Happy Birthday, William!

After living with William while he made the most of his "Twos" the entire family breathed a sigh of relief when William turned three a couple weeks ago.  Of course, those old sayings don't actually determine behavior, but there is certainly something to them.  Eric and I observed, once Joseph was about four that age two seems to be hard on the parents but age three seems to be hard on the child.  That held true for Margaret and, so far, for William as well.  Three-year-olds seem not so much naughty as in need of a lot of support as they see their big ideas fail in light of their limited abilities.  

We love our sweet little William (of course!).  He has been the family ham and clown since he was very young.  He has, I think, the most advanced verbal skills of any of our children yet and he is at a particularly cute age as he prattles along a mile a minute with that dinstinctive toddler accent ("Mommy!  I heaw da twash twuck!"  "Is dat da wivah?")  We can't get enough.

William woke the morning of his birthday to this in the living room:

Some of you will, no doubt, recognize this as the "circus tent" from IKEA.  It's been a big favorite on shopping trips for several months and it was actually supposed to be part of the kids' Christmas present.  But they were all sold out when I did the shopping in early December.  Since we give the kids their "big gift" on Epiphany I didn't worry.  But they were still sold out in early January.  So I decided Gregory would get it for his birthday.  But they were sold out on January 12.  January 29th was finally my lucky day and I got this home in time for William's birthday.  It's not actually very big and it is somewhat collapsible.  All the kids can squeeze into it comfortably when they are playing together and they can drag it from room to room.

Funny story:  I set up the tent the night before after the kids were in bed but left the lights on at that end of the house.  Before we'd gone to bed William woke up needing to use the bathroom.  Eric carried him down the hall and--in a sleepy stupor--William looked over Eric's shoulder and said, "Are Joseph and Margie in that tent?"  He was not at all surprised to see a tent in his living room in the middle of the night.  We killed the lights and put him back to bed and he didn't remember it by morning.

\His other gifts (a set of puzzles from GI Grandpa and a hat and mittens) were waiting inside the tent for him.  

The tent has been a huge hit with the whole family.

 For dinner William requested "bean pizza" and chocolate cake.  We've been trying to eat less wheat and I recently found a fantastic black bean cake recipe.  If you are looking for a gluten-free chocolate cake recipe for yourself or someone else, I can't recommend this one enough.  It is really, really good.  And I don't mean "good, for a bean cake."  I mean, it's our new favorite cake.  Eric wants it for his birthday (but with frosting).

For the "bean pizza" I basically made a taco pizza but with black beans instead of ground beef.  It was very yummy.

A lovely celebration for a lovely boy.

Advent and Christmas

One of my resolutions this year was to write--and, in particular, post on this blog--more.  Here it is January 22 and I'm only now getting Advent and Christmas pictures.  Even though it's late, I thought you might enjoy seeing them and, in any case, I like to record at least a tiny bit of our life here and there to remember what we did.

The kids were really excited this year about giving gifts to each other and to us.  They'd had this set of unpainted wooden vehicles for awhile and Margaret and Joseph painted them one afternoon for William's gift.  He loved them, of course.

I LOVE it when Joseph reads to his siblings.  He offers fairly regularly and he is a good reader but, for some reason, William has only recently allowed Joseph to read him stories.  But they all got more into it this Advent when we had a lot more books around.

One new thing we did this year was an Advent calendar, of sorts, with books.  We own about 15 Christmas books and I used our library to get enough for all the rest of the days of Advent and then wrapped them all in pink and purple paper and we opened one each day.  Honestly, I probably won't do this again.  The kids sort of liked it but I think it led to an overall feeling of their having been too many presents by the time Christmas was all over.  But we do love our Christmas books and I think I will continue to keep them tucked away in the attic until the start of Advent each year so they are extra-special.

A completely non-exhaustive glimpse at a few favorites that were already unwrapped by the time I took these pictures:  We love all of Tomie DePaola's books and the one below is one of his many lovely Christmas books.

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey was the easiest to convince Joseph to read aloud to the others.  It's a really sweet story and I think Joseph could really identify with the character of the inquisitive, precocious, talkative, seven-year-old boy.

This book was found at a used book sale over the summer and was new to us.  We like both Rumer Godden and Barbara Cooney and the book did not disappoint.  It's a LONG book for a read aloud but Margaret and I read it many, many times during the Advent and Christmas season.  We bought a copy of the book for our good friend, Holly, a fellow Barbara Cooney-lover and laughed hard when Margaret opened her gift from Holly and found the same book.  

