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Cape May: Part Two - The Wedding!

Now you may have wondered what possessed us to pack up a four, and a six year old and drive twelve-ish hours away, into an entire other country just to splash in some salty water. Well, I'll tell you what. We had a much better reason to visit the beach than just to pick up some shells. The real reason we decided to go to visit Cape May was that we were going to a wedding! 

And not just any old wedding. My Little Brother's wedding. P.J. (or Uncle P.J. as he is known around here) is my little brother only in age, as by the time he hit grade 10, and I was in Grade 12, he was already almost a head taller than I was. Our Little Guy once referred to him as "dat tall uncle wif da no hair." And now that tall guy has finally met his match. Not in height of course (as you will see from the pictures) but in humour, temperament and interests they certainly see eye to eye. 

Lisa (or Aunt Lisa, as she will heretofore be known) is an American, and grew up in Philadelphia, but went every summer to Cape May for a vacation at the beach. Since many fond childhood memories are there, and she knew how beautiful it was, she wanted to have a wedding on that sweet little beach from those happy childhood days. So off we went, with the promise of a seaside vacation into the bargain.

And thus it came to pass, that on the morning of the 13th of June we went to the beach and it looked like this: It was bright, but windy. The surf was choppy and we wore bathing suits and water wings and lots of sunscreen. 

BUT, on the afternoon of the 13th of June we went to the beach and it looked like this: Sunny and bright, with a clean blue sky, and we wore our summer Sunday best, (and still more sunscreen) And where there had just been sand and beach umbrellas before, there were now rows of white chairs, and a little arch with flowers on it, and a man in a top hat waiting for a lady in a long white dress to come and meet him. And all those nearest and dearest to them were waiting to hear them tell each other of their love, and how they would live the rest of their lives together. 

It was lovely. Our little family had our small parts to play in their big day as well.  As the youngest child in the extended family, our Little Guy had the honour of being the Ring Bearer! He took his job very seriously, but luckily did not get nervous about it. He held the little ring cushion very carefully as he sat in his seat, and when the Officiant said, "May we have the rings", his cousin sitting next to him gave him a nudge and he popped up and went straight up there to deliver them. And I had a job too. Besides being the self-appointed provider of sunscreen to small children and the unprepared, I was the photographer. I really enjoy taking pictures, and despite the fact that my brother does NOT enjoy having pictures taken, (never did, even as a child) even he could seen the need to record this beautiful day. I was very honoured to be given this responsibility, and took it so seriously that I wore flats. (For those of you who know me, you realize that this practical footwear decision on a semi-formal dress occasion is a great acknowledgment of the of the importance of my job. ahem.) 

And so they tied the knot and sealed it with a kiss. 

And then smiled and stood and posed for pictures with all the family. (This one is just our immediate family on the Groom's side)

The Ring Bearer ran off with the Bride's parasol.

And the Bride and Groom smiled and posed and posed and smiled for as long as I could get two people who don't care much for posing to do so. Though I must admit that they were more than usually smiley. They must have been having a pretty nice day...

And I'm going to pat myself on the back and say I did a pretty good job with the photos. This one is my favourite. 

And then it was time to head off to Menz's for the wedding dinner, and of course, CAKE! And oh the excitement when the little boys discovered that the cake had LEGO PEOPLE on it! Our joy was complete when they found that each place card was set with a little lego man too. As the little cake banner says, it was the BEST DAY EVER!

This was the first wedding that our boys have attended, and I must say, Aunt Lisa and Uncle P.J. set the bar pretty high as they not only had lego men at their place settings, but were personally gifted with action figures as wedding favours from the bride and groom.  Oh Joy!

Batman flew all over that dance floor!

The night went on, with cake and food and lego people playing, and the bride and groom and all their guests talking and laughing and revelling late into the night, until I finally packed in my camera, picked up the boys and took our tired, happy bones home to bed with the promise of another day at the beach tomorrow. 

Best wedding ever. 

Cape May: Part One

oh, I have SO many pictures to show you. We just got back from our very first family beach vacation. Also, our very first family road trip. Also, our first swim in an ocean. Also, our first beach wedding! So many firsts. But one thing at a time. This is going to take a few posts as we saw so much stuff and had so much fun that it can't all be crammed into one little post. So here goes.

