last night, my mom attended a talk given by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, also known as the yarn harlot, at a local bookstore. she is author of several books, including At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much and Knit Lit (too): Stories from Sheep to Shawl.

and mom was pictured AND mentioned by name at stephanie's very own blog!

not only can mom drop Lauren Winner an email AND get a response, she meets and greets famous knitters/writers on their book tours.

Warning...this post contains a few spoilers in The Thirteenth Tale. So if you haven't read it yet and want to, skip this post until you've read it.

I was really excited to read The Thirteenth Tale since the description sounded like just the kind of book I like. Afterall, I'm a big fan of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

There is no doubt that Diane Setterfield's writing is imaginative, articulate, and beautiful. I loved getting caught up in the world of Angelfield and its many characters. And characters they were. I don't remember "meeting through reading" such oddball characters that I actually liked. But Setterfield has a way of enticing you into this world you'd never enter on your own.

I guess this is where I admit to being a bit disappointed in the ending. It was the last 50-75 pages that let me down. In the movie Amadeus, there is a scene where Mozart is waiting for a verbal review of his latest opera from the Emperor and his response was, "It was wonderful...but there were...ah...too many notes." To which Mozart was obscenely offended, and quite understandably so as how could Mozart write one too many notes?

Setterfield isn't Mozart. She is a word craftsman and an incredible story-teller. But I think this particular story could have been 63 pages shorter and a character (or two) less. Then it would have packed a bigger punch. In my humble opinion.

When I finished the book last night (I have done a lot of reading with Adam draped over my shoulder for his afternoon nap, or out cold on our bed while I snuggled up next to him. His longer sleeping schedule over this sickness has given me more reading time than normal...which is how I already finished this 400 page novel), I looked up a few reviews of the book. People adored this book. People gushed over Setterfield's classic story-telling abilities. So many other bloggers participating in the Spring Reading Thing have read it and have loved it (I haven't heard one negative comment about it yet in the blogging world). What was wrong with me?  Then I finally came upon a few reviews at Amazon that I agreed with completely.

*SPOILER* One reviewer said that Setterfield just didn't want the story to end, and I have to agree. I think the "introduction" to the ghost child...or the revelation of Winter's true identity...was a complete let-down. There was no need for a third child. There could have been a much more clever explanation of how Adeline became the competent Vida instead of introducing another character to explain the secret story of Miss Winter's past. */SPOILER*

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book because Setterfield is extremely talented, and the story had me very interested for the first 3/4 of the book. I'd recommend it to people because it's a fun read. But I can't say it's a book that I'll read again.

If I were to rate it, I'd give The Thirteenth Tale 3 out of 5 stars.

the strong and ugly virus that has wreaked havoc on our household is the virus no parent ever wants to deal with. based on the waning and waxing of adam's vomiting, and the length of his sickness (5 days now), he was diagnosed this morning with rotavirus.

i'm happy to report that after 6 days, sawyer is back to normal 100%. his appetite is back, his spunky little self is back...i have hope that adam will be back in no time at all.

but your prayers are still coveted.

i didn't intend to take a blogging break. it just so happened that vomit and other bodily fluids kinda took over the house and things like 5 loads of laundry, 3 loads of dishes, and 3 hours of sleep per day took the place of writing.

you see those two bookend-boys up there in the blog masthead? sawyer (right) and adam (left) have been slammed with the nastiest stomach virus we've ever seen. sawyer is finally getting back to normal, and adam is finally not sleeping 23 hours a day.

but i don't think it's over. i'm not going to say, "we've survived the stomach bug!" because it's not over until we've all had it, right? well, hopefully not...we're praying so hard that rowan stays healthy (although he's bouncing off the walls!) and that kenny and i forgo getting to know our toilet bowl oh-so-well. i'll let you know how we fair. please keep us in your prayers.

because really, i've never seen the life taken out of my boys until this nasty bug made its way into them. it is far worse than last year's family sickness 2006.

i'll be back when all the laundry is folded, all the rooms have been cleaned, and our lives are back to normal (hopefully tomorrow!)

parenting is the best. seriously. i can think of nothing else that makes me want to scream thankfulness and praise to God than when i stop and just "behold" rowan, sawyer, and adam.

but when your kid gets sick, you meet a "hard part" of parenting.

i don't think i'm the only parent in the world who gets a pit the size of a grapefruit in their stomach the minute their child complains of "not feeling well" or begins the every-five-minute puke session. and it's not because once your kids get sick, you are in for a lot of extra work, and hardly any sleep. the hard part for me is constant worry.

when rowan was 5 months old, he got his first virus - a cold virus with a low-grade fever. but i was a mess. we spent $60 on "cold and fever supplies" at the drugstore to make him get better faster. i prayed that the fever would just disappear, or that i was simply being too paranoid and his warm forehead wasn't a fever afterall. the virus ran its course, and he was back to himself in no time. and we had a house full of cold and fever supplements to share with the neighborhood. but still, i worried about the next time a fever would hit.

