Check Out This Bad Boy

This big ugly is called a Hubbard Squash. It's bigger than my butt two basketballs and heavier than my twins.

I had the best pumpkin pie I've ever tasted last fall at the Warrior Run Heritage Festival, and was very surprised when they told me it wasn't pumpkin. I can't even describe how it was better. Just try it if you have the opportunity. Recipes are here or here.

Added bonus: the seeds are about four times bigger than pumpkin seeds and totally yummy. I roasted mine with salt and I can't stop eating them, but that's cool because pumpkin seeds are rich in MUFAS (monounsaturated fatty acids)!

Theresa, your birthday's coming up. We need to take a nice photo of you for the birthday page in the newspaper.
Your hair still looks so pretty from your haircut this afternoon; c'mon and I'll take your picture.


Don't tilt your head, honey. I need a straight-up picture.


Okay, I get it, you look cute. Stop tilting your head.


Very nice. I should submit THAT one to the newspaper. Oh, and there's a hair in your face.


Where did you get that? Put that down! Very funny. And that hair's still in your face.


This will do very nicely. Thank you.

Only by the Grace of God

One of these days I'm going to have to blog about how many times I've almost accidentally set this house on fire during the 15 months we've lived here (hint - at least four). Today is not that day, but it's close!

Today is about those nagging feelings that just won't go away, which I believe is the voice of the Holy Spirit or a Guardian Angel trying to guide me in right paths. There are so many examples in my life of when I followed the promptings of that voice and was rewarded in some way, and the other times when I disregarded the voice and later came to regret it. It's about all those times when seemingly insignificant pieces of the puzzle all come together to reveal the fingerprints of God guiding my life.

Take today, for instance. It's a gorgeously warm day for fall - in the 80s again after a week of cool and damp. We got off to a later start than I'd hoped due to a late night, and I didn't even bother starting school with any of the kids because I had to take 13yo Brian to a doctor appointment at 10:00, which really chops up the continuity of the day. I grabbed Brian's vocabulary book, left the other school kids with some loose instructions, and headed out the door without breakfast (or coffee).

I need to add here that Brian hasn't been wearing his glasses for about a week, and it's really been difficult for him to read. Trying to look up his vocabulary words in the dictionary with microscopic print was next to impossible. He said he had no idea where his glasses could be. I had an inkling of where to find them (on the third floor, in the rec room, on the large table on which Scott and I built a thousand-piece puzzle in two hours a few nights ago - which was another late night, but it was good to spend time with him :-)

Needless to say, when the appointment ended an hour later I was in serious need of nourishment. When we got back home, when Brian asked me what's next for school, I replied, "Lunch!" I made a cheesesteak with salsa for myself. He grabbed frozen hamburger patties, thousand island dressing, and an onion, and went upstairs to the other kitchen on the third floor to make himself a homemade big mac.

We spent the next two hours on the first floor, doing schoolwork. And we picked up the vocab book again. After struggling with the dictionary for a few words, I just felt at that particular moment the compulsion to go look for his glasses. So I headed upstairs to look.

My first impression was that the rec room, which is usually cool, was unusually warm. But it's unusually warm and sunny outside, so no biggie. My second thought was that those darn kids left all the overhead lights on again. I gave the large table the once-over, looking for Brian's glasses, which were sitting atop the panoramic puzzle of New York City (which was challenging but not impossible - I never imagined we would finish it in two hours! But Scott was a man on a mission that night...)

I grabbed the glasses and went over to turn off the light switches, which are located in the kitchen area of the rec room. And it was even warmer over there. I was about to walk out of the room when "something" made me step back to the oven. I suspected that Scott might have left it on last night when he was baking "pain au chocolat" for French club today.

