wound up loving it the most. Yep...Moms. At one point I even heard them called "Twi-Moms" for their crazier-than-the-kids behavior at book signings and movie events. So I'm not alone in my less-than-mature reading material choices.

Next, I have just received a copy of The Time Traveler's Wife from the library's Books by Mail program. I love checking the mail and finding a good book there instead of junk mail! Especially when it's a surprise. I was #30-something on the list when I reserved it online several months ago. It's really interesting so far. Anyone else read it?

After this, I plan to read Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. The movie is coming out very soon and it looks really good!

How's that for an eclectic mix of literature? I love to read and my kids know it. We finished The Swiss Family Robinson with the kids and I have just started reading the first Harry Potter book to them. They are completely enraptured by it. It probably doesn't hurt that I do all the accents, including a thick Scottish brogue for Hagrid. I love reading aloud and hearing Paul read aloud to the kids. It's so cozy when we all pile up on the couch for a good story. I can forget about the outside world in that moment.

What are you reading? How do you "escape" at home?

Birth of a Blog Post

Today has been one of those days. The kind where I'm busy all day but by the end, I can't really account for my time. I realized around lunchtime that Liz hadn't posted yet because today is NOT Thursday. I kept holding out hope that she would post something later in the day, since her posting time seems to coincide with naptime, but then the full reality of WEDNESDAY hit me. Time seems to be hurtling away from me these days and I just can't keep track. I know that today is one of those days when squeezing out a blog post will be like giving birth...painful, messy, and forgetable, but decided to check in anyway and share what's on my mind.

We found out today that the homeschool kindergarten rule is, indeed, a stupid, stupid rule that will not go away. Our kindergartners in Florida will not be promoted to first grade unless they have completed an accredited, public school kindergarten program. They will repeat kindergarten whether they need to or not if, for some reason, we cannot provide a homeschool first grade education and must enroll them in school. The rule only applies to kindergarten. After that, students are evaluated for grade level placement.

If kindergarten were still the housekeeping, blocks, and reading centers that I remember, it would be so much more palatable. Unfortunately, kindergarten consists of a LOT of testing, deskwork, and basically the same stuff we did in first grade. Our son hates it. He can read, write, tell time, add numbers, count by 5's and 10's, tie his shoes, and so much more, but sit him in a classroom doing worksheets and deskwork all day and his yearning to learn gets squelched. I hate that I have to watch it happen day by day of this 180 day school year. It's painful.

We love his teacher. We love his school. I love the energy and enthusiasm of the staff. Unfortunately, it's a system that does not serve the kids who excel. I'm looking forward to guiding his education myself next year, nurturing his love of learning. It's going to be so good.

Thank You, From the Bottom of my Chart

I used to be so good about writing thank you notes for anything and everything. If someone did something thoughtful or invited me over for coffee or gave me a gift, a handwritten note (in calligraphy, no less) was soon to follow.

Fast forward to Christmas 2009...I was so grateful to have received only a small handful of gifts this year. I thought, "Oh, thank goodness, I only have to write four thank you notes!" Never  mind the lovely dinners, cookie parties, and playdates surrounding Christmas...I just can't keep up with that level of handwritten appreciation anymore!

But now I have not only my own thank you notes to write, but the kids' thank you's as well! I took them to the dollar store and let them each pick their own pack of thank you cards, just to give them some ownership over the whole process. We made a chart for each kid with the gifts they received and the name of the giver, to be crossed off as the note is written. Our 6-year-old is painstakingly handwriting his own notes, and with his birthday just three days after Christmas, we let him combine both celebrations into one thank you note. He still isn't finished.

Last year, I made him draw a picture of each gift inside blank cards. When he finally finished all his artwork, I am so ashamed to admit that I completely lost his cards, his list of gifts and givers, and the envelopes (which I had already addressed). Those never got sent.

While KID 1 can just barely write his own thank you's this year, KID 2 can NOT, thank you very much. It is apparently my job to thank everyone for her gifts. I've tried having her "decorate" the cards herself in the past, but it becomes tedious for her and she finds something else to do before she's reached the second card.

I've heard of parents taking a picture of the kids with their gifts, but that just seems like extra work for me. Finding the gifts, taking the photo while berating the child in question to "smile like you really like your present!" and then actually having the photos printed and included in each appropriate envelope...I am SO not doing that.

How do you show friends and family appreciation for your kids' gifts? Any ideas for making the process a little easier?

