Breakfast today happened to be apple pie because the grocery store was doing a promotional and giving away free apple pies. Score! The pie was actually supposed to be the treat for Family Home Evening the day we bought it, but the pie took MUCH longer to bake than we thought (it was a frozen pie), so we fell back on enjoying home made mint chocolate chip ice cream for the FHE treat, and saved the pie for breakfast. I tell you, were these kids ecstatic about having PIE for breakfast. Life doesn't get much better, if you ask them.
After breakfast Sarah opened her birthday gifts. This year her first gift was a much-awaited Percy Jackson book. She was so eager to peruse the pages! She also received the book titled, Beauty, by Robin McKinley. As a bibliophile after my own heart, she was ecstatic with these gifts.
Books! (Here I close my eyes and inhale deeply, imagining the tantalizing scent of book pages). She also received a nice sweater for her school uniform (and was so happy to wear it today- the first real cold front of the year arrived today!). Nana and Grandpa Kingsley sent a fun Lego Friends set and a package of birthday cake Oreos. Sarah and the Big Boys were so excited to work together on assembling the new Lego set. Joseph was also eager to help, but was banished from the room since he kept stealing and losing the pieces. All the parts were meticulously found and secured back in place and Joseph was entertained in another room with story time.
This afternoon was our last riding lesson of this semester. It was pure delight! Sarah and I are confident enough with horse handling that there was never a moment of uneasiness or fright while we rode. Once again we played and explored in the large park near our home. The air was crisp and cold, numbing my ears and fingers. The setting sun was beautiful, and the late-blooming wild flowers were gorgeous. I absolutely love horse-riding, and loved watching Sarah in control of her steed. Her long hair was unbraided and glinting in the golden sunlight while flowing in the breeze. She looked like a girl from a fairy tale. What neat memories we created today playing in the woods.
Dinner was her favorite meal: chicken pot pie. She could eat this every day I think, and never tire of it. Since it was a nippy day, we brewed a big pot of home made Aryuvedic tea to accompany the meal and warm us up. I love the recipe we use! (Thanks again, Ashley, for the great tea set and recipe!)
Sarah's birthday cake was a humorous affair. Yesterday Nathan, Sarah, and I worked together to create a frozen cookies and cream ice cream cake, made with layers of cookie, rich fudge whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, and cool whip. It had three layers of everything, and was frosted with cool whip and crushed Oreos before being carefully placed in the freezer. Well, somehow this free-standing cake got the wiggles overnight, and slumped over, sending layers of gooey ice cream cake over the edge of the cake board. What a site we saw today when we opened the freezer! The cake looked like it had gotten very tired, and leaned over for a rest. Joseph was mortified and was convinced someone sat on it, so we laughingly claimed it was a cake delivered by Hagrid (remember in the Harry Potter books, when Hagrid accidentally sits on Harry's birthday cake?). Sarah didn't mind at all and was just excited to eat the cake. So we carefully placed the twelve - TWELVE!- candles and sang Happy Birthday.
Tonight after we read scriptures and said family prayers, I read to the children excerpts from our collected family history stories. I have several bound books and binders filled with pictures and stories of our ancestors. It was a delight to read aloud and share some of their life stories with the children. They were so interested in these stories, and eager to hear more about our past. I'm so thankful to the many family members who spent time collecting and typing up these stories for us to cherish.
No comments:
Post a Comment