Sick of it already!

Rain, that is! We had about 3 weeks of heavy snowfall between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but since then almost nothing. A few flakes fall here and there, but mostly it is many, many inches of RAIN! It is cold and dreary rain and I keep thinking of the many feet of snow we would have instead if only it were a little colder! I like snow, and snow days, and am longing for a few more crisp crackling days with snow crunching under my feet before winter is over. Bright white snow instead of mud, mud and more mud!

Another weird thing and HTML problems

I remembered one more thing about me that people think is unusual--I don't like, and never have liked the following 3 quintessentially American foods: Ketchup, peanut butter (but I like it in things) and Oreo cookies.

As you see, I have updated my blog with a new template. Unfortunately, the links in my post texts are still there but are no longer visible/highlighted. The code within the post is the same, so it must be something in my template, I think? Any ideas/suggestions/solutions?

5 Weird Things About Me--Revealing that I'm High Maintenance and Obsessive/Compulsive

I was tagged by Jody at and baby makes 6!

Five weird habits of yourself:

“The first player of this game starts with the topic ‘five weird habits of yourself,’ and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don’t forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says ‘You are tagged’ (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.”


1. I weigh myself most mornings, naked and after exhaling. When I had more time I used to weigh myself 3 times, take the average and record it.

2. I am completely physically unable to throw a ball (or anything for that matter) without opening my mouth wide while I do it. I usually open my mouth while catching as well.

3. I love white creamy food: whipped cream, mashed potatoes, pasta with cream sauce, creme brulee... you get the idea. Not because it's white and creamy, it just happens that many things I love are white and creamy.

4. I wear sunglasses year round and am dependent on them--I can't bear to have the sun in my eyes.

5. I never want to be too far from a glass of water and a bathroom (and are those go-togethers, or what?) I am always thirsty, have a serious water addiction going, consequently need to visit the restroom frequently, and can't stand to "have to go" and not be near any facilities. Daryl says we spent half of our vacation money in Europe a few years ago on my water needs--buying me water and paying for me to use various restrooms.

I tag Lori atView From Our Porch Swing, Kim at Musing, Rambling and All Around Blathering Anne at Cooking With Anne, Heather at Hind's Feet and Karen at Our Deer Baby

Oops--I see Kathy has already been tagged for this one, so I'll choose Joanne at Piece of the Puzzle

Lord of the Rings

During Christmas break we immersed ourselves in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Although some of us had seen it before, I bought the extended version and we were watching some each day. Of course, when we got near the end on the last day of winter break, the disc had some sort of error and was unwatchable! That is a real problem with DVDs that we have experienced, but usually with rentals which have been viewed a million times and can be sort of beat up. This was brand new! And I bought in on ebay back in June, so there is really no way to return it. I absolutely love the trilogy, both the books and the movie. It iis so much in my head that I literally have been dreaming about it at night. I already feel disappointed and sad that it is almost over. I plan to rent it this weekend so that we can complete our viewing festival.

New Year's

The day after Christmas we went to my parents' house, where we had dinner and exchanged gifts. Our tradition is usually to have dinner and go to mass with them on Christmas Eve, but since our kids were in the service at our church this year, we had to change our plans. Our other tradition is have kielbasa for dinner, which we did. My aunt was there visiting from Chicago, and my sister and her family were supposed to come, but unfortunately my niece was sick, and it turned out to be strep throat, which her family spent the rest of the holidays falling victim to one by one, so we were glad they didn't come to my parents and infect the rest of us.

The rest of the week we spent just hanging out. Daryl had promised to take me out to lunch every day, which he did, or at least every day that we didn't have plans. We took the older kids to see King Kong on New Year's Eve afternoon, and then we had pizza at home for dinner and played charades and watched Crocodile Dundee until about 11:45pm when we paused the movie to watch the ball drop and toast with "kid wine" as sparkling grape juice is known at my house.

My kids had the entire week after New Year's Day off from school, and while I loved hanging out with them, the weather was terrible: cloudy and gloomy every day, with no snow and too warm for ice skating on any natural body of water. We did go to an outdoor ice rink one day, and my parents took them to see "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" one day. We also played games, did karaoake, read a lot of books, ate a LOT, and generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves and one another.