Christmas Traditions: The Christmas Campout

I congratulated myself on the awesome new tradition of the kids' "Christmas Campout" by the Christmas tree - complete with homemade pizza, shrimp cocktail ring, Christmas stories read by the fire, sleeping bags and pillows arranged by the tree - until I realized that it's almost 9:00 pm and the kids are still out there giggling and goofing around. File this one under the WHAT WAS I THINKING??? label.

Paul just went out there to quiet them down...for the fifth time. He hasn't come back and it's been 10 minutes. I'm thinking he's probably camping out on the couch tonight.

If I were Rachel, I'd be writing myself a note for next Christmas: "Dear Donna, Regarding the Christmas campout...DON'T DO IT!"

Movie Madness

Totally unrelated to Christmas, I'm wondering what you all do to preserve your DVD movies? We've been through two copies of CARS and I hate to go buy a third, just to have it scratched and ruined again. This is getting expensive!

So many of our favorite DVD's are now unwatchable due to imperceptible (sometimes quite OBVIOUS) scratches. Are you really just supposed to keep rebuying these things? I've copied our music and audiobooks onto the computer (see my recent post Our Listening Library is "Ripped!"), but you can't do that with DVDs...can you?

We've tried the scratch repair kits which, for the most part, do NOT work. We don't usually allow our kids to handle the DVD's, but when KID 1 occassionally does, he's very careful. The disks still end up scratched.

I've seen these things called "D-Skins" on the market, but they're expensive. Has anyone tried them?

How do you keep your DVD movies scratch-free?

The Greatest Gift

I love Christmas. I really do. But sometimes I feel like I'm tying all of my holiday cheer into a beautiful red and green package, handing it to my family, and then realize there's none left for me. I start out with such good intentions of "keeping Christ in Christmas" at the beginning of Advent, but by the end of the season, after telling the Christmas story at least twenty times, after baking, making, shopping, wrapping, singing, decorating, and deflating...I feel like I've lost the Christmas spirit I began the season with.

It's as if my very efforts at making the season merry and bright are what sabotage the whole thing. How does that happen?

By January, I'm usually determined to become a recluse. I've been overstimulated throughout December with dinners, parties, service "opportunities," shopping malls, holiday events, and all the trappings of the season, originally conceived to get us in the "Christmas Spirit" in the first place.

This year, I'm pulling the brakes on this express train, lest it go barreling through all of my good intentions of happy holiday cheer. I really want to enjoy Christmas, rather than pass out from exhaustion on the big day, thankful that it's finally over (sound familiar?). This blessed season has so much to offer, but I'm learning to let go of some of the wonderful opportunities that present themselves in order to truly enjoy and appreciate a select few.

No more Christmas sabotage for me. Keeping focused on the Greatest Gift will be the greatest gift I can offer my family at Christmas.

How do you stay focused on the true "reason for the season?"

Advent Calendar Craft, Cheap and Easy!

I know I already did a post about Advent calendars, but I wanted to share the one I just made this weekend (hey, better late than never, right?). The Advent banner I was using was really hokey and had very tiny pockets. I thought I could make something better...it just took a trip to the local dollar store. This Advent calendar cost me $4 to make:

I found the little boxes in the party favors aisle (in the baby section, no less!). They are mint green with white plastic handles. They came 8 to a package, so those cost $3. I found a bag of "Christmas Table Scatter" with glittery green foam pine trees which made a perfect box decoration ($1), then I added the numbers 1-24 using red and green permanent markers. KID 1 decided an A-B-B pattern would look nice (red-green-green) for the numbers, so that's what we did. I tied the boxes onto a length of wide red and green plaid ribbon using strips of fabric and various ribbons (all of which I scrounged from my craft closet). You could also just hang the boxes on the Christmas tree and let the kids hunt for the box of the day.

I think it turned out pretty nice! Here's the whole picture:

And a close-up:

I'm pretty happy with my dollar store Advent calendar! Now those little boxes are just begging to be filled! Our dollar store had small bags of chocolate coins and wrapped Christmas chocolates that will be perfect treats, and I've already got my list of daily Advent activities written on slips of scrapbook paper to stuff into each box. We're having so much fun with our Advent countdown!

Daily Advent Activities

I'm just now putting together some activities for our Advent calendar and thought I'd share some of our holiday happenings that I wrote on slips of paper and stuffed into the little pockets:

Dec. 1st: Let's decorate the house for Christmas tonight!

Dec. 2nd: Secretly do something nice for someone today.

Dec. 3rd: Let's trim the tree tonight!

