The Blue House Chronicles

Kids' Marathon 2012

2012-02-11T18:57:00.009-05:00

I haven't been blogging because I haven't been taking any pictures. And I haven't been taking pictures because I haven't felt like taking any pictures. But while waiting for that picture-taking desire to return, I couldn't miss posting about one of our most fun kid events of the year, the Mercedes Kids' Marathon. It's one of the things that our city does really well (well okay the city probably doesn't actually do it, but it takes place in the city, so I'm counting it). The kids run a total of 26.2 miles for the kids' marathon - 25.2 in PE class over the course of the fall semester, and then the final mile on the fun-filled Kids' Marathon day.

Race day was cold, really really cold. Not Red Nose Ten Miler 2010 cold (which becomes colder with stiffer winds every time my running pal and I tell the tale of that day, but I do not exaggerate when I say that we actually saw sweat freezing on people's necks -- it was kind of freaky. After that we vowed that we would never run in temperatures below 20 degrees again. And I've stuck to it. Heck, I think I've actually revised it upwards to 30 degrees).

Anyway, yesterday was probably 30-ish, wind chill 20-ish. But that didn't stop the 9 year old from running in shorts:

From my observations during my afternoons in carpool line, tween boys are impervious to cold. I marvel as I watch them waiting casually for their ride in shorts and t-shirts on a 40 degree day, jackets stuffed in backpacks, oblivious to the chill, while the moms who walked on foot to pick up their kids are huddling in parkas.

Jacob did put on some pants when he was done with the race:

Kindergartners and first graders are allowed to run with parents, and Elizabeth had originally asked me to run with her. But after we met up with some of her friends in the first grade starting corral, I was pretty sure that I was going to end up being a spectator.

She broke it to me gently, and I hustled to the finish line to see her kicking it at the end.

The kids obliged for a quick post-race photo with their medals:

although by this point the cold was causing mass emotional breakdowns all around.

We went for our traditional post-race lunch at Five Guys and all was well in the world again. Another fun Mercedes Kids' Marathon in the books!

Resolution Buster #1 - Twice Baked Potatoes

2012-01-11T19:39:00.000-05:00

Nothing like not blogging in weeks and then swooping in with something random like a post about twice baked potatoes! I haven't posted about Christmas, our wonderful post-Christmas trip to visit my family in CT and the almost 40-hour round trip road trip that entailed; the exhilarating trip into New York City the day before New Year's Eve ("New Year's Eve Eve"); the christening of my precious baby niece, Emma, our detour to Charlottesville, VA {my personal happy place} on the way home; or the most well-timed vomit incident in the history of the world (hint: Elizabeth on our driveway after pulling in at the end of a 16 hour drive. Thatta girl!). Nope, I got slammed at work the moment we got back from CT and have pretty much just been limping through the month. But enough about all that -- let's move on to twice baked potatoes!

When Amanda told me before Christmas that she and some other friends were starting a new cooking club, Sweet as Pie, my first reaction was to tell her that it sounded awesome but that I wasn't interested. First, I'm already a flunk out/drop out of multiple cooking clubs. I just can't seem to sustain one hobby for too long. Heck, I've already taken up and gotten bored with a whole other hobby (photography) since I was last participating regularly in online cooking clubs. I loved food blogging probably as much as any other extracurricular I've ever participated in, but in the end I just couldn't keep up the pace.

Also, I had some hesitation about the recipe source for Sweet as Pie, the Pioneer Woman. I love the PW as much as the next person; if I'm looking for an apple cake or a no-holds-barred mac & cheese recipe, she's one of my go-tos, but for regular weeknight cooking, I (fairly or not) tend to think of her as one of the "superfluous butter" cooks (see also, Paula Deen, Ina Garten to a degree {sorry, I still love you Ina!!}, etc.) And that's just not how I cook {although it IS how I bake}. And that's definitely now how I want to cook starting the new year, when I've made all of the usual vows to eat healthier, exercise regularly, get organized, etc. (yawn).

But in the end the prospect of doing this on a small scale with Amanda and other friends was too enticing, and superfluous butter, by definition, can be omitted without any consequence to the recipe (being superfluous and all). So I figured that I would just modify PW's recipes if necessary in the event she got a little too exuberant with her added fats.

The first recipe I made was her twice baked potatoes. Who doesn't love twice baked potatoes? But wait, what's this? Yes, Ree wants us to use two sticks of butter for our 8 potatoes. Ree, Ree, Ree. I was born in 1972 (but very, very late in the year in 1972, very late). You can do the math. I hear the drumbeat of THAT age,and it's getting louder. At my age I probably shouldn't even eat a potato, much less a potato recipe that begins with two sticks of butter. And WHY would that much butter be necessary in a recipe that also calls for a cup of sour cream, bacon and cheese? Answer: it's not. It's. Just. Not.

And now I have the proof! I modified Ree's recipe as follows: instead of 2 sticks of butter, I used 5T of Brummel & Brown (I love the stuff as much as real butter - seriously); instead of 1 C of regular sour cream I used 3/4 cup of light sour cream (that's actually all I had in my fridge); and instead of a full cup each of bacon and cheese I used 1/2 cup of each. With the butter modification alone, I saved 1375 calories and 151 grams of fat in the whole recipe -- that is a week's worth of dessert! And these were completely wonderful and rich and decadent - even with the modifications they still felt like a total indulgence.

Horrid, unedited (because editing would not save this) photo of twice baked potatoes:

I only baked 8 potato halves for the 5 of us and froze the other 8 (which I never would have thought to do if not for a handy PW tip in her blog post), so we'll look forward to enjoying these again sometime soon.

It's better to give than to receive

2011-12-31T09:35:00.004-05:00

{but sometimes, both the giving and the receiving work out very well!}

We are having a great, extended Christmas with my family. My sister and I both loved the present that we picked out for each other!

new wheels

2011-12-27T01:31:00.002-05:00

We made it through 9.5 years of parenthood without a ginormous battery powered brightly colored plastic vehicle landing in our garage and thought we were in the clear, but when we woke up on Christmas morning we saw that Santa had left Caroline a pink and purple Surfer Girl jeep. She took it for a little joy ride the day after Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-26T00:51:00.004-05:00

{family Christmas photo made possible by tripod & clearly visible remote timer}
Just a few minutes left of what my kids have named the "best day ever!" And it was definitely a great one. Hope that yours was merry too!

All she wants for Christmas is . . . {drumroll please}

2011-12-23T15:27:00.003-05:00

12 treats of Christmas, day 12: candy cane biscotti

2011-12-23T04:28:00.000-05:00

I wanted to conclude the 12 days with something über-Christmasy, and bonus points if I could use up some of the crushed candy cane that had been sitting in bowls on my counter for week!! I knew that I'd found my 12th treat when I saw this post for candy cane biscotti on one of my favorite food blogs. What makes these perfect for the holidays, in addition to the fact that THEY CONTAIN CANDY CANES, is that they are really good keepers. Biscotti kind of taste dry and stale to begin with (but in a good way!) when you get right down to it, so if you eat one a week or so after they came out of the oven and they are kind of dry and stale (but buttery! And rich! And chock full o' candy canes!), well, that's how they are supposed to taste. And biscotti are meant to hold up to dipping -- in coffee, in hot chocolate -- so you don't want a dainty cookie that's going to fall apart on first plunge.

I wouldn't call myself a candy cane lover, but I am now a candy cane biscotti lover. The peppermint taste of the candy cane is not overwhelming here, and it's complemented nicely by the buttery cookie. This one is a keeper.

A right jolly old el(ves)

2011-12-22T06:38:00.001-05:00

I think we may have gotten in on the early side on the elf craze, because for some reason we had elves causing mayhem at our house around Christmastime before their mass proliferation and takeover of the Christmas land. And now, the backlash has begun (see this hilarious article . I see (and agree with) many of her points.) That said, it's hard to understate how much these kids love their elves. They really do create a kind of Christmas magic for children that only comes with overturned furniture and Christmas trees rolled with TP.

Jacob has always been our most difficult child for the elves to please. Certain elf antics that I personally loved, like the time they joined in singing along with our Christmas carolers, left him seriously unimpressed. But this year Jacob is 9 and has joined Team Elf, if you know what I mean, and the girls tend to be delighted with whatever the elves decide to do.

Like decorating the palm tree? Jacob would have revolted when he was younger if that's all they managed to come up with. But the girls were tickled.

Now I start to worry when they start messing with the lights. Seriously -- we all know how temperamental these things can be. Thankfully they just needed a little untangling and we didn't wake up to a string of white lights that was only half illuminated.

Ah, the old post-it-note-all-over-the-house trick. They must have heard about this one from the elves back at the Pole. Why is it that whenever I need a post-it note, I can't find even one, but we get a bunch of Christmas elves running around the house and they manage to find a whole pad of them to stick all over the place?

Now we like to hold onto boxes in December because we tend to need them for mailing packages and wrapping presents. But David and I had just been talking about how we were probably good with the boxes and really needed to set a lot of them out to recycling, or we'd be buried in boxes after Christmas. And then the elves really drove home that point for us.

One night I could have sworn I heard this kind of knock-knock-knocking sound. When we woke up the next morning, we saw that the elves had been having an air hockey tournament in the basement.

Bix had on his game face.

They were cheered on by some Community Helper puppets.

I woke up early this morning and decided that I'd knock out the final treat for the 12 treats of Christmas project. Yeah -- maybe not. I couldn't even make my (desperately needed) coffee, because the elves had taken my kitchen twine and rigged up some kind of booby trap in my kitchen.

There's always a ringleader -- this time, it was Libby.

One thing about Christmas is that there is a lot of extra "stuff" around, and the elves seem use it to find trouble. One morning we woke up to find Bix's head stuck in the Nutcracker:

Libby (or is that Colline? I seriously cannot tell those two apart, and it drives my kids BONKERS) was trying to work the lever to free Bix (or was she holding the lever up to keep him stuck? You decide.) While Colline/Libby had gotten out the toolbox to look for something that would assist in Bix's liberation. It looks like they found the WD-40 -- even halfway smart elves know that WD-40 and duct tape can fix almost any problem.

Just a few more days with these elves! As is the case every year, my kids will be very sad about that, but David and I will be happy not to have "undo elf mischief" on our daily to-do list. But we'll miss watching the kids react to the daily antics of their tiny red and green friends!

12 treats of Christmas, day 11: holiday scones (x2)

2011-12-21T14:04:00.007-05:00

Well, somewhat frighteningly, it appears that I have/plan to make considerably more than treats than there are days of Christmas. Since I'm running out of days I probably won't get to post the sablés; cranberry, pecan and white chocolate cookies; dipped hot chocolate spoons; and salted butter caramel sauce that I've already made this season. Still on tap for sure are fudge; David's favorite Christmas coffee cake; baked egg nog french toast; and egg nog pannetone bread pudding. Not sure what will end up on day 12 tomorrow, but I'm doubling up today to jam as much in as possible.

First, fresh cranberry scones:

Next, egg nog cinnamon chip scones (my favorite ever. When it's not egg nog season I make them with creamm):

These two recipes have essentially the same technique, so I whipped them up, shaped them, and cut them at the same time; stuck them in the freezer; and baked them straight from frozen (separating them an inch or so during baking and adding a few minutes to the stated bake time). We packed these up for neighbors just to keep 'em guessing.

12 treats of Christmas, day 10: hot cocoa favors

2011-12-20T07:06:00.001-05:00

I've officially given up on trying to get a picture that captures how cute these guys are, but I love these little hot chocolate favors sooooo much. I've seen them all over the web, but they are really way cuter in person. And they are just so useful! Stocking stuffers, party favors, treats for the class after reading The Polar Express, Valentines treats, treats when you are just walking out the door and realize that you have presents for the four main Sunday school teachers, but not their eight high school assistants -- I mean, the possibilities are endless! Just think about how many times in a day you think "geez, if only I had some little hot cocoa favors right now." Er, maybe that's just me. Moving on . . .

They could not be easier to assemble. I bought a big box of disposable decorating bags and a roll of red & white baker's twine (ribbon, jute twine, etc. would be equally cute depending on the occasion). I now have enough decorating bags and twine to last me through nine lifetimes of making hot cocoa favors. Wilton slapped their huge purple logo in the center of the bags, so I cut them off right below the logo and then filled the bags with 2 tablespoons hot cocoa and a heaping tablespoon each of chocolate chips, crushed candy canes and mini marshmallows. Tie off with the twine, and that's it -- much-cuter-in-real-life hot cocoa favors!

12 treats of Christmas, day 9: Red Velvet Cheesecake cookies

2011-12-19T09:11:00.005-05:00

Whenever I see red velvet anything (well, aside from drapes and smoking jackets, I suppose), I want to eat it. So when I saw these red velvet cheesecake cookies, I knew I had to make them. I thought they were so pretty and festive! I made mine half the size of what the recipe on the blog calls for (I only used 2T of red velvet cookie dough, but kept the full teaspoon of cream cheese filling called for in the recipe) and they still made very large cookies. In an attempt to avoid the underbaking mishaps I've recently experienced, I ended up overbaking them by a minute or two, but they were still delicious. These are officially added to my Christmas cookie must-bake list!

12 treats of Christmas, day 8: cranberry margaritas

2011-12-18T16:04:00.006-05:00

We sent the kids downstairs to watch the Polar Express during our ~~party~~ intimate get together, and broke out some of these festive cranberry margaritas. David hates tequila, and I don't particularly like drinks that taste too boozy in general, so I'm not really sure which recipe we followed -- it was {a weakened version} of this one, this one, or this one, I think. We served them in red martini glasses that miraculously survived The Great Spring Purge of 2010. Topped off with green decorating sugar and cranberries and limes skewered onto frilly toothpicks - well, drinking one of these you just can't help but feel merry!

12 treats of Christmas, day 7: gingerbread lattes

2011-12-17T15:33:00.001-05:00

I started making lattes at home because I wanted to give up that $5/pop Starbucks habit without actually giving up lattes; plus, I can control the sugar content and the ingredients in general when I make my own. These gingerbread lattes come from one of my favorite crock pot blogs. I had these simmering away in the crockpot, ready to serve at our ~~party~~ intimate get together, and will enjoy them in lieu of my morning coffee all week long.

12 treats of Christmas, day 6: Santa hat cake pops

2011-12-16T11:28:00.000-05:00

Making cake pops has gone well for me twice and miserably about a dozen times, but their cuteness (even in their most rustic and amateurish form, see photo above) is irresistible to me, so I continue to suffer through them. Recipe and technique at Bakerella.

12 treats of christmas, day 5: peppermint bark

2011-12-15T14:30:00.001-05:00

The first peppermint bark I ever tried was at Williams Sonoma, when I wandered in there with David during a date night years ago, probably when it was just Jacob (oh and before you feel too sorry for David for having a wife who drags him to Williams Sonoma on date nights, I'll go ahead and mention that we probably stopped at Home Depot for air filters during the same date. Okay -- now you can feel sorry for him.)

Anyway, the stuff is ah-maz-ing. But given what they charge for it you'd think it was some rare truffle that could only be sniffed out by hogs on the endangered species list or something. Seriously - making this is brain-dead easy. You melt the dark chocolate (I use about a pound). Spread it into a pan lined with parchment (I use a 9x13). Stick in freezer for about 20 minutes. Then melt the white chocolate (also about a pound). Spread on the dark chocolate and cover with crushed up candy canes. Let set. Ta-da! Homemade peppermint bark for a fraction of what WS charges for it, and ready in less time than it would take to run to the store for it. Now granted, you'd miss out on that extra trip to Williams Sonoma, which would be disappointing. But it's all about having options!

12 treats of Christmas: day 4

2011-12-14T22:46:00.002-05:00

Gingerbread men.

We are having a party this weekend; well, it's not a party, but an intimate get-together (Candace party! Candace party!)