My Gift

IMG_0968, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

This is what my dear husband gave me for
Christmas. It is a pendant, cast from a real pea pod, with 7 pearl "peas" for each of my children. Amazingly, he didn't order it or anything, just found it when doing his traditional Christmas Eve shopping.

My sweet baby A. has developed a bit of a temper, and while writhing, hitting and scratching at me she managed to grab it and break the chain the first time I wore it! It was a little too long anyway, but somehow a trip to the jeweler's is never top on my list of errands, so I fear it will be a while before I get around to having it repaired.

The Little Lord Jesus

Ever since the Christmas season, K. has referred to Jesus as Little Lord Jesus. Tonight he looked at a framed drawing of Jesus' face on my bedroom wall and asked "Who's that?"

"Jesus," I replied.

"Oh, the Little Lord Jesus," he said.

"Yes, but he's a grown up man in that picture."

"But he's still the Little Lord Jesus."

"Yes, he was a little baby when he was born, but he grew up to be a big man like Daddy."

"Okay."

Christmas Letter

I thought I'd share the letter we sent with our Christmas cards this year (and if my scanner worked, I'd share the family photo as well!):


This past year has been a busy one. Our family has done some traveling, including a spring break trip back to Arizona, where we visited with old friends, visited tourist attractions like the Grand Canyon and Sedona, and soaked up the sunshine. This past summer, we did a whirlwind tour of the east, starting with Niagara Falls, continuing on to Schenectady, followed by several days in New York City, and finishing with a few days in Connecticut. The last stop was a visit to our dear friends the Bs, who are now Anya’s godparents, as she was baptized while we were there.

D. (13) continues to be a multi-sport athlete. He ran track in the spring, and is quite fast. This fall he played both football (wide receiver) and soccer, followed immediately by basketball. He continues to be a great student. He has passed Paula up and continues to grow taller every day. Most importantly, he is turning into a terrific young man that we find a joy to have around.

J. (11) also plays both soccer and basketball. Her basketball team has been undefeated 3 years in a row! She continues playing piano and flute, is a terrific student and a talented writer. She is the favorite of her younger siblings, who adore her for her nurturing ways. She encourages all of us to savor the special moments we have together as a family.

L.(10) is an amazing soccer player and truly loves the sport. He is also doing extremely well in school and continues to play the piano. He is the kind of person that everyone, young and old, enjoys being around. He is fun and funny, sensitive and caring.

I. (8) has begun gymnastics this year, which she loves, and is steadily progressing from level to level. She continues to play the piano and does very well in school. Last spring she made her First Communion, which was a very sacred occasion. This past summer Paula took her to Chicago for her birthday to visit the American Girl Place, where they had tea and saw a live musical. They also shopped the Magnificent Mile, because I. loves both fashion and shopping. She always looks good and advises the rest of us on what to wear.

T. (5) began kindergarten this year, and is really enjoying it. She is following in her siblings’ footsteps academically, having just begun to read and demonstrating a real understanding of both addition and multiplication. It is so exciting to watch the world of words open up to a child for the first time! More than anything, T. enjoys being with her family and tells us that often.

K. (2) is a precocious toddler. His language skills are excellent, so he is able to communicate well and absorbs everything going on like a human sponge. He loves being outdoors, spending time with his favorite sister Jasmine, and playing with duplos and action figures. Lately he has been doing some testing, seeing just what happens when he hits or pushes A., as she has recently become a walking person with an attitude herself.

A. (1) has just learned to walk, and is about 90% biped, 10% quadriped. She toddles around using the adorable stiff legged gait of a new walker. She has also become quite opinionated , but unfortunately lacks the vocabulary to communicate her every whim to us, which sometimes leads to shrieking. So far, she can say Spot, uh-oh, mama and dada, and is an avid pointer, accompanied by the all-purpose “eh! eh!”

Daryl has had his busiest year ever. It’s hard to believe that he could be any busier, but he really was. It included a lot of business travel, including trips to Germany and China. In addition to teaching and running his laboratory, he devoted time to serving on several department committees and heading up his department’s internal review. Both of his companies have grown and progressed as well. NIT has developed to the point where it is ready to be sold and several large companies are interested, NNT has begun to make enough money to support itself, and is continuing to grow very rapidly.

