Life With The Stanfords

A Virus-Free November

2009-11-07T18:31:58-08:00

We haven't been sick, but my computer sure has. I think it's been riddled with viruses for quite some time, but when the pornographic icons showed up on my desktop, it was time for action. I just got my computer back for the first time in a week. I've had serious withdrawal. I figured out that the computer is my "go-to" when I have to do something I don't want to do. So I ended up doing a lot of stuff I didn't want to do this past week. Welcome back, little computer!

Nineteen days 'til Thanksgiving, people! "Let the wild rumpus start!" You have about two weeks to get your grocery and Christmas shopping done in peace. Then...every man for himself. You've been warned.

This year's been a tough one for The Stanfords, economically and otherwise. But the funny thing about tough times is that they make you even more grateful for the blessings you do have, which brings us to this month's playlist...

This month's playlist has a lot of repeats from last year. I still love Diana Krall's "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep" and Copland's "Hoedown", and no November playlist would be complete without "Turkey In The Straw".

My favorite addition to this year's Thanksgiving playlist is "Doxology" by the Michael Gungor Band. What a cool version of one of my favorite hymns! You'll also find a wonderful jazz version of "Ode To Joy" (another favorite hymn) by Brian Bromberg. There's even a Thanksgiving song on here by Don Henley. Hmmm, who knew?

Enjoy the advent of this most wonderful holiday season. Be blessed and be a blessing!

The Ballerina

2009-10-30T05:00:00-07:00

Introducing, the one, the only, Evelyn Kate Stanford, dancing to the beautiful "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" by Tchaikovsky...

"See the candy fairies, sugar-plums, jelly-beans, chocolate bars,
Dance the minuet,
With the candied cherries, lolly-pops, peppermints, candy-canes,
As they pirouette,

See the FAIRY PRINCESS curtsying, gracefully, beautifully,
Swaying to the tune...

Music in the air (so entrancing)
Flowers in her hair (as she's dancing)
Love is everywhere (Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h-h)
'Neath the yellow lemon-drop moon.

There she goes now, on her toes now,
To her yellow lemon-drop moon.

Uh yeah, Mom, that was great. Get me outta this thing!

I miss the mullet

2009-10-29T05:00:00-07:00

I started to title this post, Hair and Teeth Part II, but no teeth are involved. Evelyn has been trying to grow her hair out since she got here almost two years ago. The back of her head has cooperated enthusiastically. The front of her head? Not so much - thereby resulting in a lovely baby mullet.

Baby mullets are great for baby pigtails, but not much else. Her hair was out of control, I tell ya'. It was time to cut Evelyn's hair and launch her into the big girl world of bad hair days, haircuts gone awry and just plain bad hairstyle choices.

Would you let a man, whose hair looks like this, cut your baby's hair?
Hey, desperate times. Desperate measures.

Surprisingly, the three middle kids took a keen interest in the proceedings.

None of them wanted us to cut Evie's hair. Ethan: "Do we have to cut off her curls, Mom?" Blythe: "Aw, that makes me sad."

Evelyn's attitude quickly disintegrated from happy participant to outspoken dissenter.

Those little hairs are SO itchy!

Finally. Done!

The baby mullet is tucked safely away in a pink baby book to be discovered later by a grown up Evelyn, who will ask her Mama, "Why did you let me wear my hair like that???"

And I will tell her, "Only after you've smelled the sweet curls and twisted them tenderly between your fingers will you understand the difficulty in parting with them, my dear, sweet Evelyn."

Home from Houston

2009-10-27T22:57:49-07:00

Just got back from Houston on Saturday. My very fabulous in-laws gave Jade and me tickets to see Third Day in concert there. Highlights from our trip:

Thursday night - Ribs at Jade's Mama's house. Yes ma'am!

Friday - Four hours in the van all alone with my husband. Smashing conversation. Bliss!

Friday night - Third Day! Yeeah!!! Here's me and Jade with Mac Powell:

Saturday morning - Blueberry muffins at Cathy's house. Thanks for puttin' us up, Cath!

Saturday - Lunch with my friend, Amita, from high school, and her husband! I hadn't seen her in years and years. The last time I saw her was at her wedding. Amita is Hindu and her wedding was a feast for the eyes! So beautiful.

IKEA - That place is the devil! The need to consume almost overtook me. Jade was strong for the both of us.

Saturday evening - I got to meet Jade's pastor from when he lived in Hackberry under a bridge (great story there). Jade had talked about Bro. Gerard and his wife ever since I met him. They took really good care of him. He hadn't seen them in about 12 years. When we got out of the van at Bro. Gerard's house, he and Jade grinned from ear-to-ear. We went into the house and Bro. Gerard yelled, "Gail, our son's home!" I almost cried over the sweetness of it all.

