A Green Chinese Birthday Celebration

 

When I asked our third son what theme he'd like for his eleventh birthday, he said he didn't know.  After many more inquiries, he finally said his favorite color is green, and he'd like for me to make my chicken lo-mein for his birthday dinner.  Oh, and he'd like to celebrate on Sunday since his actual birthday is on a school day this year.  And no party, just family here.  That's all I had to go on.  This is the same child with whom I gained the most weight, and my body never again returned to a size 4.  The same child who kept turning his body into a transverse position in utero and kept me worrying up until the end whether or not I'd be able to have him naturally.  The same child who kept me in labor for two whole days, and I thought he was never coming out.  My only child born with my orange hair and super fair skin and freckles.  The only one of our children born with his dad's stocky body and an intense love affair with food from the very beginning.  He has always been the one to do things a little differently, quite a bit reluctantly, and with a contrary nature.  So I wasn't suprised by his birthday wish list or requests.  The tricky part was trying to come up with an entire party theme based on the color green and Chinese food.  But here's what I came up with.

 

Hubby and I started out at Party City and picked up green and white paper products and these cute treat boxes that resemble Chinese takeout.

 

Then we went around those candy carousels that Party City has and picked out most of the green and white candy---enough for our youngest six children who were here (including a grown one.)

 

 

Then we filled each green box with the exact same amount of candy and put one at each child's spot at the table.  The rock candy sticking out the sides was supposed to resemble chop sticks.  

 

We tossed some green and white glow sticks all over the table.  Not really sure that they fit the Chinese theme, but they were the colors we were looking for, and what kid doesn't like glow sticks?

 

And I put out a plate of crispy Chinese noodles for a snack that we picked up from the supermarket.  I refilled this at least three times.

 

I know this is a little repetitive of  my fruit kabobs at Easter, but the green grapes and kiwi fit with our theme, and instead of marshmallow peeps on the skewers, I placed fortunes.

 

Because you can never have too many good fortunes.

  

Of course, we had to have a bowl of fortune cookies too.  Actually, there were broken fortune cookies scattered all over the table, and whole ones ended up on the cake too.

 

Speaking of the cake...you know I admit my failures and flops on here.  The original birthday cake was a HUGE disaster.  Our son asked for a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.  Usually our daughter does the cake baking in this house, but she was tired due to a field trip to an amusement park the day before, so I baked the cake.  The double layer triple chocolate super-moist cake that I made from a box that said it even had pudding in the mix came out of the oven perfectly.  But I had a problem with the homemade peanut butter frosting.  I replaced the butter in my favorite butter creme recipe with natural peanut butter.  First it seemed too thick, so I added more milk.  Then it seemed too runny, so I added more powdered sugar.  I ended up adding more peanut butter at the last minute because I didn't think it tasted "peanutty" enough.  By the time the cake cooled, the frosting was very, very thick and stiff.  When I tried to frost the cake, the top layer kept leaning off to one side, and the frosting was almost impossible to spread.  The cake split once, twice, three, then four times.  And it was all over.  I told everybody to come help themselves to whopping large pieces of cake.  Then I made everybody eat it for breakfast the next morning because I needed the empty cake plate. 

 

So on the way home from Church, we stopped at Weis, and the Birthday Boy picked out a Pellman's triple layer chocolate cake with chocolate peanut butter candies.  But it was frozen, and I wasn't sure it would be thawed in time to eat.  Fortunately, we ate later than I had planned and all was well.  You can see from the top photo that we added some green confetti sprinkles and fortune cookies to the top of the cake to keep with our green Chinese theme.

 

We also found big balloons with his name on them at Party City.  Our daughter had the great idea of blowing them up with glow sticks inside.  The problem was the glow sticks tended to jut out the sides and pop the balloons easily.  We also should have had them inflated with helium because we could not get them to stay upright on his chair.

 

On the front porch chalkboard, our daughter wrote Happy Birthday in Chinese with attempts at drawing some Asian flowers.  She decorated with green chalk; although, you can't tell from the photo.  I know I'm freaky about trying to keep our family members' names private, which is why everywhere his name appears, I've blotted it out.  Maybe some of you parents can understand.  We haven't taken any Chinese here, so we looked this up on the Internet and hope it's correct. 

