Pictures! I Have Pictures! Woohoo!

My silly computer finally let me download pics. Sorry that some of these are from a few weeks ago.
The first one is the eldest, at our table, showing the deritus from our Mother's Day Crab Feast Extravaganza! The girl can eat some crabs. [She is holding the knife like that because we use them to crack the claws. I couldn't find our wooden mallets.] The next pic is the cake the youngest, Wallene, made me. My favorite kind. It is the same as our wedding cake: White cake, with rasperry filling and buttercream icing. So yummy.

This is a cross section. Looooook at all that nummy rasberry filling!

Then there is Prom. YAY! They had a free limo! The Prom was catered beautifully by the hotel where it was held, plus the wonderful parents of one of the kids bought Chinese food for all of them! Nice.

Isn't she pretty? I think so - and the corsage was from her Dad.

Usually I wouldn't post pics of her friends, but since J has a mask on I thought it was safe. I loved J's dress! She borrowed it [free!] and it fit so perfectly...she is such a sweetie and she looked gorgeous. Next year we are going to loan out the eldest's dress - what an awesome idea, right?

I have a bazillion more pics to post, but Blogger is only letting me put 5 up at a time. I will post again later today so y'all can see our $1,400 dog beds. :D

A Thing That Went Bump in The Afternoon

Or more correctly WHAM! Right into a cement wall, on her bicycle, going downhill at about 10 miles per hour [it is a steep hill].

This is our youngest. She went out yesterday to enjoy our warm weather and while riding her bike, wearing her helmet, she lost control and smacked dab into a cement wall.

She had a contusion on her forehead, a bloody nose and a split lip. Her bike is bent, but the helmet is still okay. [Apparently she was wearing it wrong and it was too far back on her head. On a side note: What is it about kids? You check them before they leave, the helmet is all good and then you find out later that she shifts it as soon as you are out of sight? Bah.]

Pooldad took one look in my eyes and realized that NO a little Motrin and an ice pack was NOT going to be okay. This was Emergency Room worthy, dammit. Off Pooldad and the youngest went. I waited at home for her sister who was out of town on a field trip.

And waited. The hospital was quick to take the youngest right in [headwound] and over the course of the next three hours did every test that would make a Mom feel much better about her lil' one's condition. [Please know this is only the second time in 5 kids and 20 years we have been to the Emergency Room - both for this kid. :)] Pooldad called with updates with each test result and although it was looking great it broke my heart because the youngest kept asking "Is Momma coming yet? Is Momma coming yet?" They made it home before I could make it there.

Long story, short - She has a concussion and a broken nose. And she is staying home with Pooldad and me today :D!

Kudos to the hospital staff who were very gentle with her and said she was a great patient and also to the doctor that reprimanded her for changing her helmet after we checked that she was wearing it correctly.

Now we are having fun making up names for her. Bump head, Wall girl, Nose ....feel free to chime in! [This is fun for the sake of relief - we were all actually pretty scared]

A special thanks to Yvo for holding my hand. You're the best!

Memories....

I was searching through some things [mountain o' boxes actually] and came across these two pics. I post them because they are two of my favorites of the girls when they were younger.

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The first is of our youngest on the occasion of her first Easter. She is 7 1/2 months old.

This is her older sister in first grade. She is 6 years old.

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I love digging around in all our stuff. We haven't unpacked a lot of it because we thought we would've purchased a home by now and I don't like putting a gazillion holes in the wall in a rental. I do love where we live now, but I hope we find a new home soon so I can gaze at these pics and others like them all day in a home we own.

Road Trip Pics

We had the best time! The driving part didn't seem long at all, the hotel was just great and the college was lovely. The oldest seemed to really like it, especially the full tour treatment she was given [It wasn't planned and such a big surprise!] and she loved the library. It was a nice addition to her site seeing pleasure that the lacrosse team was playing on campus and we had both a college hockey team and a wrestling team staying at our hotel. She may have turned the corner into "boy crazy" this weekend. There were cute guys at every turn. Them and her 6'3 father dogging her every step.

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I had to do something to occupy myself while the family ate lunch, right?

It was too cold to leave Spootie in the car alone so I volunteered to keep her company and the car running for the heater. Of course we opened the window for the photo-op [and Spot could growl at the passers-by.]

True fact: VA is the number one state in the US for number of personalized license plates.

We saw our share, but this one was our favorite.

