I Really Tried

I made it a goal to get a picture of all the kids at our house today.

And I still left two out!

The Dairy Queen red, white, and blue Starkisses were a total hit!

Red clown popsicle lip stain...totally worth it.

Happy Memorial Day!

Valentines-ed Out!

I seriously feel like we've been celebrating Valentine's Day since Friday!

Friday was JR's party at school, and Jason and I went to an adult dinner with our friends Brad and Cassidy (and some of their friends from Houston).

Then Saturday JR met up with one of his Valentine's for some skiing.

(JR and his friend Emma)

But, being that JR's only 7, I'm pretty sure he was way more excited about running in to his friend, Steven, for lunch.

JR was out of school yesterday, so we drove down to Farmington to visit Jason at his office.

Durango and Farmington are complete opposites when it comes to restaurants.  Durango has quite a few nice restaurants, but only 2 chains (Denny's and Applebee's).  On the other hand, Farmington has all the chains.  So we picked the "nicest" of the chains for Valentine's lunch. 

Recognize those cheesy biscuits?

Popcorn shrimp all around!

When I got home I found a package on my front porch with this inside:

I know! Yum!

Let's have a little close-up, shall we?

Deeee-lish!

I'm Talking Envelopes....Again

Yes, I know.

This is the 4th Valentine's Day JR has passed out cards at school. (PreK-2nd)

This is also the 4th time I will complain publicly on this blog about how much it upsets me that store bought Valentine's cards for the class don't come with envelopes!

As I say every year, you have to give out candy with the cards...and where are you supposed to put it if there is no envelope?!

And as I also say every year, A lot of kids have long names.  How is JR supposed to fit "Nathaniel" and "Cameron" on the teeny-tiny space provided.

(I would also like to add, which I'm pretty sure I've said the other years too, it's Valentine's cards addressing days that make me sooooo happy we have a child with a two-letter name. JR can whip that "FROM:" line out in no time!)

Speaking of the FROM line, we had an issue this year. 

The cards have a slit for you to add a sweet tart, but with JR's name being so short, you can't even see his name.

(But on a positive note, do you see how they have Bible verses on them?  Didn't even know that was the kind we were buying.  JR picked them out because he thought the "dogs were cute and the girls would like the cats.")

Alright, back to the envelopes...

So being that we're envelopeless again, I took it upon myself to craft something up.

Now y'all know I don't craft a lot since:

A: Crafting is time consuming and tedious

and

B. I have a house full of boys that would either burn themselves on an unattended hot glue gun, or just tear up the craft while I was still in the crafting process.

But I made an exception yesterday. 

I made some of these to hang Christmas cards with, and remembering how fast and easy they were, I thought they'd be perfect to clip Valentine's treats together.

Behold.....

Clothes pin covered in fabric with a felt heart (all hotglued, of course)

Time to craft 18 of them: 20 minutes from start to clean-up

And look how cute it holds the card to the pack of Fun Dip.

Take that, Envelopes!

It Was Just Like Times Square, Except Completely Different

Jason and I hit Main Street Durango last night for a BIG New Year's Eve night. 

After dinner we had some time to kill before The Snowflake Flake Drop.

What? You've never heard of The Snowflake Drop? 

Oh, well, we'll get to that.

My friend, Kylie, owns Joel's bar so we headed over there for awhile.

This picture just cracks me up.

Kylie is about 6 feet tall in heels, so she's bending over and I'm standing on my tiptoes. 

She's also wearing her sparkly "Thanksgiving dress", as she called it.  I said, "Jason would love it if I showed up to Thanksgiving in that!"

I, on the other hand, had on 2 shirts plus long-johns under my sweater since this was the temperature outside.

I know the picture is blurry, but yes, that says -14!

About 15 minutes until midnight we headed down to Durango's First Annual Snowflake Drop. 

It's exactly like the Times Square ball drop except:

There's no media coverage,

no ball (it's a snowflake!),

no Ryan Seacrest (or announcer of any kind),

and the crowd is slightly smaller.

Can you see me down there? 

That's me in front of the infamous snowflake that's about to be dropped from the tallest building in Durango! (the 3 story tall Alpine Bank building)

So Jason and I stood around with about 200 of our closest friends (who I'm guessing were all between the ages of 19-22) in -14 degrees. 

We found the whole thing seriously amusing and couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation, and the ridiculousness of us being out there!

(You know it's cold when Jason breaks out his hooded parka.)

Here's the snowflake about to drop.

And just check out the high quality and thoroughness of this operation.

 You'll notice one side of the clock is reading almost midnight, while the other is reading 10 minutes til.

The big drop! 

Jason was thinking it was going to drop to the ground.

Um, no.

And then Durango pulled out its big gun.

The train showed up to whoosh and blow its whistle.

Yes, that's the legendary train (and throngs of people from the huge Snowflake crowd) behind me.

Yep, another New Year's Eve for our record books!

Memorial Day with the Ingys

Reed is still wearing his medal and telling us, "won bike race".


We made the official move outside for dinners. As JR informed us, "we eat outside until autumn". Then large platters of meat appeared on the table.


And like good little native Texans, ribs were the fan favorite of the evening.

Egg-n 'Em On

I've always celebrated Easter at my cousin's house. (And when I say "always" I'm talking the last 20+ years, so yeah, always.) We made the trek down to Texas last Easter and learned that a weekend trip full of airplanes and rent cars with this pack of kids is not exactly easy or relaxing. We made the decision to stay here, but realized we have no Easter traditions of our own, and had no idea how we should spend the day.
Jason wanted to have an Easter brunch after church so we headed out to the Sky Ute Casino. Yes, I'm painfully aware of the irony of going to a casino for Easter Brunch, but they have a nice buffet, and it's not like we spent the afternoon at the slot machines.

