Annacdotes 29

in an outfit I termed "floral camo"

1. Because Anna has a summer birthday, she got to celebrate it early at school. (Yes, this is an old Annacdote.) Each kid in her class drew her a picture, and then her teacher made a little booklet out of them. When we were looking through it later that day, I saw one picture that included a boy's name and his phone number. I was a little surprised at this and asked her why he included his number. She said, "Remember? That's the boy that has a crush on me!" We giggled about it for a minute, and then I said, "What do you think he would do if you called him?" Shocked and a little embarrassed, she said, "I don't even know! He might ask me to go out!" I asked Anna what she would say to that, and she said, "I would probably say, 'Don't you know we're only kids?'"

2. In a prayer: "Thank you for giving children the opportunity to learn fascinating facts and interesting things about the world and sometimes adults but mostly children. Thank you for that."

3. My mother was talking about our family one day and she said that, except for a few aches and pains, we have all been blessed with really good health. We talked about this for a few minutes, and then Anna chimed in loudly with, "Yeah, and just be glad we're not on the Mayflower with all the disease and stuff." She offers such a fresh perspective.

4. One morning, Anna tried several ways of negotiating her way out of making her bed. First she said she was planning on taking a nap later, so she'd just like to be able to get back in her bed. (She wouldn't take a nap in a million years, by the way.) I said she still needed to make her bed and if she did, in fact, take a nap, she could lay on top of her bed with a blanket. Then she said that would mess up her bed during the nap, but I stood my ground. After a few more failed attempts, she said, "Fine! You win this round, [then cryptically] but I'll be back."

5. In a prayer: "Thank you for the past, thank you for the future, and thank you for this exact second." She likes to cover her bases.

a picture Anna submitted to an art contest, to give you a little context for her artist statement below

amazingness

6. Saying goodnight one evening, I hugged Anna and told her I loved her and would forever. She circled my face with her hand several times and said dramatically with cool echo effects, "I will love you after after after time ends."

7. These next three happened all in the same day, so they go together:

First, Anna paused partway through eating her dessert and started reading the Sunday comics that were sitting next to her. After a minute, I noticed the pause and asked if she was full. She said, "Sort of. I just gotta, you know, let it ... 'reader's.....digest.'"

Then later, I let her have some salt water taffy just before she was supposed to get ready for bed. I told her I'd let her eat one if it made her quick, as if it were a pill for speediness. Happily unwrapping the taffy, she said, "Actually, it might make me tarry." I stared at her, frozen in awe for a moment, and she said, "Wait, does 'tarry' mean get distracted and wander around?" Yes, yes it does. And totally Sunday appropriate, I thought.

Lastly, she had been playing with this strip of fabric all evening, wearing it like a shawl, and as we knelt down to pray, she wrapped it around me and tied me tightly to her. Totally deadpan, she said, "This is to make sure no one gets squirmy. Especially YOU."

8. Practicing the piano one day, Anna made a mistake. Overdramatically ashamed, she covered her eyes and said, "Shame on me! I'm not opening my eyes to see the beautiful world ever again. Unless it's a dump."

9. When Anna gets asked what she learned at school that day, her response is often "nothing," which doesn't really make for an awesome conversation. So one day, the question was changed to, "What would you like to be learning?" She came up with three responses: "Magic, although that's not possible, levitation, and my part for the primary program."

10. As I was doing my best to mimic the opera singer we happened to be listening to (and my version was not half bad, by the way), Anna groaned and said, "I wish I didn't have a mother who sang opera." I laughed and said, "That's the best kind of mother there is! A fun one!" Then she said in a sincere lament, "Man, I just wish I had a normal life!"

She lost one of her front teeth at the beginning of November . . . 

. . . and then the second one came out three weeks later. In true Anna fashion, she works very hard on her enunciation now so that she doesn't have a lisp, which is too, too bad. I think she'd be adorable with a lisp, but it would go against this old-soul image she's developed.

Halloween Fun

Happy Halloween a couple days ago. We had a fantastic and very full October, and I realize it was mostly due to many things surrounding Halloween. It's such a purely fun holiday, and I love it for that reason. Candy, costumes, carving, decorating—all for pretty much no meaningful reason. Brilliant.

