Speaker of the House

Time for me to be the proud mom.  Grant humored me by posing for this picture so I could tell you about the trophy and medal.  He and his partner took first place at the district debate tournament, winning all of their rounds with perfect scores.  Grant also received the "top speaker" award.   Their achievements earned them a trip to the state debate meet last week.  I went to observe and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it!  It brought back good memories from my debate years, back when I thought I'd go to law school and someday run for public office.  Oh, well, now I can live vicariously through my kids.  Anyway, Grant and his partner won all of their debates at the state tournament, even against teams from schools who have debate coaches and a history of winning every year (so I'm told.)  Grant even received perfect scores for every round, and he and his partner placed 4th overall.  It was a long day, but Grant didn't seem nervous or stressed.  Public speaking seems to come pretty naturally for him and I loved sitting back and watching him in action, wondering how he'll choose to use his talents in the coming years.

What’s So Funny?

I’m in the kitchen cooking when I become aware of something wonderful.  Most of my children are huddled together on the couch, laughing like crazy.  Wow, I think.  They’re getting along so well and having such a good time.  Then I hear comments like, “Look at his hair!”  Laugh.  “No, look at him—he’s even worse!”  Laugh, laugh.  “Wait—is that a boy or a girl?”  More laughing.  “What about her?”  Ha, ha, ha.
I’m a little concerned now.  Who are they making fun of?  I march into the room, already launching into a lecture about accepting people who are different , when I spy the object of hilarity in front of them.  My high school yearbook.  “Oh, nevermind.  Now I get it.  Go ahead and laugh—we deserve it.”
Of course they found my pictures, and Alyssa was so impressed with my lovely hair that she decided to imitate my look.  Nice try, honey, but you’ll never have better 80’s hair than I did.  This picture was taken when I was Alyssa’s age.  If you think this hair is big, you should see my senior picture.  In any case, that yearbook I purchased 20+ years ago was a great investment—future hours of entertainment for my children.

Is Honesty Always the Best Policy?

Watching me exercise to a DVD this morning, Corinne observed:  “Mom, their legs are much skinnier than yours.”  Really?

And last week it was, “Mom, are you sure you’re not going to have another baby soon?  Because your tummy is still kind of fat.”  Sigh.
But where is the honesty when I’d really like to hear it?  “Corinne, did you cut Jillian’s homework in half?”  “No, it must have been Hayley.”  The same Hayley who is sound asleep and couldn’t cut a straight line with scissors if she wanted to.  I’ve always been able to tell when my kids aren’t telling me the truth—you can just see it in their faces.  Until Corinne.  She is so convincing!

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!