Tortillas

Sometimes, I miss home.  A lot.  But not just home, not just my family, but simply, how it used to be.  When this hits... I make tortillas.  And of course, my tortillas don't come out nearly as round as my grandma's, but the girls don't mind.  They love making their own, too, the way I used to when I was a kid.

The best part is for about an hour while I work on dinner, I can picture my grandma's hands kneading the tortilla dough; I can smell my great grandma's kitchen; I can hear my mom's and my sister's laughs as we all chatted at the table; I feel connected.  Just for a little while.

Update

Thanks to all my friends and family who responded to my last post or who are praying for my family back home.  I truly appreciate everything.  After a very long conversation with my mom the other night, I'm dealing much better with it all.  Although, it is still a very sad and horrible situation, my heart and prayers go out to my family back home.  I miss them very much.

sad, sad world

I got horrible news today concerning family back home...
and my heart is heavy...
I've had moments this evening when sadness feels like it might take over
and I have to think of something else
because I do not have the option of allowing it to.

Winter Storm

We got about a foot of snow yesterday.  So, of course we had to take the girls out.  I had fun for about 10 minutes... then I was ready to go inside.  =)   I'm not much of a snow person, however, I did get to try out my mittens!  They were awesome!

Like my dorky pose?  haha

The mittens kept my hands warm.  I was very impressed with the yarn.  I think I'm going to make the kids some mittens out of it now.  Their mittens didn't keep their hands very warm, but I had only used worsted weight yarn, not bulky or anything.  =/  Now I know.

Mr Hubs and the kids enjoyed the snow much more than I did.  Mr Hubs even broke out his zombie costume for a few post apocalyptic-ish zombie photos... lol Here's a pic of the hubby.  They all had a blast.  I had fun taking the pictures.  =)

Christmas & Santa's Big Scramble

Christmas Eve, Mr Hubs had duty. =/ The girls and I went to church in the afternoon for our first ever candle light service. It was beautiful! After coming home and eating dinner, we made cookies for Santa. Miss Dainty chose the chocolate chip mint cookies from The Joy of Vegan Baking. They were pretty good. I wish I could have taken more pictures of them helping with the baking, but it was hard enough keeping them from eating the non-tasty ingredients, and spilling flour all over the place. They had a blast though.

On Christmas morning, my grandparents drove in.  This actually was a bit of a surprise, because up until the day before, I thought they weren't coming down due to our impending bad weather.  But they decided to drive down and at least stay for a few hours to see the girls open their presents.

When Mr Hubs finally made it home from work, we started on brunch: soy chorizo and potato breakfast burritos.  They were awesome!  I absolutely adored watching my grandma help my girls roll out tortillas.  I remember her helping me when I was younger.  It was so incredibly sweet.  I love it when they get to spend quality time with my grandparents.

After breakfast, we opened presents.  There were plenty of priceless moments, but two will stay in my mind forever.  The first was the look on my grandma's face when she opened the rose scented rosary from (and blessed at) the Vatican in Rome.  (We only recently re-found it after moving back here a year and a half ago!) Her expression was priceless, and the moment was incredible for me.  And second was when Miss Dainty opened her skateboard.  Her eyes lit up when she recognized what it was, and she screamed, "It's a SKATEBOARD!!!  SANTA GOT ME WHAT I ASKED FOR!!!  IT'S A SKATEBOARD!!!"  Now there is an interesting story behind it, too.

Miss Dainty hadn't asked for anything in particular for Christmas throughout the entire Christmas season.  We choose not to have cable and the like, so she never sees all the millions of commercials telling her what she has to have to be the coolest kid on the street.  So, we were just going to get a few fun things and leave it at that, especially since a few family members had sent gifts to them.

Three days before Christmas, Miss Dainty decided to write a very last minute letter to Santa.  She wrote:  "Dear Santa, For Christmas I'd like a skateboard and a Kung Fu Panda set with a red belt and a sword.  And for my sister, can you bring her a new baby doll and a baby bed?"

Immediately, I panicked, only because the things she thoughtfully asked for her sister, I knew her sister was already getting from my grandparents.  What are the chances of that?  How would Miss Dainty feel on Christmas morning, if Santa had brought Baby D what she had asked for her, but not what she had asked for herself?  Oh dear.  What a problem!

And I had figured, up until this point, that Miss Dainty had come to the conclusion that Santa was just for fun.  She had been asking tons of questions about whether or not Santa was real, and how he traveled all over the world in one night, etc. etc.  At one point while running into a "Santa" at a store who would pose for pictures with the kids, she told me, "Mom, I don't think that was Santa.  I think that was just a regular guy."  And then a few minutes later, she said, "Man!  I should have asked him if the reindeer really fly!"  Needless to say, I really didn't know what to say.

