11/28-12/4

Feast! (or famine)
Thursday, Miriam had a feast at school the parents were invited to attend.  They'd planned it for the week before Thanksgiving but because we'd cancelled school due to the snow, they had to reschedule.  Miriam was so excited for the feast and really wanted me there.  The teacher had the children make invitations for the parents and Miriam copied what was on the board.  She wrote down "12/10" as the date of the feast.  She doesn't have school that day and I wrote a note to the teacher asking for clarification.  One of the parent volunteers called me two hours before the feast to say she'd found my note and the feast was that day.  I was babysitting Seth and Ellie so they got (had) to go to the feast with me.  Elizabeth and I have piano lessons at the same time the feast was scheduled for but luckily our teacher is flexible and we were able to reschedule.

Miriam made her native american costume

at the feast.  They had lots of healthy choices. 

Miriam ate popcorn.

When we got to the school, I had an suspicion that our feast might be a bit lacking.  There were two long tables set up.  One was richly decorated with personalized place mats at each spot.  There were baskets of rolls, muffins and popcorn.  The other long table where the parents were sitting was totally bare.  The two kindergarten classes came in and sang a few very short songs (maybe three minutes total).  Then, it was time for the feast.  The children found their spots and a few of the parents brought the food around.  Then, we (the invited parents) sat at our sad bare table and watched them eat. 

Our view from the parent table

What a feast!  Later that night Miriam asked me why I hadn't eaten with her.  I told her parents weren't invited to eat, just watch.  She said, "I think it's boring to watch other people eat."  I agree!

A Very Busy Friday and Saturday

My mom paid for Millie and I to go to Crafty Maiden with her this year.  It's a cookie/gift exchange taken to the extreme.  The idea is that everyone makes 12 dozen cookies and 12 hand made items.  You decorate everything to make it blingy and bring it to the event.  I made beveled glass snowflakes and miniature caramel tarts.  I spent Friday making cookies.  12 dozen plus more for sampling!

3 stages of cookies: finished, just with caramel, and empty

Miriam HAD to take my photo

I needed a way to display my snowflakes and came up with the idea to use a trellis.  Dode got home from work and in just under an hour he had to:  eat, build a trellis from scratch, put the cover back on the portable garage (removed due to a wind storm last week) and gather up all our Christmas decor. Then, he was off to the church to help decorate for the Christmas breakfast the next morning.  I've accumulated quite a bit of Christmas decor through after Christmas sales and it was needed for decorating the church.  Once the trellis was complete, I still needed to paint it, find a way to hang the snowflakes, and light it.  I ran to wal-mart and grabbed lights and hangers that had a sticky back.  The paint was dry by the time I got home so I stuck up the hangers and the lights.  Everything looked wonderful.

I'd planned to spend the time between the produce truck getting here and volunteers arriving to get ready for the day (important things like eating breakfast and getting dressed up). When I came down in the morning, all the light hangers had peeled away and my lights were in a big jumble on the table.  The truck was a half hour late (I use the truck arrival as my alarm clock) and the first volunteer a half hour early which left me no time to get ready. Pick up time was from 8:00-8:30. Usually by 8:30, there are 1-2 baskets left. This week there were around 10. I had people who were willing to help me with the clean up but it was still crazy.  I was running around trying to get fancied up while dealing with produce questions, kid questions, and last minute crafty maiden preparation.  

To make things even more fun, our septic tank is having problems and won't pump the liquid into the drain field. The pump tank fills up and just spills into the lawn. We called a company to come service the tank but they are on vacation until next week. In order to not stink out the the produce people, we turned off the water to the house.   Dode had to leave to take Isaac to his robotics competition but before he left, he turned the water back on.  Somehow the urinal got jammed in the running position so I ended up running around the house, trying to finish getting dressed, looking for a screwdriver to turn off the urinal while water is flowing out onto the lawn and people are out there.  Good times!  I finally was ready to leave for my activity just a half hour behind schedule.  Dode had barely finished dropping off  Isaac to his event before the girls started calling to ask where he was so they could go to the ward Christmas breakfast. 

Crafty Maiden

I made it to the Crafty Maiden just a little frazzled.  Dode met me there and helped me get set up.  Since I was late, we were trying to set up while people were trying to sample my cookies and view my display and move around the crowded room.  You walk around looking at what people brought and sampling their cookies for about an hour.  You get to judge every one's hard work.  Then, they serve lunch (a gourmet lunch with tiny portions). 

After lunch, the exchange begins.  Everyone is given a number based on when you registered and they call out numbers in groups.  You have 1 minute to choose something and then your turn is over.  The idea is for you to end up with 12 hand made items and 12 dozen cookies.  My mom had told me that it was a competition and the categories were: best cookie, best artisan, best other, best presentation.  The only category that wins an actual prize is best presentation.  I decided I was going to try for every category so I went all out.  My caramel tarts had homemade caramel with a cooked butter cream frosting.  My snowflakes were time consuming but beautiful.  (Mostly made while listening to General Conference)  My cookies were beautifully packaged and my snowflakes looked great in the trellis.  Now I know that I worked too hard!

You had to go with the theme which this year was "Winter Wonderland".  There were over 100 people at the event and when I got there, I was disappointed to see that a lot of them had brought store bought items.  After all my work, I'd like to be exchanging with someone else who'd worked hard too! 

wearing my winner's apron

Well, I came in 2nd for best presentation.  (So close to the grand prize!  I think I might have won if I hadn't arrived late after many of the ladies had already voted.)  My snowflakes were very popular.  I had one participant come up to me and thank me for making them.  She said she'd used her first three turns to get three snowflakes.  They had a lot of door prizes and almost everyone won something.   I won 5 gallons of paint and an in home color consultation from the Crafty Maiden organizer.  My mom won two vases.

Millie was excited she won a cookie jar as a door prize.

Dode stopped in with Miriam and William part of the way through the day to check on us. 

Miriam stole some cookies from grandma.

First Lego League
It was Isaac's second year participating in the First Lego League robotics competition.  Isaac is part of a team that designs and builds a robot out of legos.  They are notified ahead of time what the competition obstacles will be and they try to navigate their robot through the competition area, earning points for accomplishing various tasks.  This year, Isaac was a programmer who helped design how the robot would behave.  We were very fortunate the competition was held at a high school only about a mile away from the Crafty Maiden.  Dode was able to help me and still see Isaac compete.  Isaac's team ended up coming in 4th.

They all had lab coats.  Their team name is "Duct Tape".

Miriam and William watched the competition along with Dode

after the first round, Isaac's team was in 2nd place

tweaking the program

checking out the robot

everyone earns a medal

Green Smoothies

Although I love the produce co-op because we get a variety of fresh produce, sometimes we get too much of something I really don't care for.  Such was the case with Kale and Spinach.  I went to allrecipes.com to try to find a way to use it.  I was looking for a soup.  What I found was green smoothies.  With 40% green leafies and 60% fruit, you don't even taste the green stuff.  It just turns the smoothie green.  William and I have been sharing one at breakfast each day.  It's a great way to use up some of the fruits we've had around a while.  I actually find myself looking forward to it each morning.

ready to go in the blender

a cup of green goodness