Grandmother-hood is Getting Closer!

   Our Daughter-in-law's family and friends threw a baby shower. We tried to surprise her, but FB proved a traitor and she found out...

         I was asked to get the cake...I just was not sure what to make/buy. I asked her sister for help. She sent me a web picture of a cake made in the shape of baby converse sneakers. That lady was an artist! she even made the shoes worn and a clear imitation of her nephew's shoes. I knew that was way out of my league. I sent her a message and said "ha ha! very funny"  But those shoes bugged me and thanks to some wonderful online tutorials like this one I decided to give it a try.

No pictures of the painful learning curve. Found out that ...

fondant does not perform well in humidity
fondant is sort of like working with modeling clay
fondant takes quite awhile to dry, even in the basement next to the dehumidifier
I think that putting a form (foot) inside the shoe and leaving it dry for a few hours is a good idea.
you should start your project more than one day before the party

Anyway, after my 3rd attempt this morning at 4AM, I decided that I will need to buy the cake. Glad I did...W-mart had a yellow cake that looked good with my shoes and they did the writing for me (I usually mess that part up)

Met hubby for lunch today, if you live in this area September Farms is a very good place for lunch. I think it would be a good place to take the girls for a "mama day".

Cheeseburger Soup

Cheeseburger Soup
8 servings
1/2 lb. ground beef
3/4 cup chopped onions
3/4 cup chopped carrots
3/4 cup celery
1/4 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried parsley
1 Tblsp butter
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups diced peeled potatoes
3/4 tsp salt
1/4- 1/2 tsp pepper

1/4 cup flour
3 Tblsp butter
1-1/2 cup milk

8 oz cheddar cheese
1/4 cup sour cream

brown beef, drain  set aside
In same pan saute onions, carrots, celery, basil and parsley  in butter until softened
Add broth and potatoes and beef. cook until potatoes and veggies are soft.
Meanwhile, melt 3 tbsp of butter, add flour, stir till smooth, add milk, (white sauce)
Add cheese to white sauce, slowly,  do not boil
Add to soup
add sour cream, as you are ready to serve.

Of course I change this a bit, I do not use the celery,basil or parsley and you could add other veggies as you have them. We use white American cheese instead of the cheddar. I do not always use sour cream. Add red pepper to give it more spice.

To can:  Don't add the white sauce and cheese mixture. After the vegetables are soft and the soup is boiling, ladle the hot soup in prepared canning jars, be ready with the lids and rings. As the soup cools the lids will seal.  Then REFRIGERATE! When you are ready to serve it for a meal, just add the white sauce and cheese. I have kept soup like this in my fridge for a month and it still was wonderful.

You can process this to keep on your canning shelf by pressure canning for one hour ( according to Keepers at Home magazine) I do not know what pressure that would be.

As always use your nose (and brain) if the soup smells off when you open it...don't eat it!

School Lunches

                                         On Saturday, I made the soup for the lunches this week
                                     It is cheeseburger soup with noodles...an no cheese.

                I wasn't sure about these thermoses, but they have rave reviews from my bunch.  The food is almost too hot, even with an ice pack in the lunch box to cool their other stuff!  A few tips from my research. Put boiling water in the thermos for 10 min and put on the lid. Heat the soup (not in the microwave) until boiling or sizzling (haven't tried any non-soup) the dip into thermos. I use my electric kettle so the stove top is clear for pancake making. They report that the outside of the thermos isn't even hot at lunch time. Even Faith can open it by herself. I bought them here

T-Shirt Gym Bag/Back Pack

I'm sure they aren't called gym bags, but PE bags just doesn't sound right!

I made something like this last year for Zeke and this year Joe has real PE. As in I-Get-to-change-my clothes-for-this-class. Oh and his brothers told him that a 2 minute change is expected...no sitting around and thinking about it.

SO that required a bag for PE clothes.

Take an old t-shirt...or one that has stains at the neck in this case.

Cut off the sleeves and neck.

