Over Abundance Of Candy Canes

So you have a few too many candy canes and if you give your son just one more sticky treat he may go into hyper drive from sugar overload. I have a great use for these sweet holiday favorites. First break them up into smaller pieces.

Place them in a slap chop or in a cuisinart and grind up until it almost a powder. But small chunks are ok.

Pour the candy cane in an old clean seasoning container, preferably one with small holes on top.

Pour over hot chocolate or latte and enjoy!

My Grandma Kay

Yesterday my family and I celebrated the life of an amazing woman. Rebecca Kay Briones. She was my mom's mom, my grandma, my son's "great" grandma.  A woman I truly loved and will love forever and a half. My cousin, Kimberly, has a remarkable way of putting her thoughts into words and has penned many incredible things about this woman on her blog, especially in the last few weeks since she got sick and then went to be with the Lord.  At Grandma's memorial service I was given one of Kimberly's wonderful blogs to read aloud during the share part of the service, that pretty much summed up what most of us were feeling. (I know Kimberly wished more than anything to be at the service, but several circumstances kept her and her family from making it down... Kimberly, you and you're family are in our prayers).  The essence of what she wrote was being sad is okay because we'll miss her, but we're not mourning or suffering over it because this is not the last time we'll see her. She knew Jesus Christ and is at this very moment praising Him in person. That's awesome!I was talking with my Aunt Maureen after the service and she mentioned to me how she enjoyed this time seeing the family, but was sorry it had to be under these circumstances,

 and it got me thinking of one of the last conversations I had had with Grandma Kay.  She said she really wanted to have the family together for a reunion and I'm sure she was including herself in that, and although she wasn't with us physically, the family was together and, I feel, it was like a final gift from that remarkable lady. Like I said she was an amazing woman and we will miss her a ton. Thank you Grandma Kay!

    

The Tooth Fairy came too soon!

So, a little over a week ago, we had a very scary event happen. On Wednesday night (Nov. 12th) I had choir practice and Nick had Youth Group, which meant Zech was with the child care workers, like normal. After practice, Zech and I went over to youth group to hang out with Nick and the high schoolers, like normal. And like normal, Zech likes to run around like a mad man through out the auditorium, foyer and everywhere else. And even more so when someone is chasing him. One of the high schoolers was having fun with him and Zech was loving it. With a few people, including me outside, Zech came running out of the double doors, turned the corner and in the dark ran face first into a hot coal filled BBQ (the high schoolers had made smores earlier that night) It happened so fast and yet so slow at the same time.  Zech turned around, and because he has a tendency to get hurt often, I waited a moment to see what reaction he was going to have.  At first I thought he had burned himself, he had some black soot on his shirt, but then I saw it.... What looked like chocolate pudding coming out of his mouth was blood. And I didn't know this but he was chewing a PB & J sandwich when this happened. So, jumbled in his mouth was a real mess.  I scooped him up and ran in side yelling for Nick.  When we cleaned his mouth out we saw that his front tooth was just hanging on. He also hit the BBQ so hard he cut his lip open.  So you can imagine the amount of blood!  We gave him a frozen Gogert and I went back to the other building to see if my mom was still over there from choir practice, and Praise the Lord, she was. (She is a RDA... Registered Dental Assistant).  So she took a look at his mouth and just shook her head like of course this would happen to our son. I was so glad she was still there, because she told us they had no scheduled appointments in the office the next morning. So first thing the next morning, Nick took Zech to his first dentist appointment ever.  They gave him laughing gas, and numbed the area Dr. Watts would be working on. Zech was so brave. Dr. Watts tried pushing the tooth back in place, but the gums had already begun healing, so it was no use.  The tooth had to come out.  Zech looked up at my mom, who was assisting Dr. Watts, and said with a tear in his eye, "This hurts, when is it going to be over?" All Nick heard was a quick sniffle from my mom and a soft " It will be over soon, I promise". Zech held on like a trooper, and shortly after it was over Zech wanted to go to school and show all his friends the space where his tooth once was. (He also wanted to bring to school his bloody t-shirt and tooth, but Nick told him that will have to wait till "Share Day") Yeah right!

So Zech will be without a front tooth for about 2 years or so... we just told him he's preparing to be a hockey player. We did find a replacement tooth in the meantime, how does it look?

I could run to Disneyland, but I won't!