I held my hand over the stove, and it was more than unusually warm. And I discovered that it wasn't that Scott left on the oven. No, Brian cooked his hamburger on the electric stove burner, and instead of turning the front burner off, he accidentally turned the wrong switch and turned the back burner on. Then he left the room with both electric burners on high. There was a metal baking sheet on the other burners, and a paper towel was a few inches away. I don't think it could have caught fire, but thankfully, I'll never need to find out.

Incidents like this leave me feeling so warm (no pun intended) and secure in the knowledge that God cares enough about us that He protects us, not only from outside dangers, but also from our own stupidity and carelessness.

First Day of Autumn

You know it must be the first day of Autumn when you leave your four sweet little girls on the swing like this:

Theresa, twins Noelle & Natalie, Clare

and when you turn around, you find this, instead:

Happy Fall, Y'all!

I Can't Think of a Good Title for This Post

I have a confession: I can't stand doing crafts with the kids. It always turns into a disaster. It wasn't always like this. I start out with high hopes, but invariably it turns into a free-for-all.

Whether we're making candles or finger-painting or making a foam Christmas tree, simultaneously there's always one kid who can't do it without help, one kid who can't do it without help but does it anyway, one kid who rushes through and is (poorly) done in five minutes, one kid who still isn't done two hours later, and, of course, the twins, too young to include but too old to be left out.

If it's a food craft, they're clamoring and fighting and crying ,"You said I could mix it!" or "I wanted to pour the chocolate chips in!"

And then there's me, rushing from kid to kid, trying to give three different sets of instructions at the same time while stopping one twin from giving the other a safety-scissor haircut, all in a state somewhere between frenzy and nervous breakdown.

Sometimes, just to liven things up, the occasional fight breaks out. And towards the end, they see something shiny, and I'm left cleaning up the glitter or pumpkin guts or picking up 300 twisted tie-dye rubber bands (and sporting tie-dyed hands for a week because I forgot to put on gloves), all the while wondering why I even bother in the first place. It completely wears me out for the rest of the day, and I usually need a nap and a heavy dose of solitude when it's all over.

It makes me wonder if I'm really cut out to be a homeschooling mom after all.

Having said all that, today we made rice krispy treats together.

Backstory: The last time we went to the salon, the stylist had a box of krispy treats and gave each of the girls one. Today we stopped in briefly, and as we were leaving, Natalie dug in her heels, started hopping up and down, and howling "I want a bar! I want a bar!" Of course, I had no idea what she meant.

Natalie hopped and howled all the way to the car, until Clare remembered the krispy treats from last time. So instead of scolding her or threatening her or any of those other things parents do in public to a tantrum kid, I tried to explain to a two-year-old that the treats were all gone. Didn't work. Then I told her that if she stopped crying, we would stop at the store and get marshmallows to make krispy treats at home. Thankfully, this did work.

They were very good in the store and for the 3-minute ride to our house. And true to my word, I proceeded to start making krispy treats, but I was dreading the usual clamoring chaos until I had a stroke of genius. This wouldn't work for every craft, but it worked like a charm this time.

I counted out 10 marshmallows per kid (next time I'll let them each count out 10), and let them drop them one by one into the melted butter. They ran laps around the downstairs until the microwaving was done. Then I showed them, to their amazement, the huge spongy mass that now was where their marshmallows had been.

Then - first stroke of genius - instead of scooping 6 cups of krispies one at a time out of the box, I scooped all six cups into large bowl and put 3 smaller measuring scoops into the bowl. Then I appointed the oldest, Clare, to be Designated Stirrer, because that marshmallow stuff is so goopy that she's the only one who could handle it.

Next - second stroke of genius - I took them out to the front walk so that any spills would be cleaned up by the wildlife detail instead of on my kitchen floor. And it worked beautifully! Clare was satisfied because she had an important job, using three scoopers meant that everybody got adequate turns to add krispies, and the smaller scoops meant that it took a good, long time to add them all.




Even more fun was that Mom let everybody eat handfuls of the sticky, gooey mess right out of the mixing bowl.



Remember that, kids. Your mom is awesome.