i'm just a worrier. and that's not a good thing to be when you also put everything in jesus' hands. this is a struggle for me.

sawyer started puking yesterday at noon, and he puked for 10 minutes straight. this just after a HUGE diaper blowout. i was certain he was exorcising a demon. it just didn't seem natural to puke for that long. he's slowly but steadily getting better. today the "action" is less, but the fever is here. and my prayers for health for the rest of the family are being answered at the moment. of course, i'm worrying about him...his little body shaking for lack of nutrition and sleep and his poor diaper rash. and on top of worrying about him, i worry about the other two getting it (or kenny and i!). worry. worry. worry...

the other night, we were all in the living room a few minutes before it was time for the boys' bedtime. i was at the piano playing hymns from a hymnal-for-piano-dummies (meaning each hymn had no more than two flats or sharps) and kenny pointed out a hymn that i haven't sung in so long, based on Isaiah 66:12: "I will extend peace to her like a river." Since that night, I've had the chorus stuck in my head...

"Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest, finding, as he promised, perfect peace and rest."

God knows how much I pray for my little guys daily. (Worriers tend to be pretty frequent pray-ers, too!) So I know that my little family...my little guys...are stayed on Him. I look at that little face of Sawyer under that blanket and I know Whose hands he's in, no matter what.

And the imperfect worry dissolves into a perfect peace.

please comment with your best advice on cleaning puke from carpets. i mean really cleaning them and not "masking" the odor.

one child sick with the bug, four others in the household (plus one poor weekend guest) to go, i'm sure!

we couldn't find a local farm that hatched chicks for selling, and a few farmers kenny talked with actually advised us against getting chicks that way. we still felt uneasy ordering our chicks from the big hattery in texas and picking them up at the post office, so we found a happy medium at meyer hatchery which is only a couple hours drive away. i called last week to place an order for our 15 chicks (15!!!) and since a few of them weren't going to be hatched until mid april, we decided on a pick-up date in late april.
kenny spent a few hours tooling around in his garage last week and built the beautiful brooder where the chicks will spend their first few weeks on a bed of pine shavings, eating organic chick starter and drinking filtered water.

and all of a sudden, i had a nightmare that all of our chickens were going to die before we got them into the coop. you see, we've been told by many places that pine shavings are hard to come by these days (something about people not building enough houses???), and i can't even begin to tell you how hard it is finding organic chick starter. so i have images of our chicks starving, and walking on hard wood, drinking only filtered water. whatever will we do?

we'll find the shavings, i'm sure...and we'll start the chicks off with non-organic starter then switch them to completely organic chicken feed and our organic food scraps once they're outside in their coop. whew. now that i have all that figured out...let me introduce you to our "brood."

The Araucana will give us olive green or turquoise blue eggs! well, the shell is turquoise, the inside is "regular."
The Golden Buff is a "favorite" because they're good layers. and we're assured 100% of getting all females. (all the other chickens we ordered aren't "sexlinked" which means we have a 20% chance of getting a rooster with our order!)
The Buff Orpington...our original favorite...we're told are "very broody" which means they can sit all day on an egg. or a nest. and they won't like it when we go in to collect their eggs. so we kept them in our order because we still love them.
The Silver-Laced Wyandotte is my mom's favorite chicken, ever. we ordered a few for her to take care of. she's so excited, she's already named them!

in the coming weeks, kenny's working on the weekends to start coop construction. pictures will be posted and you better believe my camera will be flashing when those chicks are in our possession.

i can't wait to introduce you to our fowl!


 

this morning, as we trolled the aisles of the grocery store, rowan looked up at me and said, "mommy, i'm SO happy it's spring!"

perhaps it was because i told him we were going to buy some ingredients for a special cake we were going to make together to celebrate the FIRST DAY OF SPRING! and any mention of cake, rowan is on-board.

last week, we had snow. then a day of rain. here are a few pictures of what that leaves behind.

at least the snow is melting and not lingering for weeks on end. the first picture is our back yard, which faces north. the mist is just above the pine tree-line. the second is of our barn, which faces west - therefore, a misty sunset. the most important part of these pictures to me is the green in them. since early january, we've had snow on the ground, and although that sounds like a lot of fun when you have three young boys, it isn't when the temperatures are in the single digits, or the youngest of those boys just doesn't want to be out for much longer than 5-10 minutes. we are ready to get outside and enjoy our yard again!

fortunately, the first day of spring here was 60 degrees. the warm air was so welcomed, and we celebrated!

our "first-day-of-spring" bunny cake...an idea i got from a blog i read sometime ago - i wish i could remember who it was! i wanted to decorate with fresh whipped cream, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries...but that cake will have to wait until mid-summer when those berries are ripe (and in our backyard!). and a walk outside..without bulky, winter coats!





and here is a haiku that perfectly describes the beauty of the transition from winter to spring.

the wait is over! my spring reading thing reading list is...

