Thanksgiving Birthday Extravaganza, November Edition

In October, of course, we had Canadian Thanksgiving and D's birthday. And this past weekend, we celebrated (albeit early) American Thanksgiving and Hubby's birthday! Our dear friends Mandy, Morgan and Sarah made the trek from Southern Ontario for this year's festivities, and it was a tremendous weekend. We included my brother-in-law because Hannah was in Toronto visiting for a conference (and sister time with Rach- yes, I was a bit jealous!), and also because he's a UW grad like the rest of our guests. 

M was nonplussed by my pigtail attempt

A good-looking bunch of people ready to tuck into a turkey dinner

Apples to Apples: which of the red cards would you choose to represent calm?

Mandy won the game by playing this card. And by winning 16 other rounds.

Hubby's birthday cake on Sunday

For this year's birthday cake, Hubby had seen a picture online of a cake he would like, which you can see replicated here. It's his usual favourite, rainbow bits cake with blue icing, this time with a candy exterior. I am very glad to say that this was all Halloween candy, and I did not pay full price. 

Our beautiful hutch!

And just because we didn't have enough going on that weekend, on Sunday when my parents brought over bagels for lunch, we got rid of our old bookcase and brought in a new-to-us hutch. (A patient of my dad's had been trying to sell it, and finally decided to give it away.) This meant sorting through all our books and getting rid of some older ones, a task I left until Monday. Considering that the old bookcase about as deep but not nearly as wide, we had packed a lot of books onto it! I much prefer this new display, and as an added bonus, M can't get into the drawers or cabinets, so she can't pull books off the shelves anymore. The middle drawers house our photo albums and yearbooks, and one side cabinet holds stationary and colouring implements. The other side is empty for the moment, but it won't take me long to hide some clutter in there.

The toss pile

My teaching books and binders, soon to be boxed up and stored in the basement

Greatest granola of all

My new cookbook has now been in my possession for seven days, and it has yet to find its way into the cupboard. I've either looked at it, read it for fun, or cooked from it, every day. Today's offering: the best granola I've ever made! Although I prefer making granola to buying it, mine has tended to be lightly burnt and not very clumpy. (I don't like what it says about my kitchen intelligence quotient that I didn't previously think to lower the oven temperature, and not over-stir the mixture, as the cookbook advises.) Also, I very much appreciate that no more than two tablespoons of oil were used, and no more than half a cup of syrup. Granola need not be packed with fat and sugar. 

The whole house smelled amazing while the granola was in the oven, and it came out beautifully. I did my best to follow the recipe and not substitute anything (like spelt flakes for oat, or honey for maple syrup), but I didn't have any walnuts, so I used pumpkin seeds. I thought that, at worst, it would mean fewer clusters. Happily, it did not.



We had quite a delicious day, actually! The girls are both a bit sick, so we've been staying home most of the week. Today, they played fairly happily while I knit or cooked. Besides the granola (which we had with yogurt, and later with stewed apples), there were oven potato chips with fish sticks and peas, and butternut squash soup with honey-oat rolls.

Finally, if anyone was worried about my lost knitting, it has been located. This is not it...



...but that's some of what I'm working on these days. Neither of these things are for knitters, so I feel it's safe to show them on here. I don't think it's obvious to non-knitters what either one is. (Knitters, no spoilers, please!)

So, to sum up, I love my new cookbook and I am not good at finishing knitting projects these days. And I don't even feel bad about it.

My favourite things

Yesterday was a beautiful day, too much so to sit and type. It was unusually warm, twenty degrees. I had heard the forecast on Sunday, so I planned to hang out a couple of loads of laundry first thing in the morning. Thanks to the high temperature, the wind and a bit of sun, everything was dry by sunset (at FOUR thirty, yikes!). I think hanging laundry is probably the only chore I really enjoy. I'd love to be able to keep it going this winter, albeit indoors. Maybe we'll even save money; apparently, whatever we saved by foregoing the dryer in the summer was spent on air conditioning (although it didn't feel like we used it that much).



My sister Hannah had the day off, so she came over to do some baking from my Smitten Kitchen cookbook, which arrived on Friday! I do love that blog. Hubby was kind enough to pre-order the book for my birthday, and let me pre-open it when it arrived. I'm glad I didn't wait for my birthday. It was very tough to decide what to make first. Hannah and I settled on leek fritters with lemon-garlic yogurt, and buttered popcorn cookies. We went for a nice walk to the drugstore and the grocery store to get cold medicine for the girls, and leeks, eggs, and butter for the recipes.

Hubby was home sick for the day, and he spent most of it in bed. By late afternoon, he was up and about, and volunteered to take the girls out to get us a pizza for dinner. I never turn down pizza. So we had a nice dinner, after which I helped get the girls ready for bed, and then headed out to knit night at my friend Jasmine's. I'm always so pleased to be able to go! (Nursing M precluded me from attending much this past year, but as of last week, she's fully weaned and I have my body to myself again. Or as much as is possible when you have two small children clinging to you.) Last night's attendees were the always delightful Diana, Darcie, Leigh, Shauna and, of course, our hostess, Jasmine. I can't post about any of the knitting I'm doing these days, unfortunately, but I will after Christmas. Suffice it to say that many of the things are pairs, and it's always a challenge once you finish the first item, having to knit an exact replica. In my case, I have misplaced the original one, and can't continue its mate until I find it.

