Scenes of a Thanksgiving

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

I started a post several days ago with pictures and everything, but before I could publish it, my computer was stolen.

Well, Mike took it. So, technically it was not stolen. But I don't have it right now. His broke and he needs a laptop for work. I guess sitting at the dining room table sipping tea and checking blogs while the kids paint doesn't count the same.

I did discover that my blog host (look at me talking like I know what I'm talking about!) now has an app, which was very exciting news! I also just had the thought that I could finish the aforementioned post instead of this post, but who am I to waste such excellent writing? Besides, this way you have something to look forward to! Pictures, even!

Cooking Scones Counts for Homeschooling, Right?

When I got books for Michaela to read for the history chapter that we're on, one of the books I was able to check out was The Secret Garden Cookbook.  While Michaela was not as eager as I had hoped she would be about reading Life in Charles Dickens' England, she was quite enthusiastic about the cookbook.  She thumbed through it (with her right hand, of course) and found a recipe for scones.  She asked if we could make them (I believe this was some time last week) and I said that would be a great thing for us to do on Saturday. 

This morning she asked again if we could make the scones, since I did not remember one bit on Saturday about visiting Victorian England by way of tea time in The Secret Garden.  I said sure but before I got "Sh" out of my mouth she had the flour measured out in a glass bowl on the counter alongside the gallon of milk. 

She did everything:  gathering ingredients, measuring, and mixing.  (I did pour the milk into a measuring cup, but it was just to be helpful.  I was not being a control freak AT ALL.)

While Michaela was happily smashing butter into her flour, Eliana was singing Elmo's World.  La-la-la-la.  La-la-la-la.  Elmo's world!  She sang it over and over, cheerfully, as she worked on a masterpiece at her little table in the back of our kitchen.

Now, it doesn't take much to amuse her sometimes.  (Sometimes it takes much more energy than I have in a week, but other times...she is easy to entertain.)  Today she discovered my silicone baking mat.  Such joy! Such fun!

It's red!

And wobbly.

She would probably have been very happy to dig around in the cabinet and discover what other wonders are there, but I was not mentally prepared to have to clean all that up.  No matter how much fun it would have brought to the kitchen.

Michaela rolled out her dough, cut it up, and we placed it on my baking stone.  After just twelve minutes (or so) we had lovely golden scones.  They got a thumbs up!  (You can't even tell that's her wounded thumb, can you?)  (It's just fine, by the way.)

It's no secret really...scones are delicious.

However, I think we probably ate a lot more than people in England eat with their tea...

Time Will Heal

Well, it's been a little over a week since the infamous Game Six of the World Series.  I know that time will heal the hurt, but it's still painful to think about.  I think the players not only physically train for games, but also emotionally and psycologically train as well.  They seem much more resilient than some fans (read: me).  I am already looking forward to next season.  (Although I have been thinking about how I can temper some of my zeal...baseball season is really long.  My family needs to eat, dishes need to get done, laundry ought to be processed.  And in a timely manner.) 

On a totally unrelated note, there was a VERY LARGE ROACH in our bathroom the other afternoon.  I had just used the potty (one day I will say something normal, like restroom) and pumped some soap on my hand and then jumped back as one of the biggest roaches I have yet seen scurried out from behind the faucet handles on the sink.  It is a good thing I had just used the bathroom, otherwise I may have wet my pants.  It stood there on the edge of the sink waving its six inch antennae at me as if to say,"I'm going to get you, my pretty, and your hair brush, too!"  I stood there with soap in my hand, not sure what to do first.  Using the sink was clearly not an option. 

I can't really remember all of what happened next, but it involved a half of a bottle of bleach and some hair spray. 

This roach would not die.  Not even after my Rambo + The Terminator + The Incredible Hulk + steroids assassination attempt.  It still skittered its way up the side of the sink, after LOSING A LEG! IN MY SINK! as though it were going to throw itself over the edge, and possibly charge me.  I finally got a wad of paper towels wet and slammed the wad onto the roach.

If my brother-in-law Bobby had not told me of this trick, I don't know what I would do.  I might still be standing in the bathroom, soap in one palm, bleach in the other hand. 

As it stands, I am sleeping in Eliana's bedroom.  This really helps with her coming to get in our bed in the middle of the night...see?  I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone. 

Killing.  It's what I do these days.

As in, I'm killing off these Oreos.  Who is going to stop me?  No one!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  *Wielding bottle of bleach maniacally*

Okay, so I don't really have a bottle of bleach right now.  But I do have the Oreos, and I am fairly certain that I will regret the decision to have any, much less as many as I have had, later this evening.  Or morning.  Whatever. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about many different things.  Why am I so obsessed with baseball, and my team?  Why do I get soooo bent out of shape when a roach crosses my path, to the point that I can't function like a normal human being?  Why can I not remember all of the things I need to remember in order to accomplish just one, JUST ONE, thing on any given day, whether it's getting what I need at the store, or taking all that I need to take to the class that the girls go to once a week, to checking to make sure Christian has done his daily reading and written about it?  I feel very frustrated most of the time, and angry, too. 

Angry at myself.  Angry at the house.  Angry at Mike.  Angry at the kids.  Angry at God. 