Since we'll have a bunch of kids here, we are going to set up cookie decorating. I actually ordered gingerbread men from a local bakery, but once I saw this recipe I cancelled my order and decided to make them myself. It almost doesn't matter how the cookies taste since they'll be piled 6" high with frosting and sprinkles, but still, these are reeeeeaaaaallllly good.

12 treats of Christmas: day 3

2011-12-13T11:30:00.000-05:00

World Peace Cookies. AKA, the best cookies on earth.

Twelve Treats of Christmas, Day 2: Santa hat snack mix

2011-12-12T09:04:00.008-05:00

I saw this on Pinterest months ago and knew that I had to make it around Christmas.

When I saw those Santa hat bugles, I died. (Now there is another sentence I never thought I'd say). And when I happened upon Caramel Bugles in the store, I knew that it was meant to be. I don't think that David has been as confused by one of my grocery store purchases since the day I came home with Chocolate Lucky Charms (purchased under duress during one of our 27 bathroom runs to Publix during swim lessons).

Anyway, making the Santa hats does require dipping things (here, Bugles) into melted chocolate -- not my favorite activity -- but the end result is worth it. FYI, after trying it both ways, I found that it worked much better to skip the white sprikles and just use white candy coating for the brim of the Santa hat.

The Santa hats are the star of this mix, of course, but you can use pretty much anything you want in it. I used pretzels, rice chex, pecans, and salted peanuts, all drizzled with white chocolate, and then added in red and green m&ms and the Santa hats.

I put the mix into a few large ball jars, but this is going to be gone before I do my food gifting rounds next weekend.

Ho ho ho!!!

The Twelve Cookies* (*or assorted other treats) of Christmas

2011-12-11T09:32:00.003-05:00

I am sure that I will make at least twelve cookies/Christmas treats this year, so I've decided to attempt to blog them. Because I'm so good at keeping up with self-imposed blog challenges. But I figure that if I actually do it, it will help me remember what I baked, what worked and what didn't work, etc. so I can remember all that for next year (because I really have no idea what I baked last year!

So here goes! Day 1: Speculoos by Dorie Greenspan

This is one cookie that I DO remember making for the first time ever last year, and it will forever be one of my favorite Christmas cookies. It's the perfect cookie for people who like a mild spice cookie around Christmas but don't love really spicy gingerbread. The predominate flavor here is cinnamon. This is the traditional Christmas cookie in Belgium, and what can I say? -- those Belgians know what they are talking about. Speculoos pack in a burst of Christmas cheer in every bite!

Christmas tree 2011

2011-12-10T23:50:00.006-05:00

We've had ours up since last weekend, and while it's not the best tree we've ever had, it does the job ("the job" being: look festive and make us merry). The decorating process got a little crazy since the kids were eager to help, and the whole thing kind of collapsed into a mass free-for-all with everybody grabbing at (the same) ornaments and going for (the same) branches, which were in many cases too light for the heavy ornament that the child(ren) at issue had chosen. Bickering may or may not have ensued. I admit that I cringed every time Caroline ran off with one my treasured ceramic balls with the kids' handprints (i.e., priceless to me), but as often happens with this kind of thing, any stress and discord associated with the tree trimming has already been forgotten and I have nothing left but magical Norman Rockwellesque memories of it. See also, Disney World Vacations.

Still, I have some strategies to help things run a little more smoothly next year. First, I think we might finally put up two Christmas trees -- a "kids' tree" with the big honking colored lights (preferred by David) and non-fragile and homemade ornaments, and a "Cathy tree" with dainty white lights (preferred by me) and an extremely rigid and humorless white and gold color scheme. This would allow the kids to have at their tree with exclusively non-fragile ornaments, and eliminate/minimize situations in which we have three children diving at a blown glass "Grinch & Max" ornament at the same time. We've talked about doing this for years, especially since we have an empty sunroom that would be perfect for a kids' tree, but it just didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense in the middle of the toddler years when just keeping the kids from knocking down ONE tree was a feat. But we're pretty much past that now, so next year may well be the year. Especially since we've reached a point where a nearly 9-foot tree does not hold even half of our ornaments. I guess that's what happens when you have ornaments coming in fast and furious from the craziest places:

We actually didn't even get through all of our ornaments before we ran out of room, so I'm sure there are some "A-list" ornaments that didn't make it onto the tree this year. When I pack up after Christmas I'm going to follow the brilliant suggestion of a good friend and pack separate boxes of "back of the tree ornaments," "non-breakable ornaments," "ornaments that we'd just get rid of if we were smart," etc. so that it's easier to find what we need next year. So yes, Christmas is still two weeks away, but I've already learned some lessons from Christmas 2011 and have BIG PLANS for Christmas 2012!!

Letter to Santa

2011-12-08T21:25:00.002-05:00

Jacob's teacher emailed us the letter that Jacob wrote to Santa Claus in school:

On one hand, I'm glad that Jacob made it clear that he was interested in the official, legally trademarked editions of the Goosebumps (TM) books -- we certainly don't want to wake up on Christmas morning and find ourselves in receipt of pirated merchandise. On the other hand, I'm a little troubled that I can't even remember what his mean sisters might have done the morning he wrote this letter that would have led him to rat them out to Santa in such dramatic fashion this close to Christmas. Hopefully if I can't remember, Santa won't be able to remember either and the sisters will be spared the coal.

It's not the tree, it's the ideaaaa

2011-12-03T06:52:00.002-05:00

(Hens, if any of you are reading, that one's for you)

We went to pick out our Christmas tree last night. It's always interesting to me how each family unit has a different tree-hunting personality. When I was a kid, my dad and sister were the "we need to look closely at every branch on every tree to find the perfect one!" members of the family, while my mom and I were more in the "it's bleeping cold out here, these all look awesome to me, let's just pick one please" camp. (***IMPORTANT NOTE: my mom just thought it was cold, not bleeping cold; I'm sure that I'm the only one who thought it was bleeping cold, at least from high school on). In college, my roomates and I went to a tree farm one year to look for a Christmas tree for our townhouse. We quickly learned that all five of us had very different visions of what the perfect tree should look like, and college girl drama ensued right there in the middle of the farm. It was then that Bruno, the kindly tree farm proprietor with the thick Eastern European accent, intervened with "Girls, girls, girls! It's not the tree. It's the ideaaaaaaa." And at that moment, we were filled with the True Meaning of Christmas, even if someone in our group DID want a tree that was way too short and squat (I won't name names).

In our family, David has the same "examine every tree" gene that my dad and sister have; I still think it's bleeping cold and we just need to hurry up and pick a tree (even though I'm now looking at trees 1000 miles South of where I did as a kid); and my kids just want to run through the maze of trees and make a lot of noise. Even though they did not seem to care about weighing in on the tree that we ended up choosing, they were happy to guard it while David went to find someone to help us load the tree. So mission accomplished: we have a tree, it's in the stand in the living room, and the lights are on. Today, we decorate.

drama-free St. Nick visit

2011-12-01T23:34:00.008-05:00

I knew this day would come. In fact, last year I predicted that it (last year's Santa visit) would likely be the last one filled with Santa-induced angst. Not that I want my children to experience terror. But I admit, I adore/treasure/cherish my extensive collection of Freaked Out Kids with Santa photography. I believe I may have one of the finest collections east of the Mississippi. The dark photo at the end of this post is just one of our many classic Santaphobia moments caught on film.

This year, we headed to our town's Christmas tree lighting event and lined up to meet Santa Claus. Caroline was super excited about it all day long (seriously!); started to have second thoughts while in line; but ultimately went with it. The result?

Three happy kids with Santa (and Mrs.) Claus. I know, yaaaaaaaawn. I mean, I love it because they are my kids and I definitely prefer them to be happy, but it's just missing that extra something you get when the child has trust issues with Santa, like here (a fantastic scientific summary, by the way, and worth a read).

Caroline was so cool with the whole thing this year, in fact, that she went BACK to visit with Santa herself after the big kids had left, holding up the line in the process:

What's next, willingly posing with Goofy? Sniff. My baby's growing up.

Daily thanks, 11.12

2011-11-12T09:47:00.001-05:00

Thankful for those leisurely Saturday mornings when you could just kick back and relax while the two year old nephew and four year old daughter make you pancakes.

Daily thanks, 11.10

2011-11-10T19:57:00.000-05:00

For autumn. (okay, so it's frequently shorts weather around here in autumn -- you can't have everything. But while the rest of my family dresses for the weather, as soon as the calendar hits October it's all jeans, sweaters, boots and pumpkin lattes for me, weather be damned!)

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. - George Eliot

daily thanks 11.6

2011-11-06T22:11:00.004-05:00

Thankful for my sister and her beautiful family.

Baby is totally smiling here:

Alex:

Emma:

OMGosh. I could eat her up!

daily thanks 11.5

2011-11-05T15:44:00.004-04:00

Thankful for the gift of new life, and enjoying every minute with our precious new niece and cousin, Emma.

Daily Thanks

2011-11-02T18:40:00.003-04:00

I've heard of a bunch of people doing some variation of the Daily Thanks, which involves posting one thing they are thankful for each day in November. I tend to start strong but then have a little difficulty in the follow-through department (see, e.g., Project 365, Project Life, Tuesdays with Dorie, my sewing career, the numerous projects that are in various states of completion in my storage room, the summer-to-winter-clothes-switcheroo, etc.) but I am going to try to post something I'm thankful for at least MOST days in November, how's that? Because I have a lot to be thankful for, starting with my three pumpkins:

silhouettes

2011-10-26T21:31:00.011-04:00

I am supposed to take some silhouettes for a photography class that I'm taking with Heather. I've always thought that silhouettes were pretty cool and have always wanted to know how to do them. I tried and failed at home a couple of times, and then by dumb luck happened to notice that the sun and topography would be just about perfect for silhouettes at the church where Elizabeth and Caroline take dance. So I hauled the kids out there right before sunset one night to practice.

{yikes, just realized that that last one is way too dark . . . and crooked. May have to try the monkey bars again sometime!}

{wish I knew how to get rid of the chain link fence in these swing pictures . . .}

The kids had a ton of fun doing this. Basically we went to a playground at the top of a hill and I asked them to swing, jump and throw balls high into the air for 45 minutes. As Jacob put it, "Mom, this was actually kind of fun. A LOT more fun than sitting in a collared shirt next to a tree . . . no offense." None taken, buddy. I doubt I'll have many occasions to take silhouettes (just at the beach or those random times I happen to be standing on a ridge at sunset with an open view to the west) but I'm really glad that I've (kinda sorta) figured out how to do them!

wii are excited!

2011-10-26T20:48:00.003-04:00

We have a new baby niece and cousin, and we are over the moon excited about it! Upon hearing the news, Elizabeth rushed to the wii and created a new mii for Baby Emma (this is how the kids today welcome new members of the family, apparently):

We've seen actual pictures of the real Emma, and it would be a major understatement to say that she is absolutely gorgeous and perfect! We can't wait to meet her. Congratulations, Diane, Sal & Alex!!

Impromptu foot bath

2011-10-24T00:03:00.003-04:00

I brought a bowl of soapy water outside so that Caroline could wash off some little plastic animals that had been left outside in the mud for a week. HRH, however, decided that she would soak her feet instead. It's good to be queen.

Weekend pictures

2011-10-16T20:17:00.004-04:00

It seems like I've been taking pictures of notes and tables more than I have of children lately, so I took some of the kids this weekend.

And since it took me 3 hours to figure out how to do it, I thought I'd post the 100% crop of Elizabeth's eye (this won't make sense to anybody but Heather and Amanda ).

Backwoods adventure

2011-10-12T06:45:00.020-04:00

Okay, maybe not so much the backwoods, given that we could get to a McDonald's in 7 minutes, but the kids had fall break, so we decided to go camping. Jacob and David camp pretty frequently with Cub Scouts, and the girls felt like they were missing out on something. We kept it low key -- this was really more "camping lite." We stayed close to home, with the idea that if it started to go poorly, we could just jump in the car and drive home without even breaking down camp; we got there pretty late in the day (just enough time to set up camp and take a short hike before it was time to start dinner); and we limited the fun to one night. The kids loved every minute of it!

We didn't get there until close to 4:00, so we David started out by setting up the tent.

Kids scoping out map:

Hey kids, how do you like the tent?

After we set everything up, we went for a hike by the lake. The leaves have just started to turn around here ever so slightly, and it was really pretty.

Jacob & Elizabeth with their walking sticks, ready to go:

J ponders the meaning of life, or schemes of ways to get his latest coveted item, a 362 piece first aid kit ("But mom! It has 15 one-time-use thermometers!"), before Christmas:

E & C disregarding our admonition not to get their feet wet:

E climbing the mountain:

Gang hiking:

Kids hiking; abuse of walking sticks begins:

C&E pause to poke around in the water:

E goes fake fishing:

Reeling it in:

It started to get dark, so we headed back to the campsite to start a fire.

Roasting hot dogs:

After hot dogs we toasted marshmallows and made s'mores. Then David read Harry Potter around the fire and we went to bed. I'm pretty sure I was out before 9:00.

We survived the night.

And the kids and I headed back down to the lake in the morning while David broke down camp (wasn't that helpful of us?)

This was definitely a successful introduction to camping for us. I have a hard time visualizing us doing this for more than one night anytime soon, but the kids felt like it was a big adventure, and we all had a really great time.

table reveal

2011-10-10T16:36:00.006-04:00

After nearly a month, the refinished kitchen table and chairs are done. To say I'm thrilled would be a massive understatement. I obviously didn't go into the project expecting that in the end they'd look like crap, but I kind of figured that it wouldn't take much to make them look a little better, and I just never could have imagined how great they would turn out. They actually look like somebody who knew what they were doing refinished them! I might have even paid a professional cash money to wind up with this exact finished product. I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya!

First, I dug into the archives for a "before" shot:

This was taken on the morning of St. Patrick's Day when the kids were assessing the damage done by the leprechauns. Caroline is covering her ears in fear that the leprechauns are still there and about to make a loud noise.

Anyway, as you can see, the tabletop is in rough shape. The tone of the wood doesn't particularly jibe with the rest of the kitchen and den, and kind of disappears into the wood floors, which are roughly the same color. It just looks tired and dated in general.

After:

Closer up shot of table finish:

Eeeeeven closer:

Much as I love it as a quaint round table for 4, there are 5 of us, and we'll have to keep the leaf in 99% of the time. In fact, the only thing that keeps the table from being perfect is that it still doesn't comfortably sit 8 (which would be great for when we have company, as we have a formal dining room but generally aren't "formal dining room people" outside of holidays). Here it is with the leaf in place:

As I mentioned earlier, I was inspired to try this project after reading this post by Centsational Girl. She used a combo of Minwax Cherry and English Chestnut to get her finish, and I LOVED it. So I tried the same mix and felt like it was way too light on our table, even after letting it sit for 20 minutes before wiping it off. David and I stood there looking at it and said "after two weeks of sanding, the table looks EXACTLY THE FREAKING SAME." So I ended up doing a second coat of stain in straight English Chestnut, and the darker finish is exactly what I wanted.

I didn't really know what I was going to do with the chairs. I knew that staining them would take way more intricate sanding than I had in me, so I never seriously considered anything other than painting them. And here's where I need to give a big shout out to my great friend Betsey. She has fabulous taste, and when I was deciding on paint colors I shot her an email with links to a few Krylon spray paint color samples I was considering: red (an early front runner, because we have red accents in our kitchen and I thought they'd be kind of fun), an off white color (to generally blend with our cabinets), and some kind of khaki color. And she asked me if I'd considered black. I hadn't, but as soon as she mentioned it the angels started singing and I knew that black was definitely it.

The black chairs tie in to the table and the rest of the house perfectly, and heck, what's more classic than a black Windsor chair? I feel like the combo has a very traditional New England Colonial vibe, which suits my house perfectly (well, minus the New England, although I suppose that *I* bring the New England to the house).

