The Kassel Family Project Life 365

…steps up and snuggles with very tired Little Brother.  It calmed him down immediately.  She’s the best!

It’s time for the great Christmas decoration pack up.  My family room is a disaster…  And this is nothing compared to my living room!

I finally found fabric that I liked enough to use for springtime chair seat covers.  My dad made the fourth set of seats well over a year ago, but it wasn’t until last week that I finally found a fabric that I liked.  Bonus – I found TWO fabrics that I liked and I will also replace the old red chair seat covers that are horribly faded and use those for summer.  The striped seats are ready to be put on our chairs tomorrow.  The flower fabric will be used for the summer chair seat covers.  Unfortunately, I do not have quite enough staples left for my staple gun to do all six summer chair seats, but I can probably get three done.  We will just have to make a trip to Home Depot to get some more staples soon.

…goes too fast.  I recycled the last of the sippy cups today and took the Munchkin Dishwasher Basket out of the dishwasher for the first time in *seven* years.  A bittersweet day.

It is time for the Cotton Bowl!  Go Tigers!  AND…  Just in case the Cotton Bowl is awful, we’ve got picture-in-picture going.  We can switch off to the Orange Bowl and watch the “other” Tigers, as in Clemson.  The “other” Tigers are beloved by Andy’s oldest brother, Jim.  So, Go Tigers!  Bring home a Cotton Bowl (Orange Bowl) win!

Laura finished up another Girl Scout Brownie badge today.  The girls had the option of working on the “My Family” badge over their winter school break.  Laura said it was really fun to learn all about our family.  One requirement for the badge was to make a family tree.  She and Andy did that part together because Andy already has a lot of our family tree completed.  Another requirement was to share about an item that is special to our family.  Laura chose to talk about our clock, which was made by my Grandpa Otto.

The final requirements were to make a family dish and share it at a potluck with the rest of her Brownie troop.  Laura helped me make an apple pie using the crust recipe that both my Grandmother and Mom used.  She actually did most of the work on the pie crust though she declared that using the rolling pin was hard because she “couldn’t push down hard enough.”

The potluck dinner with her Brownie troop was great!  Getting to sample all the family dishes and hearing the stories about the dishes was really neat.  I am so glad that the girls had the opportunity to complete this badge.

We finished the day with a cookie meeting.  Yes, it is that time of year again!  Girl Scout Cookie sales start tomorrow!  If you want to order from Laura, just let me know.  There are eight different cookies this year.  She has a goal of 200 boxes and I really want to help get her there.  I can even ship the cookies to you if you are out of town!

Welcome to 2014!  What a great way to start the year!  Kathryn arrived about 10 am to spend the day with us because both her parents had to work.  I didn’t even see the kids for the first three hours or so that she was here.  It was all good though because Andy and I were busy preparing a turkey dinner with all the fixings to share with the Lowerys and Andrea.

We spent the afternoon hanging out with great friends.  It took some effort, but I finally managed to snap this picture of the kids.  In order to get their attention, I had to call their names one at a time.  That Lego house and pond they were building took some serious concentration!

Despite Andy declaring that the turkey was not his “best effort,” the meal was still awesome and yummy!  I do have to say that the gravy he made was probably his best yet.  We also had stuffing, roasted sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, and rolls.  YUM!

After a quick cleaning up of the kitchen (thanks Mom for teaching me how to cook AND clean at the same time!), I poured a glass of wine and relaxed.  We all chatted for a bit longer while the kids played.  The evening was cut a little short because the predicted snow started about 6 pm.  Andrea and Kathryn headed for home and the Lowerys left a bit after them.  It was a great day with great friends and it ended with us watching the beautiful snow!

It really was a great way to start 2014!  Thanks to the Lowerys and the Dothages for joining us!

A small side note…  I am starting year FOUR on this blog!  Can you believe it?!?  Year FOUR!  I remember starting this in 2011 and thinking I was absolutely crazy for even trying it.  Some things are meant to be…