First off, Anna attended a musical theatre workshop for the last couple months, and it ended with a halloween show. Along with her group, she sang and danced to "This Is Halloween," and she sang parts of "Monster Mash." (Sidenote: This song always makes me laugh because it relates to an inside joke I have with my sister. Many years ago, we joked about making threatening calls to a particular young women's basketball referee we didn't see eye to eye with, and one of us suggested we play scary music in the background. And then the other said, "What kind of scary music? Who has scary music? Like the 'Monster Mash'?" And we imagined a few scenarios where we called up this woman and had a silly, shaky voiced "it's a GRAVEyard smash!" playing in the background. We just thought that was so ridiculous and hilarious.)

Another highlight of the show was figuring out what Anna could wear to get the best use out of the black light they had shining on the performers. Her shoes that were splattered with neon paint glowed like they were radioactive, and they were a must every night of the show. (Thanks, Jen.) Anyway, it was good times all around and got us into the Halloween spirit.

We also made some stellar Apple Uglies this year. Mine was kind of a rainbow alien. 

After I finished, I thought back to the apples I have made in recent years, and, more often than not, I make Apple Cuties. I've made some uglies in the past, but these days, I seem to be too focused on color and design and symmetry. And those principles usually produce cute. But even though I am not following the guidelines to the letter, I'm fine with it. I've made some great ones, and my apple this year was still awesome.

Here is Anna's apple. She added some sculptures to the right and behind the apple that really added some pizzazz this year—the apple's pet ghost and the ghost's cyclops friend with crutches and the cyclops' baby. Sculptures aside, I'm mostly frightened of the apple's nose.

Here's a pic with Anna's face, just because she's so cute.

And let's not forget the traditional carving of the jack-o-lantern. Anna decided she wanted to carve a vampire this year, and then when we added a snake nose, it became even creepier. And so it was named Snakette.

Here's another fun thing we did on Halloween night. Toilet paper rolls + scary cut-out eyes + glow sticks + outside in the yard = creepy hidden creatures staring at you in the dark.

And now for the costume. Anna wanted to be a butterfly this year, and she really, really wanted her face painted. We bought some wings but added the jewels because the wings needed some oomph. I think the jewels did a good job. The face paint showed my amateur skills, but at least it was there.

What wasn't there was the set of glow-in-the-dark hair extensions we bought for her costume but totally forgot to bring out that night. We also forgot some ribbon bracelets. Sad. I guess we were just too excited to get out there and secure some candy.

I also wore a neon pink wig.



Hope you had a lovely October as well.

A quest for the best chocolate chip cookies

If I had to choose, I would probably say that chocolate chip cookies are my favorite kind of cookie. I like them for their overall flavor, but I like them for their simplicity, too. Just some basic dough and chocolate. In fact, I've liked them for a long time. I think making chocolate chip cookies was probably my first foray into the world of baking. And because I was the youngest of eight, I grew up always tripling the recipe. That's just how things were done back then and how they should always be done, frankly.

When I lived in Poland, chocolate chip cookies kind of became my link to home. I made them often—even though I had to make my own brown sugar and chop up chocolate bars because chips hadn't made it there yet. When I would make them using vanilla powder in my weird gas oven, turning the dial to a number from 1-5 and guessing at the correct temperature, I would relish in the smell and taste of them and reminisce about America and large grocery stores with everything at your fingertips. I think it's safe to say that chocolate chip cookies and I are old friends.

But through all those years, I tried many different recipes, never really satisfied that I had the best one. When I was a kid, we had a pretty good recipe, but as I got older, I tasted other kinds and sort of refined my preferences. I didn't like cakey versions, but they shouldn't be too flat either. I like milk chocolate chips, but sometimes all milk chocolate can make the cookies too sweet. They should be soft and not overdone but slightly golden and not doughy inside.

I tried the recipe where you add a box of instant vanilla pudding, which is actually pretty good, but I stopped making these in an effort to cut down on processed, packaged foods. (Not that chocolate chip cookies are super healthy, but whatever. I was trying.) I also tried a fancy-pants version, where you refrigerate the dough and roll it and the chocolate chips in layers. I still make this one on occasion because it's different enough, but it's still not my top choice.