Jade got the chance to tell them how much they meant to him and what a difference they had made in his life. I'm welling up again just thinking about it. They are dear, sweet people who love Jesus so much they look like Him. I want to be like them.

What a great trip! Good memories abound.

It happens to the best of us.

2009-10-20T05:00:00-07:00

My husband just shaved his head.

He did this once before, several years ago, and I was not amused. He has been under the impression that he is bald for nine years now. I don't think he's bald. Granted, I see the receding hairline. It is moving further back on his head, but he's still got gorgeous, black hair through which I love to run my fingers. Alas, I think those days are over.

Have you ever felt a shaved head? Blech! It is prickly and weird feeling. I'm sure I'll get used to it. Maybe I'll even start rubbing baby oil on his head to make it shine.

I guess I shouldn't give him a hard time about it. I mean, he has to deal with my body giving in to gravity and wrinkles. Too bad I can't just shave off my bad parts, huh?

The Pumpkin Decorating Contest

2009-10-19T05:00:00-07:00

Now that Claire is going to "real school", I have to get used to some new things. Since August, she's had to turn in a couple of class projects, Jade has sold candy (ugh!) at his shop, and there's a bake sale on Tuesday. Also, I have to bring milk for the Book Fair "Muffins for Moms" affair in a couple of weeks. I'm adjusting.

In addition to all of that, Claire has decided to participate in 4-H this year. Her first activity was a pumpkin decorating contest last week. Claire wanted to create Cinderella's coach with her pumpkin. Whoa! I thought that was going to be way too difficult to accomplish. I asked her to scale down her idea a little bit. We tossed around a couple of ideas and she decided to create a ladybug out of her pumpkin.

I thought it would be really cute to get a different colored pumpkin to use as the spots on the ladybug and a smaller pumpkin to use as the head. We bought a "regular-sized" pumpkin, a small pumpkin and a cushaw (since we couldn't find a green pumpkin). Here's what a cushaw looks like:

As with all of my ideas, this turned out to be much more difficult than imagined. We ended up drawing 12 holes on the pumpkin. Unfortunately, cutting out holes is much harder than drawing them. We ended up calling on the services of my dear, sweet husband. He put his "McGyver" hat on and decided to use a hole saw to cut out the holes.

You know what happens next...cutting 12 matching holes out of the cushaw for the dots. That was a little easier since the cushaw was softer. After Jade did all the hard work for us, Claire and I got busy decorating her little ladybug. We ended up using straws for legs, Play-Doh accessory eyes and a scrap of pumpkin fabric for the ladybug's hair bow. I give you...Lady Bugkin!

I think her father might have been a spider. Claire was so proud of her creation. It was interesting getting our ladybug through the carpool line at school the next morning, but she made it in one piece.

We couldn't wait to pick up Claire from school and find out if she won a ribbon or not. Ethan even prayed for her pumpkin to win a prize that morning. Claire walked to the van with a big grin on her face. She won a blue ribbon! How great is that?

Next year, I think I'll let her do Cinderella's coach. I think it'll be much easier.

Hair and Teeth

2009-10-13T11:23:52-07:00

We did finally get Ethan's hair cut. My sister graciously agreed to cut it for free. I can't tell you how hard it was to throw away all that beautiful blonde hair piled up on the floor. It just seems like there should be some really good use for such a prized possession.

Before - Surfer Dude:

After - Welcome to basic training:

That is one good-looking kid, either way. Notice the arrow pointing to the emerging tooth. My friend, Liz's post, reminded me that I completely neglected to post this huge milestone in Ethan's life.

He lost his first tooth back in August right before school started. It was such a big deal. I was pleasantly surprised that Ethan pulled it himself. He's not always known for his bravery.

Can you see the excitement on Owen's face? I think he was more thrilled than Ethan was. He immediately started telling us his tooth was loose. He's so ready to reach that "big boy" marker in his life.

I wonder if big brothers ever realize how much they're adored? I keep hoping Ethan won't be a criminal because then I'd surely have two. Owen loves his big brother Ethan (when Ethan's not pestering the fool out of him).

And me? Well, it always catches me off guard how emotional something like a little ol' tooth can make me. It's kind of the same way I felt on this day:

Hair and teeth.
Teeth and hair.
Both are sayin' your baby's not there...
anymore.

Homemade Caramel

2009-10-12T09:56:58-07:00

I ended my previous post with an almost completely empty bowl of homemade caramel. I had a couple of requests for the recipe so I'm sharing it here. I've always wanted to make caramel, but that whole "boil the condensed milk in the can for an hour" thing just didn't appeal to me.

