School Holiday Activities

Every year the school puts on a Christmas show. This year my little sister is in 3rd grade and the two third grade teachers come together each year and have the kids perform not just songs but a play. This year they did a little western play and it was so cute.

On the same day we had the Christmas party at the school. We didn't plan the parties this year so I don't really have to much to add. But I did make Vegan Chocolate and Vanilla cupcakes both from The Joy of vegan baking. They turned out really good. I have tried white vegan cupcakes in the paste and I haven't liked them. But that recipe is really yummy.

The parent who planned the party didn't plan anything but a present swap and a guessing game . The presents swap went really well. Every parent sent in a $5 gift and all the gifts turned out really nice. Chey got a Mermaid Barbie.

After that there really wasn't anything to do for the last hour of the party so my mother had luckily brought some of the games we had left from planning the party last year and we planned a couple of them. and the kids got to get out of their seats and have some fun for a while. But over all I think the kids had a good time. For the next party I am planning the games.

Playing per kid request... Present Present Coal

One last thing.
Christmas is a Christian holiday. I understand that and I take it with an open heart and open arms. But even with this being said.... I was caught off guard when prayers were started at the Schools Christmas program and although it is warming and a nice gesture. How many children were not Christian and felt uncomfortable during this.  None of the school administrators said it. That was handed off to someone else since the school isn't really aloud to. But I just couldn't help but to look around the auditorium afterwards and wonder how many students celebrate other religions. How many students would have been uncomfortable because they believe in other religions. I wish these celebrations would celebrate everyone. Not just the Christian Holiday. There are so many other Holidays for other faiths this time of year and they should have the same privilege of celebrating with the community and showing us how they celebrate as Christians do. I really wish they had that chance.

So with open hands and an open heart for all I wish you all Happy Holidays.

Vegan Lunch Box- Chili Con "Carne"

My Long day!

I had a long day yesterday. Up at 4am drive into work with John to pick up our car from his job. Went to Walmart to kill some time because I needed Dog food and the pet store didn't open till 10am. Had subway at 7am. Its in our Walmart. Spent Almost $8 at Walmart in 2 hours. lol.. Then went to Target about 20 minutes away. Got there at 8:30am. Spent about $15 on kitchen stuff they had on sale. Then went to Krogers and 9:30am and spent about $4. Wow right.... In 3 hours time I spent including Subway $31. Not bad right. Finally I go to the Pet store at about 15 till 10 only to find out that I have been wasting time for nothing because that have been open since 9am.... I wanted to scream! Wow. So then I can back to Fairmont and John was working and wanting to have lunch. He didn't know I had ate at Subway.. Shoooooo.... :) So he wanted Taco Bell. Which I don't normally do. So I went and got a Plain Bean Burrito & he had 3 Fresco Bean Burrito and and two cups of water. O'yeah I forgot to mention I swear off Soda yesterday. Haven't been feeling good and have had sinus drainage and it gets worse when I drink my beloved Diet Caffeine Free Pepsi. So. I was drinking water all day. After we ate I came home. Did have much time to waste though. We keep Roxie in the bathroom when we are not home. I got ready to leave again. I was going to Chey's Schools Christmas Party. School has been cancelled so many times because of the snow that they just not had it. So I went up there for about 2 hours. Then finally came home. Then I started on the Chili Con "Carne". It was about 4:00pm. I sauteed the onions. Couldn't find the frozen bell peppers so I skipped them. Boiled 5 cups of water. Chopped up 2 tomatoes (Not in the recipe). And put everything in the pot. Luckily I had measured everything out except the water the night before. I was so tired by 4:30pm. I don't work good on 2 hours of sleep. Anyways. Then I flopped down no the couch. Ate a bowl of cereal. Watched a couple tv showed that had taped on the DVR and then fell asleep 5 minutes short of the 3 show ending. Oops. :) So i slept for about an hour on and off till John got home a little after 8pm. The Chili smelled great. So we had chili at about 9pm.

Chili Con "Carne" Click the Link!

This recipe is simple to make and easy to throw everything together and leave it in your crock pot. I wasn't sure about the spice blend. I am a little picky about my chili. Growing up I always had the pre-seasoned canned beans mixed with kidney beans, and with a packet of Chili seasoning added. So I really like it that way. For the most part that is how I cook it. I mean I add veggies, etc to it. But, other wise its store bought.

