Bryan's Family Comes To Town Day 1

November 28, 2009 Saturday Evening

Bryan's brother Craig, his wife Christine, and their 3 kids: Kip, Karena, and Clark arrive in town. We are sooooooo excited to see them! This is Casper's first time meeting his cousin's on his Dad's side, and Cea is quite happy to have these BIG, OLDER kids to play with!

At the house we give them a gift of small art projects, that we have had at our house for almost a year, that we keep meaning to mail out to them. Then we have a box of Mariner items for them to go through.

It is a great evening, and so good to see everyone!
Cea loved being read to by Karena, and was escatatic that they were sleeping in HER ROOM!
This has been a wonderful beginning for this next full week of family!

Karena and Bryan

Looking at all the Mariner stuff

Craig wearing a Youth Sized Mariners Shirt

Age means nothing!!! Kip and Casper were instant friends!
(Kip is the oldest cousin and Casper is the youngest)

The first of many dog piles --Clark and Casper

Aunt Christine loves being around a "baby" She was quite willing to help with diaper duty!

In pajamas, these are 2 excited little girls!

Bed time stories

More bed time stories

Clark sleeping under the bed

Clark getting his goodnight hug and kiss from Mircea

The Annual Plachinda Bake

November 14, 2009 Saturday

Each year the Annual Plachinda Bake Day gets more and more crowded, as more and more grandkids join in with helping Grandpa bake! Hmmmm, pretty soon we will just drop the kids off with grandpa and go do something else!?!?! hehe Yeah right!--Within 5 minutes, there would be a meltdown of tears and tantrums, and that would just be Grandpa!!! :)

Anyway, here is the scoop:
Today we are all "obligated" to have quality/quantity time with my dad baking plachinda! Plachinda is a German Pastry that is filled with pumpkin (or other things, but we prefer pumpkin). The day is busy with counting cups of flour, Dad exclaiming about how perfect the dough is (cuz he made it), and then everyone telling each other they are pinching the pastries wrong, or filling them too full, or there isn't enough sugar, etc. --As you can see, it is a fun day!
However, it has become more fun with the grandkids now involved in the process--they tend to like to roll out dough that they have dropped on the floor, licked, or otherwise abused, and then think we should use it for real!--hopefully the oven kills all the germs!! (Or that they didn't notice we kept handing them the same ball of dough!) As for my sisters' husbands, and my husband--well they grin and bear it--as they have all developed a liking for plachinda as well.
Thanks to Ginny and Samantha for helping Grandpa grind the pumpkin days earlier.
Thanks for Steve and Ginny for hosting the event (as usual) and for providing a delicious lunch.

First you have to make the dough!

Hmmm can those kids count to 16? or was it 12? or was it????
Then you mix the dough--Look at all those helpers!

Now we roll the dough into a log to divide into pieces.
Some times it came out into an even number, sometimes into an odd number, and NEVER the same number!

Casper wants to get in on the fun!

Mircea flattening her dough out

Casper starts out looking like a pro

Danny looks for tips from Casper

Roll Roll Roll
Check out the muscles!

The whole group of cousins--hard at work

Ginny rolls each lump of dough--I mean each carefully divided segment of dough (that is hopefully a FRESH/non-child touched piece) into an oval.
Then I fill with pumpkin, top with LOTS of cinnamon and sugar, and pinch it together, once a little water is brushed on the edges.

Place onto a pan and Bake

And here is the finished product!

Here I am again, working hard!

The kitchen is full of help!
This is one time where there is too many cooks, and that is just fine!

Mom helped out too!

See! I told you we had fun!
Can you imagine his smile if you could somehow combine making plachinda with bicycles?!
Uh oh, I hope he doesn't read my blog--this might give him ideas. . .

Grandma arrives with OUTFITS! The kids now have aprons AND chef hats!

From Left to Right: Danny, Casper, Joe, Samantha, Alex, Mircea

Porsche, Beth, Ginny

Troy just couldn't stand us having all the fun, so he joins in with the baking too!

Samantha is also big enough for a more active roll!
She helped with the adding of the cinnamon and sugar. She is a great help!

Grandma Gladys and Lucille were quite happy amid all the activity


Soon, the kids took some time out to play before lunch:
There was lots to do when they weren't baking as well.

Lucille even joined in with the playing!

Ahh yes, this must be the kids table for lunch! --Oh, Hi Dad! :)
It was a great meal of chilli, and cole slaw, and I forget what else--oh yes, plachinda!

Then onto celebrating a birthday!
Alex turned 2 years old!

A Plachinda Birthday Cake!?!?!?!

Wow! Your mom really went all out this year for your cake Alex! :P

Opening of the gifts! (This one was from us)

There was a lot of help with opening the presents!

Even Aunt Beth helped out! :)

The only one that didn't help open the presents was Casper, and then we all saw him over at the table finishing off the "birthday cake"! He was being very quiet--probably hoping he could finish off the cream before we found him!

A weekend of Dewey

September 11-14, 2009 Friday through Monday

Dewey arrives at our house in a BMW that a friend of his in CA loaned him. We were all amazed that Dewey was trusted with the car--and as Dewey said, "If this was MY car, I wouldn't loan it to me!"
There was lots of fun to be had at McDonalds and then at home on the trampoline.
Brad, Polly, and Darren came over to play on Sunday! It was a beautiful sunny day: lots of outdoor toys to play with, wrestling, climbing trees, etc.
Monday was the Puyallup fair which will be on the next blog posting.

Dewey and the BMW

In the parking lot at Target

At Mcdonald's--Bry just bought himself a camera, so they were trying it out!

Trying on Dewey's sunglasses

And now for lots of craziness on the trampoline!

Brad and Darren

A Frisbee was caught in the tree--

you can see Dewey up the tree in this picture getting the Frisbee.

Starting to pile on . . .

I think Mircea must have won this wrestling match!