MPCSS Honor Choir 2010 Hallelujah Chorus

MCPSS Honor Choir 2010 You Raise Me Up

These are a few of my favorite things...

During our Christmas vacation, Mimi made breakfast for dinner one night. That included the best homemade biscuits I'd had in a long time. She made in her crockery bowl with her hands, just like Nanny used to. So I figured I could try making some myself when I got home. I found the recipe that mom had e-mailed me several years ago. (I know that you can make biscuits from Bisquick but I think those taste gross.) Three ingredients seemed like an easy thing to me. I was pleasantly surprise when my biscuits turned out. I guess you can't screw up flour, crisco and buttermilk. I may be the last person on the planet to figure out how to make homemade biscuits but I was pretty darn proud of myself. Now I need to master some good ol' gravy for those biscuits. I have even figured out how to add a few ingredients to make those Red Lobster biscuits. In case you are interested, here is my recipe:

Buttermilk Biscuits

¼ c. shortening

2 c. self-rising flour

¾ c. (approx.) buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In large bowl cut shortening into flour. Add milk to form a soft dough. Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead about 10-12 times. Roll out to ½ inch thick. Use biscuit cutter or floured glass to cut biscuits. Don’t turn and twist the cutter. Just down and up. Place carefully on the ungreased cookie sheet and bake until nice and brown. Immediately brush with butter.

Red lobster biscuits: Add 1 c. shredded cheddar, ¼ tsp. garlic powder, to the flour mixture. You may need to add little more buttermilk. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet and cook for 8-10 min. Add ¼ tsp dried parsley to melted butter before brushing on.

Try these and you will not be disappointed. I taught the Young Women how to make these a couple of weeks ago. They did a great job and the biscuits were yummy. Here is my disclaimer: I have found that Wal-mart brand flour doesn't work as well as White Lily or Pillsbury. It may be all in my head, but I threw out half a bag of flour after several mediocre recipes of biscuits and muffins.

Easter 2010

What a great way to start the morning! I think I would like to wake up every morning to a little basket filled with candy just for me. Too bad I am not 6. My girls were lucky enough to wake up this morning and find this waiting for them. In there typical fashion they were up at 5:45 am. I could hear them in the baby monitor whispering to each other. So I knew my formal wake-up from them was coming soon.

What the picture tells you:

• We like candy; especially if it says Reese's on it.
• We left strawberries out for the Easter Bunny.
• My kids were thrilled to get The Chipmunks movie and the sing-along DVD with it. Every family with girls needs this. I mean who wouldn't want their daughters going around singing "Single Ladies" all the time?
• Yes, the Easter Bunny left money and a lengthy note.

What the picture doesn't tell you:

• All of the girls slept in the same room last night. You would have thought it was Christmas Eve. Actually they were calling it Easter Eve all day. Whatever. Back to why they were all in the same room... Taylor and Payton are now sharing a room because they have been having a little difficulty getting along. I don't know if having them share a room is the best solution to this problem but I figured it was worth a try. So we now have a "guest" room. Fancy, huh? Hayden didn't want to sleep in her room because she was afraid the Easter Bunny was going to get her. Again, whatever. So she hauled her portable mattress, also known as Beary, to T&P's room and slept on the floor. When they woke up and came down stairs, they were very sure to let me know that none of them woke any of the others up. (They get in trouble for that.)
• We left strawberries out for the Easter Bunny because we didn't have any carrots or celery in the fridge. I didn't even think about it. The kids reminded me that we needed something as they were going to bed. Thankfully I had just been to Wal-mart and spent a small fortune to buy groceries for my ravenous family this month. By the way, don't go to the Tillman's Corner Wal-mart. There is nothing left now.
• The Easter Bunny left money because he is NICE. Right before bed, Hayden and Payton decided to write EB a letter requesting specific things. Hayden asked for a basketball and Payton asked for the next book in the "My Sister the Vampire" series. I tried to explain to them that EB is not like Santa Claus. But they thought he knew how bad they wanted those things so he would bring them. Taylor just opted to draw a picture and leave it for him. The Easter Bunny's note said he didn't have those things in his basket so he left them some money to go buy them later.
• The picture is taken at an akward angle so you can't see the dishes in the sink.

