Wordless Wednesday

Food Challenge - PEACHES!

This summer, during the long hot afternoons when it was too hot to be outside or at the pool with the baby, the girls came up with the idea of doing "food challenges" - as they like to call them. It started after a morning of peach picking and we had 2 full trays of ripe, juicy peaches on our kitchen counter.

The challenge rules~

• The "challenge ingredient" must be incorporated into the recipe - in this first case it was peaches.
• You may not follow a recipe exactly as written but must tweak it to make it uniquely your own
• Dishes are judged for taste, presentation, and creativity.

Mom's Rules~

• They could use any appliance in the kitchen as long as they cleaned it and put it away.

• The kitchen had to look like no challenge had taken place there when they were done.
  

They divided into 3 "teams" - Marina on one, Juliette on another, and Olivia with Eliza apparently serving as her sous-chef. August and I would serve as judges. And yes, we really did judge them.

Here's what they came up with for the first challenge.

Left: Juliette's Peach Crumble
Center: Marina's Peach Tart with Shortbread Crust
Right: Olivia's Lattice Top Peach Cobbler

With this first Challenge, our system of judging was pretty rudimentary. It pretty much came down to "Which one do you like best?" With subsequent challenges, which I'll post about another time, we (really it was August) came up with a more detailed points system.

I have to admit I was quite impressed watching them in the kitchen - not only as they planned and prepared the food but as they navigated the space with all four of them in there at once. We've had 2 more challenges since this one and we're going apple picking this week so I smell another one coming.

I won't say who won this first challenge - mostly because I can't remember anymore - but I will tell you they were all delicious.

All I can say is "Move over, Iron Chef!"

Cleaning House

I took a few minutes to clean up some things around here - the blog, not my own house because that would take a few years, not minutes! (I'm more into immediate gratification these days!) I updated my stack of reading in the left column but I'm just about done with Age of Opportunity. When I am, you can be sure it will immediately go into my right column of parenting favorites. What a GREAT book for parents of teens. It's not at all a how-to-get-them-to-do-what-you-want-them-to-do book. Rather, it's a how-to-understand-what's-going-on-in-their-hearts/minds sort of book. I can't recommend it highly enough. But then again, I feel that way about the Hold On To Your Kids book that already lives in the right column.

I'll soon be on to Bringing Up Geeks and also, Olivia and I are reading The Fellowship of the Ring together. (I'm a little embarassed to admit I've never read any of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.)

It's not hard to pick up on the theme to my reading selections so far this year. We have one teen already and will have a second in the near future. It is indeed an adventure!


Edited to add: Now I see that all those links I worked so hard to include above aren't working. I'll be back later to try and fix them. Sorry about that!

When a Mother's Heart Breaks..............

When I was on bedrest, friends from near and far reached out to be my hands and feet for my family. Some of these "friends" I'll likely never meet face to face. One of those women is Colleen. Colleen's sweet baby Bryce (3 months old) died today in his sleep. Would you please pray for her and the entire family.

Tap, tap, tap.....is this thing on?

So today officially marks one month since we've posted anything new on this poor, neglected blog. I was gently informed in an email a few days ago (thanks, Mom) and a phone call yesterday (thanks, Dad) that some folks have wondered about our well-being during the silence. The hiatus really hasn't been intentional but life got so full we were too busy living it to write about it.

So here we are saying good-bye to August (the month, that is) and peering around the corner to fall. Brayden had his first vacation and his 4 month check-up in August. Fortunately, for all the nurses, he managed to resist showing off his impressive stream during this visit. He's a whopping nearly 13 pounds now - still a pound or 2 short of where all his sisters were at this age but still pretty good for a guy who started out looking quite skeletal 4 months ago.

We'll try to get some more vacation pictures up later on this week.

Happy Birthday Liv!

I still remember, very vividly, my first reaction when I learned we were expecting a second baby girl.
I began to fret. I worried that I could never love another little girl as much as I loved your big sister. So I did the only thing I could do. I prayed.
I prayed that God would make you a unique girl with your own set of gifts and talents all your own.Boy did He do above and beyond my wildest dreams!
How God must have been laughing at your worried mom while he knit you together. You're a treasure and we love you!

Eye Clutter

The girls think he looks "cute". I say he looks more like an obsessed tourist in the Museum of Natural History or maybe a prehistoric theme park. All he's lacking is a camera dangling around his neck and a fanny pack around his waist. What do you think?