nine year-old genius child say what?!

The other day, I'm having a completely harmless, innocent, but meaningful conversation at my kitchen table.  I say, "What do you call those people who have so much stuff that they have to dig them out from under all of it when they die?"

From across the room a bold voice asks, "Um...Us?"



*crickets*

You better believe I put that kid straight to work.  (and yes, my electrolux vacuum is being held together with yellow duck tape.  Don't judge.  Oh wait.  That's the whole point of this post...)

Happy Heart Day

I'm so proud of my Pookmeister.  In October, she was an Applebee's Star.  The restaurant chain sponsored Pook's Make A Wish trip and threw a big bash to kick off our trip.  They gave Pookie a gift card to Toys R Us and encouraged her to spend it as her heart desired.

Her heart desired to spend it all on these:

Because, as she said, of this:

And this morning she headed here:

And she learned the value of giving in the midst of receiving.  I'm pretty certain she's the coolest 9 year-old on the planet.  (Aside from her amazing twin brother.)

I'm Friends with Ugly



Christmas 2006



I'm reading Mary Beth Chapman's book Choosing to SEE.  I've waited quite a while to read it, actually.  I saw it at the Christian bookstore in our area last fall in the midst of bringing home a storage unit full of unread books and useless collections o'junk.  I decided it would be best not to purchase the book but to get it from the library...cuz, you know - library fines are so much cheaper than buying the book outright...

So yesterday morning I ran over to the library after checking its availability online and found the book.  I'll be able to finish it tonite.  It's an easy read.  And it's compelling.  Not in the way A Little Bit Wicked by Kristin Chenoweth will be - I grabbed that one, too, since I'm a new HUGE Wicked fan.  But compelling.

I would love to adopt.  I always have had the heart to do so.  My friend recently adopted a little girl from China (I love you CherBear!).  David Platt, in his book Radical, discusses the plight and the subsequent call to believers to care for widows and orphans.  My husband read that book.  I'm not certain he shares my aspirations of adoption - yet.  I'm going to have him read this book, too. 

:)

Mary Beth discusses how their road to adoption began.  And of course, it ultimately describes the devastating accident that took their sweet daughter Maria away from them.  But in betwixt and between all that, she discusses her faith in the midst of doubts.  And she talks about doing 'hard.'  Kind of like Shawni talks about doing hard.  Well, exactly like Shawni, actually.

And in a week when every day I receive calls from friends being forced to do 'hard,' I decided that life really can be ugly.  But I am choosing to embrace Ugly.  Because through pruning, new, healthier branches of the vine give way to better and more abundant fruit.  Because life stirs from the death of the seed, from the burnt offerings of the hillside, from the revolution of the earth to once again burst forth with Spring again.

So, around here, we'll embrace the hard.  And we'll support and lift up the friends who are walking with the ugly.  We'll join hands with him, too.  Because there is Art in walking through the ugly and emerging, strenghthened, on the other side.   And I am an Art collector.

"So God confirmed this truth yet again: I can choose to SEE His story, or I can miss it.  And I know - in the winter of our grieving and the frozen mourning of my plans that will never be and my dreams that have died - the reality is this: God's warm breath is on the move.  New life is budding...and often where I expected it the least, like right inside of me. ... Yes.  Spring is coming...."(Mary Beth Chapman in Choosing to SEE)

Friday Fab 5

I admit it.  Choosing just five photos for today's link to Frizz was a challenge.  I've had 4 of my favorite people home with me all week because of the weather.  Man I love these kids!  And I absolutely love how much they love each other, as well.  We sure enjoyed our week - I'll write more on that later.  For today, enjoy these 5 favorite...



The boys' cars didn't win fastest at last weekend's Pinewood Derby, but they both won Craftsmanship in their dens.
I'm proud of all 3 of my boys!



Our blizzard didn't amount to much (the snow went north and east), but it left some pretty glitter.



I love this boy.  I grabbed this photo on the sly with a big lens.  I'm so glad I snapped it.




We gave Dad a Heartattack tonite when he came home from work.

 

The Baker Extraordinaire with The Birthday Boy.



It's a Sickness, Really

There is some serious baking going on over here at Chez No.6 homefront.  I'm baking things as though there were some sort of need for dozens of sweet treats and no one around to eat them (well, there are plenty of kids around, but when they eat Poptarts and Lucky Charms for breakfast and chase that with a piece of candy or a bag of Goldfish crackers for snack, who's going to let them eat peanut butter tartlets?...Who is their mother, anyway?!). 

Then along comes Pookie.  My Baker in Training.   :)  With all the snow days, we've caught up on all The Next Great Baker episodes and we're inspired!  She keeps asking me, "Do you think I'm The Next Great Baker?" in only the way that Pookie can {read: 18 times in the course of baking one 2-layer cake...}

Today we're planning to finish frosting daddy's birthday cake with vanilla bean buttercream (we're trying this one) and I'm going to try homemade bread.  With yeast and kneeding and everything.  (These kids seriously need to get back to school.  And I need to run!)  I'll keep ya posted!

It's a Snowday ~ Who Wants a(nother) Cupcake?