Still figuring out her preferred method of bottle-holding

Meanwhile, preparations are underway for Friends Thanksgiving this weekend. Hubby and I decided that the basement bedroom needs to be properly finished, so last week we moved everything out, sanded the drywall mud, applied the final coat, primed and painted. We may or may not have time to do the trim before our friends arrive, but at least the room looks nearly done. On the cooking front, I've got two pie crusts and a batch of honey-oat rolls in the freezer, and the turkey out of the freezer, defrosting in the fridge. Dinner isn't til Saturday, but I've learned from experience that it takes ages to for a frozen bird to thaw in a cold environment. Which sounds obvious now that I've typed it, but there you are.

Costume cuteness

This year's Halloween costumes are brought to you by the letter M and the colour blue.

Madeline 

Monster, presumably of the shoe-eating variety. Isn't she fierce?

This was the first year we've had multiple costume possibilities: a dragon (courtesy of Auntie Rach), a giraffe (last year's Nov. 1st discount buy), or Madeline for D, and a monster (also Rach), a lion (formerly D's), or Red Riding Hood (discount buy) for M. D has already worn her giraffe and dragon costumes around the house, and I like having lots of options for playing dress-up. So, even though we have about eight or ten costumes, we'll be going shopping for new ones first thing tomorrow. Like ten-ish.

The first haircut

 Another milestone reached! Can you believe we've never cut D's hair? It was getting unmanageable, and we thought maybe after her third birthday would be a good time for a trim. Hubby had cut my hair before, nothing fancy, just straight across. Rather than taking her to a salon or even a kid-specific place, we figured we could do it at home ourselves.

We had clips, scissors, and even a cape (which we didn't end up using) already, from the various sets of clippers we've bought to use on Hubby's hair. So, last night, after a bath in which her hair was well-shampooed and conditioned, Hubby did the honours. He strapped a small chair to one of the kitchen chairs, set up a movie for D to watch, and went to work.  

Three years' worth of growth

Combing it out

A couple of inches off the bottom

All done!

Hubby did a great job! D's hair is so much easier to comb now, and it doesn't get messy as easily as it did before. It took less than half an hour (I think?), and we were able to choose the best time for her, as opposed to making an appointment and hoping she'd be well-rested, able to stay still, and in a good mood!

Wrapping up Birthday Month

Today is my mom's birthday, and it caps off a busy month of celebrations. We had D's on the 7th, Great-Grandma's on the 8th, my dad's on the 21st, and M's on the 27th, with Thanksgiving thrown in for good measure. M's birthday was a fairly subdued affair, given that she won't remember it and we were all pretty exhausted. Still, we did get the family together for a meal, special cake, and gifts. One of our many nicknames for her is Mouse, so I made mouse cupcakes. They were decorated with chocolate icing, Oreo-style cookies sawed in half (for ears), chocolate chips (for eyes), and red shoelace licorice (for whiskers). M was not overly fond of her cupcake, but she did like smearing icing all over herself. Hubby has a beard at the moment, and she looked even more like him than usual when she was done!

We only got a couple of small gifts for M: two French books (one of which actually held her attention!) and a sippy cup like the one we got D for her birthday. I almost felt badly, but then she really doesn't need anything, and she doesn't even know what presents are. Other people got her little outfits or books, and that was lovely. She has been growing and changing immensely these days; she started walking a few weeks ago, and has added a few new tricks to her repertoire, including relocating shoes to the garbage bin, and a whole roll of toilet paper into the toilet. She's still nursing, and luckily for me, still toothless, although it doesn't slow down her eating. She gums away at all kinds of things, favourites being grapes, tofu, applesauce and canteloupe. She can say a few words (Dada, Mama, Mum-mums, Hi, Bye), knows a couple of signs ("more" and "all done"), and is understanding a lot of what we say (clap hands, Maevey! No, Maeve, don't touch the garbage).

Overall, she's a much happier kid than she was initially. You know, like for the first few months of her life. The more control she has over what happens to her, the more content she is. I guess everyone's like that to a certain degree. She was born to move, as Hubby said from day one, and she loves to be active. She prefers finger foods, but if she's really hungry, she allows us to spoon-feed her. She does still cry a fair amount, but I think it's about the same as when D was her age, and we know how to help her now. And she doesn't sleep through the night yet. But she is healthy, and I am so thankful for that.

Big sister helped blow out the candle, having 3 birthdays' worth of experience 

Sharing is caring: Little sister is generous with her cupcake

And then she seemed to realize that it was ALL FOR HER!

Hours after M's birthday luncheon, we had my mom's steak-and-cake birthday dinner last night, and we had already given her a gift (a Tupperware shaker to replace one she used to have), but the girls and I went over this morning to bring her some pumpkin cinnamon rolls. I had tried making them once already for a brunch with friends a few weeks ago, and they were tremendous! It made for a nice breakfast treat, and we brought a couple over to my grandma as well; I believe in celebrating the mom of the birthday kid!

A Madeline cake

It started a couple of months ago when I asked D what kind of cake she would like for her birthday. A slow smile crept over her face as she said "A Madeline cake."

I thought I'd do a practice one before her birthday playdate, just in case it didn't work out. (It turned out well enough that I see no need to repeat the process. We'll have other snacks instead.) Anyway, today D helped me make the cake:



Then, while the girls had quiet time upstairs, I started the decorating part. A crumb coat first:



A rough sketch of Madeline, based on Google image results:



Very rough.



I mixed some colours and filled in the blanks. (Cake decorators, avert your eyes from the next sentence.) I used the back of a baby spoon to spread the icing, figuring anything else would take too long and end up looking pretty much the same. I think it's fine.



I outlined with chocolate icing, which looked so bad that I had to make the background chocolate as well. Had to.



Happy birthday, D! Mommy loves you.