Happy Birthday the K!

Forty years ago today a tiny baby was born two months premature in Oxford, Mississippi. He would quickly make up for his low birthweight (which no one remembers exactly, but seems to have been in the five pound range), and tower over his sister by the time he was 11 and she was 17. I'm, of course, talking about the K who turns 40 today. He is celebrating by going to work and editing some of the 28 briefs that he has due next Monday. And by "briefs" I mean the inaptly named legal documents and not men's underwear. Yay, being a grownup!

At the risk of spoiling the K's surprise when he gets home, I will share that the children and I made this beautiful gift basket/Galvanized tub full of silk flowers for him.

Here's one that gives you a better view of the tub without the distracting backdrop. There's the Girl lying on the couch watching "Arthur:"

In case you are wondering, in that first picture that is a throw blanket featuring two whitetail bucks. According to the packaging it is both "soft & luxurious" and a "great accent for any room." I say that nothing goes with a pink flamingo and silk flowers like a whitetail buck throw. It's too long a story to explain why, but we have purchased or acquired a veritable flock of flamingos in our 11 years of marriage. The K just finished disposing of our old, broken flamingoes and expressly forbid me from purchasing any more. Boo-yah! Just say, "I forbid you from..." and I shall defy your express instructions. The "obey" part in our marriage vows? I just Beyonced that word.

That's My Baby

The Baby (which is rapidly becoming a misnomer) turned four years old today. She wanted three things for her birthday: a scooter, a rainbow unicorn light up Pillow Pet, and a Little Mommy Doctor Mommy Doll (not a typo). The lucky girl got all three gifts and was so completely and honestly thrilled and excited that even I can't be snarky about it. We haven't tried the Pillow Pet's light up feature yet because it requires three AAA batteries and who has those things just lying around? I did have some AA batteries, so we were able to get Little Mommy Doctor Mommy up and running, and the Baby and I immediately regretted her ability to talk.

In case you do not have a four year old child, let me briefly describe the doll. The doll "interacts" with the child by telling the child about her ailments and the child is able to then treat the doll with the medical instruments. Sounds pretty innocuous, right? This doll is like every old lady that used to hang out in the lobby of my grandparents' apartment building in Philadelphia and complain to anyone who would listen about her aches and pains. She seriously kvetches endlessly to the point of hypochondria. A sample of her chatter:

"*cough, cough* Mommy, I feel yucky. Am I sick? My ear hurts, Mommy. Are you gonna check my ears? Is there a boo-boo in there? Make it better, okay? *cough, cough* I've got a sore throat. Are you gonna use that tongue depresser? I don't feel so good. Can you make me feel better?"

After this last statement, her forehead starts glowing bright red.

"Owie. My ear hurts. Do I have a fever? I'm hot. Are you gonna check my temperature? I don't feel so good. Do I need the purple medicine? I'm hot. I feel yucky. Mommy? Do I have a fever? Are you gonna do that thermometer?" 

I hated to tell the doll this, but if your forehead is glowing, there's not much the purple medicine or anything else, short of a head transplant, can do to help you. The doll went one round of her complaints and the Baby had had enough.

"Turn her off, please, Mama. She talks too much." 

Disclaimers all around, the Baby really wanted this doll and Dad obligingly purchased it for her at my request. Any errors in judgment are entirely mine. She is also utterly charming when her switch is in the off position. I do think it is kind of hilarious that someone invented a doll that does something that most people find annoying in humans. For their next trick the creators of Little Mommy Doctor Mommy Doll will bring you a doll who chews with her mouth open, fails to signal when she changes lanes, and tells the same boring stories over and over again.

I enjoyed going to the Baby's school where they celebrated her birthday with much fanfare. Y'all there is a special place in heaven for preschool teachers. I would last maybe a day with a class of 14 three and four year olds before I turned to drink. The Baby got to make her ideal birthday cake out of felt:

The Baby and I have similar cake-decorating skills which is why her birthday party cake will be from Publix. Here's the birthday girl getting ready to blow out the candle on her cupcake.

I always let the kids pick their birthday dinner and the Baby, with much encouragement from the Boy chose Chick-fil-A. Now, I realize that ole Truett Cathay made some statements with which some of you may disagree. I may feel the same way, but I cannot quit Chick-fil-A. It's as simple as that. If my children's eating out options were a Venn diagram there would be about two places in the overlapping region and one of them is Chick-fil-A. Also, the employees are always lovely and the restaurants are very clean. I don't care how everyone and everything got that way, I just like that they are. I'm sure this makes me a terrible person, but what can I say? My bad.

Mom joined us for the dinner and even sweetly picked up the children's food. Despite my impassioned defense of eating more chicken, Mom and I opted to have something more grown-up for dinner. I had a ton of roasted vegetables left over from Thanksgiving, so I decided to make them into a soup. This was actually Sister's suggestion and she is a far better cook than I am, so I trusted that it would be good. I had roasted carrots, parsnips, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes a la The Barefoot Contessa, who I love. Here's the recipe.

I just threw the whole mess into the food processor. I sauteed half an onion in some olive oil and tossed that in, as well. I added chicken stock to thin the puree, because, as I discovered, there is a fine line between baby food and soup and that fine line is chicken stock.