We dyed eggs this afternoon. The kids don't like hard-boiled eggs, egg salad, or deviled eggs. Yet, we still dye eggs every year just for fun. I didn't want to waste a bunch of eggs so I boiled just enough for us to have the experience. I am glad we did it.
We did have to remind Payton that if you stick your fingers in they dye, they will get stained. What the picture doesn't tell you: I let Payton fix her hair all by herself. I was pretty impressed with her and I fought the urge to redo it and add some hairspray and a bow.

You can't see Hayden's jeans, but she has them on. If they are clean, she is wearing them. She loves jeans. I knew we would be taking a few pictures today and I tried helping her pick out a cute outfit. She wanted her jeans though and tried wearing her old soccer jersey. I vetoed that so we agreed on this shirt. I figure since she has to wear a uniform every day to school, it is not worth it for me to be uptight about her clothes all the time.

I am glad that Taylor is still excited about all the Easter fun. I worry that I am going to wake up one day and my little girl will be gone and young woman will have taken her place. I am not ready for that.

Over the past week, several people have asked me if we had any plans for Easter. My answer was usually "Nothing special" or "It is just going to be us." Then I remembered that my family is something special and they are worth my time and effort to make it a memorable Easter. We don't have to have people over for me to make it nice. So, I asked the girls if they wanted Easter dinner or brunch. They all voted for brunch. The menu included: fruit salad, cream puffs, pigs in a blanket, a sausage skillet thing, and breakfast punch. Bryan had chocolate milk, by request and we even had whipped cream for the fruit salad. I busted out my 3-tiered plate stand (a $1 yard sale find) and my newest kitchen accessory. Do you see it....the beverage dispenser? After visiting Lynne at Christmas and seeing hers, I knew I had to have one. Sam's put these out a couple of months ago and I have been eyeing them ever since. This one joined our family yesterday and it will be invited to all parties from now on. Maybe I should name it.

I am considering changing my blog name.

I know this is not earth shattering news or something that anyone cares about. However, I have a good reason. First of all it is 1:09 in the morning and I can't sleep because I have a million things that I need to do circling in my head. One of those things is that I need to post my Easter pics for the family to see. That reminds me that it has been months since I updated my blog. Then I remind myself that I don't update my blog very often because I am a CRAPPY photographer. So the pictures I take never quite measure up to the memory that goes along with them and alot of our life is mundane and may seem even boring at times. But it is a life that I love (most of the time) and want to remember. That brings me to another reason I am changing my blog. I have a terrible memory, to say the least. Pictures don't always tell the whole story. So, my goal is to tell the whole story about our life. The good, the bad, and the stuff I don't have pictures of.

Although our family is still "Four to One," I want our story to be what the pictures aren't showing. A picture isn't always worth a thousand words.

Saturday...

I love Saturdays when we get to spend them together as a family. This was one of those days.

On Friday night, Taylor asked Bryan if she could go with him on the paper route. She was anxious to go when he woke her up. When they got back, she ran into my room to ask me if we could go out to breakfast as a family. I said sure and in my half-asleep state, I agreed to go here:

I have to remember that just because I have permenant veto power, doesn't mean that I always need to use it if I don't like something. So despite my disdain for buffets, we went. It helped that we had coupons. And really, in the world of buffets, Golden Corral is not too bad for breakfast. The girls loved all the choices and the best part to them is getting to have ice cream for breakfast dessert. As we are sitting there eating, we start to remember that Hayden as thrown up at the ol' corral a few times. She decided that she is going to start refering to it as "That Place Where I Throw Up." Thankfully, we made it through with breakfast in tact... or in tummy.

After our fine dining experience, we headed out for some more culture at Wal-mart. Once in a while, we do the once a month grocery haul as a family. I am not sure why. This time it was a matter of convenience. We stuck to the list and made it out with all our kids and no extra Easter candy. That is an accomplishment.

We rushed home to unload the cold stuff and go right back out to this event:

The Downtown Mobile Alliance along with the Exploreum hosted this event. The weather was great and we had alot of fun. The dino egg hunt was held in Beinville Square. After that, everyone paraded down Dauphin Street to Cathedral Square where they had live music, crafts, face painting, storytime, etc. We stayed until it got too hot. It was well worth the drive downtown. As a bonus, we got to hang out with the Kirby-ton clan. As usual, no visit downtown is complete without a stop at the peanut store.

