Homecomings

The older boys have been busy with various Homecomings . . . 

Patrick:

    

Conor:

Getting so old!

Awards Ceremony

Prior to graduation, Conor had his eighth grade awards ceremony.  Just a few pictures from that day . . .

Like father,  like son

Award number one:

The big one . . . .

Way to go Conor!!

Graduation

Conor graduated from eighth grade a couple of weekends ago.  He promptly started up with conditioning for his high school soccer team the next day.  No rest for the weary!  He is now embroiled in his pre-latin readiness class.  Poor baby is up and out of the house around 6:35 am most days.  I love tired children!!

Updates . . .

Conor was confirmed last weekend.

We had a craaazzzyyy day.  Three baseball games, two soccer games and a graduation party.  All of this occurred before 3:30 when Conor had to be at Church.  But he got his shower in and looked very handsome.

Patrick stood in for Conor's sponsor, Uncle Chris.  

We had dinner at the Japanese Steak House afterwards.  The boys loved the show put on by the chef!  

Unfortunately, they did not heed my warnings and ate too many cookies at the post-Confirmation reception.  We came home with six boxes of left-overs!  Seriously, you need to fast for three days before going to Japanese Steak House!

Congrats Conor!!

What's for Dinner - Week of 3/28/11

I was plagued with one of those Mondays without school.  It totally throws off my week!  That, combined with the two birthdays, two sets of class birthday treats, and two extra boys, just about did me in!  Actually, the extra boys were easy; but boy, oh boy, can seven boys put away food!

In the process of doing the two sets of birthday treats I tried two new things:  edible cake tattoos and cake balls.  The cake tattoos are by Chef Duff of Charm City Cakes.  I was able to find them at Walmart.  They come in lots of cool designs and include a template to cut them into cookie size.  I was able to use them to decorate the cookies for Conor's class treat, and then use the cake topper tattoo to decorate the top of his cake.  Success!

I then convinced Aidan to try cake balls for his class treat instead of cupcakes.  It does take a couple of days for the various steps, but ultimately is an easy baked treat to make.  Here is a great step by step tutorial on how to make them:  cake balls.  Because of his large class size I made two cakes worth which left a lot of extras for here at home.  He chose red velvet cake dipped in vanilla candy coating with sprinkles.  Yummy!

Now for the "real food" . . .

Monday:  Homemade Italian Meatballs and Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread
                  I used a recipe for the meatballs that Johnsville Italian Sausage sent me, along with several free coupons for the sausage.  Very good!

Tuesday:  Quiche Lorraine, fruit salad
                  I am still using up items from the freezer.  I had two ready-made pie crusts that I want to get rid of . . . so quiche it is!

Wednesday:  Creamy Chicken Pot Pie, mozzarella sticks, raw veggies and dip
                  I also have a box of rolled pie crust in the freezer and I want to try those new Philadelphia Cooking Cremes, so I will have a go at chicken pot pie.  My friend, Jeni, recently had a House Party that featured this new product.  We all received recipe booklets using the cooking cremes and the pot pie recipe is from there.  The cheese sticks are from the freezer as well.

Thursday:  Leftovers, cheesy potatoes
                  Refrigerator clean-out day!  The potatoes are from the freezer.

Friday:  Creamy Artichoke Pasta, salad, bread
                   Another recipe utilizing the Philadelphia Cooking Cremes . . . I sure hope we like them!  It sounded like a good meatless meal for this week.  The bread is coming from the freezer.

Saturday:  Polenta-tomatillo casserole, carrots
                   This recipe is from The Six O'Clock Scramble.   I have a block of homemade polenta in the freezer that I will use for this recipe.  I will add a pound of ground beef to give it a little extra protein.

 Sunday:  Out to dinner
                   I have a Groupon that I want to use.  This will score major points with the children as well.  Gyros!

Enjoy the rest of your week and all those dinners (especially if they are coming from the freezer, like mine!).

I am participating in Menu Plan Monday over at http://www.orgjunkie.com/!

Happy Birthday Conor!

Fourteen candles!

Yeah for Conor!

Conor has had a banner week so far . . .

First a phone.

Then he found out that he received an academic scholarship to high school.

Way to go, Conor!

Great things are in store for you!

Conor to me when I told him about the scholarship:  "So what you gonna get me?"  Gotta love those 13 year old boys.  Sigh . . . 

Finally . . .

Conor is running with the big dogs now. . .

"867-5309.  For a good time, a good time, call!"

Grocery List?!

The boys often complain that I don't buy anything "good" at the grocery store.  I do admit that I try NOT to buy too much junk, not because I am averse to it being in the house, but that I'm averse to it being in my trunk (if you know what I mean!).

I do try to make an effort to ask the children before I go to the store if there are any special requests.  And, honestly, I do try to remember them.  But, as more often is the case, I forget.  I really just forget.  Or, it could be that I avoid that aisle entirely.  At any rate, "I don't buy anything good!"

So, I mentioned that I leave my grocery list out for all to add to.  And so far this method has worked for me; primarily because no one has truly taken advantage of this fact.  Until now. . . .



The waffles, eggs and poptarts are my entries.  Mark added in the olives, hummus and rice cakes (he's trying to be good!).  The flaming hot Cheetos washed down with the four types of ice cream are courtesy of Patrick and Conor.  Followed by the chips with "lots and lots" of French onion dip!  Oh my!

And like any good mother with five growing and starving and skinny boys, I bought it all.  Just please don't ask me to get on the scale any time soon!

Seven Springs

We spent the New Year's weekend skiing at Seven Springs.  Great food, great friends, pretty good skiing and lots of relaxing was had! 

I do have to admit that although skiing in the rain has it's advantages (empty mountain, no lift lines, slick slopes), the soaked-to-the-bone aspect was a little less than pleasant.  Thankfully, it was warm!

Some pics from the weekend: 

Top of the mountain

What's a lake doing up here?

Liam navigating the chair lift

Rowan in his favorite position, on the ground!

Conor shredding up the terrain park

The guys chillin'

By the way, a thousand piece puzzle and two OCD women do NOT mix well; we will leave it at that!

Happy New Year!

All I Want For Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth . . .

And the songs continue . . .

Liam had an eventful night tonight.  He is now sporting a mouth most hockey players would envy, courtesy of Conor.  Nothing like some brotherly love!

 

In reality, Liam's two front teeth have been dangling in the wind for quite some time now.  I've been threatening to pull them for the last month. So, Liam has been keeping a wide berth around me.  It is amazing to me that he has been able to eat at all.  Especially since all I've been giving him are apples!

But, tonight Liam's mouth met up with Conor's elbow and the first tooth was knocked out.  I then managed to convince Liam that pulling the second one would stop the steady stream of blood flow.  He bought it!

Hence, the endless track of Christmas songs continue in my head.

Hopefully the tooth fairy remembers to visit tonight.

And I actually thought that I would have trouble with finding enough fodder for my blog posts!