The texture to this chili is really nice. I really like the TVP in it. I have never cooked with TVP because I just wasn't sure how to cook with it. This recipe showed me that it is simple and I will definitely cook with it more often. It gave a great texture to the chili. I normally only have beans and veg in my chili. But for now on I will add TVP. But back to the herbs. It calls for Thyme, Sage, & Oregano. Measuring the spices the night prier I knew that the one herb was really fragrant compared to the others. But I decided that was the recipe so I am going to make it that way. I think it is the Oregano. It is really pungent to me. To over powering to the other spices in the chili. You could definitely smell it over everything while it was cooking. But when I took the first bite I could tell it was just to much for me. so I added another tsp and a half of paprika and a half tsp of cumin. That didn't really help it. The oregano was still very strong. I made a bowl. Added some more paprika, smart balance light, and crackers. ate a couple bites and them gave it to John. He said it was pretty good. He ate my bowl and another bowl.

I tried it again this morning. After the flavors had more time to meld together. Its a little less pungent this morning but still a little to strong, Oregano wise, for me to eat. I think I will make this again. Well I am going to mix up the herbs & spices a little bit But I am going to make something similar in the future.

1st Grade Halloween Party

A Few days ago we had my little sisters 1st grade Halloween party. It was fun. I had put together some cool games for the kids that went over really well. So I thought I would post them.

First they ate. Cupcakes (which I made pictured to your left, which came from "Vegan cupcakes take over the world"), Peanut butter bone cut out sammies, cookies, veggies, some animal products, ect. ( I didn't schedule this part of the day)

2nd we had an ewwy... gewwy... witches cauldron relay

In this game I had 4 icky bowls for the teams of kids to collect stuff from different areas around the yard. I gave them each a "recipe" card with 3 pictures. They would go collect 1 item at a time and put into the cauldron. Then run out and collect the 2nd then the 3rd. Then the next team member would go. After all the team had gone they had to run over and pick up a role of Toilet paper and wrap one kid up like a mummy. The first team done would win.

Spider webs- sticky spaghetti
Brains- a brain made out of instant oatmeal & water
Pumpkin insides
monsters drool- Corn starch with water dyed blue. I don't know what I did with the picture to it.( if you have never mixed it together it is really need. It feels hard to the touch and stays solid for a couple seconds after you pick it up. Then it turns to liquid..)

The kids loved this game. They let out tons of energy and really had a blast. I took cheap gloves so that the kids who didn't want messy could use them. I was surprised to find that most of the girls didn't want them and most of the boys did..hahaha so cute... But they did have trouble with the toilet paper. It kept breaking apart. So maybe the toilet paper is a better idea for an older group. Even the parents had fun watching them though. It was cool.

Next game we played was the Cluck Cluck Hunt Game.

I had thrown out some old candy corn into the grass before the kids had come outside. I gave 1 kid in each team a paper cup. That kid was the rooster. When I said go all the other players would run to a piece of corn and cluck like a chicken..till the rooster came to get the corn. The first cup to be filled won. This game although cute and fun. The kids didn't play to well. All the kids were picking up the candy corn and everything turned into a mess. But they still had fun.

4th game was a Skeletal hunt. I bought cheap plastic skeletons in 3 collors at the dollar store. I had John pop them apart and then we throw all of the pieces out in the yard. The kids had to collect 10 pieces of the right colored skeleton. Then put it together. The kids had fun and did a great job with this game. And really did put the skeletons together pretty quickly.

Because there was also a costume parade that day that was all the games we played. But it was a really good day. They also got huge gift bags.

Easter Party Pics

First thing of the day is on Easter Eggs Hunt. Which was more like an Easter egg grab because we were in a field. But they liked it. It only took 2 minutes for the eggs to be gone.
Bunny Tag ( But we had lazy bunnies) they hopped for like a minute but then they got lazy.

The day was very Chaotic. It must have been because it was a morning party or maybe all the kids have ADHA you take your pick. But we all had fun. I was trying to wear out the kids with all the running and jumping but I came home and crashed. I figured I would post a picture of them getting there food. Although it wasn't anything Veg oriented. I didn't even get to cook anything.

:(

Jelly Filled Cupcakes- Veganomicon

Well I decided to make these for the PTO meeting. It was the kindergarten parents turn to provide food. I will say it was so boring sitting there through the meeting. But at least I tried another recipe. These are a good mix of spicy but sweet and have a nice texture. I could even eat these without the jelly middles. Actually the jelly middles sunk all the way to the bottom of the cupcakes which made eating them a little tricky. I missed the part when it said make them the night before because they are better after they set. The preserves stay in the cupcakes better after they set. But just a heads up. Try these. They are pretty good. You could probably put a number of other preserves in these as well. I think next time I will make a variety of flavors. I might make them for the trip to my grand parents on Easter.

