Why we are McDonalds people

Since today was Jeff's birthday we decided to take the family out for a nice dinner. We took the kids out to Applebee's, which is Kelsi's favorite restaurant. We went in with high hopes and lots of threats, we walked in with smiles on our faces and antispating a nice dinner and left with screaming kids and scowls on our faces.... here is how the evening went.
It started well, as we were looking over the menu Gabe kept reaching over and giving Jeff big hugs and telling him happy birthday, being our little charmer. Kelsi sat and colored and talked about school and Tory played with the crayons not being used. Then we ordered drinks for ourselves and Kelsi and Gabe, and me and Jeff not thinking about Tory ordered a Pepsi and Mt Dew and of course when she saw us taking drinks she wanted one, so we would take the kids drinks to let her have a sip and of course Gabe threw a fit about that. Then once we got the waitress's attention we got Tory her own drink. By then Kelsi remember her obsession with public restrooms and "had to go really really bad, really" So she went and then Gabe had to go. So after the first bathroom break the waitress came and took the order. 2 minutes later Gabe is complaining about why his food isn't here, why are they taking so long. Of course as loud as possible. Then there is Kelsi yelling at Gabe for who knows what. Then they start climbing under the table, then over the table. Then jumping on the side of the table, talking to the people in front and behind us. Then they are coughing as loud and gross as possible. Gabe & Kelsi are burping as loud as possible and laughing... oh this is a good one, Jeff says' Gabe your being a pig, Gabe's remark: "No dad that burp did not sound like a pig at all" By this time Gabe rememered his fail safe to stop eating his dinner... dad I got to go to the bathroom, then Kelsi chimes in because her public restroom obsession is nagging her and she had to go so I told her no and then she throws a fit because "it's not fair that Gabe got to go to the bathroom and she dosen't" so to avoid the fight she went again. She also came to the table on her way back from the wrong direction so I am pretty sure she roamed the restaurant. By that time we are stuffing the food in our mouth just trying to get out of there. I want to know why these hostess like to put families like ours in the middle of the restaurant..... please put us back in a corner where no one can see or hear us or maybe we should just stay with McDonalds.

The kicker was as we were walking into Target later that night Kelsi asked us if we would buy her a treat because they acted so good. Hmmmm, let me think about that one.

If you like white sauce......

In the Flint family it seems like it is a tradition whenever you have french toast you have to smoother them in white sauce. Jeff loves his white sauce, but I found this syrup recipe on one of the food blogs ( Sisters Cafe ) and I am now addicted to it... It is going on all of our breakfeast plates that need syrup now.

I am still working hard on convincing Jeff, he may be a white sauce on french toast till his dying day but I love this syrup. To humor me he did say "It's the best homemade syrup I have ever had" then he put maple syrup all over his waffles.

If you want to experiment I am sure you can change the flavor of the extract and make it your favorite flavors... Let me know if you do and what you tried and how it worked!

Coconut Syrup

7 - 8 T Butter
3/4 C Buttermilk
1 C Sugar
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Coconut Extract


Place butter, buttermilk and sugar in saucepan. Then turn on stove on medium and stir until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Bring to boil for one minute. Remove from heat add soda and flavoring. It will bubble up; just continue to stir and give it a few minutes for the fizz to reduce before serving.


Enjoy!!!!

Playing in the Snow

We have been pounded with storm after storm the last few weeks. This snow has been really heavy full of lots of moisture snow... which turns into break your back snow as you are shoveling the driveway. Anyways I am particullary happy the snow is hitting now in February since Kelsi is off track and I dont have to walk her to school in it.... I hope the weather gets it all out of its system by March, but I doubt I have that good of luck.

Anyways the kids were out playing in the snow as I was shoveling it yesterday... translation, they were climbing on the top of the snow banks that I was making and knocking all the snow back on the driveway... Anyways Jeff got home and started playing with the kids and tossed them in the snow. These pictures are of the kids in the snow after they got tossed. They thought it was so cool until they realized they could not move and get back out!