Paula ran a 5K turkey trot this past November, beating her time from 4 years ago by 1 minute! Her level of activity matches everyone else’s, and she continues to be the household manager, chef, chauffeur, nurse, accountant, etc. and is enjoying every minute of it!

I Know He Feels This Way Some Days!

I Know He Feels This Way Some Days!, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

K. received this shirt as a gift, and although I'd never buy him something like this, I do find it amusing, and I'm sure there are days when he feels this way about little A.!

Santa

Santa, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Here is my dear husband, supervising gift opening on Christmas morning, and in the background you can see some of the ornaments hanging from the beams. Doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea!

Snowflake Babies

Snowflake Babies, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

I found these snowflake jammies for K. and A., which I love. Here they are playing with the train table K. got from Santa on Christmas morning.

Aftermath

Aftermath, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

The debris after opening!

Before

Before, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

The tree on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

On Christmas Eve morning the kids made Peanut Blossom cookies (with chocolate kisses on top) rolled in red and green sugar instead of white, while I made a last minute grocery store run and D. completed his Christmas shopping. J. and I. were participating in the Christmas Eve children's mass and had to report to the church at 3pm. We had been warned that that was when you needed to arrive to be assured a seat for the 4:30pm mass, so D. took them there, he and L. stayed to save us seats. I tried to take a short nap, since I had gotten a cold and not slept well the previous night and knew I'd be up late that night. Then I got the little ones dressed and the rest of us headed out the door. We got there at 4pm and it was already standing room only, but luckily D. and L. had been able to save us seats. (All Christmas Eve and Christmas Day masses at the Catholic churches I've been a member of are this packed. I can't imagine how some churches have cancelled Christmas Day services due to low attendance!) J. read the first reading and did a beautiful job. I. was one angel amongst the throng of angels in the Christmas pageant. After a little more than an hour, A. started to shriek. I had brought some books and small toys but she had had it by then, so I took her to the nursery in the church basement. There was no childcare but it's a safe place for her to play.

We arrived home around 6pm. I had planned to start making dinner immediately, but earlier in the week I had bought some new decorations and hadn't had a chance to hang them, so we worked on that first. We have large cedar beams spanning our ceiling and I had gotten the idea (from a magazine) to hang ornaments from ribbons from the beams. I had been in Lowe's and was thrilled to discover that all of their decorations were already 50% off, so I bought 28 red and gold glass ornaments. They weren't all the same, but I bought 3 or 4 of each style. I also found some fancy ornament hooks that were curlicues with red and gold beads on them. First D. went around the room and screwed small gold hooks into the beams. We hung the red ornaments from gold ribbon and vice versa. It looked really nice and I was very pleased. I had wanted to do something to make our decorations look a little classier, since half of them are items handmade by the kids over the years, which are precious, but don't always give the room that special sparkle.

We had one of our favorite pastas for dinner, Salsa Cremosa di Mascarpone e Pancetta Affumicata (or Creamy Sauce with Bacon to us native English speakers)!

Saute 1 small onion and several cloves crushed garlic in 3T extra virgin olive oil until tender, 10-12 minutes. Add 1 pound pancetta or thick sliced bacon, cut into thin strips, and cook until it colors but does not crisp. Add 28 oz. can chopped tomatoes and simmer until liquid is reduced and sauce is thick. Cook 1.5 pounds fettucine until al dente. Drain and toss with 16 oz. mascarpone cheese and the tomato bacon sauce. Either add 20 chopped fresh basil leaves to toss at the end or an equivalent amount dried basil to the sauce while simmering. Mmmm!


Unfortunately, by the time we finally had all of the kids in bed, I really wasn't feeling very well. D. told me if I sorted the gifts, he'd wrap so I could go to bed, but that didn't seem right (and besides I really am a control freak and couldn't allow him the chance to mess it up!) We never wrap ahead of time, and this year it took us until 1am. It didn't help when we ran out of tape shortly before we were finished!

