Evie is 8!

Well, it's been a couple of weeks, but Evie is now 8.  can you believe that our baby is so grown up?

These Birthday pancakes are getting bigger with the number!  Way to go Dad for making such a good Eight.  check out the mutant strawberry she ate for breakfast.

and our Annalise was around in the morning and hanging around in her pajammas.

We met up late in the afternoon with some of Evie's friends at a local pottery painting place.  The girls all had chance to paint a piece to take home.

Look how everyone is concentrating so closely on their projects

Then we had a little time to open up some presents before we headed out to dinner.

We ate dinner at Pizza Hut.  when was the last time you were at Pizza Hut.  Strap in for a story.  Back when I was a kid (and there was actually snow in the winter), the Seibert family went out for Pizza Hut every Sunday night.  Sometimes it would be take out and every now and again, we actually ate the Pizza Hut.  No matter what, we always had Pan Pizza Supreme.  So, I had to have a pan pizza supreme.  Sadly, it was not as good as I remembered, but less greasy.

The kids ate up the Cheese pizza right away.  Angie, Paige, and Annalise loved the lemonade.

Felicia and Evie cleaned their plates.

And we had some "8" cupcakes.  A great birthday with our girl.

To keep ourselves busy in the LONG WINTER

Ok, winter hasn't been that bad.  We haven't had a single snow delay or closing.  I shoveled the driveway only once this winter and that is because I wanted to.  I didn't have to as it warmed up to 45 the next day.  But the nights are still long and there is a lot of basketball to watch.  Sometimes, when a person is yelling at the TV, they get hungry for a little popcorn.

I picked this up while in India.  From my favorite grocery across the street from the hotel.  I'm sure it might have cost me a quarter.

but look at the excitement a quarter buys!

This is the oily goop of popcorn out of the packet.  Not too appetizing.

Fortunately, it came with this sachet of Indian seasoning to spread over the oily popcorn when it was done popping.

Not easy to open.  Just use some scissors, Jim.

There goes all that red, Indian goodness over my popcorn.

It tasted pretty good, as long as you didn't breathe in while putting it in your mouth.  Then you inhaled all the chili powder and coughed like crazy.  Fun experiment.  Actually, this was all recorded because Jim got a new camera and lens and we were trying it out one evening.  These might be the highest quality popcorn pictures you will ever see.

Later, the beer wench showed up.  The boss still can't lift or move too swiftly so it was my job to move the kegs from the garage to the basement.

Into our Kegerator!  We are about 17 years too late to be cool, but the neighbors aren't complaining. 

More February Ketchup

Evie was chosen by her art teacher to have her artwork displayed in the worlds smallest children's art gallery in Carmel.  That is hers-right next to her.  It's a waterfall with Chinese characters spelling out waterfall.

We celebrated Evie's art display. We also celebrated that she passed all of the addition tests for rocket math (like the old Mad Minutes where you have to do math drills in a minute). We stopped at the new yogart place in downtown.  YOu get to choose your flavor and toppings.  Then the store charges you by the ounce.  This is not a cheap treat so moms and dads try to assist with the yogart dispensing.

Jim.  Poor Jim.  You know he threw his back out before I went to India. Well, he has had a tough recovery.  It has been 7 weeks and he his just now starting to walk around like a normal person instead of a zombie dragging his leg behind him.  Anyway, this yogart place also had sportscenter on the TV so everyone was happy.

The yogart was very good.

What a goof ball.

One day, Annalise and I went to the Indian grocery to pick up some ingredients for dinner.  She wrote out the menu of what we are eating.

WE had some chicken masala, peas paneer, a samosa, naan and rice.  And washed it all down with a Limca.

Evie didn't like it....too spicy for this Hoosier.

For dessert, we had kulfi.  This is one Indian dish that we all can agree that we love!

February at Smoky Row

Well, now that India trip is behind us (boo hoo I say.  Take me back there.  My food is way too bland in Indiana!)  I can update you on what else has been happening around here.  In early February, we went to the school carnival.  There were all sorts of carnival games that earned the kids candy and trinkets.  In the gym, there was a place to jump rope and dance!  Evie takes a turn at the jump rope.

Her teacher, Mr. Schulenborg, takes some pies to the face.  Evie missed...

But her friend and classmate, Drew, didn't and hit old Mr. Schulenborg right in the kisser.

After that, there was some dance party action with the kids

Best part.  POPCORN.  we said it was ok, but not enough fake yellow and salt to make it the best popcorn.

Since I have returned from India, I feel like our house is too big and we have too much stuff.  I am working on cleaning things out and getting rid of stuff we don't use.  While cleaning out the bar area in the basement, I came across the roses I carried in our wedding...13 1/2 years ago.  They were in pretty good shape, but the plastic container I was keeping them was sticky gross.  I had to ask myself, why do I need these anymore?  So I took a picture of them and sent them to the compost bin.  Yes, I am that stone cold around here now.  If it isn't stapled down, it's out of here.

then I moved on to the bathrooms to purge all the expired medicines and 10 year old sunscreen.  Look what I found in one small drawer in the downstairs bathroom.  That is a lot of chap stick.  NO one in this house should have chapped lips.  Ever.  I also purged the arts and crafts areas.  We don't need markers, gel pens, crayons, work books or stickers until at least 2017.

Back at SRE, Evie gets to present her Independent Study Project.  This student driven project taught the kids how to do research, take notes, organize information, write a paper and present it with visual aids.  Can you believe that 8 year olds are doing this?  Her project was on solar panels.  She also had to create a game about solar panels that would help her to convey some of the information about solar panels.  In this picture, she is getting ready for her presentation.  Mr. Schulenborg is giving her the choice of the  pointers to use.

She did a nice job with her poster and telling the class about her project.  We are really proud of her.

And winter has been very mild around here. I have even put away all the snow pants, but not before the kids went outside and rolled up any snow that they could to make this snow hamster in our yard.