Go, Go, Go

We have had a busy last few days.  Friday evening we had a going away cookout with church friends.  I didn't get any pictures.  We had lots of fun but didn't get the kids in bed until about 9/9:30.  Then Saturday morning Will had a tball game then home for a quick lunch and off to a birthday party for a church friend and neighbor.  I picked the kids up early from the party so we could get ready for another one!  Then we drove almost an hour north (not highway driving) to get to Caroline's assistant teacher's house.  Her class was having a picnic.  Usually they have the get-together in August as a get-excited-to-come-back-to-school event but they wanted us there so they had it before we moved!!  There was a bounce house, a creek, a horse to ride, and fire pit to make s'mores.  

Ms. Debbie leading Caroline on Kit who's 30 years old!  Eric loved riding the horse and would tell me "neigh again" so he could have another turn!

This is the pretty part of MI!  So not like the city where we live.

Eric walking the path to the creek.

The group at the creek.

Ms. Debbie (blue shirt in creek) leading the charge into the water.   Caroline's lead teacher, Ms. Amy is to the very left in the jean shorts.

Caroline, Will, and Ms. Amy looking at the snails Will found.

Will of course got soaked!  I brought a change of clothes for everyone.

Class hug goodbye for Caroline

Chickens by the house!

We had a fun time visiting and playing and didn't get home until 10pm.  No one fell asleep in the car either!
Sunday we went to church and came home for lunch then another birthday party.  Justin went with the big kids this time.  It was at chuck-e-cheese.  Not a place I really care for.  Then after the party Justin went over to help a friend load a moving truck.
This morning Justin had an award ceremony/farewell that we all went to and then went to lunch as a family.
We have a few days to get settled down before we have visitors come Friday night through Sunday morning.  We plan on going to Will's ball game then a local water park.

This week is also VBS and Caroline still has gymnastics 4 hours a week.  We also have slightly less than 2 weeks left in the house before we go on vacation for a week then the move begins!!!  YIKES!

Proud momma

School has been out 3 days so far and just going through the piles of papers they brought home. I found these and am pretty proud of them!!

Pancakes and houses

I forgot a few recipes in that last post and I will get them but just to whet your appetite, don't those cinnamon roll pancakes look awesome!!  After flipping them they didn't look as pretty but sure did taste awesome!!

 And had to add a great picture of Will.

So we know what neighborhood we will live in at Fort Leavenworth but don't have a street or house number yet.  That will happen when we get there.
But if you want to check it out we will be in a 4 bedroom in the Sante Fe neighborhood.  It will have an unfinished basement and a fenced in yard.  Our House!
Justin will be one of 1200 incoming ILE (Intermediate Level Education) students!  He also got accepted to the University of Kansas for a masters program that will run concurrently with his military schooling.  So proud of him for getting accepted!!

Let's eat!!!

I really like trying new recipes.  The recipes use basic ingredients, nothing weird, and then if needed I modify them to be dairy free.  Lately I have been getting most of my recipes off Pinterest. (cool place to look for way too many ideas!)

So this pork is delish! Honey parmesan and done in a crock pot.  Love my crock pot!  I just leave out the parmesan and it is still great.  The left overs are good to make burritos, or quesadillas, or mixed with noodles and spaghetti sauce.   The recipe can be found here.

 Now breakfast is my favorite meal, when ever I can have breakfast foods I will!  We even have a regular breakfast for dinner night at our house (Wednesdays if you were wondering) and I usually make  something hot for breakfast like muffins or biscuits. So the breakfast ring below is wonderful!  Even leftover cold from the fridge.  It is very versatile.  You can do sausage, ham, crazy weird cheese, or any other item you might use to mess up the plain goodness of it!   This Breakfast ring also uses cresent rolls which are dairy free.
                                     
 So this looked so cool in the pictures but mine didn't quite end up looking like the picture!  I realized after I went back to look at the step by step pictures (the recipe is in another language!) what I had done wrong and I can fix it next time.  Check out the Estonian Kringle recipe.

 We have also started having a "fish night" once a week.  Not my favorite unless it is fried!!  But I am trying to broaden my food likes.  So my kids and I like these crab cakes that have parmesan cheese, rice, and crab in them.  I was planning on making them but didn't have crab and couldn't find any at the store.  So I used salmon that I had on hand.  The rice is cooked in chicken broth and then added to egg, salt, pepper, salmon, and whatever other spices you want to add.  Will took his and made a sandwich out of it!  Eric even ate it, which was surprising since his diet mostly consists of hotdogs and bars (oatmeal raisin)!

 THis is something I loved when I was a kid!  Mom would make brown sugar cinnamon bread and have cream of wheat to go with it.  I'm the only one that eats cream of wheat around hear so I make steel cut oatmeal to go with it.  It is a big time favorite in our house!!  The bread is so much better when you heavily butter it and then layer the brown sugar and cinnamon before baking.

 This is another one I grew up eating and I call it mom's berry coffee cake.  The dough has butter and cream cheese cut into it and then rolled and the edges cut.  The middle has homemade jam down the center with the edges folded up.  YUMMY!

 This was a new one I made last weekend for dessert.  We only have dessert on the weekend so I like to try new ones since there are so many good dessert recipes out there!!  Plus chocolate is right up there with breakfast as a favorite!  Krispie Smores bars were tried last weekend and gone so fast!  What is better than chocolate, peanut butter, marshmallows, and graham crackers?! I had to modify this one and used Enjoy Life brand chocolate chips and no white chocolate chips.  It said to make it in an 8x8 pan but I broke mine a few weeks ago (oops) and just used a casserole dish.  I didn't measure the marshmallows or chips I sprinkled over top since I wanted to fill the space of the pan.  I kept the top layer measurements the same.

