Celebrating pioneers and other important milestones

This week has been a busy one, not least because the State of Utah celebrates Pioneer Day as a state holiday, so most of us were off work that day. (Well, since Dan was off work, I guess technically we were all off work, but by "us" I mean my extended family, too. All but Jared, who, since his employer is out of state, still had to work). So, for a rundown of the week . . .

Monday morning at 10 a.m. I had a job interview. Yes, you read that right. A week or so ago, I just happened to come across a posting for a part-time job at BYU for the Writing Fellows Coordinator position. Since I was a Writing Fellow as an undergrad and I've done a lot of work with peer writing tutors since then, I was pretty excited about the position, which seemed like a nice extension of stuff I did as a grad student, and, since the position is part time and my mom offered to baby-sit if I got the job, I decided to apply. And, as you may have guessed since I'm taking the time here to write about it, I was offered the job--and accepted it! I'm actually pretty excited--this will get me out of the house a bit, but not so much that I'll feel like I'm abandoning my kids. Plus, it will allow me to do something useful with my degree. And the extra income will let us save enough for a decent down-payment on a house when the time comes.

In other general Eves family news, Evelyn has started smiling--real, responsive smiles, not just gas-flickers. We've tried to catch some on camera, but, as usual, the real thing is much cuter than the flat representation.

Tuesday morning, Jeni and her kids came over to decorate cupcakes. I had a bit of a cupcake fetish last week--I wanted to practice filling cupcakes before I made the *real* batch for Dan's birthday, so Tuesday morning's batch were regular yellow cake mix cupcakes filled with chocolate pudding. They were a little strange, but the kids didn't mind, especially when they were loaded with frosting and other goodies. That evening, after Dan witnessed Andrew trying to use a potty chair that was way too small for him, we decided to get him one that would actually hold him, as part of our ever-fruitless attempts to help Andrew decide he wants to be potty trained. He seems to like the seat (as you can see), but so far, hasn't made any noticeable progress toward being diaper-free.


Wednesday afternoon, Andrew *helped* me mix up the real cupcakes for Dan's birthday bash. I'm not sure whether it was his help, or simply the recipe itself, but it took us nearly an hour to mix them up. The result was a quite tasty, if complex, cupcake. We got the recipe from the Food Network's cupcake challenge, from Martin Howard's recipe (it won first place in the tasting portion of the challenge). After Andrew went to bed, I finished the cupcakes by making a buttercream filling and a chocolate ganache topping. I think they would have been even better if I'd realized earlier that part of the chocolate I used for the ganache was unsweetened, but Dan seemed to think that the slightly bitter taste of the chocolate was a nice complement for the sweetness of the rest. And no, we didn't use the violet essence (see recipe)--I couldn't find any.

Bubby and Poppy stopped by that same afternoon to take Dan out for some birthday shopping--they procured a sharp looking pair of pants, some ties, and a sports-coat. Bubby is trying hard to get Dan suited up for interview season in the fall. They stopped by for dinner after their shopping spree and Poppy managed to win some charming smiles out of Miss Evelyn.

Thursday morning, we headed up to Draper for a get-together at my aunt Dahnelle's house. My mom's sister Tera was supposed to show up, but couldn't make it at the last minute, so it ended up being mostly a Collings family get-together with just a few additions: Dahnelle, her boyfriend (whose name I can't remember at the moment), Jeannie and Jeanette. Dahnelle procured a hobby horse from somewhere (purchased when her oldest daughter wanted a real horse) that Andrew enjoyed riding around the house. You can see a video of him below. We had a nice brunch there, and then headed on to Sarah's house, where Bubby and Poppy had spent the night.



When we arrived at Sarah's house, we discovered that no one was home--they'd gone up to Red Butte Gardens. We met them at Olive Garden for lunch, before returning back to the house for naps. Andrew finally (thankfully) took his nap--after a rather nerve-wracking hour for his parents where he threatened not to nap at all.

Of course, once he finally woke up, the first thing Andrew did was disappear downstairs with Katie, only to emerge a few minutes later wearing only his diaper and carrying a Snow White dress, which he needed help putting on. (We're mostly posting this picture for Jon Lee, who purportedly said that he didn't want to see any more pictures of Andrew in princess dress, and that we needed to buy that boy some trucks. Andrew does have trucks, he just likes playing dress-up with Katie.)


While dinner preparations were going on in the backyard (i.e., Aaron was manning the grill), we put the kids in swim suits and set them loose in the kiddie pool. We then had a wonderful dinner of hot dogs, fried chicken, grilled corn on the cob, potato salad, fruit salad, holiday dip, and other good things. After dinner, Sarah went to empty the pool and asked the kids to help--Andrew was more than happy to fill this big watering can with pool water and water the garden. It's one of his favorite things to do at Grandma's house.


