February Family Feast

We had our Anniversary/Love/Valentine's Day/February Family Feast today. Last Sunday (Valentine's Day) might have been a more appropriate day, but we had just gotten home late the night before from our little anniversary-get-away-turned-family-ski-trip to Jackson Hole. So we were in a bit of recovery mode. Today was a good back up day for our feast. Abi and Lily were my helpers and they did a splendid job. I had them pose for a few pictures before Corey got back home with all the kids -

Lots of pink food - Salmon, roasted red potatoes, mashed potatoes, beet salad, red grapes, lots of pink desserts, pink and purple and white flowers everywhere - 

Abi made the mashed potatoes and we put a little bit of beet juice in from my roasted beets, that was fun! Beets have such a pretty and vibrant color! I love it

Corey took the kids over to his parents house from like 2-5 so we could get everything ready. We told them to go get dressed up and then we could eat. Natalie is excited about the dessert tower!

Hyrum was smart and just stayed in his church clothes. He had mission prep at 2:30 and headed over to Corey's parents after that, around 3:45, even though he knew they were all coming back soon. We had a fun surprise when Joseph walked in the door! Around 2pm I thought "Bummer! We should have invited Joseph up!" and then lucky for us, Corey had already thought of that and told him. He cleaned up a little while we girls finished cooking and decorating. Everyone ready for the feast to begin. The girl's side (and Daniel... Lily had to rearrange the place seating when Joseph showed up)

Boy's side - 

Peter was excited about the berries in cream and didn't wait for us to give thanks. 

A few pretty pictures of our place settings - china that we got for our wedding from Corey's grandmother. We still have a few pieces that are not broken, although there is a crack or chip in many of them.

I love this balsamic beet and citrus salad...

Fine dining... seeing which kids pass the test. Joseph gets a point.

Owen putting salt on his brownie. He didn't make a mess though, so maybe we'd be willing to bring him to a restaurant.

Peter enjoying more desserts. 

This is a simple and do-able tradition that I'm hoping we will keep. I thought we'd done this every year but I might have missed a few... 2013 was our first family dinner, 2014 we had monthly parties that were over the top, 2015 was a decent showing... 2016 was good... (note to self, always get a group photo of the kids), 2017 Corey and I were in San Diego, in 2018 a snowstorm cancelled my last minute fancy dinner plans. Looks like I didn't do a family meal in 2019, but that's ok cause I had a one month old infant. Corey and I did get a night away. 2020 we did a fancy breakfast (I wish I had found that post first cause it has all the links I just posted above which I had to search for and find). Ok, well anyway. I've added this to my calendar to have a Family February Anniversary Feast sometime around valentine's day and our anniversary. It will be a little family feast celebrating the month that Corey and I were married and the month that we had our first kiss (19 Feb 1995) and the month that we were married in the temple. We watched our wedding video as part of our tradition tonight. I wonder if all these little people's spirits were there celebrating with us that day. It was an important day for all of us. It was the day our eternal family began. I'm grateful for my belief in the promise that because of Jesus Christ and temple, we can be together forever.

School Year's Eve Lunch

Now that we're back from Brazil and now that Owen has been born, I'm ready to start doing little family "parties" again. We started off with a "School Year's Eve" event, like we did last year.

We began our celebrations today with a fun dinner, but it was more of a lunch. Last year they took hot lunch, so this school lunch was more in memory of cold lunches from year's past. Sandwiches, chips, fruit, gogurts, and Little Debbie snack cakes. H and A acting weird...

Ok, everyone grab your lunch tray and go through the lunch line for your dinner.

You're cute Lily

It was a busy last day of summer ~ the kids all went over to a neighbor's birthday party at 2 and then Hyrum had a band concert that night, so we squeezed this little activity in at 4:30. Corey wasn't able to make it, but ya do what you can.

The kids smiled for a photo, then Joseph asked me to give him a count down so I could capture an action shot ~ can you spot the "action"?