Our rule is that it must be light out before anyone can get up. The kids actually slept until about 8am! Our tradition is that Dad must have a cup of coffee in his hand before any gift opening can occur, and he attempts to prolong this in any way he can to increase the anticipation. This year the kids got up, made the coffee, and brought us coffee, orange juice and toast on a tray in bed! We had been awake for a little while, so we thanked them and brought it into the kitchen so they could begin opening presents. Everyone loved what they got.

D's mother came over in the afternoon, had dinner with us, and spent the night. We played games, ate steak and caesar salad with bread and olive oil and apple crisp for dessert. We broke oplatek together, which is a Polish tradition where everyone receives a piece of bread that is just like Communion wafer, only unblessed. You walk around and break a piece off of each other's bread and wish one another Merry Christmas. It really was a lovely day, only slightly marred for me by the stupid cold, which continued to bother me. Thanks to Cold Eeze lozenges, it only lasted 4 days, and only 2 were really bad, but of course they had to be Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

Preholidays--Feeling Slighty Grinchy

Daryl's extended family celebrated Christmas together on the 17th, around 60 of us. The men (and any woman that is brave enough--I was the first maverick to break into the men's game but I stopped playing years ago!) play football in the snow, lefties against righties. His generation sports an unusual number of lefties, but almost all of their children are right handed, so most of the kids play on their fathers' team now, or else the lefties would seriously be outnumbered. They even have jerseys with left and right handprints on them and their birth order number (the oldest lefty is #1, etc.) One of Daryl's uncles dresses up as Santa and pays a brief visit to hand out candy canes and offer to to have kids on his lap (but since they are afraid none of them ever wants to get that close to him!) We all bring dishes to pass and have a sit down turkey dinner together. It is a lot of fun to see everyone and catch up with them.

The 18th was Daryl's immediate family Christmas celebration, and since he is one of 5 children, that is a good size gathering also. Too many presents, lots of good food, and a lot of fun was had by all. The only bummer was that the kids had school Monday morning, and they had a Christmas party hangover after 2 days of junk food and late nights.

The kids were in school through Thursday the 22nd, timing that I found unfortunate. I wanted to make cookies and go to performances or sledding or shopping, but they were busy. Of course we had lots of fluffy white snow that fell from Thanksgiving until a few days before Christmas when it warmed up and melted.

I have to admit that I was feeling rather Grinchlike that week. It just seemed there was too much to do and too little time to do it, and not enough time to do some of things I wanted to do. We did 2 name draws within our family. The first was a Secret Santa draw that included the parents but not the 2 youngest children where you were supposed to do something nice every day for the person whose name you drew. The second name draw was for a gift exchange among the kids, so that did not include the parents but did include the little ones, and I just shopped for the names they drew. These are both nice ideas in theory, but I think all of us found it difficult to actually do the Secret Santa effectively until those last few days when we had more free time. It is especially hard for the mom, who does so much for everyone, to do more for someone and have it be really noticeable! We also learned that 5 years old is too young to be a Secret Santa, as T. didn't really do anything for her person. The gift giving name draw went well, except again we were pressed for time, and couldn't all go out together, since it was a secret whose name you drew, so we had to go on multiple trips with 2 kids at a time. It was nice to see them thinking about what someone else might like and spending their own money on it. There was one aborted trip to a department store where the line was literally about 75 people long and I was tired and hungry, bottoming out from low blood sugar and frustration.

I also felt like a lot of things sound nicer than they are. For instance, our quaint village does a Victorian Christmas downtown on 2 different Saturdays featuring Santa sitting (in a beautiful old-fashioned Father Christmas costume) in a gazebo in the center of the town park, and it is free to visit him and they take your picture for free. There are several small reindeer in a pen to pet, free hot cocoa and horse drawn sleigh rides (not free). All the merchants are having sales. In reality, my children who are young enough to still believe in Santa are too terrified to sit on his lap, and don't understand why he isn't dressed in his traditional red suit and hat. The line is long and they get cold, and they spill hot cocoa all over their jackets.