 

I couldn't find any green Chinese birthday banners, so this one had to do from the Dollar Tree. 

 

This old farmhouse definitely does not have enough counter space, so I made use of the coal stove and turned it into a mini bar to make our first vodka tonics of the season for the big people.

 

Our Birthday Boy insisted on helping decorate, so he designed his own chalk dragon on our indoor chalkboard.

 

Finally it was time for dinner.  Our adult son and his fiancee arrived with homemade egg rolls, something I've never made, and I was thoroughly impressed.  Everyone loved them so I'll have to get the recipe to share.

 

At our son's request, my husband and I cooked up some chicken lo-mein.  Lots and lots of lo-mein.  We'll be eating it for days.  This is one of the few Asian dishes I create, but it's one most of us love (I have a few non-lovers in the family who were less than thrilled about dinner yesterday.)

Chicken Lo-Mein

Marinate a pound of thinly sliced boneless chicken breasts in 1 Tablespoon corn starch, salt, 1 Tablespoon water, 1 Tablespoon soy sauce, and powdered ginger.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes-several hours.  Cook a pound of vermicelli and drain.  Add the cooked vermicelli to heated oil in a skillet, and sprinkle in 1 Tablespoon soy sauce (enough to turn noodles slightly brown,) and salt to taste.  Stir-fry until heated through, then remove to a pot or plate to keep warm.  I mix in a tiny bit of oil to prevent it from sticking.  Stir-fry the marinated chicken in the same oil in skillet.  Add a little more soy sauce, salt, and ginger if you like.  Once cooked through, remove and keep warm.  Add 1/2 cup each of thinly sliced carrots, broccoli, cabbage, and mushrooms.  Stir-fry until tender crisp. Add 1-2 cups chicken broth, and bring to a boil.  Add the cooked chicken and 2 shredded scallions or chopped onions.  Bring to a boil.  Stir in mixture of 2 Tablespoons cornstarch, 2 teaspoons soy sauce, and 2 Tablespoons water.  Cook until thickened, stirring constantly.  Spoon over vermicelli, and serve immediately.  Of course, feel free to use any vegetables you like.  I also don't measure soy sauce or ginger; I just sprinkle it in as I go along until it tastes the way we like it.  We doubled this recipe and cooked it in a wok since it was too much for any of our skillets.

 

After dinner and cake, it was time to open a few gifts.  The Lego Creator set was put together in less than an hour.

 

But the pocket knife from his older brother is going to get hours and hours of use, I can tell.

 

He was already working on a walking stick or spear or something I maybe don't want to know about last night as it was turning dark.  Perhaps whittling wood will replace Lego building as his new hobby now that he's become a middle-schooler.  Regardless, I'm sure he'll continue to surprise us with his uniqueness as he enters this next stage of his life.

 

Inspired to Do the Unthinkable

 

 Last weekend two of our children ran in a 5K to raise money for the athletic programs at our school.  Even though several of our kids have run track and cross-country, this is the first 5K race I've ever attended.  I've always hated running.  I spent years teaching aerobics classes and yoga classes, but I rarely ran to keep fit.  Hiking is much more my thing.  But as each birthday passes, and I get closer and closer to 50, there's been this nagging persistent thought in the back of my head that I should really give running a try.  I don't know if it's the possibility of tackling a new challenge or proving that's it's never too late to start something new or if it's because no other form of exercise is getting rid of these pesky extra inches around my middle, but I've been pondering training for a race.  Maybe it's crazy, but watching the race participants of all ages run these 3.1 miles last Saturday really inspired me to give this a try.

I watched, and I learned from this race.  Our daughter who has run track for the past two years does not train for distance.  Yet she and her friend crossed the finish line without having to stop and walk the most of it, and they both finished with smiles on their faces.  Her time wasn't great, but she definitely wasn't the last one to cross the finish line.  She persevered and had a great attitude, and she just looked like she was having fun.  She didn't even realize her time or how well she had done until they announced her name as third place winner in her age group.  Her friend came in second.  Neither one expected that to happen.

 

She wasn't even too tired and sweaty to fix her ponytail for a picture of them sporting their medals.  They wore them out to lunch as we tried a new Mexican restaurant that just opened.  Lesson learned: go into the race to have fun.

