What happens at the Gayners'...

...is supposed to stay at the Gayners'. However, this must be shared. Zoanna and Paul are some of the best people I know, and their willingness to be transparent is an example to me. Sometimes, though, they're downright funny. Zoanna gives an excellent portrayal of our evening last night, but my favorite part was during the discussion of children's books. Mitzy has a great love of Laura Numeroff's "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" and others, so Zoanna came up with her own: "If You Give a Wife a Credit Card". Giggle, giggle. Paul shakes his head, "Now that's a real tear-jerker." Guffaw, guffaw.
Maybe you just had to be there...

Bon voyage, my love

Well, today was the day I finally sent him packing...to India. Toby's now on a plane with 14 other noble souls, bound for Varanasi, to minister and provide medical care for 10 days (though they'll be travelling 2 days each way). It was sad to watch him go - lots of tears and leaky noses, but I'm confident that God's got big plans for him there, and for us, here.

Finally, I'm getting around to sharing some of the Christmas-gift-making that was going on. First was the felt pencil rolls for the girls from this lady's book. Very successful, I think. And I know the photo's upside-down, but, well, you get the idea.

The girls (the older ones, that is) also received a pair of leg warmers each, which were dutifully worn for about 5 minutes before the slouchiness freaked them out. So, it looks like I'll be making more that dont' slouch... Some of the other making-type projects include a long sleeve regency dress that was meant to be for Abi. However, she's going through a growth spurt. This means that by the time I finished it, it was too short in the arms. So now it's Anna's. And I can assure you, the "bonnet" (as Abi calls it) was not my idea! I've also posted off a pair of black fingerless mittens to my Mom. They're perfect for delivering mail (which is what she does, fortunately), as her hands freeze without gloves, but gloves hamper the mail-delivering process. They do make for an interesting dropping-mail-in-slushy-road exercise. I tried them out a little - wouldn't want to send my mom something sub-standard - and found them so warm and snuggly that I'll soon be making a pair for myself.

Now, a little reminder to pray for Toby while he's away and for me and the kids, while we're here. And he's not. Roll on Jan 31!

Food face

Or should that be s'mores face?

I have encountered many excellent recipes from other blogs, and I am ashamed that I have not yet shared some of mine. So, without further ado, I bring you...

Chicken and Bacon Oven Pilau

This is the meal you make for pretty much anyone (who eats meat). It's only five ingredients, takes a few minutes to put together, and everyone fights over the last mouthfuls (at least in this house they do). And honest-to-goodnes, I found it in a magazine. Don't tell.

You need:

2 onions, chopped

2 chicken breasts, in 1 in cubes

200g/8oz bacon, chopped

300g/10oz rice

330-350g tomato pasta sauce

Preheat the oven to 190c/375F.

Heat about 3tbsp olive oil and a knob of butter in a pot or oven-proof casserole. Add the onions and bacon and fry for about 6 min or until lightly colored. Add chicken and fry for another couple minutes until chicken is browned.

Stir in rice and cook for 1 min until all the rice is glistening and coated. Pour in sauce and 1 pint of boiling water. Season, stir well and bring to a boil. Cover tightly and transfer to the oven for 30-35 min until the rice is tender, the liquid absorbed and the chicken cooked. Yum yum!

If you're looking for a good wine to go with, sorry. I don't do that...

Geocache-ing

My mom is a geocache-r. For the uninformed, that means they go tramping around random spots on the globe, looking for stuff that other people left behind. While for most that means "trash-picker", the stuff that's being left behind isn't trash (well, most of it isn't). The last couple of times Mom visited, we went along with her. It's actually kind of cool - we found a little Woody doll whose aim was to visit all 50 states (he's made 6 so far, I think).

Mom had one weird experience, though. One of the 'travel bugs' she found (the ones that are supposed to visit x number of places) was actually a vial containing some of the remains of a man. Apparently, this man's life goal was to "spend the night with" as many women as possible (good to have goals...), but didn't really get to go far with it as he died rather young. So, a "friend" (apparently) decided that he would help by hiding his mate's ashes in a vial in the woods and asking geocachers to keep the ashes for a night before moving them on. There's a whole lot of weirdness in this world, folks.

For those interested in the world of geocache-ing, find out about it here. Just be prepared to start climbing trees and poking under fallen logs for small plastic containers, and being inordinately excited when you find something.

Clean much?

So the kids are doing some puzzles and have reached the end to find they're missing a piece or two. The ever-helpful Mommy says, "Try looking under the bookshelf", since things are forever rolling or being kicked/posted under. The broom comes out, makes a couple of passes, and out come a veritable treasure trove of items - long lost toys, puzzle pieces (I knew it), and all sorts. The kids all got so excited at the "new" stuff they found, they went "fishing" (as it is now called) underneath all the other bookcases. Below is a mere sampling of the stuff we unearthed - including the library book I had sworn I'd taken back ages ago!

Also, notice the "Welcome Baby" card. Folks, Ellie is 8 months old. That thing has been languishing in the bowels of our bookshelves for almost 8 months. Very grim.

Surely I am not the only one who is so lax in regards to under-furniture hygene. Has anyone else ever found something bizarre/unspeakable/very exciting under their furtniture? A little encouragement, please!

A few more Christmas-y photos...

Miss Eleanor, cute as ever

Noah, super-rocker

This guitar is too funny - my 2-year-old can now do covers of B-52s, the Police, not to mention the theme tune to Shrek. Complete with 'wang' bar, no less.

Nastiness

I love looking at the this website/blog for clever ideas or marvel at another's creativity, but honestly, some things were never meant to be...

What Christmas looked like

Coffee-filter snowflakes

Christmas sugar cookies...

...complete with a arm-mangled Santa and a headless angel (because it's us)
The tree "we" cut "ourselves" (thanks Tobes, for that)

Mince pies - a necessity (because it's us)

A belated Merry Christmas, everyone.

The Aquarium

Here are a few photos of our day at Baltimore Aquarium...
Pretty much the only picture of Ellie, as she was on my back the whole day

Apparently, the aquarium employs elves, in this equal-opportunity world of ours And for your entertainment...



There, wasn't that fun?

I'm an Idiot

What can I say? Trying to redeem the amazon gift card Mum sent for Christmas, I keep putting in the code, and it keeps telling me it's already been redeemed - aka "Someone's stolen our gift!". Get sulky and cross with amazon, emailing to find out how they're going to fix it all, when Toby realizes that the code that I'm using is for the gift card we received last year and has definitely been used (by us). With dunce hat firmly in place, email amazon back to apologize for such folly.
So there we are: a fool, with fun Amazon toys.
For those interested, the aquarium was great, especially when I managed to adjust the rucksack that Eleanor was in so it didn't feel like she weighed 100lbs on my shoulders. Everyone loved the dolphins the best, even though they weren't wooden. I think they would have been a little less dramatic, somehow.
I'll post some photos when I come up for air from my frenzied Christmas-making...

Wooden dolphins?

I was explaining to Abigail this morning that we're due to go to the aquarium this afternoon as a field trip. She was really excited to hear about the dolphin show...
"A dolphin show? I'm so excited, even though the dolphins are only wooden."
"What? The dolphins aren't wooden! They're real dolphins, performing tricks and things."
"You mean the dolphins on the stage aren't wooden? How do they do that?"
Stage? Wooden porpoises? I think she's in for rather a great surprise...