Detection

I thought this was a funny blog worthy post. Last night we had let the dog in and he was running around in the kitchen. Well after a while we found a puddle of something on the floor and of course you could see the anger rising in Jeff's face. As I was getting a rag to clean it up, I commented you know the dog hasn't had any problems I dont think he had an accident. So as I turn around I see Gabe down on all fours, sticking out his tounge and licks up some of the liquid off the floor... as we were all mortified at what he had done, he announced nope not pee, it was water from my glass.

Batman

I love the Lego X Box games, I think they are fun and we enjoy playing these games with the kids. We just bought the Batman Lego games and Gabe is addicted. He is in love with Batman. He has been wearing all black all weekend and making us call him Batman whenever we talk to him. What a fun stage he is moving into.

Jeff and Gabe playing Batman

Brotherly Love

My sweet sister in law Kami sent us and the kids a fun little valentines day package... thanks Kami, love ya!!! Anyways I had set aside Tory's fun dip package until later, and as I was making breakfeast Sunday morning this is what I found Gabe doing.

He decided to help Tory with her candy. I thought it was so sweet. Gabe has really shied away from Tory, he says it is because she pulls his hair and pokes his eyes, I guess you really cant fight that logic. But I am really happy to see him starting to make a connection and relationship with Tory.

Quick Post

Well it's a rainy dreary day here and Jeff had to drive to work in the car pool, and I dont really want to walk to school in the rain with a sick baby and two kids so Kelsi is missing the last day of school before she goes off track, thankfully it is just pe and computer time. Poor Tory has had a terrible cough lately, bordering on croup so we have had several sleepless nights lately. However some good news for Tory is that the neurolgy department wanted to try some anti-convulsive medication for Tory. It has been a night and day difference for Tory. She has only held her breath 2 times within a week and no seizures. She is happier, more playful and more energentic. I am happy that something finally seems to be helping. There is a couple more tests set up for now, we are waiting to talk to the neurologist in a week so they can find out how Tory is doing on the medicine and that will determine if we are going to go through with the tests, one of them is a 23 hour EEG, which I am really not looking forward to. They also suggested taking Tory to a children's therapist to see if they could help us out with some ideas on how to treat her and help her get through these things, so we decided what the heck it cant hurt, I set up the appointment, got Jeff out of work early dragged Kelsi and Gabe over there and the therapist stood us up! So needless to say we wont be going back.
We had parent teacher conference for Kelsi this week and Kelsi is doing so good. Her teacher was telling us good things after good things for her. She has made it through all of her reading books and is now in regular books that she can have her choice off, to bring home to read. She is very excited about this. Her teacher said she is very "energetic". She is very helpful and has even been put at the same table as kids that could use some extra help because her teacher said she is so good at helping other students. It made us so happy to hear such good praise about Kelsi. So we are starting our "grades dinner" tradition. This is a tradition we had when we were little and if we did the same or better each report card time we would get to go out to dinner. It was something I always looked forward to. So Kelsi decided she wanted a restaurant that had slides so Artic Circle was the first grades dinner. Enjoy it while I can ,I know, I am sure it is going to get more expensive as we go.
As I mentioned earlier Jeff got a yearly bonus this year and we decided to be a little bad and spent a little on a family splurg, we got a new LCD TV for downstairs, we sold our old one to Owen and took advantage of Circut City going out of business. Once I get it looking all the way I want to, (hidding all the cords) I will have to post a picture. It opens up the basement a ton, it is such a small room as is so this helps a lot. We also went to HR Block to do our taxes this year and our return is more the double what we got last year, so we are going to be able to get all but 2 payments on the car paid off! I dont think I have ever owened a car that was completly paid off, I am very excited about that! Now we can dump all of the car payment on our credit card and hopefully get that paid off by this time next year.
We had family pictures done and if I say so myself we are a pretty handsome looking family. We got them done at Wayman's studio and they turned out really nice. Very pricy, but thank goodness for a gfit certificate so we did not have to pay for most of it. Now I just need to find a great big frame, our family pictures is a 16 x 20!
Oh and my brother Blake who just got home from him mission proposed to the girl who waited for him last night. So congratulations to them. March 28th is the wedding date. Madalyn is a cute girl and they will be very happy I am sure. We are looking forward to getting to know her better, she is so quiet or as Craig put it yesterday, maybe we are just to scary.