Bella's Favorite Chicken

My camera is lost forever--left at O'Hare Airport (otherwise known as the Pit of Dispair). This makes it difficult to blog, you know, with no pictures. However, my dear friend Kelly had compassion on me and sent me these snaps of one of our recent trips to Silver Beach in St. Joseph, Michigan.
Silver Beach is THE beach. If we mention a beach, it's this one. There are other lovely beaches, at Warren Dunes, or the Indiana Dunes State Park, but Silver Beach is delightful. As evidenced by the smiles on these two crazy faces.
Bella loves "Chicken" as she calls Colton. Loves him, loves what he loves (the movie "Cars", actual cars, swimming, whatever), loves to be just like him. And now Chicken has left us--headed to his new home in the Great White North of Alberta, Canada, with the rest of his family. When we went to the pool today, she got excited about seeing Chicken, since we usually do. I didn't have the heart or the ability to explain to her, so I just smiled. And cried a little inside. We miss you, Galbraiths!

(We miss you, Bradys, and Sandersons, too, but I don't have pictures of you guys. Send me some, and I'll dedicate a post to you. :)

Toads, toads, toads.

I have described my abhorrence of frogs and toads before on this blog. So jumpy. So unexpectedly jumpy. Yuck. However, my little Mimi princess girl has turned into a toad QUEEN. She finds at least one toad in my yard every day.

At least one, and usually two or three.

And with someone I love so much finding so much enjoyment in the ugly, hoppy creatures, it's hard for me to continue to loath them. But I still won't touch them.

(And here's the thing, really. As a mom, I want my girls to experience things fearlessly. So I try to pretend that I would really love to hold that toad later, but at the moment, I have some other pressing task. I think Mimi is still fooled, but I'm pretty sure Liv has seen through my little act.)

She's taken toads to preschool.

She has called both her grandmas to talk about her newfound pets.
She's even tested that "Princess and the Frog" fable about kissing a toad. (And I'm not sure whether she'd be more delighted having her little toad turn into a prince, or herself turn into a toad. Both sound equally exciting.)

She's 7!

Olivia is 7! SEVEN years old. Didn't she just barely look like this?

And this?

And now she's old enough to want to do the writing on her own birthday cake?

Let me be accurate. She wanted to do the writing on her birthday cake, but she's also old enough to get incredibly frustrated when the "p"s are wobbly and the "y" is at the wrong angle, so after one word, she had me help by guiding her hands and telling her when to squeeze and when to stop. But still it looks pretty good, eh?

And let me tell you, it tasted amazing. Pioneer Woman's Life by Chocolate cake, with dulce de leche between the layers and ganache on top? Awesome. This girl of mine is a choc-o-holic, and she doesn't like cake mix cakes or store-bought frosting. So, we indulged. And it was delicious.

But then, a week later, we needed to have a friend party. And what better theme for that momentous 7th birthday than Rainbows. (I wish I had seen this link the week before the party, rather than the day after.) That calls for rainbow cupcakes, does it not? (White cake mix cupcakes with food-colored store-bought frosting. Violated every Olivia principle in the book, but they were cute!)

Even rainbow on the inside, right? Pretty tricky, eh? (Idea from here.) Just divide your batter into four Ziploc bags and add about a gazillion (really, 10) drops of food coloring to each part, and layer them in. The yellow isn't showing very well in these two. The best-looking ones had all been eaten by this point.

We decorated by tying rainbow colors of cheap ribbon to a big brass ring. (90 yards of ribbon, and no, I am not exaggerating.) I use that felt birthday banner for every single birthday, and those red and pink starburst things were made from a Martha Stewart kit I got on clearance at Michael's two years ago. We use them for every party as well. With a turquoise water jug and a Bolivian tablecloth, the porch was set.

We made straw-and-Cricut-flower leis, in rainbow colors, of course.

We danced the hula in our leis.

We sat for only a moment on the couch.

And then it was time for us to capitalize on the 87-degree weather we've been having around here with some slip-n-slide action.

