Happy Birthday To Me

Yesterday was my 33rd birthday. It was nice. Didn't do much, got to sleep in and then read for a little while in the morning. Brendan took Emma and Zoe to Dominick's to pick out some flowers and a card for me. Emma was set on roses and picked out a lovely pink dozen of them. When looking at the cards, she settled on one with a great big pink rose on the front, sure that it was the one I wanted. It was a pretty card, although it was to "Mother" and read, "from both of us." Her intentions were sweet, so how could I not love it?

I made myself an almond cake from a cookbook I received from my mother-in-law for Christmas. I know many people think you shouldn't make your own cake for your birthday, but I actually enjoy it. Twice a year, my birthday and Mother's Day, I make whatever dessert or cake I want. I don't worry if the kids or Brendan will like it or eat it, I simply make what I want to try or have. This cake was simple and delicious. There was no frosting and it didn't need any. What I also loved about this cake is it made a single 9-inch layer, so not a lot of leftovers! Ian and Brendan both liked it, while Emma and Zoe wouldn't try it, opting instead for vanilla ice cream.

I received some cool presents from Brendan, a book called "Whose Bible Is It?", a program to organize all of my recipes on the computer, and some very warm and fleecy pajamas, which I've been wanting since we've turned the heat down this winter to counter the higher gas costs. The kids gave me lots of hugs and kisses and sang me happy birthday and "May the Dear Lord Bless You" sung to the tune of happy birthday. It was a good day.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Just want to say Merry Christmas to everyone today! May your day be filled with good food, good fun, and may you be surrounded by those you love.

Here are two samples of my children's art to celebrate the season. Emma made the tree while Ian created the snowman.

Polar Express

I fell in love with The Polar Express book by Chris Van Allsburg the first time I read it many years ago. Ian's first grade teacher, Miss Bennett, loves the story and movie, and got Ian excited about the story by creating a Polar Express in her classroom. The kids had doughnuts and hot chocolate, received a ticket that they had to have punched by the Conductor (Miss Bennett's Dad), then settled in to listen to the story read by Miss Bennett. Ian came home with a bell around his neck and a true excitement for the story. I suggested we rent the movie to watch tonight and he jumped at the chance. He added lines from the story while watching the movie and was very excited throughout. I loved the movie as well and think we need to get a copy for yearly Christmas viewing. Get the book and the movie, you won't be sorry.

Christmas Concert

Ian's Christmas Concert was on Wednesday and it was great! The kindergarten through third graders all gathered in the school gym to perform Christmas songs for their parents and families. The first graders performed first and sang their three songs loudly and clearly. The third song was about all of the things they are thankful for, and each first grader had a short solo. Ian sang loud enough (without microphones) for the whole audience to hear. It was fun.

The other grades came out and sang their songs, which our girls enjoyed as much as Ian's songs. Finally, the kindergarten came out and did their "Christmas Pageant" program. They sang about the Angel Band dressed as angels and played instruments with the gusto of 5 and 6 year olds. They then moved over to the Nativity scene, complete with Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and angel Gabriel. While singing Silent Night, the shepherds and three wise men completed the scene. They ended with Away In A Manger and Zoe became very animated and excited seeing all the kids up on the stage. As I am a sucker for all things adorable, I choked up and realized how amazing and lucky I feel for sending Ian to Our Lady of Good Counsel. Every Christian kid should get a chance to act out the Nativity for Christmas. Those that don't are really missing out. I know how proud Ian was last year to be one of the three wise men. He still points out and gets excited about anything that involves the three kings.

Anyways, it was a great night. It is definitely one of my favorite Christmas experiences so far this year.

Oh My Gosh! I'm Conservative!

Found this on another website and thought it was kind of funny. Brendan and I have had a few discussions about the "War on Christmas" this year. If any of you were not previously aware of my political leanings, this should make it abundantly clear.

I'll Give You More Any Day!

While carrying Zoe through the house today I gave her a big kiss on her left cheek. She giggled her big belly giggle then pointed to her right cheek and said, "Moe". I melted into a puddle on the floor then gave her a kiss on her other cheek.

This is why I became a mom.

Another Reason To Be Happy With What We've Got

Brendan and I have been living in our modest three bedroom one and a half bath home for almost six years now. It is actually our second home, having bought our first house out in Cleveland before moving here to Chicago. I love it, but it is a little small with three kids and a cat. It is also in a terrible school district, prompting us to have to pay for Ian to go to Catholic school. I have watched several of my neighbors, four very close ones in the last two years, move out of our neighborhood and into nicer, newer homes. Hey, we are thinking of looking in the Spring ourselves. But one of the good things about a smaller house with a southern rear exposure is we don't have to run our heat a lot. Our bills are pretty reasonable, although we have turned our thermostat down to 66 at all times and occasionally down to 64 at night with the threat of higher gas bills this year. I sometimes wear three layers (a turtleneck, a sweater, and a sweatshirt over it all) as well as slippers over my socks. But, when the sun is shining, even on a bitterly cold day, our house warms up so much that the heat doesn't run until the sun goes down for the day. This, and the fact that there simply is not a lot of square footage to heat, keeps our gas bill pretty reasonable.