Once it was all pureed and thinned to a soupy consistency, I put it in a pot to warm and seasoned it with some salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

It was actually palatable which was a relief because I didn't have any other options. After dinner we had more cupcakes and the Baby was thrilled with her special day. Yay!

In other news, the Boy got irritated by the Baby getting too much attention and tried to take me down. In related news, don't take pictures of your legs from this angle. 

 Tomorrow I am going to be decorating mailboxes for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. I'm meeting my decorating partner bright and early and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of our beautiful creations. Night!

Ghosts of Birthdays Past and Present

Happy Halloween everyone! So, for the two to three people who are reading this blog and don't personally know me, thanks, first of all, and second of all, today is also my birthday. When I was growing up I loved having my birthday on Halloween. As a kid, you're guaranteed to hang out with your friends and get a lot of candy.  What's not to like? When I was in college, there were always tons of parties and I definitely worked the birthday angle to my advantage and scored some free drinks.  Having a Halloween birthday when you're an adult with small-ish children is a totally different ball of wax.  Now I spend my birthday getting costumes together for the kids and doling out candy.

This year, Mom had sweetly offered to take me shopping, but the Baby was still nursing a cold, so I wasn't counting on that happening.  In fact, I'd say that I set my expectations pretty low this year.  When I was cleaning up from breakfast this morning, though, I had this birthday surprise:

Can you see her in there?  Someone hid our Russian nesting doll inside the pumpkin. She was peering out of the nose like she was in the gulag. Then when the Baby and I released her from her pumpkin prison she wouldn't totally close.  That's because this was inside the last doll:

We're still not sure who set up the little surprise. I suspect the Boy, but the Baby's money is on Audrey the Moose. I don't think I've mentioned Audrey before, but she is a major player in our household. Whenever some kind of mischief or mess is revealed, the Baby insists that it is Audrey. She lives in our neighbor's car and has telescoping antlers. Audrey has a way with the paintbrush that is surprising for a hoofed (hooved?) animal. Remember our fabric paint project from the other week? Well, old Audrey got into the paint a couple of days ago and made quite a mess. She also left a paint handprint that was just about the size of the Baby's hand. Hmmmm.

In any case, we chuckled about the dolls for a little bit, but then we found an even bigger surprise when we opened the front door:

My sweet friends had rigged up a ghost right outside the front door as a birthday treat. Underneath that sheet is a life-sized cardboard Batgirl. Batgirl has clearly been working out with Jackie Warner. Get a load of that v-taper:

Batgirl-ghost remains up to greet the trick-or-treaters. Her sheet keeps slipping off, which makes her fit in perfectly with our other deteriorating decorations.

The Baby's nose was running, but I thought she could make a go of it at school. I tried to talk her into it by mentioning that everyone would be wearing costumes and she totally freaked out and refused to go, so that was that and I had a companion for the day.

Around mid-day, Mom came by with this random assortment of balloons:

Yes, that's a Sesame Street balloon. I'm not sure if it might have been a political message? Mom is very obsessed with the election.  Since the Baby wasn't that sick, Mom took us to lunch at Taqueria del Sol. If you've never been to Taqueria, you totally have to go. They put something in the food that is positively addictive. We got really lucky because the K was able to join us.

Right before we left for lunch, Dad called from the hurricane zone. They still don't have power and the stores and restaurants are all still closed. The thing about Dad is that he basically subsists on cappuccino, so he's had a rough couple of days. I think that the DTs have set in. He borrowed a french press from my step-brother and his wife, but he didn't know how to use it. So he called to wish me a happy birthday and to get a french press tutorial (never mind that he actually lives next door to my step-brother and probably could have gotten directions that way). I gave him the 411 (does that exist anymore?) on the french press and let him get off the phone so he wouldn't waste his minutes.

After we got back from lunch, I opened Dad's gift (which arrived about a month ago) and, in keeping with the randomness of the day, it was, well, random. Here are some pictures:

The first picture is of a really old blanket with patriotic symbols. The second item is an Amish birth record that is entirely in German. I feel like I'm describing lots in an auction. Clearly these are about as far from a generic gift card as you can get. In my *ahem* youth, I probably would have been annoyed by this and wished for a J. Crew sweater, but I've grown to appreciate these unique gifts. I put the blanket over a chair in our study. I use the term "study" loosely because it's really a room with all the things that don't go in any of the other rooms. Y'all know what I mean? Don't pretend that you don't have a room like that in your house. We should come up with a name for that room.

So, as far as birthdays go, this birthday rated pretty high for me. I loved all the quirky little things that happened - the babushka in the pumpkin, the Batgirl ghost, the Sesame Street balloon, Dad's call about the french press, and my unique gifts. I loved my lunch and wasn't even upset to lose my day of shopping because the Baby's cold/masklophobia. It was really nice to just stay at home and do nothing. Our schedule has been so crazed, that I felt like I got a chance to breathe for just a second. Best of all, tomorrow I get to take down the Halloween decorations! Happy Halloween everyone!

P.S. I added a gadget so you can sign up to get blog posts by email. Let me know if it still doesn't work and I'll try to troubleshoot it. Seeing as my computer skills are on par with my photography, it may take a while to work out all the kinks. Thanks for your patience!