 

I also learned from our son who actually has been training as he runs the trails of our woods almost daily.  This, however, was his first race ever, and he totally overestimated his abilities.  When he started sprinting the first mile, my husband (a veteran runner himself) knew he was going to be in trouble.  I expected to see him long before we saw our daughter, and when he still didn't show up minutes later, I started worrying that something happened to him or he got lost.  After that first mile or two of going as fast as he could go, his body called it quits.  He finished, but it took a toll on his ego, and he was not a happy camper for a good part of the afternoon.  His mood lifted when he got to see the new Captain America movie with some friends later that night.  Note to self: do not give it your all at the beginning of a 5K. 

When I watched children in 2nd, 4th, and 5th grades that I sometimes teach in the classroom cross that finish line in the first 30 minutes, I was duly impressed.  I was more impressed by their positive attitudes, perseverance, and smiling faces at the end of the race than the winners who finished in 18-24 minutes.  I was in awe as I watched men in their sixties and seventies run past me.  I almost cried when our first-grade daughter's friend brought up the rear, but finished and ran the whole way.  The entire event inspired me in a way I never would have anticipated.  When I left the house that morning, grumpy and cold and just really wanting to stay home and drink another cup of coffee, I would have never guessed that later that same afternoon, I would put on my sneakers and yoga pants and go running through the woods.  My first run in over 20 years!

And it didn't hurt like I thought it would.  I had to intersperse running (jogging) and brisk walking for the 1.6 miles of my jaunt, but I didn't have to stop altogether.  I pushed myself to run a little further than I thought I could.  I thought of the possibility of running that same 5K next year with several of our children instead of just being the mom on the sidelines photographing it.  I realized I wasn't in as bad of shape as I had thought, but I also realized that jogging was going to bring my heart rate up higher than it ever goes when I'm just walking.  I was also humbled to learn that my running isn't much faster than my walking even though it feels much harder.  And I also came to the conclusion that I definitely cannot get away with running at my age without a sports bra and a better pair of running shoes.  So I am now venturing into uncharted territory for me and am doing something I never thought I would do: training for a race.  

Final lesson learned: Never tell people that you are NEVER going to do something---like running.  Just last week, I mistakenly told someone that to me, running is like being in purgatory.  Now I'm eating my words.

I'll be keeping you all posted.

Unwanted Visitors

 

One of the most startling discoveries for me when moving far into the country was periodically having surprise visits from uninvited guests.  That would be of the non-human variety.  In the nearly ten years we've lived here, we've had a six-foot black snake in our attic, a bat in my swimsuit where it was drying on a windowsill in our bedroom, numerous mice in the walls and basement, several opossums under our porches, horses and cows in our back yard, stray goats and geese on our front porch, a tom turkey who wouldn't leave our patio, a cardinal in our cabin, birds in our chimney, a groundhog family under our cabin, and on Friday, a wild duck in our basement.  These are just to name a few of the creatures not owned by us to show up here.  There have been many, many more that have hung out in our yard, pasture, or pool.  Sometimes they've been rather fun to have around, like the owl in the bush right next to our living room window, the baby quail under our porch, and the nest of wild black bunnies beside our garden.  With four cats around, some of these didn't make it very long here, but others stayed for awhile.  The duck in our basement, however, really baffled me, and it was not something I wanted to keep.

 

 

When our 15 year old son first told me he had found a duck in the basement when he went down to get some snack food from the pantry shelves, I didn't believe him.  But just in case he wasn't pulling my leg, I told him to prop open the big basement barn doors so it could waddle out on its own.  These doors had been closed and latched for at least a week, however, and there is no other way down there without removing the small windows.  No one had done that either.  The only other ways down are through our house and down the chimney where the flue pipe opens into the basement.  I knew no duck had wandered into our house and down the basement stairs.  So I guess it flew to the top of our tall farmhouse roof and fell down the chimney?????  To me, that seems unlikely, but I can't conceive of another possibility.