Grandma Marga supplied a traditional Advent calendar with windows to open for each day.  I loved these when I was a kid and this was a big hit with all the kids.  We also, fortunately, have another Advent calendar (not pictured) which allowed us to let one kid do one calendar each day.  I may have to start planning for a fourth calendar for next year.

I'm not the most crafty person out there, but I do love making paper snowflakes.  The kids enjoy it as well but they aren't quite up for the harder work of cutting six-pointed flakes.

We were so happy to receive as many Christmas cards as we did this year.  Between our frequent moves and a general decline in Christmas card sending I was worried we wouldn't get any.  I am determined next year to be on top of this myself.  If you didn't get a card from us this year and you'd like to be on our list, feel free to send me your address.

Did anyone else decorate with Trader Joe's shopping bags this year?  The kids were so excited about the paper chain links and gift tags printed on the bags this year.  We cut out lots and lots of them and had more gift tags than we could possibly use.  I strung them into some garland and hung it (artistically?) on a blank wall.  It's still up, to tell you the truth.  I don't have anything else to put on that blank wall but I suppose that a garland of gift tags is beginning to look a bit odd . . .

We bring out our Nativity set progressively through Advent.  Joseph arrives first.  Then the cradle which he's "found".  They he goes to get Mary so she appears the third Sunday of Advent.  The fourth Sunday of Advent we bring out the shepherds and sheep.  Jesus is placed in the crib after Mass on Christmas Eve and the Three Kings begin their journey at the same time.  The kings move through the house each day until finally arriving at the cradle on Epiphany.

Eric and the kids brought home our biggest tree yet this year.  Our old tree stand had breathed it's last after Christmas last year so we were glad to find that we'd inherited one with the house.

This picture is a poor attempt at capturing the look of total awe on William's face with the whole bundle of lights in his hands lit up as I plugged them in.  He's a fan of Christmas.

I love this picture:  a cutie little imp, living it up as chaos swirls around him.  Margaret and Joseph pooled their money to get Gregory that little toy which we call the "Smasher Ball."  I have no idea what it's official name is but it's a Melissa and Doug toy and it is, far and away, the biggest success I've ever witnessed in the Gifts for One-Year-Olds department.  Gregory just loves this toy and still plays with it every day.

The kids got a box of dress-up hats one morning.  We stretch out gift-opening for the entire Twelve Days of Christmas though most of the days the gift is just one small thing or even one thing to share.  The lion hat is the most popular.

Another morning the kids opened a big "art box" filled mostly with things I would have gladly bought them any time of the year but I have no problem giving them those types of gifts for Christmas.  Joseph is an extremely prolific artist and has gone through about 1000 sheets of paper in the last six months.  There's some waste but mostly he just really likes to draw and work at drawing.  I ordered the kids several reams of different kinds of paper from Dick Blick and also got two over-sized clip boards so that Joseph can more easily draw when he's sitting on the floor or in the car.  A big box of paper inspired quite awhile of this sort of thing:

All, in all, we had a lovely Advent and Christmas this past year.

Thanksgiving with the Tuthills

This past summer we were forced to make our annual pilgrimage to the Midwest at an inopportune time in order to attend the memorial service for Eric's grandfather.  It was a beautiful time and a lovely trip but, since Eric's semester wasn't quite over, we had to return again quickly and we had very little time to visit with Eric's family.  They decided to put aside their distaste for Thanksgiving travel and join us on the East Coast this year to make up for some lost visiting time.  We were thrilled to host Marga and Larry and even more thrilled that Ben flew all the way from school in LA to join the fun.  

I was all in a flurry preparing for their six-day visit and, at one point, Eric said, "So, basically, you want to renovate the whole house before Thanksgiving?"  To which I replied, "Yes."  I didn't, of course, but those of you with a good eye will see hints of several of the projects that have kept us busy this fall and which will get their own treatment before too long.

I love hosting people and putting together menus and while I certainly don't claim to have any particular expertise in that area, it's something I'm actively working on.  My "decoration" budget is pretty much non-existent but I was pleased with the results of working with stuff I mostly had on hand.  I sprang for a pot of mums for our sideboard and ransacked the attic for every small mason jar I could find.  

Pumpkin, Apple and Pecan.  