My girlfriend with a new, beautiful home with high ceilings just got her most recent gas bill. It was $465!!!! Our last one was only around $180 or something I think. Not that I'm thrilled with that, but I'll take $180 anyday over $465. I feel bad for her, it sucks to have one bill that high and know we still have at least three more months of temperatures similar to the ones we are having right now. But, I'm happy that for this year, we are still in our little house, with our one and a half bathrooms, and our smaller gas bills.

Why Does Scrooge (McDuck) Hate Christmas?

Ian chose to watch "Mickey's Christmas Carol" for his show while I made dinner tonight. Brendan and I love just about any and all versions of Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" so to have him make this choice made me happy. (We have at least three different children's versions of "A Christmas Carol" and hope to eventually get the kids to watch all of them as well as when they are older the 1999 version with Patrick Stewart-our favorite!)

Anyhow, as the story gets going Scrooge, played by Scrooge McDuck, is bah humbugging Christmas. This is where Ian takes the time to inform Emma, his little sister, why Scrooge hates Christmas so much.

Ian - He (Scrooge) hates Christmas.

Emma - Why?

Ian - I think his mom and dad were killed on Christmas Eve.

Emma - Does he like it even a little?

Ian - No.

I'm so glad Emma has someone like Ian to clarify the murky spots in the plot. Never mind that he mixed a little Batman lore into the story.

No Barenaked Holidays For Me

I'm pissed off right now! I went to the official Barenaked Ladies website and found out that the "Barenaked For The Holidays" special was going to air on Bravo today and possibly at a later date as well. I was all excited about it as BNL is my absolute favorite band of all time. I was getting online to blog about it and to give everyone a heads up about when they too could catch this great show. I checked the online listings for Bravo today and saw nothing. I typed in several variations in their search engine and still came up with bupkus. I go over to Bravo Canada's website and lo and behold it is right at the top of the page. Our options for the evening here in Bravo USA are Faith Hill or Elton John. Come on! Not even one lousy hour for the Ladies!?! I know they are Canadian, but they're awesome! E.J. is English but he is still being shown. BNL is singing Christmas music for goodness sakes!

Workin' Together

It snowed again last night/ this morning so Emma, Zoe and I went out to shovel the driveway after dropping Ian off at school. Emma loves using the little orange snow shovel and happily runs up and down the driveway carrying snow from one side all the way to the other to put in some pile she's making. I have to admit that at the start of the snow season I enjoy shovelling, too. It is one chore I actually like and unless it's really bitter cold, don't usually mind doing. It was cold this morning and before I had the driveway done my fingers were feeling cold and painful. I just wanted to get the work done and get inside.

Enter Emma. She comes pushing her shovel next to me, picking up snow and singing, "Working Together, working together" in the most angelic voice you can imagine. Her song warmed me up enough to finish the shovelling this morning.

Eeeewwwww! Yuck!!!

Okay, it's a given parents have to clean up gross stuff a lot. Poop, pee, vomit, spit, chewed up food, boogers and snot. But today when I was mopping the floor I got a lovely little surprise for my cleaning talents. As I cleaned the bathroom floor, I looked up at the wall next to the toilet and saw what appeared to be a poop smear. Not a big one, but a smear of feces nonetheless. I actually don't know for a fact that it is poop. Maybe it is half chewed up Tootsie Roll. Maybe not. My initial reaction (besides disgust) was to sniff it to make sure. Then my rational intelligent half of my brain said, "Don't do it! Don't smell it!" So I didn't smell it. Instead I just cleaned it up with my Antibacterial Clorox Wipes and hope I never see anything like it again!

A Happy "Blue Christmas"?

I borrowed the Fats Domino CD "Christmas Gumbo" from the library today and was listening to it while I mopped the kitchen floor. I like hearing different singers perform Christmas songs and since I don't have any Christmas songs sung by Fats Domino in my collection, thought I'd give this CD a try. It's pretty good, he leaves the songs fairly traditional while adding his own jazzy blues sound. But when I heard "Blue Christmas" I was amused. It was upbeat and snappy, I could almost hear Domino smiling while he sang it. I like it, a new version to enjoy.

So Darn Cute You Could Just Eat Her Up!

This is Zoe, wearing her brother's Viking hat.

Gingerbread Cookies

Since the Christmas baking season was officially opened with the first batch of gingersnaps being made the first weekend of December, my kids have been talking about making gingerbread men. Yesterday Emma helped me mix up some gingerbread cookie dough. We stuck it in the fridge and waited for Ian to come home from school to roll out, cut, bake and decorate the cookies. Ian and Emma took turns with my little gingerbread boy and girl cookie cutters, as well as a star cutter and my big gingerbread boy cutter. After cutting out the cookies and depositing them on the cookie sheets, we baked them up and waited for them to cool. After they were completely cooled, I frosted each cookie with vanilla frosting and passed them on to Ian, Emma and Zoe for decorating. I sat an array of colored sugars and Christmas themed sprinkles out and let the kids go to town. They each began shaking and sprinkling their tasty decorations all over the frosted cookies. Ian and Emma both asked if their cookies looked nice while Zoe kept trying to open new sections of her sprinkles can so she could add more sparkle to her cookies. Zoe got both of my variety cans covered in frosting from her cookies and giggled while she licked the frosting off the tops. Fortunately this is the third year or so for those sprinkles, so they were pretty well done anyways. I had to throw both containers away after Zoe's masterful decorating.