Fold the top down about an inch...using the zig-zag stitch, make a sleeve for the draw string.

cut a slit in the outer layer of the sleeve, so you have an opening for threading the string...do this on the right and left sides of the bag's top....oh, somewhere in there you can stitch the bottom closed.  If you are using a t-shirt you can leave raw edges.

you need two strings...the length is determined by how big you bag is.

Take the first string and thread it from the right side of the bag, the WHOLE way around until you come out the same hole again.  Take the 2nd string and start on the left side of the bag again coming out the hole you started.

Take the two loose ends on the right and bring them down to the right bottom corner of the bag....make a pleat and stitch (with the sewing machine) the string ends into the pleat. Do the same on the left side of the bag. You can use it for a light weight back pack too.

Seen About These Parts..

 This morning I collected some mint to make tea and came across this little guy...never saw a tree frog before. Heard them, but haven't seen them.  He's sitting on a milkweed leaf.

Ben was wearing these shoes on the job site this week. An inspector from Philly walked by and was heard to say "Look at the Lancaster county steel toes."

First Day of School

 Off they went! Well except for the little one. Oh and last year's senior class got a dose of reality...no school! No change of routine, just off to work. I think he was OK with that, but it really is not long ago that I listened to those crazy songs designed to help 1st grade Ben learn his letter sounds. Educational songs all have a common theme, catchy and super annoying because they stick in your head when you should be remembering the grocery list!  I have threatened to record all those songs and teach the grandchildren AND the teacher's offspring!  Just kidding.....sort of...

 Today poor Shekinah found out that her jump rope really is longer than that. I figured if she is entertained by it in that configuration, why change it?  We will be on the look out for things-to-keep-Shekinah-busy, because when she is sleepy and bored, she takes Hope's things off her sewing machine and hides them in the closet.
OK off to print out pictures for 2 of my children...they both came home from school saying they need a wallet sized photo of themselves...Joe had some left over from last year, but they weren't good enough and Hope's were of course handed out to all and sundry.  ordered some quickly from Walmart and ran out to get them, but apparently I ordered too quickly and the order did not sent...they will be expensive pictures.

What A Weekend!

This past weekend was our last "vacation" before school starts.  I put it in quotes because it was not your typical vacation, yet for a mom, it was a wonderful vacation.

We started out bright and early Saturday morning 4:45 to be exact and headed west. We had a travel group reunion  with Faith's travel group. We were not together since Christmas, I think. We sat around and talked, met new friends, the girls took off and played. I still marvel at the way they are still close even though their everyday lives are quite a bit different from each other...One of the girls is an only child, one is quite athletic and doesn't like too much "prissy" stuff. The 3rd child seems to be about 5 years older than her 8 years, poised and always perfectly groomed. And then there is Faith, the sort of girl that is a tomboy one day and a shrieking "ew-yuck" type of girl the next.  Hope is usually the big sister to the group, but they all play well together riding scooters and rip-sticks or painting bags and making rubber band bracelets. They were all about 9 months old when we met them, so they really shouldn't remember each other, but they share a bond that I don't see even with cousins that are the same age.

Then we left Pitt*burgh and headed west, got a motel and the next morning headed to church and to meet some people that I had only e-mailed with ( talked on the phone with one lady about 2 years ago ) BUT I knew they were believers, had adopted, and had offered to have us for the rest of the weekend.
Knowing that international adoptive families have been fingerprinted and examined to within an inch of their lives, we figured they were safe....:^)
We of course needed to make an impression at a brand new church...Shekinah needed to have a royal hissy fit. Thankfully I had sat close to the rear of the church. This church practices segregated seating (men and women seated on opposite sides of the aisle). I was shooting DH pointed glances and he remained oblivious to his daughters shenanigans...after church I noted that I wished I could have listened to the sermon better. His response "Why? didn't Shekinah sit well?"   Ah well at least he heard the message.

We met a family that adopted  11 (?) of their 12 children. Seven were from Asia, so it was a treat for our girls to play with that many Chinese girls that are also Mennonites. Joe also had the unusual experience of being one of three Chinese/Mennonite boys at church.
We stayed overnight Sunday night and went for breakfast on Monday morning...even though they were dairy farmers they took out time to take us to breakfast...
I realize that I need to work on my hostess skills and maybe we need to build on to the house so we can actually have a free bed for visitors.