After a quick stop at Best Buy, to window shop, we headed home to recharge. Then it was back out to Sam's for a rousing rendition of "Who Has To Go To The Bathroom Even Though We Just Left The House?" And a quick game of "Let's See How Many Times We Can Act Like Wild Animals Before We Get In Trouble." After that we ran by Target so the girls could get in a round of "Ignore Mom and Dad Calling Us While We Play The Display Wii Even Though We Have one At Home." I will loan my kids out if anyone is interested in learning these games.

St. Patrick's Day, Bake Sale, and few random pics

(This post was actually written on 4/5/10)

Taylor had a field trip on St. Patty's day. I guess it wasn't a real field trip, but we will call it that. The Mobile Singing Children were putting on a performance called "Bach to the Future" so she missed school to participate in that. It was at the Davidson High School Auditorium and a bunch of school groups came to see it for their field trip. It was a little education into the history of music and composers but done on an elementary school level with some really neat arrangements. There is only one other child from her school in MSC and she was not returning to school so I was easily talked into letting Taylor take the rest of the day off.

I decided to take her out to Remco so we could have lunch with Bryan. I let her pick the place. She picked daddy's favorite, Ming's Chinese Buffet. Since that is very close to the top of the list of places I don't want to eat, I stayed behind at the office and worked on a school project. I am glad I did, because I think they enjoyed their little date. After lunch we went to Wal-mart to get Bake Sale supplies and green dinner stuff. We had a really fun time looking for green food and figuring out what we should have. Here is what we decided on:
We had green alfredo, grapes, cucumbers, and green Hawaiian Punch. For dessert, we had green cotton candy and I made green chex mix. When Bryan came home and saw the green alfredo he said the girls weren't going to eat it. But, I guess if it is a holiday, they are up for anything. (Hayden was so excited about green dinner that it was the first thing she told her teacher about the next morning.) Payton made all of us leprechaun place tags. I bought the green paper plates and already had the muffin liners because...

Apparently I make decent looking muffins. I make muffins about once a week for breakfast. If there are leftovers the girls take them for snack. About a month ago, I was in Hayden's class and a little boy asked me if I would make muffins for him on his birthday. I agreed so he put his order in for some blueberry muffins. He was so sweet about it so I definitely was more than happy to. His birthday is March 17th so I picked up St. Patty's Day muffin liners. I sent Hayden off that morning with a batch of blueberry and a batch of cinnamon streusal muffins. They must have been good, because I was in her class again on Friday, and he asked me if I would make him some more muffins.

But there is no rest for the baking weary. The student council hosted a Bake Sale on March 18th and 19th for Shriner's Hospital. All the kids on student council were asked to contribute something. Two kids on student council means double the baked goods. I went with heart shaped and egg shaped brownies (some with white chocolate chips and some with sprinkles) and egg shaped rice krispy treat pops. I am sure there is a better name for those but I can't think of one. At the last minute I whipped up another batch of rice krispy treats because I was worried they wouldn't have enough. Well, the bake sale was a success. They ran out of stuff both days. Even after limiting kids to one item each, they still had to turn kids away. Since Taylor is the historian, she is responsible for taking pictures. When I looked at the pictures, I couldn't believe the line. I think they might do another one before the end of the year. There have already been some requests put in for more rice krispy treat pops.

Now for the random pictures:

We took this picture because Hayden wanted to see her uvula.

And this picture is of Hayden wearing Bryan's pajama bottoms and sweatshirt. It is at a weird angle because her pants had just fallen down and she was hurrying to get them pulled up. You can see Taylor in the background pointing and laughing.

Because of Hayden's historically poor choices in clothing, she has a few guidelines she is supposed to stick to if we are going anywhere:

• It has to fit
• It has to belong to her
• It has to match
• It has to be the right season

We were just hanging out after school, so the rules go out the window. I guess she figures one out of four isn't bad. That night when she got ready for bed, she put her own pajamas on. And put those pajama bottoms on Beary. He is still wearing them.