Christmas 2013

Well our Christmas started just after the 25th officially arrived when Kari started walking down the stairs. I thought I heard something and started snapping my fingers to Holly as a "stop what you're doing, she's about to ruin..."

As I intercepted her halfway down the stairs, Kari asked if Santa had visited yet. She didn't seem to be totally awake so I tried to get her back into bed as fast as possible and let her know Santa wouldn't be able to arrive until all of us were fast asleep.

Just 6 hours later, Kari was back awake and in our room asking to get the day started. We got her to hang on for another 90 minutes until Bryce awoke. Before we came downstairs "officially" I asked Kari about her first attempt at seeing if Santa visited. She looked blankly at both of her parents and literally didn't remember getting out of bed at all. I think we officially have ourselves a sleepwalker!

The traditional Christmas Eve birthday cake for Baby Jesus.  This year's choice of frosting color: carrot cake.  I have no idea why.

 And the traditional Christmas morning picture on the steps.

So at 8:15 it was time to get the much anticipated madness started. Both kids were thrilled to see that Santa not only brought them plenty of gifts, but also ate two of the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies they made, and the healthy clementines in a bowl.

The next 90 minutes was a blur. Santa dropped off boxes that included a Karaoke machine, flip car, road grater, rubber band loom, nerf plane on a gun, among others.

Hair stylist Kari working on her first client.  

Today was a fun day with just the kids. Grandparents are either in other states or coming to see us through next week. we hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a wonderful time with your families.

This Year's Homemade Gift

This year's homemade Christmas gift got its start all the way back in August!  I had seen several articles on making your own vanilla and thought it was worth a try.  Plus, two summers ago one of the labs in my building was getting cleaned out for a remodel and boxes of amber bottles were up for grabs.  (Don't worry, the bottles went through the dishwasher twice.)

I was surprised to learn that pure vanilla extract is nothing more than vanilla beans, cheap vodka and time.  This is definitely not a project to start a week before Christmas!

This also made a perfect little project for Kari and I to work on together.  I split the beans and she dropped them in the bottle.  The embarrassing part now is when Kari publicly declares the need for more vodka whenever we're at the grocery store.

 I found the label printable here.

This is such an easy project I plan to make my own vanilla from here forward.  And, considering how much vanilla we go through in our house between granola and oatmeal pancakes, this actually should be a cost savings.

Staying Warm

It's hard to believe that it's already been a week since Kari, Grandmo and I partook in a gingerbread...ahem, graham cracker house class over at the park district.  We had so much fun!

The woman "teaching" the class had been doing this for 20 years and probably had 20 years worth of candy too.  One family there had been doing this with their kids for the last 10 years.  What a great family tradition!  I expect we'll be back again!

We've been having a lot of fires in the fireplace lately.  The other afternoon Kari and Bryce made their own campfire.

Thankful

We encountered a pretty big weather event Sunday afternoon.  We had known all week that Sunday was going to be wrought with rough weather; no one anticipated it would be this devastating.  In southern Tippecanoe county an EF-3 tornado touched down and ripped havoc on Mintonye Elementary and Southwestern Middle School.  Mintonye is where our good friend Natalie works as the ever-popular lunch lady.  Natalie and her family live less than five miles from where the tornado touched down, so we feel so thankful that her family and farm animals were able to stay safe.  I wanted to share a snippet of an email she sent to family and friends along with some pictures.

Well, we're happy to say everyone is safe and we might only have a couple of trees down in the woods. It could have been a LOT worse, and the way it sounded from our hideout under the stairs, I would've expected a lot worse. I knew it was about to hit the fan when the alpacas all crammed into the barn and Amelia tried climbing the walls in the closet (literally). Animals and their sixth sense....

I'm attaching a few pics from school that our custodian took this morning. We, along with the kitchen staff at Southwestern MS, meet with our supervisor in the morning. We may get reassigned to other schools temporarily to help with the increase from the displaced students. The best I can hope for is that the kids and I will all be in the same building. We could get split up between three, for a fun logistical shuffle every day...

We had a small waste water treatment facility behind our building, and it was completely obliterated. The Superintendent has said that will be one of the biggest obstacles to overcome--walls and the roof-- can be fixed quickly, but dealing with the septic and water issues now are a problem. That also prevents them from putting temporary trailer/classes in the parking lot.

The white door is the kitchen door, where the kids and I go in every day. The tall wooden boards on the right are covering J's classroom. 

 Our former water treatment facility.

Area on far west side of the building (also facing the middle school), where the kindergarten classes are.

And so because of the heavy damage the storm left behind throughout the county, including many homes and traffic lights without power, all of TSC was cancelled yesterday.  I suspect TSC brought in a team of structural engineers to evaluate all of the buildings for damage.  Amy and I quickly headed into 'divide and conquer' mode- I took the morning shift, her father-in-law took the lunch hour, and Amy covered the afternoon.  

It was a banner day for Kari and Nolan.  I took them over to the Union for a little bowling before the most popular class on campus started- yes, bowling! (at least 7 sections a semester with 30 students each.  Kevin and I are both alums of this course; Kevin x2!)  

After bowling we had an early lunch at Pappy's Sweet Shop, topping it off with a milkshake for two.  So cute!  In the afternoon, Amy took them over to Hobby Lobby and to Starbucks for hot chocolate.