fiction:
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Recommended to me by my mom. I'm three chapters into it already and am hooked.
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. Another book recommendation from mom. I've met people who love it and hate it. I'm eager to make my own opinion.
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. Mom gave me this one too (see a paterrn here?). She is the author of Chocolat...I've seen the movie, but hadn't read the book. And if the book was better than the movie, which is generally the case, then it must have been a great book.
A Good Man is Hard to Find and other stories by Flannery O'Connor. NOT a recommendation from mom. In fact, Mom doesn't like Flannery O'Conner, but I love me some Flannery short stories. I read a few of these before but not since college and I can't wait to read them again...and read some new ones.

non-fiction:
The Mommy Manual by Barbara Curtis. This has been on my wishlist for months and months. Mary at Owlhaven recently reviewed it positively, so my need to have the book skyrocketed. :) It was a birthday present from my mom, and I'm already a quarter of the way through it. So far, I'm loving it, and every mom reading this should get yourself a copy.
Sacred Rhythms: Arranging our Lives for Spiritual Transformations by Ruth Haley Barton. I am cheating with this one. My old bible study in Pittsburgh is reading through this book, so I jumped in on the study today (their second week) and picked up my copy. It's a beautiful hard-back book that I don't want to mess up, but I'm sure I'll be underlining like a champ as soon as I start to read.
The Liturgy of Motherhood by Kathleen Finley. Anything with the words "liturgy" and "motherhood" or "laundry" in the title has me eager to read it.
The Contented Soul by Lisa Graham McMinn. This came up as a recommendation for me at Amazon and after reading a few reviews, I know I need to read this book. It is how I wish I could live my life...content with the here and now, not wishing for more. But society yells at us to wish into our lives bigger and better and flashier.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After I made the list this week, my mom informed me last night that there is a new Anne Lamott book out. It's the third in her "Thoughts on Faith" books, called Grace (Eventually):Thoughts on Faith, and of course, I can't wait to read it. But it'll have to wait until I've read each and every one of the above listed books.

thanks to katrina at callapidder days for hosting this event (and for making it long enough to make it possible for me to read all my books!)

before i post my "spring reading thing" challenge on Wednesday (it's SPRING! in less than 48 hours!) i thought i'd quickly rehash the books from my "fall into reading" challange, also hosted by callapidder days.

Simply Christian by N.T. Wright. very good book, but a difficult read for me as he's extremely academic in his writing (probably similar to his preaching and teaching). i tend to be drawn to beautifully-crafted sentences and his are very pragmatic and to-the-point. which isn't bad, it just makes it harder for me to get the point. i guess i need "poetry" in a lot of my non-fiction as well as my fiction! i owed the Carnegie Library a bunch of money for keeping it out well past my due-date.

Father Melancholy's Daughter by Gail Godwin. i'd read this book before, and if i were to re-write that book meme i did a couple of weeks ago, i'd change my all-time favorite book to this one. this is poetry. and tragedy. and a love story. and full of grace and God and...man, did this book make me cry. also recommended is its sequel, Evensong. i didn't get around to reading it this past fall, but it's always so close to my bedstand that i pick it up from time to time and just skim a few chapters. i'll pick it up again, i know it. for the record, i haven't been able to get into much of Godwin's other works. these two are her best.

The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. i loved this book...and i didn't get to read nearly the amount of it that i wanted to (it was also a library-loan). it's thick and dense, but such a fun read. i love reading books that make me excited to homeschool instead of fear it. i'm currently drooling over her earlier book The Well-Educated Mind.

Simple Hospitality by Jane Jarrell. i never read it because our libraries didn't have copies and i didn't feel like purchasing it yet. and Katrina (Callapidder Days) recommended buying a used copy as she wasn't as impressed with it as she had hoped to be since it didn't focus on the simplicity of being hospitible. which is something that's important to me as well (although I do like to spoil my guests!).

Recovered Body by Scott Cairns. again, i didn't read it because our libraries didn't have it, and i didn't purchase it. if you ever come across a copy of any of his poetry books, read them. now THAT'S some poetry. :)

another book i read along with Simply Christian was Kathleen Norris' The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and "Women's Work" which also was out a bit too long from the library...i should have just purchased these books! it's a small book - more like an essay, and i ate it up like...marshmallow Peeps! i never thought of laundry, grocery lists, diaper changes, meal preparation, and cleaning (especially cleaning!) as Holy. but she makes a great case for it. the work of the manager or keeper of your household works on hallowed ground making clean what is dirty and filling minds, souls and bellies of her/his loved ones with knowledge, love, and food. isn't that what God does for us daily?

i'm excited about my spring list - i even pre-purchased a few used copies of some of my books. the list is longer, but i'm ready for it! i know we have a busy spring ahead of us, but i'm up for the challenge! and i encourage you to get in on it!

spring-clean your mind with a few good books!

