Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Thanksgiving

I started the thankful list in my head just now. Bleach, Lysol, and baking soda were at the top but only because they were the most recently used gifts. And because now I can walk into Cyril's room without being accosted. The boys decided to see if a toilet was really necessary or if they could spend a day without leaving the bedroom. They did pretty well and luckily only used plastic receptacles that could be bleached or thrown away. Oh, and I am thankful for washable crayons. Cyprian felt inspired by the public bathroom atmosphere and decided to grafitti al over the wall. I have not pictures of the above events. I was too busy scrubbing and trying to supress the gag reflex.
But on to better things, the kids had a great time with the cousins and the adults all got along nicely. ONe of my favorit highlights was m brother in law, Dave's, impersonation of Sean Connery in the role of Saurumon. Complete with facial expressions and all. Too bad we didn't get in on video. Something to put on the list of things to do for next year. I have more pictures but a lot turned out kind of fuzzy and I can't fit any more on this post anyway so I'll add some later.


The house felt so empty after everyone left on Sunday. The kids have been a little restless. I've been working on collecting Christmas projects and things for them to do. After one trip to Michaels- where we actually had to stop at Kohl's to buy Cyril some pants because his jeans all have holes and he won't wear those but only his cut-off shorts-I decided I had better find some things on-line instead. I did find some nativity people and maybe we'll paint a character a day. I want to get some ornaments they can help make too. I think they had some at Michael's but we did not make it that far. We did, however, find the little flying Santa candy stick with a propellor. I decided that was exactly what Pippin needed and he immediatly was quiet. And stayed entertained all through lunch at Red Robin. Considering it was just myself and the 4 kids and I got to eat my lunch, I was feeling it was $5 very well spent. Cyprian "Ah coookeen dinner a Papa" He was helping saute the apples and leeks for the dressing. And as you can tell by the look on his face, taking his kithen duties very seriously. He did see Ratatouille the night before.
Friday night the guys all went to see Beowolf in 3-D. Pippin thought the new glasses were pretty sweet.
Trudy brought her warming dishes and we set up a buffet. I think that is the way to go for keeping things warm for seconds and thirds. And they look so pretty too.

Cyprian, Kateri, and Elijah looking for Goldbug.


Friday, November 16, 2007

PIctures, finally

I finally found where the pictures mysteriously go when I load them onto Shane's computer. This was the dinner we had last night.

This is the picture of Cyril's patch job in his bedroom. Apparently, a laundry basket somehow smashed a crater half the size of a baseball in his wall. Two days later he told me it was all fixed.
"It was easy" he said. "All you need is paper and some glue".

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Beaujolais Nouveau

Today is the third Thursday of November, when they release the Beaujolais Nouveau for the year. Last year we had a fun time with the George Debouef we tried and I was hoping for a similar experience this year . Unfortuantely, we were both pretty disappointed. It was advertised as "fruity", which I guess was somewhat true just not necessarily desireable in this one. I told Shane it smelled like a banana popsicle and he looked skeptical. Then we tried it. It tasted like a watery banana popsicle. Luckily I had also gotten a Root 1, which is becoming our standard lately, so we quickly switched bottles. It was too bad. The 2006 really was a good time.

I had made a nice meal to go with it that turned out mostly better than our first wine. I made lamb shank with a mint-rosemary sauce ( it was from Costco) which turned out to not have too much mutton flavor-bad for Shane- but had some - bad for me. I'm not a huge fan of it but Shane has recollections of some tasty little lambs from his Ireland trips. I remember the lamb stew our neighbor from England used to make for us. I remember how the smell of the meat permeated the fridge. This one definitely smelled real but tasted a little beefy.

I also made a butternut squash soup. The last time we were at Girardi's I asked if the chef would give out the recipe for it. He came out later and told me how he made it. I didn't have heavy cream- it has half and half and heavy cream- so it wasn't as rich but was still good and once I add the cream I think we can be quite content staying home for a bowl. And a bottle of Root.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Does anyone want a kitten?

I know it hasn't been that long but unfortunately we have to give up our kitten. The kids are pretty sad but getting more used to the idea. I know it still won't be easy. We're hoping to find somebody soon and local and not have to put out ads. So if you, or anyone you know, wants a sweet little kitten complete with a bed/travel cage, litter box, some food and litter please let us know. She's had one set of shots and a flea/mites treatment and has been living in our garage. WE intended to transition her to outside eventually. She could make a cute Christmas present. Her pictures are in an October post.

Corrections-not many

So I got the real story from Shane. around the middle C range is her worst hearing. If you get up to a ferquency of 8000 Hz it gets to a normal level -about a 10 decibels less than her right ear , which is the closest they ever come. The worst being a difference of 65 decibels at 25o Hz. He wasn't sure exactly if it was the middle or inner ear that was worse. The doctor said they usually send a written report along with test results after an appointment so maybe that will have the details.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Follow-up on Kateri

Kateri finally had her appointment at Children's yesterday. To make a long story really short, compared to the day, the hearing tests showed about the same results as the first one- only a little worse. The next step is to try and find out why. Her inner hearing is better than her outer -or maybe it was middle- but you can't really bypass the outer. Anyway my brain is pretty mushy but I did have the presence of mind to ask for a copy of the test. They said in her right ear her hearing at a pitch about middle C on up- or was it down- is pretty bad. as is my memory right now. Until you you get to a really high pitch. So they ordered some more tests- a CT and an EKG. Apparently there is some strange connection with heart issues and hearing loss. Shane and his mom both have irregular heart rythms so Dr. Sei thought we should check it out. I was impressed with the people there- not so much with the wait time-and their system seems very well organized. We will schedule the tests for 3-4 months out as she should have a hearing evaluation again- and routinely every four months or so for a while- so we will do them all in one day. And pack a lunch this time.