So when I came across another recipe (in the cookbook Chocolate Never Faileth) claiming to be a classic, I had to try it and see for myself. It's pretty basic and I've been told it's actually just the Nestle Tollhouse recipe, but the added flour is the main difference. Because of Utah's elevation or humidity level or whatever, I found we need some additional flour. The recipe calls for 3 cups, but after a couple tries, I found 3 1/3 does the trick around here and makes lovely shaped cookies. Without the extra 1/3 cup, they start to resemble pancakes with chocolate measles. Anyway, I liked this cookbook author's tips about how to find out how much flour you need wherever you are.

I also like more chocolate chips than the original recipe called for and the ratio of milk to semi, as found below. And to date, this is my favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Behold . . .


CLASSIC CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1 c. butter
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
3 1/3 c. flour *
1 1/3 c. milk chocolate chips
2/3 c. semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375. Cream the butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla; mix well. Add the salt and soda. Gradually add the flour, starting with about 2 c., adding 1/2 c. at a time until the dough is no longer sticky and crumbs begin to form at the bottom of the bowl. You should be able to pinch the dough without getting any on your fingers. Add the chocolate chips; mix just enough to incorporate them. Bake on greased cookie sheets for 9-11 minutes. Take them out just when they're starting to get golden edges. They won't look completely baked.


Delicious. I get excited just thinking about them. Another thing I like to do with chocolate chip cookie dough is make these cookie sundae cups from Our Best Bites. You basically just bake some dough in a ramekin, but leave it a little soft, and then top it with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge. YUM!

Annacdotes 28

first day of second grade

1. Several weeks ago, in the middle of a prayer, Anna said, "P.S. Please help me to get more watching in my life."

We had a chat soon after about how it's not really okay to pray for more cartoon time. Or say P.S. in a prayer, really.

All was forgotten until several weeks later when, during another prayer, Anna said, "And sorry for the P.S., by the way, about getting more watching. Sorry about that."

2. In another prayer, Anna started with a bang. "Thank you for cuddling, for it being on the earth and being made known to man. Thank you for all the cuddling I've done." She finished this same prayer with, "Thank you for air and for trees. Amen."

3. "Mom, I'm having a strange feeling right now. Can I tell you about it? I have to go to the bathroom AND my stomach is tired."

I was not able to identify her ailment at that time.

4. In a prayer: "Thank you for the artist that you are. And thank you for helping us when we need it, when we go through hard times, in our dark hours." Dark hours? I love that girl.

5. "Have you ever smelled a fake flower that smells like baked caramel, if caramel was getting baked in your house?" I had not.

6. Anna told me something she thought was funny, which I can't remember now. I replied by saying, "Silly, silly," to which she said, "Quite contrilly." That just made me smile.

7. During a movie that was probably more science fiction than Anna is normally used to, she kept saying, "I am so cooled out right now!"

8. Anna has two pillow pets, a unicorn and a dolphin, which she has named. I asked her one night why she prefers to sleep on the dolphin, saying "dolphin" because I couldn't remember its name just then. She scoffed and said very condescendingly, "It has a name, you know. Did you forget names exist, Ashley?"

9. A couple months ago (as in, before her last birthday), Anna came across a sentence in a book that said something like, "It was wonderful, exciting, and stupendous!" Disapprovingly, she said, "Isn't that redundant?" I thought, Thanks, you're 6.

10. But she's not always a walking dictionary. That same day, she was eating cinnamon Life. After she drank the milk at the end, she sighed with satisfaction, saying, "Ah, synonym milk."

The Summer in Pictures

Since school starts tomorrow, I guess today was the last official day of summer break. We've had an excellent summer, filled with a whole lot of fun and adventures. Besides the requisite activities (swimming lessons, snow cones, picnics, running through the sprinklers, etc.), we did most everything on our special list (the mental one I made, anyway) along with some spontaneous fun, and I feel like it was a total success. And the best way to remember it is through a bombardment of pictures, I think.

Memorial Day hike
not technically summer break, I guess, but I just loved that Anna
chose sitting in the middle of the path for her portrait

The first thing we did once school was out, of course, was go ice skating. Anna has been begging to go for months and months and probably years, but it was strangely more difficult than she imagined and she kind of hated it. I think it was still fun that we went in May.