Then there are the things that go through your mind afterward, the trails of conversation that never finished
Even though we played the Mennonite game, I know who Krissie's husband's cousins are, but forgot to ask what Krissie's mother's maiden name was...or Marie's.

Then even though I listened to a wonderful CD that the children in the one family produced, it was only today that I realized they are a group and they do this kind of thing regularly...Hope said "mom, the "boy" that lived at that house sings the solo on this song, I know because I heard him singing it at their house..he's the bass."

OK...does that have something to do with the conversation about being able to "get into federal prisons, but not some state prisons."?

Faith's travel group plus her two sisters

The house with the people whose names all mean something...got pictures of them too, but not sure about posting....there was a Grace, Christian, Mercy, Promise, Charity,Jubilee, Song, Ransom, and Blessing...and "mom, the one girl...not the older one, the second one, combs the other girls' hair in the morning and she even does French braids on her own head!"

So that's how you get to church with all those little people!

Oh, sorry to ramble, but we had fun!

The littles were trying to jump rope

Ezekiel managed to have two little friends hanging on to him after the hay ride

We put up some of those neat Ch*nese lanterns

                         Even though S wasn't real sure about the hay ride, she kept saying "fun?"

Well, She Needed Stitches

 Tonight Shekinah was tagging after the biggers and decided to imitate them when they sat down on the "bridge sides" on out driveway...except she didn't stay sitting she needed to look down over the other side and lost her balance. She fell 3-4 feet down and hit a rock or something...The girls both came running to me leaving Joe to figure out if he could manage to maneuver through the brush down to her. Thankfully I was outside already, so I heard and understood the screaming. She was walking out of the ditch with Joe's help and screaming and bleeding.

Three hours later she was the proud owner of 3 stitches that were applied with NO TEARS!  They used something called LET to numb it, it took 20 minutes of holding a cotton ball in place, but it was effective and she didn't flinch when they stitched...I, quite frankly, fully expected her to need to be held down while she rattled the rafters with her screams.
Praise the Lord for that new invention and the fact that dad has off from work tomorrow, as he got to bed after 11 PM...way past his bed time...mine too.  Good Night

Quick Before the Summer is Gone!

This morning a lady told me "you know that my Christmas present is coming on August 26th?"

It wasn't until we were about to drive into our street after church till I started laughing..."I finally got it."

School starts on the 26th for her students...My Christmas is on the 22nd.

The children are actually ready for school, we need a farm or something....

even they are beginning to realize that playing computer games just doesn't cut it.

 So tonight we headed out to Blue Marsh, a local man-made lake, not to speed across the lake on a boat as a lot of people were doing, but to go walking.  Ben even joined us for awhile.

     

    You gotta watch some of these children, they will climb up walls if you let them...actually Ben was helping her...he's the one climbing the walls.

      Then we lined them up..no it isn't by age...those pictures all had someone with a crazy expression. We have been using the spillway reinforcement walls for pictures for quite a few years...they rebuilt them so now we can't get the optical illusion we tried for the other years.  We'll have to come back in the fall when it is a bit cooler...

Reunion Time

      A little over ten years ago, we met these lovely young ladies in a motel room in China. I really need to find those pictures. Tonite, because of another "travel-group reunion" we had the opportunity to meet up with  some of our original group of 11 families. The parents haven't changed a bit! But the girls sure got older!

    Miss Shekinah talked her daddy into feeding the animals...well the koi got most of the food.

  Here we have Emily, Hope, Mahli, and Patti.

And Emily, Mahli, Hope

and Patti!

                                         

And here they are with their siblings...oh, I guess we are missing one of them.

