Yappy Birthdah, Maria

We celebrated Maria's 20th birthday last weekend.

We ate at Chuck-a-rama on her actual birthday. It was cold outside. We ate inside.

Maria adores bread, and chose to eat there because they have great rolls. If you ever want to get on Maria's good side, buy her a bag of Costco rolls. The ones with
flour dusted on the top.

The next day we ate birthday cake at Kevin & Lori's. Thanks Kevin, for the creative candle arrangement. Thanks, Maria, for being such a fun-loving, kind, sweet and wonderful daughter. We love you.

Don't Tell Pampered Chef...

... that their brownie server handle does not withstand temperatures exceeding 425 degrees.  I involuntarily tested their product when I re-baked my stored-in-the-oven and then forgotten Mother's Day Texas sheet cake covered with Saran Wrap (which we all know, does not hold up to high temperatures, either). (I was pre-heating the oven in order to bake some pop 'n serve jumbo biscuits.)  I beat the smoke alarm AGAIN.

 

I'm going to ask Black & Decker for a smoke alarm tester commission, as this is my 3rd incident in 2 months for 1 unit.

The handle is actually more ergonomic in a weird polymery kind of way.

Happy Birthday Grandpa Wally

Happy Birthday Dad.  You would have been 82 today.  I miss you terribly, especially when I hear a joke that I know you would have liked.  Thanks for loving us and being such a wonderful father and grandfather.  You were so fun-loving, hard-working, energetic, and a great missionary. I'm sure you're continuing to use your talents where you are now.  We love you.

Hitting Two Birds With One (baking) Stone

What are the odds of my finding a photo to verify my 28.5 list of things you may or may not know about me?  In this very photo, I'm wearing an apron (#4), AND holding a silicone scraper (#3). I really prefer the word "SPATULA", though.  It has more comic appeal than "SCRAPER" does. HEY!  Make that four birds:  I'm not wearing mascara, (#6), and since it was Christmas Eve, I had socks, gum and pencils (#10) under the tree waiting for me to open the next morning!

12:59 a.m. Deedoo Deedoo Deedoo Dee

This is evidence of what can happen when you lose sleep because of an unexplained 12:59 am occurrence.  Something from Rich's side of the dresser beeps, making that sound.  It wakes me up, and then I usually can't go back to sleep.  It's been going on many months but only recently has it been happening nightly.  This was the week that Rich's mom was here and the week of my latest play.  Rich and I finally started sleeping in the extra bedroom until my play ended.

So I burned the pan one morning after that noise had awakened me and I laid awake all night.  We got up to read scriptures and pray and send Meg off to school.  Then I remembered that I hadn't made my oatmeal yet, so I put the water and raisins on the stove to start boiling.  Then I completely forgot about it and went back to bed.  About 15 minutes later (of course I wasn't sleeping yet)  I realized what I'd done and ran downstairs just in time to beat the smoke alarm.  The sad thing is that I'd just ruined another one quart pan a few weeks before that.  I'd never seen metallic looking raisins before.

At first I thought the noise was Rich's hearing aids.  Then I thought it was something interfering with the alarm clock's electromagnetic frequency, so that last night that we slept in our room out of desperation, I removed everything from Rich's side of the dresser and put it all downstairs in a box.  Even the clock.  All that remained was Rich's non-digital watch.  The corroded battery that had been in the clock was in the trash.  And that was it.  The noise still happened.  Well, tonight Maria is spending the night, so Rich and I have to sleep in our own bed again.  It's 11:24 and I don't think I want to stay up until 12:59.  A small consolation is that Rich thinks he heard the noise that last night we were in our room.  He's just gotten up to go to the bathroom five seconds before it went off, and he was walking by.  So I know that I'm not imagining it.  I'll let you know what's making the noise once we figure it out.

A Great Weekend

Hattie was given a name and a blessing Sunday.  G'ma Mary came for the occasion, as did Tyler, Monica and Nathan.  Lori's mom, Pam, made Hattie's beautiful blessing dress and quilt.  We had a wonderful shindig that afternoon at Kevin and Lori's and missed all of you who were there in spirit.  Maria's boyfriend, Shay, spent some time with us, too.

Hattie's Blessing