If you like A&E’s Pride and Prejudice, English mini-series type shows in general, or Upstairs/Downstairs stories featuring the English upper class and the servants who make their lives possible – you might like Downton Abbey. And if you DO like Downton Abbey you will be happy to know that it’s back for it’s second season, which you can view for free on the PBS site.

It starts two years into World War I, when everybody is starting to realize that their lives will never be the same again. Prompted by the show, I started telling Judah what little I know about the horrors of that war, and he was so interested I went and searched my bookshelves, because I thought we might have a kids book about WWI. We don’t. But we do have a book about the great escapes of WWII, which he is currently reading with great interest. So at least something good came of watching Downton Abbey!

Michael worked late every night this week, except Tuesday (when we had company for dinner) and Friday (when we had a church Christmas pageant). Thursday night I took the kids to the dress rehearsal, so they were up late that night. Friday night, after the pageant we brought two boys home to spend the night to celebrate Judah’s birthday – we didn’t send them to bed until 10:00 (come on, it was a sleepover – and a Friday night!). They woke up before 6 am. This morning we had a birthday brunch for Judah with various family and friends showing up mid-morning to lunch time. While we were waiting for our guest to arrive and I was cooking and cleaning up last night’s dinner dishes, Michael got the tires either torqued or changed on both of our vehicles.

The brunch was fun and Judah got some great gifts! I’ll post pictures later. After all our guests left, Michael had to go in to work again, though he’s getting pretty tired of the place – he got home shortly before 8:00. I cleaned up the kitchen some and made a big fruit salad for church tomorrow, then made and served dinner (short cut dinner –  frozen pizza). The older boys are all tired and getting sick from all that playing, eating sweet things, watching TV, playing the Wii and running around outside, so they were happy to go to bed at 8:30-ish, after we finished Advent. The younger two, after taking two-hour naps this afternoon, seem fully charged. We put Monica to bed anyway, but of course she came out shortly thereafter needing “fresh water” with ice. I sent her to go to the bathroom since she was up anyway, but she dawdled putting her drink by her bed first and – you guessed it – wet her pants. *sigh* She is finally to bed again, but Phinehas still is full of energy and cheerfulness, and seems to be thinking: “now that the older siblings are in bed, what are we gonna do together, huh, Mom? Huh, Dad?” Now I just need to finish all of the hand-washing, and I can rest (but of course, I’m writing this blog post, first).

And I can’t figure out, why are Michael and I so tired?!

Thanksgiving baking! Pumpkin pie from scratch. Monica gutted the pumpkin and Judah pulled off all of the pumpkin skin after it was baked, so it wasn’t too onerous for me. But I don’t think we’ll do it again unless we grow our own pumpkins. It didn’t taste any better than the pumpkin pies I made from canned pumpkin puree, and the texture was less smooth. And I think I like the seasoning in the Libby’s pumpkin pie recipe better anyway.

Christmas cookie baking. Am I not a good mom?!!

None of my kids seem to understand that it’s December – time for long sleeves and pants.

Decorating! I actually did some! The stockings were all made by my mother in law – I just got mine this year. Decided it was finally time to join the rest of the family, so I requested one of my own last year.

Advent devotions! As you can see, the kids really get into the candles!! Phinehas was initially very uncomfortable with starting fires in the house, but as you can see he’s finally gotten into it.

There is such a huge difference between 12 months and 18 months! That must be why people differentiate, rather than just saying “He’s one year old.” He wasn’t quite walking at 12 months, and now he’s running. Fast. He couldn’t really manipulate his surroundings, and now he can open drawers and cupboards, push chairs into more convenient locations for climbing, and push buttons on any electronics he can reach. He didn’t talk at all at 12 months and now he… well, he still doesn’t talk much. People theorize that with three older siblings he doesn’t much need to, but I think he’s just another like Judah. Judah didn’t talk until he was 2 years and 4 months old and then, as my parents said about me, “[he] never stopped.” Phinehas jabbers all the time and seems to think he’s talking, but his only words that we can recognize are:

1. “Mo” More.
2. “Daddy”
3. “Mommy” or “Mama”
4. “uh-oh” (usually after intentionally dropping something)
5. “Hhha” Hot
6. “Day” in a very pleasant voice, for Please
7. “Day-Day” in a very pleasant voice, for Thank you.
8. “goo” Good, when you say, “How are you, Phinehas?”

As you can see, he’s light on the ending consonants!

He loves to be involved in everything, as you can see in the photo below, taken the day before Thanksgiving when we were making pumpkin pies (from scratch!).

