Summertime IV: That Nat!

We once again have a 2-year-old in the house. Natalie had been preparing for her role for many months, so when she turned two in July she was ready to take on all the lovely attributes that come with the job. All I can say as I haul her bodily from, well, any place and every place, kicking and screaming and trying to bite and/or scratch me, is, "She's two." Luckily she is equal parts crazy and hilarious, so while she makes me nuts she also makes me laugh. And sometimes she crawls into my lap and nuzzles against me and I rest my cheek on her curly head and relish the moment, knowing all too soon she won't fit on my lap anymore.

Here we were at a rockin' Joe McDermott concert. I think I asked her to say CHEESE and got a mouthful of fruit snack flashed at me.

Here's Natalie with her first "co-cone". She's hooked.

Grandma Kathie made Natalie's birthday cake and Nat was a BIG help, I am sure. When she senses that the mixer is coming out she comes running and drags a chair across the kitchen so she can help. After the first few ingredients are in the bowl, she scampers to the silverware drawer for a spoon and climbs back up into the chair, waiting for a taste. I have to watch her carefully because she's not patient about the waiting. One day I turned my back for a second and returned to the mixer to see her with a spoon in her hand and a nasty look on her face. In her impatience for the good stuff that she knows eventually comes out of that mixing bowl, she had scooped up and eaten a spoonful of unsweetened cocoa powder.

Pure Nat. The eyelashes! The curls peeking out! The drooly shirt! The toothy grin! The dimples! Oh, the Natty goodness.

Summertime III: A Walk on the Wild Side

I spent the first week in July at church Girls' Camp. For the uninitiated, Girls' Camp is a chance for young women ages 11-17 to spend a week every summer away from the world (that's right, no cell phones) and have a chance to focus on spiritual matters without having to worry about whether or not their hair is perfect, etc. It is a time of growth and reflection, AND we have a lot of fun. Every year the girls choose the theme and then we adults go nuts with it. This year's theme was "It's a Jungle Out There", which explains all the random animal prints in the photos to come. At last year's camp we walked around dying in 105 degree heat, with only two (weak) window AC units in the leaders' bunks at night. This year everyone got to sleep in air-conditioned cabins, ahhhh... After the first night, some of the girls complained that they had been too cold and were told that that was a first-class problem, indeed.

Here I am with two of my favorite girls, Emmie and Sabrina. I have known them since they were teeny tiny, and it is such fun watching them grow up.

Melva and I had mango popsicles after lunch, and I suspect the coloring was not 100% natural. (Can you tell that Melva had one and I had two?)

Here are all the girls and leaders from my ward (i.e. congregation). We had about 110 girls total at camp. There were 36 first-year girls (11- and 12-year-olds) and they all slept in one huge enclosed pavilion--wall-to-wall air mattresses and sleeping bags. I dubbed it "The Monkey House" because they were only slightly shy of literally hanging from the rafters.

We took this shot a couple of times. After the first one we all decided we looked tired, so we re-shot with jazz hands. Don't you think they liven us right up? These are my wonderful friends, the sisters I am so grateful to serve with: Melva, Kathryn, and Kari.

Summertime II: Pass the Pie

Ah, the 4th of July. The pancake breakfast, the fireworks, the pie! It's all about food and pyrotechnics, two of my favorite things! Well, I suppose I also reflected on my gratitude for having been born in this beautiful land of freedom and prosperity. I can never get through "America" without crying. I truly do love my country. (And fireworks--I LOVE fireworks!)

Here are my chickies, posing in the front yard. I made the dress Natalie is wearing when Ella was her age. It was fun to give it another wear.

These two are BUDS. Oh my goodness, they love each other. Tyler is six months younger than Natalie (and a wee bit shorter, but bear in mind that a couple inches of Nat's height comes from her hair) and they are best friends.

For the past I don't know how many years we have been enjoying the Six Flags Fiesta Texas 4th of July fireworks spectacular from the mall parking lot behind the park. Same show, minimal crowds. Lots of friends come and we all bring treats and sit around in camp chairs while the kids basically play in traffic. (Well, near traffic.) I look forward to it every year.

