Bowling Slideshow

Strike!

Okay, so we didn't get to say that a whole lot when we went bowling last week for Dan's birthday, but we did have a ton of fun! It was Mason's first time bowling and it might as well have been my first time too! The only reason I even broke 100 on the 2nd game is that the bumpers were broken and we had to either keep them up or keep them down--we opted to keep them up for Mason's sake (before they were up I guttered it about 4 times). Before we left home I showed Mason how we would be rolling a ball and knocking stuff down. After that he was excited to get in the car and said "bowl" the whole way to the alley! He looked cute in his 'ugly' bowling shoes.

The big kid shoes aren't as cute as the little kid shoes are:

Mason did a great job carrying his own ball around. Sometimes we let him roll it down the ramp and sometimes he did the granny roll (that would make for a long night to do that every time!). He didn't really care to watch the ball hit any pins. He'd just roll it and run back to the see the ball pop out again.

Here he is watching the balls with Handsome Jack:

Looks like a spare to me!

This too . . . I need to work on kicking my leg back like the pros do. I have to say that I don't love all of the rear shots from the evening!

Melissa doesn't care for bowling, but she came to party with the gang. Thanks for taking care of Tristyn so we could play!

What's a birthday without cake, right? Dan enjoyed his yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

Thanks to all of our great friends who celebrated with us! It was fun to see a different side of you at the 'lanes'. I'll also post a slideshow that has more photos of everyone! This is my favorite photo from the night! DeVon's expression is priceless!

Update on 1/22/09--In talkin to DeVon and reading Arlene's comment, it sounds like they were competing in miles per hour rather than pins. DeVon thought this was when Arlene bowled faster than the others. I wouldn't be surprised! She and Natalie both have stronger arms that you'd think!!

And this is my favorite video from the night! I laugh every time I watch Mason waddle with the ball!

A Christmas Carell

I have to explain my poll about "The Office". It was unplanned, but our Christmas turned into a Carell Christmas: my kids rec'd Horton Hears a Who from my parents, I rec'd Get Smart from Dan, I bought Seasons 1 and 2 of The Office for Dan, and my sister Melissa bought him The Office board game. So, after opening presents on Christmas, we watched Horton, then Get Smart, then started with Season 1! Since Tristyn and I were sick that weekend, we vegged and watched through Season 2 with Melissa. I had to know what happened between then and the current season (which I had watched only sporadically), so I ended up also buying seasons 3 and 4. I have watched all of them (some disks several times), as well as most of the current season online since Christmas! I know it's an awesome show, but I'm still lame! I seriously turn it on while I'm just doing stuff around the house, while I feed Tristyn, while I rock her to sleep, etc. I watched disks 3 and 4 of Season 2 today while I cooked! I wanted to know who you like the most! I really like Jim--his pranks are so funny! Michael is funny too, but mainly because he's so clueless! Kelly probably bugs me the most--she has her funny moments, but is mostly just annoying.

I still have yet to watch all of Get Smart. I've started it several times, but haven't made it past the first 1/2 hour. I'm afraid that Horton will be worn out before Easter! Mason watches it both on the TV and on the computer (when I'm watching The Office). He loves the chase scene between Horton and the vulture and says 'No, No, No' when the clover drops down into the millions of other clovers. It really is a cute show. I'm not sick of it yet, but I'm sure I will be some day!

If you want to watch episodes of Season 5, you can go to nbc.com or http://justtheoffice.com/. Happy Carelling!

"A Beautiful Thing"

5 Cans of spaghetti sauce
7 lbs of hamburger
4 lbs sliced + 7 cups diced chicken
6 lbs pork ribs
4 bags frozen, diced onions (time saver)
One splash in the eye (stirring the ribs)
One knife gash on my hand (cutting open the parsley)
3 cracked knuckles (from washing my hands so much)
30 meals in my freezer = A Beautiful Thing!

A few months ago a friend told me about the book Dinner is Ready that shows you how to prepare 30 meals in one day. Since we eat corndogs or cold cereal for dinner more often than I care to admit, I decided that I wanted to try it. I hope it will help us to eat more healthy, as well as make dinner more organized so we can actually sit down together (and maybe Mason will actually take a bite of a casserole some day!). I bought the book over a month ago and finally had a slow weekend to try it--and thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr., I had today off work. There is a computer program that has all the recipes and will make the shopping list for you, but I wasn't smart enough to buy it before I made the huge shopping list on my own! Saturday night I went out for a couple of hours and got all the groceries. I purchased the software online that night and was able to print all the recipes and preparation labels for the menu I had selected (for my first time I followed her menu pretty closely). Last week I was at Macey's and happened to catch a sale on chicken--40 lbs for $40! The only problem is that it's not trimmed. So, Dan spent a couple of hours last night trimming and cutting the chicken. I went ahead and cooked the diced chicken and decided to put those two meals together last night. So, I guess I kind of cheated by making two of the recipes last night rather than doing it all in a day (I should mention that you select 15 recipes and it makes enough for two meals each).

Here's Mason checking the inventory of groceries last night.

Then he really wanted Tristyn to sit 'right here' by him.

This morning I woke up about 7, but by the time I showered and got kids fed and off to daycare, I didn't start cooking until 10 am. I started the crockpot meals, then the oven meals, then the stovetop and assembly meals. By the time Dan got home with the kids at 5:30, there was one meal left in the crockpot and a few meals on the table ready to be packaged, but everything was pretty much cleaned up (other than the pile of pans and bowls, which Dan so graciously washed!).

Here's a photo of all the junk on my counter. The author recommends that you leave everything out and that you have a separate set of measure spoons and cups for liquids and dry ingredients. So, with that plus all of the groceries, pretty much every counter was covered! The crockpots were on the counter that doesn't show. Notice the Mtn Dew can--that's what kept me going all day!

The funny thing about the book Dinner is Ready, is that the author says "is a beautiful thing" about 100 times! It's beautiful to have grated cheese, to have chopped onions, to have two sets of measuring spoons/cups, to be free from freezer burn, to have a full freezer, and to be able to say "Dinner is Ready". I'm sure it will be great to say that dinner is ready and not be referring to a frozen pizza. You can see for yourself that having a full freezer is a beautiful thing (nevermind that 1/4 of it is full of Eggo cinnamon swirls since it is one of the few things Mason will eat):

To celebrate (or really just because Dan wanted a treat), we made brownies tonight. I tried to get Mason to eat the batter off the beaters, but he just wanted to fling them around. At least he tried to wipe up the mess!

As a side note, you may notice that I'm way behind in blogging! Things happen every day that I want to blog, but I've really wanted to keep my entries in cronological order and have been holding off until I can post Thanksgiving and Christmas. Well, I'm still trying to get to them! I have lots of cute photos of Tristyn crawling and pulling herself up on things, so I've been anxious to post all of that -- it's coming (sooner than later, I hope!).