Another Season of Soccer

Youngest DD enjoyed soccer so much in the fall that she wanted to play the Spring season. I have become a fan of children's soccer. I like that everyone gets to play for the majority of the game. And it really is a team sport. At this age there are few girls that are good enough to stand out. A good coach knows how to utilize everyone on the team and how to downplay the "stars". Middle DD had a really good coach at this age, youngest DD doesn't. And there are a couple of teams they've been playing against who don't have good coaches either. It's disheartening at this age to see the ball monopolized by one player per team.

I enjoy taking pictures at the games. I enjoy seeing how much action I can actually capture on film. It's rather fun trying to make my DD look like she's a soccer star.

Every now and then I get a really good shot.

But this is what my DD typically looks like in action: walking behind the rest of the team because it's just too much effort to continuously chase that ball.

And this is her favorite position. Sitting on the sidelines, drinking from her water bottle. Yea, soccer.

Turning Seven

Today was my youngest's birthday. Today was also "Take Your Child to Work Day". DH's office actually had a special program for all the children coming to work with their parents. They also had an age limit. Ages 8 - 18. So youngest DD missed it by a year. Oldest DD and Middle DD went to work with Dad, DS went to school (he hates to miss school - seriously), and youngest DD had to go to school - on her birthday.

So I emailed the teacher this morning and I picked up DD at lunch time and we went to McDonald's for lunch. Then I dropped her off at school again because I needed time to finish her cake.

DD came home with a large poster that her classmates had created. The teacher traced her body and all the students wrote something nice about her on the poster. She got to color herself in. We hung the poster on the dining room wall - just for the night.

Grandma and Grandpop came for the family dinner. The menu was chosen by youngest DD: Mashed potatoes and fruit salad. I added individual meat loaves and green peas.

Following the family meal, we retired to the family room to watch youngest DD open her gifts.

Surrounded by her loot. She's ready to rip into the packages.

Nerf protection for the DS. Something she definitely needs.

Oh my, who was cruel enough to give her clothes as a gift. Umm yeah, it was me.

I do enjoy watching her read.

Another Webkinz. Apparently you can't have too many of those.

Good thing she got that DS for Christmas or we just wouldn't know what to get her.

Yep, she needs new clothes. Check out the hole in the jeans. Sigh.

Hmm, show us what you really think of the gift.

And a Barbie cake followed dinner. Why Barbie? I'm not sure. I think she just likes the pan. She doesn't actually play with Barbies that I can see. Although I do occasionally find some tucked under her pillow. But hey, a pan that comes with a plastic doll cut out, what's not to love!?! At this point I've used the pan for all of my children. Oh wait, nope, haven't used it for my son - hmm, perhaps I'll have to save it for a bachelor's party sometime in the distant, distant future.

That just might work.

Rolled Fondant

Another birthday, another cake. I must admit that I never dreamed I would bake and decorate so many cakes when I first learned how to use decorating tips in 9th grade Home Ec. A friend has recently turned me on to this site. I enjoy looking at all the pretty and not so pretty cakes. Most of the really gorgeous ones are decorated with fondant. I've never used fondant. I didn't really know what it was until I caught a cake contest episode on cable. Amazing what they can do with that stuff! So, in an effort to increase my culinary skills, I wanted to decorate a cake with rolled fondant.

Now I know the stuff is available in a powdered mix, but most mixes contain artificials, and we don't consume artificials in this house. So I went in search of a recipe. I found a recipe for poured fondant, but that wasn't what I was looking for. Then in another cookbook the index referred me to sugarpaste when I looked up fondant. There it was - easy enough, egg white, liquid glucose, and confectioner's sugar. Hmm, well, it's not a cooked recipe, so I'll have to sub reconstituted meringue powder for the egg white...liquid glucose, never heard of that, but it sounds like sugar, so I'll use corn syrup, ...and confectioner's sugar, yep, I have that - who needs to sift!?!

So I followed the directions, ad libbing for the parts that I subbed. Then it was time to add the color. The directions assume that you're using Wilton's color pastes. Natural colors (especially ones that I've made myself) are rather liquidy. So I got to add more powdered sugar, and more powdered sugar... (The above is a picture of the blue frosting I made later, this is not fondant. I was too into my frosting to remember to take pictures of the fondant when I was making it).

When I used all my "red" coloring, it was time to wrap it and let it rest. Then I got to roll it out. Umm, the stuff was really sticky. You're supposed to roll it out on powdered sugar, which I did. I'd add more sugar as it stuck to my rolling pin (it's a marble rolling pin, nothing sticks to it, but this did). The extra sugar resulted in rather dry frosting. I finally got wise, ripped off a piece of plastic wrap that was the size I needed and rolled out the fondant on that. Then I flipped the fondant over the cake and peeled off the plastic wrap. It was beautiful! I was sooo excited. I carefully trimmed the excess off the edges.

