Pickle is Eight!

JD celebrated his 8th birthday this week! We decided to do a combined party with Annabeth this year so we didn't have his party yet. We just had a couple gifts and a cake at home.

It is a Shown Family tradition to let the birthday kid choose what to have for dinner. JD chose to go out to Old Country Buffet. Since we are frugal we made him wait until the next day to go out. Hey, kids eat for $1.99 on Thursdays instead of full price on Wednesday!

It's not a grown up favorite at our house, but the kids all love it. Annabeth (and all the brothers) enjoyed the cotton candy for dessert! Happy Birthday Pickle!

Two Left Feet?

We were walking along in Costco yesterday when I glanced at JD's feet.  "You have your shoes on the wrong feet," I said. This is not an uncommon thing with Pickle. Jerry looked down and said, "His shoes aren't on the wrong feet, he has on two left shoes!"

What?! How could this have happened? Does a neighbor kid have the same shoes and they got swapped? No. Jerry admitted he had seen someone with the same shoes at McDonalds when we were there TWO WEEKS AGO! He almost said something, but decided against it.

We sat JD down on a 50 bag of flour in the baking aisle and took of the shoes. Two left shoes, two different sizes. One a size 13 and one a size 1. Just one size off.

So, apparently, JD has been wearing 2 left shoes for the last two weeks and no one noticed. He didn't say anything and I guess his parents aren't very observant either! And somewhere in town another kid his age is walking around with two right shoes. I wonder if his parents have noticed?

We finished shopping and sat down in the food court to eat a piece of pizza. What do you know? JD also had mismatched socks on. Also, not uncommon, but one was his and one was one of Jerry's dress socks!

Oh, Pickle! What are we going to do with you!?

I posted this on Facebook and everyone got a good chuckle. Grandma Linda summed it up best when she said:

"JD you are such an awesome little guy. You just go with whatever. Will probably never have any health issues cause by stress."

So true!

The Real Elsa

Annabeth was invited to her friend Brooklyn's house this Saturday for a birthday party. This family knows how to throw a great party! Annabeth had an awesome time!

The party had a Frozen theme so the girls all wore their princess clothes.

There was a little Frozen karaoke. Annabeth sang "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"

We made several crafts - a necklace, a sun catcher, a crown, and a princess wand. There was lots of great food. Annabeth's favorite were the powdered donut "snowballs".

The highlight of the party was a visit from Elsa, or as Annabeth likes to say "the REAL Elsa". Elsa did a great job. She stayed in character the whole time talking about Anna and the land of Arendelle. She also did a pretty darn good job singing "Let It Go".

Annabeth was a little nervous about meeting Elsa. She kept her distance at first. I love the photo below where she is peeking at Elsa from behind another girl.

Elsa painted each girl's nails. Annabeth asked if I would stay next to her while she got her nails painted.

She couldn't stop looking at her sparkly nails afterwards! 

The only thing she didn't like about the party was the bounce house and water slide. She has never been a fan of bounce houses or trampolines. She did get in, which was progress, but fell over after one bounce and came right back out. Then she refused to go back in.

She watched everyone else go down the waterslide though.

She went home to tell Daddy and her brothers all about it. And she was still talking about it this morning!

Figs!

Until I moved to Arizona I had never eaten a fig outside of a Fig Newton cookie. When we bought this house it came with a sickly looking fig tree in the backyard. The past few years we have gotten a handful of figs that end up getting eaten by the birds.

It still isn't the healthiest looking tree, but this year it has produced a TON of figs. I'm not really sure why, but my guess is that the chickens have something to do with it. They love to hang out under the tree all day - which means they are dropping "fertilizer" under it. I also put a water dish out for them and in dumping it out and refilling it daily I'm sure the fig tree has gotten more water too.

We have tried the figs and none of us really care for them much. I've been giving them away to anyone who will take them in addition to dropping the really ripe ones on the ground for the chickens to eat.

I spent a little time on Pinterest looking for fig recipes. I ended up making some fig jam/spread figuring that the kids might like the figs if they were mixed with some sugar. It's not bad! A kind neighbor gave me some fresh goat cheese and I have been enjoying a bit of the spread on the goat cheese with a cracker.

Just 4 cups of chopped figs made 32 ounces of the fig spread so we gave away several jars and will give away a few more since we won't eat it all. I might try to make some homemade fig newtons with one jar of the spread since the cookie filling is pretty much the same thing. 

I also learned one other interesting thing about figs. I can eat them, but I have a skin reaction when I touch the tree. The first time I picked the figs, I thought I got bit by a bug. The next time I picked, it felt like I got into poison ivy. I looked it up and, sure enough, there is latex in fig trees and I am mildly allergic to latex! I got smart and started picking with long sleeve and gloves on!

So, if you want some figs or fig spread let me know!

Let's Go to the Movies

We decided to take advantage of Harkins summer movie program this year. We have gone to single movies in the past, but this year we bought the passes and have gone to every one. It works out to be $.70 per person per movie. Although, they don't really make you stick to your day - we chose to go on Thursdays.

We don't go the movies at the theater very often so it has been a special treat! We have seen about half of the movies already, but it is still fun to see them on the big screen. It is something fun to do to get us out of the house and the air conditioning keeps us nice and cool!

The movie starts at 9:45am, which is perfect. They don't waste any time showing a bunch of previews. We get done and home in plenty of time for lunch. Annabeth is finally old enough to sit nicely (although she doesn't weigh enough to hold down the seat on her own so get her a booster to help with that).

Every week we see friends and neighbors we know. Some weeks we have friends come sit with us and some times we just wave hello to people we know. Grandma Molly and Grandpa John even joined us for one movie (Peabody and Sherman).

We have even splurged on popcorn and drinks almost every week. We figured since we'd be there so much this summer it would be worth it to buy the special cups you can refill. Then we buy a large popcorn to share. You are allowed one popcorn refill and one of the cashiers told me I could save the bag to refill the next visit. So that is what we have been doing. I bring red Solo cups and divide up the popcorn. That works great because the cups fit nicely into the cup holders. Each bag fills everyone's cup twice with a bit left for me.

Depending on the movie, it has been crazy busy. Thankfully, they open plenty of theaters so it hasn't been hard for us to find seats together or anything. Although, we have had to wait in some long snack lines if we don't get there a little bit early. We should have the theater to ourselves the last two weeks since most of the kids head back to school July 20th.

*Bonus points to you if you know what movie the title of this blog post comes from!!

Fourth of July

We had quiet 4th of July at home this year. We grilled some burgers and had a few traditional side dishes. We weren't going to do any fireworks, but some kind friends from church gave us a few for the kids. When it got dark, we went out to light them off.

Annabeth was covering her ears before they were even lit!

Jerry let the boy light theirs by themselves. No one was burned so I guess that was a success.

The big one - we used as the grand finale - was awesome! And my new iPhone camera did a great job capturing some shots. I took a few video in slow motion mode and they turned out great. You can really see the bursts when you watch it in slow motion.

Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July!!

Chef Hayden

Today I was in the kitchen chopping celery for our 4th of July potato salad when Hayden walked in. He saw the celery and said he wished we could have ants on a log. I told him he should make some! He thought that was a great idea. I cut the celery for him, but he did the rest all by himself. 

We enjoyed his ants on a log with dinner. Nice work, Hayden!