I say that his job description is “going around the house getting into things,” because I think that’s pretty much what he does all day! When not doing that, he routinely:

• pulls out all of the dishes from the bottom cupboard in our bookshelf and climbs in
• plays in the bathroom sink with bath toys, usually making a big soupy water mess. (I don’t mind, I have a bunch of old towels specifically for cleaning up messes)
• hides under blankets and giggles
• runs like the wind and hides behind the big chair in his room, when I’m getting his clothes out of the drawer to dress him
• throws his blanket on the floor and does a face plant into it to snuggle. (He calls his blanket, “Mmmmm.”)
• climbs up on anything he can

He went through a really rough patch right around Thanksgiving. He got the flu and didn’t recover from it for almost a week, and then it still seemed like something else was bothering him – he was unbelievably crabby. But whatever it was seems to be gone and now he’s Mr. Cheerful again, just like in the picture above.

You could microwave it – and pull out a cube with hole melted through it – some if it still too hard. Or you could postpone your baking project until it softens – by which time who knows what will be going on? (Anybody else had sick kids lately?!) Or you could follow this tip: How to Soften Butter. It works! I know, I just tried it today. I was making Salted Caramel Thumbprint Cookies for Judah’s piano recital tomorrow, and was faced with the above mentioned dilemma. Google came to my rescue, and the cookies are made (and delicious!)

Now let’s just hope that Judah doesn’t get the flu before his big moment! Of course if he did, we’d just have to eat them all ourselves….

We all have so much to be thankful for! I’m thankful to be spending Thanksgiving with my in-laws, always a treat. I’m doubly thankful that my parents are also coming to the feast! As I sit here in my blue bathrobe (thanks Mom), and drink my thrice-blessed coffee, I’m also thankful for clear winter mornings (we even saw the sun!) and new decks, and beautiful children with big round eyes full of excitement or thoughtful pondering.

I’m thankful that the pumpkin pie I made from scratch turned out well. How do I know? Let’s just say we had a bit of a “Thanksgiving Preview” last night and ate one of the 4 pies. Yes, one whole pie. It was a small one!

I’m thankful that my hard working husband has a stable job – an extra blessing in this economy! And, though he doesn’t have a sentimental bone in his body, I’m thankful that his love is faithful and strong.

My Grandpa Ray told my mom when she was raising little kids, “These are the best years of your life.” I hope he was wrong. I hope it’s not all down-hill from here! But these are good years, and I’m thankful for them.

O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endures forever. Psalm 107:1

The Old Wives’ Program for Thanksgiving Week:

Second as in, second date, not second anniversary! In point of fact, we were able to celebrate our 10th Anniversary twice this year, the first time with a dinner date and the second time, just the last weekend, with an overnight stay in downtown Portland. We’ve never left the kids overnight, (since Judah was born nearly 8 years ago) so this was a big first for us!

Michael purchased tickets to a local production of Oklahoma! at the Gerding Theatre at the Armory for Friday night. (Heads up, you get a hefty discount for being under 30 – good thing we didn’t wait too long to celebrate our anniversary. Another few months would’ve bumped the price up significantly!) We enjoyed the show – yes, even Michael. He did say that it was a “silly show” and of course, it really is, but that didn’t keep us from laughing most of the way through

We ate out for dinner and dessert, spent the night at the Benson Hotel, and after breakfast at an Irish pub, we quite enjoyed a tour of downtown Portland lead by a local guide. There were three other women in the tour group besides us – I thought it was odd to spend two and a half hours of my life with these people whom I will never see again. You almost got to feeling like you knew them and then it was, “Goodbye and have a nice life!” They were all from out of town – we were the only true locals participating. We both learned a lot about the city, and I feel more enthused about Portland, merely from being better acquainted with its past. For instance, did you know that Portland is called the Rose City because during World War I, the English were afraid their gardens would be destroyed and their special varieties of roses destroyed forever?  Obviously they needed a sanctuary! So they looked all over the world for the proper place to relocate some of their prized flowers – and the city with the best climate turned out to be… well, the answer is obvious.

Below is a picture taken on the tour, in front of a statue called, “Allow Me” in Pioneer Square. The guide said she thought it was a lousy representation of Portland (though not necessarily a lousy piece of art) because the man you can’t really see in the picture below, is wearing a three piece suit (which is very unusual in Portland) and carrying an umbrella (also unlikely). It rains a lot here, but most of that is drizzle… hardly worth getting out an umbrella. (But umbrellas can be such cute fashion accessories these days!)

Where were the kids? At home with my parents and sister! Hooray! They all did OK, though Phinehas had a hard time going to bed and down for his nap. My parents did OK, too, though they were pretty tired by the time we got home! Thanks Mom and Dad (and Katy!)!

We really had a lovely time, and we’re hoping to do it again someday – maybe in less than 8 years this time!

And a good Sunday it was! Hope you all had a blessed Lord’s Day as well. We went to church, as usual. Today Michael substituted for an absent Sunday School teacher – so he got to teach Judah’s class full of 6- and 7-year-olds. I asked Judah how Dad did, and he said he did “fine.” He was less than enthusiastic because his normal teacher has recently started rewarding children who do not speak out of turn with 3 candies at the end of the class. They lose one for each time they break the rule. Apparently his dad just gave them all one piece of candy. He also noted some differences in procedure, as in which order they recited verses, did the lesson, etc.  I guess they’ll be happy to have their regular teacher back next week!