Then there was that time Anna played in a box for an evening...

It was Anna's idea to have a Country Week, where we learned about one country each day. We decided to make a food from each country at lunch, discuss what we learned, and listen to classical and popular music from all these different places. We loved it! We'll totally do that again. We came away with some foods we will certainly make again (baked ham and egg cups from Australia) and some we will not (pineapple rice pudding from Egypt), but I'm glad to know about it now.

Anna decided to do some writing one day on her white board from school and couldn't have picked a better phrase to accidentally immortalize with permanent marker.

THE PLANETARIUM

We also went to Mars...

... and the moon. That's me in the space suit.

And played with clouds.

While the planetarium was super fun in itself, this was the real reason we went: to see the movie Flight of the Butterflies. It was fantastic and magical. Go see it today. Seriously. We all LOVED it.

Waiting for the Stadium of Fire to start.

Kind of a random pic, but it's the only one I took that day. I went with my sister down to Scofield where a bunch of us met up with the author of a historical fiction novel we all read before coming. It was about the mine disaster that happened there in 1900, and the author took us on a tour of the cemetery and the old school where there is an exhibit about the disaster. It was super fascinating to get the historical perspective of it all and fun to hear about the process from the author. The mine is actually up the canyon to the right, past that small group of white buildings, if you're interested.

CAMPING

We played an obscene amount of games, which I think makes the best kind of camping trip.

LAGOON

This was fun. Anna earned money all summer to put towards a ticket to Lagoon. We went with her Aunt Natalie and had a great time. Now, I have mixed feelings about Lagoon. Kind of a love/hate thing. It's better now, now that I've faced many of my fears there (I was terrified of roller coasters up until about the age of 14), but there are still some things I hate. Like the Wild Mouse. It just makes me angry, getting wrenched around the whole time, and I hadn't been on it recently enough to remember just how much I hate it.

But I love me some bumper cars. (Anna's in the yellow car at the back.)

The sky ride is pleasant at times but paralyzingly scary if you really think about it.

Most think it's an easy ride, one for lightweights, but it still kind of freaks me out sometimes. Look how high we are! I don't have a problem with heights, if I'm behind a guard rail made of steel or something. But one small wiggle and I could slip right through the safety bars on this thing. If that were to happen, I'd try to aim for a tree because that seems like it'd be the softest and nearest landing/something to break my fall, but you never know. It could be straight down into the shallow fountain.

One of the favorite rides, the Dinosaur Drop was ridden several times. This is
like a mini version of The Rocket and much more my speed.

This was taken at a happy moment before I nearly died of the dizzying vomits on the teacups and before my legitimate lifetime ban on the world's worst ride. Nothing actually came up, but I had to work hard to keep it down. I guess I've officially reached old age.

I feel like I have to explain. There are some rides and roller coasters I like and some I like a lot, so I'm not a total scaredy cat. (I was a little terrified of Air Race, or whatever, with the airplanes that fly upside down, but I did it and enjoyed the thrill.) But there are some I will never do, like the catapult thing and the giant slingshot/swing thing. They are not for me.

I took this a few days ago on a shopping trip, and it just struck me how old Anna looks. Maybe it's the long hair and how elongated it seems to make her, but I feel like she's already 17.
Just in time for 2nd grade.

It's hot.

So I'm passing along some cool favorites, as of late:

This

and this

Try them. You will see.

Time for more old lady names

Some of the latest additions to the Old Lady Name collection and my thoughts on the additions:

Garda Gay
Dettafay
Even though it makes me laugh that we found these on the same day and they rhyme, they are both extremely questionable and make for a tough decision. But even so, I think I would go with Dettafay, which sounds more like a name to me. On these crazy compound names, I like to try to figure out their origins. Fay is a recognizable name, and maybe Detta came from "Odette" or something? Maybe. Anyway, I think we've mentioned feelings about the name Gay before, but Garda doesn't make sense to me as a name. So together, it's a pretty unpleasant combination.


Emma Jean
Erna 
Erna is not as bad as Urna would have been, but still maybe not the prettiest sounding. I'd totally go with Emma Jean, which I now realize is incredibly similar to Imogen, if you pronounce it the non-British way.


