a few cat hairs never hurt anyone

Once when we were first dating, Lew & I had a Smitty's pizza. His cat, Tiger, sniffed into the box. That's all he did... barely stuck his head in and sniffed and then walked away. And, I wouldn't eat any pizza. Now, if you know me, you know I feel Smitty's pizza is the best pizza in the world. I think Frank & Gert would have still owned the place at that point. Now that it has sold, it isn't the same. I have loosened up on the "best in the world" title, but still, the memories of going there and eating with Nanny keep it pretty high up on my list of favorite places. For lunch, Nanny & I didn't order pizza, though. We'd get a Smitty's Special... sandwich. mmm Bet those aren't on the menu anymore.

Anyway, the story clearly defines the power of cat hair to a non-cat person.

Now, we have cats. Cripes, I pick more cat hair out of my mouth and food than I care to admit. Whatever. They are so worth it!!!

So, if you come to my house to eat something homemade, I will give a disclaimer for the day's menu. Usually, you will hear me say, "No cats on the table for this baked good." I might even throw in a "No kids helped with this" if I am serving to someone without small kids. But, in my kids' defense, they wash their hands a lot in this house and are very good at hygienic baking practices.

Now today... you may want to politely say "No Thank You" if Gretchen offers you a frozen vanilla pudding popsicle.

Not a lot of photos of the actual process... whisking pudding is so fast, who has time to grab the camera?? But, grabbed a few in the process.

royalty among us

"Mom, I am the King.""and Gretchen is my Queen."

I have friends who say their kids won't play together or won't pose for pictures together or fight with each other. Mine are not like that. They are a team. They always have been and hopefully, they always will be. Wish I could be a fly on the kindergarten classroom wall!

Happy 4th of July!!

Gretchen took this picture of Carl. (I do not crop their photos.)

And Carl took this shot of Gretchen. He knows how to flip the camera to "live view" - which means you use tha back screen for setting up your shots. Like on smaller point and shoot cameras. Normally, my digital camera has an eye piece viewer and you look into it like a real camera to set up your shots. Again, I did not crop this.

Since our picnic got cancelled, we're going to the Children's Museum after dinner. They are staying open until the downtown fireworks start at 9:00. So, we can play and then be right there for the activity. And hopefully, get a decent parking spot.

Happy 4th of July, Everyone!

no picnic today

Our picnic meet-up of the members of my Nov/Dec 2005 group has been cancelled due to illness. Another mother broke her elbow, too. She is here on vacation visiting her mom... not a fun way to spend it.

I'm disappointed, but I understand that you certainly are not able to entertain when you are sick (both parents and one of their kids). I'm very glad they decided to cancel and not expose all of us to it as well. The kids are going to be sad, too. The first thing out of Lew's mouth was, "No. I will NOT take you to the beach tomorrow." See, we went to the beach on Memorial Day with his mother and it was insanely crowded. We actually went to 2 beaches - the first one we didn't get out of the car. We drove around for about 45 minutes looking for a parking spot in any one of the various lots only to give up and drive to the other beach. We live about halfway between so it was about 30 minutes to get to the other beach and maybe another 20 waiting for a parking spot in that lot.

So, instead of traveling to the meet-up, we'll be spending the 4th of July eating. I was bringing dessert and since each of the 5-6 families has 3-4 kids - I was bringing a lot. 72 pumpkin muffins and 12 dozen cookies. I was able to send Lew & the kids out for about 2 hours today so I could roll and cut the cookies by myself. Then, after dinner tonight, I had some help frosting the cookies. The kids were decorating some for us to keep here. I did the ones we were to bring. I always feel I have to put a disclaimer on the baking. "We washed our hands! No one sneezed! The cats stayed off the table!" See Carl holing the cookie up? He kept saying to Lew, "Take a picture of my star." With Gretchen, I stopped her after she frosted 6 cookies because at the rate she was going, I was going to run out of frosting way too soon! She is her father's daughter!!!
So, these are the cookies I grew up on. My mom doesn't like chocolate, so we weren't a Nestle's Toll House family. I had a friend whose mother kept their cookie jar filled with homemade chocolate chip cookies all the time. At our 20th reunion, I asked her if she had a cookie jar, too. She said, yes, but hers stays full of oatmeal raisin cookies.

