Go Ahead......Laugh

Today, as I'm carrying Brayden and walking in to our local homeschool co-op to pick up the girls from their classes, another mom stops me.

"Hi, Martha." She says, eyeing Brayden. "Did you all decide to adopt one or two?"

What?! Now, I'm fighting to maintain my composure and not laugh at this poor woman who sees the look of amusement on my face.

"No." I say cheerfully. "I had him. Maybe your thinking about my friend, Susan."

"Oh!" She says. "I thought when I saw him that maybe you decided on one now and then one later."

I smiled and kept walking but in my head I was thinking, "Yes, I KNOW my children look nothing like me.....they're CUTER!" ;-)

Oh well, (insert deep sigh here).....I guess I'll just have to keep praying for that blonde!

Food Challenge - APPLES!

After a beautiful morning of apple picking with an internet-turned-real-life friend recently, the girls started planning for their next food challenge. Marina was working on baking cookies for some friends on challenge day so she bowed out of this one. Here's what the others came up with:

(Note to self: Remember to get the camera out BEFORE the challenge foods are consumed! Sorry folks, I was so distracted by the beauty and yummy-ness of these treats that I plum forgot to pull out the camera before all of Olivia's creations were gone!)

Juliette's entry (shown above): Spiced Apple Spirals with Cinnamon Cream - Apples peeled and spiral cut then sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon sugar and baked. Served with a whipped cream/cinnamon sauce.

Olivia's and Eliza's entry (consumed before photo shoot!): Apple Pockets - Sliced apples tossed with brown and white sugars and cinnamon, then wrapped in dough to make individual servings. (Sort of like an apple turnover.)

As of this posting, I don't have permission from all of the participants to share with you which entry won. I'll just say both were tasty and we all enjoyed the judging.

Until the next challenge............(which they're already plotting)

How We Spent Our Weekend

Introducing Maizy

Would somebody please tell me how much cuteness can possibly exist under one roof 'cause we've got an awful lot of it around here! ;-)

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.