Dec. 4th: Let's bring pizza to Grammy and help decorate her house tonight!

Dec. 5th: Christmas at Pinewood is quite a sight - Let's go see it all decked out tonight! (Pinewood is the Spanish-style mansion at Bok Tower)

This adorable mitten Advent garland

would be easy to create at home.

Dec. 6th: A small gift awaits if you follow the clue - It rests in a place where you do, too! (Each gets a special ornament that represents them somehow...our 5-yr-old loves soccer and our 3-yr-old learned how to swing by herself. I found both ornaments at Hallmark, balked at the price, then paid it so I could be done...thanks for the advice, Liz!)

Dec. 7th: Make Pine Cone Ornaments: Spray with fake snow, dab with white, gold or silver paint, add glitter...there are lots of ways to dress up a pinecone!

Dec. 8th: Sing a Christmas carol for Daddy and Mommy tonight - be sure to practice together first!

Dec. 9th: Wrap up your presents for family
               And gently place them under the tree.


Dec. 10th: Bake some special cookies to share with our neighbors. (We'll do something easy like these Molasses Crinkles)

Dec. 11th: Let's make a Christmas pizza with RED, WHITE, and GREEN toppings to share with Grammy! We'll watch a Christmas movie, too!

Dec. 12th: Disney decks it's hotels lavishly for Christmas. Let's go ride the monorail and enjoy the decorations...I bet we'll find hot chocolate at the Wilderness Lodge!
 
Dec. 13th: A brand new Christmas book for Ben and Emma to handle

                Sits in a warm, cozy spot up on the _____________. (answer: mantle)

That's all I've got for now...I will plan the rest when we get a little closer to Christmas. As events pop up that I don't know about, I will just swap out that day's activity and replace it with the event (like on Dec. 12th...is that the day of the city Christmas parade?)
 
What sorts of activities do you do during Advent?

Holiday Treats and Traditions: Polar Express Hot Chocolate

This weekend we broke out our holiday books and movies, including a family favorite: The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg. Both the book and the movie feature the one drink I could never go cold turkey on - hot chocolate as rich and smooth as melted chocolate bars.

In fact, as the kids donned their pajamas and settled in to watch the movie, I snuck into the kitchen and whipped up a batch of melted chocolate...a bag of semi-sweet morsels melted in the double boiler, 1/2 cup of heavy cream, and milk (enough to achieve desired chocolate consistency/color), and a dash of cinnamon whisked smooth.

I delivered the steaming mugs of melted chocolate just as the dancing waiters presented the pajama-clad Polar Express passengers with their hot chocolate. Everyone declared it the BEST hot chocolate in the WORLD...even my husband, who only likes "good chocolate."

 It's definitely a tradition that bears repeating...several more times this Christmas season. As we read the book together this morning, our 3-year-old noted at the hot chocolate scene, "Hey, that's just like us, Mommy! We had hot chocolate, too!"

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Crafts and Fun Stuff

My kids are really excited to try some of these Thanksgiving crafts we found online over at FamilyFun.com (and just so you know, I am not being paid to promote them, I just find a lot of cute stuff there. It's my "go to" spot for holiday crafts and ideas.):

These Pilgrim hats are cute and easy

And the Turkey Hats will get you in the mood to "gobble" up your Thanksgiving dinner!

The Mayflower Toppers are the cutest ship chapeaus I've ever seen.

We're thinking we'll make a 3-D version of the Mayflower as a table centerpiece to hold our "I'm thankful for..." notes. KID 1 is a pro at folding paper into boats, thanks to Curious George Rides a Bike!

The Marshmallow Pilgrim Hats look easy and delicious...but maybe a bit messy for little ones, both making and eating.

Older kids might enjoy making these Pilgrim and Native American tube people to decorate the Thanksgiving table. They're adorable and could be saved and reused each year.

Our Top Ten Favorite Holiday Traditions, from Pat

1. My children each have an advent calendar. They can open one pocket each day. It's just something small (barrettes, a coin, earrings, etc.) but they look forward to it each day.

2. Each day for 16 days the children and I bake a different kind of cookie. On the 17th day, we organize the cookies onto plates that we then give away to everyone who helps us throughout the year from the librarian to the garbage collector, as well as to all our friends.



3. The children and I make all the Christmas cards that we send to friends and family. (Often while the cookies are baking!)

4. We read a different Christmas story for bedtime each night starting on Dec. 1st. We always read Silent Night, In the Manger and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve.