 

 

Even though the basement doors remained open for hours, this duck would not leave.  If you got too close to it, it hissed and totally freaked out my children.  When Hubby came home, he and our teen son used a fishing net to catch it and take it outside.  Standing on the patio, my husband let it go, and it flew straight for our pool, of course, where it glided quickly across the water in the pool cover and hopped out.  But then it couldn't figure out how to get over or around the fence.  Two of our cats who were napping nearby and seemed totally disinterested in the whole duck escapade suddenly poked their heads up in great interest at the sight of a trapped duck who was desperately trying to find its way to freedom.  They went running after that duck at top speed, and right behind them was my husband, yelling "Nooooo" and waving his arms and chasing after the felines.

 

 

Fortunately, Hubby got to the duck just before our monstrous black Maine cooncat got his mouth around the poor duck's neck.  He swooped it up, raised it high in the air, and threw it into the sky this time.  We all watched it fly away---me, our son, Hubby, and our black cat standing at my husband's feet.  It was the mystery and adventure of our week, I tell you.  It paled only slightly in comparison to the births of our four baby goats earlier in the week.

 

 

The goat kids, by the way, are very much wanted and loved guests on our farm.  Actually, change that from guests to members of our farm family.  We just can't get enough of them.  If there were a way to diaper them, I think my children would be sneaking them into our farmhouse all the time.  But we'll keep that to ourselves because I don't want to give them any ideas.

 

I hope all your visitors are of the welcome variety this week.  Have a good one!

 

Show and Tell

 

Remember when you were in elementary school and the teacher gave the class time to show and tell?  Today is my show and tell day with all of you.  As busy as life has been over the past few weeks, I have still tried to photograph all the wonderful things going on around us up here in the Alleghenies.  I actually had some time to load and edit photographs this morning, so I'm sharing with you weeks of images from life on and around our preppy mountain farm.  A few of our tulips are still blooming, but for the most part, they are finished.  Lilacs, lily of the valley, and bleeding hearts are taking their place.

 

 

Our crabapple trees are now finished flowering too, but they were spectacular for a few days last month.  And they were buzzing with bumblebees and honey bees.  Our poor beagle was afraid to come out of her dog igloo.

 

 

We had gorgeous weather in late-April, and I went for so many hikes all over the mountain.  This is the property of one of our Amish families as I descended the mountain lane right before dusk.

 

 

The pond below us has come alive with turtles, frogs, salamanders and just recently, the sound of spring peepers every night.

 

 

While walking the trails through the woods, I've come across lots of fiddleheads.

 

 

And as I mentioned in my last post, we've had the best spring ever for finding Morels in the forest.

 

 

My husband and boys have been out searching almost daily, and they continue to come home with bags of them.  We've been frying, baking, freezing, and drying Morel mushrooms for the past couple of weeks.

 

 

Our sunny, summer-like weather in late April did not last.  Ever since we entered May, this is what nearly every day looks like, and we're lucky if the temps get out of the fifties.

 

 

While it was still warm, our fantastic sheep shearer came out and sheared our tiny flock of sheep.  They didn't recognize each other for a few hours and had to re-establish their "pecking order."  They are now living harmoniously once again.

 

 

The wool fleeces from these past several years are piling up in the garage---partly because my husband doesn't like to get rid of anything, but mostly because we both really want to learn to card and spin wool.  Maybe there will be time in another ten years or so???

 

 

Lots of cold-crop vegetables are growing bigger in our one garden, and we have a couple of cats who are always watching out for vermin.

 

 

While growing up, cats were always my favorite pet to have, but they have now been surpassed by baby goats.

 

 

I think it's easy to see why.  Just look at these little ones.  I just want to snuggle with them all day.

 

 

We had one goat kid born this past Saturday evening, two more born the next evening on Mother's Day, and this little guy was born yesterday afternoon while we were all out for the day.  So we have 4 new goat babies: Asiago, American, Cooper, and Gorgonzola.  I've got to get out to the barn today and get some better pictures.

 

 

Best of all, we have all come out of our winter hibernation and are spending our afternoons and evenings outside.  Along with fishing, hiking, Morel hunting, and playing with goat kids, our children are also having friendly games of wiffleball in the yard when it's not too wet and soggy.  The hardest part is coming in at night and staying on a school day schedule when all we really want to do is stay outside until it's too dark to see, sleep in the next morning for a bit, and then return outside for the day. 