My final Grinchy complaint is about all of the extra things that teachers, music instructors, religious education teachers, etc. come up with to do or bring right before the holidays. Case in point: J.'s teacher decided that rather than have a Christmas party, her class would have a Latin American feast. Each child was supposed to bring in a homemade Latin American dish on Dec. 22. When J. had picked her recipe several days prior, I glanced at it, determined that none of the ingredients were impossible to find, and said ok. She planned to make an Orange Caramel Fool. Of course, that afternoon, when I visited the grocery store, my head was full of my own holiday baking needs, and I totally forgot to buy what she needed. Unbeknownst to me, Daryl had to work very late that night so was unavailable to help. When I went out to take D. to religious ed, I left J. in charge and ran in the store to get the 3 items she needed for her dish. J. likes to call me very frequently when I'm gone, and so after I'd been gone about 5 minutes, she picked up the phone to call me, and discovered that another extension was off the hook somewhere in the house so she couldn't call out. She got her siblings to help her look upstairs after failing to find the phone downstairs. While upstairs, they thought they heard the door slam. Thinking it was me, they called my name but I didn't answer (presumably they imagined the noise or the wind slammed the storm door). Now they were really nervous and began running around looking for the phone. While running and carrying baby A., J. went around a corner too fast and A. leaned out and smacked her head on the wall. When I returned 15 minutes later, the kids were all frantic, the baby had a big goose egg on her forehead, and the dog had eaten some of the pizza I'd ordered while the kids were running around upstairs. The phone was still missing. After reassuring them and determining that A. didn't have a concussion, I went upstairs looking for the phone. I had the kids listen for my voice on the extension so I'd know when I got close. It was shoved in I.'s snow boot, presumably by A., who loves to play with the phone. I found the upstairs rec room floor was covered with white couch stuffing fluff, as apparently K. had pulled it out of a hole in the cushion earlier while D. was supposedly in charge.

Now we began making the Fool, while simultaneously cleaning the kitchen, getting hyper kids ready for bed and making sure they had whatever items they needed packed for their school parties the next day. We completed the fool around 11pm! At that point, since I was now muttering darkly about the teacher that assigned this project, J. volunteered that her teacher, who has children, but they are grown, had told the class, "If your parents are upset about having to do one more thing right before the holidays, it's ok if you buy something and bring it." Not only was this information imparted to me much too late by a daughter who would not have wanted to bring a store bought dish (she is her mother's daughter in this way, I must confess), the local stores don't usually have a supply of ready to eat Latin American dishes on their shelves. The Fool, which was essentially a rich vanilla pudding layered with orange caramel sauce, similar to flan, was delicious. Sadly, the parents who cleaned up after the feast at school threw out the leftovers!! The Latin American feast would have been a great idea to ease the winter doldrums during January (when they are actually studying Latin America).

On Friday we finished our shopping and the kids made shaped sugar cookies, using a recipe from Anne at Cooking With Anne and they tasted as pretty as they looked!

Then we went out to dinner as a family to Zingerman's Roadhouse, which is a nice restaurant, a step higher than we normally take the kids to. I had the idea that because we are a large group, we might be able to get a table at one of the nice restaurants in the area that do not take reservations and normally have a lengthy wait, but will take a reservation for a large group. This was a good idea, or would have been if I'd had it sooner than Friday afternoon. By then everywhere I called was booked until after 8pm. Although we often eat late at home, we figured beginning dining out at that hour with small children was asking for trouble. So we went out driving around, stopping first at a restaurant that seemed unable to tell us over the phone what their availability was or would be in the next 15 minutes. Of course they had a long wait when we arrived. We hadn't called Zingerman's Roadhouse, but they were next door to the first restaurant, so we thought it wouldn't be too big of a waste of time to ask there. At first the hostess told us it would be more than an hour, but when I modified my description of our group from 9 people to 8 plus a highchair, she asked me to wait a few minutes while she checked, but she thought she could seat us right away. She was able to, and we were thrilled. The kids behaved really well and we had a terrific experience at a busy restaurant on a very busy night for dining out. The only glitch was that K. decided about 3/4 of the way through the meal to get out of his chair and he wouldn't sit back down. He stayed right next to the table, so it wasn't a huge problem. It wasn't until we were on our way out of the restaurant that he announced, "I have a poop!" I was glad he hadn't announced that loudly in the crowded dining room, and understood why he refused to sit down.