I really tried to do my homework before diving into the project so that I would do it right. I stalked woodworking message boards, for example. In the true spirit of the interwebs, these boards contain drama. Nothing like what you'll see in the comments to your average NPR.org piece or, God knows, any parenting website, but still, these folks get WORKED UP about their wood finishing.

Amatuerish attempt at table styling
The more I read the more confused I got about the various finishing options (wipe on poly? brush on poly? lacquer?) but in the end I decided to go with Minwax Wipe On Poly in Satin, and I'm SO GLAD I did. It was insanely easy to work with -- applying it is literally like wiping down the kitchen table after dinner, albeit with toxic fumes. With each coat I applied, the finish became prettier and richer looking. While the can recommends 2-3 coats, I applied a total of 6 coats to our table, because (1) I know my family, and (2) the finish honestly became more and more attractive with every coat. I let each coat dry for 12-24 hours, sanded lightly with 320 grit sandpaper between coats and then applied the next coat. Repeat. After the final coat, Minwax recommends letting it cure for 24 hours before normal use, but in a highly uncharacteristic demonstration of patience, I decided to play it safe and let our table cure for nearly a week. I may or may not have squealed with glee when I saw water bead up on the table for the first time.

I have to say that refinishing furniture is an ideal DIY project for DIY-inclined people who have limited time and/or attention spans (that's my situation, on both counts). If you decide to paint a room, there goes your whole weekend. But refinishing furniture inherently happens in short bursts. Now of course if you wanted to you can spend a whole afternoon sanding to finish it all at once rather than spreading it out in 20-30 minute mini-sessions over the course of a couple of weeks. But other than that, you really can't work on it for more than 30 minutes at a time even if you wanted to. It takes no time to wipe on the stain, and then you have to let it dry before you could do anything else. You can put on a coat of poly in 10 minutes, and then you're done until the next day. You could spray primer on 2 chairs in 15 minutes, and then you need to wait before you could move on to the next step. As a result, it never really feels like it's much work. I need to remember that most projects aren't like this before jumping into my next project. But for the time being, I'm project-free and really enjoying my new table!

out of the mouths pens of babes

2011-10-03T19:48:00.020-04:00

I feel like I am constantly picking up pieces of paper around this house and putting them into piles, or moving paper from one stack to another. Thankfully, these days there seems to be a lot of words on those papers that give me a chuckle. Elizabeth in particular is just constantly writing. There's her list of potential clients (she wants to start a dog-walking business, I mean "bisnis"):

I couldn't figure out #4, but after some heavy thinking I realized that she was talking about our pool neighbor's dog (our neighbors with the pool who have a dog).

And you know you just have to jot down those hamster factoids while they're fresh in your mind:

I was really encouraged when Elizabeth took it upon herself to draft up a Family Politeness Plan:

But I was a bit perplexed by one thing: the consequence for "forget thank you" is "beat 2 rugs." Now that is a level of cleanliness that has has not been seen in this household since mid-2001. I couldn't figure out where she would have witnessed such behavior. Also, we have never called our basement a cellar ("celler") before, so I wasn't sure where she learned that word. After a little investigating, I tracked down the source of these crazy ideas: The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners, one of her books. That is the magic of a good book: it can take you anywhere -- even to a magical land where people beat out their rugs as part of their weekly house cleaning regimen.

Jacob wasn't too happy when he saw Elizabeth's list -- I don't think he liked the punishments. For example, the consequence for "talk back" is "put sister to bed" (which is quite the production around here with ~~Caroline~~ one sister who shall remain nameless). But if you read the fine print, you'll see that it's not as merciless as you might think:

So actually, if you talk back you do have to put a sister to bed, but you get the sister of your choice. Similarly, if you intarup, you do have to clean out the car, but it's the car of your choice. I'm afraid that the offenders will choose Elizabeth/Dad's car, and then they may never learn not to talk back/not to interrupt!

In addition to Elizabeth's signs and lists, Jacob brought home some letters that his classmates wrote to him when he was Student of the Week. The letters covered a wide range of topics. This friend apologized for an earlier incident and then bonded over crazy siblings:

This friend noted (in paragraph 2) a distinction between the baby Caroline in one of Jacob's pictures and his own baby sister:

My own baby sister is a lot fatter and looks a lot meaner too.

I wish that all of my paper piles could be this amusing!

atypical Wednesday night

2011-09-29T06:08:00.002-04:00

In a radical departure from my usual Wednesday night activities, I went to a concert last night.

A concert in a loud, smoky bar, no less. I saw one of the great 80s one hit wonder bands, Modern English. But oh, what a hit it was!

I mean, it just can't be disputed that I Melt With You is one of the top ten iconic 80s songs. Probably top 5, if we're really being honest here.

This adventure came about when a friend of mine, who runs the best 80s site ever, was looking for someone to go to the concert with her. Her husband was not into New Wave so much in the 80s (she tells a story about how after falling in love with him, marrying him and having his baby, she found a Richard Marx cassette of his in the garage -- I mean, you think you know a person) so he had no interest in going. But she didn't have to ask me twice! (As an aside, I wish I had an equally interesting for-work outing I could take her on to return the favor. Maybe a raging 341 meeting will pop up in the near future?).

When I told the kids I was going to a concert, they were surprised and curious.

Cathy: Guess what guys! I'm going to a concert tonight!
Jacob: A concert? What concert?
Cathy: Modern English.
Jacob: Are they famous?
Cathy: Well, they're kind of famous. They were really famous in the 80s.
Jacob: The 80s?!?! And they're still ALIVE?
Cathy: The 1980s! Not the 1880s.
Caroline: Mommy, are you going to be IN the concert?
Cathy: I sure hope not.

My friend interviewed Robbie Grey, the lead singer, before the concert. He was totally cool and down to earth (which was obvious during the concert as well). She asked him how it feels to be mostly known for one song, to which he responded: "It's (bleeping) great! It's paid my bills for 30 years." Love that refreshing honesty and the total absence of Serious Artist ego there.

This was the original band performing. The hair is generally less fabulous now but other than that they are at the top of their game. Most of them are pretty clean cut 50 year old guys -- you'd have no idea that they are actually British post-punk New Wave rockers! Look at this guy; he could be an actuary:

The one exception is Gary McDowell, the guitarist:

Yup, Gary has embraced the rock 'n roll life.

This was hands down the BEST time I've ever had a concert. The band was awesome and the show was just plain fun. They gave the people what they wanted and played I Melt With You three times, and then hung out afterwards signing autographs and taking pictures. If I wasn't a Modern English fan before, I am now!

MomFail 2 (ballet edition)

2011-09-28T14:43:00.003-04:00

You may recall that a few weeks ago I sent Elizabeth to ballet in a pink leotard when at her new, hardcore ballet studio, the 6 year olds wear blue. Well, I'd just barely gotten over that humiliation when this happened earlier today:

You'll notice that Caroline is wearing a right-footed ballet shoe on her right foot (the one with the shamrock - they may be hardcore, but they're not afraid to use stickers). And if you'll look closely, you'll see that she is also wearing a right-footed ballet shoe on her left foot. The one on the right is a size smaller than the one on the left (she pretty much wears Elizabeth's hand-me-downs, and Elizabeth has ballet shoes in just about every size). Somehow in the frenzy of gathering supplies for class I grabbed two right shoes. We didn't have time to run back home after I realized my mistake, so I just sent her into class and prayed that the teacher would not notice. I figure that two right-footed pink ballet shoes are more subtle/less egregious than a pink leotard on a 6 year old, right? Right?

My kids are unlikely to have a future in ballet, but if they do, it will be in spite of me, not because of me.

overheard from the back seat

2011-09-28T09:05:00.003-04:00

E: Stooooooopppppppp iiiittttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
J: Elizabeth, you can read with a foot in your face. Anybody can!!

So grateful for my minivan and the distance between the driver's seat and the way back.

It's a family affair

2011-09-26T09:07:00.006-04:00

I really didn't want to have to drag David into my little table situation. We're not DIY people, but that's not for lack of interest on my part. In my dreams I'm laying flagstone patios and retiling the bathroom on the weekends. I'm the person who will fantasize about putting in a patio so I could sit out on it and drink my morning coffee, but in reality I'd never sit still long enough to actually relax on said imaginary patio, because mentally I'd be on to the next project. It's a moot point; these projects rarely happen because we have kids (i.e., no time), but it really didn't happen much before we had kids either because, frankly, in David's dreams he's relaxing and watching some football on the weekends. Which is definitely the more normal of the two dreams (and one that does not come true for David any more than tuckpointing the stairs on the front porch comes true for me). David works hard and then spends his free time coaching multiple soccer teams and running Jacob's Cub Scouts den, so I really try not to force my weirdo manual labor dreams on him.

Still, while I'd been working on this project mainly during the week, once I broke out the sander on Saturday, David wanted to help me. What a guy!

And then Jacob also wanted to help. Here he is using the Dremel rotary tool:

Once they saw Jacob doing this, the girls wanted a turn, so we instituted a "no power tools before age 9" rule on the fly.

I'm still sanding (yeah, yeah, yeah)

2011-09-22T06:57:00.002-04:00

Wow, and to think I went into this table project thinking this was a pretty basic pedestal table with clean, simple lines. Once I got deeper into sanding this thing, I found ridges, nooks and crannies that I never knew existed. And I've been dealing with sanding them, slowly but surely. Serious, how does Rococo furniture ever get refinished?!

Not by this girl, that's for sure.

After doing what I could with our little hand held belt sander, I finally broke out the Dremel rotary tool (as seen on TV) to help me get into the little nooks. Anything to avoid hand sanding. Much as I dread the prospect of hand sanding, I'm mechanically challenged /impatient when it comes to reading manuals/assembling things (generator victory notwithstanding) so ~~my two-year old-esque attention span would not permit me to focus long enough to~~ I couldn't really figure out how to attach the circular sanding disc that was probably best suited to my specific sanding needs, but I was able to get a drum sanding attachment on, as that was somehow more intuitive (i.e., did not require me to study the manual). I then proceeded to chew up the wood on the ridges in the table legs with the drum sander until I was able to steady my hand a bit. I'd stay steady for a while, chew up some more wood, steady up again, chew again, and so on. The stain is coming off, however, so I'm calling it a victory. I really hope that by the weekend I'll be in a position to start applying wood conditioner (don't be jealous now) and begin staining.

ziplining away

2011-09-18T21:29:00.004-04:00

We ended a fun weekend with a picnic at the park with David's brother and sister-in-law, my nieces, and David's grandmother. The kids are almost all at ages where they can just run off and play while the grownups look on and visit -- it is sooooo nice! Here's Jacob ziplining:

Elizabeth needed a little boost to grab onto the handle, but after that she was able to ride the cable herself:

Caroline was all over the place -- monkey bars, tire swing, seesaw, turtle, moving steps. I got tired just watching her. She stopped for a millsecond to have a bite of the last watermelon of the summer:

We say this every time we have one of these playground picnics, but we really need to do this more often!

country photo session

2011-09-17T08:18:00.004-04:00

Last weekend the kids and I visited our favorite photographer at her lake house in the country. We told the kids that if they let Heather take a few pictures of them, they could go swimming. Heather took us on a fun mule ride to the property across the street from her house -- with its majestic rolling hills, wildflower fields, ponds, horses. And being the amazing photographer that she is, got the most incredible pictures of the kids in pretty short order. You can click on the link here to see the blog post she did of the session. After the pictures they played with Heather's kids in the lake and ate hot dogs. As Phineas would say, "best day ever!"

Project table

2011-09-13T19:37:00.018-04:00

I'm at my happiest when I have some home improvement project cooking. Unfortunately, my ambitions far exceed my skill set, so mostly I just ogle DIY blogs and obsessively pin project ideas on Pinterest. But every once in a while I come across a project that seems both doable and useful for us, like this one on restaining a wood tabletop. This is our kitchen table:

I bought it back in law school and it's traveled with me across the mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States. It gets heavy use, for daily dining, of course, as well as daily gluing (gluing being a daily activity if you have kids of a certain age). The finish is pretty worn, and the light wood tone doesn't particularly jibe with the rest of the house. Eventually, I'd love to replace it with a huge, rustic farmhouse table like this:

But it's not a priority at the moment, so I just lived with our old table and didn't think much about it other than to be grateful for it when my kids broke out the aquamarine glitter glue -- until I saw that blog post and decided right then that I had to refinish our table.

While the pedestal itself is less graceful and a little more tree-trunkish, our table bears a slight resemblance to these Pottery Barn tables:

if you could picture the Pottery Barn tables with slightly different styling:

The table under than mess is my parents' kitchen table, which they kindly let us borrow while I work on our table - thanks mom & dad!

The table is solid oak and pretty well made, so between the Centsational Girl tutorial and the images of those PB tables, I was inspired to attempt to spruce it up.

After the initial setup, procuring our substitute table, etc. I dove right in with sanding. Home Depot didn't have the 80 grade sandpaper that Centsational Girl used to sand off her finish, so I used both 60 and 100. To my great relief, the finish is coming off pretty easily - I had nightmares of having to break out the chemical strippers (which some sources say you need to remove stain). That is some uber-nasty stuff that I really hoped to avoid. Thankfully, I think we can get the finish off without it.

Here's the tabletop, mostly sanded and free of the oak finish:

I started trying to sand the feet while they were attached to the pedestal, which was kind of awkward, so I decided to unscrew the feet:

Usually when we start taking things apart around here bad stuff happens, so I'm a little nervous, but at least for now, the sanding is going much more quickly. I totally LOVE the project so far -I see a kind of observable, immediate progress that just doesn't tend to come as easily in the non-sanding areas of life.

Sanding the tree trunk is going to be a bit of a challenge, as it has some rounded areas that our belt sander can't easily hit. That will probably require some hand sanding, which I am likely to find boring and hard -- which creates the danger that an upside down, footless table will take up my side of the garage for the foreseeable future. Hopefully I can keep my eyes on the prize, though, and forge ahead in the face of adversity.

climbing the caterpillar

2011-09-12T14:48:00.003-04:00

I took Caroline to the playground on Sunday while the big kids were in Sunday school. I always feel nostalgic at this particular playground because it's in our old neighborhood, where we had our first babies, and it's the first playground we came to regularly once they got to be playground age. I clearly remember when the Big Red Caterpillar was something the big kids climbed on, not my baby Jacob, and now here is my baby-who-is-no-longer-a-baby kicking off her shoes and climbing on it like she's a monkey or a kindergartner or something.

I'm crazy bothered that I cut off the caterpillar's tail -- I walked backwards with my phone to try to get it all in, but didn't want to get too far away from Caroline, and I got back just far enough to get in the whole thing except the tail. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days when I wouldn't even notice those things.

hear me roar

2011-09-07T11:53:00.004-04:00

If it seems like I'm standing a little bit taller and prouder than yesterday, it's because I started up this puppy all by myself yesterday:

Yes, that would be a Powerboss 5250 Portable Generator with Briggs & Stratton engine that requires its own separate manual. So not only did this involve operating power equipment, but two manuals.

From reviewing my email and phone history, I can see that this only took me 50 minutes, ten emails and 15 phone calls to David at work to figure it out. Girl power! Some of my questions were accompanied by pictures with subject line "what does this switch do?"

