Happy Birthday, baby.

Violet Marie is one today.

I'm pretty sure that this is the fastest any of my babies have turned one. Science suggests that it took all of them a year to do it...but what does science know?

Happy Birthday Violet. May you always be as sweet as you were today (minus the part where you pulled Elinor's hair and pooped all over your clothes).

Of Lead Wizards and Water guns

One of the things Connor had decided he likes to do is perform in plays. He was in the Little Mermaid chorus this last spring and really wanted to do some more of that theater stuff.

We signed him up for Summerstage here in town, which is a three week morning or afternoon program. At the end of the three weeks they put on a play for all to see. Connor was assigned the role of Lead Wizard (which he thought was perfect for him) and yesterday morning and tonight we got to go watch him in action. 

As an added bonus, Sophia was picked as an audience volunteer which she thought was only the most amazingly best thing ever. 

Connor's had such a great time these past few weeks and I've enjoyed hearing him talk about things like blocking and voice. He already can't wait until next year. 

Sophie gets her moment in the spotlight. 

Connor's big scene.

Of camps, bug resorts, and ant-free restaurants.

For those of you who missed me complaining about it a hundred million times, Ben is gone all this week.

Here's the thing...I know that there are hundreds of amazing capable mothers out there that take care of their children by themselves every day. I was raised by one of these amazing mothers. My best friend is one of these amazing mothers. I know they're out there, I just don't claim to be among their ranks.

The funny thing is that because Ben is a pretty busy guy, I honestly do most of the day to day parenting in the house. I fix nearly all the meals, I wipe almost all of the bottoms, I make the kids pick up, I lay out clothes for the next day.... But when he is home, Ben can be a huge help. He'll put those dishes away and reload the dishwasher. He fold that basket of laundry that I haven't gotten to for the past day (or three). He'll change that occasional diaper. And my favorite thing he does...he'll put the kids to bed while I relax on the computer.

All that being said, this week has not been nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I haven't lost my cool nearly as often as I thought I would. I haven't been that stressed out. I haven't even cried yet. I don't want to say that all this calmness and not crying is because I bought a couple of litters of Coke, but it has definitely not made things worse. Also not making things worse...the blondies I made on Sunday night...that are now gone. I might have to make some more of those...while having a Coke, of course.

In fact, this week has actually been kind of fun. We've watched every Tinker Bell movie (yes Lynne, Every. Tinker. Bell. Movie.), we've built castles for all the My Little Ponies we own, we've danced to Everything is Awesome a million times, and we've taken walks around town. Connor started his own camp named quote appropriately Connor's Camp in the living room, we had a cook out at his camp, he and Sophia created a bug resort in the backyard that includes an island for roly polies. They even created a restaurant for the bugs called Ant Restaurant ...because...well...as Sophie explained "it's called Ant Restaurant because the ants aren't allowed to eat there." And, the kids determined that our entire living room floor is covered in lava (but only at bedtime) so they all need piggy back rides up to bed so their feet don't get burned.

The most surprising thing that has happened this week: I'm not totally behind on laundry or dishes. In fact, I'm maybe even doing better than an average week here.

 I have it on good authority that this is the only water park designed for bugs in the world. 

 Connor hanging out at Connor's Camp

Warming their hands over the fire. 

But...shouldn't we walk?

I don't like corn dogs. And....since I buy the groceries around here you can guess how often we have them. Yep...almost never. This means that my poor deprived children have corn dogs so infrequently, the youngest ones don't even know what they are.

At the end of her preschool year Sophia received a coupon for a free corn dog from Sonic. She was beyond excited about this and frequently asked me when it was going to be time to go get her corn dog. Yesterday, Sonic had them for $0.50 for National End of School Day or something like that. I figured that it was the perfect time to cash in and get everyone (except me) a corn dog for lunch.

I told Sophie that it was time to go get her corn dog and she was jumping up and down. It kind of made me feel guilty about the fact that I never give these kids corn dogs. Connor was excited, Sophie was jumping up and down, even Elinor had figured out that something amazing must be about to happen.

I told the kids to go get in the van so we could go pick them up. Then this happened:

Sophie: "The van? Shouldn't we walk?"
Me: "Oh...I don't think we want to walk all the way down to Sonic. We can drive."
Sophie: "But, how are we going to bring the corn dog home if we take the van? We should walk."
Me: "Can't we just drive it back in the van?"
Sophie: "I don't think so. I think we should walk."
Me: "What exactly do you think a corn dog is?"
Sophie: "You know....like a puppy."

She was only completely heartbroken when I explained to her that a corn dog was not in fact an actual dog, but was something you eat.

Her heartbreak only lasted until she actually got to eat her corn dog, which she of course loved. They all loved them.

In case you were wondering, I'm also depriving my children of the following things that I don't like to eat.

Pigs in a blanket.
Fish sticks
All other kinds of fish
All seafood
Everything else that is gross

Sometimes you remember to take the Easter pictures...

...and sometimes you don't until later. Which actually means that you can get some pretty funny pictures.

 Such as Sophie in the midst of her I just found an egg party dance. 

 Or the really awesome outfit that Connor picked out by himself. 

 Ellie Bells putting her eggs into her...erhm...basket, or the bag you found to replace her missing Easter bucket. 

Really, considering that I had been up since about 4:45 am with Connor, then helping at the Easter breakfast all morning, and then having a delicious lunch after church, it's kind of amazing that I still remembered to take any pictures at all.