You know, seven-year-old girls are giggly and squeal-y enough without speed and cold water.

But seriously, add it in, and watch out! Good thing I like giggles and screams.

When I picked this slip-n-slide up last year at the end of summer from Target, I thought it was kind of a funny thing to buy. However, with all the use we've gotten out of it, I think I'll never be without one again. It's the perfect party activity.

I hadn't met a few of these girls before the party, and it was a lovely treat (but not really a surprise) to learn that they are all so nice. After all, her friends that I do know are all fantastic. I'm happy that Liv has found good friends here in South Bend.

Mango Baby

Baby Quinn, the only Anderson nephew to date, is one of the favorite topics of conversation at our house. He lives in Texas, so we usually have to get our Quinn fix via blog. This video, filmed by my brother Dave, is Bella's favorite to watch. She calls him "beebee Teen", and she talks to him while he is eating the mango seed.

So, in homage to this favorite little video, and with the luck of delicious mangoes from the hospital cafeteria, we filmed this remake. Luckily, [please insert a sarcastic tone here] no one in our family likes to butt in on the video action. Or the talk-to-the-baby action. Or the pace-around-the-house-while-you-talk-to-Uncle-Dave action. So the two videos are basically identical.


If you listen closely, Bella says "Teen" here, in reference to Baby Quinn. She was actually pretty excited to be eating the same thing that she had seen Quinn eat so many thousands of times.

Chicago Jaunt

Now, I didn't mention this before, for fear of someone undesirable learning my husband was out of the country, but John spent a few weeks recently in Bolivia, working as a volunteer in a Christian hospital outside Cochabamba. (He is responsible for telling his stories from that trip, and I will be nagging him with gusto until it is appropriately documented here on the blog.)

In order to start his trip off with a bang, we went a day early to Chicago to party hard before we sent him to the airport. I had grand visions of Buckingham Fountain and Millennium Park (two of my favorite places to take the girls), but the rain was coming down in buckets, and we realized that we really had never given the Field Museum its time to shine. (We LOVE the Museum of Science and Industry and visit it every chance we get. This is due in equal parts to the sheer coolness of it--the hatching chicks, the farm machines, the TRAIN, the foam catapults--and the free neighborhood parking.)

So, we compared our hands to Bushman's.

And made gorilla faces.

And lounged on Egyptian litters, pretending to be ancient princesses.

The girls were appropriately horrified and intrigued by the idea (and reality) of mummies. They enjoyed a 3D movie with John, which Bella and I avoided, knowing the naughtiness that would ensue. In short, it was fantastic, and I coveted the big-city life yet again.

Then we spent the 87 years in traffic that it takes to get from downtown to the suburbs (where our hotel was), and I remembered why I love living in small places. South Bend traffic delays me five minutes, maximum, when driving to or from downtown. Aaaahh. So nice.

We Googled restaurants in Wood Dale (our suburb) and found that Sweet Baby Ray's, which is John's favorite barbecue sauce, had a little spot not two miles from where we were staying. YUM! I heartily recommend a pulled pork sandwich with sweet potato fries. (I also heartily recommend not trying to move for 3 hours after dinner. That was a lot of food.)

The front desk kept forgetting to bring a crib to our room. In fact, for some reason, they first brought a mini-fridge to our room instead of the crib. I mean, a fridge is useful and all, but Bella couldn't really lie down easily inside, and I just didn't feel comfortable shutting the door on her to make it dark enough for her to sleep, so we were forced to send it back. This was John's alternative to the crib.

Yes, that is the armoire. At first he kept one door open, in order to avoid future accusations of abuse, but when she just kept oh-so-casually sliding herself out the door, he shut it.

And she fell immediately asleep.

Naomi slept between the beds on the floor. That's her favorite hotel sleeping spot. This left Olivia with an entire bed all to herself. And when you have a bed to yourself, how should you sleep?