After a 10 hour drive, which was really a 14 hour road trip (what with the stops to eat and stops to pee and stops to eat some more) we arrived very late at night in warm and beautiful Cape May, New Jersey. I don't think I've ever actually been to New Jersey before, and was only vaguely aware that it had beaches due to a certain reality show which is the interest of full disclosure I will admit that I did actually watch. But " Jersey Shore" did absolutely nothing to prepare me for how lovely Cape May is. Cape May is down at the very bottom of New Jersey, and is a small, picturesque beach town, full of victorian architecture and some of the prettiest beaches on the Atlantic Coast. It was so pretty and the scale of it was so manageable. I really liked it. 

Anyhow, gushing about the location aside, we got up on our first morning in Cape May and after breakfast went straight to the beach. The beach we chose was recommended to us both by the owner of the house we rented, and my soon-to-be sister in law (more on that later). It was The Cove beach, rated in the top 21 beaches in America. And whoever does those ratings was right. The boys had never really been on an actual ocean beach before (we dipped our toes in the Pacific for about 10 minutes the last time we were in Vancouver, but didn't have a proper beach visit there really) and were full of excitement about it. We go to a little lake beach here in Ontario from time to time, but aside from the occasional bottle cap, there is not much to find in the sand there. But here, in Cape May: SHELLS! So many SHELLS. They could hardly contain their excitement. 

When we finally tore them away from the tide line and its bounty, it was a joy to watch them experience the waves for the first time.  They were just delighted to feel the waves wash up and slosh against their legs. 

Their squeals of pleasure at the simple reality of the tides was one of those parenting moments that you look forward to. 

They were easily convinced to put their buckets and shovels down, get their water wings on, and hit the surf. 

Though of course, when you are four, you don't actually do much swimming in the ocean. You mostly just wade in and get buffeted about by the waves.

And its all much easier if you have your mom or dad's hand to hold onto. 

I should also mention, in the interest if "keeping it real" parenting wise, that taking a vacation with kids is not really a vacation per se. I prefer to call it a trip. We took a trip with the kids. Which was fun and all, but also still a lot of work. I mean, look at these kids. 

I probably had the two whitest kids on that beach. Honestly, I looks like we climbed out of a basement in Iceland or something! Like, have they ever even seen the sun before? I swear, we do go outside in Canada from time to time. Anyhow, my point is that my kids are so white that they practically glow in the dark. And as I know from my own life, skin like ours only has two settings: white or red. Maybe a little light pink in between there. But basically, we do not tan. (this is all my Dad's fault by the way. My mom gets a beautiful, golden brown tan. My dad burns like a lobster. I blame the red hair gene). Which is all to say that when we go somewhere sunny and hot, putting sunscreen on little people is my full time job. Oh, and have I mentioned that little people HATE HAVING SUNSCREEN PUT ON! They hate having it applied almost as much as I hate applying it. The phrase "greasing a pig" comes to mind. Except I'll bet the pigs don't whine as much. 

Back to swimming though. One of the best features of The Cove beach was this great tidal pool. It was big, and clear and warm from the sun, and not connected to the ocean once the tide went out, so it was the perfect place for little kids to play and swim. No waves, no undertow, no deeper than a pair of adult knees. It was perfect. The kids spent hours in there. 

One of the best parts of this trip, according to my seven year old, was all the wildlife we saw. There were lots of crabs on this beach. Teeny tiny ones like this guy, and bigger ones too. Though none to big. But I did get my toe pinched when I was wading out in the water. Twice! Hubs thought I was imaging things, but I was not. Other beach goers confirmed the pinchieness of the local crabs. Not enough to break the skin though. And so very fascinating to find some, dig them up with your shovel and watch them scurry along and burrow themselves back into the wet beach sand until just their little eyeballs peeked out. We could have done that for hours!

