Blue Jeans and Cotton Tees

One of our favorite family traditions is our Annual Iron Chef Competition at the Remix.

Since we are a family of foodies (people who love to read about, talk about, think about, make, and eat food) our very own Iron Chef Competition just makes sense.

Our rules are simple. The official judges (Nana and the grandkids) chose a secret ingredient and announce it a few weeks in advance. Any one – of any age – can enter as many entries as they wish.

The day of the event all of the entries are placed on a table, labeled and given a small plastic cup to hold the votes. Whenever we are all assembled and quiet (now that’s a major undertaking!), each chef shows their dish and describes the ingredients.

Then we all go around the table taking samples of everything. We each have a small cup of M & M’s that we use for voting by putting them in the cups of our favorite dishes.

This year’s secret ingredient was apples.

We had everything from apple muffins to apple salads. We had apple brownies, apple snacks, and apple desserts. We even had apple butter pancakes!

Some of the amazing entries were:

The simple: “Thick Skinned Apple” – an apple that was peeled, then peanut butter was used to re-apply the peel.

The Chocolate: Caramel Apple Bars

The Unique: Apple Salsa

The Artistic: A Rice Krispie sculpture of William Tell’s Son complete with apple and arrow!

It was a fun and delicious family activity!

I love my family.

I love getting together with my family.

With 2 amazing parents, three sisters, one brother, 4 in-laws and a large collection of assorted nieces and nephews, aged 3 to 24 , any gathering is an undertaking best described as “organized chaos.”

Our official spring gathering is called the Remix and is entirely grandchildren driven. Since we celebrate Christmas together over Labor Day they thought we should remix Christmas in the spring.

Now every year the grandkids (with Grandma’s guidance) plan a fun- filled week-end at Mom and Dad’s on the prairie.

Some of the traditions include:

White Elephant Bingo: Everyone brings a wrapped white elephant gift and one evening we play bingo. Every time you get a Bingo you get to chose a present – either from the table full of presents, or you can take a gift away from someone who has already chosen one.  Things can get pretty wild as presents start flying from one person to another!

When someone gets a black-out, the game is over and everybody opens their gifts. (Anybody need a talking Bob the Builder and Wendy who can no longer talk?!)

Dress-Up Night : No, we don’t do a white tie meal with tuxes and formal attire, instead, we dress-up as any assortment of strange characters. We had pirates, ninja’s, and some Lord of the Ring characters (swords were definitely a favorite accessory this year!)

But we also had a sweet old granny, door-to-door salesmen, a camel herder, and even Shaun Cassidy (complete with entourage).  The creativity among those young’uns was amazing!

Family Worship Service: On Sunday morning we gather together to sing, pray and share. This year was especially sweet as both of my parents shared their testimonies.

For my siblings and I,  it was a precious review of events we experienced together as our entire family of seven came to know the Lord in just a few years. But for our spouses and children,  it was a look at events that changed the course of our family for generations.

Tears were flowing freely by the time we sang our traditional closing hymn – “Blest be the Tie That Binds.”

There were huge meals, too  many desserts,  games galore,  a family sock hop, and lots of laughter.

What precious memories we made this week-end.

Yep…I really love my family.