Saturday, December 31, 2005

First Night.

We attended First Night tonight and I got to see my FAV-o-RITE dance troupe, Tapestry. We were on the second row and could have been on the first, which is perfect viewing for tap dancers feet. There is one guy, Jason Janas who I LOVE. They had a jazz trio and on some of the dances, the tappers improvised along with the music. It was amazing.

Then we parked it right outside and watched the crazy parade. One of the parade groups had done a project where they left loaves of bread on 2005 Austin doorsteps today. The people who received the bread were supposed to bring their bread, march in a group (apparantly dressed in white) and the program said they would crumble their bread at the end of the parade and toss it into Town Lake. We didn't get a loaf at our house, but I saw a friend who did!

After we feed the kids, we'll wander next door to say hi to some friends, then wake up tomorrow and fix some lucky peas to start the new year... here is a yummy recipe for you:

Black-Eyed Pea Soup

3 rounded cups dried black-eyed peas
Ham bone with meat or ham hocks
3 cups minced celery
3 cups minced onion
3 cups minced carrots
2 lb. smoked sausage, diced or sliced thinly
2 Tbsp. chili powder

Place peas in 3 quarts water with ham bone and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cook until peas are soft, about two hours. (No need to soak peas.) Discard bone, leaving bits of ham in soup. Add celery, onion and carrots and cook another hour. Add diced smoked sausage and simmer 30 minutes. Add chili powder. If needed, add more water to thin. Taste and adjust salt or black pepper. Serve with corn bread or tostadas. Makes about a gallon. Freezes well.


Read about this lucky soup here.

I'm very link-y in this post....
Happy New Year!

baby penguins.

Joey drinks a LOT of orange juice. Right now, the brand I buy has a promotional tie in with the movie "The March of the Penguins". There is a cartoonish mommy and baby penguin on the carton. I was pouring Joey his juice, and he started weeping. I asked him what was up, and he said the baby penguin was sad and it made him sad. I looked at the picture, and said, I thought the mommy was just holding him up and helping him learn to walk. The baby wasn't sad. But he stuck to the story and actually, when you look at it, the baby does look a little worried.

He started sobbing a little more, and I tried several ways of making him realize it was not a bad deal for the baby. Ultimately Joey asked to have the photo taped over (only the mommy's face) for some reason. Then things were bearable.

weird.

Friday, December 30, 2005

Par-tay Girls Start Scheming


It was a nice little addition to the whole holiday vacation.... an email yesterday from one of the Par-tay girls, informing me of our lunch date for today. Missy Kay decided to come to Austin to play, so the mommies and the kids all met at Waterloo Ice House for lunch.

While the kids played, we tried to think of a way to score some tickets to see Oprah. We just need to come up with a compelling scenario. Since Missy is the actress of the four of us, she will either suffer a debilitating disease, or have some sort of problem that requires Oprah's help. We are all prepared to drop what we are doing and get to Chicago for taping, and we will dress nice, so we get to sit on the front row.
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We got all the kids, except Joey to pose for a pint sized Par-tay picture. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Funny Christmas Memory

The last couple of days before Christmas, when I was frantically wrapping all the loot, I had to get creative about boxes. I used an empty Cheerios box for something, and an old Ritz Cracker box for something else. Both were Joey's gifts.

On Christmas morning, Joey unwrapped each of those and said, Yum! and then just set the box down. We had to tell him, twice, that there was something better in the box.

Sunday, December 25, 2005


Before opening presents.... Posted by Picasa

Joey anticipating his "big gift" from Mom and Dad. Posted by Picasa

Joey experiencing his "big gift" from Mom and Dad... Posted by Picasa

After opening presents. Posted by Picasa

Christmas Pagent. One of the lambs had really chapped lips. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, December 20, 2005


Took the kids for the annual visit with Santa. For the first time I remembered to bring my camera, for the 4th or 5th time, forgot to bring a brush. Posted by Picasa

Joey asked for Playdoh Doggie Doctor, Max asked for Star Wars Legos, and Emma asked for a trip to Japan. Posted by Picasa

Grace and Joey (possibly class of 2020, if I'm doing the math right....) Posted by Picasa

Alex and Emma Posted by Picasa

Grace and Max Posted by Picasa

The spinning of the tops. Posted by Picasa

Cute nephew Alex Posted by Picasa

Sunday, December 11, 2005

So much fun!

I had a blast yesterday at my first ever Art Sale. And as of about 12:30 pm I became a professional artist when my lovely friend Lindsey bought a Day of the Dead pillow, greeting cards and a tooth fairy pillow! I'm so glad someone I love came by first!

We had 15 artists at my friend Robbin's awesome house. I had so much fun making pillows and cards this last month and fun selling them too! I traded other artists for their cool stuff, the weather was perfect and lots of friends dropped by to visit me. A wonderful day!

My "booth" and my "son" Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

slutty cowgirls and dish TV

OK. Two issues in life right now. Issue one, VERY BUSY. There is a sale coming up on Saturday. An art sale and I'm one of the artists selling stuff! My friend Robbin has held this sale for the last couple of years. I attended last year and thought it was really cool and I should spend all of 2005 making clever things to sell. By mid-November, I hadn't. And the date Robbin set was the same as my Brownie troop camp out. So, I figured I had all of 2006 to get crackin'.

Then she changed the date to December 10. No excuses and I said yes. So for the last month the house has gone to hell, since something had to give. Housework is not possible now. My bathrooms are messy, the laundry is a mountain of doom, I open the fridge at 6 wondering why the vegetables, milk, eggs, OJ haven't appeared magically since I no longer have time to shop.

What I have done is made really nifty pillows. For the moms out there, two styles: Slutty Cowgirl, or Day of the Dead. I am happy with both, and hope that I don't own all 15 at the end of the day on Saturday. Then I have about a dozen kids' tooth fairy pillows. Originally, I planned them to be sweet and cute, but I had some slutty cowgirl fabric scraps..... David is quizzing me on just who I imagine will buy their daughter a slutty cowgirl tooth fairy pillow. (me?) Then I sort of half heartedly made greeting cards. Cute, but it's been almost a month since I made them, and since my own Christmas cards are languishing unmade at the 40% completion point, I feel guilty working on any other cards. (Saturday night I go full steam on my cards! -- look for them in the mail mid-Dec)

Anyway, I'm almost set. And since 5 hours just became available tomorrow, I should be in good shape. Why, you ask, did 5 hour become available? Well, that is topic two: DISH TV.

For the last 5 1/2 years, David and I have been cable free. We watch a LOT of TV around here, so it is sort of amazing we cut the umbilical cord (coaxial) when we moved home to Austin. Well, we did. And every 6 months or so we talked about getting cable. But with the three kids, there was always something more pressing to fund. ($50 a month will not send them to Harvard, and that is what we currently put in the college fund!)

Anyway, long story short. We found a "bundle" from our phone company, DSL/Local/Long Distance/and Dish TV for about what we were paying two companies for DSL/Local + Long D. So we signed up Monday. Set to install the dish tomorrow. And today the dish TV guy was outside. I ran outside in a panic, thinking I had mis-written in my calendar. But no, he was the feasability guy, and due to the majestic Oaks surrounding our house, no clear view of the satellite. No dish. I'm waiting to hear from the phone company directly, since it was just a stroke of luck I asked him why he was parked in front of my house.

David is crushed. We were both set. Damn trees.