Project 365- Week 7

~erica

13- Ryan and I got a Kindle to share for Valentine's Day. It came preloaded with the Oxford Dictionary and I left it for Ryan with "love" highlighted

13- For my Speech class we tried some variations of PB & J for research. I'll do another post with the list of sandwiches we tried and those we rejected without trying. I'll just say that Nutella is a new favorite food around here...

15- I got a new fridge and a new freezer. Trying to get used to the space and trying to figure out how to organize them. The 17 cu. ft. fridge has no freezer section, we got a 21 cu. ft. upright freezer for the pantry area instead (plus I have a huge chest freezer in the little shop just out the back door).

19- Saturday morning we went out to leave and the van was iced over. Isaac wanted me to take a picture of it because it was just too cool. At 7 a.m. Saturday morning Rush left for snow camp at Mt. Rainier and Isaac went to Tacoma for a chess tournament. Isaac called at 1 p.m. to pick him up, he was bored because he was done. It was sunny but really cold. I tried to think of somewhere we could go for a field trip to make the trip meaningful, but couldn't think of anywhere. So, we stopped at Krispy Kremes, because you have to stop somewhere to go potty...

Bottom Line Duo

~erica

It seems like it takes a lot more organization to get to go out now than it did when the kids were little and we needed a sitter. Shuffling kids and schedules is a lot of work! Wednesday night Ryan and I got to go see the Bottom Line Duo at the college. My folks heard them about 5 years ago and bought a CD, that we've enjoyed. We always talked about going to Seattle to see them.

They are absolutely fabulous! The music is great and they are so funny. He does all the talking and she just looks at him or makes faces. I was fascinated watching her fingers keep the beat on her cello while plucking strings as part of the melody, it took me a while to even figure out she was doing it. We had to take Arin and Isaac but they had a good time too (the dessert buffet helped start the night out on a positive note). Arin's word for the night, "Inspirational."

Project 365- Week 6

~Erica



I think last week was a Fail for Project 365. Ryan and I both had big tests and projects due. I thought about getting my camera out but never got to it.

6- Rush turned 16 on February 6. His cousin Allyson baked his birthday cake and brought it to the Superbowl party at church. I redeemed myself by at least making him his choice of dinner on Monday.

10- We mailed Nathan's last package. He's supposed to be home in 6 weeks. It was full of jerky, clif bars, and the funny pages from the Sunday papers I've been buying for coupons.

I'm doing better at taking pictures this week...

More About Peanut Butter Than You Ever Wanted To Know...

~Erica

Jonah's sign says "KMN"- or Kill Me Now

For my speech class I worked with a partner to present a speech on Peanut Butter & Jelly. It was an informative speech and we had to have 2 quotes from sources, a "What's In It For Me" attention getter, audience analysis, and ethos. We found plenty of statistics and polled our audience about their tastes in peanut butter. I went on CDKitchen and found a list of 40 varieties of peanut butter sandwiches.

We found out that:

• A child will eat approximately 1,500 PB & J sandwiches before graduation
• 60% of people prefer creamy to crunchy
• Women & Children prefer creamy, Men prefer crunchy
• East Coast prefers creamy, West Coast prefers crunchy
• Eating a PB & J  reduces your carbon footprint by 2.5 lbs.

Crunchy & Creamy peanut butter, jelly, cream cheese, nutella,
marshmallow cream, banana, kiwi, bacon, and cheap white bread.

I assembled the ingredients for The Peanut Gallery to try several of the sandwiches on the list of variations. They weren't very enthused about participating but we did it before dinner Sunday so they were hungry.

The Real Thing- this is the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The Club uses 3 slices of bread

Fluffernutter- Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Crème

Pooh Butter- Peanut Butter and Honey

Peanut Butter & Nutella

Spitwad Sandwich- Peanut Butter and Marshmallows

The Elvis- Peanut Butter, Bacon, Banana, and Honey

Mean Green- Toasted Bread, Peanut Butter, Cream Cheese, Banana, and Kiwi Fruit

The Ultimate- Peanut Butter, Orange Marmalade, Marshmallow Cream, Shredded Cheddar Cheese

The Elvis and Peanut Butter & Nutella

Ryan and my dad were the only ones willing to try The Elvis. Tovah and Isaac really liked the PB & Nutella, but not with bananas on it. Arin was willing to try a spoonful of the marshmallow cream but not on a sandwich. No one wanted cream cheese or kiwi (that was fine with me, I bought the cream cheese for cheesecake and didn't want to run to the store to replace it).

