Happy New Year!

It's not quite January but I'm ready to start 2010. It's not that 2009 wasn't a decent year, I'm just ready for spring and 2009 just won't get any warmer. Here's a quick recap of 2009 -- soccer, soccer and more soccer, a nice little family vacation, brought home Rommel (our puppy who is now 5 months old and weighs 50 pounds), three work trips for me to Phoenix, Boston and Atlanta, a motorcycle for Erik, and last but not least, a new nephew in December.

2010 will start out pretty busy and will likely stay busy all year. I have two classes starting the week of January 11th. The girls will start another round of activities before long. We plan to squeeze in a long weekend away with the girls and Erik and I hope to get away for our very own vacation.

Here are a few photos from Christmas.

The girls on Christmas Eve at the Faust House. I never realized how similar their smiles are.

Katie holding 11 day old Joe on Christmas Day. Joe is grandchild number ten for the King family so it was only fitting that he weighed ten pounds. :o)

Gretchen loves to play dress-up and was lucky that Grandma King found this beautiful dress.

New Pictures

Through the kitchen window, 15 inches of snow and lots of wind.

Katie being stylish.

Rommel.

Blond Ninja is her super hero name.

Our favorite coffee shop had a Toys for Tots event complete with Spider Man and Star Wars reinactors (see Princess Lea above Katie's head). The Marines in the background were real, not reinactors.

We are snowed in today, I think the official snowfall was around 15 inches and as far as I'm concerned that is enough to last all winter. It's funny, the wind has been so strong that we have 4-5 feet tall drifts in our yard and also patches where you can see the grass. It has been a pretty good day, the girls are getting along fabulously, I've been productive and managed to avoid the major shoveling. Somehow I have managed to not have snow boots - which makes the shovel avoiding pretty easy. They are on my to-buy list, as much as I would enjoy, it wouldn't be fair for me to not shovel all winter.

Next Wednesday is Katie's church Christmas program and this year each family has been asked to bring a dozen snacks. I made a half-batch of chocolate chip cookies and a dozen of those went in the freezer, the other dozen left out for us to eat. Half-batches of cookies are my absolute favorite, they don't take any time at all and as long as the original recipe includes an even number of eggs you can split it in half.

I also started on round three of Christmas baking - fudge and almond bark pretzels are in the freezer, dough for molasses ginger cookie is in the resting in the fridge. After dinner, I'll roll it out, cut into stars and bake. That's a new recipe so hopefully it turns out okay. The last round will be krumkake - a Swedish cookie Erik's Grandma Joy used to make. They require a special baking iron and turn out to be crispy cookies that are shaped into cones while they are warm and filled with whipped cream or fruit just before eating. As yummy as they are, I can't make the krumkake until about the 23rd - they do not freeze well.

Baking is about the only thing we're doing to prepare for Christmas and I'm really quite content with that. We are avoiding the stress of the puppy eating the tree by not putting it up and I'm not sure that I'll even send out cards. We did put lights on the bushes in front of the house and the advent calendar is up - and the days divvied up by the girls. Shopping is almost complete, just a few things left to gather. I'm hoping to spend lots of time with family and friends this holiday season, that's all I asked for from Santa.

Mr. Rommel

So here is the tiny puppy we brought home at the end of August. This picture is from a few weeks ago, now he's 4 months old and 31 pounds. He has grown so tall that I no longer have to bend over to pat his head.

He's an awfully good puppy most of the time. He sleeps most of the way through the night and is mostly potty trained. Notice the emphasis on most.

Once in awhile he's terribly rotten, stays up most of the night and has accidents. We are trying our very best to remember that he's still a puppy and will be for quite awhile. That he won't chew on the girls' toys if they keep them picked up, that he won't rummage through the basement if we keep the baby gate up and that he won't try to take our food if we eat at the kitchen table. Basically, he's teaching us to be cleaner humans that don't eat in front of the tv.

He's trying his best to turn me into a dog person by quietly snuggling up to me and lying down on the kitchen rug while I'm busy making dinner and cleaning. I'm trying to be a dog person by sitting quietly when he's trying to snuggle up to me and not kicking him out of the kitchen.

Halloween 2009

Friday night was Beggar's Night in our neck of the woods. My brother Dan and his family came to our house to have dinner and go trick or treating. It was cold and windy so they were done in about half an hour. This year we had about a dozen trick or treaters, which was a new record for us - way up from the 1 we had three years ago. Here are a few pictures from the night.

From the left, Katie the 70s girl, Gretchen the bat, Paul the Army guy (complete with an authentic boonie hat courtesy of Uncle Erik), and Charlie the pumpkin, minus his hat.

