I’ll post about She Speaks later, but for tonight I’m just awfully happy to have spent the remainder of her birthday with my sweet baby girl. Part of the trip home involved my first purchase at Build-a-Bear for Mopsy (obviously the creative juices weren’t flowing when unexpectedly asked to name the bunny), pictured here with the Cabbage Patch doll wearing nothing but a party hat and fancy socks.

I love you, baby!

I want to wish a big Happy Birthday to my oldest son who is 22 today! I am very, very proud of you and love you so much.

Today is Jocelyn’s 17th birthday, and her sister Amanda is surprising her by coordinating an “Anything England” birthday blog fest in her honor! I originally intended to use a Jane Austen theme, but decided to tie in something that I ponder each morning over my 1/2 chocolate muffin (yes, you can eat chocolate for breakfast) and cup of hot tea. I’m assuming Miss Jocelyn isn’t doing school today, so I’ll offer her (and me) a little history lesson on a yummy and decidedly English beverage:

Who was Earl Grey and why is there a tea named after him?

English Tea Store.com tells me:

Wikipedia says:

The legend usually involves a grateful Chinese mandarin whose son was rescued from drowning by one of Lord Grey’s men, although this blend of tea was first made from fermented black Indian and Ceylon teas. As green tea is much more popular in China than black tea, it seems somewhat unlikely that they would have had a recipe for what we now call Earl Grey to bestow on visitors, though over the years many other varieties of tea have been used. In addition, Lord Grey never set foot in China. Another version of the legend has the son of an Indian raja being rescued from a tiger by one of Grey’s servants.

What about Lady Grey? How did she rate her own tea?

It appears that no one really wants to talk about Lady Grey, except to say, “Lady Grey is a light, refreshing tea, pale gold in colour and infused with the flavours of orange, lemon and bergamot.”

This is quite a contrast to the fiction that I’ve invented and embellish day by day. My imaginary tale involves neither a Chinese mandarin nor an Indian raja, but rather an elegant and unpretentious earl (picture Jeremy Northam in Emma) commissioning a distinctive tea, with a warm and cozy curl-up-with-a-good-book-and-drink-a-cup sort of flavor and fragrance. One day he turns to his wife and says, “Yes, my dear, you shall have your own tea, too,” (Maybe this is the sort of thing Mr. Knightly would say with a charming smile after, “Try not to kill my dogs.”) and Lady Grey Tea is born.

Miss Jocelyn, I hope you have a wonderful 17th birthday, surrounded by friends and family. If I were there with you, I’d offer you a chocolate muffin and a warm cup of Earl Grey. You’re a sweetheart and I look forward to meeting you and your family very soon. I hope you enjoy perusing the blog posts in your “Anything England” birthday party!

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[Please stop by and visit my photoblog.]

My two oldest daughters celebrate birthdays this week. We have combined them, for the most part, since the week of their second and fifth birthdays, when the two-year-old had a nervous breakdown because her sister was opening her presents and she was told her birthday wasn’t for four more days.
In our household we have a tradition known as the birthday lunch, which means mommy takes you out on a lunch date. By special request, another option is now available - the birthday movie. Since the girls chose to celebrate together and our dear neighbor (bless her heart) gave us free kid’s meal coupons for a nice restaurant - which accepted our expired coupons - we did it all! (I think they deserve a photo opportunity after their kindness.)

We started with lunch, during which I was reminded just how truly loony my kids can be. Drama Queen (my soon-to-be eight-year-old) was in true form, and Princess (now eleven) was rather goofy, too. These girls are great together in spite of their different personalities. Princess is meticulous in her attention to dress and accessories; Drama Queen has earned a second nickname (or actually a third) in our household: the Ragamuffin. She usually has on a mix of clothes that are too big or too small (or someone else’s) and looks like her hair hasn’t seen a brush in a week.

Here are some highlights (is lowlights a word?) of our lunch conversation (P = Princess and DQ = Drama Queen):

DQ: Look! It’s a dead cow! (She also really loved that interesting light fixture.)

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P: What does fangled mean?

Me: Huh?

P: Like “She’s an old-fashioned girl in a newfangled world!”

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Next they began singing some truly distorted song lyrics:

P: “Somebody once told me the world was macaroni…”

DQ: “I got up and went to the store and bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss…”

(Leave a comment if you think you know the real songs they tried to sing!)

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Next Princess got a haircut; of course Drama Queen didn’t want one, because, well, she’s the Ragamuffin.

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Here’s the part where all of my real-life friends should call their daughters to come to the computer so they can scream and jump up and down and then call my daughter on the phone: We went to Claire’s and GOT HER EARS PIERCED!!! It was a total surprise. She has been begging forever, but her daddy has not been in favor of it; he finally agreed.

(Uh, oh - this is going to hurt, isn’t it?)

(I can’t believe it’s finally happened!)

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We ended with a trip to the movies to see Enchanted, complete with lots of popcorn and coke.

I had such a wonderful day with my girls, one that I think we will remember for a long time. Happy birthday, babies!

Several years ago I started a tradition of taking the kids out for a special lunch on their birthdays. We have birthdays in clumps in our family, so yesterday was a double lunch celebration for my newly six-year-old (yesterday) son and four-year-old (Monday) daughter.

 

 

 

Thankfully they let us use the official birthday sombrero long enough to take a couple of pictures (you can see fingers in the side of the picture waiting to snatch it!).

This is not only Memorial Day, but my mother’s birthday as well. She would have been 60 today. This photo of my parents was taken in May of 2001 at a luau hosted by dear church friends. I was driving home from an out-of-state baseball tournament and missed it.

I also discovered that today is No Cool Story’s birthday!

My Granddad’s birthday would have been today. He passed away 16 years ago, just days before the birth of my second child. This picture was taken of him holding my oldest son, Jacob, on his third birthday. Jacob was the first grandchild for both families, which made him pretty special to a lot of people, not the least of which was his granddad.

Other things Granddad loved include:

• Saying “Poor Old…” and pausing dramatically, while the grandkids gleefully filled in the blank with “Granddad!”
• His Lord and his church (he was a minister)
• Homemade ice cream (pictured in the cup in his hand)
• Slicing open a watermelon on a hot day
• His family
• Foghorn Leghorn cartoons
• Mowing on his riding lawnmower wearing his safari hat

There’s a whole lot more I could say about my granddad.  He was a very special man and I wish more of my children could have known him.