Kamite Sister's Latin Dance Party

Here are some pics of the event we attended the other evening.  The Kamite Sisters organized this "dance party" for all their dance students to perform what they've learned.  You can imagine the kids went bezerk with excitement.  We added 2 princesses to our 6 (not so princessy offspring) & ended up with a van load of 8 excited kids taking turns singing their school anthems at the top of their lungs, starving for snackies & desperate to know the real question we all want to know in life "ARE WE THERE YEEEEEET?"

 So yeah, we got there, & here's a few pics of how it went (stole some pics off of the Dancing Sister's blog, tx):

 

Hanging out in the dressing room, talking about important childhood issues no doubt.

Getting beautified!

Everyone including a super-dandy-coordinated-husband-of-friendliness-&-love learning some samba moves from the teachers. 

A terribly excited Hunter watching everyone dance

Ryan & Nattie

Laner & Keith

Drinking ungodly amounts of juice for which they paid for dearly by doing the famous "I-gotta-go-pee-dance" & I practiced my old faithful dance better known as "how-many-kids-can-you-ferry-to-the-bathroom-in-an-hour". 

Kids & their dance teachers.  Some suspiciously tired looking smiles there.  All in all it was a great memorable evening.  And just for future reference if all 8 kids ask you if you if they can take off their shoes & socks in the van after a long sweaty day of dancing around......JUST SAY NO!

Birthday Ban!

Belated & I can't promise (or don't want to) that I'll put up all pictures of birthday cakes (since some had fantastically "sell out" & "doomed for failure" themes like "Star Wars" etc...) but this one was too cute. Hunter's 2nd Birthday cake. A Kiki & Lala themed florescent cake of love!

My ultra-techincially profound way of decorating cake. AKA, slap it on baby!!

Busy mom's favorite cop out, wash charaters & smoosh them into icing.

Equals......Super duper happy little birthday boy!! TADA!!!!

Boys will be.....

Apparently swings are just not interesting enough if you were to merely swing on them. A more manly approach....

pretending to fall off swing
Crashing into the other guy till he falls off swing
Pretending to surf/skateboard/snowboard/be a jedi on swing
Have as little body contact with swing as possible
Join the circus because of cultivated swing styles


Boys will be....and that's why I love them

Take the Apple......bite the Apple......

A SIMPLE STORY ABOUT AN APPLE Hunter: Mommy...Noook, NOOK! MOOOOMMY! Appos, nots & NOTS of APPOS! Daddy (mumble mumble) APPOS!

Mommy: (delinquently trying to get some me time on the computer, at the end of the day) Really Hunter, cool!

Hunter: NOTS & NOTS!!!

Mommy: Yes, maybe we can have some later....(continued delinquency on the computer)

Hunter: (long suspicious pause of silence)

Mommy: BAAAAAN?

Hunter: (running over & talking with a stuffed mouthful) num num nummy...

Mommy: (Dashing over to the apples & observing) BAAAAANTANMommy: (grabbing camera & trying to look disapproving) Baaan, what do you have to say for yourself???

Hunter: (obviously not sorry in the slightest bit) Sooorryyyyyyy! (Snicker Snicker)

THE END!!

At Home with Nature & other nonsence.

Chocolate Mousse Pie: a belated act of love for my DH. Dark bitter chocolate bomb of happiness & indulgence.
The Muncher concurs! (note the glisten of a tear after he begged for just one more bite, I gave in, hence the smile)
This not so little buggie made it's way into our home so we fed him melon & he became Hunter's new pet & he walked around all evening with the container. (though he wouldn't dare touch it).

I was actually not expecting him to burst into tears the way he did when we had to let the poor thing go. Here he's explaining the torture of letting his "buggy" go.

Mr 4#. AKA: The Travster has gotten on a writing kick. He took the liberty of labeling our "Curious George" video cassette. (Yes, some people still use those)

And in case there's any question on who should be the one to record Curious George on Saturday mornings, just a little clarification.

Another puzzling sample of his handywork. Apparently this is a menu of dinner. It (supposedly) reads, "Lettuce/Salad/buscuits/ketchup". Gotta work on that spelling. But anyone who knows Trav will testify that this is a massive step of litterary progress.