we had a busy week with many emergencies and surprises last week, so our menu got switched around a lot and we...ah...ate out once (twice if you count the spaghetti dinner at church yesterday, but i planned for that, if you'll remember). so a few of these meals may look familiar as i planned them for last week, but we're eating them this week.

the beautiful thing about planning ahead is that i can switch everything around and have a new menu this week, without having to shop for more than my weekly dairy and produce needs.

monday: turkey sausage with noodles and cabbage (late st. patty's dinner!)
tuesday: chicken curry with brown rice
wednesday: baked chicken with ziti and veggie
thursday: aloo gobi
friday: sweet and sour pork over brown rice
saturday: leftovers
sunday: crusty pork tenderloin with sweet potato and apple compote

for more menu plans, visit OrgJunkie.

now that i'm sure i got your attention over there in Arizona....

today we picked up a box of Cheerios. the name-brand kind, not the store-brand, or the natural brand (although Cheerios is sold in Whole Foods, so "it's got to be good"). because when it comes to Cheerios...the name brand is the real deal. i just can't eat, or make my kids eat, a different "version." it's like reading cliff's notes for a shakespeare play. or worse...baking with sucralose.

so we picked up a box of Cheerios because they are adam's favorite finger food these days. they wrap up a meal well for him...he likes to delicately balance a cheerio that is stuck to the end of his saliva-ed index finger, and pinch it closed with this thumb and s-l-o-w-l-y bring it to his mouth. it's quite a sight - and very different than sawyer-at-9-months who took a fist of cheerios and jammed them into his mouth like cookie monster (complete with cheerio crumbs flying everywhere).

the boys (and i!) were excited to see eric carle's "very hungry caterpiller" gracing the front of this particular Cheerios box (sawyer kept saying, "looks like MY book!"). eric carle is donating 100,000 copies of his book The Tiny Seed to the state that answers (and votes for!) the most correct children's book trivia questions.

so...only those of you who live in MY STATE...go to www.firstbook.org/carle and have fun answering some children's book trivia (i didn't get that many correct, but i did find new books to add to the boys' wishlist) and vote for our state to be the recipiants of his book. we already own this book, and it's actually a favorite of rowan's. and the artwork doesn't disappoint (especially if you're a fan of carle's illustrations).

while you're online, hop on over to carle's other great cause at www.picturebookart.org. there's some fun artwork to look at, booklists, and activities.

and no, eric carle or General Mills is in no way paying me for this post. i could only be so lucky.

i don't know what you'd call my friend audrey and i.  we're two peas in a pod? anomalies? coincidences? twilight zone characters? separated at birth?

we have these odd similarities that just kept popping up over the years as we got to know each other. and we're not talking about "i liked ralph macchio in high school...OMG so did I!" or "my prom dress was yellow...OMG so was mine!" here are just some of our odd similarities:

1. my full name is elizabeth anne. she was meant to be named beth ann (but for some reason her parents decided on audrey).
2. my mom's name is diane. her sister's name is diane. (okay not so weird...a lot of us have similarities like this.)
3. we both have a niece who is the same age AND named sadie rae. same spelling.
4. we both remember watching "Hatchey Malatchey" - a children's program that i used to watch when visiting my grandparents in their home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. when i found out that audrey was a graduate of this show as well, i was floored. NOBODY (and i was beginning to think it was a figment of my imagination) had ever heard of that show before, until it was mentioned in passing one day in one of our conversations.
5. we're both BIG Twin Peaks fans.
6. We're both BIG Gypsy Kings fans.
7. She has a Nana and Pop-pop, and so do I. and now my parents are Nana and Pop-pop.
8. We're both fans of burnt hot dogs. And we mean blackened. MMMMMMmmmmmm!
9. Her husband, Tom, and I share a birthday: March 7th.
10. The biggie: We've both been blessed with pilonoidal cysts (i was going to post a link, but if you really want to know, you can research that on your own!)

perhaps these don't seem odd to you, but when we come up with yet another odd "thing" that we share, we just shake our head and laugh.

a mutual friend of ours, amy, and i also have fun similarities. my favorite is that amy is one of the only adults that i know who also likes Peeps and candy corn. we agree that it is better, hands down, over chocolate any day of the week. if i had to, i could live on Peeps and candy corn and nothing else.

but i don't. because if i did, i'd have much bigger dental problems.


ps. if you'd like to donate a year's supply of Peeps or candy corn for my friends and i, please email me for my address. thank you.

*update at end of post!

when we first moved here almost a year ago, i posted about my fear of the "really bad bear problem in the neighborhood." it turns out that the REAL problem we have in "these here parts" aren't bear, but ticks.

you'll remember that a few weeks after adam was born, kenny contracted Lyme Disease. and a few weeks after that, he picked a deer tick off of his arm. well, this morning, as the boys and i settled into our morning reading-on-momma's lap position, i do what i always do - run my fingers through their hair while i read. and this morning, there was a large "thing" on rowan's head which made me stop reading immediately to take a look. a tick, head in...legs a waving all over the place.

if kenny hadn't contracted Lyme's, i think my reaction would have been different. i might have waited for him to come home (7 hours later) to take it off himself. but i know that TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE when it comes to getting deer ticks out. we now know a whole lot about deer ticks and how to prevent Lyme's. so i called the pediatrician's office and told them i was on my way.

