Murder Cake!

 Have you ever tried a recipe that was in a murder mystery? 

I did! One of my favorite series is Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen Cookie Mysteries. 

The cake I made this week is from her book,  Key Lime Pie Murder.

Kitty's Orange Cake is so good! 

I made it gluten free, too! It calls for a boxed cake mix, so I chose this one: 

Yummy, yummy!

My new Nana Van

We got a van! So funny, after giving up our Odyssey for a more gas-efficient Prius years ago. We've gone from a Prius, to another Prius, to hybrid Camry, to another hybrid Camry, then this hybrid Sienna. 

It's a 2021 model, and I am loving it. It has captain's chairs in the middle (really it is a bench seat with the middle seat removed), and window shades, two items that were on Luci's list of wants. I got a camera so I could watch Emma. I also got my Christmas present, so John is off the hook--a Harding University Alumna plate!

it's really an "alumni" plate, but the feminine singular is "alumna"

look at that mileage! FIVE full miles over the factory estimate, and I expect it to go higher.

camera view of precious cargo

starry night

 

JT took this one evening as he walked Miley down by our creek. 💗

Emma

 Emma is Bryan's first-born. We get to watch her two days a week and have so much fun seeing what she has learned each week! Babies are amazing. They have to learn so much from birth to age two that they qualify for "genius" designation, in my opinion. 

Last Tuesday, she sang along with me as we sang the Days of Creation.

Emma has fun in her swing, too. She seems to be Irish dancing here: 

Here are a couple of shots as she seemed to be doing an interpretive dance: 

and, she's a climber! Luci and I saw this sight when we arrived at her house yesterday. Mama had a good hold on her.

She was completely worn out the day after Trinitas. Napping with Nana: 

Hazel the Wonder Dog

Hazel is so fun. She has claimed me as being her person. There are lots of stories about Hazel, but I'll just give you one recent tale (tail?).

Luci, Emma, and I were leaving for Trinitas. John was helping by loading Emma in the van. Nobody paid attention to Hazel as we left, until she darted out the door! Zoom! 

Luci headed after her, and saw that Hazel was making a bee-line right to the creek. She came back up the hill. John buckled in Emma, then headed down the hill with the leash and doggy treats I handed him.

An hour later, we are sitting in Opening Ceremony at Trinitas. I see a Ring Alert come up on my phone. Hazel was walking around the driveway. 

John had made it to the creek and then came back to the house, because he had work to do. I called John and let him know that Hazel is back home.

"How did you know Hazel is back?"

"I'm watching her on the Ring camera!" 

silly doggy. more stories to follow

True Confession

UPDATE at the end!

Luci went to play video games and spend the night with Bryan and Valerie Saturday night. We saw them all at church Sunday, and they begged for "more time, mama!" so we let Luci stay Sunday, too.

Enter the ice storm, and then five inches of snow. So thankful to see the sun this morning--but in reality it may be tomorrow late afternoon before we can get to her to bring her home.

Now it's Friday, and I miss my baby! This is the longest we've been apart since she came to us in August, 2005.

Yeah, I know, "she's doing fine," "she's having more fun with them than you," etc.

If you have a child who suffers from adoption trauma with its separation and anxiety issues, you'll understand.

yesterday: the main road to town

                                                                        our road

today: the sun came out!

She made it home! John said this last turn, into our driveway, was the worst part of the trip.

I'm so glad to have my darling home.

(I think she's glad to be home, too.)

Does she look like her father?

Some of you may remember when Luci was newly home: the story of the woman at Walmart who kept asking about Luci. She could not understand, or perhaps could not hear, that Luci was adopted. The woman kept asking, "Does she look like her father?"

Finally I said, "Yes!" and she was satisfied.

Now, fast forward to yesterday. Luci and I were in Dollar Tree, and were being entertained by a very energetic four year old. The grandmother and I were talking and I said, "This is my baby--so calm--after two rowdy boys."

The woman wanted to know if I did fostering, implying that Luci was not my child. I can see how she'd think that. But my response was, "She's mine. She looks like her father!"

Luci and I held it together until we got outside and had a good giggle.

Luci and Bryan on a field trip Thursday

Low Carb for Me!

I'm back on the low-carb wagon after three weeks off, and feeling so much better. (Joint pain is almost gone! Gluten is my joint-pain culprit.)

Made this "break your fast" chocolate pudding last night. It needs to sit overnight in the fridge. I thought, "No way is this five servings, because, really, who eats just 1/2 cup of pudding and is satisfied?" Let me tell you that I am having trouble finishing my four ounces.

It has the craziest ingredients (hard boiled eggs!) and tastes wonderful. I used my Vitamix blender to make it. From the cookbook shown in the picture.