The boys, digging into their popcorn from a neighbor.

Gretchen and Paul enjoying their loot.

After Dan, Sara and the boys went home and our girls went to bed, Rommel picked up every tiny popcorn and cupcake crumb that I missed.

**Update** The first time I made this was as a double batch with a whole parsnip. The second time I made a single batch and the parsnip was way too much parsnip. I think I'll leave it out next time.

This recipe was in the latest issue of Women's Day magazine and is really easy and really good. I made it without chicken as a side dish and it was quite filling. The original recipe called for fresh dill, I didn't use it but feel free to add it. Also, having never cooked with parsnip before I was a little leery but it ended up adding a nice texture and herby flavor. Hope you like it!

Chicken Noodle Soup

6 cups chicken broth
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken (whatever you like)
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped baby carrots
1 parsnip, peeled and chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
1 bay leaf
¼ tsp pepper
2 cups uncooked medium egg noodles

Put broth, chicken, celery, onion, carrots, parsnip, garlic, bay leaf and pepper in a large saucepan. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 25 minutes, or until chicken in cooked and vegetables are tender.
Discard bay leaf. Remove chicken to a plate and cool slightly. Add noodles to soup; cover and simmer 10 minutes or until tender.
Meanwhile, shred chicken with fingers or 2 forks and add back to the soup. Simmer to heat the chicken through again.

Gretchen attends a parochial preschool and apparently this week they have been discussing prayer. Last night I sent the girls upstairs to brush their teeth, wash their faces and get ready for bed. A short while later I followed upstairs to tuck them in and read books.

Rather than hopping into bed, Gretchen was standing in the middle of her room. I asked what she was doing and she said she wanted to show me her prayer spot. On the floor next to the wall was a travel size pillow. She kneeled down and started right in, 'In the name of the Father, ..." then she started to say something and but stopped and said that she was going to say her prayer. Gretchen prayed "Bless us oh Lord and these our gifts..." You know the Prayer Before Meals, at 8:15pm, about 2 hours after dinner.

Sprinkle Jar

Growing up in my parent’s house, there was a shaker jar filled with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar in the cupboard between the stove and the refrigerator. For breakfast, or a sweet treat, we would toast a piece of bread, apply a thin layer of margarine, watch it melt into the toast and shake on an even coating of cinnamon-sugar goodness.

The image of the cinnamon-sugar shaking down onto the toast popped into my head yesterday. I wish that I could fill a shaker jar with tiny sparkly particles of patience, calm, warmth, a few deep breaths, a little extra time and keep it in my kitchen cupboard. The label would read “sprinkle to taste, refill as needed”.

This fall has been a particularly busy one, maybe I just need to slow it down and enjoy. I should take the time to open the windows and enjoy the crisp air, cook a pot of chili, bake a batch of anything, sing along to some 90s alternative rock and make a pot of tea. That ought to fill my sprinkle jar to the brim.

Gretchen really wanted to play soccer this fall but wasn't all that hot on it went it came to actually playing with a bunch of kids she had never met. She needed a pep talk from Daddy before agreeing to play during the first game.

Once she is convinced to join in she really tries her best. The balls for the 'Just for Kicks' league are soft foam so even though she kicked this ball really hard it just kind of rolled along.

Happy to be done with the game and ready to dive into that snack!

Gretchen was really excited to go to preschool and see some of her friends from daycare. She has had a lot of fun so far, though says that they do the same thing everyday - darn schedule! Here she headed out the front door on the first day. She calls this her "God save the Queen" shirt.

First day of third grade.

First soccer practice ever.

First picture of our puppy Rommel.

Gretchen had her very first soccer practice last night. After watching Katie from the sidelines for the last few years she was so excited to get her very own team.

The excitement wore off and was replaced by tears about ten minutes into practice when Gretch declared that she changed her mind and didn't want to play soccer. Twenty-five minutes and a pep talk from Daddy and Katie later, she was ready to go back out for the last ten minutes.

She promptly went out to the middle of the field and kicked the ball all the way down to the goal all by herself. When we got home she was pretty fired up and told Daddy that she kicked that ball "ka-pow!" right into the goal. Hopefully next Monday goes a little smoother.

The girls and I went on late summer adventures - mini-golfing at Blank Golf Course and a trip to the Blank Park Zoo. Mini-golf turned out to be a lesson in patience for us non-golfers and rather distracting to be so close to the airport. I don't know how anyone plays real golf with planes constantly landing. The girls' favorite parts were a little frog and fetching their balls (and mine) out of the fountains.

