Moving the Cedar Chest

We've been cleaning out our guest room which meant finding a new home for our cedar chest. This particular chest was given to my dad by Uncle J (I need to find out my Uncle's middle name, I have two Uncle J's and that can be confusing when using only initials) and sat in dad's garage for several years before I claimed it (which means I took it to Auburn and declared that it was mine). When R and I married and moved to sunny central Florida (currently home to daily thunderstorms and beautiful sunsets), R refinished it and we used it as a coffee table. Six happy years later, the Squirms appeared and the coffee table became a chest in the guest room. Now, in preparing for Squirms II, it has become an "entry-way" bench. I've written all of this mainly because I have time on Saturday night to do so and because I wanted to explain why we are rearranging instead of just giving something away - all of our furniture is currently useful (with the one exception of the humidor, but it's such a small, cool piece of furniture and belonged to R's grandfather that it's just too awesome and must stay in our house for the one day that R allows me to store cigars) and most pieces we just also really love, like this cedar chest.

"Entry Way" and "Office" - bench with storage for daily used bags, and my secretary which serves as our home office.

R put these up today (Trust me, they're actually very straight and aligned). Each photo is a place that we've traveled - England, Nicaragua, Map of Pensacola from St. Augustine, Wales, Bahamas, the Grand Canyon, Banff (Canada), and Ireland. A reminder of the fun we've had together.

Ten Things

1. Squirms LOVES to dance. This morning I might have made up a song, The Caterpillar Crawls, with only three words as lyrics, the caterpillar crawls (see number 2), and she danced to this. Now, you do have to sing the words, but if there is a "song", the girl will DANCE. This morning she started with Auntie L's favorite, the shoulder roll, and moved into what I like to call the Beyonce drop.

2. While reorganizing our filing cabinet I found a spiritual gifts test from college. My lowest score was in a category called Craftsmanship. This made me feel justified for my preference of buying something from Pottery Barn over making it. It also explains why I'm not addicted to Pinterest - I know I'll never make any of those projects. 

3. We've decided to make (this could be more difficult than it should be, see number 2) the Squirms a reading nook in her toddler room. Or, an open-and-turn-the-pages-and-babble nook.

4. Maybe I should mention that we're slowly clearing out our guest room so the Squirms can move into a toddler/girl room and the nursery will be ready and waiting.

5. R and I are under serious pressure to cut Squirm's mullet. So far we're holding out: a) I'd like to take her to Disney for her first hair cut; b) I'm worried she'll look like a six month old boy; c) It's acceptable to have a mullet in central Florida.

6. Whenever I say Squirms Loves Mommy! in the hopes she will repeat this, Squirms happily shouts Dada!

7. My 7th violin lesson is tonight. Last week I ran into one of my AWANA students (a third grader) who is learning to play the cello. We compared notes. I can play Mary Had a Little Lamb and she can't. She can play Ode to Joy. I'm just going to say that I don't have that music.

8. The Squirms got a cold. Then I got a cold. Now we both have colds. Pray for R.

9. The garden yielded two green peppers (along with the collards and tomatoes) this past week. Oh, and we tried Martha's pasta recipe with the collards. It was okay. We added lots of parmesan because it was a bit bland. This week I bought a spaghetti squash to try the recipe shared by mandghall in the comments.

10. Pepperidge Farm's Double Chocolate Nantucket Dark Chocolate cookie is the best chocolate chip cookie I've ever tasted.

Tiny Clothes, Big Girl, and We Heart Dad

I was cleaning out Squirm's closet and dresser yesterday and made a decision. We need to call our social worker and change our preferences to ask for a little girl. I can't handle not using these tiny, adorable clothes again. Putting away her smocked watermelon outfit and the purple flower dress was just so sad. She keeps getting more and more fun, but these tiny clothes are just precious - leading to an executive decision on my part, we need more baby girls.

Last night our baby little girl ran around a t-ball field and took toys from a six month old while we played kickball with our Life Group (Bible study group from church). R and I are sore this morning, but had so much fun playing! I saw something I didn't even know was possible last night - R got himself out, all on his own, no help from anyone. He kicked the ball down the first baseline, then ran into it, and then caught it as it was bouncing. Apparently there is a rule that if the ball touches you, you're out; and the girls needed all the help we could get so I didn't argue. We were all really impressed.

Today R is helping a neighbor move and we have canoeing plans for the afternoon. I thought I would share how Squirms reacted when her dad went out the front door to go help our neighbors.

Look, dad went out the door.

Dad went out the door without me....why would he do that?

DAD WENT OUT THE DOOR WITHOUT ME!!!!!!

Oh, a rabbit's foot.

Happy Saturday. Oh, and Father's Day weekend.