These roll out cookies are favorites of both my brother, Kenny and me, so it isn't like we grew up deprived without chocolate chip cookies available 24/7. Any holiday or event, Mom would make cookies and use the appropriate cookie cutter. Mom & Kenny are up to camp right now and when I learned I wasn't going tomorrow, I called her to tell her. She laughed about the cookies and said, "Freeze them and bring them home!" Sounds like a plan.

want the recipe???

Oatmeal Roll Outs
375°
15 minutes (note... today, in my oven I only cooked each pan for 8 minutes)
yields 3 ½ dozen

2 ½ c flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ c butter
¾ c sugar
2 tbl milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 c oatmeal

Mix dry ingredients, add butter, milk, egg, vanilla. Add oats by hand (literally).
Roll to about ¼”, cut, cook, cool, frost.

Frosting:
1 lb confectioner’s sugar (about 4 c)
½ c butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbl milk
food coloring

If necessary, add more milk.

PS - I used food coloring gels to get the vibrant red & blue.

a couple Gretchen quotes

Yesterday, at the pool, Carl had to pee so Lew stopped playing with Gretchen to take him to the locker room. (Yes, be impressed that my 5 year olds ask to go pee and don't just go in the pool.) Gretchen looked at me, smiled and said, "Daddy is soooo much fun in the pool, but, I love you too."

Out of the blue the other day, I heard this: "Daddy says I will probably never be taller than Carl. But, I might be when I am 10 or 11."

even cuter in real life!

On Friday, I got to meet Ashley (from Artificially Fertile Myrtle fame) and her family. I knew they would be in our area... so we asked if we could drop by and meet them at the beach Friday morning. I told the kids on Thursday night that we'd be going to the beach to meet some twin babies and actually, it was Carl that was most excited. When I told him the baby boy's name is Ocean, he really got into it. Going to the beach to meet Ocean seemed perfectly logical to him. I did explain to him that I was going to need him to really follow directions and that maybe he couldn't play in the waves as much as he might want to if Mommy wasn't in the water, too. Because I knew if I got to meet those brown eyed cuties, I was going to have to bring my camera! So, it worked out that there was a tidal pool that was about a foot deep which kept Carl & Gretchen happily wet without having to be in the waves.The other thing in the back of my mind was the recent shark bite on a neighboring beach. The little girl was only knee deep and thought it was one of her friends pulling on her ankle. She was pulled totally under the water and it was only when someone pulled her out that she noticed she was bleeding. It's not really that I am a sharkophobe, I mean, I love love love the movie Jaws! (oo - I wish some cable station was playing it tonight. bummer) But, hey, when you hear of things like that, you kind of think twice. Last season, a couple dead sharks washed up on our beaches. One was 14 feet long. They are around. So, it didn't bother me not to have to be in the water with them today.