At the end of second grade Katie wrote a report about red pandas. She was so excited to check them out at the zoo and they put on quite a show walking all around their cage and one of them came right up to where we were on the other side of the glass. Gretchen's favorites were the fish at the discovery center.

This frog was about 1 inch long.

I have no idea what number hole this was - might have been 8.

Gretchen doesn't swing at the ball so much as drag it towards the hole.

So excited by the fish!

Crossing the swinging rope bridge.

When we sat down for a few minutes to have a snack and watch the gibbons swing and howl there were two ground squirrels (squinties), one eating a tomato slice and the other eating a french fry coated in 'cheese' sauce. I pointed them out to the girls as squintie-Gretchen and squintie-Katie - matching the squinties to the girls' appetites.

This year is my 15 year high school reunion. I doubt very much that I will go - haven’t been to a class reunion yet and not really my thing. It’s funny that though I will avoid the class reunion, I’ve had some really great mini-reunions this summer.

I have had the pleasure of squeezing in some time this summer to reconnect face to face, share a meal, a glass of wine, watch our children become instant playmates, and laugh over memories, including only the tiniest amounts of gossip. All of us have very busy lives, filled with family, demanding jobs, church and community activities and even live hundreds of miles apart. It calms the soul to be able to steal a few moments and reflect in the friendships that have been there all along – way before husbands, children, and careers and all the responsibilities and worries of adult life.

Many people move in and out of our lives and I think that we are drawn to retain certain relationships; there is something about this connection that fills part of your being. Life directs us in separate ways and we become so different and similar at the same time.

The friends I have been so fortunate to reconnect with this summer are truly wonderful women. Some of them I have known forever, friendships formed in kindergarten, middle school and college. I do get to see a couple of them fairly frequently but it is different though when you have time to relax and enjoy the company, rather than spend an hour in what seems to be fast-forward.

It is comforting to know that I can pop up with my brood in tow on Maria’s doorstep and feel so welcome, or dive into dinner and two hours of non-stop chatter with Jen and Angie, then on another night with Angela and Marisa. We chat and reacquaint so quickly, like we just met for coffee last week when in reality for some of us, it had been years. I am so thankful for these women, the beautiful friendships that we share and the brief moments that we have been given this summer.

Gretchen was a melancholy baby. The first two years of her life she didn't smile very much and if she did it was too quick to get on film. She has always been a great eater and until she was 18 months old, she was a terrible sleeper - difficult to get down and up every night at least once.

In the last couple of years she has become a bright, thoughtful little girl with an infectious laugh. Several times in the last 6 months or so she has said that she'd like to start over as a baby - 'you know, like when we lived in Colorado'. We moved back to Iowa when she was 5 months old so I dare say that she has limited memories of living in Colorado.

Tonight, she started out talking about wanting to start over and be a baby again and then became really upset. It boiled down to that she doesn't want us to leave her and would like to live with me and Dad forever. I think she has figured out that her Grandma Weena :) and Grandpa King are my parents and I don't live with them anymore. Apparently the thought of not living with her Mom and Dad upsets her quite a bit and she would rather not grow up and move out.

I'm sure that it will come back to haunt me someday, but she really wanted me to agree to let her live with us forever. I could not resist. What else could I say? Of course, our sweet little blond can live with us forever.

Summertime

I am completely blown away that it is July already. June seemed to last just over a week -- a week filled with birthdays, soccer and a quick family vacation. While the lovely Iowa heat and humidity will soon make me a fool -- I really hope the next 8 weeks or so slow down a little for crying out loud. I am not ready to start school shopping and all of that nonsense, I've barely had my toes in the pool!

For Independence Day tomorrow, we'll be attending the classic Norwalk parade on the front lawn of my Uncle Bob's house one last time since they are in the process of moving to Colfax. The parade will start off with my husband and Dad walking/riding with the American Legion, followed by every baseball team, church, marching band, firetruck and horse in town. It's such a long parade that it's amazing that there is anyone left to watch. Afterwards, we'll head down to the Faust acreage for the remainder of the weekend, hopefully roasting some marshmallows and seeing a few fireworks.

I just made a batch of chocolate chip cookies (taking some to the parade and some to the acreage) and one of my favorite summer pies. Thought I'd share the recipe since it's so easy and so yummy. It's from the Summer 2007 issue of Kraft Food and Family.

Lemonade Stand Pie

1/3 cup lemonade drink mix
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups vanilla ice cream, softened
1 - 8 oz. tub cool whip, thawed
graham cracker pie crust

If you are going to be ambitious and make your own pie crust, make sure that it's completely cool before you start making the pie.