5. We put the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. There is a picture ornament for each christmas since the children were born. There's also an ornament for every trip we've taken. They always bring out the stories of "...remember when....". Last we tie a red ribbon on the tree and remember all our loved ones that passed on during the year.



6. Each year, each child picks out a new ornament for the tree that represents something from their life that year to add to the family tree.

7. As often as possible, we sit together as a family in the evenings before bed and sing Christmas songs while Mother plays the piano.

8. In the evening on Dec. 5th, we put our shoes out for St. Nikolas filled with apples and oats for his donkey. We tell the story of St. Nikolas. The next morning, it's been replaced with small gifts from him.

9. We spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my husband's family. We always go to the Christmas Eve service at the church together with his parents, brothers and their families.

10. We put up the Nativity set each year and tell the story of Jesus birth as we unwrap each piece. The children have a plastic version they can play with and retell the story over and over again.

A Word of Advice from Donna

Paul and I learned a hard lesson this week, one that I hope you can avoid. Here's what happened:

Last month, our son developed a watery, itchy red eye over the weekend. We took him to the pediatrician on Monday and our suspicions were confirmed: it was pinkeye. He couldn't go back to school until he had at least 24 hour's worth of antibiotic eye drops. The doctor also mentioned that we should go ahead and use these drops on our daughter as needed, since pinkeye is extremely contagious.

His pinkeye cleared up in a couple of days, but he kept complaining that his eye was very sensitive to light. Hmm. I read all the fine print of side effects from the Tobramycin eye drops, but didn't remember seeing light sensitivity as one of them. I assumed it was from the pinkeye and would eventually go away.

No one else in the family ever developed pinkeye (although I was hyper-aware of every little itch in my eyes for days...sort of like when I was teaching and one of my students would have headlice and I couldn't stop scratching my head, sure that I had bugs crawling on my head, too.)

Well, the pinkeye came back in full force on Monday this week, as we made the two-hour drive to the space coast to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis lift off. By the time we parked our car and found a good spot on the river in Titusville to watch it, KID 1 could barely even open his sore eye. The good news is it was bright and sunny, a perfect day for a launch. It went up without a hitch and was an awesome sight to see!

When we got back home that night, I got out the Tobramycin drops and dosed his sore eye and his good eye (that's what you do for pinkeye) and sent him to bed. Paul and I decided that we should take him to our family eye doctor this time, worried that this could be some horrible deep-socket infection doing damage to our son's vision. I need to stop watching House.

The drama involved in our first appointment with the eye doctor was exasperating, but he eventually allowed the nurse to put drops in his eye (while I held his head back and restrained his arms...he managed to kick me in the shins several times before I got my leg wrapped over his leg the way the pediatrician's nurse does when we take him for shots. I wish I didn't have to know the best way to put a full body lock on my child, but there you go.) Everyone was assuming it was an infection until the doctor finally put the blacklight magnifier over his eye and said, "Oh, yeah. There's a foreign body in there." My heart clenched and I tried not to panic.

He allowed me to look through the magnifier and, sure enough, there was a spot on his iris, right at the lower edge. Turns out he had metal in his eye for over a month. The metal had come out, but it left rust in his eye which was preventing his eye from healing properly, leaving him susceptible to infection. We had to come back in the afternoon when another doctor was there who could remove the rust ring from our son's eye.

Really?! Rust in his eye?! We have to do all this again?! We went back and met with the second doctor who gave our son several doses of numbing drops, allowed him to feel the tiny brush he would use to brush away the rust in his eye, and then waited patiently for our son to cooperate while he stuck this little brush in his eye while holding absolutely still. After several threats and a bribe ("We'll have to hold you down and pry your eye open," "We'll have to take you to the hospital and give you gas to make you sleep so we can open your eye and remove the rust," "We won't be able to go camping next week if you have to have eye surgery,"...it was awful, to say the least), he eventually did cooperate, and it took all of two seconds (literally) to remove the rust.

He cried afterward but told us it didn't hurt. He just had to release some of that stress. Poor kid had dealt with this foreign object in his eye for over a month...I'm trying not to feel the heavy weight of guilt that is pressing on my mind. Why didn't I bring him in for a check when he kept complaining about light sensitivity?

Rachel and I were discussing this yesterday after it was all taken care of. We decided that we tend to want to believe that our kids are fine, since most of the time they are. We don't like to act like hypochondriacs...it doesn't go over well at the pediatrician's office. But in the end, no one else is going to be my child's advocate. If I end up with a reputation, so what? I will know that my child is healthy, with no broken bones or metal in his eye.

