Happy 8th Birthday, Shannen!

Today is Shannen's 8th birthday. Yesterday we had his birthday party. My aunt and her two daughters, grandparents and cousin and his *girlfriend came over. We had a lot of fun. We had a "High School Musical" themed party. I made a CD of all the High School musical songs on it, and we played it in the backyard. We had plates, napkins, tablecloths and cups with the same theme. He was so surprised and a little bit embarrassed! All of our streamers and balloons were red and yellow (the "Wildcat" color...it's from the movies!) This birthday we did something different with the ice cream. We all made our own, it was a lot of fun. I'll type the recipe in a minute. It's called Shake and Make ice cream. Everyone got their own bags and while we shook our bags of ice cream we danced and sang to the music. It was really funny, even the parents and my grammy got into this. Shelbie and I (who have all the lyrics to: "Gotta Go My Own Way" memorized were total dorks! We've also memorized the choreography for the song, so while this song was playing, we pathetically danced and sang (yikes!) throughout the song. My little cousin Lynna, thought this was the funniest thing ever! Lucy and Ricky (the goats) had gotten out of their pen and ran around the yard doing their "happy jig" all evening. They were so excited to be out, and with so many kids around to pet them and show them attention. The whole evening was a lot of fun!

(*) It is so much fun to meet a family member's new girlfriend or boyfriend or new spouse. I'm a tiny bit ornery by nature, so when these situations occur, I like to have fun with them. Last time a family member brought her boyfriend over, I nearly scared him out of the house. (I had help with this, my uncle is as bad as me) Actually, we really gave him a hard time, and she felt so bad about it! (We did appologize later on, hopefully that made it all better.) We sat at the table and stared at this poor guy all night long!! At one point in the evening, my uncle was watching him (this was the first time he'd met her boyfriend too) and started writing stuff down about him. It was so classic! This guy has come over since then, and we're all nice to him now. (He came back...so that means he's a keeper. She's thankful now!)There are some rules to this past time of ours though, one time is enough. After you do this once, if they come back we have to be nice to them! (So yes, I was very nice to my cousin's girlfriend...she's very sweet and we like her...but the first time she came...yea.) Our goal isn't to run these new people off (unless we really don't like the particular person) but to just really scare them, it makes good jokes for the future after they're married or something. As fun as it is to do this to other people, I'd never want it done to me...I'd be really mad!

Here's the recipe for Shake and Make Ice Cream:

2 TB sugar
1 cup half-and-half
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
6 TB Rock salt (very inexpensive)
1 pint-size plastic zip lock bag
1 gallon-size zip lock bag
Crushed Ice

Directions
Combine the sugar, half-and-half and vanilla in pint-size zip lock bag and seal. Fill the gallon-size zip lock bag one-half full with crushed ice. Add the rock salt. Place the sealed, pint-size zip lock bag into the gallon size zip lock bag and seal.

Next, listen to some fun music while you shake the gallon-size bag for 5-7 minutes or until the ice cream hardens. Make sure you rinse the bag of ice cream off before eating it, otherwise it will taste like salt.

This recipe is perfect for those midnight cravings. You can also add stuff to the mixture after it's hardened. (For example: cookie chunks, nuts, fruit, sprinkles, chocolate chips, ect.)