We did a lot of beach combing, and found so many shells, though the locals all tell us that the shelling is not as good as it used to be. We found no whelks, and many shells were small and broken. Which did not matter much to us, as pretty much all of it was a wonderful novelty. But this was my favourite find of our whole trip. This odd little bit of broken shell, drilled through all over with the most perfect holes. Its a larger, hunter/predator shell creature that does this. Though they usually only make one hole. I don't know why this one was so full of holes, but I do know that I find it beautiful. I want to make a pendant out of it and wear it when its cold outside, so I can remember the warm place where I found it.

And after our long day on the beach, full of wonder and sunscreen re-applications and slightly sandy snacks, we headed back to our beach-town cottage and rinsed off the sand in the outdoor shower (another marvel!) and put on fresh clothes and curled up in chairs on the veranda for a late afternoon cup of tea and a cuddle. It was a good day.

four!

I'll try to spare you all the cliches of parenting as my child gets a year older. All the "where did the time go?", and the "how did it happen so fast!", etc. You know them all. But as they say, sometimes cliches are cliches because they are true. Suffice it to say that our Little Guy (aka, the Baby) is four today. 

Despite the fact that we've talked about it for weeks, and tucked him in bed last night with "goodnight for the last time as a three-year-old" kisses, he didn't remember that this morning was his birthday. So when he stumbled out of his room all groggy and bleary-eyed he did not notice that I hadn't managed to get around to decorating and wrapping presents last night. Ahem. That's the price of being second-baby. Parents are not so on top of their game as with those first-born little emperors. But one of the best things about little kids is that their limited life experience means that they don't always know what they're missing. And so I was able to sneak downstairs and quickly wrap a few gifts, while Hubs pinned up some bunting. And then SURPRISE we were able to reveal to him that it was, in fact, his birthday! He looked bewildered and then delighted. As though despite all this talk of the coming birthday he hadn't realized that one day it would actually BE his birthday.  We try not to go crazy with the gifts, as it can get out of hand, pretty fast these days. But you can see why people do spoil their kids because its pretty darn rewarding to watch them open a gift that they really wanted. 

This is not a great picture (bad lighting, should know better than to put him in the seat with the window right behind him. duh) but the look on his face and his joy with that little rabbit toy is so perfect. "I have always wanted this!" he cried when he pulled him out of the bag.

What is is with my kids and rabbits?

So far, four is a pretty great age. You're not too big for a morning cuddle on Daddy's lap. 

But you're big enough to help decorate the birthday cupcakes. (mmmm, sprinkles….)

Though it should be noted that you are NOT big enough to carry the box of birthday cupcakes to the fridge. Sigh.

Sidebar: Here's my honest parenting moment. I would like to say that I just chuckled about this sort of mishap due to overzealous toddler help, but I was not pleased. Though I am glad to say that aside from an audible sigh, I kept all the frustration inside. In my head I was all like "Seriously! Didn't I just tell you NOT to try and carry them to the fridge by yourself! ARGH!" But luckily the other part of my brain said "DO NOT freak out about this. Its his birthday. Don't ruin it. They are just cupcakes, and you are making them for him anyhow, and he doesn't care at all if they are smushed so long as they still have lots of icing and a liberal amount of self-applied sprinkles." And luckily, I had another 8 cupcakes, perfectly iced and ready to go in a second container that he didn't get his helpful little hands on, so there was no need to freak out. 

Another fun thing on your birthday is getting phone calls from relatives that live too far away to visit. So cool, to hold the phone yourself and talk about the things that are important to you. (such as the new bunny toy. Cupcakes. Sprinkles. etc) 

And of course, you get to blow out candles. 

And finally get your four-year-old hands on one of those cupcakes!  

Christmas revels

I've been very light on the blogging as we come up to Christmas. There has just been so much to do, you know how it is. Anyhow, here's a little glimpse into how we are celebrating. We've hung up some lights. These are a string of the "Old Fashioned" ones, left over from my childhood probably. I just love the colours of them. So soft and warm. 

And we've celebrated advent with the help of the lego company. (and a good friend and kind cousin who helped get us our this treat) I know, I know. I have long had dreams of the hand crafted, heirloom quality advent calendar I would make for my kids, but somehow I never get around to it. And then L.D. go wind of these (both Lego AND Starwars!) and there seems to be no turning back.