I have heard great sermons lately, sermons that have been part of a series on The Apostle's Creed.  The sermon that our Senior Pastor preached the Sunday that I officially became a member of our church (yes, almost five years later, how is that for accomplishing things in a timely manner?) was the kind of message that left me thinking,"He preached that just for me.  How did he know?"  Mike shared a prayer of confession with me the other night, from the Sanctuary service a couple of weeks ago, that was pretty powerful; it spoke straight to the things that I am struggling with right now.  Namely, being content in all things.  It spoke of Christ's sufferings, how he willingly walked that road.

And I don't want to sleep in my bedroom because of fourteen inch roaches.  (Including the antennae.  I'm telling you, it was huge.)

I don't even know what I am talking about.  I think mainly it's that I can't figure out how it all fits together.  From my OCD to my SIN.  From being content in a house that has roaches to wishing I lived closer to family.  From believing that Christ lived and died and rose again for me to having a very hard time accepting grace (I don't deserve it, you see).  I feel like I'm in a pickle, all the time.

And here we are, back to baseball.  That's why I love the game.

Halloween Flair, Halloween Scare

Each October 31st our church has a Fall Fun Festival; the kids dress up and go around to carnival-like activities, collect candy and toys, bounce their brains out in bounce houses, go through a maze, eat popcorn, and participate in a cake walk.  I decided to get pictures before this event, rather than after (when their hair is disheveled, their faces are green from eating icing [from the food coloring, not because they ate too much], and costumes have unraveled). 

See if you can figure out our theme...

No?  Well, that's because there wasn't one.  Eliana was going to be a chocolate chip cookie, but making her into a ballerina proved much less challenging. 

Let her spin...

And she is happy, so she was just fine that the first costume didn't work out.

I mean, who ever heard of a twirling cookie? 

As far as I know, cookies also don't get to wear sparkly shoes.  There are a lot of advantages to being a ballerina.  At least for Halloween.

Christian had his heart set on being a ninja.  Mike scored a costume at Target no less than 24 hours before we needed it for the Festival. 

This is a good thing, because you don't want to get on the bad side of a ninja.

Happy ninjas are definitely preferable to disgruntled ones.

Michaela and I had trouble deciding on what she should be for the evening.  Some suggestions were a baseball player, an angry bird, or a glass of milk to go along with Eliana.  We finally decided on something that we thought was clever; once we arrived, though, several people thought that she wasn't dressed up for Halloween at all. 

Can you guess who she was?

Nancy Drew, of course!  One of the moms there said,"Did she not want to dress up this year?"  I said,"She is dressed up!  She's Nancy Drew!"  The mom said,"Ohhh!  Yes!  I thought to myself when I saw her that she looked like a girl from 1959!"  I thought that was funny.

Mike had asked me to bring over his baseball cap since he was wearing his Rangers jersey; he told me to put on one of our Kinsler jerseys, too.  Once I decided to do that, I was all in.  I looked up what Ian Kinsler wears with his white jersey and discovered to my great delight that it is the bright blue socks...just like the ones Christian wore when he played soccer several years ago.  I found a hat and squeezed into my white pants and...

Voila!  What you can't see well in the photo is my blue Mary Jane Crocs.  I'm pretty sure he doesn't wear Crocs with his uniform, but they looked a lot better than my white running sneakers.  I thought it was pretty funny, especially for being free. 

We all had a good time at the Fall Fun Festival, and after they kicked everyone out, a small group went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.  We rounded a few blocks and then took our loot home.  Everyone got cleaned up, and I put Eliana to bed.  Around 9pm Christian was reading and Michaela asked to sew; I got on the computer to write a blog post, Mike was reading, and it was a very quiet, peaceful evening in our living room. 

Suddenly I heard this small scream and a gasp behind me.  Michaela was sewing at a little table that was set up in between the living room and the dining room.  I jumped up from my seat and turned around.  She was standing bent over, holding the fingers of her left hand with her right hand.  I was behind her and Mike came over so that he was in front of her.  From where I was I could see thread coming from her thumb and it had just started to bleed.  She was shaking and whimpering.  From where Mike was he could see what had happened.  I thought she had stitched through her thumb, but she had actually run her thumb up under the needle, jerked her hand back when it was punctured, and broken the needle off in her thumb.

Does this sound familiar?

Mike cut the thread so that she was not attached to the machine any longer, and took her over to the table.  He removed the thread from her thumb first, and it slid out very easily.  Then he slowly, gently pulled the needle tip out (she says she didn't even feel all of this...her thumb was numb.  She was so very brave.). What we weren't sure of is whether or not there was a small piece of metal still in there.  He took her to the ER and was there for a total of FIVE HOURS only to find out that they could not do anything for her, but she needed to go to a hand specialist. 

Just for the record, I think this is strange...don't they take bullets and other metal objects out of people?!

At any rate, she came home with a splint and a prescription for pain reliever.  She got to go to McDonald's at 4am.  Too bad she's not a huge fan.

And that was the gruesome ending to our otherwise tame Halloween night.  I told her that I know she wants to be like me, but there are better ways to do that.