 

I don't know about the rest of you, but we are counting down the days to summer break.  Only 19 more days of school to go!

What Mother's Day is Like on a Mountain Farm

 

Before my husband took the kiddos to see the new Captain America movie, they asked me what I wanted to do on Mother's Day.  I told them I want to sit in my comfy chair, watch old episodes of Fixer Upper, and have the laptop to myself so I can blog.  Technology has not been cooperating with me, however.  The camera's battery was dead, so I had to charge it before I could load pictures.  Google Chrome is not working under my user account on the laptop, so I'm having to settle for Internet Explorer, which has none of my settings saved.  And Chromecast isn't working from my devices, so I'm watching Fixer Upper on my 7" tablet instead of the wide screen TV while I blog.  In addition to that, the laptop's battery is dying, and the charging cord (or whatever it's called) only works if the laptop is sitting on a flat surface and the cord is arranged just a certain way.  It doesn't work from atop my lap in my comfy chair.  So...I'll have to make this snappy.

 

 

This Mother's Day, I've received the kinds of gifts that only God can give, and I can't imagine having them anywhere but here on our preppy mountain farm.  Last night one of our mama goats had a single baby boy.  We named him Asiago, and he seems to be doing quite well in the barn up close to his mother.  He's the first kid in two years born on our farm, so I've been taking lots of photos.  All of our children went out to greet him first thing this morning---some of them were still in their pajamas.

 

 

He looked a little cold when I went out to see him even though it's about 65 degrees.  I think he'll be fine as long as he stays near his mother and burrows down in the hay.  We'll keep our fingers crossed.  The first few days after birth, I'm always nervous for mother and baby.

 

 

Speaking of the weather, we had 9 straight days of rain here.  Yesterday was the first day in a week and a half that the sun came out for awhile.  Last night it rained yet again.  But this was our view from the highway on our way home from Mass this morning.  Yet another wonderful Mother's Day gift that only the Divine could give.

 

 

Our chicks are now 3 1/2 weeks old and aren't so little, cute, or fuzzy anymore.  They were trying to fly out of the trough in our house, and we had to cover it with a screen.  They also eat way more now and make way more messes.  Which means they stink.  Yesterday they entered our chick relocation program and got a much bigger home in our garage where I don't have to be disgusted by the odor or the tremendous amount of dust they create by digging in their wood shavings.

 

 

When I went out to check on them, they were huddled under the heat lamp.  But as soon as they saw me, they went scurrying to the far corner away from me.  All 15 are doing great, but one looks a lot like a turkey.  Surely the hatchery wouldn't make a mistake?!

 

 

Lilacs are my absolute favorite flowering bush, and ours began blooming this weekend.  How awesome of a gift is that?  I'll have vases of them all over my house.  When I was a girl, I used to sit under a huge one while I read books in the summer.

 

 

Finally, we've been finding---and eating---lots and lots of Morel mushrooms.  We've been back up here in the Northeast for 10 years now, and this is by far the absolute best Morel season ever.  Dipped in egg and bread crumbs, then fried up with a little bit of garlic, Morels are the delicacy of the foraging world.  At least around here, they are.

 

My battery icon at the bottom of my laptop is looking very low, so I'd better close for now.  We've got another goat in a kidding stall in the barn looking like she might soon give birth, so I think I might take a peek.  Typically, I stay away until after she's finished because its' so hard to watch them be in discomfort during labor.  I used to play goat midwife and help pull babies out if the mother seemed to be in too much distress.  But now I just stay clear and let her do her thing.  I think it makes them more nervous to have us standing around while they're trying to focus on the task at hand, and their bawling makes me nervous too.

 

Wishing all of you readers who are mothers or mothers-to-be a very Happy Mother's Day.  I hope your day is filled with as many natural gifts of life as mine has been.

 

A Shopkins Birthday With a Smidgin of Elephants and Farms Too

The past few days have been spent celebrating multiple birthdays around here.  Time is in short supply right now, so I found it necessary to condense the birthday celebrations into one or two main events.  Fortunately, only one small child was involved; the two adults didn't mind taking a back seat to our seven year-old's Shopkins birthday wishes.  However, I still wanted to recognize the individual personalities and interests of my husband, who has been sharing a birthday with our youngest for seven years now, and also our son's fiancee who turned 23 a few days ago.  I'm afraid the whole Shopkins theme by far took over the festivities, but if you look closely, there's a little bit of elephant and farm love in the pictures too.  And if you are unfamiliar with Shopkins, you'll know way more than you'd care to by the end of this post.