                                       

Of course I forgot to take any pictures of the table set for dinner because we were all starving but imagine a darkened room and all those jars behind the pies lit with candles.  And then a whole bunch more jars with candles on the table.  And food crammed into every square inch.  It was sort of amazing to see that candlelight can really overcome a multitude of shortcomings in the Fine China and Table Linens department. The food was delicious, the company was even better, and we enjoyed nice time with all three Tuthills through the weekend.

The shells make me crazy so these are a real treat around here.

Margaret can peel potatoes!  And squash!

A belated birthday present.

This is what my in-laws do when they are here:  wash dishes.  They can visit anytime.  It was like being on vacation.

Cranberry-red wine-cinnamon.  Note to self:  make a triple batch next year.

Remember Margaret's chicken apron birthday present?  Marga had a matched set made for  us.  I love them except that they make us both look fat.

                             

I had a sinus infection over Thanksgiving which is why I look like death in these pictures.  Someone must have snagged the camera and caught me trying to relax with some knitting while the turkey roasted.

This is NOT our Thanksgiving table but, rather, our Leftover Tea that the three "girls" had on Friday .  We bought that china at an estate sale when we were engaged but we seldom use it because we only have four place settings.

Ben, in the Familial Garb.  Ten points to anyone not related to Eric who can tell me what the real family name is.

Joseph's Birthday, a little late

Guess who finally forked over six dollars and bought herself a new cable to connect the camera and the computer?

We rearranged our "office" awhile back and my not-so-UniversalSB cable for my camera disappeared.  I'm sure I'll find it tomorrow now that I've finally replaced it.  In the meantime, we've been pretty busy and I'll try to catch you up a bit.

Joseph also requested coffee cake for his birthday breakfast but we held off on a birthday cake until his party the next night.

 

I think he's excited about the treasure hunt.  Not sure why Isaac rearranged the furniture.

Joseph is now seven and we  had a lovely time celebrating accordingly.  After the big shebang we had for Margaret I was hoping for something a little quieter for Joseph and he was fine with that idea.  We had coffee cake for breakfast on his actual birthday and fried fish for dinner (his choice).  The next day his best friend, Andrew, came over, as usual.  I planned a very simple "pirate treasure hunt" for them.  Honestly, I wasn't sure it would be blog-worthy.  I typed up six very simple clues like, "Where do we go when we want to read about Hammurabi?"  Answer:  his history text.

Retrieving a clue from Margaret's sweater bin.

Studying a clue in the kitchen.

 I was worried about making them too easy or too hard but I think that the following along of the game was what was most fun.  Joseph didn't have to think more than a few seconds about each clue but he had a blast "hunting" for his treasure.

Thinking hard . . . where could the last clue be?

Found it . . . but where's the treasure?

On a whim I also made a very simple map of the entire route and this turned out to be a hit with Andrew who loves anything in the in maze/map genre.  He took charge of the map, Joseph read aloud the clues and together they found the treasure. At the end, Andrew immediately made another treasure map and convinced Joseph to play again.

A treasure chest!

With treasure!

Since Halloween was a bust due to sickness and rain the "treasure candy" was a nice stand-in.

And how is our not-so-little seven-year-old?  Joseph spends pretty much all of his spare time either reading or drawing. The last few weeks he's branched out a little into creating 3-D toys out of paper.  He's been really interested in drawing various characters lately and is working on a whole crew of pirates to decorate his bedroom walls.  We love his drawings and it is really fun to see the evolution of his artistic sense.  I will try to scan and post some of his work before too long.

He reads voraciously and has inherited my tendency to be completely oblivious to everything around me if I have a book in my hand.  Now that I see how annoying this can be, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to my parents.  But, of course, we're thrilled that Joseph reads so much.  He likes everything:  novels, picture books, non-fiction of all kinds, poetry, magazines.  He'll even pick up the Wall Street Journal, in a pinch.  And, happiest of all, from my perspective, he's often very willing to read to his younger siblings.  He has a real knack for expression and nuance when he reads out loud.

So there's a bit about our most recent birthday boy.  More to come!

Tea Party

Margaret found an old book of mine recently all about Anne of Green Gables.  It's a sweet book full of "behind the scenes" information about what daily life would have been like on Prince Edward Island in the late 19th century.  Included is an extensive chapter on Tea and, especially, more formal tea parties such as Anne would have delighted in.

