Happy Birthday, KC!

Today my oldest girl turned 12.

I look at her and I can't believe how grown up and beautiful she is becoming. Smart, smart, smart, and sweet as the day is long (most of the time - when she's not fighting with her sister). She's quiet as a mouse most of the time at my school, but I'm friends with the ITS at her school who sponsors the book group that KC loves and she tells me how much KC reminds her of me! Chatty and outgoing, definitely not quiet. :-) The highlight of her day was finally being old enough to sit in the front seat with the airbag.

KC's dream is to be a writer someday. Or a lawyer. Or a dance teacher. Or all three - LOL. I have no doubt she will be amazing at whatever she decides to do.

Katherine Carol, I want to wish you a very happy birthday! I love you so much and every day you make me proud to be your mom!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter 2009! We were blessed again to have our whole family together for Easter. My Mom and Dad, Bill's Mom and Dad, and Jill and Sierra came to eat and hang out with us for the holiday. We definitely did plenty of eating. I think we went a bit overboard and actually might have had more dessert than food. Oh, well. LOL

The kids spent Saturday helping me cook several desserts and coloring Easter eggs.

Brady is trying to figure out how his egg ended up pink instead of red.

Sunday we had everyone over, so we held our traditional Easter Egg hunt in the backyard. Based on the pictures, it almost appears the kids have joined the witness protection program. We certainly did a good job hiding their identities:

Eventually we gave up trying to take candid pictures and just lined everyone up for some posed shots. Here's my mom and dad with the kids. This is the first time since they were toddlers that Brady and Sierra are close to the same height!

After the eating, egg hunting, eating, picture taking, and more eating . . . we got dressed up for late afternoon church and headed out.

The thermometer read 81 degrees. Very nice for Easter. We did have some heavy rains for about 45 minutes around lunchtime, but overall it was sunny and warm.

The kids decided that it was warm enough to swim. The pool thermometer read 71 degrees. Now, 71 is a beautiful spring day, but it's actually rather chilly water (at least for us folks in Texas). We explained that to the kids, but some lessons have to be learned through experience, so off they went . . .

I think Abby's expression here sums it up best:

Hope you all had a blessed Easter! Best wishes for a happy summer!

Happy Belated Birthday, Jill!

It is a bit hard to turn 40. Truthfully, I think 39 was harder. The anticipation of 40 is probably worse than actually being 40.

But I have to admit that it is a bit tough on the ego when your younger sister turns 40. Which mine did, March 18th.

In the far corners of my mind, I can still remember a little blonde girl getting stuck in the cherry tree in front of our house in Quincy. It's amazing to me that the little blonde girl is all grown up now with a beautiful not-so-little girl of her own. Jill's an AP Economics and US History teacher these days, and a classroom management trainer, NHS sponsor, and basic jack-of-all trades.

I think the best testament to the success she's found is that for the second year in a row, she has been selected to attend the top 10 banquet at her high school. The top 10 graduating seniors in her school each select a teacher that has had an impact on their lives, and she has once again been chosen by one of her students. What greater gift is there than to know that you have touched the life of someone, and that they will remember you forever? That of all the teachers' classes these kids have sat through, that yours is the one that stands out in his/her mind? So many kids pass in and out of our lives, that to know that you have been a mentor and a guide, helped inspire dreams and build a foundation for someone who may well go on to change the world . . . that is the most wonderful part of being a teacher. And an amazing legacy for a human being.

And that's just the first 40, Jill. What do you have planned for the next? LOL

Happy belated birthday, little sister. I'm really proud of you, and I wish you joy and blessings for the future! :-)

Jeannie and Jill, early 1970s

Happy Pi Day!

Today is 3/14, so those of us who are math nerds are celebrating Pi today by eating (what else?) pie!

The girls and I made an easy chocolate pie so we could celebrate (we finished it close to, but not exactly at, 1:59, so we missed the 3.14159, but we were close enough)

Since next week is St. Patrick's day, but also Spring Break (yea!!) we decided to go ahead and bake some potato bread today. Once a year the females in our family try to make bread completely from scratch in honor of our great-great - etc grandmothers. One of our favorites is potato bread made with an actual potato. Very Irish.

KC and Abby knead the bread. Abby thought it felt like pizza dough, so she was also honoring her Italian ancestry as well.

A few hours and sore arms later, we had potato bread!

I'm not sure how good it looks, but it's really tasty and filling (probably because of the potato).

Also this past week was a special spirit week at Brady and KC's middle school. A few samples:

Brady celebrates crazy hair day (picture courtesy of KC's cell phone)

I brought KC lunch for celebrate lunch with your kid day:

Bill brought lunch to Brady on the same day:

And Friday was Texan day:


Thankfully it is now Spring Break! Monday we are volunteering at a golf tournament fundraiser for Brady's baseball team (who won their first tournament last weekend!). Tuesday, we head to New Braunfels for the rest of the week. Hopefully this rain will let up and we'll have some nice weather to hang out in. Hope all of you are well! Take care and have a happy week!!

My first mobile blog post . . .

Howdy! Bill bought me a Blackberry, and this is my first attempt at a blog post using it so if it looks funny, apologies in advance. I also just realized it doesn't have spell check. Scary ...

This weekend, KC's dance company performed at a local elementary school carnival. They were great, especially considering they danced on concrete rather than a stage.



Brady has two baseball games this afternoon in Humble, and it looks like great weather, 80 degrees! He just got a new glove, so we predict some excellent defense today!

One week left until spring break! Take care, and updates later if I can figure out how. LOL

Update: The sliders won the tournament! Their first win with this new team! Congratulations, guys!

Pancake Tuesday!

It's Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, also known as Mardi Gras around these parts.