Yes, Joseph threw a fruit snack at Ethan's head. the kids liked it. Joseph wanted me to get him in action catching a gold fish. The gold fish cracker as harder to see... But Sophi is cute

Ah, there is a little gold fish in flight!

Everyone's excited for the first day of school tomorrow ~ it's gonna start bright and early with Joseph leaving for Jazz band at 6:15. That will definitely feel early, when compared with the teenager's usual 11 am rise and shine time this past week. We're going to do more activities during the week - like our supply station (I gotta make another run to the store for binders and notebooks), a annual school year questionairre, and we'll probably do father's blessings on Sunday. Ready or not, here the new year comes!

February Party

We had our family February party tonight, in celebration of Love, Valentine's Day, our anniversary, and all things red and pink. The kids helped with much of the preparations, I did most of the room decorating. They helped set the table and prepare food. We were all set to go around the time the sun was setting, which helped with the ambiance ~

Here's a few pictures of the dinner party preparations

I put our wedding video on to help them contain their excitement and all sit in one place while I went and put on a red dress.

Corey and I have a pretty fun and great courtship story, if I do say so myself.

After the movie was over we sat down at the table. 

You kids ready to dig in?

I made a perfect amount of dinner food and it all got served up and eaten, and after dinner was done we opened up the dessert buffet ~ we had extras there by the evening end, which they were glad to eat for breakfast, cake for breakfast!

Natalie's glass was plastic, but she still made me nervous cause she's grab it with such eagerness, she seemed to be about to topple her seating companion's drinks on a few goes. She did pretty good for her first time sitting at the table for a fancy dinner. I still kept my eye on her most of the time. I think we need a bigger table!

Then the mess to clean up after, it looked like we'd just had a party

After we cleaned up most of the kitchen, Corey took the kids dancing in the front room, it was fun. Got a few videos of it. There wasn't enough of dad to go around and Sophi and Abi did quite a bit of weeping and wailing when it was someone else's turn.

"We are a happy family!" 

Turkey Fruit Plate

So yesterday Corey took the kids swimming again and I stayed in the room to make turkey heads for a little holiday treat I had planned. 

I got some of the ideas for how to do this via pinterest, but this was my own creation!

We had them for a lunch snack while they waited for our turkey feast to finish cooking.  

Items needed:

• red icing
• candy corn
• mini oreos
• Nutter Butter cookies
• chocolate chips
• graham crackers
• pretzel sticks
• regular pretzels
• white frosting
• fruits of choice (we used raspberries, blue berries, red grapes, green grapes, and bananas)

I made the heads and then let the kids do the rest and personalize their plates. Here's how I made the heads:

Get a nutter butter cookie - put a glob of red icing on it, stick the candy corn in that and let it dry

To help the candy corns not slide off the icing, I just propped them up on each other or a spoon handle. They dried quickly. Then I put on the mini oreo eyes by breaking off a small piece of graham cracker to hold up the front eye.

Put a bit of icing on that as glue

then break a mini oreo in half until you find two good halves and put the far eye down first, and then the front eye:

Then put a chocolate chip on each cookie for the pupil and viola~ Turkey heads!

I had one example for the kids to see, so they could know where we were going with this.We made the turkey bodies with graham crackers, just cut off the corners to make it kinda rounded. Put a little frosting on a piece of cracker behind the head to keep it level.

Frosting as the glue behind the pretzels made good turkey legs and feet.

This turkey was our demo and then served to Corey and his little friends Natalie and Sophi.

So after showing the crew the how to of this holiday treat, I put the fruit, pretzels, and frosting on the table and let the kids go to town.

Wesley was the first one finished. Good job buddy!

Next was Melodie

Joseph said his turkey was out in a snowstorm, hence his excuse for slathering it in white frosting.

His brothers thought it was brilliant and followed suit. Actually Ethan said his turkey had a white bear, it was a wise Gandalf turkey.

Hyrum's turkey:

Lily's turkey:

Abi's turkey - her turkey was running away, didn't want to be eaten!

Happy Thanksgiving!!