We got some really nice snow earlier this month. Its all a distant memory today (because it is Christmas Eve Day and it is RAINING! What is this, England? Get yer climate straight Canada! Most of the time I could care less about your snow, bloody inconvenient and whatnot. However there are two days here when I'm ok with great gobs of picturesque snow. Can you guess which ones? Seriously, you had ONE JOB Canadian Climate!)

That snow was very much enjoyed while it lasted. 

"Hooray for snow!" (say the people who don't have to shovel it)

We also did a little easy kid crafting. These are the cheater gingerbread houses that you make with graham crackers and candy. 

The LOVE making these. Basically its an excuse to get candy, but there is a bit of creativity going on. 

Though they are ready to tear them apart as soon as they are given the go ahead. 

And see how generous my six year old is? Once all the candy has been picked off he just can't wait to share it with me.

We finally got around to some real baking. 

And made a batch of gingerbread. (side note: When I posted this picture to facebook my cousin commented that she loved how "real" it looked. You know, with all the other crap on the table. And this is a good measurement of how busy I am. I don't exactly "stage" photos for this blog. I am not that ambitious. But if I can't take the two minutes it would require the push the markers and lego to the other end of the table so I can have a "clear' background, as I normally would, then you KNOW I'm busy! I had fifteen minutes between getting these cookies iced and heading out the door to work, so clutter schmutter, at least I managed a picture!)

I learned this icing technique from a good old Martha Stewart video. Not at all as hard as it looks and it yeilds very pleasing results to both the eye and the mouth. 

A little less fussy are these guys. All they require is a fancy cookie cutter from Williams Sonoma. I'm telling you, money was never better spent around here. They'd rather have these plain guys than the ones with the icing! I don't think they are available from Williams Sonoma anymore, but I think you can still buy them on Amazon. 

They go over very well. No matter what cookie flavour you use. 

"Delicious I will be. Eat me you will." 

And when the weather is cold enough, we have a fire. It will be a very mild Christmas, so probably just one on Christmas Eve, to make it feel gezelige. That sort of like "cozy" for those reading who are not of Dutch heritage.

Merry Christmas to you all, and happy holidaying in whatever way you celebrate. 

pageantry

The Little Dude's school Christmas concert was tonight. I just have to say, these sort of kid's programs are so… interesting. I really appreciate all the effort that goes into them, and the intention to celebrate the holidays, and encourage performance skills and talents in the kids that don't have much of an opportunity to present themselves during the rest of the school year. And the feeling of community is lovely.
Also, even though it is unbearably cliche, I'm a sucker for a little kid in an angel costume. 

And there was a big audience. Which was not surprising. The reason that there was a packed house tonight, was because each and every person in the audience is there to see someone they love. They are there to watch their child (or grandchild). So the actual experience of the performance is kind of beside the point. No one ever leaves a child's Christmas pageant going "Well, that was a very low calibre performance. I don't think we'll go next year." Of course you'll go next year! You're kid is in it! 

Anyhow, my point is that my son is not a performer. There are kids who know all the words, who sing their little hearts out, who glow at the audience's applause, be it thunderous or polite. But not my son. My kid is there because... because he is. Don't get me wrong, he was excited about going. Excited about wearing a white shirt and a belt (for a couple of minutes at least), excited to be up past his bed time. Excited to see his friends. He looked expectantly for me in the rows of parents and smiled and waved discretely when he spotted me. But after that point, he is not so into it. 

He sings. A bit. When he remembers the words, or when he is not busy being distracted by something else. He does the actions that go along with the words when he remembers to, but he is usually one beat behind. He smiles when he looks up and sees me smiling at him. But then he spends the rest of the time undoing all the buttons on his shirt and then doing them up again. Then he finds something interesting on the ground. Then he notices how itchy his knees are. Both of them. Now just the left one. Then both of them again. He looks at the ceiling. He examines his pom-pom boutonniere. And so on. 

But the show goes on and the hour gets later. As you can see, the novelty of standing and singing has worn off for most of the grade one and two boys. But they got through it. And so did we. And we'll all do it again next year, and marvel at how they've grown. And who knows, one of these years  he might be into it. Or not. Either way, I'll always be there to watch it. 

short, fat and gaudy

We are decorating our Christmas tree this afternoon. As an event, it is the most bizarre blend of idyllic memory making time, and a total crazy mess. (these are the sweet ornaments that the nice ladies at Sunday School helped the boys make. Personalized with pictures and everything! Way to go Sunday School ladies, you are officially on top of your game.)