Apparently there is quite a tradition associated with Shrove Tuesday . . . the following is from an interesting article I read:

Shrove Tuesday Pancakes!
by Bridget Haggerty

Throughout the British Isles the day before Ash Wednesday - Shrove Tuesday - is commonly known as Pancake Day. In Ireland, It’s called Pancake Tuesday. As the child of Irish parents living in London, I loved watching the Pancake Races. Usually, the contestants were housewives. Each of them carried a skillet which contained a large, very thin pancake. The idea was for the women to race to the finish line, tossing their pancakes as they ran. It was hilarious - especially when a stray pancake landed where it wasn't supposed to!

My other vivid memory of the day is my dad fixing our Shrove Tuesday supper - pancakes! As good as they were, we never had them at any other time of year. And, as good a cook as my mother was, she always let Dad take over the kitchen. Mum always claimed she was too heavy-handed to make good pancakes. I think it was a ploy on her part to let Dad have all the fun.

Mesmerized, we all watched as he mixed the ingredients, prepared the pan, and then poured the batter for the first cake. Then, we'd let out loud whoops of glee as he deftly tossed the cake high into the air. Everyone held their breath to see if he'd catch it back into the pan again. Rarely did he miss. As soon as the cake was done, he slid it on to a plate that had been warmed in the oven. Quickly, he sprinkled sugar all over it, squeezed on the lemon juice and then rolled it up like a crepe. In fact, that's really what it was. One after another, the cakes were piled on to the plate and kept warm in the oven until he'd made enough to feed us all.

The pancakes disappeared almost as quickly as my father did when supper was over. As the next day was the beginning of Lent, he'd be taking the pledge - i.e. abstaining from alcohol until Easter Sunday. So, he always went off to the local pub on Shrove Tuesday to enjoy a last night out. An exception was made for St. Patrick's Day - but that's another story.

In many countries, Shrove Tuesday was, and still is, a day of public revelry and carnivals. But, in Ireland long ago, it was usually a family celebration. For the faithful, Lent meant abstaining from eggs and all dairy products, so all of these had to be used up before Ash Wednesday.

Generally, the family, and sometimes friends and neighbors, gathered around the fire which was often fueled in part by the Christmas holly, saved just for the occasion. The pancakes were baked over the fire and the honor of tossing the first cake was always given to the eldest, unmarried daughter of the host. It was said that if she could toss it and receive it back into the pan successfully, she'd be married within the year; but, if it didn't turn or was dropped, she would remain single. Often, her mother would put her wedding ring into the batter for the first cake; if the daughter was successful in her toss, she would immediately divide the cake into enough servings as there were guests. The person receiving the piece that contained the wedding ring was doubly fortunate - they'd be married that year and their choice of a spouse would be a good one.

In addition to enjoying their pancakes, an Irish family in the old days would also have served generous portions of meat as the main course. I do recall that, while my father was making a great show of tossing our pancakes, my mother was at his side fixing his favorite pork chops. But, I don't remember my parents following the tradition observed in some parts of Ireland where a small scrap of meat from the Shrove Tuesday supper was pinned to the kitchen ceiling or inside the chimney. It remained there until Easter Sunday and was done so to bring good luck, prosperity and to ensure there was no shortage of meat.

It's hard to believe, but nearly half a century has passed since I first recall my dad making and tossing Shrove Tuesday pancakes. Since then, I've adopted many of the customs we follow in the United States. We'll don Mardi Gras beads and masks, play foot-stompin' jazz on the stereo and indulge in some great New Orleans-style cuisine. However, on the side, there'll also be a plate heaped high with Dad's Irish pancakes!
(end of article)

In honor of Shrove Tuesday, we are planning a big pancake supper at our house this evening! The kids have been excited since yesterday ("Hamburger Casserole Monday" isn't quite as big a deal, apparently).

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Since I've already given up most sweets and diet coke, I'm running out of things to give up that would be a meaningful sacrifice. This year, I'm going to try to give up an hour a day of TV (which is a big deal for me, since I generally only watch around 2 hours anyway at most). I want to give up the, let's just flip channels and see if anything is on while I fix dinner TV watching. My goal is to spend some extra time helping the kids with their activities and getting caught up on the household stuff during the week so we have more time on the weekends. I also want to be more proactive helping them get ahead on their homework and projects. We'll see how I do.

Welcome to the 21st century . . .

Even though we both work with computers, Bill and I had managed to completely avoid the whole text-messaging craze. We pretty much stuck to e-mail and phone calls. Our poor children surely suffered terribly, not being allowed to text 'sup to their friends 50 or 60 times a day.

Well, last weekend Brady played in a baseball tournament, and the Saturday evening game was stopped due to lightning. We were told we'd get a call if the game would be continued. I checked the website at 11pm and there were no updates. Went to bed. At 6am I woke up and checked our e-mail. The game was scheduled for 7am, boys needed to arrive at 6am to warm up. It was at that moment 6:05 am, and the fields were at least 30 minutes away. I woke Bill, we woke the kids (who probably thought the house was on fire with us yelling, "Get up! Hurry!). Brady got to the fields at 6:50am for a 7am game. It was not a fun morning. The boys held on to win that game, then lost their first playoff game at 9:30am.

Now, how did the rest of the boys get to the game on time? The team representative texted everyone's cell phone with the game time at 11:15pm. We don't text. Absolutely no idea about the game.

Monday evening, Bill went down to the Verizon store and bought us each a Blackberry Curve with unlimited texting. We passed our cell phones to Brady and KC, also with unlimited texting. Our lives will never be the same.

I'm still learning to use my new phone, but I did learn how to use the camera:




Updates and pictures from the game will follow, but we are finally in the 21st century. How about that?