January happenings

Well, for starters, I've been making cinnamon rolls this month. It started at about 8pm one evening when I saw the recipe and decided that my baby needed me to eat an entire pan of cinnamon rolls. So, being without butter at the time, I called my friend Brigitte down the street and sent Matt out into the cold to borrow butter. Then, I made the recipe. It's Pioneer Woman's recipe. It took me a few shots to get them just right, but now I'm a pro! The recipe makes 7 pans of rolls, which you think would be too many, but the dough is refrigeratable so you can make some every day! Which...I do.

These girls all graduated from City Garden a year or two ago and now we're getting together with them semi-regularly for craft times. Last time we made glycerin soap, and this time we did a little knitting project. We make it a potluck thing too, so there is always tons of fun food and, if it's in the evening, wine for the mommies. Remember when I used to drink wine???? (boohoo). Oh well. I have cinnamon rolls now.

During our little knitting circle, one of the dads took some of the not-so-into-knitting boys out into the backyard for sword fights. It was Mr. Neil. He's awesome. The people whose house we gathered at live in a neighborhood called Garfield Park in Chicago. And if you knew Garfield Park, you'd know how funny it is that they have a chicken coop in their side yard. Do you see the chickens in the background? Hilarious.

We have the most interesting friends. One of the moms works for some liberating-women-in-Iraq organization, one is a jazz singer, several are various kinds of artists. Makes me seem very boring, but it's fun that I get to know all these people!

This weekend, we also got to see Uncle David perform in the 8th grade play of "Prince and the Pauper". He was King Henry VIII! He did a great job.

Isn't he a cute king? I told Matt that with that beard, David is really starting to look like his dad!

Half way through the play, the King dies, so then David became the Italian ambassador. We were sitting in the 2nd row, so I think he caught my eye while I was taking pictures of him, (embarassing him is my job, I think).

See? He was trying to hold his "poker face" but then he saw me and started to laugh. Then he tried to stop his face from laughing so he made this funny squinched up face. Haha! We love you Uncle David. Sorry I ruin your life with my dorkiness.

The play was really good! I have to say, those North Shore schools sure know how to put on a play. Look at these costumes? For an 8th grade play?! I'm pretty sure we had some kind of costumes made from paper bags for any theater we did in 8th grade.

Here are the Prince and the Pauper (but with their clothes switched). They both did a great job. The funny thing Matt and I noticed, however, was how all the 8th grade girls were so much taller than all the boys. Typical. Of course Uncle David is the exception. He's huge!

My aunt and uncle from Barrington surprised us with another furniture delivery! And just at the perfect time because my white painted table was not holding up well at all. I love this table. It expands to a really huge table if you need it to, and I remember playing play dough on this table with my cousins back in the day.

She also brought Sam and Claire a cute matching game that they immediately got into.

And she brought us this clock! This clock makes me feel extraordinarily grown up because, hey, you can't buy clocks like this at IKEA now can you? Nope.

The table found a new home right away. It actually matches the hutch that they brought us, though, which might make this room look like a big wooden furniture gallery. Any tips? Should I paint the hutch? I know it needs stuff displayed in it, but what? I'm not a good decorator.

Another project that has kept me very busy has been redoing Claire's history curriculum. If you are reading this, you probably know my father, so lets just start with saying that I guess I'm my father's daughter because I really became a crazy perfectionist with this one. I decided that The Story of the World, which is the history program we followed this year, didn't weave very much Bible history into the ancient history curriculum afterall, (like I had heard that it did!). So, I had to do it myself. I spent days researching dates for the entire history of Israel, (the kings, the judges, the prophets, the exile, etc) and worked it back into the stories we had read. Because I was super excited about finding out things like how Joseph came to Egypt during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. And although we read about King Cyrus of Persia, we didn't learn much about the fact that the Israelites got to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and the temple under his authority! And I loved learning where Daniel and Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego fit into the Babylonian empire. So, I made a new timeline for us, found about 100 pictures online that illustrated all the events, cut them out, and had them laminated. Now, we just have to make a giant wall timeline and relearn everything! No problem.

And last but not least, here is Sammy's picture of our baby girl in my tummy. She's getting pretty big, I'd say. Or maybe she's just stuffed with cinnamon rolls. I think I'm about 23 weeks. I'm not going to start complaining too much yet, but lets just say that I already can't breathe. Only 17 weeks to go!