Margaret became rather obsessed with the idea of planning a tea party of her own to celebrate her birthday.  We had a great time putting it together.  Margaret came up with the guest list on her own including all the women she knew within a two-hour drive between the ages of four and sixty.  There were twelve of us in all and with some careful furniture rearrangement and some fabric repurposing we were able to set up a few lovely little sitting places.

I, of course, failed to take a single picture but Robyn came to the rescue once again with a few lovely shots.



The menu included tea, of course.  We also served chicken salad sandwiches cut into triangles and cream cheese sandwiches in the shape of hearts.  Margaret seriously impressed me by using a cookie cutter to cut a dozen heart shapes out of whole sandwiches (the boys ate the leftover edges, don't worry).  Then we had strawberries and cream and plain scones with jam, marmalade, and lemon curd on the side.  I won't claim to be an expert on authentic British tea customs but it was a delicious menu.  And a big shout-out to Trader Joe's flowers.  We got three five-dollar bouquets of chrysanthemums (because that's the flower Anne spelled to beat Gilbert Blythe in the spelling bee, of course) and filled nine vases with them for the party.  Ten days later, more than half the flowers still look beautiful.

Robyn asked what she could bring and, while I can hold my own in the scone department, I knew that Robyn would come up with a dessert far better than anything I could muster.  And she did not fail to deliver.


Margaret (and Joseph) helped Robyn set up pink frosted vanilla cupcakes with handmade chocolate butterflies and fun butterfly cupcake wrappers.  We distributed them around the room and they were such a nice decoration until I ordered everyone to eat them and I was glad they tasted as good as they looked.  Margaret has crowned Robyn the Cupcake Queen.  And every day she is careful to wear the cupcake charm necklace Robyn gave her for a gift.

And, happily for the little girls, the cupcake wrappers make fantastic crowns.


It was a lovely afternoon with a lovely young lady and it left me wishing for more excuses to put together lovely little parties for friends.

She's Five!

And she's not even my oldest. I remember being five quite well and the memories are mostly pretty happy. Such a fun age and Margaret is already milking it for all it's worth.

The day was slightly less than it might have been because we were all in various stages of a cold that week. That day in particular my cold was exacerbated by Gregory's having been up hourly the night before. I did manage to drag myself out of bed to make Margaret's requested birthday breakfast: coffee cake. It's pretty much everyone's favorite breakfast so it wasn't too much of a sacrifice. Though after she insisted on a traditional birthday cake for dessert that night I've decided that we are having a One Cake Per Birthday rule going forward.

Then we were supposed to have lunch with "G.I. Grandpa" (my dad) and family on their return trip to Colorado but since we'd had a long visit with them the week before, my dad opted to just swing by and drop off presents rather than subject everyone to plague while on a road trip.

The highlight of Margaret's actual birthday was, I think, her violin lesson. She's been asking to start learning for awhile and Eric promised that she could start when she turned five. She was ecstatic and has been very enthusiastic about practice. In this picture she is also wearing one of her favorite birthday presents. Grandma Marga (Eric's mom) had this chicken apron made just for Margaret. It's practical and whimsical and cute and very well-made. And the thoughtful woman who created it basted the finished hem up four inches to leave plenty of room for growth.

The day ended with Margaret's favorite dinner which is "rice and beans." Fancy, huh? What she means, specifically, is the rice and beans that come from a particular Peruvian chicken place in the neighborhood. So, Margaret gets her rice and beans, the rest of us get awesome chicken, and I get out of cooking on a day when I'm sick and already making two cakes. Everybody wins. The cake was chocolate with chocolate frosting with vanilla ice cream on the side. Margaret is all about the basics.

And shortly after this picture was taken (imagine me shouting "don't set your hair on fire!") Margaret sat down on the couch and promptly fell asleep. It's exhausting being five.

Administrative details

UPDATE:  Never mind.  Fun as it was to tinker with different layouts, I like having the categories and archive easily accessible in the sidebar.

Blogger is finally starting to do slightly interesting things in the visual department so I tweaked the organization of the blog a bit, mostly just for fun.

I do want to point out that a neat feature of the new layout are all the options underneath the blog title: Classic, Flipcard, Magazine, etc. You can choose your favorite way to view current and past material and (I think) your computer will always revert back to the last option you chose. But you can change it at anytime. This is a nice option for you grandparents out there who might want to skim pictures or find a particular one. Each view is slightly different but in each one clicking on either a picture or a post title will take you the entire original blog post.