A Tale of Two Girls

At a glance, you would expect that the pictures on the left might portray our 5 year old. I mean, she's young and may not be as capable of making her bed and that it might be more difficult for her to keep her desk organized.

However, upon closer examination, you will see the tell tale signs of Caitlyn in the pictures on the right. Her name above her desk for one. And the pandas on her bed for another.

I mentioned to Christian about posting these pictures some weeks ago but Christian didn't think that I should do it. But the situation has not improved much and I'm at my wits end with the mess. In all fairness, Emily has made her bed occasionally now and so I chose a day where her bed was not as much of a mess. Those are the days Emily calls her bed "her nest." And in all fairness to Caitlyn, her desk in the picture is a bit more cluttered than usual as we've given her use of Christian's little SE to play with for her diligence (mostly hoping to entice Emily to clean her desk so that she can take a turn with it).

Emily's desk is about normal. Notice the desk drawer on the floor? Most days, Emily does her homework on the floor because there is simply no room on her desk. The floor around her desk does not fare much better.

The novelty of the "treasure chest"wore off for Emily some months ago. She's not even trying anymore. It's not that Emily doesn't want anything out of the treasure chest...just not enough to change her slovenly ways. It still seems to get Caitlyn going still and except for a couple of weeks here and there, she usually gets to go to the treasure box.

We obviously need a new strategy for Emily. Any ideas?

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day sort of started a week earlier when Auntie Marian came by to deliver valentines to everyone.

Since Caitlyn missed out on Valentine's day last year because she was super sick, I tried to make Valentine's day super special for her this year. We did some Valentine's crafts over the weekend, worked on writing out valentines to her classmates and made Valentine's cookies for both the girls' class parties.

Of course, the actual Valentine's party at school was a major sugar fest. Especially in Caitlyn's class. Some of those parents are crazy! They had enough stuff for another party the next day!

We  usually try to get the girls something special for Valentines. This year we got them a few trinkets and balloons and had them waiting for them when they got home.

But one of their favorite Valentine's came unexpectedly from our neighbor, who brought them little heart shaped boxes of chocolates with little Valentine's bears attached. I didn't get a picture because the girls ripped into them too quickly!

Christian took the girls out to get me some flowering plants some time over the weekend and they surprised me with them on Valentine's morning. Emily picked out a primrose. Caitlyn picked out some daffodils. Christian, of course, got me another David Austin rose for my garden. I got one for our anniversary, one for Christmas, and now one for Valentines. I left most of my David Austin roses at our old house. We attempted to bring my favorite, but alas, it did not survive the transplant. So, I'm super excited about my new collection of David Austin roses!

CNY

Today is Chinese New Year. We celebrated this past weekend with my family. We did our traditional thing of getting together to make dumplings shaped like gold ingots. Unfortunately, it was hard this year to coordinate everyone's schedule so it was mainly just us and my mom making all the dumplings. My brother got there towards the end to help. It was a lot of work but I love it and look forward to it every year.

Unfortunately, it's a lot of work for my mom too and she is just getting too old and tired to do it all now and we will either have to step it up and do most of the work or it will quickly disappear as another lost tradition. Along with the dumplings, my mom made taro and daikon cake even before we got there.

That's not even including the big dinner which included beef, bbq pork, chicken, shrimp, fish and a couple different vegetables. There is some symbolism to all the different foods prepared for New Year's but I don't really know most of them. And believe it or not, when my dad still helped out, we had a lot of other kinds of dim sum and dishes too.

Now it's just my mom doing the cooking and although we did what we could to help out, she still did the bulk of it on her own and she was simply exhausted by the end of the night. If nothing changes next year, I'm afraid we are just going to end up at some chinese restaurant next year with the rest of the masses.

The good thing is that our girls are getting old enough to be of real help in making the dumplings now so  hopefully we can carry on the tradition nevertheless.

Update

I realize that I'm not off to a great start this year as I have not made one post thus far this year. Frankly, nothing much is going on. The kids got back to school after the break and we got back into our routine.

Except for the dreaded college students living on our street, our little cul-de-sac is mainly comprised of nice quiet retirees. Unfortunately, in the past month, three of them have passed on. One is left a widower. One leaves a son but we are uncertain how long he plans on staying and the other house is empty. The family is still sorting through the house. We are afraid of what will become of the empty house.

I did work on my new blog book though and have sent it in to get published recently. I think overall, it went faster than the first since I knew more of what I wanted and did not try quite so hard to squeeze everything in. I have not yet received it though.