So, there I was "mailing" Miss Dainty's letter on the way to the store, wondering what were we going to do?  While at the store, I quickly looked for either of her wishes, and found neither.  I texted Mr Hubs who was at the Nex on base and asked him to look.  He called later and said he had no luck finding the items there either.

After the girls and I got home that afternoon, I started preparing Miss Dainty for the chance that maybe her letter had gotten there too late, or perhaps Santa got her something different.  Mr Hubs called again on his way home from work and said he would stop by Toys R Us and hopefully find something.  They had no Kung Fu Panda products.  (I guess that's the only bad thing when your kids don't watch commercials, they don't even know what's "popular.")  I thought about asking him to stop by a karate school to see if he could buy a uniform, although that would be quite a bit more expensive than a toy costume of some sort.  He later called and said he had found the skateboard!  So, we went with that instead.  We definitely lucked out!  I'm still surprised we were able to find one of her wishes on such late notice.

But when she opened that present (we saved it for the very last,) and had such a great reaction, it made the last minute scramble so completely worth it.

The girls loved everything they got though, and really all of their presents were so awesome: useful, family oriented, and/or creative.  Thanks to everyone who sent them presents, they were really great! 

Later, we all went to a good friend's house for a potluck dinner.  (I was bummed I forgot to take pictures.)  It was nice to hang out and chat while all of the kids played together.  And then, (thanks to Mr Hubs fixing my laptop's webcam... he's my HERO!!)  we were able to skype with family in Texas!!  It was so awesome!  It was such a great Christmas for us: quality family and friend time, and priceless moments.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Garden of Lights

Last night we took the girls to a surprise.  It took a bit of driving, and on the way Miss Dainty kept asking where we were going and what the surprise was.  Of course we kept telling her, "We're not telling you, it's a surprise!" 

Meanwhile, Baby D just sat in her carseat staring out the window because, really, what could a 2 year old do except just wait and see what it was we were doing.

Then Miss Dainty started asking questions like, "Are we going to get out of the car soon?  I'm kind of getting tired of being in here."

To which we answered, "No, we have to stay in the car."  She was a bit disappointed.

After a while, as we were getting closer to our destination, Mr Hubs asked Miss Dainty, "Are you pumped up?"  She asked what that meant, and I told her it meant if she was excited.

She said, "Well, I can't really say I'm pumped up, because I'm not that excited about staying in the car.  I don't know what's so exciting about staying in the car the whole time. So, no I'm not pumped up."

Oh, I couldn't stop laughing.  Ever the practical one.  We eventually did pull up to the surprise:  Garden of Lights at Norfolk Botanical Garden.  At first we had to wait in line for a while, and Miss Dainty was not impressed with the lights they had set up around the entry line.  But after seeing the more detailed scenes she indeed got "pumped up." 

My favorite scenes were the underwater scene (so cool to drive through,) the pink woodland scene (so adorable,) and a small section that looked like rain falling (couldn't capture on camera, but it was really neat.)  In the end, the girls loved it.

Celebrating Christmas

We have pretty much been celebrating Christmas since December 1st.  As soon as I erased November from the eraser board calendar, Miss Dainty knew.  Every prayer is now ended with Miss Dainty's "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" followed by the question, "So how old is Jesus now?"  She makes me smile.

Today, we attended our homeschool group's Christmas party.  Miss Dainty had a ton of fun.  She played games, decorated cookies, made some ornaments, and listened to the guitar students play some Christmas carols.  It was great, and she loved spending time with friends.

After dinner, the girls wanted to finish decorating the Christmas tree.  I was trying to wait until Mr. Hubs gets back, but Miss Dainty has been waiting patiently all week, and he had said we could go ahead and finish it without him.  So, we did.  They clumped the ornaments together at the bottom in some places, and some of the ornaments weren't even hung.  Baby D just sort of shoved them in there and they kept falling off, and it took me a while to figure out why!  And of course, half of the candy canes did not make it up to the tree.  But the girls' expressions were priceless and their joy was contagious. 

I have no idea why they decided to keep their jackets on.  My kids are such goobers.  =)  We have also been reading our favorite Christmas book a lot lately:  The First Christmas by Carol Heyer.  The illustrations are gorgeous, and the writing is wonderful.  Such a great book.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas so far!  We are keeping ours very simple this year, and I am truly enjoying it.

Thirty Days of Thanksgiving: Day 27

Today, I am thankful for:

65.  a fun family day celebrating Baby D's birthday.
66.  my grandparents being able to drive down to join us.

