Happy Birthday Meenum!

In the midst of varying degrees of illness in various family members, Miriam turned a WHOLE hand this week! (sigh, how did I get old enough to have a 5-year-old?) Fortunately everyone was well enough on Monday to celebrate. And since it was a Solemnity (hooray for St. Joe!) we made sure to whoop it up!

basking in her birthday glow
(I think she wore this shirt, a birthday gift from A. Terri et al., every day this week!)

Yum, my like chockit!

certifiably insane (she must get it from her father)
This was our gift to her. Can a scooter GET any girlier? :)

Today we had Miriam's party with some of her little friends. Their mothers told me they were all VERY excited about the party. I know it was the first birthday party that at least one of the little girls was invited to, and she was SO jazzed. Her mother says she thinks she slept with the invitation.

Miriam's been looking forward to this moment for weeks.

Getting help blowing her candles out

Miriam & I had fun decorating her cake (she colored the bow & put half the sprinkles on).

Just wanted to show off my Martha-Stewart-like table decorating skills. :)

Unfortunately half of the pictures I took of the party, like all the present-opening, didn't come out (stoopid camera). There was a really cute one of all the girls sitting at the table, decorating their goodie bags with stickers. They were all very quiet and intent on their task. I noticed that a party with all boys would be so different. :)

Miriam enjoying her FAVORITE gift, a Disney princess CD player that plays very hyper versions of Disney songs at one volume level (LOUD). Why are the most popular gifts always the ones that are the most obnoxious?

After all the guests left, Miriam tried on all her new clothes. She's such a girl.

The reason Katie isn't in any of the party pictures is that she was in quarantine. We weren't sure if she was contagious or not, so to spare the families who hadn't had been exposed to this illness already, after she decorated her goodie bag Mr. Pickles whisked her upstairs for the duration of the party. (she spent most of it sleeping, anyway, so she didn't miss much)

All in all, I think the party was a success. No tears, no tantrums, no bathroom accidents, no vomiting, and all the children went home. A success in the parent's book.

Happy Birthday, baby girl!

The rumors of our demise are only slightly exaggerated.

Well, this is what I get for bragging about how we made it through the winter illness-free. We're just coming out of over a week of sickness. It started out as a sniffly head cold last week, which then proceeded to knock me flat in the early part of this week. Mr. Pickles had to stay home from work to make sure the children didn't starve. And then just as I was starting to operate at about 50%, Katie, who had been sniffling along with the rest of us, got some intestinal thing that's been keeping our washer & dryer busy. She's been living off of Tylenol, Pedialyte, toast, and applesauce for the last 4 days, poor little thing.

"Bleg."
(she just looked so cute and pathetic I had to snap this)

Today I thought she was doing much better,

until she lost her afternoon snack, and then begged to be put to bed (that's how I really know she's sick).

Truth to tell, it's kind of nice having her be so snuggly. At least, it was nice when I was feeling snuggly, and not today when I'm feeling well and want to get back into homemaking again.

More interesting posts to come when I don't have a small whining child clinging to me anymore.

"Hm, when I was four, I think I was potty-trained"

As any Belland worth his salt knows, that line is from a Calvin & Hobbes strip, where Hobbes tells Calvin that Mozart composed his first symphony at the age of four. That was Calvin's response.

Check out what this little girl was doing when she was four.

The reason why we won't be answering our phone in the evenings for a while

We're seriously addicted.

And by "we" I mean that Mr. Pickles plays, and I watch. When we were first married we spent every evening for two months this way. I'm a sucker for an engaging story. It's sort of like watching a soap opera with battles against monsters thrown in.

More Signs and Portents

Be sure to go outside and watch the moonrise Saturday evening!

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UPDATE

We didn't get to see much of it, unfortunately. :( It was too cloudy. I was really hoping to see the orange moonrise, but it was completely blocked out. I saw a rough-edged crescent about an hour later (that was pretty cool and spooky-looking) when it cleared a little bit, but that was about it.

Cooking with Mrs. MacGuyver

On today's episode of "Cooking with Mrs. McGuyver" we will be discussing what to do when one's oven suddenly dies. The discovery of this annoyance can be a bit exciting, for example while preheating one's oven to make biscuits, one notices a strange glow through the glass, and sees the heating element a bright orange and emitting sparks. So what does one do? Well, the best thing to do of course is turn the heat down (using pliers since the switch is also broken), and then turning it back up again to see if it does it again. When all appears normal one inserts the biscuits, which seem to take an extraordinarily long time to bake, until one realizes that the oven won't get hotter than 325, which is pretty much useless unless you plan on making pot roast every night of the week. If your family has given up eating meat for all of Lent, this is quite the nuisance, since the toaster oven also will not heat up higher than 300 (even though it SAYS it goes up to 450). And nothing but chili or vegetable soup gets old after a couple days. So what is one to do for the remaining weeks until the heating element is replaced?