The only thing exciting going on for the month is my new found love for no knead bread. I read about it some years ago (3 or 4 at least) and kind of saved the information but made excuses to myself of why I did not try it. One of which was that I did not have a covered cast iron or enameled iron pot. Well, we got one from a friend a couple of Christmas' ago (ehem) and hummed and hawed some more over it. Earlier this month, I finally took the dive and tried it. It was easier than anything I've tried in the past and the result? Fabulous, if I say so myself! Better than anything I've made in the past (although, for my part, I'm not the bread baker of the house). Moist chewy crumb, thin crispy crust and yes, no kneading involved! And, Christian was even impressed! I've made about 5 loaves already. I can't get enough of it and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves bread!

The key is in the wet dough and a long slow rise. It is so wet, it makes if very difficult to knead even if you wanted to. And the slow rise gives it a good flavor. Plus, cooking it in the covered pot keeps the moisture in that helps to give it that steam injected treatment of professional bread bakers ovens and creates that ever elusive thin crackling crust. Then the cover is taken off so that it can bake into a nice golden brown. Nothing is easier! I only wished I tried it sooner!

Sea World

Chistian's dad got our family tickets to Sea World this Christmas. We decided that we would go on Monday after Christmas between rain storms while the kids were still on break. Big mistake. The place was packed. Or it's been years since we went last, maybe it is always that packed now? They have also replaced a lot of the nice exhibits. My favorite was always the Manatee Rescue exhibit but they moved that to Florida earlier this year. Now they seem to be replacing real exhibits with a bunch of carnival rides.

Sure the kids think they are fun, but that's not what we are going to Sea World for. We can catch those at Castle Park...for a lot cheaper, I might add.

We were only able to catch the Shamu show. The trainers don't even get into the tank with the orcas anymore. The dolphin show got filled up the three times we attempted to go see it. Hopefully we can figure out when a better time would be to go again to catch the things that we missed before our tickets expire...we'll see.

The crowds started to disperse when most of the shows stopped and it started getting colder. Christian and Emily decided to jump on the Shipwreck Rapids towards the end. Caitlyn wanted nothing to do with it, so I stayed out with her. They got soaked. And boy were they cold afterwards! That is a fun ride but I don't know if I will be able to get Caitlyn on it even in warmer weather.

Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we got home.

More on Christmas Day

In the afternoon, we headed out to my sister's house to spend time with my family for Christmas. My sister's in-laws were planning to join us for dinner, so we went early to exchange presents before they all got there.

Yup, a ton more presents for the kids. The girls were so excited to get pillow pets from my sister. They just love those things for some reason. My mom crocheted all the girls a little shrug. She's been taking classes. They are a lot fancier than the one I attempted for Emily last Christmas.

We had another huge feast after the rest of her guests arrived. And the girls love playing with their cousins. But most of the night was spent on their WII. Christian and I have not yet given in to getting them any kind of gaming system. So, they never turn down an opportunity when they are given the chance.

Luckily, the girls caught a quick nap in the car on the way over. It was quite late by the time we headed home for the night. But that didn't stop Emily from having a sore throat and feeling generally sick by that time. Of course, she was fine up until we told her that it was time to go home.

Here is the kids annual Christmas picture.

Christmas Eve

We did our usual Christmas Eve get together with our friend Marian. The girls were so excited for their Auntie Marian to spend the night with us. She arrived in the late afternoon with a gigantic rib roast for dinner. It ended up to be big enough for three dinners! We had to take a long walk afterwards!

After the kids got off to bed, we put out and wrapped a couple of last minute odds and ends. Of course, we stayed up way too late hanging out and talking.

Christian still got up in the morning with Emily to go for a little jog. Apparently, Marian has talked us into extending our weight-loss bet a bit. Unfortunately, it was not enough to get either Marian or I up and out to go jogging with them after staying up so late. I still really need to make sure that I get enough rest. I am deathly afraid of getting sick again.

The kids were so patient Christmas morning, waiting to open more presents. Guess what Santa brought them?

But with all the presents that Christian's mom sent them plus all the presents that their Auntie Marian brought, they did not miss opening ours (although we had a token gift left for them) since they had already opened ours early this year.

And for breakfast, we had our traditional belgian waffles! After cleaning up a little of the mayhem, I had to start making food for Christmas dinner with my family and Marian had to head back to take care of her dogs and to get ready for her own Christmas dinner plans.