The twin's violin concert was rescheduled for tonite.  From the last snowday we celebrated.  Unfortunately, now there's a giant ice storm knocking down our door, so the concert has been cancelled for good.  Not before I'd made a giant batch of red velvet cupcakes for our family to enjoy at the pre-concert dinner, though.  What do you do with an entire batch of gorgeous red velvet cupcakes when company is suddenly not coming?  When you don't want to really, really have to run every morning of your life...?

You meet your best friend at the bus stop with a box of 6 wrapped in a pretty polkadot ribbon.  And when your neighbor shows up to pick up his son after the playdate, you load him up with a box of 4 also.  And that leaves 4.  None for you.  Cuz the family ate them all after dinner.  Didn't even leave you one. 

'Tis totally OK, cuz I ate something like 3 or 4 of them this afternoon before the early dismissal call even came.  I was planning to run in the morning anyway.

Head over here if you want a lovely (easy!) red velvet cake recipe with a surprising whipped cream frosting.  Click here if you like the cupcake liners (I LOVE them!  Dierberg's has them in the StL) and here if you want to check out my newest favorite blog!

Blessings!

~k

Project 365

Oh My Gosh!  Are you totally doing that too?!

No.  No I am not.  But Monday while Pooks was at theatre rehearsal, the rest of us visited my favorite bookstore (besides the library...where I spend just as much money apparently) and I browsed a book/journal all about Project 365s.  I think the concept is cool.  I even started a photo-ey scrapbook-ish one once, years ago.  I cut out the front of my home-version icee mocha box and glued it in there.  I snapped a picture of the kids in front of StarWars on the TV (the beginning of a new obsession back then), a house we fell in love with but didn't buy (go figure), plus maybe a few other things.  I think I made it about 4 days.  Maybe 6.

And that's why I don't do Project 365.

The book was pretty neat though - some girl painted her nails a different way every day for a year.  Like bacon.  She painted her nails to look like bacon.

Someone else took photos at 7PM every day in one city while his best friend took photos at 7PM in his city.  Then they blogged it.  For an entire year.

Someone else used a roll of toilet paper every day and used the tube to make African face masks.

OK.  I totally made that one up. 

But there were some craZy weird ones, I'm just saying.  (As if painting your nails like bacon isn't weird...Or maybe it's just creative and I'm weird...touche.)

The overriding admission among the writers, however, was that it was awesome to work on something every day for a year.  That their ability to look back over the course of 365 days and see how their project had evolved and what it said about them for the year provided a new sense of awareness of who they were.

Interesting.

I still don't think I would stick to it.

But in the interest of my own Project 365 - and no, that's not what I'm calling it - I've been diligently snapping photos all week to participate in Frizzy's Fab 5 Photo link up on Friday.  I found that I need to cut myself some slack.  I never feel like I play with the kids enough.  Or bake enough.  Or live in the present enough.  But what I discovered about myself is that I played every day.  I baked frequently.  And I love my life right now.

So, I guess in my own little way (my own Project 5/365 way) , I truly did see the evolution and what it said about me while providing a new sense of awareness of who I am.

Score.

And it only took 5 days.

So, without further adieu, here are my 5 photos (or collages, because I break the rules like that).

Little Bit decided she wanted to paint her nails.  Herself.  Blue (thank God it wasn't bacon...).  And so she did.  I love that kid.  And I love the little dimples that still grace her sweet knuckles.  Man she's a doll.  She did inform me this week that I didn't have to sign her up for preschool next year.  Apparently she does not like school.  "So you can skip it," she said to me.  Boy is she in for a surprise.

If you have friended me on Facebook, then you know I desire to dress more like Edie @ Life in Grace who has been said to "dress like a scrapbook."   I also love how this gal has an entire series of posts related to what she wears every day.  I am not that awesome to dress cool every day.  But, I had fun with it this morning.  And I went and spent the rest of my envelope at Cato today (one week into the 2 week envelope...so much for that resolve...), so I might take my picture again tomorrow.  Then it's back to jeans and t-shirts Sunday (and I don't mean the 7 for all Mankind variety). 

Seriously?  I don't even have to say a thing here.  I love this girl.

The Best Cornbread you will ever eat.  You can find the recipe here.

And finally, I realized this week that by the time I was Pookie's age, I was making my own batches of chocolate chippers.  Plus my own breakfast and packing my own lunches (that's what happens when your mom is a hard-working single warrior in the 70s.)  But my kids?  Wednesday morning this week, I poured cold cereal into a bowl and poured milk on top and called them to breakfast from their cozy warm spots on the couch in front of the TV.  *ahem*   So much for training up a child in the way he should go.  That afternoon, Pooks came home and I told her, "Go make me some chocolate chip cookies."  (Or something much friendlier, maternal, and sweeter.)  She LOVEd it.  And that batch of cookies was G.O.N.E. by bedtime.  Apparently, she takes after her mom.  She's a fabulous baker.  (And we all love chocolate chip cookies!)

It's Pinewood Derby Time!  More pics next week...Until then, ENJOY your weekend!
~Karin