Kindergarten Christmas Party

We cooked and cooked cookies. Dozens of them. We also made popcorn balls. I only got a couple pictures of them though. We worked up till right before we were do at the school so not many pictures of food. Here are some of the ones I have. We made sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, Chocolate chip, orange cranberry bread, popcorn balls & I also made a peanut butter oatmeal that we didn't like. We made big and little cookies & iced and not iced. They also had PB& J Sammies, chips, apple juice. Candy, Candy, & more candy. I know sad pictures sorry thats the only ones. Of food anyway.

The rest of the party went over well and I am waiting for someone else to send me pictures because I was way to busy to take any. So I will post them later.

I had a bunch of games planned. Candy Cane golf, Present bowling, a bean bag toss, Hop the tree, Pen the star of the tree, a scratchable ornament, a letter find, hot potato (with a wrapped package), a snow ball dig, puzzles, & coloring sheets. We didn't get to play all of them because we ran out of time but it was so fun. I was the class leader for the time we were there and by the time we left I almost had no voice left. All the kids were great and I Love working with the kids so I had a great time as well.

A Halloween Kindergarten Party

(I know not the best pic of "C" but the only one from the party with her and "A" her best friend.)

Well I love planning parties. So when it came to head Homeroom parent I jumped right in. I know I'm not a parent but I love being invovled with "C" and her school stuff. So I (along with my mother) get to plan the 3 parties of the year. Halloween, Christmas, & Easter.

Mom and I took about a month and planned a great party. Even better then what we thought it would be. Not to tot my horn of anything.. :) They have a parade around our small town so we only had 30-45min for the games and food. Not that long right. When the kids returned from the parade "B" and I had laid out everything. We started with games.. 2 outside. Sac race & Don't role your eyes (Eyes on a spoon). They loved both. They came in and we had stations set up. One: Draw a scarrrrry Scarry face of gourds!, Two: Witches hat ring toss, Three Cauldren candy toss, Fourth: Pen the hat on the turkey (Thanksgiving is just around the corner so I went ahead and through that in.) We had so many more games planned but we ran out of time and not all the kids got to go through allthe indoor games. But they had a blast. We pre-bagged the snack of the day and noone ate but they did have sqeeze its to drink. So they took the snack home and they also took home tons of candy. 4 or 5 treat bags plus the snacks. So they really made out. It was awlsome. The only thing was we had seperented the kids into groups and for some reason it was kaotic and noone would stay in there groups. So I'm not sure which kidss didn't get to play all the games. Next time we will have color coated groups :). But I know I'm going on and on. So I will leave it at... On to the Christmas party!!!!!!! :) I will add more pictures soon!! "B" still needs to send them to me.

My B-day & "C"s First day of school

"C" waiting for the bus on the first day of school. My 22nd B-day cake.

August 29,2007: My 22nd B-day which kind of freaks me out. Plus "C" had her first day of school ever. She loves it. So I will do "C"s day first. She got up around 7 am and had to catch the bus at 8:27am. But the bus missed her stop. So mom ran her to school. Which turned out to be a good thing because she was really scared. She started to cry but everything worked out. Mom and I both went to pick her up and she was really crabby..But she enjoyed school. So that is really good. She even has some new little friends. Her school has a program where parents ( well me the sister of "C") can go in and read to the kids and work during parties and I think I am going to do that. Mom really isn't into that kind of thing so I think it will be fun. Next My B-day. My 22nd. Which makes me feel really old actually. I see all my friends having babies and I want one. But I know right now probably isn't a good time. I would love to adopt but right now were we live just isn't suitable for kids so. Anyways back to my B-day. It was nice except "J" worked all day. (Thats ok though he is supposed to make it up to me this weekend). But I will run of my b-day list real quick. 4 Seasons of Degrassi (a guilty please of mine), Icing knives, Icing tip set & bag, 2 Matt & Nat wallets ( for those of you who don't know they are an awesome company who makes vegan products) I love my wallets, 3 sisters island books by Nora Roberts (I ordered these But they are from "J" :) ), $50.00, and something my Mom ordered but she hasn't received yet. My Mother also gave me a Bible that my Dads Mom gave her on her 22nd B-day. So That really means the world to me. She passed away when I was around 9. She was a great women and meant the world to me. I have other things of hers. But to have her Bible that she used everyday, that has her writing in it just means so much. So that was emotional for me. Bu I do think its kinda cool that my B-day fell on "C"s first day of school but she was really mad. She said she missed my B-day. :( Pictures will post later.