We knew just an Easter brunch wasn't enough for this family, so a few days before Easter I emailed some of our neighbors to come over for an egg hunt. It was a beautiful day and with 11 kids coming over, the bouncy house, and all our riding toys, it turned into a little party. (And you know how we love a party!)

We started off with two dozen cascarones (confetti eggs). None of the kids or parents had seen them before, so JR was excited to show everybody how they worked. And of course, the kids loved them.

Kyle loved them so much that when all the cascarones were gone, he went and found the plastic hiding eggs and started smashing them on his own head. Of course he was showered in candy instead of confetti, but he liked that just as much.

After the celebratory cascarones, it was time for the egg hunt. Here's the egg hunt starting line.

And now for the absolute best part. I have no pictures of the egg hunt or the rest of the party. I was actually enjoying talking and visiting so much that I forgot all about taking pictures. Now that's a sign of a fun day!

Photoshop

After we finished the Easter Bunny at 6:55 (I know. JR is still under the impression that the Easter Bunny and Santa's gifts are going to be on par.) we started getting ready for church. As soon as JR saw his outfit, he ran and cowered in the corner screaming "Nooo!" I was utterly appalled at the thought of a Tony Hawk skateboarding T-shirt as Easter Sunday attire. (Especially with no little girls to dress up.) But after some high-intensity-military-like negotiations, we agreed that he could wear shorts if he'd wear the rest of the outfit.
And yes, JR (like his father) still can't take a picture if there's one drop of sunlight in the sky. (Not to worry, Jason's squinting picture to follow.)


I fixed the squinting problem. But then Kyle and Reed decided they needed balls as props.

This was the one and only family picture we took. Jason couldn't handle the sun in his eyes either, so we gave up after one shot.

Now, you might notice that I'm wearing a sleeveless dress while the rest of the family is in sweaters and there's snow in the yard. Well, being that I was raised in The South here's a few southern Easter dress lessons that I still abide by:

A. You will have a new dress. It must be in spring colors, no black.

B. You need an Easter bonnet. Little girls also need new patent leather white shoes, a new white purse, and white gloves with lace around the cuffs.

C. You will wear your new Easter dress even if "a norther" or "cold spell" has blown in.

And it seems the rule here in Colorado is if the temperature is above freezing, summerware is perfectly acceptable. So the way I see it, I passed both the southern and Coloradoan fashion rules on that one.

Stay tuned for photos from the 1st Annual Ingy Egg Hunt!

One Last Peep

Okay, so I've only got a few more hours to talk Peeps before Easter is over, so I'll hurry this along. We hosted an egg hunt/mini Easter party for our neighbors this afternoon, and here's one of the things I served. The pictures I saw of this on the Internet were much cuter than how mine turned out, but the kids loved it. I'm talking loved it. Big hit.

Peeps Blue Raspberry Sparkle

Happy Easter!

"Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen!" Luke 24:5-6

Like Peas and Carrots

We've turned a corner. JR has started trying fruits and veggies! We are so excited and proud. He's been enjoying his new found love of health food so much that he wanted to put peas and carrots on his cupcakes last night. Woohoo for veggies!

Healthy and Delicious!

And of course, April Fools!

I'm certain I didn't have any of you going for even a second. Not to worry, things are still absolutely the same here. JR won't touch a fruit or vegetable with a ten foot pole. He even helped make the cupcakes and kept saying, "Are you sure they aren't real peas and carrots?" This is a Martha Stewart recipe (peas are Runts, carrots are Starbursts). Martha failed to mention that when cooking with kids (I'm guessing Martha doesn't do a lot of cooking with small children) that you can actually overstir/beat cake batter. But when you've got 3 sous chefs, (I'm seriously thinking I can turn over the cooking duties to them in the next year) everybody has to have their turn or the wailing and gnashing of teeth is too much to take .

The serious chef.

At every moment his little hands aren't busy he's saying, "Cook, Mommy! Cook, Mommy!"

The not so serious chef

The powertools chef

It's also impossible to keep cupcakes away from small hands when they know how to move chairs and use them to climb.

Green Day

The Norwegian German Jew-Baptists that probably have a little Irish in them somewhere since my maiden name is Reynolds wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The Rainbow Connection

I know, I know. You're expecting me to change this over to a craftingcheffing blog any day now. But until then, I'll just keep dazzling you with my amazing homemaking skills. Today's feature is once again showcasing my cheffing talents.

I let the kids make the St. Patrick's Day rainbow cupcakes that are supposedly "all over the Internet". (Although, I only saw them one place.)

JR and I actually got the cake batter mixed up without our twin assistants. They were still napping. And would you look at that, I actually planned ahead. I have the extra 4 bowls out ready to mix in the different colors.

By color mixing time, The Babies were up. Reed moved his own stool to his cooking station and got to work. Kyle, like Mommy, needed a minute to wake up, so he was enjoying some juice and a little TV.

Our colors of the rainbow.

As I was taking the cupcakes out of their pans, this one's top fell off. (I wish my muffin top would fall off.) I couldn't believe it! They really do look like rainbows. Gross Play-Doh looking cupcake rainbows, but JR thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen.

Some green food coloring in the frosting container, a couple of stirs by each kid, and we were St. Patrick's day ready.

I'm guessing the more you mutilate the cupcake as you eat it, the better it tastes.

And it just wouldn't be one of my craftychefy blog posts without some sort of injury/kitchen mishap/ruining of the food, but these pretty much went off without a hitch. Of course, not one to disappoint you, I did stain my fingers with food coloring. And Martha would never let that happen.