{yes, i know i should learn to pull ticks out myself. i will, eventually...but now i trust the experts.}

of course there was freezing rain, and of course i'm the world's worst worrier. but someOne took a hold of me and told me to breathe.

rowan is extremely in tune with our emotions. he knows when i'm angry, sad, or happy...he tells me when i'm angry, sad, or happy. and i didn't want him to be scared. every muscle in my body was screaming to be nervous. but stronger than that was my desire to make sure rowan wasn't afraid. he knew was that he was the special boy this bug chose to land on, and that the doctor had a special instrument to get the bug off of his head. i couldn't lie to him. i couldn't tell him that we were headed to the grocer, only to show up at the pediatrician's office and tell him he had to keep his head still for a minute. he is nearly 4 years old...he's smart enough to know when his mom isn't telling the truth. i was a bit nervous that this story wouldn't fly...or worse...would make him afraid. he was quiet on our way to the doctor, but once we got there, he said to me, "will the doctor show me the bug that's on my head?" i was relieved that my fear hadn't shown. so we talked more about the instrument (tweezers!) that the doctor would use to get the bug, and what the bug looks like, and how he was going to get ice cream for lunch if he held his head really still.

the procedure went well. rowan was amazing. he held his head so still and let the doctore YANK the bug out of his head (along with about 10 hairs!). he was so excited to see it and laughed at the little legs still waving. my heart sunk as i knew it wasn't a dog tick. every picture i saw of deer ticks looked exactly like the one on the pediatrician's tweezers.

so now we wait and pray. the odds are in our favor...a small amount of deer ticks actually carry Lyme and only smaller larva ticks carry the Lyme (this was a larger, female tick). but i'm his mother. i'm wired to worry.

my friend ellen called me tonight (because she had just watched Grey Gardens after I recommended it to her), and when she asked how i was doing, I let out, "I found a tick on Rowan this morning!" And her reaction calmed me...she grew up  "in the country" and knows that this is probably not the last tick we'll pull off our boys. But she made me feel as though I can deal with these little critters. that, in fact, it's not a good enough reason to move back to the city. :)

i guess we're going to be having ice cream for lunch a few more times in the next decade....

________________

Update!
the pediatrician's office informed me this morning that the tick we pulled off rowan was NOT a deer tick. whew. even though i swore up and down that it was...in retrospect, i think they're right. it was a lot larger than a "poppy seed" and round and flat, just like a dog tick. not at all swollen, and was very easy to spot.
rowan loves to talk about how brave he was. and we're still proud as punch of him.

it's definitely not appropriate for a married woman to burst into "you make me feel like a natural woman" right in the middle of her endodontist's office, but i wanted to sing at the top of my lungs to dr. dahlkemper, d.m.d., the minute he began to numb my mouth. it was the first time i felt no pain in over two weeks. plus, it would probably sound really funny coming from someone who was numb-in-the-mouth.

thank you for regaling me with your dental/dentist stories (and i answered you in the comments section!). i know it's sad, but it is so comforting to know i'm not the only one in the world with problems at the dentist. kenny and i have been fighting with our new dentist now for the last month and a half. he had an issue with an extraction that ended up with dry socket but they treated it as though it were infected, so he was on antibiotics that (of course!) wasn't treating the dry socket, and his pain got worse and worse. my root canal this morning was on a tooth that was filled just four short weeks ago. i am not an expert in dental work (although i should be by now!), but my poor tooth has been through the ringer this past month.

and doesn't EVERYTHING seem harder when you have a toothache?

and "joyful" brought up the issue of insurance. let's talk about dental insurance shall we? why even have it if your copay is the same amount you pay for a down payment on a new home (equal to a root canal and crown) or a car (equal to a filling)? why is dental insurance so bad? why can't it be just like health insurance (i know...the price of health insurance is rising steadily as well...but dental insurance is so much worse).  i guarantee more people would go to the dentist if it weren't so expensive. well, that and the metal on teeth thing.....

onto some GOOD NEWS!

did you know  that tomorrow (march 15) starbucks is giving away a free "tall" cup of coffee? just make sure you get to a starbucks between the hours of 10 a.m. to 12 noon. i'd love to partake...but besides there being no bookstore (i know you're getting sick of hearing that!), guess what else we don't have in our neck of the woods? i know that many of you would think that is a good thing (my husband included), but i happen to like their coffee. so....if you're near a starbucks, go and enjoy free joe on the house!

i'm generally not a "one-upper" and i am very uncomfortable around people who love to "one-up" others in conversations. but i'm begging you to one-up me this morning.

