Tree Decorating Day 2010 At The Compound

The Bean and Snoop Maddie Mad- A Good Day.

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Snoop Maddie Mad shows how all the cool kids are wearing their pocketbooks these days.

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Christmas Cookie Madness At Sista Felicia’s 2010

Things got a little punchy after 10 hours of baking.

Keep in mind they still had 3 hours of baking to go at this point.

Baking Cookies An All Day (and night) Family Affair At Sista Felicia’s

They started at 9:00AM, got into the booze at 1:30PM and finished up at 10:30PM.

Over 50lbs of flour over 15 lbs of sugar.  Table upon table filled with holiday cookies of various shapes, sizes and flavors.  True teamwork in the insane cooking marathon that is Sista Felicia’s Christmas Cookie Baking Day. Video tonight!

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What’s A Lobster Dealer Eat For Thanksgiving?

Why Lobster of course. 

The folks that read the blog know that we spent Thanksgiving in NYC. 

After the Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade and watching the Pats we went out to a great restaurant in Chelsea – COOKSHOP. 

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Now I don’t know about you but if you are going to give me an option to eat lobster over turkey I’ll take lobster 100 times out of 100.  COOKSHOP offered a multi-course prix fixe menu.

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Here is my first course, the roasted lobster salad.  Avocado, cilantro,red onion, lobster and roasted chili sauce.  It was RE-DIC-U-LOUS!

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The main course was Beef Short Ribs.  Man o man.  It was great.  Loved eating out and being able to enjoy each other’s company instead of the mass hysteria that can be associated with huge Holiday meals.  I vote that we eat out every thanksgiving!

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Jaime’s Pumpkin Soup

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Snoop Maddie Mad Digging NYC Video

30 hour round trip to NYC for a Macy Thanksgiving Day Family Holiday.  Traffic wasn’t at all what I had suspected as we made it door to door in under 4 hours.  Once we got to Meg and Jaime’s swanky pad the girls were all charged up and it took a while to settle them to bed.

 

Laid Back Thanksgiving IN NYC

Much thanks to our hosts SIL and BIL Jaime and Meg.  A perfect Thanksgiving.  Laid back, nice light food, Macy Thanksgiving Parade, dining out in Chelsea- no fuss- no muss, just a good time with family.

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The Bean and Uncle Mike

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The Mrs Makes Lobster Corn Chowder

No one cooks lobster like the Mrs.  No-One!  We’re still workin on the zugu but you put a pile of lobsters in front of her and she will make your taste buds sing!

Snoop Maddie Mad Loves Her Ballet Class

All week long Madeline asks- When is it gonna be Tuesday?

After asking her why she wants it to be Tuesday she gets a big smile on her face and says  she wants it to be Tuesday because ballet class is on Tuesday.

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Madeline Oct 4, 2010

Featuring Music By Pete Lindberg

You can download Pete Lindberg’s Music Free at GimmeSound.com

Look for The Kids GMG Homie Pumpkin Display At Topsfield Fair!

Featuring the creative stylings of Sista Felicia, friend of the family Sara Francis,neice Amandacakes, nephew BJ, The Bean and Snoop Maddie Mad.

Also look to see if Sista Felicia garnered a Blue Ribbon for her Rosa Rugosa Rose Hip Jelly or the Rose Petal Jelly.

The GMG pumpkin display is in the Fruits and Vegetables Building, center aisle half way down on the left hand sign.   If you see it send in a not!

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madeline june 5th, 2010

Snoop Maddie Mad rambles on in the back seat- yes my children are bananas

Here’s a few video clips that I haven’t been able to delete from my camera’s memory chip because they are precious (to me anyway).

God I’m gonna miss this stage when they get older.

Sista Felicia’s Rosa Rugosa Video On The Gloucester Times Website

Here is the video on the Gloucester Times Taste Of The Times on demand video recipes featuring Sista Felicia making the Rosa Rugosa Rose Hip Jelly and Rose Petal Jelly.

Click here for the Article From The Gloucester Daily Times-

Take time to eat the roses

Rosa Rugosa is a carefree rose which will grow in salty conditions, shade, full sun, and poor soil so long as it’s well-drained. Its fruits and flower petals can be used to make jelly.

Click The Video Below For The Video

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Sister Felicia Taping Rosa Rugosa Hip Jelly Segment For Gloucester Times Taste Of The Times

Felicia made her rosa rugosa rose petal and rose hip jelly for entry in Topsfield Fair.  With a phone call explaining how timely the segment would be with the rose hips being ripe and the Fair coming up to buddy Joe Langhan,  a couple days later they were shooting the piece.  Look for it soon on the Gloucester Daily Times website

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Worry Dolls

While At Haute Affaire taping the other day I ran across these worry dolls. Now the readers who really pay attention may have picked up from past writings about how different my two girls are.

Here I’m gonna go a little off subject but bear with me-

Growing up I was a firm believer in that people were 100% products of their environment.  That what a person was exposed to – caring, loving, smart parents would rub off on a child and form the way they would be as they got older.  After my sister Felicia had twins who were raised exactly the same way and are completely different emotional beings and then once we had our two girls and they are completely different beings emotionally I know that there’s a whole lot more to what makes up a person’s persona than what they are exposed to.

Gay people- I’m convinced are born gay and aggressive or passive personalities are for the most part born with a genetic predisposition to their behavior as well.

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And now to how I’ll be connecting The Worry Dolls from Haute Affaire to the previous tangent-

The Bean is the oldest of my two little girls and she like myself and my mom are creative people but we also are extremely neurotic worriers.  The second child, Snoop Maddie Mad doesn’t let much bother her.  She acts first and is headstrong without fear- completely the opposite of The Bean.

They have these little worry dolls which are sold in boxes of four. On the sheet of paper that come with the worry dolls it reads-“According to legend,Guatemalan children tell one worry to each doll before bed and then place them underneath their pillow. the dolls take over the worrying so the children sleep peacefully through the night. When the child awakes, the worry dolls take all their worries away.”

So I bought a box of worry dolls for each child and told them the story before they went to bed.

Eloise (The Bean) told her doll that she was worried about monsters.  Madeline (Snoop Maddie Mad) told her doll she was worried about being alone in the dark.  They both placed their dolls under their pillows and slept soundly.

Raising Money for the JJ Foundation Photos from Thom Falzarano

Click Photo for more!

Donations Given
38 GHS College Scholarships – $10,800
Spring Sports User Fees – $4,135
Haiti Relief Fund – $300
2009-10 Fall/Winter Athletic Fees – $4,668
2009 College Scholarships – $12,200
The Children of Matteo Russo – $500
Lorraine Fire Victims – $1,200
2008 College Scholarships – $10,000
2008 Youth Scholarships – $5,000
8 Turkey Give-Aways – $200
Gloucester Stage Co. – $450