Annual Milwaukee Birthday Celebration=Good times for all

We celebrated John and my birthday this past weekend in Milwaukee with the family and my good friend Joan. We started out on Friday night at Joan's, followed by dinner at Champs, and a night of fun at Fat Boy's Roadhouse listening to John Giliberti's band. It is like we are regulars there now! Alissa and Nathan joined Joan, John, and I for this fun night out. We definitely had more than a few beers to toast our birthdays and Joan took enough photos to last a lifetime!

Joan heard the word weenus which is the loose skin on your elbow so we had to take a photo of our weenuses! Joan always was very aware of people's elbow skin long before she learned the official word for it!

I enjoyed a Birthday dance with this handsome young fella who just happens to be my son-in-law. He knows how to treat a lady right and make her feel young!

Here are me, Joan, and Alissa with the roses which they were giving out to all the ladies at Fat Boy's. Last time we were there it was a buffet of meatballs served in nescos and this time, roses! You can't help but love the place.

On Saturday we met Courtney, Paul, and Tiz at The Ethiopian Cottage for lunch. I was not sure what to be expecting at the restaurant. I am not very experimental when it comes to food, but what a pleasant surprise. The food was all yummy and the atmosphere was so nice. The owner and waitresses were very friendly and could not get enough of Tiz. The food is served in these large baskets and we just sit around them and scoop up the food with injura. (Tortilla like sourdough bread)

Here is my birthday hug from sweet Tizita.

This is the way the food came to us. We all shared from this one platter. We had lamb, mild beef, and spicy beef plus potatoes, corn, squash, greens, and beans. It was not only delicious food, but fun to eat. How often do we adults get to eat without silverware!

The owner gave me a complimentary glass of honey wine when he found out it was my birthday. Very yummy sweet wine just like they serve in Ethiopia.

After our lunch we went to Sprecher Brewery for a tour and tasting. Here John and I are enjoying a beer sample. Very nice tour and generous tasting! I really enjoyed their sodas even more than the beers!

Here is Tiz enjoying her root beer while I am enjoying some Red Raven soda. After the tour we headed back to Alissa and Nathan's for a nice night of conversation, Miss America, Balistreri's pizza, and fun with Tiz. She was a hoot running around in Alissa's tube socks and her underwear. She loves spending time at Alissa and Nathan's where she can play wii to her heart's content and play the guitar and drums with Guitar Hero.

At the end of a very busy, fun day, Tiz fell asleep on my lap. A perfect ending to a perfect weekend!
I never think the next Birthday celebration could ever be better than the previous one, but they keep getting better and better. The girls do such a nice job of planning everything out and it runs so smoothly without any hitches. I am usually the one who has to do the planning so this is such a nice change for me. I can just sit back and enjoy watching it unfold!

I have a dream

When Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream that one day in America little black boys and black girls will join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers,"

Do you suppose this is what his dream was all about?

Mixing up a batch of who know's what

One thing that Tizita loves to do when she comes to our house is mix up concoctions, usually inedible. I guess it all started one time when I let her mix up some apples, bread, water, and other assorted items. Who knew that mixing concoctions would become her favorite activity at Grandma's house?
Well, her last visit was no different. She had only been here a short time when she asked to mix up something, so that is what we did because I firmly believe that when you are at grandma's, you should be able to do things you are not allowed to do at home. Well, within reason, of course.

Tiz started with some water and flour, to which she added some grape drink mix which gave her mixture a nice purple color and grapey smell.

The color changed from purple to a brownish tint when she added the sprinkles which she is carefully measuring here.

As you can see, she carefully adds each ingredient while her mind is spinning to think of the next ingredient she wants.

She added some marshmellows and put the mixture in these muffin holders. I am assuming the final product was going to be some type of muffin or cupcake.

And here they are ready to go into the oven. Yes, we really did bake them until the marshmellows were a nice golden brown.

After they cooled, Tiz packed a few up to take along to Alissa's when we went to visit her. While we were gone, Grandpa ate up all the leftover cupcake/muffins or at least he said that is where they went! Tiz was so pleased he enjoyed them!

Basketball and Dancing at Lebanon Lutheran

On Friday night, Courtney, Tizita, and I headed over to Lebanon Lutheran to watch our friend Meghan and her dance team perform. Tizita was so excited to spend some time with the boys. Jacob and Calvin sat so still and watched three games without moving while Tizita was all over the bleachers! In this picture, you can see two proud grandmas, too!

Here is Meghan and her fellow dancers. Aren't those outfits just so cute?

This is Meghan doing her jump.

And when the bleachers got too uncomfortable, you just move down to the floor and watch from there.

It was a fun night for all of us!