i'm living a dental nightmare right now, but thank GOD for my husband who found a dentist who could fit me in today (what ever happened to dentists taking emergency cases? i'm on two waiting lists and cancellation lists, but no one i called could get me in tomorrow (which is today). there needs to be a dental ER in every city.).

so please share with me your worst dental/toothpain/dentist experience. and i'll feel better. much better.  or hopefully today's visit with the endodontist will take all the pain away.

this is my beautiful 9-month-old baby boy. i know he's scowling a bit, but he is, afterall, eating his first few bites of yogurt and he had to aquire a taste for it, very unlike his older brothers who inhaled it from their first bites. but that is not why i'm posting this photo. first, a little background:

i went to calvin college, which is located just under the half-way points between the pinky finger and ring finger of the right palm. (i didn't know what that meant either until i lived in michigan, so if you don't get it, don't worry.) roughly 94% of the city is dutch. 98% of the college population is dutch. these statistics might be slightly off as they are guesses based only on my experience at the college. to give you a taste of the dutch culture of calvin college, i give you the names of a few of the dorms: schultze-eldersveld, noordewier-vanderwerp, kalsbeek-huizenga.

if you think pronouncing them is difficult...try learning to spell them.

there is a little known fact that dutch people are above average in height. i stand at a whopping 5'4", and i was way below average height in college. my older brother married a dutch woman and their kids are off the charts when it comes to height and weight percentiles. they joke about it being the dutch blood.

getting back to the picture of my beautiful 9-month-old baby boy. normally i'd emphasize the "beautiful" in the description, but i'm emphasizing his age to prove this point: doesn't it look like he's 4 months old? could it be because he's SWIMMING in that bib? the bib reads, "there's a place for me at calvin college" and i received one for each of my kids when i updated my alumni status at the college's web site, reporting the birth of each of our boys.

folks, this bib FINALLY fits rowan. rowan is nearly 4 years old and 4-year-olds don't wear bibs! the bib manufacturers for the calvin college baby-congrats-gift MUST be dutch. they must have used their very own children as models for these bibs, and only dutch babies can, in fact, wear them when they need to wear them.

i'm afraid our boys will never be of dutch height. kenny, although strapping and handsome, isn't much taller than me ("5'8" on a good day" - his words, not mine) and our boys are always under the 50th height percentiles at their checkups. i'm hoping that they'll be interested in calvin as a potential college, but it's not going to be because they wore these bibs telling them of their placeholder at the college.

but they'll never remember the bibs they "wore" any way. do you actually remember any of the bibs you wore as a baby?

Monday: Roast chicken with veggies 
Tuesday: Leftovers or homemade chicken soup made with leftovers (if I'm feeling adventurous)
Wednesday: Spaghetti Chicken Pie, salad
Thursday: Baked Chicken and ziti with veggie (we didn't have it on Sunday, so we're having it today!)
Friday: Leftovers
Saturday: St. Patrick's Day! Noodles with turkey sausage and cabbage. Guinness. Whiskey cake (recipe below)
Sunday: We're supporting a cub pack fundraiser after church: spaghetti dinner

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Irish Whiskey Cake

• 2 cups golden raisins
• 3 tablespoons grated lemon zest
• 1/4 cup whiskey
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 egg whites
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 lemon, juiced

1. Place the raisins, lemon rind, and whiskey in a small bowl and let them soak overnight. Line bottom of an eight-inch square cake pan with parchment paper that is buttered and dusted with flour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift the flour, salt, cloves and baking powder into a bowl and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and beat well. Quickly beat in the flour mixture. Stir in the soaked raisins.
3. In a separate clean bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture. Pour this into your prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cake thoroughly on a wire rack.
4. To make the glaze: Mix the lemon juice with the sifted powdered sugar and just enough whiskey and warm water so that you can drizzle icing over the cake.

find more menu ideas here!

i'm EXTREMELY excited to be entering the warmer months, but that also means i'll be doing more outside work and needing less hibernation (aka, reading cozied up under a blanket come 7:00 pm every night). but my stack-o-books keeps getting larger (thanks, in part, to my mother) and i'm excited to be involved in callapidder's "spring reading thing 2007":

thanks to Rocks in My Dryer for this meme....

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? Hardback, when I can.

Amazon or brick and mortar? I love bookstores. But there are no bookstores here. So we use Amazon.

Barnes and Noble or Borders? Barnes and Noble (the train table in the kids' section!!!).

Bookmark or dogear?   Dogear. It's a bad habit?  Really?

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?   I wish I were as organized (like my friend Emily). But my books are just thrown on shelves in random rooms. At least we have shelves!

Keep, throw away, or sell?   I'd love to keep them all. Kenny likes to cull through them from time to time. We generally keep, and give to Goodwill when we find books that haven't been opened since 1995.

Keep dustjacket or toss it?  I love dustjackets...the boys tears theirs off. So I try to keep theirs neatly in a pile on their dressers so they don't rip them to shreds. 