I know that I made David nervous because he offered to come home to get it started. I'm not sure why he thought he needed to bail me out; oh wait! yes I do! Perhaps it was the email sent at 11:16 that said "This generator is intimidating to me. I'll tell you when I'm about to start it so if you don't hear from me within 3 minutes of the start time you know something's gone wrong." Or maybe it was the phone call at 11:18 inquiring: "does the exhaust come out of the vents right over where the pull string is located? Trying to figure out which way to position this thing." Or could be the phone call at 11:25: "I'm sorry. Nothing about this is intuitive to me. Is "choke/run" the same as "on/off?" Finally, at approximately 11:50, I called him to tell him I was about to pull the string (I then had three minutes to call him back before he rushed home to put out the fire). Then at 11:52:50 I called to tell him that I was afraid I might not be strong enough/tall enough to pull the string hard enough to get it started. I decided to try one more time, and at 11:54, I heard some prolonged sputtering. I called David to give him a listen to see if that's what it was supposed to sound like. When he said no, I slid one of the little switch thingies from choke to run (or maybe it was run to choke) and voila! -- a smooth sounding engine sound. After letting it run for a few minutes per the manual's instructions, I plugged in our basement freezer and fridge and saw this beautiful green light:

Which told me that the freezer was running and its contents would be safe. (cue singing angels). Between the generator thing and successfully heating up my lunch in a cast iron skillet on the gas grill, I was really riding a "survivalist high" all day, until I realized (on the way back from Home Depot with Elizabeth and Caroline and a 5 gallon gas tank and a bag full of D and C batteries) that our whole flipping (large) neighborhood has power restored except for the 10 house pocket right around our house. Typically when life throws me a low-level nuisance like a flat tire or a power outage I choose to remain upbeat and roll with it rather than wallow in it, but today, I choose to wallow. That is all.

toasted almond scones

2011-09-04T22:24:00.003-04:00

I really loved the time that I spent blogging along with Tuesdays with Dorie. I had lots of fun doing it, made friends through it and learned tons about baking (and cooking, as the baking kind of spilled into food blogging in general). I served my family far more creative, interesting, varied and delicious meals when I was food blogging. That was great for David and me, who both enjoy really good food, although maybe not as great for my kids, who act like I am trying to kill them when I serve them something with a stray fleck of parsley. I definitely feel like I'm in a rut in the kitchen lately, not really inspired to cook anything in particular and never knowing what I want to make. That never happened when I was food blogging.

I love breakfast baking most of all, probably even more than dessert baking. Scones, muffins, coffee cake, cinnamon buns, baked doughnuts -- to me a happy morning is enjoying some freshly baked deliciousness along with a cup of coffee, the newspaper, and my family. And with fall coming (by calendar, if not by temperature), I can feel the baking bug coming on again. One recipe that caught my eye from the beginning in Dorie Greenspan's incredible Baking: From My Home to Yours was the toasted almond scones. It was chosen as the weekly recipe after I left the group by a guy whose blog I really enjoyed. Anyway, I had some heavy cream to use up, so I decided to celebrate the official end of summer (yay, fall!!) by baking up a batch of these babies this morning. They had just a hint of almond flavor (I might add a little extra almond extract, a.k.a. the nectar of the gods, next time around); they weren't too sweet, so they could handle a little jam if you are so inclined; and they had the perfect flaky texture. In the "just like soap opera, you could miss two years and pick up right where you left off" department -- David and I really enjoyed these; Jacob and Elizabeth would not try them, and Caroline liked them once we got the butter/jam situation worked out (jam, no butter, wait yes butter, no MELTED butter, just soft spread-on butter, not on TOP, on the inside, etc. etc. etc.)

Hopefully this is the kickoff to an abundant fall baking season!

ambitious labor day plans

2011-09-03T11:07:00.002-04:00

The boys are off to a football game today, and Elizabeth has been sharing her ideas about what the rest of us should do today from the moment she woke up. I told her that she better start writing it all down because otherwise we won't be able to remember everything she wants to do. She came up with this to-do list (and kindly offered to add my items to her list as well):

The Barbie idea followed her viewing of the Barbie: A Fairy Secret, which she loved, unfortunately. And Furfi is Elizabeth's dog.

I really wish my daily to-do list looked more like Elizabeth's.

sick day, part 3

2011-09-02T14:11:00.002-04:00

In which Caroline finally gets "Barbie: A Fairy Secret," after months of being denied by her mother.

sick day, part 2

2011-09-01T11:50:00.002-04:00

Well, I pronounced Caroline well too soon. She fooled me with all the running, splashing, dolphin food bowl lapping, big pool begging, and normal acting that she was busy doing yesterday. So I was a surprised when she came downstairs hacking in the middle of the night. She crawled into bed with us, and it was like sleeping next to a radiator. Well, not really sleeping, because neither Caroline nor I slept with all of that coughing and heat radiating going on. I took her in to the doctor this morning, and the diagnosis is: cough and fever of indeterminate origins. I have a prescription for an antibiotic if she doesn't improve in a day or so (I would personally rather not commit to a 10 day antibiotic regimen if it's something viral). On the way home, we had this conversation:

C: {cough, hack, cough, hack}
C: Well, that didn't work.
Me: What didn't work?
C: Going to the doctor.

Here's to hoping she's on the mend!

sick day

2011-08-31T19:26:00.004-04:00

Since at least Sunday, Caroline has had this strange cough, and I couldn't figure out whether to worry about it or not. Usually I can make a very quick judgment about my kids' coughs -- there are the "go to doctor" coughs: the deep, barky ones that sound bronchitis-y or croupy. Then there are the coughs that kind of sound loose and pflegm-y (sorry, hate that word) -- you just know that there is nothing that can be done for those and a trip to the doctor over it will do nothing but increase the risk that the kid picks up something worse. Caroline's cough was kind of in between - it was sort of hoarse sounding (it seemed to echo?!) but it didn't really sound like it was deep in her chest. It was a tricky one, that cough. So I just kind of watched and listened to it for a couple of days, set up the humidifier, gave her cough medicine, slept poorly, etc.

Then she broke out in a fever last night and was very pitiful. It's so sad to watch a usually exuberant child act all mopey and puny. We knew she couldn't go to school today (they have to be fever free for 24 hours to go to school) so I mentally rearranged the day around the inevitable doctor's appointment.

Caroline eating out of the bowl of food and water she asked me to bring to her inflatable dolphin
But lo! The fever did what fevers are supposed to do, and quickly, I might add, because Caroline woke up good as new and ready to make up for the 5 hours she lost to lethargy last night. She wanted to go to the pool, which I told her we could not do because she was sick, remember? -- but I agreed to set up an inflatable pool in the front yard.

This was definitely better than the sick day I was expecting to have with Caroline.

Which one does not belong?

2011-08-30T19:09:00.005-04:00

Blue leotard, blue leotard, blue leotard, pink leotard, blue leotard, blue leotard.

Yup, mine's the pink. Mom fail. In the end it's going to be remembering all of these little details that kills me. And to think I'd tried so hard to get it all right. I knew Tuesdays would be brutal, with ballet for Elizabeth from 3:45-4:40, followed by soccer on the other end of town at 5, then soccer for Jacob at the OTHER other end of town at 7. So on Sunday I dug out the early July registration email about ballet from the 23,000 emails in my inbox and forwarded it to myself, so it was towards the top of my inbox. I scanned it to figure out the day of her class, the time, and the classroom. I packed the bag the night before with the full assortment of ballet gear and soccer gear. I even noted that her ballet shoes and leotard were probably too small and ran to the dance store after my morning dentist appointment to get new ones for her.

Yup, I was feeling PRETTY on the ball about things until a sea of blue leotards walked into the room where I was waiting with my pink leotard-ed girl for dance class to begin. This new ballet program is apparently a little more hardcore than the one she was in last year (we changed schools so she could take ballet with her friend) and has color-coded leotard guidlines by age group that the students/moms actually comply with (our old school had the same written guidelines, but the moms pretty much dressed the kids in whatever leotard they wanted).

Thanks to the power of Amazon Prime, a blue leotard was on the way within minutes of my realizing my egregious error. A happy ending! And we made it to soccer just 7 minutes late (albeit without her soccer ball, which had been packed that morning but somehow walked out of the bag). But oh, the possibilities for future Tuesday screwups are just endless - the question is not IF I will forget to pack something needed for Tuesday afternoon, it is: can my child perform the activity in question without the particular piece of gear that I forgot to bring? We'll find out . . .

Caroline's Princess Party

2011-08-30T05:40:00.001-04:00

{NOTE: virtually all photos in this post are by Heather and Amanda, who most graciously came and photographed the party so I could discharge my other queenly duties during the party. I LOVE the photos and am very lucky to have such great friends!}

As I've mentioned, a princess party was inevitable for Caroline's 4th birthday. No other theme could possibly suit her quite as well. Once the theme was settled, I ordered some paper printables from an etsy seller recommended by Heather and Amanda, and at that point the party pretty much planned itself, as all I had to do was cut out a bunch of stuff (with the help of David and my parents at various points -- basically if you found yourself resting on my sofa for more than 5 minutes and were over the age of 10, I handed you scissors) and try to keep the darn house clean on the day of the party, which is always the hardest/worst part of having a party.

I guess I did make the tulle tableskirt for the dessert table. It basically involved tying strips of tulle around a ribbon fastened to the top of the table. As long as you didn't look at it too closely or breathe on it too heavily, it did the trick (the trick being "look 4-year-old-fancy").

I also took some pink spray paint to an old mirror that had been languishing in our storage room. Amanda had the really cute idea to hang a mirror behind the dessert table, which got me thinking about this old mirror that had been hanging in our bathroom when we bought the house, and the pink spray paint I had just bought in a fit of DIY enthusiasm. I figured I could hang the mirror over Elizabeth's dresser after the party.

Cupcakes:

These are some of the star cookies that Amanda and I decorated (we also did princess crowns for the goodie bags):

I give us a solid B+/A- (well, I'm sure the A- ones are Amanda's and mine are the B+s.). We definitely got the feel for "piping" consistency versus the "flooding" consistency. Just need to work on keeping a steady hand.

Cake pops:

I really struggled with these this time because I just could not get the candy melts to thin out as well as I wanted them to, which made dipping a challenge. I was glad that I worked on these after the kids were in bed because I'm pretty sure that I had a few choice words for those candy melts.

Tissue pom poms:

By this point we pretty much have these in every color and could rent them out (and David could teach a class on how to make them). I doubt when he signed up to marry me that he ever could have guessed all that would entail - studying Martha's pom pom tutorials, turning the house upside down looking for monofilament, covering floral foam with scrapbook paper - I seriously have the best husband ever!)

I was really worried about having enough activities to keep the girls busy. I started out by making the party 30 minutes shorter than the last one we had here - best move ever! We then set up various princess-themed activities designed with the primary goal of ~~running down the clock~~ making sure the girls had fun. Thankfully, we had the beautiful princesses Belle, Ariel, and Cinderella come to the party to help the girls with the activties and generally make the party magical for everyone:

No princess party would be complete without some princess costumes:

And of course, primping and spinning in front of mirrors comes naturally for Caroline:

Tiara decorating for the ball and princess mirror decorating:

Coloring Castle:

Hunt for the Crown Jewels:

Jacob and Elizabeth helped me dye the rice pink using this method -- we had SO much fun! There is something ridiculously fun and tactile about digging in dried rice; definitely a good rainy day activity!

Snow White's Sweet Shop, where the girls decorated their own cookies:

Our littlest party princess, Amanda's daughter MM:

Belle's Beauty Shop, where the girls could get their faces and nails painted by the princesses:

Cinderella giving a manicure to Rosemary, Heather's sweet little girl, while her sister Piper looks on:

And this one is worth repeating:

Once Upon a Time story hour:

MM, by now adorning some serious bling, reaches for the balloons:

Happy Birthday Girl:

Happy Birthday Girl Sister:

One of Caroline's friends kept calling Elizabeth "Big Caroline" which Elizabeth said "kind of freaked me out."

Blowing out the candles:

Snow White enjoying her cake and ice cream:

Elizabeth making her own royal fun:

Saying goodbye to the princesses:

Caroline and Elizabeth with Piper, Rosemary and MM:

With my baby:

I think that Caroline really had a ball at her princess party. She got to do all of the things she loves the most (pretend, crafts, dress up, dance, and eat sugar) with her friends and {most of} her family. I really cannot thank my sweet niece and her friends enough for playing princess for the day - it really made the party extra fun and memorable for the little girls (who were still talking about Belle, Cinderella and Arield the next week). And I can't thank Heather and Amanda enough for taking these beautiful pictures that will allow us to remember Caroline's 4th birthday forever.

4!!!

2011-08-24T09:40:00.007-04:00

My baby turned 4 yesterday.

I know this is true of most kids, but she really gets more fun every year. Really. Those of you who knew Caroline from the beginning will back me up on that.

Sometimes I ask her why she screamed so much as an infant. She says: "Ummmmmmm. I dunno." Clearly, she is not as permanently traumatized by those months as I am, since most of the time these days she looks like this:

She looooves her daddy, but this one is a mommy's girl. I'm okay with it.

She had a ball celebrating her birthday yesterday (even though I broke every birthday rule in the book and vetoed her restaurant choice - McDonald's - and made us go to California Pizza Kitchen). Here she is receiving some birthday greetings:

When she was in the midst of the Screaming Years, her pediatrician and I had this conversation over Caroline's wails:

C: Will she ever be happy?
Dr. A: WHAT?
C: WILL SHE EVER BE HAPPY??
Dr. A: Just wait. Someday she will be your great joy.
C: WHAT?
Dr. A: JUST WAIT. SOMEDAY SHE WILL BE YOUR GREAT JOY.

And he was right. This child is so full of joy. She adds an immeasurable amount of fun and laughter to our house. And while we still have to yell to hear each other talk, it's mainly happy noise in the background (well, and maybe a little bickering).

Happy birthday sweet Caroline!

why caroline had a princess party: an illustration

2011-08-22T17:37:00.004-04:00

One of the activties we set up for the little girls at Caroline's princess party was "Belle's Beauty Shop," a spot where they could sit down, relax and get their faces painted or their nails done by one of our real princesses. We set up two little chairs and two big chairs so two little girls could get bedazzled simulataneously. Caroline had cycled through and gotten her face painted by Cinderella, and then had her nails done by Belle. At that point, it was really time for her to get up and go decorate cookies with Ariel. Got to keep the trains running on time, and other little girls were waiting to have their nails done. But girlfriend would not budge until her toes were painted as well, even though pedicures were not really a service provided by Belle's Beauty Shop. As you can see in this picture, that did not stop Caroline, who made herself comfortable as her fingernails dried and Belle painted her toes. Thankfully, she didn't ask for a paraffin wax -- that would have really held up the line.

Clearly, Minnie Mouse is not nearly enough of a diva for this child, so a princess party was probably most fitting this year after all.

Thanks to Heather for capturing this hilarious moment. I came home today with two thumb drives full of AMAZING pictures from Heather, and I'll be getting even more from Amanda tomorrow, and I really can't wait to post more party pics!

a gathering of princesses

2011-08-21T08:00:00.007-04:00

We celebrated Caroline's 4th birthday yesterday. I originally planned to have a Minnie Mouse party for her. I was really excited about a non-pink party. I'd even gone so far as to procure red & white polka dot paper plates (you really need to jump on such things when you see them!)

Caroline would have none of it though -- from the first moment her birthday was mentioned, she wanted a princess party. A pink one. I tried to redirect, but she was unwavering. Not that it's surprising, coming from the girl who usually spinning with tulle, satin, lace, marabou, or sequins somewhere on her person.

Heather and Amanda came to take pictures at the party, and it was SO NICE to not have to worry about that. I barely picked up my camera before, during or after the party. I'll do a full party post once I get the pictures from Heather and Amanda (I've seen a sneak peak and am super excited!)

I did break out my camera at the very end to get this picture of what had to be the best part of the party. A month or so ago I had casually asked my incredibly sweet and awesome 14 year old niece if she and her friends might be willing to dress up as princesses and make an appearance at Caroline's party. And she seemed really excited about the idea! So Belle, Ariel and Cinderella themselves came to Caroline's party -- and I think you'll agree that their next stop could easily be the Magic Kingdom itself -- and read stories, painted faces, gave manicures, helped decorate cookies, and generally made the party magical for the little girls. I think I have the best niece ever (and she has the coolest friends ever!)

More to come!