You know, I'm not usually one for pie. Given a choice, I will always choose cake, then cookies, because those are usually the options containing chocolate. Well, and cake tends to be covered with frosting... mmm, frosting... However, twice a year, on Thanksgiving and the 4th of July, I must make and eat pie. For Thanksgiving they must be pecan and pumpkin, and in July I must have apple pie a la mode. I have this Mrs. Fields recipe with a crumbly top--dynamite! This year I went a little crazy because we were having dinner with lots of friends and there would be a high demand for pie. I made blueberry-blackberry and strawberry-raspberry pies from Martha Stewart Living (find the recipe here). I highly recommend the blueberry-blackberry, with vanilla ice cream, of course. This picture is my patented "get down with the desserts" pose that Greg REALLY makes fun of me for.

Summertime I: Ella Shakes It Up

So, I was recently chastised for my lack of blogging lately (come on, it's only been... 2 months?!) and I can only plead SUMMER! Holy cow, what a crazy summer it has been. We just got back from a three-week trip to California and Utah, and school starts tomorrow. Of course, it's still 100 degrees out, but let's not talk about that, okay?

Ella had her annual dance recital at the end of June. She takes tap and ballet and performed in two numbers. She prefers ballet (ask her--she'll tell you ALL about it), but she did a lovely job in both. She especially enjoyed watching the older kids perform in the dress rehearsal--they are amazing! I was mostly just glad that the costumes were both feather-free this year. (The first year both costumes had feathers and after I removed them from their protective plastic wrappings it looked like a pink and red chicken had exploded in my living room.)

Like A Fish!

Ella has just finished her first season of swim team, and she has LOVED it! By her first swim meet she'd only had a few practices, so she only competed in one event: the backstroke. Can I just tell you how crazy swim meets are? I didn't grow up doing swim team, so this has been all new for me, too. Let me tell you, these meets are LONG and so hot, and there are screaming parents all over the place. I was intimidated by this first meet, and was just praying that Ella would be able to get in the pool without crying and make it to the finish line. Well! She jumped in to the pool like a pro, took her mark, and swam to finish first in her heat! The look on her face when they handed her a blue ribbon was worth all the time and heat and crazy parents. It gave her the confidence to keep progressing and yesterday, at her third and last meet, she swam freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke in five different events, including two relays. We are so extremely proud of her.

Swimmers take your mark, get set, GO!

Go, Ella, GO!

Ella with our pals Tressa and Brian Reading

Swimmer of the Week--WOO-HOO!

Now We're Cookin'!

Both my girls LOVE to help me cook, and if you have been around Natalie lately, you can imagine how very helpful she is in the kitchen. Any time I get the mixer out, she comes running from wherever she is, yelling, "Chair! See! Hep!" She has to stand on a chair at the end of the counter and I have to make sure the mixer is beyond what Greg calls "The Drool Zone". She has a way of tipping ingredients before I'm ready for them, causing me to dump flour on the floor and add a bit more vanilla than was called for. When she senses that a concoction is ready to taste (and she has a real knack for this) she scampers over to the silverware drawer, grabs a spoon, and demands a scoop of whatever is in the bowl.

This is the look I get from her when I ask her to say "cheese". Not QUITE a smile...

One day when she wanted to "help" cook, I gave her a bowl of ice and a few random cups and spoons. It kept her occupied longer than anything save Elmo, and that's saying something! Now she often requests "hice" and a "poos", which is to say ice and a spoon.

We made our own pizza (which Natalie calls "pee-pees"--charming, I know) one night for dinner. Nat's was pretty much a pile of mushy goo by the time she was done with it, but she was ever so proud of it. Here she is again, saying, "Cheese!"

Ella Turns 7!

Seven years old! Can you believe it? Ella is ever so grown up these days. For her birthday party she decided to have an American Girl tea party, although the guest list was not restricted to American Girls--various other dolls and stuffed animals also made an appearance.

I really had fun preparing this one. I went to Goodwill and bought a dozen random punch cups, the ones that look like little clear teacups, and for Mother's Day I chose a set of stackable cake plates. The food that you see at each place was a doll-sized potion on doll-sized plates. I've always had a thing for miniatures.