Hopefully you will enjoy trying some of these recipes.  I know we have enjoyed them!
I have a few more to show but I'll wait until another day!

This past week has been super busy with it being the last week of school and I had some "room mom" things to do.  Then we also had a yard sale yesterday afternoon and today.  We sold about half our treasures and the rest will be picked up by purple heart later this week.
Summer vacation, here we come!!

sprinkler fun!!

Taking a break to warm up in the sun after running in the sprinkler.  Even though it was 90* yesterday, and just as warm today, the water stays incredibly cold even in the summer.  So taking a break in the sun is a must.  

 Will was having a water gun fight with Daniel and the smile on his face says it all!

Taking a break (Daniel is the one in the back)

Will prepping the gun and Eric looking at the water.

Trying to get a drink.  It didn't work since the water was moving away from him!!

He would run over to me and tell me, "ahwoo, eyeballs".  He was getting water in his eyes!  He was shivering he was so cold.  Notice the purplish lips!!

Cartwheel  over the water!

This was a great after dinner activity.  Justin and I got some chairs and sat in the shade just enjoying it all!

Today even more kids (7!) are enjoying the sprinkler and filling up buckets and more water guns.  Still having to take breaks to warm up though.  Summer fun!!

A little bit of this and that

When we went to church this is what Caroline was wearing!  The beautiful dress was made by MIMI!!!  The leopard topped black boots were all Caroline's doing.

 Will was charming all the old ladies with his bowtie made by NANA.

 Today Eric pointed to his seat of the back of my bike and asked for a bike ride.  So I just loaded him up and we biked to a park near by!  I'm so not usually like that, just drop everything and go person but it was a nice break from being so busy.

 It is a beautiful day about 75 and a nice little northerly breeze.  Perfect day for the park or field day which is what Caroline and Will are doing today.

"cheese"

Getting ready to go down the big slide.  Except he turned and went down on his belly, feet first.

big slide

Pyromaniacs

I come by pyromania genetically!  I don't know a Crissman that doesn't like to play with a little fire!!  I can remember as a young child putting a finger through a candle flame or liking your fingers and putting out the candle.  Even better was playing with warm wax!  

If you look closely Uncle Paul has a lit match in his hand!  This is at Caroline's first birthday!!  I couldn't find the picture of Granddaddy showing Will how to pinch out a candle when he wasn't even 2 yet!!

So when Justin said that this pile of manuals needs to be burned I jumped right too it!  

The issue that popped up was the small black grill wasn't going to hold all that needed to be burned.  I tried to burn some in there and it was cool, but slow!  And with the wind being 25mph a bit too dangerous for me.  So today I got a metal trash can and some lighter fluid.  Winds are down to about 10-15 so a little better.

My supplies!

See much better!!

Invasion of the kids!

How many kids do you see!?  There are still 2 more kids that hang out on a regular basis that weren't home at picture time to join in on the fun.  

The kids are going to miss their friends!

Yesterday afternoon Justin and I continued the cleaning out process.  The shed was next!  Justin had the help of 6 kids.  It is mostly military stuff and the neighbor kids went home with some great "treasures"!  We ended up getting rid of 2 boxes, a trash bag, and a trash can full of junk.  Then there is a big pile to be shredded and a pile to burn (old manuals).  And a pile to join the yard sale stuff in the garage.  Our plan (after going back and forth) is to have a yard sale this weekend.
Only a few more areas to clean out and sort through.  The packers are coming July 17!!

First T-ball game

Will had his first T-ball game today!!  He was so excited and loved it.  They didn't keep score ( I don't think).  Each team got to bat twice and after each kid had a turn they would switch.  Even if they got tagged out the kid still got to run the bases.  It didn't happen very often!  Not many balls we caught and there were times that playing in the dirt was way more interesting than a ball rolling to you!  Will played right field the first inning and first base for part of the second.  He hit the ball really well the first at bat and made it into the grass.  There were only about 5 hits all game that made it to the grass.  His second hit didn't go quite as far but was still a decent hit. Coaches were allowed on the field with the kids to help get their attention and direct where they should go after stopping the ball ( as earlier mentioned there wasn't much catching going on!).  It was a little humorous to see a kid stop the ball, hear the coach say tag second and the kid drop the ball and run to second!!  Or run get the ball and run back to their position and then throw the ball!!  Or wait for a slowly rolling ball to come to them.  Or get to second base and then run home missing 3rd, or all 3 base runners stuck on one base!  

That's my baseball boy!

Made it to 3rd!

Running to second

Before we left the house.  He said the eye black helped him run faster!!

Eric was more interested in the puppy near by and playing on the bleachers than watching his brother.

Will's cheering section.  And yes it is June 2 and we are wearing jeans and jackets!

He loved it and is excited to play more!  What more can you ask for?!

Niagara Falls

Sunday morning after breakfast we piled in the car and headed through Canada for about 4 1/2 hours and stopped in Niagara falls!  We parked, had a picnic, and then went for a bike ride so Eric could take a nap.  We biked along the river and all told went 6 miles or so.  Eric fell asleep about 20 minutes before we got back to the car!!

It was a beautiful warm day!

Anyone know what these are?  The falls are just to the right of those things.

Just amazing!!

All smiles

Will not looking, of course!

In the elevator going down to see behind the falls

The sound of the water rushing by was just amazing

Getting a dad cuddle, Eric is still on his back.

Dinner with a Falls view!

My favorite picture!

We left Tuesday and went to the butterfly conservatory on the way home.

We had a great mini vacation being away for 2 nights.  THis week has been busy getting things back in order.
Now that I have seen Niagara Falls I can check that off my list!  It was just incredible!  Very much a Myrtle Beach atmosphere and not something Justin and I enjoy.  Lots of crowds.