                       

                   

Through the Stomach

They say the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach....I suppose it is true with mothers and sons.
I am hard-pressed to figure out what to feed my 4 or 5 children ( I can count, it's just that some days one is working) at lunch time. Leftovers would be the best solution, but I'm having trouble getting leftovers! When I have enough for another meal I quickly freeze it so it is exactly that...another meal. I don't like to make them eat sandwiches over the summer because they get tired of them during the school year. Also these last four of  my children much prefer hot food unless of course it is a sub with all the expensive sandwich meat.

Somehow the tomatoes look like carrots...but

So today I planned ahead a little and cooked some rice about 11:00.  Then around 11:45 I heated oil in a pan, put down a thick layer of rice and left it heat/brown.  Mixed up about 7 eggs and added 2 tsp sesame oil, stirred that up. I gave the rice a quick stir and poured the eggs over the top...while that settled in a bit I peeled tomatoes and snipped chives....gave the rice and eggs another couple of stirs, added the tomatoes, a bit of sugar (cuts the acid or something) and the chives...heated everything and called the troops.

I added cheese to mine, Shekinah threw her tomatoes onto my plate but the others ate their weight...yeah the white kids will eat this too, but they don't CRAVE it .

Rambling Thoughts

When we are out and about I never know how people will respond to my little brood  or tribe depends on their view of things. The other week I went to a local farm to pick up some green beans. I knew the lady only through my sister-in-law, but I had never actually met the lady.  I took Shekinah with me.
I knew that given the nature of small towns and the broader Mennonite grape-vine she probably knew that I was the lady with Chinese children.
When I got to the farm and paid for the beans she mentioned that there were onions in the field...free for the taking, since they were 2nds...maybe 3rds...only because they wouldn't keep well unless someone could do something with them today, tomorrow at the latest.
She rode with me to the field, when we ventured into the field Shekinah trailed behind and carried some bags, picked up onions and was her normal charming self....after we were finished the lady commented  "she shares something with some of the children in my family."  "She has such straight black hair."
I said, "Oh, I thought maybe someone in your family has the cleft hands." I meet up with people who have a relative who is missing fingers...usually it turns out to be amniotic banding.
She said, "What? her hands?  Oh I never even noticed, I was just watching her."

She earned a star in my mind...she's on the same page as the dear people who look at me and say, but aren't you  like a quarter Chinese?

On other things...why do I start so many things on Mondays?  A quilt run, lunch at mom/grandma, a bushel of tomatoes = 16 quarts of juice and 7 pints of pizza sauce,  help to clean school for the new year.

Tomorrow- start the 5 dresses that Hope thinks she needs for the school year...uniform dresses thankfully...no decisions to make..except maybe, pockets or no pockets?

And all that time 2 delightful stacks of fabric for new quilts await, but first things first.

Of Birthdays and Picnics

Yes, we have an 18 year old. In typical Ben fashion, he was in a hurry and blew out the candles before

Zeke was ready with the camera...Shekinah enjoyed the smoke though.

This afternoon I signed over his savings account to him and he opened a checking account, glad to be done with the awkward phase of needing to do his banking even though his is fully able to go to the bank himself.

Last night they hooked up  three keyboards and a joystick so they could all play Tux  together.

Guess that counts as playing a game together.

Shekinah was in charge of bumping elbows and keeping life interesting. I ended up putting her in the tub to give them some peace...yeah I did put in water.

            Tonite after a "refreshing" jump in the pool (it's cold again from all the rain) the girls continued their "game"  It involved all of their combined matchbox cars and a long village street drawn on the paper. They had a drive up produce stand...Faith would drive up and order apples and oranges and Hope would have someone deliver it to Faith's car. Hope of course was in charge of the money.

 Then they decided to have a town picnic each person(car) was invited...each one is named BTW, they are cross referenced on a piece of paper with the car's number and the name they gave the person. Then on another paper there were food items assigned by number to each person. So the conversation went something like this  (Note Faith keeping a bit of control on the situation)
Hope: Hi! What is your name?
Faith :  Mr Eagle...David Eagle
Hope: Oh, you are supposed to bring dirt pudding.
Faith: Mr Eagle is an old man, he can't make dirt pudding.
Hope: Well he can buy it!
Faith: No he can't he's down to his last dollar.