After church we spent the afternoon at the new house of some friends of ours. While we were there I allowed Judah to try to cut up an apple with a paring knife. He was having trouble, so I took over, but he was telling my friend about how we had a “nifty” apple corer/slicer at home, which I thought was amusing. Since the house and furniture were new, we breathed a sigh of relief when we managed to leave without our little troop damaging or destroying anything! They did enjoy playing outside and got their shoes all caked with mud, but dutifully took them off before coming inside. Funny to see my little girl in a pink dress, and pigtails with pink ribbons running around carrying a football in the backyard!

After our busy birthday party Sunday last week my friend Mystie and her 4 kids came and visited us for a couple of days. We went to the Children’s Museum in Portland on Tuesday with all 8 kids. They all had a great time. We were commenting on how sterile the environment was though: cool miniature backhoes and dump trucks, but instead of dirt, chunks of rubber. A grocery store where they can pretend to shop for and checkout groceries – instead of going grocery shopping with their mom. A room full of legos – fun, but if you have legos at home, not extraordinarily unusual. It was fun, a good change of scene, something to do – but we realized that we have access to the real versions of most of those things in our daily lives: dirt, groceries, dolls, water, legos, dress-up. The water playroom was really clever – all of the tubs and basins, and pumps and other equipment would be difficult to replicate at home, I’ll admit. Phinehas liked that one best of all!

Mystie and I drank a lot of coffee and served a lot of food. I think we ran the dishwasher after nearly every meal! 10 people makes a lot of dishes!! (Michael’s been working late for the October 15th tax deadline) The kids didn’t get to sleep very quickly either night, and we didn’t go to bed too early ourselves, so I think we were all pretty exhausted (but happy) by the time Mystie left on Wednesday. Thursday was mostly a recovery day. With Ezra’s friend’s over for his birthday last Saturday, we had had friends over at our house to play for 5 days in a row by Wednesday!

Since I’m on the bread group at our church, I bring 50 servings of home made bread to our weekly church potluck. I’m on bread one month, regular food the next, and on bread months, I tend to spend a lot of time baking! Yesterday I baked focaccia bread with kalamata olives, and cheese muffins, and french bread with egg-whites, and pizza (for dinner). My hands are all dried out after dealing with dough all day long! I love baking though – it’s such a rewarding hobby. It’s relatively cheap, makes the house smell good, my people are excited to eat the fruits of my labor, I seldom have to worry about finding a place for it, and I just love working with dough. What’s not to like?!

This week has no major events scheduled. We get back to school (last week was our break week) tomorrow. Other than that, it’s just regularly scheduled activities. Hopefully I’ll make pesto with my abundant basil (before it freezes) and of course, there will be lots more bread baking! Have a good week!

Ezra had a rather extended birthday celebration this year. On his actual birthday, he went out for his early birthday breakfast with his dad. They discuss goals. He received his Spiderman suit from Grandma Rachel in the mail that day, so I let him open it right away. On Saturday, he had a friend, Paul, and his uncle Zane over for the late afternoon and evening. They played dress up, battles, watched Pink Panther, and consumed Ezra’s requested birthday dinner: Eggs with sausages. I threw in some chocolate cake muffins, to make it more festive. Zane spent the night. After church on Sunday, the rest of our local family, plus a couple almost-family-members came to his “family birthday party” when he finally got most of his presents, and continued to play all afternoon with Judah and Zane. Below you see him opening presents, his colorful yellow cake with yellow frosting, candy encrusted, made by Aunt Abigail, and him blowing out his candles. We had to do the singing and cake carrying twice, because the fan was on the first time and blew out the candles before Michael could get it to the table for Ezra to blow them out!

Since one major goal of blogging is bragging about sharing your successes, I had to make a post about this culinary experience: Beer Can Chicken. It was an unmitigated success, probably the best chicken I have ever made. Given that I’ve been trying to roast chickens for 10 years, that’s more of a statement of ineptitude, but we will overlook that fact for a moment.

You start out with a chicken (or in this case, two), and a can of beer (or in this case, two).

You need a half can of beer. What you do with the other half of the beer is up to you.

After removing the innards and rubbing all parts of the chicken with spices and oil, you mount the chicken on the half empty beer can.

You barbecue it for an hour+ until it looks all toasted and brown like this and is done by whichever standards of chicken doneness you use. I have a charcoal grill, so I put all of the coals on one side of the barbecue and put the chickens on the other side – indirect heat, maybe? You cook it covered: it’s basically like an oven.

Your children are excited.

The meat was tender and juicy and the skin was delightful – if you like skin. I do. Judah does. Michael doesn’t.

And we gobbled it all up.

The End. (Of the chicken)