We're going on a picnic . . .

...and we're going to bring

Apples,

Bonsai fruit, *squeak*

Chips,

Dip,

Eggs,

Fish,

Grapes,

Horseradish,

Ichabod's pumpkin,

Jalapenos, *gasp*

Kite,

Lollipops,

Monkey,

Nanas,

Oranges,

Pulled pork,

Quail,

Risotto, *mama mia*

Salsa,

Teriyaki sauce,

Uncooked pasta,

Velvet ice cream sheet cake, *yummmm*

Water,

Xylitol,

Yam pudding, *ooooohhhh*

and

Zesty crackers.

The *sound effects* were added every round by one particular member of our family. Can you guess who?

=====================================================

*All sound effects were made by Jon (yes, Mr. Owings).

"Mom? I have a complication."

I should have dug out our camera for this picture, but my phone was handy and I didn't want to miss the shot. If you look to the left side of the picture, there is another cat there curled up against Kitty Kat's side. Tiger, the cat on Kat's lap, curled up there on his own while she was working.

Whistles and Chocolates

Yesterday, the kids and I went on a field trip with a homeschool field trip group. Our first stop was the American Whistle factory. We each got a whistle at the end of the tour, and I bought different colored lanyards for each of us. The kids were really good and I didn't have to confiscate any whistles. This is in Columbus, OH. The tour costs $4.00 per person and you get a whistle. If you can't make it to the factory, they were featured on How It's Made season 10 episode 12 and will be featured on Factory Made.

My kids are on the right end of each row.
Top row: Birdie and Froggie
Middle row: Monkey and Kitty Kat
Bottom row: Puppy Dog and Little Bear
I think one of the moms told the kids to make funny faces.

We ate lunch after the whistle factory tour and then went to the Anthony-Thomas candy factory.

This huge buckeye weighs 235 lbs. and costs $3500.00! The girls asked how old it was and found out it is seven years old. At the end of the tour, we got to sample the normal sized buckeyes. Some of my kids liked them, but most of us prefer homemade buckeyes.

Yeah, it's about time for Little Bear to clean off his temporary tattoos.

Breakfast - cold cereal with bananas and milk

I started keeping track of what we were eating this past week. This posts title was saved in a draft from the seventeenth. That's all I had. I didn't get back to it until today. Pardon me if I don't dig through my memory and recap the entire week.

Did you notice in the title that we had bananas? Though I did have banana slices in the freezer (part of the frozen fruit in this post), these were fresh bananas. Jon brought home a case of bananas that needed to be used right away. I now have more banana slices and two banana pudding pies in our freezer. We also ate some banana pudding cups the other night for a snack.

Apparently, the chili and potatoes went over well with Jon. Monday evening, while I was at Sonflower Scouts with the girls, Jon and the boys went grocery shopping. Jon bought some huge potatoes and some more chili ingredients along with a bunch of other things (he even bought dry beans, rice, and lentils). Jon thought I was going to fix chili and potatoes for our Life Group on Thursday. He forgot that I was going to make beef stew. So, I took a poll of our group members. Chili and potatoes won.

Thursday Night's Chili

2 lbs. ground beef
1 large onion (chopped large so those who don't like onions can pick them out)
1 30(?) oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 10-12 oz. can tomato paste plus one can water
2 15 oz. cans diced tomatoes with jalapenos
2 15 oz. cans hot chili beans

Brown the ground beef and onions. Drain. Mix all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on high for a few hours or low for longer. I think I used a combination of high and low. I also left the lid propped open with a spoon for a few hours to let the chili cook down some. Less or no water could be used for thicker chili. I mostly used the water to help get the paste rinsed out of the can.


Our potatoes were BIG, so I baked them at 400* for about two hours.

The chili and potatoes went over well. One of the men had a work related meeting, so he wasn't at Life Group. We only had one potato and a bit of chili left over. The man's wife didn't want the leftovers, so Jon took those for his work lunch today.