Time that he earns his keep!!!

The Cisco Kid has chores around the house he must do. At this point he does them without complaints. He doesn’t have many to do. He only has to make his bed, keep his room clean and put his dirty clothes in the hamper. I feel it is time for him to have a little more responsibility so I added some more chores to his list. He must put the recycles in the recycling bin located in the garage. Bring his laundry basket to the laundry room on laundry day. Hang his clothes in the closet once they are on the hangers. He gave me a little bit of an argument only because I interrupted his game of Wii. He stopped arguing with me real fast when I told him he will never play Wii again if he doesn’t cooperate.

He is so tired of me taking his picture.  I am always reminding him to smile.  Not this time!!!!  He was more than eager to smile.  He knew if I got my shot I would move on and he could go back to playing his game.

Hanging clothes in record time. I think I'm on to something here.   

Back to his game. 

Let the Auction Begin!!!!

 Last night we had our monthly Pack meeting. This was lots of fun. All the boys had to make a sports themed cake and bring it to the Pack meeting. To make this fun and raise some money for future events we had an Auctioneer person come so she could auction our cakes off to the highest bidder. All the money we made goes towards the whole pack spending half a day at a horse ranch riding horses and our next pack campout.

The Cisco Kid wanted to make a fish to represent fishing.

This is what he looks forward to when he helps me bake a cake. 

 There is a straw with a gummy worm to make it look like a fishing hook. 

These are some great cakes from our Den.

I am going to start out by saying that The Cisco Kid wanted to win the auction for his cake. I told him that the bid would probably start at ten dollars and he could bid as high as $16.00. The Auctioneer asked the boys what they think their cake is worth and the Cisco Kid said $16.00. So that is where the auction started. She then said.... any one for $17.00 and someone raised their number. Then she said $18.00 and the Cisco Kid just looked at me like, I want to bid mom!! Can I go higher! I gave him the waive to go ahead. The bids went back and forth from The Cisco Kid to another gentleman. The cake went from $16.00 to $18.00, then TCK bid 19.00, then 20.00 to a gentleman. TCK 22.50, I gave TCK the signal for that was enough bidding. The gentleman grabbed the cake for $25.00.

This picture shows The Cisco Kid Shocked that someone else was bidding against him. 

The gentleman that won. He was the Auctioneers husband 

     These two laughing were so funny. Sebastian was up to auction off his cake and he told his father that he wanted to win it. The bid started out at 20.00. When Francisco bid the 20.00, Nancy would counter bid. Francisco was not going to let his son down. Nancy and Francisco went back and forth until he won the cake for his son and paid 45.00.

That was a fun evening.  We raised 611.00 auctioning off the cakes. 

The change from one season to the next is amazing

The older these boys get the more aggressive they play. The only way I could explain it is, last season they were all very respectful of the other person wanting to kick the ball. They basically let everyone have a turn kicking it. This season (six months later) they will snatch that ball away in a second. So far this season the Cisco Kid has been hit in the face twice with the ball. Due to someone kicking the ball away from their opponent. Unfortunately, The Cisco Kid happened to be in the way both times. All this time I thought Soccer was a relatively safe game to play in their age group. Now these boys are walking away with scraped up knees, banged up legs and in my sons case a soccer ball mark on his face.

When he started playing back in September, you could see how much distance there is between the ball and the boys. In this picture you could see how the three opposing team members are hanging back to let The Cisco Kid kick the ball. 

Still keeping their distance.

Still other team members are hanging back.

Now!!!!  Here are some plays from this season and you could see how aggressive they are.  The Cisco Kid got the ball out of there just in time. This turned into a pile up, with The Cisco Kid in the middle. 

As you could see, there is a boy down and the game goes on.

Way too much hands on.

I ask The Cisco Kid every week if he still wants to play Soccer and he says, YES!!!  Mom is going GRAY!

Two diferent marinade's for chicken

I find that grilling out is so easy. There is virtually no mess to clean up and the cooking time is cut in half. I have several very good recipes for marinades. Today I am going to share two of them. I will share more in future posts.  One is sweet and tangy and the other is a mild seasoned flavor. We eat lots of chicken and it could get very boring cooking it the same way all the time. It makes every meal completely different when the chicken is marinated in several different flavors, not to mention the marinade keeps the chicken moist.

The first marinade is the sweet and tangy. 

1/8 cup of light brown sugar
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of lemon juice
1/4 cup of water
1 tablespoon of dried parsley
1 tablespoon of garlic pepper grinder
1/2 tablespoon of kosher salt.

Wisk all the ingredients together and pour 3/4 of the marinade over the chicken. Save the rest for basting. Marinade for at least three hours.

The second marinade is the mild seasoned flavor.
2 tablespoons of butter, softened
1 tablespoon of dry parsley
1/2 cup of Vegetable stock
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
1 tablespoon chicken flavor Mrs Dash

Add all ingredients to the softened butter and microwave for 25 seconds or until butter is completely melted. Wisk all ingredients together. Wait until the marinade is at room temperature before you pour it over the chicken. Only pour 3/4 of the marinade over the chicken and save the rest for basting.  Marinade for at least three hours.