Muffin follies

Today I made these muffins:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/apple-muffins-recipe
After reading about them on Smitten Kitchen.

They came out beautifully. The baby and I enjoyed them immensely. My Philistine daughter and older son literally had to spit their mouthfuls into the trash because they were so horrified by the presence of APPLES. I mentally beat my head against the wall, put Isaiah down for his nap, and went on with my afternoon.

About half an hour ago, Eve came to me with half a muffin in her hand and said, "Mommy, I like these now!" I rejoiced and told her she could eat the remains of the muffin. A few minutes later, I became aware of suspicious activity near the muffins on their rack on the counter. I went over to investigate, and found that Eve had slid the rack half off the counter, which left many many crumbs on the floor below it, and had parked some of her HotWheels cars in between the muffins. I kept my cool, explained to her why this was a problem, had her clean up the crumbs, and returned to Facebook. About five minutes later, Eve wandered over and said perkily: "Mommy, I kind of stepped on a muffin that was on the floor, and made lots of crumbs, but I cleaned it up."

As the gears of my brain ground trying to parse all that, I said something like "What... muffin... why was there a muffin on the floor?!" Without waiting for an answer I returned to the kitchen and found five muffins on the floor, and the rest off the rack and resting on the edge of the counter, waiting in a kind of lemming line for their turn to dive. I spluttered and choked and started to shriek and thought better of it. I asked Eve what had happened, and she told a story of how she was looking at the muffins and she thought Hey, I think I'll push them off the counter with my cars! After a bit more spluttering and picking up of muffins ("Oh look Mommy, I found another one over here!"), I explained with some force why that was a Very Bad Idea, why she should never do it again, and sent her out of the kitchen. At some point, I recall asking her "Did you actually think this was a good idea?". I think she shook her head no.

Happy Easter!

I have no pictures to post this time, because Brian has gone on a business trip to someplace interesting and scenic, and has taken the camera with him, along with all the pictures that I'd recently taken but not uploaded to the computer. Oops.

I hope everyone had a happy and blessed Easter! We forewent the Easter Vigil Mass this year in favor of attending a big sung high Extraordinary Form Latin Mass on Easter Sunday proper. Amazingly, the kids were all quite well behaved. I had not had high hopes for this, seeing as the Mass was at 11 a.m., and there had been Easter baskets and egg hunting and hot cross buns for a while before we left for church. Maybe I should give them large amounts of sugar more often before Mass!

Tulip festival

Last weekend, we drove a few miles up the road to Woodland, WA, to visit the Holland America Bulb Farm for their annual tulip festival. Only a few of the tulip varieties were in bloom at the time, due to the wretchedly wet and cold weather we've been having (one day of partial sun, then five days of rain, then one day of partial sun, then six days of rain, if I had a shotgun I'd shoot at the sky for all the good it'd do me). Still, we had a good time and there were some pretty flowers to look at.

Tulip Eve

Tulip Isaiah

These were interesting. Flowering right next to the ground!

Tulip Train

Tulip Samuel

Was the trip worth the horrendous cold we picked up while there? I'm not sure, but that last picture is just about priceless.

Budding plants, budding kids

Back when I was taking piano lessons, my formidable piano teacher taught me to stand and say "Now I shall play ____ " before each piece at a recital. I bring this up because I just had a sudden urge to type "Now I shall...put up some pictures".

Isaiah examines the new "firespray" tulips.

I have yet to see this small magnolia tree bloom, and I am filled with anticipation.

It's the first season for my daffodils, so they're a little spindly yet.

Not everything blooming in the yard is quite so welcome...

Eve, being a puppy. Again.

Ah, crocus. Thou wert so lovely before the rabbits ate thee.

Samuel and his three lower teeth.

This is what happens when you let your sister dress you, Isaiah. (I'm saving this picture for college.)

Our blondie.

New season, new blog

It's springtime, the daffodils are in flower, the trees are in bud, and it seems like a good time to re-start our family blog. In the hopes of keeping it marginally up-to-date, I'll be doing things a little differently this time: more pictures, fewer words, and no attempts to be witty or literate or artistic in any way. I can't promise regular updates, but I'm aiming for roughly once a week. I've got three young kids to wrangle, a household to maintain, vegetable and fruit gardens to start, flowerbeds to plan and plant... I'm swamped! ;-)