Insomnia

2011-08-18T04:10:00.004-04:00

This must be an age thing, because it never used to happen to me (and I'm sure glad it didn't happen back when I had infants!), but these days if anything wakes me up past 1:00 a.m., I can't go back to sleep. I usually try for an hour or so, but can't help but think about all of the things I COULD be doing besides trying to go back to sleep, and then I just get up. It kind of offers a glimpse into what life could be like if I was granted my one (frivolous, non-world peace-level) wish - to be one of those people who thrives on just three hours a night. Anyway, Caroline woke me up earlier this morning, and after staring at the clock from 1:45 to 3:15, it became apparent that sleep would not be returning. Thankfully, for those nights you just can't sleep, there's Glue Dots!

I decided to make good use of these quiet middle of the night hours and assemble some cupcake toppers for Caroline's party (and fold three baskets of laundry, and begin the cake - oh sweet insomnia, please come again soon!)

Party goodies

2011-08-16T18:28:00.006-04:00

We are celebrating Caroline's birthday this weekend, so we've been getting ready for the party this week. I swore I'd never make iced sugar cookies again after discovering a really incredible sugar cookie shop nearby, but for some bizarre reason (perhaps rooted in the same part of my brain that is responsible for my interest in taking up canning) the lure of mastering the iced sugar cookie is powerful for me -- it is my personal Everest, and I feel drawn to conquer it. My party confections sherpa, Amanda, who previously helped me make cake pops for the first time, is going to help me decorate them. I had another little helper rolling out the dough earlier today:

I tasted a cookie out of the oven, and they are extremely mediocre. I know I can make a good tasting sugar cookie, even if I didn't do it this time, but whether I can make a good looking sugar cookie is a huge wild card. If it's an epic fail, I can still make the 48 hour deadline to order from Icing on the Cookie!

First Day of school

2011-08-11T17:22:00.011-04:00

While it is pretty much mid-summer vacation in other parts of the country, today was the first day of school here. And that's okay, because the kids were really excited to start back. I knew it was time for school to start last week when Jacob, upon being informed that the day's activities included going to the pool, complained that he was sick of going to the pool. You're in luck, dude -- school's starting!

It was Jacob's first day of fourth grade, Elizabeth's first day of first grade, and Caroline's 278th day of three year old preschool, but she wanted in the pictures anyway, and really, who could resist her?

Jacob:

It's Jacob's first year in a new school, and we loooooove his old school/Elizabeth's current school, so I think the prospect of him starting 4th grade was even harder for me than when he started kindergarten. His teachers seem great, though, and he is more than ready for his new adventure, and was really happy when I picked him up today.

Elizabeth:

Elizabeth entered first grade nirvana yesterday when she met her teacher for the first time and saw her new classroom, including the class pets, Patches the Guinea Pig and Luigi the Frog. A guinea pig AND a frog AND an obviously fun teacher who handed out little bags of gummy bears with notes that read "We're going to have a BEAR-Y fun year?" Oh yeah. It's going to be a beary good year, indeed.

Caroline:

Caroline is actually wrapping up her year in the 3 year old preschool class and will be moving to the pre-K program in a few weeks. Gah! The class has been discussing the Wild West this week, so she's been rocking her new pink cowboy boots:

We are all really excited about another great school year!

Grand Summer Vacation Finale

2011-08-09T20:59:00.004-04:00

I had already started dinner tonight when David called and suggested that we take the kids out to celebrate the end of summer and the start of the new school year. What a guy! So I cleaned up what I'd been cooking and we headed out to our family's #1 celebration spot:

And enjoyed some seriously great burgers. We discussed our favorite parts of summer (Jacob: The Rockin' Roller Coaster; Caroline: The Nemo Ride; Elizabeth: It's a Small World, at which point Caroline changed her favorite part of summer to It's a Small World as well); had our usual Five Guys conversation, in which we try to figure out what it is about Five Guys burgers that make them so much better than other guys' burgers; talked about the importance of personal space and not flailing around in restaurants; and discussed why I get my hair highlighted if I don't want the highlights to be noticeable. I think that about covers it! It was way more fun than staying home for dinner.

Worst week ever!

2011-08-05T18:49:00.006-04:00

We've just concluded what Jacob (who's not at all prone to overdrama, nosiree) affectionately termed "Worst Week Ever!" and the flurry of doctor's appointments, dentist appointments and haircuts that typically precede the start of a new school year. Caroline had not had a haircut since the DIY job that I did back in early February -- yikes! -- so she in particular was long overdue. This time, I took her to someone actually competent to cut her hair, and she was happy to show off her cute haircut afterwards.

The artiste at work

2011-08-04T03:41:00.004-04:00

I think it's been 2 or 3 weeks since I've taken out my camera to take pictures of the kids. Thankfully, I almost always have my phone with me, so I haven't missed ALL of the action. Caroline went to an art birthday party at a local paint-it-yourself place last Saturday. This was some serious art (complete with non-washable paint) for 3 and 4 year olds! You can see her concentration here:

The 16x20 canvases were pretty big; the kids had to stand up to reach the top:

Most 3 year olds don't have the endurance to cover a 16x20 canvas with paint, so the parents helped the kids out a bit on this one. The teacher then put the finishing touches. and Caroline was very proud of her masterpiece! It's hanging on the wall right outside her room right now:

Jacob did not believe that Caroline/Caroline & I did this painting. Seriously, the black "outlines" that the teacher did really kicked that baby up a notch. If you'll look closely, you'll see that the black outlines actually bear no relationship to the pink edges of the cross or the yellow/blue edges of the polka dots that Caroline and I painted, which really helps give it some "shape." So it was a collaborative effort, but lots of fun all around.

All turned upside down

2011-07-30T15:30:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth did a dance, sorry, "creative movement," camp last week. On the last day the kids did a performance for the parents. This wasn't part of the performance, but a little bonus show that Caroline and I got afterwards.

That lego piece is already lost

2011-07-28T06:55:00.001-04:00

For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and my elbow brushes it and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, 'Of course.' When I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious. -- Achaan Chaa, meditation master
I first came across this quote -- the key to maintaining one's sanity while dealing with toys that have multiple parts -- in this excellent piece that Dahlia Lithwick did for Parenting magazine. Until I read that article, I never quite understood why I would have a nervous visceral reaction when my kids would open certain new toys; say, the Strawberry Shortcake Raspberry Torte Baking Playset:
But not others, like say a Pillow Pet:

My kids have fun with both. I have no beef with Strawberry Shortcake. So why do I automatically tense up when I see one of her playsets? It's because I know that the minute that playset freed from its tidy packaging, it will cease to be a whole playset. The miniature berrylicious petit fors will get separated from the torte-eriffic baking pan, and the perfectly pink oven will wind up in the bottom of a pile of Barbie dolls, and it will no longer function as a cohesive "baking set." If Strawberry's hair is removeable, which it probably is, it's a goner too, and then I'm left with creepy bald baking Strawberry Shortcake with none of her associated parts. And this really bothers nobody but me. Months later, assuming that the tiny cherry that used to top the tiny berry parfait hasn't already gotten vacuumed up, the girls will discover it and know exactly what it is supposed to go with (even if they can't find any of those other tiny parts) but they don't seem remotely troubled by the fact that it may never be reunited with the parfait again. I've spent many hours trying to keep these sets together. I've implemented various storage systems (seriously, who needs a clear plastic Sterilite bin labeled "Squinkies?" But I have one.) and tried to institute nightly toy pickup sessions where we reunite toy families, so to speak, but really, it's hopeless. I was feeling kind of defeated by this until I read Lithwick's article, and then it all became clear. "The glass is already broken." "The Strawberry Shortcake Splash-N-Petal Pool is already slideless." And once I accepted that, a zen-like calm washed over me, and I accepted our partial-toy set reality.

I'm grateful that I achieved this kind of peace before we got heavy into legos in our house. Because wow, legos will challenge the most resigned-to-toy-chaos among us. The pieces are tiny:

And there are a lot of them. And they all come together to make large, elaborate structures/vehicles that nobody really knows what to do with once they're built. Is Plo Koon's Jedi Starfighter supposed to battle the General Grievous Starfighter? Are we supposed to take them apart and build them again? Are we supposed to display them in an acrylic display case? It's unclear. I decided to operate under the assumption that in my house, we'd come up with a hybrid solution that would involve pieces falling off the completed structure and getting vacuumed up. In any case, I felt like it was my motherly responsibility to at least give the Legos a fighting chance.

I thought about finding a Lego table, until I noticed the inexplicable inflated price tags on such things. Plus, after nine years and three kids we have managed to accumulate an alarming number of kid-sized tables, so I decided to turn one of them into a Lego table. I went with a 2007 Target selection:

Its main asset was that it was already in sorry shape:

So I couldn't really hurt it.

I then glued six of these lego base plates on to the top:

And brought it downstairs to anchor Legoland.

As far as storage of the actual Legos go, I turned our very first toy storage piece (bought when Jacob was still a baby) into a Lego storage center. And to think there was a day when ALL of our toys fit into this thing!

At the moment, the pieces are organized by color:

The theory being that if the kids want to rebuild something, they can at least narrow which bin they need to rummage through for the piece they need. Will it work? Highly unlikely. But I feel like I've done what I can do on the Lego front, and now I'm going to fade away and let the Legos do what they are going to do. Because to me, that Lego piece is already lost.

Kids' Art Wall

2011-07-26T07:34:00.004-04:00

I've been wanting to turn one of the walls in our upstairs landing into a wall for the kids' artwork for several months now. The kids' bedrooms and the playroom are all upstairs, so I really want it to feel bright, cheery, fresh and youthful up there. But ever since we moved into the house almost four years ago, on the main wall in the upstairs landing lived this painting:

which has a decidedly "Grandmother's Attic" feel to it. We bought it when we were selling our old house and needed something big and generic (i.e., mildly pleasing to the greatest number of potential buyers, but passionately adored by no one) to fill a large wall in our bedroom. I never liked walking upstairs and seeing it, as it is not remotely "bright, fresh, cheery or youthful. {Incidentally, while it is still none of those things, I moved it into our living room/library, and actually like it much better there.}

Anyway, I got the idea to do a gallery wall up there months ago when I saw this post on one of my favorite blogs. I love gallery walls in general (we have a wall of black & white photos in our den) and LOVED the white frames they used in their hallway. I thought that filling that wall with white frames would improve the landing's current dreariness. We are loaded with not-currently-being-used frames around here, so I painted some of them white, and added a few cheapo ($5!) frames from Michael's to round it out.

In terms of what to put in the frames, the kids' artwork was the obvious choice to me, because (1) they have a whole lot of it, and (2) we never really had a good spot to display it. Plus, what is cheerier and more youthful than kids' art?

I scoured the web looking for ideas for kids' art walls, and pinned them with abandon over at my new obsession, Pinterest. I loved the way that this one just stuck some of the art right to the wall in between the frames. I loved the chalkboard wall underneath this one and for a millisecond considered trying that. I totally drooled over this one, but was certain that I lacked the talent needed to come even close to pulling this off.

I started off by using newspapers as rough templates to figure out where I wanted the frames to go:

But in the end I pretty much ended up winging it. And I have the extra holes in my wall to prove it. In the end, I ended up with this:

I hung the frames a little bit wider apart than I often do with frame walls, because I wanted room for smaller pieces and "fillers" (think pipe cleaner caterpillars or popsicle stick snowflakes). I picked up a few 6x6 canvases ($2 each on sale at Hobby Lobby!) and commissioned a few handprint paintings to fill in a few of the gaps for now:

I took the glass out of several of the frames and backed them with white foam board to serve as "mats." This makes it REALLY easy to swap out the art. For the frames without glass, I just used painter's tape on the back of the pictures to stick them onto the foam board.

I also stuck a few of the masterpieces (Cat in the Hat, Yellow Bird and Balloon) directly onto the wall using painter's tape, a la my first inspiration wall.

I love this wall, and the creativity, imagination and fun that inspired it. It makes me happy every time I walk upstairs. I can't wait to see how their art changes along the way.

Who we're missing right now . . .

2011-07-21T06:31:00.023-04:00

My sweetest little nephew Alex (and his awesome parents) just left us after a great visit, and we miss him so much already! He is seriously just the cutest singing, sweeping, plant-watering, doggy-cuddling, hide-and-seeking twenty-something pound package of joy.

My front porch has never looked so clean:

And my plants have never been so well-watered:

Here is Alex with the two little mommies . . .

Swinging with Jacob:

Sliding:

Reviewing hide-and-seek strategy with Grandpa:

Expelliarmus!!

We also introduced him to the lightsaber. Sorry Diane & Sal!

That face!!

I seriously need to will myself not to overdo it with the cheek squeezing/smooching, lest I become that crazy aunt he runs away from at family gatherings.

Speaking of family gatherings, Alex is going to be a big brother, so we had a little celebration for Diane, Sal and Alex while they were here:

The cousins:

We loved every minute with our sweet Alex and are already counting the days until our next visit!

Goo plus open shade

2011-07-14T00:30:00.003-04:00

The kids are enjoying camp this week at the local children's science center. Jacob is in the third and fourth grade group, and his subject is "Build It, Make It, Take It," where, you guessed it, he builds, makes, and takes things. Elizabeth is in the kindergarten/first grade group, and her topic is "Slippey, Slimey and Weird Science," a.k.a. Goo Camp.

Every day she comes home with at least two new kinds of goo. She's made a lava lamp, a cup full o' some foam-like substance, homemade play-doh, and some brownish substance that she molded and shaped for 45 minutes before announcing that "this is edible, you know!" You can see some of her green goo from day 1 in the picture above. I took this one when I was experimenting shooting in "open shade" after reading some articles on it. I'd say I pretty much had an epic open shade fail, and this one is probably the best of the lot (in terms of catchlights and skin tone, if not composition, expression of subject and avoiding green goo in photos).

Nine!

2011-07-10T17:24:00.028-04:00

Jacob turned nine this weekend, and wanted to celebrate his big day with a Star Wars party(ies). I know, that's what I said last year! Jacob hasn't actually been obsessed with Star Wars the entire stretch between his eighth and ninth birthdays; he took a short break in there to be obsessed with other things -- I was deeply afraid for a couple of months in there that I was going to have to disappoint him by not having a Wipeout birthday party for him this year.

We started on Saturday night by hosting a few of his buddies for a sleepover party. I guess I haven't hosted a sleepover party for nine year old boys in ~~a while~~ forever, because I couldn't quite understand why people kept saying things like "Wow! You're brave!" and "I'm praying for you." Frankly, a sleepover for four fairly self-sufficient kids sounded WAY easier to me than filling up two hours entertaining twelve 4 year old girls with crafts.

The boys got their party favors at the start of the party:

Finally, Jacob's ultimate party dream came true, and he got to celebrate his birthday by dueling his nearest and dearest friends in an epic lightsaber battle. We actually discussed some variation of this idea last year, but negotiations broke down when Jacob did not want to limit the number of guests. And I did not want to have to go to City Hall to procure whatever permits and releases I would surely need to allow fifteen 8 year olds to beat each other with sticks on my property.

But four was a more manageable number (especially since Grammy and Granddaddy kindly took the sisters for a sleepover the same night, so David and I were able to concentrate fully on the boys).

We took the kids to Five Guys for dinner:

And then walked across the street for dessert #1:

We figured we had a lot of time to kill, so multiple dessert sessions would be acceptable.

When we got home, the boys did some more lightsaber fighting and then headed to the basement to watch the Star Wars prequel trilogy. There was some disagreement about whether to watch Episode 1 or Episode 3. (My personal choice, "none of the above," was not considered.) The movie watching went okay, as far as we could tell, although we could hear Jacob getting frustrated a couple of times because his guests were not watching the movies with the kind of silent reverence that he felt they deserved. You know, because you wouldn't want to miss any of that dialogue. As we listened to all this from upstairs, David and I started looking up movie times for Transformers II -- because hard as it might be to believe, taking 4 kids to a 10:00 p.m. showing of Transformers II was actually preferable to . . . something . . . and that something was listening to four kids bicker about the Star Wars prequel in my basement. Thankfully, their disagreements were short-lived and we didn't have to see Transformers II -- disaster averted!