Place drink mix a large bowl, add water and stir until mix is dissolved. Add ice cream. Beat with electric mixer on low until well blended. Gently fold in cool whip. (If it's really soupy it helps to put your bowl in the freezer for a few minutes.) Spoon into the crust and smooth out, mounding up in the middle if you can. Freeze at least 4 hours or overnight. Remove from freezer about 15 minutes before serving.

This morning I dropped Gretchen off at daycare and as usual, her little friend Cameron was waiting to play.

Gretch and I walked over to her cubby to take off her jacket and he followed us. Now, picture a little boy with big brown eyes holding a baby and bottle, leaning on a preschool-sized table.

Cameron says, "I was just thinking about when Gretchen is a cheerleader and I'm a football player."

Oh my.

Happy Birthday Katie!

By request the cake was devil's food with white frosting. Katie is a girl with taste! None of that blah white cake, white frosting that her Dad adores. I went a step further and made Martha Stewart's super fluffy cream cheese frosting with 1/4 teaspoon of pink food coloring and it was really good. We also grilled pork chops and twice-baked potatoes, steamed green beans and fresh lettuce from my Mom's garden.

Blowing out the candles in three breaths.

Opening presents. As usual, Katie received a lot of really nice things including a guitar, a baton and walkie-talkies. She already has all three in a pretty regular rotation.

Strumming away under the tree in the backyard. Happy Birthday Katie-bug!

June Flowers

Some pictures of the flowers in my yard. This first one is a Lavender plant Mom brought to me on Friday. It smells really great.

A very pink Hydrangea. The leaves don't look very hot and the entire plant is only six inches tall, but the flowers are beautiful.

A sweet smelling Peony in the front yard.

I can't remember what these are called, seems like maybe Coral Bells. They are really tiny, like the size of a tic tac, and they were blowing in the breeze. If they were real bells, they would have had a pretty tune.

Lilies.

Columbine.

Vinca.

These cupcakes are the same color as my sunburn. Well, not really. Not only is the picture a bit out of focus, it really doesn't do them justice. They are so extremely bright pink that nestled in the bright blue cupcake holder, if you look at them from above and squint just a little they look like an unfortunate sweater from the 1980s.

These beauties will be devoured by Katie's classmates tomorrow afternoon. The last day of school is Wednesday and her birthday is Friday so we're taking treats early. I really love that her school allows homemade treats, I would break my heart to have to spend a small fortune on bakery cupcakes when I can make two dozen of them in my very own kitchen for about $2.50. And, I just love food coloring paste, it gives you the brightest colors without adding any strange after-taste to the frosting.

Our weekend was good, but as usual it just flew by. Filled with grilling, sunshine, soccer and cupcake baking. The sunburn on my arms has faded quite a bit already and is not nearly as sore as it was last night. You'll be happy to know that I added a small tube of sunscreen to my purse today, now if I can just remember to apply...

4th Birthday

For Gretchen's birthday dinner we took the grandparents out to eat at our favorite pizza place in Norwalk and went to our house for cake and ice cream. Here are some pictures from the evening.


The birthday girl and her Incredible Hulk cake.

Gretchen insisted on chocolate chip cake so this is a yellow cake mix with about a cup of mini-chocolate chips added. The cake was pretty good but check out how thick the frosting is on the cake, it was a bit much.

Our girls.

Unbelievably, Gretchen will celebrate her 4th birthday on Saturday. She requested an Incredible Hulk cake and informed me that means a chocolate chip cake and green frosting.

Since there are no chocolate chip cake mixes, I added mini-chips to a yellow cake mix and about 1/2 a teaspoon of 'juniper' food coloring paste to get the frosting this green. It looks like Hershey's syrup but the writing is a tube of brown gel. I found a 5 inch Incredible Hulk figurine (action figure, I guess) for the middle and I'll add four candles tomorrow night at dinner with the grandparents.

There will be more pictures to come of the event, I just had to share the interesting cake choice.

Outta Sight Retro Night

Sunday night programming on WGN is Outta Sight Retro Night. They show episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched or some other similarly-aged show back to back for hours on end. Our girls love the shows and have all sorts of fun comments -- is she really a witch? what is she wearing!? Makes for a fun night of family tv. The last time we watched it was The Munsters, which spurred the following questions -- what is wrong with his head? why is that one lady blond? -- in my opinion The Munsters are not nearly as entertaining as The Addams Family.