On the one hand James is sitting beside the tree, strumming a ukelele and singing along with Christmas carols and looking like an adorable hipster cherub.
On the other hand they are eating too many candy canes and I know I will pay for that later. The boys are doing most of the decorating and you cannot imagine a more miss-mashed schmozzle of what I think can be classified objectively as a fairly ugly tree. Basically its short and fat and gaudy. (This is how an unsuprevised three-year-old decoartes a Christmas tree)

But then Kees looks up at it and breathlessly declares it the most beautiful tree anyone has ever seen and how can I do anything but melt?
And we are eating the traditional and healthy Christmas-tree-decorating-meal of Ye Olde Nacho Chips with Cheese and Salsa. And I have already stepped on and broken an ornament (a plastic one thank heavens) and also I believe I have broken my toe (not on the ornament, but on the edge of the washing machine when I was trying to find the ornaments in the basement). Like for real. I broke my toe AGAIN! And it made me scream and swear and cry, which is not what one is going for on a "Let's celebrate the memory of the birth of Christ" sort of day. So you know, that sums up our afternoon here. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
But at least we got the tree decorated. 

a mom's Christmas list

Every family has their own Holiday traditions and whatnot, but in general, if the advertisers are to be believed, for most people that will involve gifts. We do give gifts in our family, but to keep it from being full on insane, we draw names among the adults and give one gift to one person. Its a good system. We make it one substantial gift (since you are only getting one) and we do it secret Santa style, so you don't know who you are getting it from until they hand it to you. Which is fun too. But that means that my Mom is sort of the organizational hub. She is in charge of the name drawing and we all have to give her our Christmas lists, which she then sends out to all of us in a group e-mail so we can all access them without giving anything away. So she's been nudging me for mine. I'm a little behind. Because really, its hard to say what I want. This is one of the ways that being an adult sucks. A quick walk through our local toy store provide my 6 year old with an easy dozen things he wants and are well within the budget of a grown-up to buy. But for me... Its not so easy. I want a lot of things. But most of them are things that money cannot buy (or at least, not our sixty-dollar budget limit). Anyhow, I finally sat down to write my wish list. I thought I'd share it with you here. So you can have a laugh, and also so that you can help me out with some of these. You know, if you are magic. 

My Christmas List

- A big stack of books and enough time to read them.

 

- A big stack of fabric and enough time to sew something with it.

 

- New clothes from a store where I don’t work.

 

- A movie and dinner date with my husband. (Once a week, every week, for the rest of our lives.)

 

- A weekend alone. I don’t care where. ALONE!

 

- A piece of Beautiful, Meaningful, Unique jewelry. I know that’s vague, but really, do I have to think of everything myself? And nothing with the kid’s names on it because that’s too obvious.

 

- A heated driveway so we don’t have to shovel any snow this winter.

 

- For the dinner fairy to be real.

 

- Ditto for the laundry fairy.

 

- Anti-wrinkle cream that actually works; none of this “reduces the signs of ageing” bullshit. I want something that straight up makes the wrinkles disappear. And don’t even go and tell me that the wrinkles are “beautiful” and “I’ve earned them” etc. Maybe someday I’ll buy that (like when I’m 80) but not yet.

 

-And while we're dreaming, a "sleep pill".

 

- Thai Yoga Massage (this one is actually doable).

 

- I was going to say Jamie Oliver’s new Comfort Food cookbook, but I got it out of the library already, so instead I would like Jamie Oliver to come to my house and cook me dinner. But first he needs to send a cleaning crew.

 

-Summer. I’ll settle for Spring though, in a pinch. 

 

There it is then. I can't wait for Christmas Morning....

Halloweeeeeeeen!

Oh my gosh you guys, Best. Hallowe'en. Ever. Even though it was pissing down rain we had SUCH a good time. The kids were over the moon, like excited off the charts about the whole deal. Everybody loved their costumes. Everybody got all the candy they could ever imagine wanting. Everybody had an amazing time. 