Once again, nothing went as I had planned it. I think this is becoming the theme of my life lately!  (Apparently, there is Someone who thinks I need to work on my control issues...)  But I am getting better at going with the flow (at least I think so.)  Baby D was terribly fussy this morning, and I was exhausted after a rough night with her.  Mr. Hubs got home this morning from duty and had to get some sleep.  My grandparents arrived a little earlier than I expected, but that was a nice surprise.  I made cupcakes instead of the cake I didn't have time to decorate.  I didn't get a chance to go to the store to get the decorations I had planned on putting up.  And we ended up grabbing a take out Japanese order instead of going to a restaurant for lunch, like we had hoped for.  BUT when everything was said and done, like my grandma told me, Baby D didn't know anything was wrong at all.  She had fun.  She loved her cupcakes.  She loved her gifts.  She was adorable opening her presents.  Her face lit up at the baby doll my grandparents got her, and then of course the Diego DVDs rocked her world!  =)   It was so sweet to see the girls spend some quality time with my grandparents.  I'm so glad they could make it.  We had a great time.

Thanksgiving 2010

Like I said yesterday, our Thanksgiving turned out wonderful.  I had a hard time getting started though.  I was feeling inexplicably sad at first.  Mr. Hubs kept asking me what was wrong, but I couldn't even answer.  I didn't know exactly.  I was missing family.  I was missing friends.  I was missing tradition.  I just kept feeling like something was missing.  I wanted my mom, my sister and her family, and my grandparents here.  I wanted all the kids running around and having fun while they waited for dinner.  I wanted a dozen different sides and pies to choose from.  I wanted the constant chatter and laughter.  I even missed the background noise of the football game (and we don't even like football!) 

Simply put, I wanted what I had when I was a kid, and I wanted my kids to have it, too. 

Eventually, after I put Baby D down for a nap, I did get started.  We chose an easy meal:  Chickpea Cutlets and Spiced Mashed Sweet Potatoes (both from Veganomicon,) green bean casserole (my favorite,) mashed potatoes (Mr. Hub's favorite,) gravy, rolls, and cherry pie for dessert (which Miss Dainty chose.)  Everything came together easily and generally at the same time, so we weren't even in the kitchen for very long (maybe an hour and a half.)  Mr. Hubs helped out a lot in the kitchen in his normal role of Sous Chef.  (I made the messes and he cleaned them up!)  We made a great team. 

Instead of the football game, we had classic rock music going, and the girls were happily playing together.  It was nice to spend that time with my husband, working together, enjoying eachother's company.  When the smell of the cooking food filled the house, I breathed in deeply.  It smelled like Thanksgiving, and that made me happy.  And even though my kids were not experiencing the type of Thanksgiving I had growing up, this was their Thanksgiving, and I decided to make it great for them.

After the food was finished cooking, we all sat down at the table, and Mr. Hubs led us in prayer.  It was a wonderful moment of reflection for me as I looked around the table.  It was like something was telling me, "Look at what you have.  Look at how far your family has come.  Look at how amazing this is.  Look at everything you have to be grateful for."  And I was grateful, so very, very grateful. 

Afterward, we relaxed.  Mr. Hubs and the kids played Xbox, and I happily spent my time knitting (and cuddling,) and reflecting on our amazing Thanksgiving, our awesome family, and our many blessings. 

As I was tucking Miss Dainty in to bed, she said, "This was the best Thanksgiving ever, Mom.  I loved it." 

And I went to bed later with my heart completely filled, feeling content, and inexplicably happy.

Thirty Days of Thanksgiving: Day 16

I know, this is a little late posting, but oh well.  =)

Today, I'm thankful for:

49.  That Baby D sat fairly still for a haircut.  I was so tired of pulling food out of her hair, and pulling the hair that would get stuck to her neck with food... it wasn't a pretty sight.  Plus, she constantly had hair in her eyes.  I debated taking her in to get it done, but decided I wanted to try.  I never cut Miss Dainty's hair before, and really it's like a rite of passage for a parent to at least cut their kid's hair once!  So, I did it.  The cut itself came out okay, the bangs are a little shorter than I meant to make them, and of course a little crooked, but she doesn't mind.  She's just happy there's no hair in her eyes anymore.  Miss Dainty ended up wanting bangs too, which also came out a little short and crooked (I'll get it eventually!) but she loves them.
=)

My Birthday Festivities

I had a great day on my birthday.  Really, it wasn't an out of the ordinary day, but I enjoyed it just the same.  The night before, we carved pumpkins.  Well, Miss Dainty and her daddy carved pumpkins.  Baby D just played with the stringy, squishy pumpkin guts.  I roasted pumpkin seeds and helped Baby D with her pumpkin... mouse?  Whatever it was, it was adorable.  The girls had a lot of fun.

The day of, we went to church which was great, as usual.  Then we had our normal lunch.  And then... I came home, relaxed, and knit, knit, knit, oh and drank coffee with Silk Pumpkin Spice added in.  Everyone I know has been talking about their Pumpkin Spice creamer and how awesome it is, so I decided I'd get the vegan pumpkin spice soymilk and see what all the excitement was about.  I have to admit, it was pretty tasty in my coffee.

