in case you were wondering...

I was just going through some of the writings from this past summer by the girls. Here are two of my favorites and as usual, I'm not correcting anything...it's more fun that way!

CREATIVE STORY BY GRACY:
In this story, Gracy was given the first line and had about 3/4 of a page to finish the story.

Leave the cooking to me and this is what you'll see...
A huge feast of nothing but foods from China! Such as: Tea, egg drop soup, crabmeat rangune, and fourchen cookies. Also we will eat with none other than chop-stiks! It will be so much fun we will decorate the house like China. After dinner we will have CAKE! (ok, so cake is not from China I made it myself.) It will be double chocolate! (chocolate on the inside chocolate on the outside) So I have One question for you. Do you whant to eat at my house?... ...What? Your alergec to Chines food? Oh! Okay, we could make grilled cheese instead! Hey where did you go?!


WRITING PIECE BY MAGGIE:
Directions on page read (and no, I did not add emphasis): Think of a shape. Write a paragraph describing it without telling what shape you chose. Have a friend read your paper and guess the shape.

It is black and wite and eats grass and is lion's food to hunt for. And its on Madagasgar.

(at the bottom of her page she wrote something upsidedown...it says "Anser: zebra"

Maggie has always been that kid that asks funny questions. She's asked me things like, "Do I have a birthday EVERY year?" and "Mom, when you were little were pencils invented yet?" or one of my all time favorites, "Mom, did you have cars when you were little?" Sometimes I think she's outgrown this stage. Then we have a conversation like the one this evening during Social Studies homework...

Maggie: Momma, were you born yet in 1607?

Me: No! Why?

Maggie: That's when Jamestown was settled.

Me: Were you wondering if I was around when Jamestown was settled?

Maggie: Yeah.

Me: What did you want to know? Maybe we could look it up together.

Maggie: I dunno.

I try to make an effort to include the girls with the preparation of supper. It's not always easy and usually takes more time. But the time we get to spend together makes it worth it. This year school has been a bigger deal than either of the girls were ready for, requiring extra time spent on homework and less time in the kitchen with Mom. But today I decided to give them a mini break from homework to help out with dinner. Here's what we concocted today:

1/4 c butter
1/3 c chopped onion
1/3 c flour
couple dashes of salt
couple grinds on the pepper grinder
1 box (16 oz) fat free chicken broth
3/4 c milk
2-3 cups (a small Ziploc freezer bag full) of leftover turkey
1 cup carrots (we cut ours like coins)
1 cup frozen peas

Saute onion in butter, salt & pepper. Stir in flour. Add 1 c broth & milk until bubbly and starts to thicken. Stir in turkey, carrots, peas & remaining broth. Heat through (I think it took 15 minutes or so because our turkey was still a bit frozen).

We enjoyed our "Turkey Stuff" (yes, that's actually what we named it) with Gracy's cornbread muffins. I was wishing I would've stopped to pick up salad ingredients, that would've made it perfect!

After a snowball fight with some of the neighborhood kids and some hot chocolate, we put up the Christmas tree this afternoon. It's our standard fake we've had since the girls were little bitty. It's the old school kind where you've got to put each branch on individually and fan them out. And the tree stand...it throws me over the edge each and every year - which is why I begged Cherie to put the stand together this year :) Every year I consider throwing it out instead of packing it back up. But honestly, aside from it being a pain, there is nothing wrong with it.

This year the girls asked if they could make the ornaments for the tree instead of hanging up the stored ones in the boxes. So, we gathered every arts & craft supply in the house and invited a couple of neighbor girls over. The girls and Ben went to town creating all kinds of ornaments. I am happy to report the fake tree is about half decorated at this point. It has been draped in ribbon, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, beads, noodles and aluminum foil.

What can I say? I've always wanted a themed tree. I just didn't expect the theme to be "art supply drawer"!