After the first movie, the boys came upstairs for dessert #2 -- cupcakes:

Then went outside with some ultrasabers, which are glow-in-the-dark lightsabers (Jacob has one, and Ben brought over his three) and had a late-night saber battle. I'm sure the neighbors loved that! The boys then went back to the basement for another Star Wars movie, and eventually fell asleep watching the movie (welcome to my world, boys!). David stayed up to supervise, and I went to bed because I knew I'd be getting up early to make breakfast. But I had no idea how early -- the first friend was up at about 5:30 (and they all quickly followed). I'd say the kid who got the least amount of sleep slept from about 1 - 5:30. Needless to say, we kept the grand sleepless sleepover tradition alive!

Later on Sunday, we had another party for Jacob with the family that was in town this weekend.

We pretty much just recycled everything from last year. So certain party items, such as the stand-up Darth and Yoda, went from "utterly ridiculous" to just "ridiculous" because we got to use them two years in a row!

When we were visiting our friends in St. Louis, B loaned me an awesome vintage R2D2 cake pan, and I used it to make Jacob's cake:

Blowing out the candles:

Kisses abounded for Jacob on his big day. Here he is, not so sure about the birthday smooches he received from his sisters:

But is much happier about the one he got from his great-grandmother:

Caroline, in full party mode, playing with balloons:

Jacob had a great time opening his presents, of course!

My cute birthday boy:

I think Jacob had a great birthday. He was really happy at the end of the day, and therefore I was really happy at the end of the day. Happy birthday, Jacob!

Party time

2011-07-09T14:15:00.001-04:00

Getting ready to celebrate my first born's 9th birthday today. Can you guess the theme by the balloon colors?

4th-fest 2011 continued

2011-07-07T23:05:00.024-04:00

On our second full day in St. Louis, we decided to take it easy in the morning, let the kids play, and hit the pool when it opened in the late morning. B, dear friend that she is, knew how disappointed I've been that I didn't get to watch THE event of the new millenium as it happened live over two months ago. For six months we'd shared our grand plans to wake up in the middle of the night, get the kids out of bed, and revel in the pomp and ceremony, just as we did 30ish years ago. Storm-related cable outages put a crimp in those plans for me (although boy, I'm acutely aware of how lucky I am that this was the worst thing I had to deal with around here in late April) but B, bless her, DVRd THE WHOLE THING, including the crucial pre-and-post ceremony hype (such as the kiss countdown ticker and the post-game analysis of Pippa's dress), and saved every fabulous minute of it. So I blissfully hung out on the sofa in my jammies that morning with B, Will, Kate, that cute loud-noise averse Grace Van Cutsem, and the rest of the gang:

After the ceremony, but before the procession to Buckingham Palace, we went to the pool. And wow, this is some neighborhood pool -- it's really more like a water park complete with slides, a lazy river, etc. I'm a tad worried that our kids will now think that our town pool is lame, but even if they do, it was worth it.

T&B had planned for us to go down to the river to watch the fireworks over the arch that night (and watch Maroon 5!), and we were all super excited about it. Unfortunately, it started storming in the afternoon, and these did not seem to be the move-on-through kind of storms. They settled in, and longer it rained, the less interested B and I were in trekking out in wet mudlands to watch fireworks, so we hatched a plan B which involved the dads driving to a neighboring county to buy sparklers. We went to work on selling the kids on Plan B (sparklers, s'mores, sleeping bags, popcorn, and The Sound of Music) and as you can imagine it wasn't exactly a hard sell (heck, add in some Royal Wedding footage and you've pretty much just summarized my perfect evening right there).

David going over the fireworks safety rules:

The kids LOVED the sparklers:

There was not actually a fireball on Jacob's head

(I somehow missed getting a picture of cute P with a sparkler - boo!)

We had to head back home the next morning. Elizabeth cried (the ugly cry) when it was time to leave. None of the kids wanted to see a great time come to an end. When asked "why, why, WHY do we have to leave already?" I gently responded with my sister-in-law's wise made-up Chinese proverb:

Better to leave too soon and have them wish that you stayed
Than stay too long and have them wish that you left.

Elizabeth looked confused for a millisecond, but then quickly resumed wailing. We all said our sad goodbyes, until next visit. The ride home was on the long side (WHY won't my tired children sleep??) but we did stop in Metropolis, home of Superman, and snapped some pictures outside a convenience store -- summer kitsch at its best.

Thanks again for a great weekend, T, B, P, & R!!

4th of July road trip

2011-07-07T09:11:00.010-04:00

We hit the road to visit our dear friends T and B, and their adorable kiddos, P and R, in St. Louis over 4th of July weekend. David and I went to law school with T & B; we were in each others' weddings, and we've stayed close during the nearly 14 years (gulp) since graduation. And between us, we've birthed a kid in almost every year in the mid-aughts: 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007. Several years ago, when Jacob was just 1 and P was a baby, we took our first road trip together (to the beach). Since that year, we've taken turns visiting each other just about every year. We LOVE going to St. Louis, because it is a super fun city with tons to do with young kids, and of course because T, B, P & R are awesome.

On our first full day there, we went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Now I love the little botanical gardens in our little town, but the Missouri Gardens are really a sight to behold. Not only are they lush and gorgeous, but they have an amazing "Children's Gardens" with incredible play areas -- swinging bridges, swinging vines, caves, puppet theaters, play markets, and splash fountains.

In the back of a conestoga wagon at the Children's Garden

Notice anything about the girls? Much to the delight of every female in our group (and the eye-rolling of the males) the girls were all wearing coordinating elephant dresses!! B is a rep for Hannah Kate, the company that makes these dresses, and she is the one who tipped me off to that elephant fabric in the first place. I ordered Caroline's dress, which I love so much I was moved to blog about it, from B, and B ordered one in a different style for R. I then found one for E when Hannah Kate had their sample sale a few weeks ago. So, that is how The Triplets were born, and the girls had tons of fun parading through the gardens in their finery.

The gang:

It was a HOT day. And I feel like we know hot, living in the deep South and all, but wow, it was hot. We did not pack swimsuits for fountain play, but we really didn't need them, because even though the kids all got soaked, their clothes dried in about 15 seconds once they left the fountain.

After the Gardens we had lunch at a really fabulous pizza place called Pi, then B and I went shopping while the boys hung out with the kids (a much treasured tradition during our annual visits - for B and me, anyway); and then T&B's babysitter, Mary Poppins, arrived (and wow -- does she live up to her nickname!) and it was time for the grownups to go out and play.

I need to wrap up now as I'm kind of sneaking in this little blogging session when I really should be doing other things (such is life in the summer), but I'm going to post more pictures from the visit later. T & B (and P&R), if you are out there, thank you so much for an incredible time!

{more} swim lessons, sans griping

2011-06-24T11:11:00.005-04:00

Feeling a bit sheepish here about my little rant about swim lessons week yesterday. Obviously there are many worse ways to spend a June afternoon. Like cleaning up cow manure without a proper shovel while listening to the book-on-tape version of the Internal Revenue Code and getting pecked by hens. But it's Friday, and the kids have made incredible progress on the swimming front this week, so things are looking up. See, this doesn't look so bad . . .

Waiting for swim lessons to start

Elizabeth has finally gotten over the hump, and after three summers of lessons, she is now a swimmer.

And I'll be darned if little Caroline isn't already swimming herself. It never ceases to amaze me how different kids are, and how they all have their own unique talents and gifts.

The kids get to do a more extensive show for parents today, and I remembered to bring my real camera along in the hopes of capturing some of it. After the lessons, we have a popsicle party, and trust me, nobody will be partying down with those popsicles quite like the moms!

swim lessons & mom griping

2011-06-23T10:23:00.012-04:00

This is the week of summer I've been dreading the most. I am so exhausted by the prospect of getting through each day that I can't even talk it over with David at night -- it's like living it is bad enough, I can't compound that by also talking about it (writing, on the other hand, is cathartic!). And the sad thing is that any words I use to explain why I knew it would be (and it is) just awful won't do its awfulness justice.

The kids all have different things going on in the mornings, and they are taking swim lessons in the afternoons. This is Jacob's and Elizabeth's third year, and Caroline's first. Jacob is already a strong swimmer, but loves this teacher and wanted to take lessons again, so we signed him up for a strokes class. Elizabeth is *thisclose* to making the breakthrough to true swimmer, so she's in an advanced beginner class. Caroline is a beginner, of course.

The teacher has been teaching swimming in her backyard for almost 20 years. When we were looking to sign the kids up for swimming lesson a few years ago, the same name kept coming up again and again from people in my many different worlds. And she lives up to her hype. She's a high school math teacher, so she has the teaching gene -- she's that perfect combination of patient, firm, and nurturing -- and she knows how to teach kids to swim. And the kids adore her.

So the problem is not the swim lessons, insofar as the actual swim lessons are concerned, but the logistics of managing three hours of back-to-back-to-back swim lessons for three kids (two of whom are not actually in a lesson at any given time) at a house without a bathroom (of course she has a bathroom in her house, I assume, but would YOU want 100 wet children trekking through your house every week?). That means a whole lot of driving back and forth to a bathroom at a nearby park; wrestling with wet swimsuits and halfway compliant girls during the numerous potty trips, running back and forth to Publix or the gas station for snacks and/or just to kill time while the older kids are in their lesson; waiting out thunderstorms in the hot pool house; and generally enduring three hours a day managing two bored/whiney kids while the third is in his/her lesson, while sweating and swatting mosquitos. See, I know that words just don't convey the magnitude of its awfulness. It sounds like "Gee Cathy, so you're telling me you are spending a bunch of time this week DRIVING and WAITING?! Better get used to it, sister, as this is pretty much 75% of parenting children of a certain age!" I know, I KNOW. But trust me, I can drive and wait all day long with the best of them with a smile on my face and a positive, can-do attitude, but this is so so so much worse than the average driving and waiting experience. The only people who truly understand are the other swim lesson moms. Thankfully, it's a good bunch this year and they are more than happy to sit and complain with me!

But it's all worth it when I see my baby jumping into the pool and swimming under water!

She is SOOOOOO proud of herself!

Bedtime Procrastination

2011-06-22T09:56:00.001-04:00

as implemented by cowgirl/ladybug/ballerina Caroline.

Slip Slidin' Away

2011-06-21T07:19:00.002-04:00

disney: final day

2011-06-18T06:03:00.009-04:00

The last day of vacation is always kind of depressing, but we had a full schedule planned on our last day, so there wasn't really any time to mope. After Jacob went to an Indy car race here in town a couple of months ago -- and scored the autographs of some of the drivers -- he became quite the autograph hound, sending autograph requests (along with self-addressed stamped envelopes!) to the Indy drivers' racing teams, the Star Wars production company, etc. So when he found out that there was a chance to get (1) autographs of (2) Star Wars characters, during Star Wars weekends, well, it was all just too good to be true.

Unfortunately, to be assured of getting an autograph, you needed a fastpass, and to get a fastpass, you had to start lining up at the crack of dawn. But there was no way we could miss what to Jacob was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So we decided that David and Jacob would walk to Hollywood Studios to line up in the morning, and I'd stay back at the hotel with the girls and start packing and getting ready to check out.

David and Jacob started their walk over to Studios around 6:00 a.m. I was able to get some live reports from the field:

Apparently there were massive crowds of (mostly adult) Star Wars fanatics forming five different lines for each of the five Star Wars actors who were making appearances that day. Boba Fett and a Storm Trooper patrolled the roof:

After some hemming and hawing, Jacob finally decided that he wanted meet Boba Fett and (the voice of) Obi-Wan Kenobi. After a couple of hours of waiting, Jacob and David emerged with two coveted fastpasses which ensured him of his autographs.

His first fastpass time was at 10-something, so it didn't really make sense for them to come back to the hotel. Studios ended up opening the park early (but didn't advertise this to the public) so Jacob and David enjoyed a solid hour of riding the most popular attractions at Studios with no wait time. Jacob took the opportunity to ride his first loop coaster:

Jacob rides a loop coaster at age 8, and here I am 38 and I STILL have yet to ride a loop coaster (but I'm really okay with that).

After three rides on the Rockin' Roller Coaster and another trip to the Tower of Terror, it was time to meet James Arnold Taylor, the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi (and Plo Koon, and an evil spy droid, and Johnny Test, and the new Fred Flinstone -- this guy is a serious voice actor with an impressive resume):

This guy was great. Jacob said that he would start talking to Jacob in a normal voice, then he'd switch to his Obi-Wan voice, then flip through Jacob's Star Wars encyclopedia (he signed Jacob's book at every character he'd played) and would use his voice for those characters; then he'd suddenly break into his Johnny Test voice, and ended with "Yabba Dabba Do!" in his Fred Flinstone voice. David said that the guy seemed really happy to actually be meeting a kid for a change.

The boys made it back to the hotel right at 11, our check out time. We had our bags held for the afternoon while we walked over to Epcot. We had already seen most of what we wanted to see there, so we had no specific agenda other than to get lunch and walk around for a bit. David and Jacob would have to go back to Studios for a 2-something autograph session.

We started out with a great lunch in the Biergarten Restaurant in Germany. I know that David appreciated a nice cold beer after the miles and miles of walking he had already done so far that day in the name of Star Wars.

David and Caroline danced to the oompa music provided by the lederhosen-clad musicians:

After lunch the boys basically had to start the long walk back to Studios. The girls and I visited with some princesses.

Elizabeth hugging Snow White:

Snow White asking about Naked Baby Doll:

Girls & Snow White:

The girls then set out on another Kim Possible mission, this one in Norway. Here they are receiving their mission:

Reading up on the next mission:

The best part had to be when they received instructions to go up to the cast member working Maelstrom and say "Vikings are all the rage!" Elizabeth delivered the line with great feeling. Right on cue, the Norwegian cast member replied with a hearty "Yes they are!" and handed her a card that provided clues for her next mission.

Meanwhile, the boys were over at Studios meeting Jeremy Bulloch, a.k.a. Boba Fett:

We met up again in Epcot, and I think that everyone was fully and totally spent by then. It was time to work our way back and start the trip home. But not before making some phone calls in England:

When we got back into the hotel, the kids and I sat down and watched some old Mickey Mouse cartoons while David worked on getting the car packed. Our plan was to drive a few hours that night and finish the trip home the next day. When the valets brought the car up, we noticed our flatter-than-flat front left tire. And there aren't tons of tire shops open in Orlando after 5:00 on Saturday, go figure. We finally located a Pep Boys that was open, so David took off to deal with that, and I took the kids outside to hang out for a couple of hours. At first, things were tense (there may or may not have been dramatic declarations that "our vacation is RUINED!!!" by one or more of my children), but I pointed out that things could be worse, and they could be sitting in a hot waiting room at Pep Boys flipping through three year old copies of Car & Driver instead of eating burgers at Hurricane Hana's while overlooking the lagoon. Eventually, food and some rest drove out the demons, and the kids ended up having a {bonus!} ball playing on the beach.

You can count on Disney to stock their beaches with a nice supply of baby ducklings:

And bunnies, for that matter:

I couldn't get these kids off the beach to look for David (he had a dead cell phone, so he couldn't call me when he was back). After their sand aversion at the beach last year, this gave us hope for next year's beach vacation.

What started out as a major nuisance turned into the perfect way to end our vacation (at least for the four of us not at Pep Boys):

These posts have been almost as tiring as the trip itself (and almost as much fun). I really wanted to get all of this down before the memories started to fade. I hope that there will be many other fun Disney trips with our family, but I will always remember this one -- our first Disney trip with all three kids -- as the best.

disney: magic kingdom 2.0

2011-06-15T23:43:00.005-04:00

Our main objectives for our second day in the Magic Kingdom were to hit some of the attractions that we missed on our first day, and to make it to the Main Street Electrical Parade (my childhood favorite) at night. In order for that to happen, we knew we'd have to take a break and go back to the hotel for a stretch in the middle of the day.

