Charlyn’s Web

I asked Sunshine what she wanted for her birthday (yes, this was BEFORE it happened!).

“A tractor and a shirt!” was her immediate response.

What color of shirt?

“Green!”

Green. Great.

I guess it’s better than orange.

I did buy her both items. The tractor was green too. (my apologies to a certain family I know who prefers implements of a different color.) She was thrilled with it.

Yes, she is wearing a green shirt. But not the one I bought her for her birthday. She hasn’t lowered herself to wear that one yet. It has green stripes but no fun tractors or Sesame Street characters on it- so it’s not hardly worth mentioning. I should have ventured into the boys department to find something more suitable. She is happily examining her tractor set here. This was after she kissed it.

It’s interesting to see how two little girls can be so different. Here is an example:

This could be titled “There is always one who doesn’t cooperate”. Here we are about to go to dinner at a friend’s house. Notice Pixie all color coordinated down to her “hair thing”. Then her sister’s fashion ensemble. The sensible shoes, green shirt with a tractor on it. She didn’t forget the accessories- the apparently fascinating necklace.

I just love watching their personalities bloom!

My Little, ever so Helpful, Pixie has decided to bring me my coffee in the mornings.

This started when her Father would pour me a cuppa (a little Australian for you) and bring it to my lazy bum me while I was still in bed. Little Miss Helpful would carry the mug in the last little bit to me. She was so pleased with herself.

Then there came the fateful morning when her Father had already gone off to work and she was up before me (unfortunately not a rare occurrence- she gets up early- yeah, that’s it!). She carefully poured cream into the mug and poured the coffee out of the thermos carafe where The Col. had left it for me. Her beaming face as she brought it into me was something to see.

Not that I was totally happy with the situation. We told her we didn’t want her to pour hot coffee out of the carafe on the coffeemaker. It’s pretty high up and we were afraid she’d be more likely to drop or spill it and burn herself. But she seemed to manage the other carafe well, and it usually didn’t have much in it.

Then I noticed a disturbing trend. Now, I like my coffee with milk or cream in it. Not like some of the members of my family where there are equal amounts of each but a dab will do- especially when it’s the cream. But I started to get coffee in the mornings that was getting a bit heavy on the cream. And cold too. I’d take a few sips, then put it down and when I got out to the kitchen, I’d add more coffee and heat it up. And then add more coffee and heat it up…. repeat. One day I was trying to tell her how to use the microwave because she said the coffee was cold. I know, not a smart idea to try to tell someone who doesn’t read or recognize most numbers how to operate the microwave. All I can say in my defense is that I hadn’t had my morning coffee. Finally I just told her to push the one button, knowing that the microwave would run for one minute. I figured that would be too long but I didn’t realize that the mug had only about a third of a cup of liquid in it. Scorching!

This morning I heard The Col. tell Miss Helpful that she should wait for me to get up to help her. Hmmm? I got up to find my mug on the table- half, HALF full of cream. I was sure glad that her Dad stopped her! That’s a little too much even for me!

Chocolate cake to be exact.

I didn’t get a good shot of just the cake. Since the focus was on a certain young lady’s birthday, I guess that isn’t a bad thing.

It looks like a regular chocolate cake, right? Little would you know that the frosting had one pound (16 ounces) of semi sweet chocolate in it. And butter. And 1 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream. Do I hear your arteries clogging? Are you drooling on your key board? Eeeewww!

It was yummy. The cake itself, made from scratch with my own two hands (and the electric mixer) was also very good. It had butter in it too, of course, and two kinds of chocolate. It’s an America’s Test Kitchen recipe and, oh is it good. You have to have a bit of patience making it though, as with most of their recipes. I made it without a standing mixer and thought it turned out fine; just be patient and make sure things get mixed well.

I had one part that didn’t go totally smoothly. The recipe for the frosting says to melt the chocolate and (separately) heat the butter and sugar, etc. then combine these two with the cream. It’s too warm for it to whip up at this point and so to cool it down you place the bowl into a larger bowl filled with cold water and ice. The tricky part is to get it to the desired temperature of 70 degrees. If it’s too cold, it will seize up, if too hot then it will not whip up all light and fluffy. I cooled it in the water bath for a bit then did the scientific thing of testing it with my finger. It was clean! (and then I got to lick it too!) I don’t have a thermometer that reads that low. I thought it felt pretty cool, and not wanting it to get too cool went ahead and started to whip it with my hand mixer. It wasn’t getting lighter in color nor was it whipping up all “fluffy” like. I mixed, and mixed, and mixed. I finally decided, after referring to the recipe again (and again, and again) that the mixture was too warm still. So I plopped it back into the water bath and continued to beat it. And then the miracle happened. It got lighter in color and fluffy in texture. It looked lovely and was great to work with when putting it on the cake.

It was worth the effort.

We were in Walmart (That Eeeeeviiiil place) looking at the clearance racks a few weeks ago when Pixie spotted a hat. It had princesses on it. It was fairly spendy. Normally, being the cheap frugal person that I am, I would have said “No!”. But… she put it on.

And I caved.

Whew! May is (almost) over! It is always a crazy month around here and this year was no exception. May is a time when the grass starts growing, the weeds start growing, and, if you want it to grow- the garden planted. It’s lovely to see things start greening up, the flowers starting to bloom and the strawberries coming on. But- there is always a but, isn’t there?- these things also need attention from the humans in the household. Not just The Dog digging holes in the grass or the deer and pheasants feasting on the fresh grown sprigs.

Add to that- two birthdays, Mother’s Day, The Col.’s Annual Drill, lots of evenings worked, our church activities (partially increased due to the move), servers crashing, visiting Grandparents, and illnesses and the pleasant spring month of May becomes the month from…. well, you know where.

At this end of it I am grateful for the Blessings that May brings. Baby birds in the nests, flowers blooming, rain and sunshine… plus the joys of the two of us whose births we celebrated.

But I am glad it’s over, I’m tired.

Maybe June will slow down a bit.

Stop laughing!

It’s been quite warm here (finally- for a day or two) so The Col. put on some shorts and came out with bare feet.

“You have long nails!” Pixie commented right away.

“And big toes!” someone else added as all three heads crowded around to examine his feet.

The Col. looked up at me with a funny look on his face, shrugged, and said “I guess they don’t see my feet very often.”

That or we really need to get them out more.

I heard the screams coming from outside as I stood at the kitchen sink. Now if you had been watching me, you would have thought that I was a terrible, unfeeling, uncaring Mother because I just stood there. But, you see, I know that screams like that can be associated with slight bruises, light scrapes and just about any misfortune so I wasn’t too concerned.

Then Pixie opened the door and said “The Boy fell out of the tree!”

Oh great! He’s gone and broke his arm this time!

I went to the door where he met me, holding his arm. I gave him a big hug all the time thinking- he’s broken it, I just know.

He sobbed out his woeful story. He fell….

and scraped his arm on the way down.

Not broken but badly scraped. It did look like it would hurt.

But don’t you worry none, he’s a professional.