The Sounds of Silence

Have all 10 of you noticed the silence on my blog?! That's because of the holidays and all. Well, that and the Oreos we've been consuming. ;) Sorry Mother Hen, We didn't have the breakage problems. Maybe you're pressing too hard? You'll just have to practice more until you can do achieve the correct pressure. And make sure the Woman in a Shoe tries it too. Her girls need to know these important cookie eating skills. I do know that it may be part of our application to marry our girls... the man who can eat an Oreo the proper way can marry our daughter... I have a child ready to turn 16. We need to start thinking about these things, you know.

Anyway- silence. That's because we have been having TONS of fun around here. Well, except when we are not. Which would have been the day we experienced the GREAT FLOOD of '08 two days before Christmas. And the day my children decided to take ALL DAY doing an hour's worth of chores. But other than that...

-Christmas Eve we had our church's traditional communion and carols service. When we got home we had an ice cream bar and watched the "Littlest Star" play the family was in. Then we opened some gifts.

-Christmas Day was Mercy's second Birthday. She opened gifts in the morning, then we had friends over for lunch / dinner at 2. There were 23 children and 8 adults! We had a nice time. We were all thankful that the rain had stopped and it was relatively warm so the children could play outside a bit.

- We traded children with one of the families, and all the girls went to their house and the boys stayed at ours. Since they were outside most of Friday playing with Josiah's new walkie talkies, it was pretty quiet around here. We traded back in the evening.

- Saturday was the day of never ending chores, and the girls and Matt gave their gifts.

-Sunday saw one family with 4 children over after church. When they left we opened the rest of the gifts. Then our friends brought their Oreos (and 10 children) over for games and Snacks.

We had received a REALLY fun game that day from my brother and sister in law... it is called Snorta , and is seriously one of the funniest games I have ever played. Everyone has an animal which they show to all the people, say the sound, then hide the animal in a barn. You flip cards with pictures of the animals until you and another person have a match. At that point, the person who says the sound of the animal the other person has HIDDEN IN THEIR BARN wins the match. It is incredibly difficult to remember that Sara has a frog when you are looking at a photo of a rooster. I thought one of the girls was going to inhale her eyeballs while making the sound of a pig. It was so fun - I think every family should own this. Especially if there is someone who takes themselves just a little seriously and needs to lighten up a bit.

- Monday Eric and the kids went to the Nursing home to sing with the residents. They have been doing this now for more than two years, and we all love getting to know the people.

-Tuesday we had friends over for lunch, then Eric and I went out for dinner. We really just got a couple appetizers and a dessert to split, but it was still fun. And we went to a bookstore, where Eric bought me the latest in my favorite Quilting Series... what a guy. The rest of the books I have gotten from Paperback Swap .

- Yesterday Eric and the older kids went to the church's New Year's Eve party, and I put the little ones to bed and enjoyed the quiet. THAT'S my kind of party. I'm so boring.

- Today (phew!) is our traditional fun day. Usually the kids say this is their favorite day of the year. I let them all pick their favorite snacks, and I buy lunchmeat and deli cheese (a treat around here), and we just snack all day long. Last night I made sausage balls:

SAUSAGE BALLS: (I doubled this recipe, and it made plenty for my family)
1 lb. ground breakfast sausage
8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
1 c. bisquick

Mix with your hands, form into balls, and cook at 350*.

Since then they have been snacking and playing games. We have played Rummy, Rummikub, and various other card games. They are currently cleaning up so we can watch the last installment of the Love Comes Softly series... thanks Oma and Papa Pete.

So that's what we are doing around here. We have been so busy that I have not done nearly as much as I would have liked to do while school was on break. That will hopefully be remedied this weekend. I need to get the house and school seriously under control. But even though I don't feel we have gotten much done, hopefully we have made good memories. I want my children to grow up and remember then fun they had in their large family.

How were your holidays? Ready for 2009?

How to eat an Oreo Cookie

Recently we had friends over who taught us the "Civilized" way to eat an Oreo Cookie. It was so absolutely sublime that I just HAD to share it with all my bloggity friends.

1)It must be a REAL Oreo Cookie. Anything else is inferior.

2) Using a thinner fork, or a knife, insert the prongs into the icing of the cookie.


(We had 19 kids in the house... we ran out of forks!)

3) Dunk Oreo into a mug of milk. THIS IS IMPORTANT!! You Must obtain enough milk to reach Depth of Dunkability... the oreo must be thoroughly submerged.


You cannot see them, but there will be bubbles coming up from the cookie. When the bubbles stop, there is the perfect amount of milk saturation. The cookie will be soft on the outside, but crunchy on the inside. Absolute perfection.

4) When pulling the oreo out of the milk, one must turn it on it's side. This allows the surface tension of the milk combined with the grooves in the cookie to keep the milk from dripping off. If you put it vertically, the milk just runs out and ruins the whole thing. See?


5) Eat. And enjoy. ;) You do not need to have your hand under the cookie as nothing drips, but habits are hard to break.


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You may be wondering exactly WHY I have wasted good time writing this? Well, I do have a point. The point is to SAVOR simple things. Enjoy them. Make the moments last. As I have said before, the days are long and the years are short. The children will all grow up, and someday it will just be me and my wonderful husband puttering around our house. And I want to remember how wonderful it was to eat an Oreo cookie. Or read around the Christmas Tree. Or play a loud silly game. Any of the fun things which sometimes get pushed aside for the mundane in life... laundry, diapers, and piles and piles of dishes.

So go eat an Oreo Cookie, and ENJOY!!!