Changes, changes, changes

So Blogger is telling me I am out of space and trying to sell me more storage somewhere. I am not sold. On a little hiatus while I figure out how to update my blog.

In other news, we had a great Thanksgiving, spending most of the weekend in NY helping clean out homes flooded by hurricane Sandy.

I started a part-time job that I am excited about. I will be tracking black soldiers from the Civil War through the United States censuses until they die and compiling information into a database about where they were, what they were doing and who they were living with.

Geral is loving kindergarten and is learning so much.

Rachel thought that her weekend with Lexie and Ellie as sisters was the best she has ever had.

Steven is working on getting a drivers license. He completed behind the wheel and just needs to accumulate hours driving and the required 9 months before he can snag the license in March.

William is singing in his school choir and has a concert coming up next week.

Sarah is relieved that the marching band schedule has chilled. She is busy trying to keep up with homework.

And Lauren comes home on Saturday for a 3 week visit over the holidays! We have been counting down the days and her little sisters like to call and tell her how many days are left.

That is the quick update. Hopefully, I'll get more posted soon.

Christmas Candy 2012

For the past five days I have worked with Dad on the Christmas candy. I don't have any pictures of the process this year but I can give you a breakdown of the materials we used.

20 lbs white sugar
 6 lbs brown sugar
 2 lbs butter
 5 cans sweetened condensed milk
 3 qts heavy cream
 2 qts half and half

 2 lbs pecans
 1 lb pecan meal
1 1/2 lb walnuts
 1 lb black walnuts
1/2 lb hazelnuts
 1 lb almonds
1/2 bag coconut
1 1/2 lb pistachios

3 1/2 lbs white chocolate
6 lbs milk chocolate
6 lbs dark chocolate

We turned these ingredients into:

7 batches of fondant flavored with orange, cherry, mint, maple walnut, vanilla and pistachio
2 batches of fudge
3 batches of caramels, some with black walnuts, some with pecans and some plain
120 turtles
Lots of sugared and chocolate coated nuts

These were packaged into

20 large boxes
14 medium boxes
 6 small boxes

and

4 boxes dedicated to holding turtles, with a dozen in each one.

That is a lot of candy!!!

All this goodness is packaged and ready to be taken to Grandma's house where the family can pick up their treat from her as they wish her a Merry Christmas!

Halloween Disguises

Can you guess what they are?

A mime

A Mermaid

Dragon

Side view

Subtle Halloween spirit

And not pictured is Steven as Batman. I didn't get a picture of him but he wore a batman shirt and a cape.

MYOB MOM

This evening I attended the high school football game so that I could watch my daughter march in the halftime show. Rachel accompanied me. My little motor mouth kept up a running dialogue all evening. Questions about the game, comments about the show, requests for money so she could run to the concessions stand, and random, train of consciousness information. All voluntary and completely random. Yet when I asked her a question, one that might give me a little insight into my girl, something as innocent as, "So, what's the name of your favorite friend that you play with at school?", all I got was a head turned away from me and lips zipped tight. "Really," I said, "you aren't going to tell me the name of your school friend?" She turned to look at me and primly stated, "I don't tell you my school business." It's only 6 hours a day of her life that I am not allowed to know any part of. Thank goodness for parent/teacher conferences. I'm looking forward to those next week.

Trip to the Fire Station

On Saturday, the local fire station had an open house. Rachel was excited to go visit. Geral wanted to go to the park. So we combined the two and had an adventure. Rachel, Geral and I hopped on our bikes and rode to the fire station. The girls got to drive and ambulance and explore the back. They got to climb inside the fire truck and check out the equipment. The fire dog demonstrated "Stop, Drop and Roll" several times and they got to pet her. And Rachel got to run the fire hose. Geral opted out of that exercise since she really just wanted to get to the park. They were awarded fire helmets for their efforts.

After our tour of the fire station, we rode on to the playground. Geral got to whiz across the monkey bars some more and swing to her hearts content. It was a fun outing for a beautiful fall day!

Monkey Girl

Geral has long desired to speed across the monkey bars. She has been quite diligent practicing and this week she finally made it all the way across. This video is of her second time accomplishing the feat. Since this video was made earlier this week, she has become a monkey bar speed queen. She can fly across the bars now in no time at all.