Legal Disclaimer: No children were harmed in the testing phase of this project. They were remunerated for their participation by getting to eat BLT's for dinner after the testing was complete.

Project 365- Week 5

29- I downloaded this free Valentine's Subway Art from eighteen25. I printed it at Costco and popped in into a $3 frame. A seasonal decoration for under $5. I'm really trying to update pictures or holiday decorations in our spaces this year, when the boys were little I had no energy and getting photos in albums was the safest place for them. If I change things often enough I can change them before I have to dust them...

30- This is my pile of books that I want to read as opposed to the pile of books I need to be reading for my classes (a much bigger and less exciting pile). I have Tom Clancy's newest Dead or Alive, the Pioneer Woman's From High Heels to Tractor Wheels, The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan, Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer, and The Sea of Monsters also by Rick Riordan. I'm about 2/3 through Sea of Monsters and could easily finish it if I just picked it up one evening but then I'd want to read Red Pyramid or Dead or Alive. The Artemis Fowl had to go back to the library but Ryan ordered it for us from Amazon and it should be here next week so I don't have to hurry and get to it. I won't start P Dub's book until I get some other books caught up because that wouldn't be fair to the other books in the pile. Maybe I should just finish my homework, speech, essay, and research paper and then I could read them all... (luckily, spring break is in 4 weeks).

1- The remains of a Family Feast from Panda Express, the kids pounced on me when I got home and I didn't get a chance to take any pictures before or during. I had to run up to the Scout store after my botany lab and grabbed Panda, much to the kids' delight (and mine). We love their Orange Chicken but Firecracker Chicken and Honey Walnut Shrimp are strongly in the running as well. I also like that I can feed us all for under $30 and there are leftovers for lunch the next day.

3- My hazelnut. I'm starting to develop a relationship with this tree... It is just starting to open up its amends. The tree closer to the road that gets more sunlight is already fully open. I'm recording the dates for a Botany lab project as part of Project BudBurst

4- Tovah with Grandma Carol Jeanne and Great-Grandma Hendrickson at a Pampered Chef party.

5- OUR VERY LAST PINEWOOD DERBY, EVER! Can you tell I'm excited? We've been doing this for at least 13 years. Jonah won The Most Colorful Car (thanks to $1 clearance decals from Michael's) and came in 3rd for his den so he got a medal. It was nice to end our run on a positive note.

Project 365- Week 4

I'm a week late posting this- I had the pictures ready just didn't have time to sit down and annotate the days. Today I got out of school an hour early and came straight home, it was nice to be home before lunch time.

22- This is what the closet in the office looks like every Saturday, that is ONE week's worth of paper recycling from upstairs. I think we may need to look into ways to reduce or reuse.

23- I'm knitting this scarf for a friend. She spoke at the Ladies retreat 2 years ago about Rahab, the Hebrew midwives, and one other character (or not, I can't remember...) What I do remember is God's hand in perserving His people and especially the lineage of Christ. The red thread reminds me of the thread of His story throughout the Bible. The pattern has waves and fans for their time in Egypt and the Red Sea. Rahab hung a scarlet cord out her window in Jericho in order to be saved. There might be more meaning to this but these are the images tumbling around in my head for 2 years that I had to get out in a piece of knitting. I really wanted to do something tan and purple with a red thread that wove its way through the length of the piece but I still haven't figured out how to do that.

24- Jonah (and Isaac) really needed haircuts but it was one of those things that kept getting put off for another day when we had the time or the $. A friend from church said she would do the kids' haircuts for me when it was convenient and I could pay her whenever. Last week I called to see if I could take Jonah up there and she said she would come over! So the boys' hair looks great and I didn't have to leave the house and to me that's worth a lot more than she let me pay her.

25- This picture is for MaryLinda. She bought the kids The Christmas Story Monopoly for Christmas because she hoped it had the leg lamp piece. We're supposed to bring it to Family Camp so she can play it with them. You know, we've never seen The Christmas Story...

27-Isaac came in the other night and told me I had to take a picture of the sunset for my picture project. I took this one in auto and then started playing with the manual mode. By the time I figured it out the great color was gone, but I am trying. The sillhouette of the bucket in the bush is on top of my mom's trellis for the honeysuckle to climb since we cut down the Indian plum (it made a mess on the driveway and the cars). The bucket gets planted with annuals, I didn't want you to think we just had random black buckets in our trees.

28- The Pioneer Woman's new book! It was at Costco the other day, I've managed to read the introduction and chapter 1 but as soon as I have the time to read it'll go fast.

I seem to average 6 out of 7 days, I think I'm doing pretty good with everything else going on.