Run With The Fishes

Allison started preschool this morning. I know it’s silly, but I am worried for her. I’m sure she’ll do just fine. She is the more outgoing of our brood. She has spunk and attitude. These are important days. I want Allison to love school as much as her sister does. Having a good teacher and great first few days will set the tone for the rest of her education. We have provided a foundation, but now her world we be heavily influenced by people outside of our household. Opinions that aren’t based on the information we have provided will now fly out of her.

Last night, when I was putting her to bed she told me that she didn’t want to go to school because dad wouldn’t be there. “It is for four year olds Mom. Dad isn’t going to want to be there with me. I just really don’t want to go”.

Hello parenting guilt. It’s been a few weeks. Guess you decided to come back and visit. I tried to console her. “But you’ll get to make new friends your own age.” Her reply, “I don’t need any more friends. I already have too many.”

It took a while to get her to sleep. I know she was tired and worried about today. It’s a big change to go from being at home all day with your dad (and during the summer brother and sister) to being thrust into a room full of people you don’t know. She is also completely used to being around much older kids. She is either going to have a blast or think the other children her age are babies. What if she starts acting like them?

This morning. Completely different attitude. She bounced out of bed. We picked out some clothes. Everyone got their lunches and backpacks (if they were carrying them) and we headed out the door. We dropped off Nathan (who will get his own post about his first morning of middle school) then Zoey. Throwing each of them out of the car as we rolled through the student drop-off lines. We parked at Alli’s school and walked to the gym, where preschoolers were sitting in lines for their classes. Allison sat and then was ready for us to go. No hugs, no kisses, just a “get out of here already woman, can’t you see I have new people to talk to?” look.

She’ll be fine. She’ll be more than fine.

Someday, I’ll find it.

Logansport, LA. The kids think this cowboy thing is pretty cool.

Meet the teacher for Alli. Sigh.

At nights, I sneak into the kids’ rooms while they are sleeping. I lean over their beds and watch them dream. I tell them that they are beautiful and intelligent. They can do anything. They are funny and smart. All whispered to them while they sleep.

New phones!

Our old phones would not hold a charge for more than 2 minutes. Replacement batteries cost almost as much as a new shiny, more feature filled set of phones.

I have a beautiful new cookbook and really wanted to try some of the recipes in it. I have tried a few and so far each one has been delicious. I thought about doing this one next week, when the Whip It Up theme is desserts, but couldn’t wait that long to make it. I guess that means we’ll have to have a new dessert again next week. Darn.

Please don’t make fun of my duct tape labels. They are not meant to be permanent but are there to help young minds learn how to read.

Lemon sandwiches filled with raspberries and cream
from Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros
Ingredients:
For the bread

1/2 lb plus 2 tbls butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Finely grated zest and the juice of 1 lemon
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla

For the filling

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tsp confectioners (powdered) sugar
1/2 cup Greek style plain yogurt
1 cup fresh raspberries, halved

Confectioners sugar for dusting

Directions
Preheat oven to 325f. Butter and flour 4″ loaf pan.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add in eggs 1 at a time.

Sift in the flour and baking powder.

Mix in the lemon zest

lemon juice

cream and vanilla.

Whisk well to get a smooth batter.

Spoon into loaf pan and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until toothpick poked into center comes out clean.

If top is browning too fast, cover with aluminum foil. After baking, remove from oven and cool completely.

For the filling, whip the cream and confectioner’s sugar

until it holds peaks. then fold in the yogurt.

To make the sandwiches, cut the lemon loaf in slices about 1/4 inch thick.

Spread some of the whipped cream on a slice

add some berries

top with another slice

and dust with powdered sugar.

This recipe was super easy to follow. Just like all of the others in this book. This one seems to be one of the more labor intensive of the recipes. It is completely worth it. I didn’t have access to Greek yogurt, but found that it is basically just super thick yogurt. To achieve this, I followed one of the online tips I found (I don’t remember where and didn’t save the link). I used a coffee filter and strained some regular plain yogurt overnight in the refrigerator. It worked perfectly.

Even though I bought the berries the day before, they had already started to mold. Gross. As a quick substitute we used some strawberry preserves. There is no doubt that I will be making this again. Next time, I will make it the day we buy the berries.

Our cute dog, LT. Nathan named him for Greg’s favorite football player.

Nothing On TV is back in business. Moving the kids over to WordPress took just a little longer than we thought. They beg me to let them use one of my cameras when I am at work. Pictures from children are always great because they usually have a completely different perspective.

Greg sends me little notes about what the kids are up to throughout the day. Around 4pm I got one letting me know that Zoey was in the shower. No prompting from anyone. At 4:25 I got another message telling me that she was brushing her teeth. This is not typical middle of the day behavior. Normally we have to remind the kids, a few times, at bed time to get cleaned up and teeth brushed.

This is just further proof that my oldest daughter is a goody-goody. She was so excited for  “Meet the Teacher” night that she did all of these things to get ready.