Future Occupations

It's far too early to tell what occupations our children will one day choose. Kari has mentioned being a dentist and most recently a cupcake maker. Bryce, well, he doesn't really want to do anything related to work.

However, if we had to guess at this point a potential laborious future for Bryce it will likely include a large vehicle. Options at this point include fireman, trash truck operator, bus driver or farmer. And after today's memorable trip to Morehouse Farms, there's a good chance Farmer Bryce might be coming to a farm near you in the coming years.

Earlier this summer we won a silent auction prize of a "combine ride" at a farm near our house. After a few unsuccessful attempts to schedule the ride, thanks to Mother Nature and a hectic home schedule, we were finally able to connect with Doug Morehouse.

While we had not met Doug before, we arrived at his farm knowing many people who were friends with him. He farms nearly 2,000 acres and was down to his final few days of bringing down the corn before he can call 2013 complete.

Thankfully we were able to get Kari and Bryce into his 3-year old John Deere today. The kids climbed up the ladder and sat in amazement at being in such a large machine. Little did they  know how loud and wild it would get.

Doug took the kids on four "swipes" the length of a couple football fields. At one point, he even let Bryce, or his fancy GPS system, drive the lengthy route. Afterwards we got a brief tutorial on how the corn is harvested. Frankly, the parents could have stayed for a while longer just to learn more about Doug and his livelihood.

In the end, Bryce left with a bright green JD hat and a huge smile. Kari said it was lots of bouncing and a noisy ride, but one she really enjoyed, too. Who knows, maybe one day years from now we'll see if Bryce really does drive a combine by himself.

A Batty 2013 Halloween

I can officially say that I'll take a rainy Halloween night any time!  What a splendid way to curb the intake of candy and keep the candy inventory low in the house.  On the downside, our hand-out bowl looks like it was hardly touched.  That will be heading to the College of Pharmacy candy jar first thing Monday morning!

As usual, we had a neighborhood pizza party prior to trick-or-treating.  It's great to visit with the neighbors, see everyone's costumes and then head out in a monster sized posse.

Kari and Bryce's costumes were once again homemade, but with the help of one of my favorite bloggers.  I made my own bat pattern and the kids got to pick out the satin of their choice.

 Posing with our favorite high school neighbor, Maggie!

We had the added treat of one of my former co-workers and good friend, Tiffany, come to town for a quick overnight visit.  Tiffany lives in AZ now but was back in Indy for a conference.  She made the drive up and spent the night with us.  Kari's piano that she received for her birthday two years ago came from Tiffany.  It was really special to have them sit down and play a couple songs together.  I joked when Tiffany sat down to play a little Journey from memory that the piano was secretly saying, "Thank you!" for playing more than one note at a time :)

Prepping for Halloween

It feels like it has been non-stop Halloween around here.  Last Thursday Kari's class had its Fall Party prior to kicking off Fall Break.  I was glad I could be over for the hourlong event and I was in charge of the craft.  I found a quick and easy bat craft and it seemed to go over well.  Instead of candy, we put Cuties in each of the bags.  I really have to applaud Mrs. Younts and her dedication to a healthy lifestyle classroom.  She made a plea at the beginning of the school year to all the parents to be conscientious when bringing in birthday treats and other snacks throughout the year.  From my observation so far everyone has done a nice job of complying.  There was also a game station and snack station, complete with Goldfish crackers and juice boxes.  The kids earned a class reward for good behavior and chose to have Pajama Day.  A big day all around!

Kari handed out small party favors sewed up in brown craft paper.  Inside was a witches' broom and a flying witch eraser.

Shortly after the party, they departed up to Glen Ellyn for a weekend of grandparent indulgence.  They went to Monkey Joe's, rode the train to Wheaton for ice cream and went downtown GE for trick-or-treating sponsored by the shops and boutiques.  

 Spoiler alert!  Kari and Bryce are bats this year!  More pictures to come soon.

I picked the kids up Monday morning so that we'd back in time for a little Halloween party that Kari had invited some classmates to.  We stuck to a bat theme this year.  Because it was still Fall Break, not everyone she invited was able to come, but three did and everyone had such a nice time together.  Not knowing the weather, everything was planned for down in the basement.

 We got out the eyeball goblets from Bryce's birthday party this summer and used the bar as a buffet and activity center.

 We played guess the candy pumpkins.

Everyone got three chances and Jack won.  Two out of three of his guesses were the closest.  There were 83 pumpkins in the vase.  They also played Halloween Bingo.

 I found some Wilton candy eyeballs to simply decorate the pumpkin muffins.

 Witches' hats are an easy standby at the Keckler house.

 Banana ghosts and Cutie pumpkins were also super easy.

 Red and green Kool-Aid and make-your-own mini pizzas on biscuits rounded out the menu.
We played a couple more games.  Everyone really liked balancing plastic eyeballs on spoons and walking around the house.

 The kids ate a little more and then were ready for the little craft: Boogie Monster Tissue Holders.

Tomorrow evening is our neighborhood Halloween party at a house down the street.  We'll fill up on pizza and other goodies before striking out.  It's supposed to be raining buckets all day tomorrow so I suspect we won't be out long.