It took a lot of patience on my part to not clean up all the sprinkles as they rained onto the floor and not to tell the kids to use less sprinkles on the cookies as they coated every inch of frosting with non-pareils. It bugs the heck out of me when there is a lot of waste of sprinkles or other things like that. But I also know it kills the fun when mom tells the kids to use the sprinkles they've already spread all over the table. When I act like that, what begins as fun ends up as my kids saying they don't want to frost any more cookies. So , I bit my tongue and took satisfaction in the fact that I may have actually learned one thing in my six plus years as a parent. The kids and I had a ball, and the cookies obviously turned out beautiful!

Snow Ice Cream

Besides playing in the snow yesterday, we also made snow ice cream to eat. We waited until Ian got home from school and then set to work making our treat. I made this for the first time last year and followed a simple recipe. This year, I just winged it. And, it came out much tastier this time than I remember it being last year. Here is my simple recipe for snow ice cream. Try it the next time you get a fresh snowfall.

Snow Ice Cream

Fresh snow
half & half
milk
sugar
vanilla

Fill a mixing bowl with fresh snow. Add some sugar and some half & half. Stir. If two snowy and thick, add more half & half. Taste. If not sweet enough, add more sugar. Add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (or to taste). Stir until well incorporated. Eat and enjoy!

Use the milk if you run out of half & half. It will still be good. I used 1% milk when all of my half & Half was gone. I tried this recipe last year with evaporated milk and just regular milk, no half & half. It was okay, but this year's batch was nice and creamy. It will be like soft serve, and you have to eat it all right away. It's a lot of fun to do with the kids on a cold snowy day!

Did You Do Anything Fun Today?

Emma has been talking about playing in the snow since the first few flakes appeared in November. I always assured her that when we got a lot of snow, we would go out and play in it. Well, that's just what we did this morning! Emma and Zoe loved the deep snow, and Emma insisted on pulling her sister in the sled. After some snow angel making, sled riding and pulling, snowball making and hockey playing in the driveway, we finally went inside. All that in less than 30 minutes!

Watch Out Notre Dame!

I'm thinking OSU is a shoe-in for the Fiesta Bowl title. Just a hunch.

Thanks, Mark!

Christmas Kindness

It is so easy to get caught up in the frothy busyness of the Christmas season. I am feeling it more this year than in years past. Tonight I was reminded of the true spirit of Christmas and Christ. My two teenaged neighbor boys, of whom I don't even know their names, and they don't know mine, came and shovelled my driveway. I didn't ask them to. They didn't ask me. They came over, shovelled, and left, without any word. I probably wouldn't have even known they did it except that when I was making dinner I went out into the garage to get some hot dogs from the freezer and heard shovelling sounds. I peeked out my window and there they were, shovelling my driveway and sidewalks. I am so touched by their act of kindness. I am going to try and pass that kindness on to someone else now. Get in the Christmas spirit, do a kindness for someone without thought of thanks. You'll feel so much better about it than running to the mall to get the perfect present.

Humbled By My Kid 2

So Emma, my three year old so full of wisdom, floored me again this afternoon. We were making a nativity art project where Emma was coloring a picture of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. While coloring, she said that crosses were bad. I asked her why she said that. She said crosses were bad because the bad soldiers put the big (adult) Jesus on the cross and he died.

All I can say is, Wow!

Holy Day of Obligation

Today is the Solemnity of Mary, a holy day of obligation for Catholics. I took the girls with me to Our Lady of Good Counsel's mass at 9:00 AM because that was the mass Ian was attending with his school today. I have only attended mass there a few times because we belong to a different parish. As I was waiting for mass to begin with my two girls I waved to Ian who seemed very happy to see me. I also noticed Father Tony setting up an electric guitar. He is an older, balding priest with a strong Polish accent. There was no piano accompinament today, but there was Fr. Tony, with his electric guitar. All the traditional hymns were sung by the students, parishioners and teachers led by Fr. Tony on the electric guitar. Kind of different, but still good. The rest of the mass was fairly simple, students doing the readings and Fr. Russell giving his sermon about Mary. To be quite honest, I didn't get a lot out of it because I had two squirming girls I was trying to keep in line. At the end of mass one of the students announced that the closing song would be "Letter B." Or so I thought. The kids had been given papers with songs on it, I just thought they were lettered and not numbered. Imagine my surprise when strains of the Beatles tune, "Let It Be" came from the electric guitar and mouths of the kids! Very different indeed! I don't know if the students even know the origins of the song, but I sure did. I also know I never got to sing a Beatles song when I left church! It was a memorable service!