Birthday Week

Since this week G celebrated one trip around the sun we've had a bit of fun. We weren't really able to do anything Wednesday night, and therefore had to wait until Friday. We opened some presents then and had a lot of fun with a new steel Tonka dump truck. A decided that she could sit in the bed so naturally G tried that as well. He was much easier to push and had a blast being pushed around by everyone.

Today for the party we mainly had friends from work.  Or new neighbours and his teacher showed up though.  He was excited to see her in the sea of not so familiar faces at the very least. A liked opening the toys and helping daddy undo all the zip ties. We tried to make it into a game, but no such luck.

Here though are what everyone really wants: pictures! 

Interesting Developments

Last week was Halloween and we went out as a "Frozen" family. We had Elsa and Olaf, and A had suggested that we be Kristoph and Ana.  Since Chris and I sent always the best at coming up with costume ideas we went with it. We love repurpose-able costumes as I don't want to spend a lot of money on something the kids are going to wear one night.  I have trouble with the prices for the things kids wear for only a couple of months...  Chris and I were able to put out costumes together with stuff out if our drawers, and both the kids have at least a base outfit they can now wear.

As for our interesting development... A has started wanting to read "The Jesus Story" before going to bed. It started Tuesday and is still going strong. Chris has read for an hour most nights he is home and she just soaks up it all. She asks good questions about uncommon words. She will even pick the Bible over Narnia right now, which is weird as she adores the Narnia books.

We also have the interesting development of having G survive his first year. He needs a haircut (as does Chris) but we aren't sure when we will have either done. We will post some pictures on Wednesday, or possibly the day after. Next Saturday we are having a small party for him and hopefully it will be fun.

Fall Festival

Tonight we just got back from a fall festival. A lady from work invited me and it was a great excuse to show off the kids. A was super excited about being Elsa and taking her snowman brother with her. We had a bit of a rough morning and then took a long nap this afternoon.

The kids were the hit of the festival and G win cutest costume. I need to make a few adjustments so that he can walk. But even with adjustments the bulkiness of the costume will be a hindrance. Every Elsa that walled by G said, "It's my Olaf!" and wanted a picture with him. I was glad the costume was recognisable.

Band

Last weekend we went to a wedding reception. It was a lot of fun and GMan LOVED the band. He was their biggest fan and cheered after each song. He clapped and was very upset when they packed up for the evening.

Komen 2014

Some pictures from our day today. As always Google did a good job of piecing together the information.

https://plus.google.com/101939083253376960013/stories/bf12944a-6b9e-384d-9cfa-5255fb3c96d714925f74f6b?authkey=CMjg5tHqtZC5Wg

Biltmore in the Fall

We went to the Biltmore this past weekend and has a good time. We got to see OU beat up on Texas, even if they let them in there at the end. We also got to see the farm and all the construction they are doing at the estate. We didn't play with the baby chicks. G slept through the chick part while A was a bit to scared to actually hold one. The nice lady was willing to help her and showed her multiple times how to make the chick feel comfortable. However, A would just touch the bird and start giggling. She also wanted to check how many eggs they had that day and was highly disappointed when they didn't know.

Outside the farm there was a great fall scene. There were a couple of scarecrows, some pumpkins and a couple names of hay. G and A did well with the hay and both also loved the pumpkins. They were the realistic looking foam ones so it helped tremendously. A decided that the pumpkins needed to line up and G decided he just wanted to roll the pumpkins around.

Empanadas

We got some oil for fried chicken and it had a recipe for pumpkin parmesan empanades. We made them a few weeks ago with pumpkin and then tonight with butternut squash. It is easy but takes a bit of time, as all fried foods do.

Dough

3 C floor
9 TBS butter
Enough milk to make the dough stick together

Filling

Oil to sauté onions/leeks
1 leek to the green part or 1 cup onion
1 TBS Thyme
0.5 TSP salt
Pepper
16 ounces of pumpkin
0.5 C ricotta cheese
1 C Romano or parmesan or asiago (or a combination)

Make the dough and chill for a bit.

Wait the onions and spices together. Add in the vegetable and stir. (Stir while hot and evaporate some of the water since we used fresh vegetable).  Add in the cheeses while still warm to help melt and blend it all together.

Make small pouches with the chilled dough and fill with filling. Fry in oil of choice until browned on both sides. They come out super yummy. G sat here and hummed the entire time while doing his happy dance. A thought the dough alone was fantastic both times and ate more of that than the finished product. They store well and are good for a while. We had them a week and change after we made them and they were still good. A has helped roll the dough both times and G has learned to climb well enough that he helped today. Watching is the first part of learning and both kids are doing well in that regard. 

We've not done much except work and go to school lately. We are both wondering what's going on with us being here and hoping that it all works or for the better.

We seem to have found a good church for now. They do a lot of kids stuff and have several families. We're just going that we can build some relationships and survive here.

We are working with A and her being kind. She is super concerned with things and what is hers. It is starting to bother us as we are curious why the obsession is there. She isn't using nice words and it is a sign of the day care she is at because of the way they interact there. She then brings it gone. We are hoping that something will change in our situation before G gets into the 2 year old classroom because a lot of the problems seem to stem from that room. We shall see.

Here are a few pictures.  A with the butternut squash we got a few weeks ago and have made several meals of. G with an empanada. Just the yummy empanada.