Online farming and Dr. Phil,

Today on Dr. Phil there was a daughter complaining about her mom who spent so much time farming online that she wasn't making food anymore or taking care of her kids. Here is the conversation between Dr. Phil and Farming mom:
Dr. P - "Were you able to leave your farm today without too much trouble"
F.M.- "Well, yes, because I made sure I planted crops that wouldn't need to be harvested until I got home and I fed the animals." ( If you are an obsessed farmer like me, this all made perfect sense!)
Dr. P - "You do realize that these are not real crops."

HA! Try and convince an online farmer that their crops are not real!
Do I think I have a problem with obsessive farming. Well, yes, I do, but I still make meals most of the time.
And, I have an obsession with my cafe, too. Actually I had better get back over there.
Good bye

P.S. I have a long line of online obsessions including The Riddler, Toon Town, Neo pets, The Sims, and that is all I can remember at the moment!

I am now a Community Research Specialist

Tomorrow I start my new part time position for Mary Linsmeier Schools. I was the director of the Mary Linsmeier School here in Watertown for 22 years. Those were good years. Our school started in one room of a church with a morning preschool class of ten kids. I was the second teacher in that Preschool when I started. I wanted to teach for Mary Linsmeier Schools because I wanted my girls to be able to attend that top notch Preschool at a reduced rate. After they both finished their early years at Mary Linsmeier I was the Director of the Preschool with my friend, Lynne Uttech the other teacher. Our reputation had become known and we had larger classes.

It was when Courtney went to first grade that we added a child care to our Preschool. We were now open from 6 AM - 6 PM with three big rooms in the church. The first few years were slow, but once we got going, we never looked back. I was now the Director of a school with eight teachers where we cooked our own meals and ran a successful grade school program, too. Those were fun years. My staff was a close knit group and we all genuinely enjoyed working together. It was after about 12 years in the church that we outgrew the space and moved into the old High School. My staff jumped to 18 and we now had infants and toddlers. It was a whole new ballgame with many more headaches. That many women together does not always make for smooth sailing. The small group that got along so well now had many more personalities thrown in and it showed.

It was seven years ago that I approached St. John's about starting a Preschool for three year olds. With the okay from them, I quit my position at Mary Linsmeier Schools and moved on. Many times over the years I have second thought myself about this especially when John was laid off. I love teaching my Preschoolers at St. John's and I have met lots of challenges and goals in my program there, but a little part of me always wondered, "what if..."

Well, out of the clear blue sky on the Wed. after Christmas, Theresa, one of my old supervisors from Mary Linsmeier called and asked me if I would be interested in helping them out with their struggling Oconomowoc School. After a week or so of careful thought and weighing pros and cons, I decided to take the challenge.

So, starting tomorrow, I am the new Community Research Specialist for Mary Linsmeier Schools. I will work from their center in Oconomowoc and from home a few afternoons a week. They are paying me well for my time and I am excited to give it a try.

On another note, tonight John and I go to our first session of the Financial Peace University. Hopefully, it is an interesting class and we learn something. After all, I want to invest and use my new income wisely!

Financial Peace University

John and I have signed up to attend Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University for the next thirteen weeks. Not sure what we are getting ourselves into, but from our research so far it seems like a great way to reevaluate finances and start managing our money in a different way. It is not a get rich quick scheme or any kind of scam. It is a program that teaches you how to save money, pay off debts, and have money alloted for unexpected things that come up.

With John being laid off twice already, we know that nothing is secure in our world today, so we need all the help we can get. I have always made and lived by a budget that I write down monthly and that is a big part of this program, so that should be easy for us. The program also uses cash for purchases because when you use cash it is harder to "spend" than when you use credit or debit cards. I also already save $10.00 a day in an envelope, I call it paying myself, so I am able to save when I put my mind to it.

We start our class on Sunday. It runs each Sunday through April for two hours. Another neat thing about this program is that it is Bible based which also adds to its successes.

The only thing is the above materials that we needed cost us $100.00 right up front. We did use cash though!

I will let you know how things are going and how much money we make over the next few months!

Celebrating Alissa's birthday and other tidbits from the weekend

It has been one fun and full weekend. It all started on Friday when Courtney and Tizita arrived bright and early, despite some pretty snowy roads for Preschool. If you saw my previous blog, you noticed that Tizita started the trend of the Mr. Potato Head glasses in my classroom. Such a leader we have. After Preschool, Tiz and I had some serious food prep getting the spaghetti pies ready for Alissa's birthday dinner. I had never made spaghetti pie before and Alissa had never had it, but Nathan mentioned that he had been missing spaghetti pie so I took his mom's recipe and Tiz and I went to work. Alissa decided it would be an all right meal as long as her pie was meatless.
Here is Tiz preparing the ricotta cheese, egg, and parsley mixture. The original recipe actually called for cottage cheese, but I switched it to ricotta for personal taste reasons.

Here are the two pies without the mozorella cheese on top. This is before we put them into the oven for the first step in the baking process. I didn't get a picture of the finished products but they looked great and they tasted very, very good. Even Nathan told me that they tasted very much like the way his mom made the spaghetti pie. A successful endeavor indeed.