We've been spying on a birds nest outside our window. The wary parents seem to fly away no matter how stealthily we try to peek out the window. Of course to get a good shot I get to hang out the window like a lunatic mother doing a flying arabesque to her doom with a camera in one hand & pulling back branches with the other.

I try to warn the kids about peeking in on them too often but the mother in me can't seem to help checking on how things are going. Are birds psychic? Everytime I even get close to the window even if it's closed & the curtains drawn I see the mom's eye looking at me & she flies a second later. Then just this morning....

They hatched! Trav spotted an open mouth. Must be brand spankin' new cuz' they don't even cry aloud yet. I had to hold a broom out the window to pull the branches back & put each kid in positon one at a time to take a look. I'm hating the cornyness but I must admit I'm terribly happy & proud of our little babies.

The other two sibs hatched somewhere between lunch & naptime & don't they just look like a perfect little pile of blind bald & nekid birdies?
Sweet Lil' Baby Jesus! That has to be one of the cutest things EVER!!! And I'm sure my sista Elaina will concur. :) Unfortunately my 3 yr old doesn't think so. She just walked in here, "Eww, that's just so yuck. They're just hugging their naked little bodies till they're stuck together, isn't that just so gross?"


More later. Ciao, my roasty toasty friends!

Miss Erika-the-berika

Some one made it painfully obvious that I had forgotten to make a "birthday post" for my Little Miss #5! Come on now, really......that's just awful. (Sigh) How could I do that.

So, these are some pics of my littlest 3 year old girl. I thought of how best to describe her personality but thought I'd better not. Let's just say say she's a January girl in serious control of her world. Everything about her from when she was little was about doing it on her own.

After an active #4, her calm, organized & efficient manner is a life-saver (no really, it's a REAL life saver!!) Getting dressed, doing school, helping with chores, things I usually had to "pull teeth" to teach my other kids she would figure it out & would scarcely consider it work.

To be honest I find it easier to talk to her like an adult than a kid. Of course in spite of the oftentimes controlling & bossy future as a power-monger-CEO-lady there is a "girly girl" who believes she is a princess (though she's gonna probably be the one scooping up her prince onto her steed). And strangely, as assertive as she is she's hopelessly shy and I have to bribe her to interact with strangers. ("I'll only let you pay for the item if you'll say thank you to the clerk after you get the change")

As I write she's reported a water spill by her little brother & told me "it's OK, I'll mop it up", (she did) she's gone through her school books to find one of her favorite ones & asked me to choose which page I want her to do. And launched into a monologue about why if she was Joseph she would've probably gotten thrown into a pit too (I pretty sure she would've actually) I betcha Joseph was a Capricorn.

I really do love this little lady & pray to God she'll grow up to find a man strong enough to handle her. :)

10 days
8 months

1 1/2 years
1 & 8 mo.

2 1/2

2 & 9 mo.
3 years old.

A Hard Day's Hunting!

How can you not love this little guy! But for all his smiles & giant slobbery "AWAAA"s, he is somewhat of a Hunter. His exploration phases are always short lived but intense. Ranging from emptying the video cupboard contents into the mikan box every 1/2 hr for 2 days to trying to jump into the kitchen sink via the counter. Examples: I cleaned the house one night & found no less than 12 potatoes around the house in various random locations, two remote controls were found in the garbage.

It's hard to find useful things for a 1 year old to do esp when you have your hands full with 5 others but we're working on it. Here are a few other phases (pics taken in the course of about 5 minutes):

Emptying freezer phase: Involves pinching fingers repeatedly in the door & whinnying about holding "coldie" food for too long.

- "Climbing chairs/tables/shelves & everything else" phase: Usually involves him finding and eating something he's not supposed to.

- "Emptying kitchen drawers" Phase: Varieties like whacking kitchen utensils on the floor, moving utensils to undesireable locations and of course covering the surface of utensils with saliva, are popular.

- "Trying to act like he's the boss" Phase: Always a winner with the big boys. They don't call it LONG suffering for nothing!- "Begging with puppy dog noises" phase: Works best when he sits on my foot with his head thrown back as far as it can go & a positively pathetic look of extreme hunger on his face.

Will I ever make time for posting recipes, I MUST.......bear with me....

Helping Hands!