This recipe is very simple. It came from my kids' Kindercooks class. Here goes:

HOMEMADE CARAMEL

1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sugar

Using a microwave-safe bowl, combine all ingredients.
Cook on HIGH power in the microwave for 3 minutes, then stir.
Reduce microwave to 50 percent power and cook for two 2-minute intervals, stirring between each interval.
Continue to microwave on half power at 1-minute intervals until caramel becomes a caramel color and reaches desired consistency.

NOTES:

All microwaves cook differently. Watch carefully to make sure the mixture doesn't boil over.
My total cook time was about 11 minutes. I stopped cooking when the caramel was a little lighter than I wanted it. It continues to darken and thicken as it cools. So don't overcook it.
After it's been refrigerated, the caramel gets really stiff. Just warm it up for a few seconds in the microwave to make it "stirrable" again.

Gifting the caramel...

The other night we had dinner with friends and I wanted to bring a little something for our hosts. I bought a pretty glass jar at Wal-Mart for $3.97. Everything else I had on hand at home.

I cut a strip of pretty fabric with pinking shears and hot-glued it to the outside of the jar. Then, I tied raffia around the outside of the fabric. I printed the words "Homemade Caramel" on a piece of scrapbook paper and cut it into a circle. Punched a hole in the tag and attached it with raffia. Voila!

I brought the jar of caramel with a few shiny, red apples. This is a great Fall gift. It is really inexpensive to make and so delicious! This caramel is great on apples, drizzled over popcorn, brownies, and ice cream. I think you could drizzle it over an old shoe and that would be good, too. Enjoy!

Friday Miscellany

2009-10-09T12:54:03-07:00

How glad are you that it is Friday? Let's all breathe a collective sigh of relief right now...aaah. The weekend is full of promise.

The LSU Tigers have a huge game this weekend against Florida. Everyone here has their Tim Tebow voodoo dolls out and they're sticking the heck out of 'em. Honestly, I can't believe I even know that much about the game. It's amazing how much you pick up via Facebook and Snap Fitness.

We're having dinner with friends tonight; another night of eating and talking. Have I mentioned before that those are my two favorite things?

I was standing at my kitchen window today minding my own business when suddenly I was called outside:

The wind was blowing, the sky was blue and the temperature was still about 90 degrees. I guess these are our dog days, but what lovely dog days they are.

Are these weeds or wildflowers? I'm not sure. They're beautiful either way. Can you believe these are in my backyard? I didn't have anything to do with growing them either. God planted them. He does all things well.

I brought some in to share with the family. I call this still life, "Friday".

I guess Claire will let me know this afternoon whether we need to change the name to "Claritin" or not.

That pattern in the picture is for a Renaissance Festival dress for Claire. I've been waiting and waiting for Hancock Fabrics' Columbus Day Sale. Sunday and Monday their decorator fabrics are half off. I'm hoping I can afford the 11 yards of fabric required for this dress.

One last picture:

Homemade caramel. Did you know that if you run out of apples to dip into this, you can just eat it straight out of the bowl? Who knew?

Happy Weekend!

"Sew, how have you been?"

2009-10-05T14:33:50-07:00

I wish I could stop thinking of ways to use "sew" instead of "so" in a sentence (Blogosphere: "We do, too."). It's just "sew" easy to do.

Anyhoo, I've been sewing. I wanted to share a couple of my latest projects. The first is yet another pattern that I intended to make for Claire years ago and ended up making for Blythe. The pattern is out of print, but I found it here.

The whole reason I ended up making the coat was because of these:

I could not resist these buttons, but I had to have something to use them for. I ended up with this fleece coat. It was a really easy pattern. Fleece is very forgiving of mistakes. The only thing I suggest is...DO NOT use black fleece. My white marking pencil did not work very well on the fleece, so it was almost impossible to see the markings I made for buttonholes. Sheesh!

Blythe is adorable in this coat; it's a classic cut and very ladylike. I'm thinking of making her another, more casual, coat out of this pattern with camel-colored fleece, a hood and wooden toggle buttons.

My next project is from another simple, adorable, FREE pattern from Oliver + S. This is their Popover Sundress pattern:

I realize that is a huge piece of fabric laying across the front of the jumper, but I like it anyway. The colors are great. The bird fabric is actually a Michael Miller quilt square scrap I found at a local quilt shop. I bought it without knowing what I would ever use it for. I also had the most amazing colored lace from Fabritopia that I've been dying to use. I just went crazy and used it all on this little jumper. Too much? Perhaps. Jimmy crack corn and I don't care (Ha! I just love saying that). Here's a closeup of the lace and Evelyn's tongue:

Here's the back view:

I'm planning on making several of these for Blythe and Evelyn. There are so many possibilities for these. I think they'll be cute with close-fitting long-sleeved T-shirts underneath and some funky leggings and boots.

Next on the sewing agenda - candy cane dresses!