And I want to tell you guys, I feel so satisfied right now. I've been parenting for about six and a half years now and really, one of the things that you learn is how rarely things go as expected, let alone go as hoped. But tonight... I love Hallowe'en, and the kids are so excited about Hallowe'en, and you just hope thing will go well, that no one gets hurt or scared or disappointed. That they have fun. That they will remember it. And this is one of those rare, rare times that that appears to have come true. And I'm telling you, it is rare, but oh, so sweet. 

Anyway, enough of my ebullience. Let me tell you about our costumes. I've been working on the Little Guy's for a couple of days now.  He wants to be The Flash, obviously. I downloaded the logo from the internet and then cut it out of felt and appliqued it onto a plain red sweatshirt that I got from the second hand store. 

And Hubs drew me a pattern for the mask (because he is awesome) and we cut it out of craft foam. 

Hubs also decided to make himself a mask. We like to dress up to match the kids. So Hubs was Wolverine, to match with Little Flash. 

And here he is, Little Flash in all his rubber booted glory. Those boots are from the V.V. The Little Guy absolutely HAD to have them, even though they fit him just exactly, with no room to grow or anything. But he insisted. And since they were $2.99 I figured it was worth it. And just as well with the rain we had tonight.

And here are our two super heros. Note the running pose on the Little Guy. 

Also note Hubs' specially manicured Wolverine beard. Now that's costume commitment.

The Little Dude's costume was much easier to manage. He wanted to be a lumberjack. He cared very little about the costume itself, but kept telling us how important the axe was. He needed that axe. Everyday he came home from school and asked if Hubs had his axe yet. There is even a concept sketch. 

And of course Daddy came through for him. A real axe handle, a fake axe head (styromfoam and silver duct tape) and he was over the moon. The shirt and the hat are just set dressing as far as he's concerned, but he was very happy, as he looked in the mirror, at the overall effect. A very satisfied Little Lumberjack with a very Big Axe. 

And naturally, I'm the Big Lumberjack with the Little Axe. Har har. 

Axe Battle!

And so, we all put on two layers of warm clothes underneath our costumes, got our boots, our candy bags, and an umbrella and headed out for a very slow, very fun and candy filled walk around the neighborhood. And as previously mentioned, a great time was had by all. Our neighbors were very generous and there were TWO houses where they were giving out full sized candy bars! I'm seriously going back to those houses with thank-you notes. We returned to the house about an hour later, thoroughly dampened (but only the first layer, we were dry underneath!) and retired to a hot bath to eat our allotted six kinds of candy before we headed off to a very well deserved sleep. And as I tucked the Little Dude into bed, he murmured about how it was the best Hallowe'en ever. And I agreed. I whispered "Do you know how much I love you? I love you so much it fills my heart.", and he replied "I love you for as far as there is sky, Mom. And you know what? The sky never ends. So my love for you never ends either." And I melted, like chocolate eaten in a bathtub.

I love Hallowe'en. 

pumpkins!

A couple of days ago we decided it was time to carve pumpkins. Or rather, the Little Dude was home from school, he and his brother were fighting like cats and dogs and when they weren't fighting they were whining about inconsequential things that made me want to shout "FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!" at them. Everybody had had a snack, the Little Guy was fresh off a nap so really, there was no need for such unpleasantness. NO NEED! I had stuff to do (laundry to put away, dinner to make) and they wanted me to play, so we had a problem. And then someone suggested pumpkins. I don't know if it was L.D. or I that realized we had not carved yet and Hallowe'en was only a matter of days away. But it seemed urgent. And relevant. And worth ignoring the laundry for.  So, first step is cleaning them out. 

But nobody wanted to put their hands inside. Too goopy apparently. 

Even the Little Dude who is previous years has been all about grabbing big handfuls of pumpkin guts, insisted on using utensils. So who did most of the pumpkin gut removal? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. 

The Little Guy was especially pleased with the removable top. 

Lid goes on, lid comes off. (and note the chicken pox all over this poor child. Scabbing over nicely though. We're almost over it!)

L.D. said, "Look Mom, it looks like a spider web! Take a picture of this!"