So my 2 yr old January girl was crouched down in front of the tupperware cupboard with the rice cooker. My instinct was to get grouched out with her getting into things but I tried to muster my last smidgen of patience & ask her nicely:

"What are you doing, Miss?"
"I'm doing the left-overs".
"That's really nice of you"
"I'm finding a lid now"
"Good idea!"

she then gets a stool to reach the fridge door & put it away, & continues her "play by play" on her helpfulness.

"OK, I'm putting it in the fridge now, Mommy"
"Mmmm-hmmm!" (Notice I'm real big on communicating w/ my kids after a loooong day)

So after finishing up on the rest of the dishes I look in the fridge & find this on the bottom shelf nice & neat..... Yes, that's a total of 37 grains of rice in a tupperware.

I know this is one of silly posts that has absolutely no meaning but I just thought it was the funniest thing at the time.

Ashler's Bashler's Birthday Bash!

Oh, OH-MY! This is an "OH-MY" picture & I just feel very "Oh-my" when I see it. If I may just say, I am a cheesecake girl in a cheesecake world! Something about half-eaten food REALLY makes me hungry.

This was supposed to be a post all about my daughter's 9th birthday but it somehow really turned into a mighty "cheesey weezy" cake moment, for me. Partly because of the lack of birthday pics I guess. Well, I'm giving it a try, anyway!

So again, Birthday season strikes & Ashley turned 9. This year she asked for a cheesecake. So it started out a little something like this:
Well no, actually it started with her looking through my totally impractical dessert cookbook looking for a cheesecake I could make. Thankfully she chose something pretty realistic. It was a buttermilk cheesecake with raspberry sauce. I sized up the recipe made my adjustments & went to work. She was tickled to help me here & there & of course take some pictures for me. My mixer (still haven't given him a name) got to do the heavy work of mixing 500g of cream cheese, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp cornstarch 2 egg yolks & 1/2 c of honey & 3/4 c of milk ( 1 tsp of vinegar added to the milk makes a great substitute for buttermilk) . Check out the sticker deco on the top, very "Erika".The cream cheese came with little packs of blueberry jam so I added spread that on the bottom of the (not cooked/now frozen) cookie crumb crust. (grated @ 1 tsp of lemon rind in the crust, I think it helped) For anyone whose interested...I would highly recommend not pre-baking the crust but freezing instead.Now I don't know about yours but my Law of baked cheesecake states: "My cheesecake shall never fall from the balcony & maim a hapless pedestrian, but rather "splat" harmlessly upon their unsuspecting head in a comical manner that shall cause me no negative legal reprecutions whatsoever. Egg whites SHALL be beaten till stiff & folded into cream cheese mixture to avoid "block-of-cheese-disguised-as-cheesecake" type disasters."
Baked for 1hr 15 min at 160c gave it a much darker crust then I'd have liked but it worked. Decorated with whip cream & left over raspberries. Sadly I have no evidence of the raspberry sauce but it was simply blended raspberries, strained in a sieve & mixed with apple sauce (to stretch....come on, do you know how expensive raspberries are?) Tasted great but looked incredibly like ketchup. With all the aunts & uncles coming over, the poor raspberry sauce didn't stand a chance. Tsk tsk!

And here they are now! Here's where the camera gets swept away in the tide of overly enthusiastic children greeting slightly-tired but equally enthusiastic Aunts & Uncles.

Grandpa's I-phone games are all the rage. (And no, I see it too! There is indeed a very large, odd hat upon Uncle Masa's head)Yeah, still there. They were doing unspeakable things to the poor chalk-man stuck in the I-phone!
And of course there were the usual friendly attempts to win Ban-tan's trust. Poor kid, I'm surprised he survived the night.
Here's the Birthday lady! Hmm....I did not have the camera at this point! And who has time for pictures when you have a table of expectant kids waiting for a piece of the action. We had a great time cutting into some pretty light cheesecake, & smothered our ice cream with ketchup (I mean, raspberry sauce). Well, there you have it. I'm always sorry I don't get around to taking more pictures of our birthday get together's but it's near impossible. I guess you have to see it to believe it!

Next up Travster! Poor guy is anticipating it so much he asked the next morning if it was his birthday. (Since he knows his is next).