A lot of what we missed on day 1 was over in the Adventureland/Frontierland side of the park, so we headed that way after breakfast.

We hit one of my all-time favorites:

Cap'n Jacob:

As the old saying goes . . .

Arrrrr:

This one was a little scary for the girls, so we made up for it by meeting more royalty:

Then Elizabeth wanted to try Splash Mountain again. I had washed my hands of Splash Mountain after The Incident, so I left that entirely up to David. He got in line with Jacob and Elizabeth, and Caroline and I settled into a viewing spot. I got this one of the gang at the beginning of the ride.

You can see that Elizabeth is none too happy. I was really glad that I was where I was and David was where he was!

I then took approximately 150 pictures of boats splashing down the mountain in an effort to capture my gang. I missed exactly ONE BOAT while leaning over to help Caroline with something, and since I did not think that I saw David and the kids plunging in any of the other pictures, I assumed that they must have been on that one boat that I missed. So imagine my delight when I went through the pictures and saw that I did indeed capture them. Ready, squint hard:

Elizabeth is burrowed into David's lap, so you can't really see her. After they were done, she ran up to me bubbling about how AWESOME Splash Mountain was and how much she loved it. One thing is certain: she either loved it or hated it.

But Elizabeth left no ambiguity about the next one -- she hated, and I mean hated, the Haunted Mansion. It is one of my Disney favorites, and I really remember it being more campy than scary. As we worked our way up to the Haunted House, she kept saying she didn't want to do it, but we kept telling her that they weren't scary ghosts, they were Scooby Doo-like ghosts. And that it is my all-time favorite ride! Caroline played the haunted piano:

And we read the tombstones:

Once we were on the ride, and I put myself in the shoes of a 6 year old who didn't want to ride it, I felt really bad. It would definitely scare a 6 year old who was expecting to be scared. As we were walking out, she wiped a tear away and cried "that is the worst all-time favorite ride ever!!" Mother of the Year moment right there. Caroline, oddly, didn't mind this one (of course, put a giant Goofy in a Hawaiian shirt in the haunted dining room and we'd have a different story).

We made it up to Elizabeth by cashing in our fastpasses at the Jungle Cruise, which she picked as the one attraction she really wanted to do today. Nothing like some bathing animatronic elephants to make everything better:

We hit some other parts of the park next.

Dumbo:

Okay, we didn't actually go on Dumbo. It is by far the most frustrating ride in WDW. It's kind of a classic, but it's pretty small, so the line is always very long, and it's 100% in the hot sun (we're talking old school Disney attraction here) for a 90 second ride. We enjoyed the Triceratops Spin in Animal Kingdom and Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride in Adventure land several times -- these are essentially Dumbo. Except they're not Dumbo to a small child. We probably should have gotten on Dumbo straight from our breakfast. But we didn't, so we settled for this picture in front of Dumbo instead. The great news is that Disney is redoing parts of Fantasyland, and by next year, there will be a new and improved Dumbo! The artistic renderings look incredible:

A large bigtop (read: covered, not in the hot sun) with numerous interactive exhibits will funnel into twin Dumbo rides. It should dramatically improve the Dumbo experience. I love the classics as much as the next person, but the existing Dumbo simply can't accomodate the crowds the way that he could in the 70s.

J made a futile attempt to pull the sword from the stone:

More castle shots!

We headed to Tomorrowland for a bit:

And while we were there, we ran into Push, the Talking Trash Can {you can watch Push in action here}. Caroline felt like the thing to do upon happening on a talking Trash Can was to stick her head inside - that's my girl.

We decided to leave the park for a few hours to rest and go swimming, and then come back later for the Electrical Parade. David and Jacob had gone to get fastpasses for later, and we planned to meet at the main entrance, but we got caught in afternoon parade (something about Wishes or Dreaming, I think) on the way out.

We could see David and Jacob stuck on the other side of the sidewalk:

I suppose if you can't get where you want to be, it might as well be because of a Disney parade.

After spending a couple of hours in the pool, we cleaned up and headed back to the Magic Kingdom. I was hoping to get some twilight pictures in front of the castle. Jacob was hoping not to pose for twilight pictures in front of the castle, but to use his fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad immediately (can you tell?):

We decided to get some hot dogs for dinner and stake out a viewing spot on Main Street for the Electrical Parade:

And then proceeded to be delighted by the lights spectacle:

After the parade Jacob and I watched the fireworks while riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad -- possibly the highlight of the trip! We made our way back to the hotel tired, but happy tired.

disney: Cinderella's Royal Table

2011-06-14T07:43:00.009-04:00

We started out our second Magic Kingdom day with breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table. This one is a must-do if you have a little princess in your house, but I think they really make it fun for everyone -- there are lots of boys here too (they get swords instead of magic wands, in addition to the wishing stars that they pass out to all the children). I mean, who doesn't want to eat in Cinderella's castle, when you get right down to it?

One of the best things about eating breakfast (as opposed to lunch or dinner) at Cinderella's castle is that you can get into the park early. So you have time to snap some pictures in front of the castle without massive crowds swarming around, and once breakfast is over, you can hit a few attractions before the the rest of the crowd has made it in from the gate.

Given that Caroline wears more satin and tulle on a daily basis than an 80s bridesmaid, I had no doubt that she would want to dress up like a princess for these princess meals. Elizabeth was more borderline in my mind -- she loved to dress up when she was 3 and 4, and she still liked to dress up some around her 5th birthday, but she hasn't really initiated dress up play on her own in a while. But I thought that when she saw other girls dressed like princesses at Disney, she might want to join in the fun, so I brought along a couple of dresses for her as well, just in case. After the princess lunch at Akershus, she told me that she wanted to dress up like a princess at Cinderella's castle. But when we woke up the morning of the breakfast, she had changed her mind and absolutely did not. Forcing my six and a half year old to dress up like a princess against her will to advance my own selfish photo visions seemed wrong, so Elizabeth wore what she wanted to that morning . . . and thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Meanwhile, Caroline was in her glory. I've talked a lot with friends about the "best time" to take kids to Disney World, and I really don't think there is one best time. I think every age is great for different reasons. The 8+ crowd can do most of the attractions and have more endurance. The 5+ crowd will definitely remember the trip in a way that younger kids may not, but they still have some of that little kid magic left in them.

But if you have a 3 or 4 year old who loves princesses, or Buzz Lightyear, or Mickey Mouse, there is really something magical about taking them to Disney World at that age. Because at three and a half, Caroline was not meeting a pretty lady dressed like Cinderella -- she was meeting Cinderella. And watching her awe and joy when she met her (and the other princesses) really ranks right up there with my happiest parenting moments ever.

Being a princess comes naturally to Caroline as the third child/baby in the family, and she broke into a royal strut as soon as we approached the castle.

Her Royal Highness:

Outside the castle:

Oh, about Naked Baby Doll. You might think from these pictures that this is Caroline's special lovey -- but no, it's just one of the 100 random baby dolls that we have lying around the house. Caroline happened to grab it for the car ride and proceeded to carry it around for most of the trip. She does not even have a name besides Naked Baby Doll, yet she is forever memorialized in our Disney World photos.

Caroline walking into the Cinderella's castle for the first time:

After we checked in, we entered the castle, where Cinderella was there to greet us.

This is one of my favorite photos over:

It shows how sweet my kids can be to each other when they are not too busy being not-sweet. Jacob is so happy in this picture not because HE is meeting Cinderella, but because Caroline is meeting Cinderella and he knows how much she loves Cinderella. He is excitedly telling her how awesome it is that she meeting Cinderella! His happiness for her is almost parental in nature. Wish we could bottle moments like this.

Caroline & Cinderella:

Kids & Cinderella:

We then sat down to enjoy our breakfast and wait for the other princesses to arrive.

Caroline and the Royal Uneaten Eggs:

Jacob & Elizabeth

The Wishing Ceremony:

Caroline had fully warmed up by this point:

Jacob and Elizabeth also enjoyed chatting with the princesses, who by now had to feel like old friends:

When we left the castle after breakfast, we had the good fortune of running into the Fairy Godmother right outside the castle!

Such a fun way to start the day! And it was only 9:00 -- we still had a full day left in the Magic Kingdom.

disney: hollywood studios

2011-06-12T09:25:00.041-04:00

Disney's Hollywood Studios was on tap for today. We did not realize when we booked the trip that we'd be in Disney World during one of the Star Wars Weekends. and as far as Jacob was concerned, that was a happy coincidence, as there were lots of extra Star Wars activities on the menu!

When plotting out our day, the first big decision was whether Jacob wanted to try to participate in Jedi Training Academy. I was pretty sure that he would, given that he spends approximately 3 hours per day wielding a light saber even when we're not in Disney World, but somewhere in the middle of the Disney research he did before our trip he decided that Jedi Training Academy was more for younger kids and that he was "too old" for it. I told him that I did not think that was the case at all (the info. about the attraction says it's for kids 4-12, so he'd be right smack in the middle of that range) and that if he wanted to do it, we would try to do it, and that his fellow padawans would surely include some kids younger than him, but also some kids older than him. But he didn't waver on this -- he decided that he did not care about doing it. Which was fine with David and me, as it saved us from having to get to the park an hour before rope drop to line up for it! {But don't think he valued our extra sleep that much; what he REALLY wanted to do was get autographs of some of the Clone Wars stars on Saturday, which would require us to line up nearly 3 hours before rope drop. More on that later.}

We grabbed a quick, character-free breakfast in the lobby, then the kids looked for the hidden Mickey in the oversized globe in the lobby:

And then we started the walk to Studios. Unlike Epcot, which is just a 5 or 10 minute walk away, Studios is over a mile from the hotel. So it's a bit of a hike, especially for little legs, but a pretty one, and the kids managed it fine.

The requisite Studios shot in front of Mickey's Sorcerer hat:

We sent David to get fastpasses for Star Tours, and the kids and I wandered towards the general vicinity of Toy Story Mania:

David caught up with us, and the stated wait for Toy Story Mania was something in the 45 minute range, so we got in line.

Er, I was trying to get their silhouettes in front of Mr. Potato Head. Yeah, that's it!

I tell you what, when I was a kid, we didn't have these cushy indoor, climate-controlled Disney World lines with attraction-appropriate decor and talking Mr. Potato Heads to entertain us. No, we inched our way uphill into the blaring hot sun and passed the time by counting how many times we zigzagged past the same dude in the Pink Floyd t-shirt, and we liked it!

Not only was the Toy Story Mania line super pleasant, it was shorter-than-advertised as well! We caught up with the fastpass line after only 25 minutes and hopped onto the ride. Now, I can take or leave the roller coasters, but put me in a decorated slow-moving vehicle that is propelled on a track past animatronic robots and I'm in theme park heaven! So Toy Story Mania was my kind of ride. Even my thrill-seekers loved this one:

And it met with the approval of the most discriminating member of our travel party:

After Toy Story Mania the big kids wanted to meet Mr. & Mrs. Incredible, and of course Caroline would have none of that, so she and I wandered around while David took Jacob and Elizabeth celebrity stalking.

Success!

Jacob and Elizabeth showing off their autographs:

Elizabeth really wanted to go to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!, so we headed in that direction next, stopping first to snap a picture in front of a bush shaped like Sorcerer Mickey. If you put it up to a family vote, I'm sure that my incessant random photo demands would easily earn me the "Most Annoying Travel Companion" award. Still, they {mostly} indulged me.

Here are my miniaturized kids, riding an ant and dwarfed by the blades of grass at Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!

This particular attraction was really fun until it wasn't. I've blocked out the details, but I think it involved Elizabeth and Caroline fighting atop the ant. Perhaps over who got to sit in front. I remember removing them from the insect and leaving in a hurry. I'm sure the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground has seen worse {please God, let the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground have seen worse.}

To cool everyone off, David took the girls to see Muppet Vision 3-D, and I took Jacob for his second spin through Star Tours. He loved it the first time he rode it with David, and he loved it again the second time. After we finished the ride, we were funneled into the Star Tours gift shop, naturally, and Jacob took me over to the photo art area to show me the souvenir that he had been coveting ever since his first Star Tours ride earlier that day. After issuing the obligatory "are you SURE? If you get this, that is it for souvenirs" warnings and being assured that there was no doubt in his mind, this was the one, Jacob lined up to have his photo taken.

Behold, Jacob-wan Kenobi:

After seeing the finished product, Jacob and I agreed that it was really, really cool, and maybe just a little bit creepy.

After all this morning fun, it was time to think about lunch. We had a reservation at the Hollywood Brown Derby, which I made mainly to get priority seating at Fantasmic, a highly popular fireworks and water show that people start to line up for hours ahead of time. But it was clear by lunchtime that there was no way we were going to make it all the way through to Fantasmic, and going back to the hotel for a few hours and returning later wasn't really looking feasible either. Therefore, we decided to save Fantasmic for our next trip and cancel the Brown Derby.

Oh, as an aside, I'm sure it sounds like we had an insane number of meal reservations for this trip. And we did. But the reason we did is because we were on the Disney Dining Plan, which was supposedly "included" with our package. While I believe in Disney Magic as much as the next person, I HIGHLY DOUBT that we ate at Disney World for a week for free. But still, we ended up having three meals per day (table service or quick service) plus two snacks per day per person. The meals included an appetizer, and entree and dessert. And because of the recent popularity of the Dining Plan, it is apparently much more difficult to get meal reservations than it used to be if you wait until you are in the Parks. So we made all of these meals reservations six months ahead of time (knowing that we could cancel them if we didn't want them when the time came) in an effort to get our money's worth out of the dining plan (you know, on the off chance that the Mouse was not actually paying for it).

Anyway, we decided that we did not want to bother with a sit-down lunch, so we cancelled the Brown Derby and ended up outside at a quick service joint. The kids really enjoyed the break. Elizabeth broke out the figurines in her new Aladdin playset and had many adventures with Abu and her french fries:

David & Caroline:

After lunch we heard blood-curdling screams coming out of the Tower of Terror, so naturally we decided to stop for a picture in front of it:

Next, the Ariel ride:

Then Jacob and Elizabeth wanted to meet Buzz & Woody, so I took them to do that while David and Caroline wandered off somewhere. David had the camera, but fortunately I had my iPhone with me to capture the kids enjoying the various line diversions, such as strapping themselves to dynamite:

And posing with Stinky Pete:

Finally it was time to meet Buzz & Woody!

We then got another breather as we sat in a covered amphitheater and watched Beauty & the Beast. Caroline did not love the Beast, but only said "I want to go home!" twice, and was cheering enthusiastically by the end of the show.

Beauty & the Beast:

We had five fastpasses to the Tower of Terror, so we decided that Jacob and David would ride it once before dinner, and I'd ride it with Jacob again after dinner. The girls and I sat and chatted with a super-friendly cast member who sang Disney songs, asked the girls who their favorite Disney character is, etc. while we waited for the boys to emerge from the Tower of Terror. Once they (giddily) did, we headed for dinner at the Sci Fi Dine-In Theater, by far the kids' favorite meal (at least non-character meal) in Disney World:

You eat in a car in a darkened drive-in theater; how cool is that?

The kids all had Glow Soda with their meal; Caroline had a glowing Tinkerbell:

After dinner, the plan was for David to head back to the hotel with the girls while I took Jacob on the Tower of Terror one more time. I said to David, "Do you think it's a good idea for me to get on the Tower of Terror right after eating a huge dinner?" And he replied, "oh, you won't be getting right on it; you still have to walk there." For some odd reason, that answer seemed satisfactory, so ten minutes after leaving the restaurant Jacob and I handed in our fastpasses to get on a ride that involves numerous 30-foot free falls and multiple jerking stops. I worried for a minute there that I might add a new dimension of terror to the ride, but thankfully, my dinner stayed put. FYI, you might want to consider waiting an hour after a meal before stepping into the Hollywood Tower hotel.