So these were my gifts/splurges for my birthday.  The circular needle set, I bought while Mr. Hubs was underway.  He had no idea what he got me for my birthday!  (Thanks sweetheart!)  A new cookbook filled with Indian yummy goodness!  And the Fall KnitScene magazine, which was a haphazard find in my Walmart.  I'm always look for knitting magazines in the magazine section (gasp!) because you'd think that's where they'd be.  Well, I never found them.  Not once.  Until now, I was looking for something in their (teeny tiny) craft section, and lo and behold what did I find strewn across the bottom of the shelf!?  Knitting magazines!  Forgotten, apparently, because they were supposed to have been taken off the shelf already.  Lucky for me, though, I suppose, because I loved reading it, and I really want to make that hooded sweater on the cover.  Oh, and the work in progress is my very first attempt at using double pointed needles.  I'm now half way done with that project, and I love it!  Too bad I can't share a picture, since it's a Christmas present.

Later in the evening, we took the girls to a local church's Fall Festival.  They had tons of games, tons of candy, and the girls had a blast!  I'm not quite sure what they were supposed to be.  Miss Dainty designed their costumes, heh.  She said she was a Bunny Fairy Princess.

So it was a great family day.  The rest of my present was my ticket to the Women's Retreat this weekend, put on by my church.  It will be my first retreat and I'm so excited!

Family Time

Mr. Hubs made it home this past Tuesday, so we've been happily enjoying lots of family time together.  It seems the girls got so used to him being gone, that they keep forgetting he's actually here.  Then, when they remember, their eyes light up, and they get so excited all over again.  I wonder how long they'll keep doing that.  Even this morning, they walked into our bedroom and when they saw him, they squealed, "Daddy!!!" as if it were the first time seeing him.  When he came downstairs later, Baby D literally ran up to him with her arms held out, hollering, "Daddy!  Daddy!" repeatedly.  It was so cute. 

He surprised them while we were waiting in the car.

Today, we drove out to a local "Pick Your Own" farm and let them pick out pumpkins.  The girls had a blast.  It was a beautiful day.  The weather actually felt fall-ish, instead of the summery weather we've been having the past few weeks.  Now that the Halloween loving Mr. Hubs is home, I think we're officially ready for getting into the Fall season.  I see some pumpkin carving and some baking on the agenda this weekend. 

Happy Birthday, Tommy

My stepdad used to tease me about being vegan, but once he said, "You know what drives me crazy about the way you eat?"
And I said, "What's that?"
And he said, "I can't cook you nothin' to eat.  I don't know what to make you.  And it drives me crazy."
He thought for a minute with this perplexed look on his face, and then his expression suddenly lit up.
"What about fruit?!  You can eat fruit, right?"
I laughed, and just said, "yes, I love fruit."
"Okay, then.  I'll make you a fruit salad.  A huge fruit salad.  Can I do that for you?"
"Of course.  I'd like that."
And he always made me fruit salads, huge ones... with all kinds of fruit, every single time I visited.
Happy Birthday, Tommy.
We miss and love you.

Rainy days are good for....

"Rainy days are good for naps," I told Miss Dainty, as I laid my head down on the dining room table.  If I was expecting sympathy from a five year old, I was definitely misguided.

She laughed at me instead.  "No, that's being lazy," she countered.  Oh, well, thanks.  Now I'm tired and lazy, I thought to myself.  She beamed as she placed the last piece to the puzzle we were doing; it was our first time with that particular one.  Her smile was contagious, and I smiled back.

1. Rainy days are good for fellowshiping, sharing, and learning at small group Bible study.  This is my first time ever leading a small group.  This morning was our second meeting.  Everything went very well, except for our sitter not showing up, but thankfully a wonderful mom stepped up to watch the kids.  We're studying Proverbs, and I'm very excited to grow with this great group of ladies.

2. Rainy days are good for magnetic dolls.  They are Baby D's favorite.

3. Rainy days are good for cuddling and naps (at least Baby D agrees with me.)  I love it when she comes up to me and says, "Mi Mi," for night night.  I look forward to rocking her to sleep every afternoon.

4. Rainy days are good for puzzles (but only during Baby D's naptime.)

5. Rainy days are good for fun reading.  I love this Aesop's Fables edition I was able to find off of paperbackswap!

6. Rainy days are good for modeling Momma's latest knitting project.  This particular one is a Christmas gift, but I doubt the recipient will check this blog.

7. Rainy days are good for an afternoon cup of coffee and knitting while the girls play "pretend birthday" while listening and dancing to fun kiddy music.

Rainy days are good for quality time.