For our first celebratory dinner in a local restaurant Sunday evening, my 13 year-old daughter and I baked chocolate cupcakes with butter creme frosting to bring along.  Our birthday girl kindly donated a birthday cake Shopkin and an asparagus shopkin to place atop her cupcake and her farmer dad's cupcake.  For our future daughter-in-law, we found a cute elephant candle at Party City.

We exchanged a few gifts while waiting for our dinner, after finding elephant picture frames at Party City, elephant gift tags at Target, and Shopkins everything at Party City.  I couldn't find a single roll of farm-related wrapping paper though.  Sorry, Hubby.

After exchanging gifts, eating dinner, singing Happy Birthday and blowing out candles on cupcakes, it was time to go home and get some sleep before preparing for the next day's events with grandparents.  I only had time to decorate the kitchen for a very informal birthday dinner Monday evening.  The birthday girl wanted a Shopkins pinata.  I really didn't expect to find one, but there they were at Party City.

Out came the paisley tablecloth because I really don't care for those plastic disposable cloths you get for a couple of dollars.  Plus, our table is too big to fit any of them, and there is just no way I'd pay for a fabric Shopkins tablecloth anyway because as my husband noted, we don't care to see any more Shopkins decor for a long, long time....if ever.

I tried really hard to make sure my husband didn't feel that his birthday doesn't even exist anymore by buying non-Shopkins birthday plates and napkins for him and the men of the family.  Besides, my boys would have eaten off the floor before they'd use a Shopkins plate.

But overall, the Shopkins theme definitely dominated the table.

And Shopkins took over the ceiling and walls and doorways.

Even every cupcake at each person's spot at the table held a different Shopkin to match that individual's personality.  The boys couldn't wait to get rid of theirs, and they all ended up on the birthday girl's cupcake before dinner was finished.  Did you know that there is even a toilet Shopkin?

Some of the gifts had already been exchanged the day before, and we kept a gift for our youngest on her actual birthday morning, but this was the gift corner.  The only farm-related thing in the room was the metal watering can that my husband requested as his birthday gift.  We're a rather low-consumer family here.  The things my husband and I want for ourselves usually can't be bought and wrapped (like more free time, a new kitchen floor, to have Alice from the Brady Bunch living here, or a bumper crop in the garden.)

Dinner requests were made by our daughter with the surprise addition of pounds and pounds of morel mushrooms we found in the woods this weekend that were breaded and fried up to go with the specialty burgers, Doritos, and tossed salad.  The one exception was that my husband got to choose his favorite ice cream flavor to go with the Shopkins cupcakes.  He chose coconut chip from a local dairy.  I had no idea that was his favorite.  No one else in my family likes coconut, so he gets a lot of ice cream to himself for once.

Along with a sleeping bag, most of the birthday gifts for our 7 year-old consisted of...can you guess?  That's right...Shopkins!  But I won't subject you to any more pictures of those.  Fortunately, the pinata was not filled with them.

Another batch of cupcakes were baked and decorated to share with the first grade class today, but our birthday girl is suffering from some spring allergies right now and didn't make it to school.  So they'll go in with her tomorrow, and she'll get to celebrate some more.  She now has counted 36 Shopkins in her collection, and trading them at school seems to be a favorite past time.  I'll have to inspect her backpack before she goes out the door or she'll be toting all of them along.

My work is over now for a few more weeks until the next round of birthdays occurs.  Most everyone in our family was either born or married between May and August, so along with graduations, Mother's and Father's Day, summer holidays, and First Communions and Confirmations, these next few months seem to always be spent celebrating something.  Looking over this blog post, I'm feeling really guilty that I didn't come up with more farm and elephant themes.  Hubby is soon approaching one of the BIG birthdays though, so maybe an entire farm party will be in the makings for the near future.  Do you think Party City would grant a request to fill an aisle with party supplies devoted to goats and sheep, chickens and vegetables, seeds and hoes, and maybe even a watering can or two?