Read with dustjacket or remove it?  But I normally take it off to read it. And then replace it when I'm done (if it's not lost)

Short story or novel?   Novel.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)?  Collection. Especially when it's Raymond Carver.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? Um. I'm not sure what Lemony Snicket is. And I love Harry Potter!!!!

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?  I love to try to get to the end of a chapter, but sometimes I drop the book because I've fallen asleep before I get ot the end. And then I get all mad because i"ve lost my place...

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?  Once Upon a Time. I want to like mystery novels - I really do. There's a whole bookstore devoted to mystery lovers near Pittsburgh and I want to be a patron. But they just don't catch my interest. Every once in a while I'll read one...I think I read one by Jane Smiley once and liked it.

Buy or Borrow?  I love owning books. But I love the library. I have a lot of my mother's books, though.

New or used?  Used.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Recommendation and browse. And "read previous books by same author and liked it."

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?  Tidy ending, please.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? I can really only read right before bed. Or right after we put the kids to bed.

Stand-alone or series? Stand-alone. I love Harry Potter, but I'm ready for the books to be done and over with, I think.

Favorite series? The Mitford Series - I cannot, however, stand that these books are done. I want MORE.

Favorite children's book?  Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Guess How Much I Love You by Sam Mcbratney and Anita Jeram.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?  Celia's House - I read it when I was in 6th grade and I'm always looking for it.

Favorite books read last year?  Last year, I moved and had a baby. There was no reading. But this year...I just finished The Memory Keepers Daughter  by Kim Edwards and reallyreally loved it.

Favorite books of all time? A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (the end of each chapter gives me shivers...), 

Least favorite book you finished last year?  I reread More Than You Know by Beth Gutcheon and I didn't love it the way I loved it the first time. 

What are you reading right now?  This morning, I just finished a The Memory Keepers Daughter (see link above), and now I think I'll read...(see next question)

What are you reading next?  Leeway Cottage by Beth Gutcheon. I still love her even though I can only read her books once. I think.

we love books. i come from a family that loves books. it's all i ever ask for when people ask what the boys need for christmas or birthdays...i point them to their amazon wishlist. i love going through bookstores browsing childrens books with amazing artwork and great writing. i think the artwork is important especially since our boys aren't reading themselves yet. i love glancing over at one of the boys sitting on the floor with a book spread across their lap. they'll usually stare at a picture for a few minutes, study each part of it, then bring the book over to me or kenny and ask a question about what they've seen in the picture: "mommy, why is that fish eating that other fish?"

we've hit the "why" stage with both boys. rowan recently (6 weeks ago) started asking a string of "why" questions. before we got to this stage with the boys - before they started talking - i wanted to make the effort to always answer their "why" questions. i know that kids go through the "whys" and i didn't want to just answer, "because i said so" because it was the easy answer to get them to stop asking. asking questions is how they'll learn. and i love that they want to learn (or that they're wired to learn already!).

but this is a lot harder than i thought it would be. sawyer, especially, loves asking "why?" he can ask upwards of 7-8 "whys" in one conversation alone. and each time it happens, it's based on different subjects, so i have no "canned responses" for him. i overheard a conversation between the boys the other day: sawyer was asking rowan a string of "whys" and by the second or third one, rowan asnwered, "sawyer, i just don't know. be quiet." i understood his frustration. because even i don't know the answer to some of his "why" questions!

i find that i'm ending a lot of these questions with the answer, "because that's how God created him/her/it/them." and that seems to be the answer that quenches their thirst for answers (albeit breifly). however, i want them to eventually ask "why?" when i tell them that God created something a particular way. because the answer to that will usually be, "i don't know." and i want them to know (and believe themselves) our belief in God as creator, Jesus as Saviour, and Holy Spirit as comforter. but we don't have all the answers. kenny and i want nothing more than our kids to know and receive the love of Christ. but we want them to come to that knowledge through Him alone, and not through keeping them from the world by building protective walls around them with bible verses plastered all over them. we'll work to the bone to teach them why we believe what we believe, and we'll eagerly pray for them everyday. but they'll only get to a deep faith by learning or wanting to learn it themselves.

so we trust that they'll get the right answers when they start asking the hard questions. when we can't be there to answer them. or when we just don't have the answers.

the other day, the older two boys and i constructed simple snowmen made of cotton. it's just too cold to be outside in the real snow, and i think sawyer's having a hard time with the fact that real snowmen melt. he has a hard time saying goodbye. this way, he'll have his snowman with him as long as he wants. if i can convince him they're NOT marshmallows, therefore are NOT edible.

i started off showing them how to paste the cotton onto the paper. then the "sticks" onto the paper. pasting the eyes and buttons were a bit tricky, but i let them pick out which type of decoration they wanted for the eyes, mouth, and buttons.