Lately, it's been Outta Sight Retro Night in my kitchen. I have suddenly had a lot more time to cook and complete other household duties, which means I actually cook and my kitchen floor is clean! Italian casserole, tuna casserole, lemon pepper chicken, cucumber sandwiches, vegetable pizza, yum-yum bars. It's not as if I haven't had any of these dishes since 1980, but growing up, most of them were staples at the King house so it just kind of takes me back.

By far the best part of this recent domesticity trend is the fact that the girls have eaten it all (well, I don't know anyone that doesn't like yum-yum bars) partly due to fact that when the face twisted up as I describe tuna casserole, I pointed out the jar of peanut butter and told them they are on their own.

Katie hit a milestone on Sunday, First Communion. She was well-behaved (if reading over my shoulder she'd say 'of course!') and looked so pretty in her satin dress. After mass, we has brunch at our house for the grandparents and godparents -- scrambled eggs and bacon, Katie's favorite.



A rather windy family picture.

A close-up of just the girls.

Katie with her godparents: my sister Jill and Erik's brother Keith.

Our Little Dare-Devil

Gretchen is unstoppable. She routinely jumps instead of walks down the last two or tree steps on any staircase. She will happily climb up ladders, unable to see the top. She loves to hold on to your fingers, climb up your legs and flip over.

Lately, her favorite heart-attack inducing activity is to pump the little two person thingy on the rickety swing-set up above the fence line, all by herself. She is physically unable to slide down a slide like a normal child. Her favorite method is exactly backward, preferably in a dress.

Today, this back-fired slightly. I don't think any of us realized how much it had rained. She slid down the slide into a puddle with quite the splash. Mom, Erik and I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. This picture is from the "hey, go do that again." While there was not much splash left the second time around, her hair has been caught mid-flip.

It is so nice to top off a busy weekend with a quiet evening. Gretchen's daycare is closed tomorrow so she is spending the night with Grandma Rena, Katie is sleeping soundly and Erik is at work. I am sitting on the couch. Ahhh, peace and quiet.

It was rather strange though, just me and Katie and it hasn't been that way for a long time. We folded laundry, she painted her toenails, I grilled a couple steaks for Erik to have tomorrow and we watched "Bedtime Stories." It was a really cute movie and ended with a Journey song -- can't go wrong with that.

We checked out Jill & Todd's new house, Erik helped Dan & Sara load furniture to move to their new house, we made pork roast, cheesecake and cupcakes for our family Easter dinners, went to church, had two egg hunts and zero naps. No egg hunt at our house this weekend, but the Easter bunny did drop off bubbles, sidewalk chalk and nailpolish along with a few pieces of candy and some quarters.

Tomorrow kicks off another busy week. While I would have preferred more sunshine and less wind, all in all it was a nice weekend - too short as usual.

Random pictures

Here is a picture of Erik's motorcycle - his new favorite thing. He has already been taking apart pieces and customizing it. Those are new tail pipes and new handlebars, re-positioned the turn signals and says he's done for now. Next up, the helmet should be here any day now and he'll be signed up for class as soon as it fits on our calendar.


One of the new hamsters -- Dasha, Mika -- pick a name, they are identical and very hard to get on film. The girls just love them, I'm quite happy with the super-absorbent, odor-free bedding.

This was found on the bookshelf in the living room, rather coated in dust. It is Erik and me taken sometime in the spring of 1997 in front of my dorm room door at Kresge Hall by my dear neighbor Becky Manchester. His shirt is bright green, mine is either red or blue, I had the same shirt in both colors. I look at it and think about how it's pre-everything. It's one of my favorite pictures of us.

Yesterday, we took the girls to a friend of Erik's to meet some animals. There were two fainting goats, Nell (with the horns) and Mojo, two llamas, four horses, two donkeys, two peacocks, a good forty chickens of unusal varieties, about 10 pheasants, including the colorful varieties you typically only see on Animal Planet, and one lonely duck.


The girls really liked the goats, and as you can see, the feeling was mutual. Nell and Mojo ate out of the girls hands and ran with them all around their little pen.


This chicken is very friendly and will let you hold her for awhile. About 15 minutes was her limit, which is an awful lot longer than I've ever held a chicken.

Perhaps the most exciting part, we were sent home with a dozen of these beauties. None of them are white, they are all shades of cream and brown, except for the pale green one just left of Gretchen's hand. She kept trying to have the green one and the small cream one in the corner switch places, apparently the colors were off balance or something.

While we were there, three of the eggs were freshly laid and Gretchen kept trying to put them back in the laying boxes. She was awfully worried that they would hatch at home. A couple of them will be made into banana bread in a little while, I'm sure she'll be relieved.