The Menu:
frozen lemonade
fruit kebabs
cheese cubes
mini bagels with strawberry cream cheese
pigs in a blanket
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with frilly toothpicks

Greg was in charge of the piñata. My mom thought it was HILARIOUS that Ella wanted to have a piñata at her tea party, but hey, this is San Antonio--ALL birthdays include piñatas. This one WAS an ice cream cone.

The girls were invited to dress fancy for the occasion: Kira, Rachel, Ella, Avery, Emilee, and Kaitlin.

Ella's big surprise gift was and American Girl "Just Like You" doll--see the resemblance? Grandma Kathie made several gowns for her, including a knock-out bridal gown. Ella named her Bella, and she sleeps with her every night.

Oh, The Yumminess

So, one day a few months ago my neighbor, Geri, dropped by to pick her daughter up from a play date and found me right in the middle of some cooking project or other. Geri, who works full-time outside the home, said, "Huh. So is THIS what stay-at-home moms do all day long?" Not every day, certainly (somebody's got to clean the toilets and make sure no one runs out of clean underwear), but on a good day, yes! What I failed to mention to her is that most of the time when I bake, it's for some event or other--for a Young Women event, a ward party, gifts for teachers or friends... I'm always volunteering for the cooking jobs, and especially the baking jobs. I'm not as good as I would like to be, and everything I do is copied from somewhere or other, but I enjoy it. Here are a few things I've done lately that were fun:

Valentine's Day Cupcakes: In February I did something I'd never done before: I bought a Martha Stewart Living magazine at the check-stand, which led to ordering a subscription shortly thereafter. She may be a convicted felon, but that woman has some great ideas! I saw these filigree hearts in the magazine and thought, "I can totally do that." And I did! There were many flops that didn't make the cupcakes, but these turned out okay.

Faux Popcorn: I got this idea from the book Hello Cupcake! Ella thought they were HILARIOUS. We made them for April Fool's Day and gave them to her teacher, our bishop's family, and other friends.

Brynn-cess Cookies: A good friend recently adopted a baby girl and named her Brynn, and some friends and I threw a gala baby shower for her with a princess theme--"Brynn-cess", get it? We made these cookies as party favors. The style of the "B" combined with the pink and green color scheme make me think of Barbie. I'm still learning the "flooding" technique using royal icing--my first efforts were... very strange indeed. Kind of fluffy. I'm getting better, though.

Becoming Butterflies: Our theme for a Young Women leadership training meeting was "On Becoming", so I jumped at the chance to try out these butterfly cupcakes I'd seen, again, in Hello Cupcake! They scored big points for the WOW factor, but they were deceptively easy. I'm looking for an excuse to make them again, so let me know if you need some!

Howdy, Flat Chloe!

So, I started to describe what Flat Stanley is all about, and then had a thought: isn't this what Wikipedia is for? So if you've never heard of Flat Stanley, here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Stanley

My cousin Chloe, a third grader in Fresno, California, sent me her Flat Chloe to visit our family and San Antonio for a few weeks. I was so honored! Natalie took to her immediately, as you will see in the pictures. I was alarmed that Flat Chloe had no feet, much less shoes, so I made her a pair of cowboy boots to match her outfit. We took her all over the place--downtown San Antonio (including a stop at Schilo's for their homemade root beer... mmm...), IKEA, Austin, the Hill Country (yes, she was with us on the ill-fated wildflower drive fiasco), Five Guys Burgers and Fries, my triathlon. At home she helped me sew, and we made hootinanny pancakes and crepes together. Unfortunately a bout of the stomach flu knocked us all down (well, all but Flat Chloe) midway through her visit, so a few of our plans were canceled. Still, I think she had a pretty good time.

Here's Natalie giving Flat Chloe loves at the Alamo.

No visit to San Antonio would be complete without dinner at Rudy's, home of the self-proclaimed worst barbecue in Texas. (Don't you believe it.)

Flat Chloe even got to go on a field trip to Seaworld with my friend Valerie, a dolphin and beluga whale trainer. (It's nice to have friends in high places.)

And here we are at the state capitol in Austin. Again with the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_State_Capitol It is the largest state capitol in the nation, thus proving that everything truly IS bigger in Texas.

Thanks for the visit, Flat Chloe! You were the perfect guest.