Although I definitely remembered to pull my camera out to get this one. 

I didn't remember to get any of Violet. Well...better luck next year Vi.

And, I did remember to take one last week when we had a few less things on our plate.

This doesn't seem good, but it is.

Connor was a very vocal child. By the time he was two, there wasn't much he couldn't say. He also already had a very keen sense of how he thought the world should work and didn't like it when the world decided to operate in a way contrary to his personal views on the subject.

We were near the end of a our Tenebrae Service on Good Friday and our Pastors began to strip the altar. You might be thinking...um...strip the what now? It is the point in the service where the pastor removes all the paraments (that fancy fabric that adorns the atlar), the flowers, the crosses, the Bible...anything on the altar. 

So, the church is silent, and the pastors begin to remove everything from the altar. No singing, no background organ music...dead silence as the altar is stripped bare. And, Connor starts to freak out. I'll never forget the stricken look on his face as he realized what was happening and then my very vocal two year old starts saying "Oh no, oh no. They shouldn't be doing that. This isn't good. This isn't good."

Every Tenebrae service, Connor has been captivated by the stripping of the altar. He doesn't freak out anymore, but he notices it. He notices the quiet sadness, the lack of colorful adornment, the fact that it feels anything but good. As the altar is stripped bare on Friday it feels like all hope is lost. Our God has died. All the promises made seem to have been broken. It seems like Satan has won the day. "This isn't good."

In our baptism, we too are stripped clean of our trappings, but our trappings were nothing so nice as the paraments on the altar. Instead we were covered in sin and death. These coverings were stripped away, destroyed, killed, forgotten. They have been replaced with white. The white purity of Christ. He has made us pure and holy. He has covered us in His own righteousness and this..this is good indeed. 

And so, even though I want to be really sad on Good Friday, I can never quite do it. Because I know. I know that Easter happened. I know that Jesus didn't stay dead. He rose again. He overcame death, ransomed us from our enemy, the devil, and gave us new lie in our baptism. And, I know what Sunday morning will bring. The brilliant white paraments, the lilies, the joyous chorus of He is Risen, He is Risen, Indeed. Hallelujah. 

Better than Funnel Cake

Connor is forever reading and he likes all kinds of books. Recently, we found a book at the thrift store about the Navajo Indians. In the book, was a recipe for Navajo flat bread and Connor thought we should definitely try it out. We did and it was delicious. Better than funnel cake even....or at least better in my book. It was less doughy and therefore, more delicious.

You can find all sorts of recipes for Navajo flat bread (or sometimes called fry bread) all over the internet. I like to use this one from the Pioneer Woman as my starting point. I like it so much I even put it in my personal cook book.   

Don't be jealous of my cookbook naming prowess. The kids helped me. 

Connor liked the flat bread so much that he decided to take it to Scouts the next time he had snacks...which just happens to be tonight. He thought it would be a good way for them to learn about another culture and also get to eat something besides cookies. Not that these have more nutritional value than cookies...I'm not making that claim. Well...they might be before we add the toppings. 

There aren't too many ingredients required - flour, salt, baking powder, milk, and water. That's it. Seriously. Super easy and stuff we always have on hand. Mix the dry ingredients than add the wet ones in a little at a time. Start with the milk and then add enough water that a dough forms. The recipe suggests 1/2 cup. I needed quite a bit more than that. 

Mix with a fork...or your hands until a nice dough forms. Then put a towel over the bowl and sit it aside for a half hour or forty five minutes. Just enough time to do some cleaning or, may I suggest sneaking a television show whose target audience is above the age of eight while the kids are napping. 

After you watch those one or two television shows, melt some shortening or heat up some oil in a skillet. You are going to need at least a few inches worth in there. The Pioneer Woman suggested that shortening seems to work better - it seemed to work about the same as oil for me.

I usually make them a bit bigger, but since they are for a snack for the boys, I decided to make them smaller. I just flattened these out by hand. If you pick the dough up and slowly turn it while hanging on to one side, it will stretch out by its own weight. It's kind of like how you would stretch pizza dough out if you have ever done that. If not...well...just look it up on YouTube. 

Once your oil is nice and sizzling hot, you can put them in to cook. Usually less than a minute a side is all that is needed for them to be nice and golden brown. I don't recommend doing three at a time - two seems just about right or one if you are doing larger rounds. 

When they are done you put them on a paper towel to cool and top with whatever you want. The possibilities are endless here. I highly recommend powdered sugar, but since I mostly like the other Scout's moms and they wear those cute dark blue shirts, I did cinnamon and sugar on these. Honey is great. You can even fold them in half and put some taco meat, cheese, and lettuce in there. Yum-o. 

 

I decided that this was probably about enough for the boys, and that meant I had enough dough left over to make a few big ones for the family. If you roll them really flat and poke some wholes in them, they will even puff up a bit inside - which the kids seem to think is awesome. A little hand roller works great. 

You can do bigger circles that way which makes it easier to fold in half for tacos or just means that you have more delicious bread to eat later. 

And yeah....I totally went back and ate the other half later. 

As a bonus, because of the ease of the recipe and depending on how much you like to have little helper hands in the kitchen, this is a great recipe for the kids to do with you (except for the frying in hot oil part - although, at eight, Connor seems to be able to help with that part too). 

Now go fry up some bread and eat it. You won't be sorry you did. And the next time the carnival comes around you can turn your nose up at that $5 funnel cake because you've got something even yummier to make at home.