Maria Emmerich is the author. She is a whiz at recipes, and her cookbooks are GORGEOUS. She's an adoptive mama, too, another reason to love her. She and her husband run several Facebook groups that are helpful, and welcoming, if you are interested in support there.

Controlling Anxiety

Luci decided to listen to her music while getting a filling. Smart of her to figure this out on her own!

This is eating away at me...

Today Luci was reading this book

 and came across this fact

which led to this comment from her:

If you could eat yourself, would you get bigger, or just disappear entirely?

Mother's Day

Maybe All Mom Wants is...

Today (a day early) I am getting my Mother's Day Present (which really was a new stove a week ago because the old one gave out, but there is something more!). John took the kids to see the new Pikachu movie.

They left two hours before it started! From our house, you'd need to leave thirty minutes ahead of time to be "on time."

They'd been gone about five minutes when I get a call from Bryan.

"What size t-shirt do you wear? I'm just wondering as we sit here in these fabulous seats we got for getting to the show early."

hmm.

We have a GPS tracker on Luci's phone and John's phone. They went to Hobby Lobby first, and then Walmart, and then on to the movie.

😇😊😂

picture comes from this FaceBook group

Heard in 2011

On this date in 2011, Luci was heard to say:

 How old were you, Mommy, when you were a little girl? 

What month was that? 

What time of day?

Our Own Private Park

John has worked so hard on our hill. This area used to be impassible,  and impossible to see through.

Stove!

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Out with the old...

Found a lot of dog food, a piece of popcorn, and a frisbee under the stove. Other than that, it looked pretty good. 😊

The guys lucked out and got here inbetween rain storms.

And, the new stove! Thank you, Honey!💖

Math

dys·cal·cu·li·a

/ˌdiskalˈkyo͞olēə/

noun

PSYCHIATRY

1. severe difficulty in making arithmetical calculations, as a result of brain disorder.

Do you have a child who has severe difficulty with math concepts? This includes time, money, and all things you normally think of as "mathematics."

We have one. But I have hope!

She's 14 now, and this year we are going to tackle the Alpha set of Math-U-See. Yes, fourteen. Up until now nothing has stuck in that pretty head. But, as I said before, I have hope!

Math-U-See utilizes this set of blocks, along with some other manipulatives that were very helpful to my redhead (Bryan didn't need them).

I am hopeful that we will get to move into Beta before the summer's over, which deals with addition and subtraction of multiple digit numerals.

Hooray!

I can actually blog from my phone. Wow. Technology is really something!

Bryan helped Luci choose which dress to wear to The Big Wedding.

We spent over two hours at Kohl's getting an complete outfit for both kids. I am pretty sure that Bryan tried on more things than Luci did!

Dryers and Stoves

This has been a cranky day for some. Well, a cranky day for *one.*  😀

The dryer vent got cleaned out for the first time since we moved in. That's twelve years of dryer lint! I feel like we are lucky/blessed/fortunate to not have had a lint fire. The cranky one didn't want to help with this. I sent Luci down to watch and take photos (mama break!).

As the boys were cleaning out the vent, I tried to cook. The oven went out! John said, "Now I know what to get you for Mother's Day!"  It's given us some trouble, so he decided to get a new one for me. Happy! It comes tomorrow.

Apparently, I post too much on Facebook. I have fun reposting funny or interesting items or Bible verses and encouragement, and also telling about what goes on here at our house. I have decided to get back on the blog and try to keep a record of our days here.

Dinner Music

Last night we dined in the garage. Our furniture is moved out so the guys can come and replace the floors that are water-damaged. The piano-which-needs-to-be-tuned is in the garage now, too. I found the Christmas lights that I bought half-off the day after Christmas two years ago. Luci learned the phrase, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

At supper I asked (made) Luci play a piece on the piano. She said, "Just because we're making family memories, doesn't mean they're HAPPY memories." This is about as complaining as Luci gets. She's always been a little afraid of rocking the boat--when she was younger, she thought if she upset us, we'd give her away to someone else. Not sure if she still has that thought in her head. It was a big deal that she spoke up.

Oh, sweet girl. Don't you know that you'll be laughing about this very soon? If nothing else, you'll be laughing at dopey-old-mom for making us eat in the garage with the Christmas decorations while you played the piano. 🎄🎼

All throughout the month of November, National Adoption Month, I've posted this hashtag #wecouldhavemissedthis along with a photo of Luci. I am always thankful for Luci being in our lives. She's brought a ray of sunshine and hope that we didn't even know we needed. Even though her beginnings were tough, and the reason for needing to be adopted is because something went horribly wrong in the first place, we are always grateful to our Heavenly Father for this glorious blessing of Luci.