Jacob and I chatted the on our walk back to the hotel about how fun and exciting it is to be at Disney World at night. I hate to be completely cheesy, but it really was another magical day.

disney: {another} character meal plus epcot

2011-06-11T06:20:00.005-04:00

We started day 3 with a classic character meal at Cape May Cafe, which is in the Beach Club, the Yacht Club's sister resort (they share the pool and other facilities and have the same management staff). I really thought long and hard about cancelling this after witnessing Caroline's previous reaction to the characters, but we needed to eat breakfast, and the restaurant was so convenient for us, and the big kids wanted to go, soooooo . . . we decided to go for it.

The time, Minnie, Donald and Goofy (no Mickey at this one) are dressed in beach attire (get it? They're at the Beach Club!):

Turns out we had kind of a Pooh-esque experience with Caroline this time; she (really really) didn't like it, but she was at least willing to come into the restaurant and hide. Since David was there to take some of the pictures, I grabbed the chance to get one with Minnie myself:

As was the case at Crystal Palace, the staff here was SUPER sweet and concerned about Caroline, and went out of their way to talk to her, inform Minnie, Goofy and Donald that she was a shy one, and generally reassure her that it was all going to be okay. Minnie and our server even hatched this plan to get a picture of Caroline and Minnie in the same frame - Minnie snuck around to the back of the booth where Caroline was sitting:

In between greeting the characters, we enjoyed our breakfast. This is what happens when you give a six year old autonomy at the breakfast buffet:

1 mickey waffle, 3 hard boiled eggs, pineapple, sausage, and a heaping cup of chocolate chips

David and the big kids with Donald:

Goofy is one tall dog:

Our plan was to head to Epcot after breakfast, and finally Touring Plans recommendations matched with with our largely-inflexible-due-to-meal-reservations plans! Whereas the past two days we'd gone to the "park to avoid," today Epcot was considered a Touring Plans "best park." Yay!

The famous Epcot ball:

On numerous tips, we decided to start our day in Epcot by grabbing fastpasses for Soarin', Epcot's most popular attraction.

You enter Epcot from the Beach & Yacht Clubs the back way, into the World Showcase. Therefore, even though we got there right when the park opened, we had a bit of a hike to get to Soarin' in Future World. We just kind of meandered there, as the kids stopped to play along the way:

Jacob wasn't quite tall enough to peep through the top hole, so he waved instead

Next time one of us will sprint to get Soarin' fastpasses while the other takes his/her sweet time ambling with the kids, because we grabbed our our fastpass at around 9:30, and the return time didn't begin until 12:10. That would have been fine except our lunch reservation -- a princess lunch at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Norway that Caroline was seriously excited about -- was for 12:35. At that point we were still operating on the {bad} information we got at Animal Kingdom that whether or not fastpasses had to be used during the stated one hour window was in the discretion of the attraction operator. And there was no way we could get to lunch on time if we did Soarin' at 12:10 (and we couldn't count on pulling another fastpass to Soarin' later because it would either be for a very late ride time, or they'd be gone altogether). So a considerable amount of time was wasted that morning on the phone with Disney dining to see if we could move our lunch reservation, walking to Norway to see how late we could be and still get our table, walking BACK to Soarin' to see if there was any way we could get on a little early, etc. The good news is that I really feel like we've now worked out most of the logistical bugs associated with navigating a day in the theme parks! The bad news is that we probably unnecessarily wasted two hours in Epcot that morning because we didn't know for certain that fastpasses could be used from the stated return time until park closing. KIDS, TELL YOUR FRIENDS. IF YOUR FASTPASS SAYS RETURN BETWEEN 12:10 AND 1:10, IT REALLY MEANS RETURN BETWEEN 12:10 AND PARK CLOSING. When we got to Soarin', that is exactly what the cast member working the attraction told us, and our problem immediately went away.

In between the hand-wringing about all this, we still had tons of fun! The kids loved the Seas attraction:

Outside the Seas are the famous Epcot seagulls -- noisy, yapping seagulls who chant "mine mine mine." My kids were magnetically drawn to them -- coincidence?

You can watch these hilarious birds yourself here.

We got into clam shells to ride on the Nemo ride (everyone loved it), and then the kids checked out the aquarium and explored the sea-themed play areas:

I then wandered towards our lunch spot in Norway with Caroline while David and the big kids headed to Italy to get instructions for their Kim Possible mission. They LOVED these missions. It felt good to be able to help save the world while on vacation.

Walking with Caroline:

We checked in at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall and waited for the rest of the gang to arrive:

Akershus was one of the best, most fun meals we had in Disney World. Its only drawback was that it was a really dark dining room, so the pictures are pretty flashy.

Belle greeted us when we got inside:

At our royal table:

The children were invited to join in a royal procession around the restaurant. Here's Snow White leading the procession:

During lunch, the princesses came around to greet us. Here are the kids getting Cinderella's autograph (she's such a rock star!!)

Aurora (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty):

Ariel:

To the great relief of everyone, Caroline LOVED the princesses. She asked for their autographs, posed for pictures with them, danced and spun for them and showed off her dress. It was really great to see Caroline finally enjoying a character meal!

Twins!

Caroline even had a hug for Snow White. What a difference a day (and the lack of a huge three dimensional mask) makes!

But we were right back to normal after lunch, with the big kids hankering to meet new characters and Caroline panicking at the very thought of it.

Dale:

Lies, all lies!

After lunch we did tons more stuff, and the kids were getting tired. We were trying to hold out for our 6:00 dinner reservation at Le Cellier in Canada, a steakhouse that gets rave reviews and is apparently a difficult reservation to get.

David and I thoroughly enjoyed our amazing meals. I believe that one (or perhaps three) of my children rejected their steak in favor of plain pasta with butter while we were there. I died a little that day.

Like the steaks, we were stick-a-fork-in-us done after dinner, so we headed back to the hotel. First the kids looked for Hidden Mickeys in Canada:

When we got back, I tried to get Caroline to bed and David took the big kids night swimming. They told me that they watched the Epcot fireworks from the top deck of the water slide (and I was able to peek out our window to see them). A really cool way to end the day!

disney: magic kingdom 1.0

2011-06-09T00:01:00.002-04:00

After Chef Mickey's on Tuesday we hopped on the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Of course, Touring Plans informed us that the Magic Kingdom was a "park to avoid" on Tuesday, but when you have to make certain meal reservations (like Chef Mickey's) so far in advance, you are not left with much choice but to forge ahead with your plans regardless of what the lines app says. And our plan was to spend Tuesday in the Magic Kingdom. I can't even count how many times I've been here -- certainly more than 10 times, but it could even be more than 15 times, I'd have to ask for my parents' help on that one. In any case, I was pretty sure that however bad the MK was, crowd-wise, on May 31, I'd seen worse. And while it was crowded for sure, we never had to wait in much of a line for anything. I would definitely call it a "moderate" day by Disney standards.

Our first castle shot:

Don't let the pictures fool you -- Caroline had a GREAT time at Disney World!!

I can't remember the exact order of how we did things once we got into the park -- I think it involved some people getting fastpasses to Space Mountain and then David, Jacob and Elizabeth heading to Frontierland to ride Big Thunder Mountain while Caroline and I took a detour in Fantasyland. Caroline wanted to ride Cinderella's carousel:

Which she LOVED (what, you can't tell?).

After that we headed over to Frontierland to meet the rest of the gang. They were just getting off of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and feeling pretty exhilarated -- all of them (including Elizabeth) loved it. Since we were right next door to Splash Mountain and it only had a 15 minute wait, we decided that I'd ride it with Jacob and Elizabeth. Here are J & E in line for Splash Mountain:

This loving sibling photo belies what would happen next
Now I've been there a bunch and I can say without reservation that I always leave Disney World feeling like it was a fabulous trip, and I can't wait to go back. Heck, I'm already scheming of ways to convince David to go back in two years instead of his preferred four. But there are always -- always -- some rough moments in the middle of it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. The combination of crowds and lines and heat and small children can be volatile. But in the end, the genuine fun plus the magic Disney happy gas that they pump into the air at the exits (my husband's theory) always prevail to form one's lasting impression of the place.

But back to those rough moments. Elizabeth started to get cold feet in the Splash Mountain line. I wasn't really too worried about it because for the love, SHE HAD JUST GOTTEN OFF A ROLLER COASTER, which she loved, and she rode a flume ride similar to Splash Mountain at Six Flags last summer. So I gently told her that she'd do great and that she'd love it, but assured her that we could bail if she wanted to.

Of course, the longer we waited in line, the less attractive the bailing option was, but I kept offering it. Anyway, this dialogue continued through the line, which was moving pretty fast. And her fear of the ride kept escalating. In retrospect, I should have just had David come and get her the first time she expressed any reservations, but she said she wanted to ride it, and it was so much tamer than the ride she just finished.

Anyway, we finally got to the beginning of the line. We were called into the queue that would feed into the front row of the next boat. We got into the boat. And then Elizabeth freaked. So we got off of the boat. And Jacob looked at me incredulously and started to cry. It was all I could do not to cry. The good news is, that was pretty much rock bottom and it was all uphill from there!

So David and I met up and did a Jacob-for-Caroline trade; Jacob (who was really really mad at me!) and David headed back to the Splash Mountain line (which was by now at least twice as long as it was before); and the girls and I took the raft to that ultimate time-killing Frontierland destination, Tom Sawyer Island.

We killed some time there and then took the raft back after getting word that Jacob and David were done with Splash Mountain. We reconvened briefly, and then the boys took off to Tomorrowland to hit their fastpass time for Space Mountain, while the girls and I followed more slowly behind them (we had gotten 5 fastpasses to Space Mountain with the idea that Jacob could then ride it twice, once with each of us).

I had gotten silhouettes done of Jacob and Elizabeth on previous trips to Disney World, and I love them, so we stopped in Liberty Square and had Caroline's done on the walk to Tomorrowland:

Then we rode the tea cups:

We caught up with the boys, and I was happy to see that the Splash Mountain Incident appeared to be forgotten. Jacob was riding a Space Mountain high, and I accompanied him as he rode it a second time. The truth is that I can take or leave these crazy roller coasters, so I couldn't really give him the unbridled enthusiasm he was looking for at the end of the ride, but we definitely had fun.

And then it was time for lunch at Crystal Palace with Pooh & Friends! Because doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the very definition of insanity. While we waited for our table, Jacob cooled off with his new Disney personal fan spray bottle:

While Caroline sprayed innocent bystanders with hers:

And homegirl chilled:

We had a nice view of the castle from outside the restaurant:

When our buzzer went off for our table, Caroline promptly lost it again. But we actually made some modest progress this time, as we were able to keep her at the table during lunch (she hid behind one of us the whole time). The cast members working at the restaurant were so sweet - they learned her name and explained to Tigger, Pooh and company that Caroline was a little shy and would rather skip the one-on-one visit today. Eeyore looked a little forlorn after hearing that news. Jacob and Elizabeth showed them a little extra love to make up for the snub by Caroline:

After lunch the boys went to use their fastpasses for the Toy Story ride in Tomorrowland (which Elizabeth inexplicably didn't feel like doing at that moment) and I took the girls on Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride (i.e., Dumbo, but without the ears and the wait). When we met up again in Adventureland, the kids had fun getting sprayed by totem poles:

We then grabbed fastpasses for the Winnie the Pooh ride and hit It's a Small World, which the girls LOVED. Caroline was so animated while pointing out all the dolls, and it made me feel a little better about torturing her with all of those character meals. We saw Mickey's Philharmagic and then got in line for Cinderella's carousel again:

Then it was time to use our Pooh fastpasses:

The kids all liked that one.

After Pooh we grabbed some ice cream and decided to call it a day:

There was a bunch of stuff that we didn't hit on day one, but we knew we had another full day at the MK later in the week, so we decided to take it easy and go back to enjoy the pool. We had dinner in our hotel that night, and then tried to get some sleep to get ready for . . . wait for it . . . another character meal!!, plus Epcot, the next day.

disney: largecostumedcharacterphobia

2011-06-08T00:01:00.001-04:00

We woke up super excited about our first Magic Kingdom day. We came here nearly every year when I was a kid, and these trips will always be among my happiest childhood memories. Much as I love the other parks, to me nothing compares to the Magic Kingdom.

Our plan was to start the day at a classic character breakfast at Chef Mickey's:

I'd long seen this breakfast from the monorail while riding through the Contemporary and have always wanted to schedule it. With an 8, 6 and 3 year old, this seemed like the perfect year to finally do it.

Anyone who knows Caroline knows that she hates large costumed characters ("LCCs") with an intensity usually reserved for mass murderers or an SEC rival school. She always has, and at this point I'm starting to wonder if she always will. She hates Santa Claus to the point that, when asked, she says that she would rather him just not bring her any presents. I've never seen quite the look of unmitigated terror than the one on Caroline's face when she happens upon the Easter Bunny (although the EB seems to frighten even kids who don't have a preternatural fear of LCCs). The Chick-Fil-A cow, Sparky the Firehouse Dalmation -- it really doesn't matter. She is an equal-opportunity LCC hater.

And I know this, as her mother, the one who has spent hours consoling her after the Chick-Fil-A cow shows up for no apparent reason at the local kids' science center or she runs into an oversized two-legged dalmation while at a firehouse birthday party. And I don't know why I thought that it would be any different just because we were at Disney World. But I really did. I really thought she'd love Mickey & Friends, invite Chip & Dale to sit down next to her (as Elizabeth did just days after turning two) and deliver generous hugs to whichever LCC was in her path. After all, I'd spent at least six months brainwashing her about how sweet these characters are, and, well, I figured she was getting a little older; plus, she is certainly familiar with the Disney characters from books and television. So on December 1, exactly 180 days before our trip, I called Walt Disney World Dining and booked six (6), yes, that's right, I said six (6), character meals.

Here is our family outside of Chef Mickey's, right before we got our table. LCCs had not actually visited us yet, but Caroline, who is no dummy, knew what was coming:

And it pretty much went downhill from there (as far as Caroline was concerned; the big kids were thrilled to be there and were not about to let their little sister's quirkiness slow them down on their quest to obtain as many autographs as possible). David managed to scarf down a little bit of breakfast (I think? Can't be 100% sure about that) before he simply had to remove Caroline from the dining room for the duration of the meal. As Jacob was quick to point out (using slightly different words), there were tons of kids of all ages in the room and Caroline was the only one losing her $%@*!, but what can you do? We love her anyway.

With David and Caroline safe from the LCCs in the lobby of the Contemporary, Jacob, Elizabeth and I were able to get down to the serious business of meeting, greeting, autograph collecting and capturing magical Disney moments.

Objectively speaking, I'd say that Goofy is the scariest of the LCCs; I kind of see Caroline's point with that one.

Next came The Mouse himself:

Then Donald Duck:

Sweet Minnie Mouse:

Love her!

Then Pluto headed our way:

I swear, this guy is goofier than Goofy himself. He used his nose to rest the autograph books when signing - you crazy dog you!

My children {who weren't completely petrified of him} loved him!

Meanwhile, back in the lobby . . .

Caroline had been hanging out with David, presumably recovering from the trauma of it all. Her sweet big brother and sister thought of her and had Mickey and friends sign her autograph book too. So when we were done meeting the characters, the big kids were excited to show Caroline her autographs:

After one more frustrating backlit picture at 1600 ISO, we were off!

Oh, how it pains me to my very core that I cut Mickey's ears off in this photo. Will try a do-over in 2014!
I know if you made it through this entire post it must feel like it should be bedtime by now, but nope, we're just beginning! Off to the Magic Kingdom and our lunch date with Pooh & Friends!