That's right. With your feet on the pillow and your head under the comforter. No wonder Mimi prefers to sleep on the floor.

We sent John off the following afternoon. I felt like I spent the time he was gone with my pressure-relief valve permanently locked down. My poor kids. My good friend, Stacy Andrew, said this about her husband recently being gone for a couple weeks, "It's like I've been without water." Thank heavens my water has returned safely.

Teacher Gifts

I am pretty delighted with how the gathered clutches for the teachers turned out. With a little Starbucks gift card tucked inside, they were cute and thoughtful-looking, but easily assembly-lined. Exactly the kind of gift I like to give teachers.

My girls loved this coral/pink/red fabric combination.

I loved this green/gold/peach combination. Especially that delicious Heather Bailey green floral print with the gold polka dot. LOVE it.

However, when we were assigning out which clutch was going to go to which teacher, Olivia started asking about what we were giving to her art teacher. And her gym teacher. And her bus driver . . . and so on. Which reminded Naomi that she also had a music teacher. So, since I wasn't willing to crank out 6 or 7 more clutches (and I didn't think the male bus driver and music teacher would appreciate them that much anyway), we came up with this."Thanks for being an AW-esome teacher" attached to some A&W rootbeer. Sweet and simple, eh? I saw this idea here (via some crafty blog or other, I wish I could remember). Hers are cuter, (I would make up an excuse, but I think she just cares more than I do), but it only took me 2 minutes to print the little card on the tan cardstock. Then I gave the girls some scissors, a glue stick, and a hole punch, and we put them all together in one half hour. Not bad.The bag holds a package of microwave popcorn. We gave each teacher two bottles of rootbeer (cause I'm cheap like that) that we left connected with their original eight-pack packaging. With neutral cardstock and Spool-O'-Ribbon (I'm not making that name up) on sale at Michael's, each of these little babies cost me $1.42. Perfect!

Stuff I Want to Share

There are things, my cyberfriends, that you people need to know. Or maybe you don't really need to know them, but I want to tell you about them anyway. Because they're awesome. Or moderately funny. Or maybe just mildly interesting.

Never mind. Here they are:

*Knock-Off Wood is the most amazing website. I want to make nearly everything from every plan that she lists. And looking at her plans, I think I, or anyone, could probably do it. (Nothing is more exciting to me than a list of instructions. Assembling IKEA furniture is my all-time favorite activity for after the kids are in bed. This seems just like taking the next logical step.) What should I make? The Farmhouse Bed? (It really is about time I have a real bed, with a headboard and all.) The Simplest Nightstand? Maybe I should just start with a bench. (Except not on wheels, because I can just see that careening through the kitchen and down into the family room with a crash. And a couple children on top.)

*I found this video through a friend who said, after watching, "I don't know whether I should go puke or start limbering up my back." The first 54 seconds are boring, but then "Watch out!"

My girls will now spontaneously break into "Solid Potato Salad, Solid Potato Salad." And they've tried to replicate a couple of those tricks--without ANY success. (Edited to add: I realize that the frozen picture which appears until you push the play button seems . . . .um. . . a bit provocative. Which is not really the flavor of the video at all. Sorry.)

*Birth stories (which I always become somewhat obsessed with the last half of my pregnancy) are a little bit obnoxious. Unless, of course, you read about them from the perspective of a labor and delivery nurse. In that case, they are CRAZY funny. Or just plain crazy. You need to read this blog. She hasn't updated since I found her before I had Bella, but read her anyway. (DISCLAIMER: Obviously, birth is a messy process, involving not-normally-seen-in-public body parts. Even though this nurse does not have any pictures of said parts, she does mention them, and their functions, with regularity. Consider yourself warned if you are squeamish.)

*I've made six of these with six fat quarters from my favorite shop in the whole wide world. For teacher gifts. And now I'm not sure I want to give them up. But what could I myself do with six clutches? Do you think they'd all fit in my purse? (One for receipts. One for gum packages. One for gum wrappers. Hm. . . . )