Apparently the cupcakes were a big hit (I say apparently because I missed their unveiling--I was inside feeding Evelyn). Jake had several and, as you can tell, so did Lydia.

Below, you can see Lydia holding her third (?) cupcake of the evening. She looks good with chocolate lipstick.
Friday was, ironically enough, pretty quiet. I had an irritating sore throat, so Dan and I decided that our birthday/anniversary plans would be more enjoyable if we put them on hold for a while. (Friday was, for those who are keeping track, our five-year anniversary). Instead, we made biscuits and gravy for dinner (one of Dan's favorites, if seldom indulged in) and I took Evelyn grocery shopping so Dan could enjoy some time to himself.

Saturday we spent some time with my family--a belated sort of Pioneer Day celebration. Jeni planned several pioneer-type activities for the children. Enoch watched most of it from the dubious comfort of our wagon, since his parents were both occupied. He looked cute, though, so I had to take his picture.

Here are the kids getting ready for the three-legged race. Since they were all matched with grown-ups, the race was a little uneven. As you can see from the video below, Dan and Andrew came in dead last. Actually, they didn't even come in, as Andrew finally stopped and refused to go any further. Jared matched up with Brielle (Joshua refused to play), and my favorite part of the race was when he picked up Brielle and simply ran her to the finish line.




After the three-legged race, the older kids had an egg race with some plastic supplies I found on sale at Target. Jacob won by a wide margin, as both Emi and Andrew ended up loosing their eggs (despite having easier eggs to carry--of course, as you can maybe see from the picture, Jacob was holding his egg on the whole time. I don't think they quite understood the point of the challenge).
Here you can see Jacob in the clear lead; five steps into the race and Andrew has already lost his egg (it's behind his right leg).

The final outdoor part of the activities was a potato sack race. The video of this race (see below) is pretty funny. Jacob was the clear leader, but he stopped a few feet short of the goal and just jumped up and down. Emi was lagging behind, so Samuel finally picked her up and jumped her forward at a much faster rate. Dan demonstrated the jumping for the kids sans pillow-case. Andrew held his own for most of the race. But again, Brielle was my favorite--she just squealed while Jared bounced her forward. They never finished the race, since Jared finally just jumped her toward her mother, so Mitcee could appreciate the delighted expression on her face (you can see most of this in the video).



The final activity was making butter--Jeni put heavy whipping cream and marbles in glass jars and had the kids shake them. Unfortunately, the cream was still a little cold so it took longer than planned and all the kids lost interest before the butter actually formed so Jeni and Dan had to finish them off. The final product was actually pretty tasty, and Dan saved the butter milk to make pancakes this morning.



We also used the occasion to celebrate the multiple birthdays in the family: Dan's on Friday, my mom's next Wednesday and Emi's on Thursday. (Actually, it was mostly Emi's party--she had by far the most presents). The favored present was a Disney Soft and Sweet Princess Cinderella doll, purchased on Ebay since it's no longer carried in the store. Actually, we had a veritable plethora of dolls--I'd also ordered some similar dolls on Ebay for Emi, and a replacement for Andrew's pathetic Belle dolly. But the order didn't get shipped for over a month and Jeni, worried that it would never come, had ordered her own Cinderella doll. And we gave Emi an Ariel doll. So, there were four dolls, two for Emi, one for Andrew, and one unclaimed. This turned out to be fortuitous, however, since Brielle was fascinated with the dolls and so we gave her the extra Cinderella doll. She was thrilled (so was her mom, truth be told).

Saturday evening it was our turn to host Dan's family. We had the house to ourselves because my parents were in Salt Lake for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir/Osmonds concert. We had a reprise of the hotdog theme, plus some fresh from the garden beans. Everything went well, until Andrew decided to try and push Lydia down the stairs because he didn't want her following him and Katie. Not good. Anyway, Lydia cried, Andrew cried (we put him to bed), and Sarah decided it was time for her girls to get to bed, and that was the end of the party. It was still nice to see everyone.

This was Evelyn's outfit for church this morning--doesn't she look cute? I loved the jumper, and made the headband to match with some lace I picked out at Sarah's favorite lace store. I think it turned out pretty well, although it might be just a little big for Evelyn. And we got some cute pictures of her smiling.





Dan left this afternoon for a quick conference in Colorado--but in the meantime, it's just me and the kids (well, and Grandma upstairs if I get desperate). I already miss him!