How did I get from cute twins to sharks? Ever wasn't too sure about me. But, I did manage to get some sweet smiles out of Ocean. And, Carl was interested in introducing himself to the little guy. On the drive there, he kept asking me, "How do they talk?" I don't think he accepted my answer that they were just little and probably wouldn't talk to him until he saw it for himself. I guess there is something to be said for needing to see something to believe it.
Wow - doesn't Carl look old? OK, goofy - don't know what is up with that smile - but big and old, too. That's my baby, but when you put him next to another cute baby, look how big he is! It was so nice to finally get to meet Ashley after knowing her through her pregnancy and following the twins' antics on her blog. She has mentioned in the past that she is not the typical first time mom in that she doesn't panic and over react like so many first timers can. You definitely saw that in action on the beach. She didn't panic as the kids played in the waves and occasionally got knocked over. They got to explore and discover in safety, but with the independence that young children need to grow and learn. Both kids were very easy going, calm and content to sit still, too. Certainly not like Carl was at that age. Or Gretchen, to a somewhat lesser extent. They never sat still. Still don't. Man, at 15 months old, Carl would have been running all over that beach. They were 15 months old when we moved here and any chance he got, he did run all over the beach. At that age, Gretchen hated the beach. I mean, cried and sobbed and hated it. She needed socks on with her sandals to even be happy to walk on the beach. Water? Hell no! Gotta throw in a flashback for you. Here is Gretchen at 21 months old.
I am really glad we got the chance to meet Ashley and her husband, her mom and her sister... and of course, those gorgeous babies! (holy eyelashes!!)
After leaving the beach, we headed home to shower off the sand. After cleaning up the kiddos, I called the hair salon and scheduled 2 appts for 2:30. (naptime...) We headed out to McDonald's for lunch and then off to get haircuts. Lately, Carl has been asking me, "Will you cut all my hair off?" Last week, at the pool, he approached a bald man and happily told him, "You have no hair!" (Unfortunately, the man didn't hear him. Bummer, I really wanted to hear what his response would have been) He even told me - after seeing a commercial for the Steve Harvey Show - that he wants to look like Steve Harvey. (Steve Harvey is a bald African American gentleman.) I put my foot down on shaving his head. Don't get me wrong - I love bald babies! But, with my luck - I would allow the shaving of his head - which is a big ol melon - you know my kids' heads are off the charts and have been since they were born (Have I ever told the story of multiple head CT scans, visits to pediatric neurologists and a pediatric neurosurgeon, head ultrasounds, more head rechecks than I cared to have to go to, ...? Well, that almost sums it up. Their heads started crossing percentile rapidly when they were infants and for about 18 months, we had those issues to deal with to be sure it wasn't something serious like hydrocephalus. It wasn't... turn out, genetics. Ha Ha... measure Lew's big ol melon some day. OK, my head was pretty big on the charts, too. Guess they were doomed before they were even born) Again with the tangents!

Where was I? Oh yes, Carl would get his head shaved and love it! And insist on keeping it shaved forever. He did kind of back down when I told him in order to have all his hair cut off he would have to endure the buzzing clipper thing for the entire haircut! He doesn't like that thing - it is not the tickling, it is the noise. It's one of his bad frequencies, I guess. He has some sounds that he hates. They don't have to be loud sounds. But, there must be some frequency that he can't stand. He hates the bathroom fan! Hates it. But, will gladly play a trumpet or run around being insanely loud like a well, kid. Or cat. Or dog. Or electric guitar lick from a RUSH song. Or whatever crazy commercial he can quote.

He is a goof ball. Genetics?

So, they each got a nice summer pool-friendly haircut. I told Michelle that even if it looked goofy, to cut Gretchen's bangs so short that when she popped her head up out of the pool, the hair was above her eyebrows. Before the cut, when she'd come up out of the water, her bangs were below her eyes altogether. Gretchen likes her hair short, too. So, she got it cut up to her chin level, It is so sassy... which is the quintessential Gretchen. And, Teresa gave Carl a "good summer haircut" - even cut his sideburns off. They both look freakin' adorable!!! And took a great nap after.Today is Saturday. We went swimming at the city pool in the morning. And, yes, the haircuts were perfect for swimming!!! Then our dear friend Lindy joined us for dinner and video games. See, he gave the kids a computer game called ItzaBitza and they love it! But, he had never seen the program himself as he is a Mac man. So, he came over to let the kids teach him about it. It was so much fun. Tomorrow we have nothing planned. Well, I have to bake cookies for Monday. I'm making Mom's Oatmeal Roll Outs. Gretchen is looking forward to helping me frost them. That should make it go twice as slow fast.

Now, on Monday, we're driving about 4 hours from here for another meet-up from this same message board community where Ashley & I met. The group we are going to meet on Monday is a group that I have gathered with in the past and we're all excited to be getting our kids together again. Oh, who am I kidding? We can't wait to visit with each other.. and hope the kids have fun, too. This group has all kids born in November or December of 2005. So, these are people I have known for over 6 years now. We all met while pregnant together and we have been a very close bunch ever since. Lew & I are the only ones who only have 5 yr olds, though. The other families all have 3 or 4 kids. I think I counted 14 kids who should be there between the families. I will ask their mothers if it is OK to post a group photo here on the blog after the picnic.

O Canada!

Happy Canada Day!!!