So here's a little catch up (Not ketchup, although that is my favorite condiment... anyway that was ridiculous, sorry!) So we went to Disneyland, it has become an annual family tradition.  My dad did the half marathon, while my mom and my sister did a 3 mile run through the park. They were getting into it (you know, all healthy and stuff) so Nick and I felt we couldn't be left out of all the fun, so we signed Zech up for a 200 yard dash.  And what did Nick and I do? We did as any good parent did and video taped everything.  It's a lot of work holding the camera up and walking at the same time, someone could get hurt. Everyone did great, all completing their races and exceeding each of our expectations of what it was going to be like.  I was proud of my dad for finishing his race with a better time than he did last year, and I was proud of Zech for not being afraid and running his race so much faster than any of the other slow poke kids, but most of all I was proud of my mom and my sister for completing a race they weren't even sure they were going to run till that day.  My mom made a goal for herself and my sister stuck by her till the end and they, although limping and exhausted, finished.  That was exciting! 

Another major moment of that trip was my husband was able to be a part of it this time.  He has always had a fear of roller coasters and he was not looking forward to it much, but like the trooper he is he managed to face his fear and take on each ride one at a time, and you know what? He had a blast, he conquered his fear and went on everything the parks threw his way. 

This trip had so much exciting things in it, it was my parent's 30th anniversary and they stayed in The California Grand, one of the hotels in the park.  They were treated like royalty, with chocolate covered strawberries, buttons to let all the park employees know it's their special day, and sweet autographed pics of the characters.  We were also the recipients of a group prize, we were randomly chosen to receive passes that got us to the beginning of the line on a select number of rides in both parks.  It was part of their "Year of  a Million Dreams" campaign.  We just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

 And because Zech surprisingly made the 42" requirement he was also able to join in on the fun.  The only rides he was not able to do were Indiana Jones and California Screamin'.  On top of all that excitement, we also received tickets to see the fire works in the VIP section, down main street at the train station. Pretty sweet! This trip is going to be hard to top next year, but it's sure worth a shot.

First Day of School... Ever!

Our little boy started school last Tuesday (8/19).  I cannot even believe it.  When I woke up that morning all I was thinking about was getting Zech up, dressed, fed, and getting him to school on time.  It didn’t sink in until we actually got him in his classroom and saw him with his classmates and his teachers.  He looked so grown up and when the teacher looked at Nick she made a comment about not getting emotional and that’s when the next 16-20 years of Zech’s life flashed before my eyes.  I started thinking about all the friends and enemies that are going to enter his school life and all the influences (good and bad) that are going to appear as well.  Wow, I got really deep there, sorry… Zech walked right in the classroom and started playing with the toys and the other kids like it was no big deal.  I wish I could have done that.  Anyway, after class I asked his teacher how he did and she told me that he is a good boy, we all knew that, and that he was always ready to move to the next thing before it was time.  But she said he wasn’t annoying about it, he simply asked if he could do the next thing and she would say not yet and he would say okay and that was that.  I thought that was pretty funny.  He does that at home too. 

Well, he survived the first 3 hours of his school career and I didn’t do that bad either… and so it begins.  It’ll be okay!

Our son the wise guy!

So the other day Nick and Zech had some time together and out of the blue Zech asks Nick why he can't go on roller coasters.  Nick said "It's not that I can't go on roller coasters it's just they make me sick feeling and I choose not to go on them. I could if I wanted to I just don't want to". Zech looks at him and says, "Huh, like me and swimming". ( Here's a little back story to that comment) Last year we got Zech to go swimming with out his floaties (water wings) for most of the summer, this year he backslid and put up quite a fight to have his floaties back on, for one reason or another he would not go swimming without them... that should make me feel safe knowing he's got them on but I would feel much safer if I knew he knew how to swim if he fell in the pool without them.  So anyway, he makes that comment to Nick and Nick just looks at him and says "You think your so smart don't you? I tell you what, I'll make a deal with you. Every time you actually swim without your floaties, I have to go on a roller coaster ride at Disneyland when we go in three weeks. Deal? " Zech took the deal. Later that night we went to Nick's parent's house for some family time and swimming.  Zech was excited to show daddy he could swim, until he got to the second step and he started to revert back to being afraid.  But then he saw his older cousins swimming and having a good time in the pool and a bit of courage came his way and all he needed was the reminder of dad and the roller coaster and he was diving off the side of the pool before we knew it.  He did it about 8 or 9 time.  So Nick has to ride about 10 rides at the Magic Kingdom.  I bet he's sorry he made that bet... well it worked anyway. 

A girl's weekend