Collard Green Recipes

So far we've tried:

• Mess O'Greens from my Good Grits cookbook. R loves these; I like them, but can't eat a lot at one time because I found them Hot.
• Sautéed greens and grilled rib eye using this recipe from the Food Network website, jerk-rib-eye-with-honey-glazed-plantains-and-sauteed-collard-greens-recipe. Pretty good greens recipe, and we both really liked the homemade rub for the rib eye. Different tasting, but made for a lovely new recipe.
• Collard Green Chips, baked-greens-chips-recipe. What's not to like? Greens made into chips. I heart olive oil and salt. 

And I'd like to try these next:

• From Martha, braised-collards-with-tomatoes.
• And a pasta one! pasta-with-cauliflower-and-collards. 

And we might get to these too:

• Just because it's from Paula, and really, if anyone from the Food Network knows how to cook collard greens, shouldn't it be her? collard-greens-recipe.
• And from a Google search, bbq_baked_beans_sausage. 

Suggestions? Normally I do not ask actual questions. Because I think R may be the only one reading this, because he's a nice husband. But my Aunt K and Grandma insist that they actually do read this, and they probably have some recipe ideas.

The Helper

My baby girl is becoming a little girl. She's getting taller, and her belly is stretching out - we can hardly call her Jabba the Hut anymore. She's also been "helping" me with things around the house. And by "helping" of course I mean taking something apart while I try to complete a task nearby. This morning I was attempting to hang up clothes, put shoes away, and straighten up our bathroom. Squirms helped by going through a bathroom cabinet, finding mason jar lids bracelets and new teething devices. Seeing how happy she was with mason jar bangles, I just had to stop and grab the camera.

I love to reorganize mom's stuff! I like things best scattered on the floor instead of drawers.

Hmmmm. This one is locked.

Walking with a purpose with her new bracelets.

They make such a lovely noise when I walk from room to room.

Shouldn't I have all my teeth already? How long does a full set take??

My Helper.

In other news, R went bowling with friends on Friday, we went on a date Saturday night, and I met a dear friend for coffee last night. It has rained at least once almost every day recently - bad news for Tanner but good news for the garden - and I've been trying to find lots of new recipes for collard greens since the ones R planted are doing so well. The Squirms is not great at pulling weeds, but she does enjoy picking tomatoes - green or ripe - and then immediately eating them. 

It's thundering again and a giant dog just sat on my feet. 

Sweet Home Alabama

Oh my gosh, help. I heard a hiss! Is what L said as she tried to climb on the top of our mother's car. Terrified, and laughing, she stood on the door frame of the passenger's seat and called for our dad. There's a opossum over here! I heard him hiss. It's a opossum in the woods! I turned to look at H, her eyes wide and frozen on the dark tree line, and stood still while my father went towards the driver's side of the car. He said, L, don't move. It's in the car. L resumed her attempt to climb onto the top of the Toyota Avalon. H made a small wimper-like noise behind me and I held my breath. Then dad laughed. While there might have been an opossum in the woods - our Grandpa and cousins had found one earlier that night - there wasn't one in the car, nor near enough to harm L.

This story really begins approximately 12 years ago when H went onto the back porch to give the dogs leftovers from dinner and began screaming hysterically. While everyone thought a snake must be wrapping itself around her leg, or she was being attacked by a crazy axe murderer, in reality, there was an opossum on the porch. Since that fateful, and funny, night our family has been a bit sensitive to opossums. I'll not go down the path of what this might say about our family: a hyper-sensitivity to an animal who plays dead when confronted.

I feel like opossums get a bum rap, although their tails are truly hideous; but that's one of the reasons I have so much fun visiting with my family, I laugh, a lot.

This past weekend we got to laugh at Squirms charming airline passengers and attendants, Squirms gnawing on barbecued rib bones, stories of old ladies giving my sisters mean looks during church, Squirms running after (and from) her cousins, my mom asking us if we needed to keep an empty plastic bag (that was really hers to begin with), Uncle J's horrible-yet-wonderful jokes, Squirms looking and acting like a turtle on its back after she fell backwards in her life vest, baby CQC grabbing hold of Squirm's luscious mullet and pulling, and other normal-yet-unique moments.

My first airplane ride!

Dreamland Ribs....I cry if you take these away.

Chasing cats in Grandpa's yard; while wearing different shoes of course.

Hanging out with the cousins.

My child is good at taking things from others.

I forced Auntie H to sleep in a closet last night.

Lake Day! So happy! This guy does whatever I say.

Reading to AMC.

Group Hug!

Are you cheeks chubbier than mine?

Baby love!

Cousins are the best.

Showing off her walking abilities in front of BVD.

Finally! Someone let me play with a remote!

Returning to Florida so she can get some rest.

Thank you to all our family members and friends who let us bother them this weekend! I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of playtime on the pier with her blonde cousins, but it did our hearts good to see her laughing and playing with them.