JST UNME
We were all awake at 5 am, so sleep came around mile 200, at least for the youngest.

It was a crystal clear day.

The military spent the morning on excercises decorating the skies.

It was neat to watch.

The view, even in the stark winter, was spectacular the whole trip.

Many, many mountains. The homes built into the mountains were the most intense.

We saw hundreds of farms.

There were herds of cows, bunches of horses and even a few goats.
I can imagine how lovely this drive will be in the spring and fall.

All in all an incredibly successful, albeit short, trip.

Stuffed Shells

I don't know how appetizing this picture is, but that is a whoooole lotta cheesy, saucy goodness going on. This is what we had as our "red" entree on Valentine's Day. If they weren't so expensive to make [Hello!? Have you priced ricotta & mozarella cheese recently?] We would eat this every week. They are that good.

I am not posting the recipe and the following conversation with Pooldad will illustrate why it isn't necessary.

First this: Since walking is sometimes painful for me Pooldad has done all of the grocery shopping for the last 12 months. That is not an over statement and he deserves credit. He is exceptional at it and I love/appreciate his effort everytime he brings home food for the family. But every once in a while he hits a snag.

For example:

Pooldad returns home from the grocery store stocked with bags full of the ingredients for our Valentine's Day dinner. I meet him in the foyer and he immediately pulls a box out of one of the bags:

Pooldad: "Honey, these are the shells for dinner. I don't know ... are they big enough?"
Skippy: [Taking the box and looking it over] "Well, I don't know Pooldad, did the picture on the front of the box [points to delicious representation of a stuffed shell prominently displayed, in color, on the box] give you a hint?"
Pooldad: "............."
Skippy: [Turning box over and handing it back to him] "Or maybe the recipe on the back should clue you in?"
Pooldad: "I will give you a running start." Laughing, he snatches the box back and makes to bean his loving and adoring wife.

So, no recipe. Just use the one on the box and I can guarantee you will not be disappointed. My picture is gnarly, but trust me, they are so good. We had plenty of leftovers for dinner the next night, so I guess they aren't all that expensive, but it does total about $15-$18 for just the cheese.

Today the youngest is making "Apple Pan Dowdy" for extra credit in her history class. It is recipe she found in "The President's Cookbook" and was evidently quite popular way back in the day. The only problem I am having with the recipe is at one point it says to "dowdy" the crust.

Anyone know how to dowdy something?

'Cause it IS the Most Important Room to Keep Warm

We have a three level home. Most of my day is spent on the middle level which consists of the foyer, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the den and the guest bathroom [it is a half bath]. I have to avoid the stairs due to the condition of my legs - so I am basically stuck on this floor from the morning until bedtime. No big deal - I have everything I need - I am happy.
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Well, I was happy until the temperature dipped down into the single digits/negatives. Although this floor stays relatively warm we have had one small problem.
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The bathroom. The lil' bath [sink & toilet - with nary room to turn around in] is off our miniscule foyer within feet of our front door. This proved to be a challenge in using the facilities as the bathroom has no heat vent and with the cold air from the front door - it was COLD in there. Painful, don't want to remove any clothing and NO I surely don't want to touch any porcelain right now 'cause, seriously? I don't need anything to freeze kind of COLD. Outhouse COLD tadpoles. It was cold.
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I know, I know...I could use the bathrooms upstairs [they are oh, so toasty] but I simply can't go up and down 18 stairs that often during the day. [Oh, and before anyone asks - we got the house before I had this problem, otherwise we would be in a one floor home! ]
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Here is a picture of our "foyer" and the front door. I took this picture from the bathroom door way to give you an idea of how close the two are to eachother.

Well, my youngest took pity on me. Either that or she was becoming tired of hearing me yelp everytime I walked into the littlest igloo. She graciously went into the garage and carried up our space heater to install in the bathroom. It is an awesome [and safe] heater but it barely fit.
This was taken with my back to the wall - this is a really small space. Baby - oh baby - this thing works like a charm. It is now the warmest room in the house.

But my daughter noticed one flaw with her heater plan. She rectified it immediately:

And then she made me cake!

I have good kids don't I? I know I do. This is a practice cake for our Super Bowl Party in February. I think it looks awesome.

By the way - if this post was a little TMI - please leave me a comment. I don't want to offend anyone :D And by all means - please feel free to laugh at my bathroom misfortune. Because I know you will. heehee!