Neldona
Alga
This is tricky. Even though both are kind of crazy, I'd probably pick Neldona because Alga in no way sounds feminine or like a name at all, really. More like a British stove or a nickname for Algebra or something horrible.


Aleith
Flossie
These two are tough. On the one hand, Aleith sounds like you're saying "Elise" with a lisp, and on the other, I'm pretty sure Flossie is a sister to Peter Cottontail. I'm torn, but if I had to pick, I would go with Flossie. I'd rather be a cute bunny than mistakenly give people the idea that I have a speech impediment.


Bertella
Nona
Right off the bat, I'm going to say Nona would win this competition, even though I will admit that Bertella is a little bit cool because it sounds like Nutella. But no matter what kind of delicious spread your name sounds like or what kind of cute ending you put with Bert (Bertene, Berta, Bertette), your name would still begin with Bert. And that would be sad indeed.


My favorite bad one of the bunch? Ahhh, it's so hard! I think maybe Garda Gay, but poor Aleith is a close runner up.

Does one particular name stand out to you as completely bizarre and/or incomprehensible?

Two recipes

I have made a couple of things lately that need to be shared. (And it's been way too long since I have posted about food. I've still been baking and cooking, but I guess I've just been too busy eating . . . )

The first recipe is Honey Strawberry freezer jam that I got from this site. I was on the lookout for a freezer jam recipe that used honey instead of sugar, and this one was easy and delicious. Big fan.

And in opposite news, I have already made these sugar-full Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Cookies from this site two times in the past couple months, and they're a new favorite. They truly are a perfect soft and chewy blend of brownies and cookies, and I will support nearly anything that combines two of my favorite ingredients (PB and chocolate). The only change I made was adding WAY more peanut butter cups because I like more peanut butter to my chocolate. I added more PB chunks to the batter, and then I saved some to add once I got the dough on the cookie sheet.

The birthday shirt

And let us not forget a favorite birthday tradition, the birthday shirt. Anna picked a winner this year. I was impressed with her stylish choice of shirt and ribbon — and how well it turned out (largely due to the fact, I'm sure, that it was a year for straight lines, finally).

Anna's Golden Birthday

Monkeying around in the party-supply aisle

The day of Anna's golden birthday finally arrived. She has been waiting for SOOOO long to turn 7 on the 7th. We had a lot of fun things planned, and everything came off without a hitch. I'm pretty proud of all we accomplished in a few short days.

Anna has always been a very gracious gift receiver, so giving her gifts is a delight. It's a win-win. (Plus, her presents are really fun to play with.) She was genuinely excited by each one, even though she got quite a few. So many people love her. After she opened one present, she said, "I'm so jealous of myself!" The present in question? A Hello Kitty book light. Birthday present success. 

riding straight into the flowers

The first thing she wanted to do with this new camera was pose for a picture with it. She tried to aim my phone by herself, but I ended up helping her out. I admired her innovation. 

The next night was her party, which we themed a Late Night Dance Party. ("Late night," meaning it ended at 8:30. Riotous, I know.) We hung white Christmas lights on the patio and colorful balloons from the ceiling that had lights inside, paper lanterns, and we had a rotating disco ball (all of which would have been cooler if it had been dark, but whatev, it was still cool). Anna picked doritos and marshmallows and grapes as the snacks—and cupcakes in golden liners, of course. 

Before we could dance, the girls had to glam up a little. They made sparkly bracelets with cute little gemstones, put on disco ball necklaces, and clipped on a brightly colored hair extension. The music Anna picked was awesome. The songs were some of my favorites, since most of the music she hears comes from my library, but I loved what she picked. (We Are Young by Fun, which she announced is her favorite band, Katy Perry's Firework, some Adele, some U2, The Promise by When In Rome (yep, from the 80s), and some other classics.) I also played Dynamite by Taio Cruz (?), which is the song the first graders at her school danced to at the dance festival, and the instant it came on, all the girls got into position and did the whole thing like they were delightfully brainwashed. Amazing.

Anyhow, it was a very fun night and such a fun way to celebrate this little lady's golden birthday.

twirling with the leftover balloons