My advice to you:


1. Even if you know for sure it's pinkeye, go to the eye doctor. The pediatrician doesn't have the necessary equipment to see into the eye for a thorough examination. I'm not blaming our pediatrician. I just wish I had taken our son to the eye doctor in the first place.


2. Listen to your gut instinct, especially when it comes to your kids' health. If you think something is not quite right, have it checked. If it all turns out fine, your mind will be at ease. Who cares if the pediatrician's staff thinks you're a hypochondriac? You're single-handedly keeping them in business!

Your Holiday Treats and Traditions: Happy Thanksmas!

Bryssy submitted this fun holiday tradition that I think makes a lot of sense!

We have Thanks-mas at our house. What is Thanks-mas, you ask? After Thanksgiving dinner we give each other items that will be useful for the holidays (specifically before the holidays). The kids get a Christmas t-shirt, hat, or necklace that they can wear plus a special book for our Christmas collection (I make sure I pick up some good ones 75% off right after Christmas for the next year). Adults get things they can use…I’ve been given a platter I can use for our Sunday School Christmas party or a table runner. Not everyone gets something, just those who need and can use something. I do give spirit box prompts to everyone (so that everyone gets something). This way we can enjoy our holiday-themed gifts throughout the holiday season and don't have to put it away for a year before we ever get to use it.

Happy Thanksmas!

Some Easy Recipes We Like

Sausage Rice Casserole

1 pound sausage
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
1 cup chopped onions
1 1/2 cups uncooked brown rice
3 3/4 cups chicken broth (I have used the College Inn white wine and herb flavor broth and don't have to add any seasoning...and it contains no MSG)

Directions:
Brown sausage and drain off grease. Saute the onions and celery. Grease a large, covered casserole* and put all ingredients in it. Stir to combine.
Bake covered at 350 F for about an hour, until liquid is absorbed.

*I use my dutch oven so I can brown ingredients and bake all in one pot...love that! I might experiment with adding greens of some sort. Fresh spinach leaves could certainly be added after removing casserole from the oven. Replace the lid for a few minutes to allow the spinach to steam.


Turkey In a Bag (a.k.a. The Most Awesome, Tenderest Turkey We've Ever Tasted!)

My mother-in-law has been baking the Thanksgiving turkey this way as long as my husband can remember and it's always delicious!

Butter entire inside of a large brown paper grocery bag. Slide your prepared bird in and staple the bag shut. Bake at 325 F 1 hour for every 6 lbs.
No basting...Yea!!!!!!

Cake Pan Co-Op

I've been meaning to start a cake pan co-op for several years now, and I'm finally going to do it. It seems such a shame to have these cute cake pans just sitting around in my cupboard when someone else may have need of them.

If you have specialty cake pans that you are willing to share (and you are local!), leave a comment here with a short, descriptive list of the pans you own. If you plan to throw a themed party and really need that special cake, check back here and see if anyone has the pan you need. If so, it's up to you to arrange a pick-up with the owner of the pan.

I'll begin by listing my pans in the comment section of this post. Happy baking!

Giving with a Global Impact

With Halloween just days away, my thoughts are beginning to jump beyond it to the upcoming holiday season. Thanksgiving and Christmas are my favorite holidays...they beg us to consider them thoughtfully, as a family, and appreciate what we have and how we can make a difference in someone else's life. Whether it's the local canned food drive, the giving tree opportunities to make Christmas a little brighter for another family, or baking something special and delivering it to an elderly neighbor, we can always find ways to share holiday cheer.

This year, we are considering sending a gift through Heifer International. I received their catalogue the other day and thought that would be a neat way to get the kids involved in giving with a global view. Flocks of ducks, chicks, and geese are around $20, or you can buy shares of the larger, more expensive animals. Goats cost $120, but one share is $10. They give lots of options and lots of different levels of giving in their online catalogue.

Another neat thing that Heifer does is educate people about sustainable living, both here and around the world. They have five education centers in the US now where you can visit a Global Village and experience the sustainable farming life of another country, including the homes, animals, and crops of the areas where Heifer helps. There are two of these centers in the east, Overlook Farm in Rutland, MA, and Shepherd's Springs in Sharpsburg, Maryland. I would love to tour one of these learning centers with my family next summer as we travel the east coast.

So that's what's on my mind today, three days before Halloween. It's really a continuation of the conversation Rachel began with her post Be the Blessing.  How do you plan to spread holiday cheer this year?