Duck Season...Rabbit Season

Well, let's see - where to start.  My 10 year old, Jordan, is in 5th grade and he rides the bus after school from his school to my school.  Last Tuesday after he got to my school, he told me that he needed to go to the computer lab to work on his Colonial Research Project (1st I had heard about it).  He tells me that he has to research a topic from the Colonial times, write about it and do a presentation.  Since he is in GT, he also has to make his topic, and that it is due on Friday.  He had been working on it in class a little bit.  Some of the topic categories were games, crafts & hobbies, food, & clothing.  So Jordan had picked a food because he figured it would be easy for us to make it and chose Beefsteak Pie.  He said that he thought it sounded like something easy and so his teacher found a recipe for Beefsteak Pie, printed or copied it and gave it to him.  He handed it to me on Tuesday and told me that we had to make it by Friday.  Before I go any further, I thought I would share this recipe that he placed in my unsuspecting hands (the red parts are the ones that cracked me up the most) so you could see what he thought I was going to do:

Colonial Beefsteak Pie Recipe

• 16 servings
• Prep:  30 min.  Cook:  2 hours

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound sliced bacon, diced
• 2-1/2 pounds beef stew meat, cubed
• 2 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) beef broth
• 1/2 cup red currant jelly
• 2 dressed rabbit (about 3 pounds each), cut up
• 1 can (14-1/2 ounces) chicken broth
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 pound pearl onions
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 2 medium potatoes, diced
• 1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1 dressed duck (4-1/2 pounds), cut up
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cold water
• 1 package (17.3 ounces) frozen puff pastry, thawed

Directions

• In a kettle, cook bacon until crisp; drain, reserving bacon and 1/4 cup drippings in pan.  Brown beef in drippings.  Add beef broth and jelly; cover and simmer 45 minutes.  Cover rabbits with water in a pot; simmer for 1 hour or until meat falls from bones.
• Remove meat; set aside (discard bones).  To beef mixture, add chicken broth, bay leaf, salt, pepper and cayenne; simmer 20 minutes.  Add onions, carrots, potatoes and mushrooms; simmer 20 minutes or until tender.  Remove bay leaf.
• In another pot, cover duck with water; simmer until the meat nearly falls from bones.  Remove meat; set aside.  Mix flour and water; stir into beef mixture.  Cook until thickened.  Add rabbit and duck meat.  Cut puff pastry into 3-in. squares and place on a greased baking sheet.  Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes; place on individual servings of meat mixture.  Yield:  16 servings.

I about fainted when Jordan handed this recipe to me and I told him that he was crazy!  Or his teacher was crazy!  First of all I'm no chef - I couldn't cook this.  Second, I work all day and would not have time between Tuesday and Friday to make this.  Third, at the highschool we had end-of-six-weeks grades due on Friday so I would be busy with that.  And last, we can't afford to buy all those ingredients for a school project!  I went straight to the computer to email his teacher to ask if we could switch topics.  As I'm typing this email and sharing all the reasons I gave above for not being able to do this, I all of a sudden got an image of myself in my head roasting rabbit and duck in a pot until the meat was falling off the bones (and thinking of Looney Tunes cartoons) and I started cracking up laughing.  Jordan and I got so tickled.  I couldn't hardly breathe I was laughing so hard.  I had a couple of students in my room taking a test.  They were getting a kick out of listening to me tell Jordan he was crazy and laughing so hard I was crying.  At least I could find the humor in the situation.

His teacher emailed me back and the beginning of her response was, "Oh, My!"  Apparently, her student teacher had organized this project so she had the student teacher email me back.  And the student teacher told me that she had encouraged the students, especially the GT students, to take home their top 5 choices of topics for approval by their parents so that we would be aware of any necessary food items or construction that would be required for this project.  Ahh, so now the real story comes out.  Of course, Jordan did not do this.  He just says, "Here's my topic and here's what we have to make."  He also tells me (after I emailed the teacher) that the teacher said if we couldn't get some of the ingredients, then we could leave things out or substitute ingredients.  Oh, good to know, Jordan.  Luckily the teacher allowed him to switch topics and so we made shrub instead.  It is a drink consisting of cranberry juice, sherbet, and a slice of lime.  Much better!  So, duck season...rabbit season...fire!...didn't have to happen. :)

Professional Pics from Mark & Sarah's Wedding

Trying to embed a slideshow into my blog.  Seeing if it works.

My sweet girl!

