Oh, You Better Watch Out!

Don’t let her out of your sight.

Before you realize she’s even gone, you’ll have this.

It’s turning into a white Christmas around here!

Did you know?

 

Sweet 16

We celebrated Alyssa's 16th birthday last weekend. I know--I can't believe it either! She wanted a party, and she wanted it to be fun and creative. So I called in the reinforcements and hired some top-notch party planners, known to most as Mitchell and Erin, my brother and his lovely wife. (And by hired, I mean I asked them if they'd come and help and they agreed.) But instead of Mitchell and Erin, we got Chaz and Bambi. Oh, well. I’m not picky.

They went above and beyond--bringing fabulous decorations and centerpiece, dessert, cute and wacky menus, and numerous costume changes. But most of all they brought their sense of humor and willingness to embarrass themselves (although I don't think Mitchell was embarrassed one bit) for the sake of a fun party. I laughed so hard in the kitchen as Mitchell practiced his multiple personalities on us before serving each course of our “mystery dinner” at the party table. Take a look:

Ninja—Besides the cool martial arts poses, he has a great accent: “You order… rasagna!"

Bambi—When she served the girls their second course, she cracked me up as she strutted around. To those who received bread during that round, she haughtily put their plates down, saying, “Here are your…CARBS. Seriously, girls, we’re totally going to have an aerobics session after dinner. This is going straight to your hips.”

‘Arry Pottah in a blue Snuggie--complete with the British lilt.

Surfer dude--He told us his name was Humuhumunukunukuapua'a and kept adding more syllables each time he said it. I wish I'd caught his hula dancing on video!

GI Joe

And my favorite—Billy Bob. “Why’d ‘ja order yur salad fur dessert??”

It was a great party—one I’m sure Alyssa and her friends won’t forget any time soon. Happy 16th birthday, Alyssa!

And Chaz and Bambi—a million thanks! You two are amazing!

No more fruit guilt!

First it was the peaches—we have two trees. We ate and ate, made jam, desserts, smoothies, and then froze the rest.

Then came the roma tomatoes. We were given a huge box full of them and they needed to be used immediately. They sat on the counter for a couple of days before I found instructions online about making oven-roasted tomatoes. That was the easiest and best thing I’ve ever done with garden tomatoes! I made a few batches of those and then froze them in bags. We’ve been eating them with pasta, pizza, frittatas, and roasted cauliflower—anything you’d do with sun-dried tomatoes. I’m loving them! Next year I think I’ll plant some romas just for roasting.

Finally, the plums on our tree were ripe. We love these for snacking and for sack lunches, but there were too many to eat, so we gave some away, froze a couple of bags, made a couple batches of jam and a few plum desserts, like the galette above. This has become my new favorite—a little easier than regular pie. I tried it with peaches and apples, too, and they all turned out great. For a couple of weeks we had huge bowls of plums on the counter, and now we are down to about a dozen left in the refrigerator.

Most recently we had apples. Buckets and buckets of them—given to us by a neighbor. She came over and we canned apple pie filling for hours. How many apple pies can a family eat in a year? I guess we’ll find out. After we filled the last of our jars, I sighed in relief. Done! All was safely gathered in. Until I walked into the garage and saw that my friend had left behind two more boxes of apples. These are not easy apples to deal with. The trees hadn’t been sprayed, so the apples were a bit wormy. You can’t just eat them, you have to cut the bad spots out first. I’m throwing them away, I thought. I can’t deal with anymore fruit! But I just couldn’t do it—I was raised not to waste food. Sigh . So I made applesauce. I finally finished yesterday. For the first time in weeks, we have no more bowls, boxes, or buckets of fruit in the kitchen. Hooray! But tell that to the fruit flies. They seemed to have taken up permanent residence. That’s okay—it gives Brian something to do.

His latest hobby is sucking the flies in mid-air with the vacuum hose. It cracks me up. And just when he thinks he got every last one, a couple hours later there are a few more. He’s been at it for days—I hope he wins soon!

It's been a year already???

She's starting to walk and talk. She's got teeth (fangs--her top eyeteeth came in first!). She knows how to make us laugh. She loves to dance and move to music. She refuses to smile at strangers. She packs away more food than Corinne does. She weighs in at 19.5 lbs and the doctor was so impressed that she jumped from the 3rd percentile to the 25th. (That's huge by our standards.) It's been a big year and I can't believe how fast it's gone. I feel as if I should be a little sad that her babyhood is gone but I'm not even a little teary. She has been such a sweet baby and I'm looking forward to her next milestones. A year ago I wasn't sure how I would survive the sleepless nights, the round-the-clock feedings, and schlepping the carseat and gear all over town trying to keep up with all the other kids. I am happy to report that I made it and that we can't imagine life without Hayley.

And When Someone Needs a Makeover

I simply couldn't take over, because I didn't know exactly what she needs. So I took her to Cookie Cutters. (Forgive the Wicked reference--Jillian just sang this song for her Annie audition--and yes, she got a part in the play.)

Jillian wanted to donate her hair to Locks of Love, so they cut off her ponytail and mailed it in.

Corinne got her hair trimmed while we were there, and now they have twin haircuts. Can you tell who's who?

Corinne is still upset about being the only blonde in the family. She hopes it turns brown when she gets older. She really wants to be a "brown girl" (her words) like Alyssa--she wants to change her eye color, too! When Corinne got mad at Jillian a few months ago, this was her angry insult: "You're a little sister and you have blonde hair!" Can you imagine anything more horrible! But things are looking up for Corinne--Hayley has blue eyes, too, and we think she's going to be another blondie.

When the Family Gets Together…

Tonight’s Family Home Evening was taken care of by the kids.  Corinne volunteered to conduct as she does almost every week.  She loves being in control, and she does a great job moving things along, much to the frustration of the person giving the lesson.  Jillian was relating a story from the August Friend when Corinne interjected:

“Thank you, Jillian.  That was a great lesson.  Now we’ll turn the time over to…”

“Corinne!  I wasn’t finished!”

“I know, but that’s enough talking.  It’s time for the game.”

We asked Jillian to finish her lesson on repentance and she did a great job.  Afterwards she thanked Corinne for being reverent.  Corinne admitted:

“I wasn’t really listening.  I was just waiting for you to be done.  Let’s play the game now.”

Evan asked:  “Great.  Are we playing bubble/fairy/farmer tag?” (a mixture of the types of games we play when the little girls are in charge.)  No, not this time.

Jillian almost lost us as she explained the rules of the game she made up to go with the lesson, but we agreed to try it.  She had put a lot of thought into it and even made a “tangerine” prop.  We found ourselves running around the basement trying to avoid being tagged by the tangerine tree.  If the tangerine touched us, we were frozen in place and waited for Mrs. Baker to hug us before we melted into the floor or we’d be the next tangerine tree.  Have you ever played that game before?  Probably so, but it was our first time and we actually enjoyed it.  I should have taken a picture but I was too busy trying to dodge the tangerine. 

The fun ended too soon for Corinne and she begged for another game.  When we wouldn’t accommodate her, she collapsed on the floor and refused to conduct the rest of the meeting.  We continued without her.  When it was time for the closing prayer she raised her head and asked:

“Dad, what was I sad about again?”

“We wouldn’t let you play another game.”

“Oh, yeah.” 

She puts head down and starts crying again while we all try to control our laughter so we can pray.  And then we adjourned to the kitchen for some Snickerdoodle Casserole.  Just ask Evan for the recipe—it was really tasty!