Well, the best thing to do would have been to consult one's Crockpot cookbook first, rather than planning and shopping for meals that all required oven baking. Not to worry, though! Nearly any oven meal can easily be transformed into a crock-pot recipe. So you may enjoy the various casseroles and oven bakes and one-dishes you'd planned by following this handy conversion chart (all cooking times very approximate):

Conventional Cooking Time: 15-30 mins.::Crockpot Cooking Time: 1.5 hours on HIGH - 4 to 8 hours on LOW
Conventional Cooking Time: 30-40 mins.::Crockpot Cooking Time: 3 to 4 hours on HIGH - 6 to 10 hours on LOW
Conventional Cooking Time: 50 mins. to 3 hours::Crockpot Cooking Time: 4 to 6 hours on HIGH - 8 to 18 hours on LOW

(This opens up several possibilities for summer baking, too, when one doesn't want to heat the house by using the oven.)

Note: the LOW cooking times are pretty much useless since one never remembers to prepare the crockpot until the afternoon.

Another kitchen appliance that will make itself particularly useful during this period is your breadmaker.

As for biscuits (a staple for much of Lent since they go so well with beans), they can be fried on the stovetop when they're rolled thinly. Colonel Sanders has got NOTHING on these home-made babies.

If you want to make Lenten pretzels, however, or muffins for Sunday, you're pretty much screwed.

So for the next few weeks, it looks like it's going to be Crockpot Cornucopia!

"Holy Sex, Batman!"

Now that I've got your attention, that's the title of a chapter in Gregory Popcak's book on marriage, For Better... Forever! (Great book. We just finished reading it.) Here are some choice excerpts:

For the Christian, sex is always holy, sacramental, unitive, and procreative. If it isn't, then it isn't sex. It's eroticism.... [I]ts hallmark is that it values your personal pleasure over either the dignity of the person, the dignity of the act, or both. ...[It] turns lovemaking into an act that is more about meeting your own needs than about giving yourself to your mate. ...Further, contraceptive practices of eroticism reduce lovemaking to sexual bulimia in which all the pleasurable sensations of sex are sought while any real spiritual or physical effect is disallowed. ...Eroticism is to real sex what dumpster diving is to dinner at your favorite four-star restaurant. Sure, you could do either, but why in God's name would you want to?

I've thought before about the eroticism-eating disorder link. If you ask the average person what the purpose of eating is, they would most likely respond "nourishment." If they responded "pleasure, since I'm going to vomit it all up afterwards anyway," you would most likely feel disgust and pity and ask them if they've sought counseling for their disorder yet. But if you ask the average person what the purpose of sex is, how many would respond "unity with one's spouse" or "babymaking"? Are you not more likely these days to hear "pleasure"? Sure, we get pleasure out of eating, but it's more satisfying when you know the food you're eating is nourishing your body well. In same way, some get pleasure out of eroticism, but they won't be really satisfied unless the act nourishes their souls.

This book is really great. It's really opened our eyes and given us some great tools for how to make our marriage better. We highly, highly recommend it.

The weather outside is frightful...

but the fire is sooo de-lightfullll...
(or would be if we had any firewood)

and since we've no place to go,

(except romping)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

(preferably for another 36 hours so Mr. Pickles can stay home Tuesday, too) :)

I feel like I'm living in an Ansel Adams photograph.

our dogwood out front

This is the only time of year when I think red painted fences look beautiful. When the rest of the world is black and white, the color is striking.

Recipe for Happiness II

Mix in a big mug:

2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder (we've currently got Hershey's, but Ghirardelli is the best)
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 c. hot milk
1/2 tsp. peppermint extract

Stir, drink, and be transported to a happy place.

Sadly, I have to wait 41 days, 3 hours and 2 minutes until I can enjoy this again.

Oooohhh... shineyyy... 2

My wish has been granted!

Calphalon stainless steel, aluminum core, with non-stick frying pans, and glass covers. I never thought such a combination in one box would exist, so I was very excited to find this! I now have nicer pots than my children do.

Action shot, taken by Miriam, of me trying to fit them all in our itty-bitty pot cupboard.

Another action shot by Miriam of the resident two-year-old being cute. She's ready for both Mardi Gras AND St. Patrick's Day!