Once we had them more or less cleaned out (and I did NOT do a very good job of that. We were under time constraints as dinner does not make itself people!) we did a little concept art on paper and then drew what we wanted them to look like with washable marker on the pumpkins themselves. And then we carved! Or rather, I should say that then I carved. Because three year olds and knives are not the safest combination. Though the Little Dude did the teeth on his pumpkin with my assistance. 

And here are our finished pumpkins. The Little Dude's is on the left, and the Little Guy's is on the right. And I must say, they are a pretty accurate depiction of their different tastes and personalities. 

The Little Guy was saying "Its too heavy! I can't hold it anymore" as I quickly snapped this picture. Which is why the Little Dude is helping him hold it up. I'm glad I have a photo of this becuase I need proof that he can, occasionally, be helpful to his brother. 

Though of course, everybody's favourite part of pumpkin carving - better than knives, better than gooey pumpkin guts, better than scary faces even - is fire. 

And there they are, all lit up! We'll burn those candles down to nubs on the first night for sure. Oh, the joy of looking out the window and seeing those glowing orange faces on the porch. So, pumpkins carved, done and done. And we had quick scrambled eggs for dinner. And now, we can't WAIT for Hallowe'en! 

 

thanksgiving

Remember thanksgiving? It happened, like, half a week ago. Aaaaages ago. Do you even care anymore? Well, whether you do or whether you don't I'm gonna blog about it. Because it was kind of a milestone for me. You see, I am the daughter af a great cook. Someone who had been cooking for her entire life and has honed her craft to an art. And I live 8 minutes away from the culinary  brilliance that is my Mother. So why on EARTH would I ever cook my own Thanksgiving Dinner? Or Christmas Dinner? Or Easter Dinner for that matter? My Mom has pretty much nailed turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce. And I love it. 

But this year is the year that The Little Dude has Chicken Pox (see previous post) and so we had to miss Thanksgiving Dinner at my Mom and Dad's house. Too many other little kids to potentially infect and even if that were not a concern, he was so SICK on Thanksgiving Sunday. Just laying around, being miserable, having a fever, shaking his little six year old fist at the heavens as he said (repeatedly) "I don't want to have Chicken Pox any more!" - in no condition to go anywhere. Anyhow, my point is that I had to take Thanksgiving Dinner into my own hands. And you know, its not like I don't have any culinary skills at all. So in between painting calamine lotion onto L.D.'s spots and reading endless stories I cooked us a bird.  Just a little organic chicken. But I haven't roasted a chicken a while and it was fun to do. 

Also, we got out the fine china and the stemware.

The better to toast you with my dear. 

Isn't that a fine looking plate? And note the place cards, written with care my the Little Dude. 

Everybody had their favourite part of the meal; mine is the stuffing and the cranberry sauce. Both are my Mom's recipes and I will never deviate from them even a smidge because they are perfect the way they are. The Cranberry Sauce has orange zest in it and is so fresh and lovely. And the stuffing is so sage-y and delicious. But the Little Guy here is all about the mashed potatoes and gravy. As is the Little Dude. 

This is his thumbs up for the food, as his mouth was too full of mashed potato to say anything at the time. Also, not his general lethargy. This was about as enthusiastic as he got on that particularly unpleasant day in the Chicken Pox cycle. Poor kid. But he did like those mashed potatoes. 

Though this is what everyone was waiting for:I did NOT attempt to make the pumpkin pie myself. That was delivered to our quarantine house by my kind niece, courtesy of my Mom. That woman makes the ultimate pumpkin pie. 

And it was gobbled up as fast a forks could allow. I said before that the mashed potatoes were the boys' favourite part of the meal, but I stand corrected. They would eat stale bread with cold gravy for dinner and be happy as clams so long as there was Pumpkin Pie for dessert. 

And so, in spite of not getting to join the big party with the long table and tons of little kids and noise and fun and multiple pumpkin pies, we still had a pretty good Thanksgiving. And I felt like a grown-up, cooking one of those signifigant, symbolic meals for my own little family. It was nice in spite of the Chicken Pox. And I hope you all had good thanksgivings too, whether they were little or big, in good health or bad. It can go either way, but I hope you managed some pie and some celebration whatever the circumstances.