it seemed like a simple project...i was proud of myself for being creative using grape stems for the arms: i'm NOT digging in the snow for real sticks. the boys loved eating the "jimmies" i found on my christmas cookie decorating shelf a bit too much. we ran out of jimmies before they were able to paste on their own buttons:



here is where i question...do i need to worry about sawyer's artistic vision? i don't think he meant to make his snowman demon-possessed. but it ended up that way, and now i'm afraid to be in the same room with his little creation:

thanks SO MUCH for all of your birthday wishes. man, do you guys  know how to make a girl feel special.

and my husband certainly knows how to love on me (and embarrass me at the same time! that picture is the ONLY time you'll see me in a swimsuit on this here blog) and make my birthday one heck of a fun day!

kenny and the boys went out for a "secret ingredient shopping" spree yesterday afternoon. last night, they all made my birthday cake - chocolate with chocolate icing. two layers and everything. this morning, i proclaimed today "cake for breakfast" day and we all ate chocolate cake for breakfast. then...

kenny surprised me with my present (and i thought the cake and my day off on friday was enough, really!) - an ipod shuffle! we've been having fun all day listening to and figuring out how to download music. i'm all thumbs working with this mini-music-technology.

(kenny and i snuck in another piece of cake for lunch...while the boys had quiet time. it's not that i'm not a sharing momma...it's just i couldn't bring myself to force this bad habit onto my children!)


we're hitting the hay early tonight: we've both been awake since 4:30 a.m. due to a cry-out from a bad dream from sawyer that woke up adam for the day. we're tired...and that event might repeat itself tomorrow morning. and my tooth has been KILLING me all evening. i'm scheduled for a root canal in a few weeks...i hope i make it until then...YOUCH!

Surprise!  I wanted your friends to see some of the life and times of Elizabeth (Laughlin) Smith.  Happy Birthday!
Mwa!
K.

i know that all of you are just DYING to know what we eat on a regular basis. i know that this particular piece of information is of UTMOST interest to all of you. so here you go:

monday: turkey lasagne and salad.
tuesday: crock pot pinto beans with ham.
wednesday: leftover lasagne and salad.
thursday: pork loin with baked sweet potato and pear.
friday: homemade veggie burgers (recipe below) on whole grain english muffins.
saturday: winter beef stew and salad.
sunday: baked chicken and ziti with winter vegetable.

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veggie burgers:
1 T. canloa oil
1/4 cup each minced onion, green bell pepper, carrot, and celery
2/3 cup drained cannellini beans
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup seasoned bread crumbs

in skillet, heat 1 tsp. of the oil. add onion, pepper, carrot, and celery; cook over medium heat, stirring occassionally, until vegetables are soft and moisture has evaporated, about 1 minute. Set aside to cool slightly.
using a fork, mash beans; stir in egg. add bread crumbs and vegetable mixture; mix until thoroughly combined.
shape mixture into 4 equal patties. refrigerate until chilled, at least 20 minutes.
in same skillet, heat 1 tsp. of remaining oil. add 2 patties; cook over medium heat, turning once, until browned on both sides and heated through. remove patties to plate; keep warm. repeat with remaining tsp. oil and 2 patties.
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for more menu planning ideas, go here!

also, rocks in my dryer is hosting a kitchen-themed Works For Me Wednesday this week, and i've actually had a lot of people asking me (about 4, total!) how i plan a month's worth of meals for us. it's not brain science or rocket surgery, but i'll share the method that works for me on wednesday.

yesterday God decided to act upon his sense of humor by sending us intermittent blue skies and cloudy, grey snow-filled ones. every five minutes. we would be looking at a blue sky with white puffy clouds and within seconds, it was dark with blowing snow so thick we couldn't see our trees. although we were stuck inside, the house smelled of guinness chocolate cake - my contribution to an Irish-themed dinner group at our friends' house.

let me tell you about this dinner group:

the food: mmm mmmmm! we've lost two members of our group since they abandoned us for sunnier skies followed a new job call to a different state, and one of those members was a professional chef. we had some mighty tasty appetizers, main courses, fondue dinners, and decadent desserts. we're all now trying to pull off professional level foods. yesterday's meal was pretty darn close.

the fellowship: our very first dinner together was when sawyer was one week old, and also the day of the Pittsburgh flood of 2004. kenny and I didn't make it, because of newborn sawyer, and because of the flood. but "come hell or high water" (forgive the pun), the other folks in our dinner group met and partied away into the night. we even received a call from them around 9:00 p.m. asking where we were. this is how die-hard this dinner group is. you just don't miss a dinner if at all possible. i think the only other time we missed was just after adam was born. and i think we've missed more times than anyone else.

now the group meets and there are 6 little boys running around our ankles, pulling food off our plates, demanding to be fed THISVERYINSTANT and making it generally impossible to have adult conversation. but we meet, month after month, watching these babies grow into boys...into friends...and marvel together at the blessings we've been given.

it's chaotic, but we just learn to yell over the din, or take another sip of wine and nod/smile and pretend to actually hear the other person talking.

and if i were to ever go to seminary, i'd fail since i can't come up with a third "F" category to make this post stick in your minds better. oh well.