Then I had to add the Barbie plastic mold. This was the cake my daughter wanted. I wanted to use rolled fondant. It didn't occur to me that the two might not go together until I was trying to put them together. I carefully rolled small pieces to cover the edges of the plastic. I felt like I was using Play-dough. I had to wet them down and try to smooth the pieces together. It worked okay, but don't look too closely. Then I got to decorate the rest with regular buttercream frosting. I think it turned out rather cute. DD was delighted.

Here it is. My first rolled fondant cake. And did you notice the colors? Red, white and blue. (Okay, so don't display it on a flag, but I thought it looked pretty good for natural colors. And yes, the red did deepen considerably as it sat. That's not photoshopped!) For those wondering, my daughter's name did appear on the cake, I smudged it out to display the cake on this blog.

Starting Seeds

I'm trying a garden again this year. The last time I tried, the soil was so poor that everything died before becoming anything. This year we'll be adding stuff to the soil first, so hopefully everything will grow.

We started this week by planting seeds. We planted zucchini, yellow squash, spaghetti squash and peppers. I'll be buying tomato plants, and everything else can be started from seed directly in the garden.

I'm also trying to start some flowers from seeds. We normally plant flowers in the front of the house. We didn't last year and weeds overtook the flower beds. So I've got a bit of digging to do before planting. But I am hoping to save some money by starting the flowers from seed. We planted impatiens, zinnias and alyssum.

I had some helpers for this part of the project. We'll see if they stick around when it comes time to weed the garden!

Easter Sunday

In my mind the three pictures of the girls are arranged nicely across the top of this blog - but we'll see how it turns out.

The baskets were arranged on the table - DH's family tradition, at least long enough for me to take a photo. Then I decided to follow my family tradition, and I hid all the baskets so the girls had to hunt for them in the morning. It didn't take very long to find them, I wasn't too imaginative this year.

Here are the eggs I dyed this year. From left to right: Red - made with yellow onion skins, Orange - red eggs soaked in turmeric, Yellow - made with turmeric, Green - yellow eggs soaked in red cabbage, Blue - made with red cabbage, Purple - blue eggs soaked in yellow onion skins. The purple didn't turn out so well. And I think the orange works better if you start with yellow eggs. Next year I think I'll stick with the yellow and blue and try some beets for pink.

And why do I go to all the trouble of dying my eggs with natural ingredients? Am I a tree-hugging hippie? Umm, no. I just know that artificial colors turn my kids into monsters :o)

It was a little strange going to church and then to Grandma's without DH and son. Here' the group shot of the cousins (minus DS).

We had the annual Egg Hunt. Each child is assigned a color, this keeps them from getting really nasty and upset and greedy and whatever else happens at traditional egg hunts. This year oldest DD had the privilege of hiding all the eggs. Then colors were selected by pulling an empty egg out of a bag. Youngest DD got green. All of the green were hidden among leaves and bushes. There's still one that hasn't been found.

I've been blogging!

I recently have added several posts to my blog - all post-dated to when they actually should have appeared. So if all three of my readers want to catch up on our lives you'll have to go back to January and check out all the new posts :o)

Breakfast in Bed

DH and DS left this morning to visit some relatives over the Easter Break. Youngest DD has been quite concerned about missing Daddy and got up early this morning so she could make him breakfast in bed.

She poured him some orange juice, selected a banana and a colored hard-boiled egg while I made him some jelly toast. Then she carried the tray all by herself. (I carried the orange juice).

He was also given his Easter candy since he won't be here Easter morning. (He's taking DS's basket with them). DH was quite surprised and enjoyed a few quiet moments with his youngest girls.

Learning to Read

I really don't remember experiencing any emotions as my older children learned to read. My oldest really struggled, was finally diagnosed with a learning disability, received in school and out of school tutoring and now reads fluently on her own. And while it does warm my heart to see her with her nose buried in a book, there were no "wow" moments when she was younger.

My son learned to read without any fanfare. I can remember realizing that he was reading books on his own, along with realizing that he had been doing that for a while unnoticed. We were probably too focused on his older sister to notice the miracle.

Middle DD was diagnosed with amblyopia in Kindergarten and academically fell behind while trying to deal with the emotional trauma being blinded with an eye patch on a daily basis. Her year spent in Transitional First Grade cemented her knowledge of letter sounds and she learned to read easier than her older siblings. But she is not a showy person, so again, there was no fanfare.

Then along comes the youngest. My youngest has been older than her years from the moment she was born. It was a joy last year to watch her point to words she knew and say them out loud. We pointed to the screen in church and showed her how to read along. She could pick out a few words, God, was, a, ... This year her reading skills have really taken off. This past Sunday I noticed melodic noise next to me. There she was, singing along with the congregation, reading every word off the screen, fully participating in worship. Later she was thumbing through her Bible. I opened it to her current week's Bible verse and pointed to it. She started reading and I could just see the light bulb click on. How amazing is that - these random sayings that she's been learning for Sunday School for three years are all written down and she can now read them! It was a joy to witness the miracle.