They gave her pictures to color and stickers and she was completely in her element. She loves the attention and is very co-operative. Plus she was there with just mom and dad so it was special. ON the way home we stopped at Varlamo's for pizza. As did most of Laurelhurst. I finally overheard someone commenting that Monday was 1/2 price calzones. So be warned if you stop in on a Monday. We waited it out and finally got home around 8:00. We'd been gone since 2:30 so it was a long day. And I am still tired. Sorry for the not terribly informative post. I'll talk to Shane and get the real story of what happened and post any corrections later.

Friday, November 2, 2007

All Souls Day




And I found some pictures. But I can't load pictures from today so I'll have to wait.
There are so many occasions to post but I'll just try one at a time. These are from our neighborhood costume party. I decided to forego the the kimono and sari as it was really cold. So I donned my snowboarding attire- for the first time- and I was very, very cozy all night. Maybe this year I'll try it out for real in the snow.
Shane went as Anakin and the girls as fairies. Cyril was Robin Hood. It was a fun party. I think we are going to skip November and just do a Christmas one in December. I offered to have it at our house as it is very kid friendly and it will be too cold to have much of it outside. And we could set up the garage for extra space too. We had talked about doing a progressive dinner but being cold and dragging all the kids around could be not as much fun as just staying put and staying warm.
Today was All Souls Day - the day we remember and pray for all the departed. It was especially personal as the anniversary of my brother's death is in three days. We had wanted to get all the family together on the 5th but it wasn't working out so we - or as many of us as could-got together at Holyrood where Bishop Tyson was saying mass. He actually said the funeral mass for my brother too. It was good to be there together. I did fine until I tried to sing. I decided I'd better not.
Afterwards they had coffee and cookies so I let the kids grab one for the walk to the burial sites. Kateri was munching on her cookie and I asked her if it was tasty. She said,
"Yes, that was very nice of God."
"What was nice of God?" I asked.
"To give me this cookie" she answered.
The hunt for the burial sites was a little funny. We tried to locate my younger brother Aidan's in the children's section but couldn't find the marker. So we trekked down to the familiar area where we stood last November, to locate Karoly's. The stone will be done and set next week so we looked for the small marker. Without much luck. So after much wandering we gauged the distance from the road and a monument and tried to find the most likely unmarked grave. And possibly gave roses to a stranger. I'm sure Karoly wouldn't mind.
Then we came back to our house to do the obvious- eat. We had a great feast and could have fed a lot more. But it ended up being a long day and we never had to stop to cook.
We thought the day had been emotional enough but the big event came later in the day when we tried to check on the boys ( Cyril, Liam-8- Colin-5) who had been digging at the edge of the woods for over an hour. And they weren't there. We searched the house hoping they had come back in unnoticed. They hadn't. My sister and I hiked down a ways calling them and got no answer. We started screaming for them and still nothing. I called Shane and he left work right away. Then I called the police. The ravine is pretty steep in places and I was having trouble finding a path or the way I had just come. And you can't see houses when you are back there. The gulley runs at least a mile long and somewhere we knew there was a stream. And who knows what else. I came across a couple teen age boys who had not seen the kids but said they would look for them. I wasn't sure if that made me feel better or worse.
Mrs. Sauvage called her mom for prayers and I petitioned faithful St. Anthony. Poor Shane was stuck in traffic and had had to stop for gas. All the while refraining from running people off hte road and envisioning searching with flashlights all night. My sister got in her car to try some other access areas and finally she heard some voices. It was so echoey I could hear them up the street so I don't know how far they had to have been to not hear us. I ran to the back yard and into the woods calling to give them some direction and finally saw them down below. They slowly made their way up. Cyril had gotten scared and was crying. Which I think taught him better than anything else to obey the rule of not going into woods without Papa. They had found the stream- being boys, peed in it. Cyril's hands were so numb he couldn't get his jeans snapped. And of course, being boys, none of them had coats on so they were all freezing. I called Shane- and the police-and now am pretty much emotionally spent.
Shane went to play poker at Aaron's house. I think after getting the kids in bed I'll take a nice hot bath. And thank God all my children are here and safe. And not much else matters.
May the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Still not sure where the pictures are...More Cyrilisims

Shane showed me where the pictures were and they were somewhere on the J drive but I looked yesterday and I could only find old pictures. I am such a ludite. Poor Shane. I don't know what I would do without him.

Anyway, the other day Cyril and I were making hashbrowns and he was having a deep thought moment so we had a discussion. He was complaining about having to wait so long to get married and have his own family and it just seemed like forever- never mind that he usually ends up sleeping on our floor at night- until he could have kids. And a job.

"Because when you're a grown up you can go to work- then you don't have to be annoyed. Like Kateri. She can be really annoying sometimes."

Hmmmm.


The other day we were discussing what he might want to do when he grows up. I said he seemed to have a gift for talking. Incessantly. He said he could go to meetings. Because all they do is talk.
Shane had taken him to work one day and he got pretty bored sitting through some meetings. I'm not sure that is his calling. I'm not sure what it is either.

Shane and I have been watching Doctor Who episodes lately. I saw some old ones when I was young and they freaked me out. I wasn't sure about the new doctor but I got to like him. Then we hit the next season and he changed. But I like this one too. NOw his sidekick just got switched. I'm not sure I'll like the next girl. It's fun seeing them. I really like the humour. And the new ones have more character developmont than the ones from the 60s or 70s- whenever they came out.