Wow!  It's been a long time since I've blogged.  Probably nobody even goes to my blog to read it anymore since I take so long between posts.  Oh, well.  It's mainly for me to remember and share memories.
Jordan had told us a few years ago that he wanted to live with us forever.  He never wanted to get married and stay with us.  We just chuckled and told him that of course he could live with us for as long as he wanted.
Tonight as I was driving home with Rachel and Joshua in the car, Rachel and I had a similar conversation that went something like this:
Rachel:  "Mommy, when I get older I'm going to leave our house."
Me:  "Yes, someday when you're older."
Rachel:  "You & Papa are going to miss me when I leave."
Me:  "Yes, Rachel, we will miss you a lot."
Rachel(starting to get teary-eyed):  "I'll be sad when I leave your house."
Me:  "You don't have to leave if you don't want to.  You can stay with Mommy & Papa for as long as you want to."
Rachel(wiping her tears, voice cracking):  "OK.  I don't want to ever leave.  But I won't be the same me."
Me:  "It's okay.  You'll just be bigger.  Mark still lives with Grandma & Grandpa and he is a big boy.  He is about to move out of their house now because he and Sarah are getting married and he wants to live in his own house with Sarah.  You might meet a boy one day that you want to marry and that would be the only reason you might want to leave our house."
Rachel:  "No, Mommy.  I'm never going to want to marry any boy and leave you."

I just had to get it down in writing so I can show Rachel what she said when she decides to get married one day.  If only their sweet words could last forever! 

Out of the Mouths of Babes!

Well, each of my children always has something funny to say. More when they're little, but sometimes the older ones too.

Jacob has gotten old enough that he doesn't have too many funny slipups anymore. Joshua is young enough that he still doesn't say many words, but his facial expressions are hilarious. He'll give a look sometimes that is like rolling his eyes, but he droops his eyelids really low and glances out of the corner of his eye at you. Then he laughs very loud and runs away.

Jordan and Rachel gave us a couple of funny kid-isms to share again.

First, Jacob was saying (for some reason I can't remember), "I've fallen and I can't get up!" - the quote from that old commercial. And Jordan said, "Is that Shakespeare?" Jacob pretty much fell out on the floor laughing at him.

While Jacob & Jordan were in Houston a couple of weeks ago, I was trying to get Rachel to help me with something and she didn't want to do it. I said, "I'm doing all these fun things with you. Today I took you to the park and Children's Museum and tomorrow we're going to the Bounce, and how do you repay me?" And she said, "I don't know! 50 dollars?"

Techno Kiddos

I continue to be astounded at how quickly kids catch on to technology. Rachel and Joshua are growing up with a whole different type of technology than Jacob and Jordan have experienced before now. It is so funny to hear the things that Rachel says and see the things that Joshua does related to technology.

1st story: We have a TV with DVD and VCR upstairs in the kids' gameroom and we have a Blu-Ray player with our TV downstairs in the living room. Rachel wanted to watch a movie and I told her that she needed to watch it upstairs. She said, "But Mommy, the movie is on Blu-Ray!"

2nd story: This is partially my fault - When I run errands, take the kids to the doctor, go to events for the older kids, etc, I usually let Joshua play on my iphone because it keeps him happy and quiet and then we don't have a scene like in one of my prior blogs. I have gotten free apps that are educational games for little kids and have 2 movies on my phone that I let them watch, too. Anyway, Scot and I decided we needed to cut back on Joshua's "iphone time". He fusses everytime he sees my purse wanting my iphone and is obsessed when he has it. So I got some of his usual toys for him to play with in the car when I was going to take Jacob, Jordan, & Rachel to the dentist. I had gotten everything together and was herding the kids out of the house toward the car. I had left my purse and Joshua's diaper bag sitting on a chair. As I turned around to tell Joshua it was time to go, he had already thrown his other toys on the floor, unzipped my purse, and taken out my iphone and was trying to input the passcode to start playing on it. I couldn't believe that sneaky little devil. I was glad I had the iphone at the dentist, though, since I spent an hour and a half with Joshua in the waiting room.

They continually amaze me!

Baby Pictures

Since our oldest "baby" is starting highschool in the fall, I thought it would be fun to post baby pictures of all the kids to see how they looked compared to each other. It's funny because I have to scan pictures of Jacob and Jordan. There weren't digital cameras when Jacob was a baby, but there probably were when Jordan was a baby - we just didn't have one yet. We got our first one in December 2001. Hope you enjoy the look back!

Jacob as a newborn

Jacob at 1

Jacob at 2

Jacob at 3

Jacob at 4

Jordan as a newborn

Jordan at 1

Jordan at 2

Jordan at 3

Jordan at 4

Rachel as a newborn

Rachel at 1

Rachel at 2

Rachel at 3

Rachel at 4

Joshua as a newborn

Joshua at 1

Joshua hasn't reached 2,3, or 4 yet so here is an updated school picture at 18 months.

A Real Tee, Finally!

Joshua's Batting Tee

Well, I found the perfect t-ball stand for Joshua at Walmart today. He loves it! I made a video of him, but of course it's too long for my blog. I'm going to post it on facebook for you facebookers and see if I can somehow provide a link here. I shall return to add the link if possible.