Such a stressful one for me. I love the decorations, the special food, the lights… But I stress. So terribly that I lose sight of what it means to me and my family. This year, I’ve decided that there will be no “annual update” from us. Despite all the snark and ugliness, I *LIKE* getting…
Category: holiday
what’s for dinner?
I’ve never been shy about it. I don’t enjoy the food part of Thanksgiving very much. I don’t like the traditional foods – I don’t eat turkey. Cranberry sauce is not a “fruit” that I care to eat. Stuffing, even if vegetarian, is something I just don’t like. I eat the mashed potatoes and not…
14 years gone in the blink of an eye
Can you believe it? I sure can’t. Camille is now FOURTEEN. So cliche, but it really does seem like yesterday that she was born. Happy birthday to my sweet girl, and happy birthday a few days late to her lovely friend Claire whom I am honored to have watched grow up from a toddler into…
chloe’s birthday video
I’ve never used the video feature on my Digital Rebel, despite having owned it for 20 months now. It has some shortcomings, but maybe with practice, I can learn to take a reasonable video with it …
birthday party time!!
My memory is as poor as ever, but I believe that this was the first ever *birthday party* that we’ve ever hosted. We’ve had Harry Potter parties, Ralph’s World parties, Easter parties, ice cream parties, swim parties, winter solstice parties, and so on and so forth. But up until now, I’ve managed to avoid having…
Memorial Day Weekend in Decatur
For the first time in months, I had a weekend that truly felt like a weekend, despite having some catching up at work to do and an online course for my fire class that I needed to take. On Memorial Day weekend, our street gets closed down for the Decatur Arts’ Fest. Not only did…
quick dye jobs aren’t so good
For the past few years (2011, 2010, NOT 2009 – Year of the WHITE HOUSE EATER EGG ROLL, 2008, 2007 and certainly earlier years), we’ve used natural dyes for coloring eggs – turmeric, red cabbage, berries, beets, spinach and more. Even though we didn’t return from spring break until Friday night, I hit the store…
pinterest – evil or inspiring??
Today, despite my still feeling under the weather and our plan to get packed up for a trip (we have TAHT down to a science), the girls and I ran out to Michaels and Target…. Not because we needed anything (though we did get things for our trip), but because, against my will, I got…
Happy Birthday to Me!
Thursday, my age was incremented by one. Other than the fabulous birthday wishes I received on Facebook, it was a fairly ordinary day around here. Work, shuttling Chloe around, moving forward on the to-do list filled my hours. But I also set aside some time for dreaming about what I want this year to be…
a knocker downer
Our family joke when we see a house that is collapsing in on itself is that it isn’t a “fixer upper” but that it is a “knocker downer”. Each year, the girls and I make a different gingerbread creation, such as a gingerbread tree, gingerbread village, etc. (all from kits, I’m not that creative). And…
hello my name is gwyneth and i like holiday cards.
It should no longer came as any surprise to me, but I’m once again reminded of how “unhip” I am. Everyone around me is making fun of Christmas “brag letters” saying how much they despise them as being ridiculous and how they think the letters that make fun of the sincere ones are “hysterically funny”….
camille’s cake – 26 sep 2011
Camille celebrated her thirteenth birthday today! Claire came to the store to help us pick out dinner and a cake — Camille decided on an oreo ice-cream cake, in the end! We had a nice evening, celebrating and watching Doctor Who…
Chloe’s Birthday Missions
At last, Chloe is nine! Sure, her birthday was almost a month ago, but she had not completed her birthday missions. Birthday missions? What are those you ask? Ah, well, to the listeners of the Absolutely Mindy show on Kids Place Live, these are the tasks that one must complete to become a year older….
Happy Birthday Chloe!
She’s now an nine year old! Dinner at her favorite restaurant (Harmony Vegetarian) with friends, her parents and her grandparents. Then home for ice cream cake and presents and sparklers. Our family rule is that nine is the magic age for getting ears pierced. I suspect that we will head out sometime in the coming…
Gazoo’s Fourth Birthday
When Gazoo walked in the door and made herself at home in our house at the end of October of 2007, we had no idea where she came from or how old she was, though it was obvious she was pretty young. We took her off to the vet, who said she was about four…
sparklers – 4 jul 2011
To celebrate Gazoo’s birthday and the Fourth of July, we had a party! The girls made a cake, I cut up veggies for the grill, Rob grilled. Some friends came over to celebrate with us; we made homemade ice cream and lit up some sparklers too. We stayed up far too late but the combination…
Dyeing our Eggs
The kids like them. The process is a tradition here — eggs dyed from the vegetable and spice aisles. No PAAS here. We use red cabbage, beets, spinach, turmeric onion skins, blueberries and more. Unfortunately, this year we waited until the last minute, and I was caught up in other things. The girls took over….
One Step at a Time
As you probably know, I’m not a huge fan of clutter. One way to stop the clutter from becoming an issue is, of course, to make sure that there is a net outflow of crap from the house. I don’t buy plastic junkies for the girls. I discourage them from buying it for themselves —…
pine lake egg hunt – 23 apr 2011
A chilly morning, but everyone came out in force for the Pine Lake Easter Egg Hunt! The prizes were these awesome felted eggs that Camille had helped to make…
barbara’s birthday – 28 mar 2011
Barbara pulled out photo albums at her birthday party to show Chloe …