Here is our Happy Birthday girl with Tizita. I made her the crown so everyone would know she was thirty!

It was a Bon Jovi Birthday for Alissa. John and I gave her a coffe table book and their newest CD. I think we found the perfect gifts for her.

Five lovely ladies celebrating the big day.

And of course, there was a goody box which involved lots of guessing. Here Tiz is trying to help Alissa decide what might be in this package.

While playing "Pin the olive in the Martini," Nathan ended up putting his olive right here on Alissa head.

Here are the results of the Martini game. We always try and do some "pin the something on the something" at our parties. It is a game we never outgrow.

On Saturday, Alissa, Nathan, and Courtney left for Oshkosh where Paul's band was playing in honor of Alissa's birthday and Tizita stayed with us. We took her to the Olympia Ski Hill where Alex and Hannah Thompson and Nic Hieden were snowboarding. Here she is drinking her first ever root beer. Sorry, Courtney, there were no other options except water and after consulting Vikki and Deb we came up with root beer being the lesser of all evils!

Tiz enjoyed playing pool on the table with Mallory.

We spent some time out watching the hill up close and personal. Hannah and Alex would wave to us each time they rode up the chair lift. Tiz loved watching them zoom down the hill.

It was a very fun weekend and I think Alissa had a good birthday. I also think Tiz had a very fun weekend with Grandma and Grandpa. We took her home today. We are tired but happy!

A classroom full of Potato Heads

My class turned into a classroom full of Potato Heads today. The whole crazy thing started when this little lady put on a pair of Mr. Potato Head's glasses. The other children quickly followed suit. I hope Tiz's leadership skills stick with her!

Is it any wonder that I love my job? There's is always something to laugh about.

Happy 30th Birthday Alissa!

Yep, you read that right! Thirty years ago I was just in the process of having my second baby, another little girl who we named Alissa Marie. She was born at 6:50 AM at Lakeland Hospital in Elkhorn weighing in at 8 lb. 1/2 oz and measuring 20 inches long. She had a headful of reddish hair like the hospital staff had never seen before. Her hair continues to be her crowning glory.

I watch a lot of Baby Story and I think, Wow, I would have had a great story to tell on that show. First of all, Alissa was due on Christmas and we were all set to name her Noelle, but when Christmas came and went and when New Year's Day came and went, we hit the name book yet again. Remember in those days you didn't have ultra sounds and you didn't know the sex of your baby until he/she came out. We both found the name Alissa, thought it was a lovely name and there you have it! Jacob Kenneth was our boy's choice for the length of the pregnancy.

On Monday, January 7 we were in the midst of a huge snowstorm. John had parked our car across the Highway in a business lot. We realized there was no way he could get to that car in time, so we headed off in the old Pinto. We dropped Courtney off at a neighbor's and I just hoped we would get to the hospital in time. It was a long ride even though the hospital was only a mile away.

Well, we just made it, the Doctor did not however. Alissa was delivered by a nurse about ten minutes after arriving. No drugs, no epidural (had never even heard of that), nothing! It would have made a captivating Baby Story episode! To this day, I just cannot believe there was no doctor in that hospital at that time of the day. What kind of hospital has no Doctor?

Anyway, it is time for me to go to work, so I will be closing this little saga.

Before I sign off I just want to wish Alissa a very Happy Birthday. I hope she has a terrific day because she deserves it!

Thanks, Alissa, for thirty years of happy memories with many more to come.

I love you!

A Successful Birthday Celebration

As you know from my previous post, John turned 55 yesterday. I always try to make a birthday a special day of the ones I care about so John's birthday was no exception. I began by finding a lasagna recipe online that proclaimed itself as the "world's best lasagna". The perfect birthday meal for John.

I made the lasagna on Sunday. It involved simmering my own red sauce complete with hamburger and Italian sausage. If you know me, especially in recent years, you know that my cooking consists of opening cans, Hamburger helper, and slow cooker meals, so making this homemade sauce was quite an accomplishment for me and boy, did it ever smell yummy!

Here is the finished product just before we enjoyed it. And, let me tell you, it was the best lasagna that John and I had ever tasted! Success on the meal. I added crescent rolls and our favorite Italian salad, perfect way to celebrate a birthday.

John's gift from me. Sarah Palin's book which I know he will enjoy!

A long standing tradtion in our family is my mom's goody box which is filled with 20 wrapped items. The Birthday person has to guess what is in each present and we keep a running total for the year. John did not fare so well on this box. He guessed 11 of the 20 correctly. Here are just a few of the items.

Took this self portrait with my new camera. Looking good for 55!

And finally, the collage I made for John filled with memorabilia from our fun Mardi Gras night. We will hang it somewhere so that we can always remember that great party!

So. there you have it, John's 55 Birthday!