Tea for Ten

Maggie turned seven on October 12 and she is waxing philosophical on me. I asked her at the end of the day if she had a good birthday and she said, "Well, it's strange. It's been a good day and I enjoyed my birthday, but I don't really feel older. I mean, it's like all of a sudden I'm seven, and I was six yesterday, but it pretty much feels the same."

She started off the day with an idea I found on Pinterest (but it came from here). I was busily baking blueberry muffins from scratch, as requested, so Grant took care of hanging the streamers. When we do this again for Finn, on his birthday in March, I'd like to put about twice as much streamers on and lower everything on the door frame. Check out the action shot!

 

Birthday packages had been arriving for days and Maggie was thrilled to open them after breakfast.

 One of her favorites was a dress from Grant's Uncle Steve and Uncle James in California, who always pick out fabulous clothes for the kids.

 Her birthday was on Friday, the 12th, but her party was scheduled for the next day, a Saturday. I bought a Living Social deal for a tea party at Savannah Tea Co. in Germantown, just north of downtown. I made the invitations myself with actual tea bags, some vellum paper for the labels/party info, and my eyelet setter.

 The label was folded up to look more like an actual tea bag label, and for ease of mailing. But when the recipient opened up the label, all of the party details were available. I did have to pay 20 cents of extra postage to have each one hand cancelled. I was afraid if it went through the machine sorter, the tea bags would disintegrate.

 I didn't mention it was her birthday because I thought that was a given, but I did receive an e-mail asking if the tea party was celebrating anything in particular. Seriously?!

Our party was inadvertently scheduled for the same weekend as Octoberfest, so it was pretty crazy in the area and parking was a pain, but her friends showed up and we had a great time. The tea house provides gloves, fascinators, and hats for anyone who'd like to dress up. Maggie picked out a hat before anyone arrived, but it didn't last long into the party.

 Another special thing the tea house did was allow each girl to pick out her own tea cup. It was fun to see what everyone chose. I also printed out some coloring sheets of tea pots so that the girls could design their own tea pot to keep busy while we were waiting for the food to come out.

 I love the double thumbs up.

 My mom came with me to help and one of the girl's moms ended up staying. It was a really sweet party. Maggie picked her favorite tea (vanilla chai) and the server suggested chocolate tea for another option. I usually despise tea (yes, I meant to use such a strong word) but I actually drank a cup of the vanilla chai. With the first pots of tea the server brought a mini scone with whipped cream (not clotted!) and a maple shortbread cookie. I don't know why dessert came first but I didn't mind! After a little while she brought out tiered trays with cucumber and dill tea sandwiches, chocolate covered strawberries, fruit, and a few other tasty bites.

This was the first party we've ever done for one of the children where we didn't do anything but show up. We've had a few parties at public parks but we decorated, planned games, and brought in food. If you've been reading this blog for a little while or know me well, you know how much fun I have planning parties, but I have to admit, it was sooooooo nice to just show up, have a party, and then leave without cleaning up. I might be tempted to do another one, but not often.

Check back soon for a post about the joint family party we had at home for Carolina and Maggie!

All My Little Chickies

About six months ago I was talking after church with a few like-minded friends. We were talking about our gardens, CSAs, etc., and the subject of chickens came up. I'm sure you know how popular backyard chickens have become. Grant and I had talked about getting chickens for probably a year at this point, and I said to my friends on the playground, "Well, we better get chickens now. It's just what people like us do." I was totally poking fun at myself, except that I actually did want to get chickens!

I really didn't want them because it was trendy; I thought they would be a fun addition to the family for lots of reasons. I knew the children would enjoy them, I looked forward to getting fresh eggs from our backyard, and I thought it would be educational for all of us. I read somewhere that backyard chickens bridge the gap between pet and livestock. As a busy mom who is always cleaning up after little people, preparing meals, wiping booties, and chasing kids around, I simply did not want a pet - another mouth to feed, another thing to take care of and clean up after! But chickens...well, I could name them, give them minimal care (no cuddling required) and they would give me EGGS in return. Perfect.

Grant downloaded free plans for a moveable coop, bought the materials, and built it. It cost around $200. Then he told Maggie (without asking me first) that she could pick the paint color. She picked periwinkle. I actually love periwinkle but I'm not sure I would have picked that color for a large structure in our backyard. She painted about 1 square inch before she tired of painting, so I did the rest. Our neighbor gave us a big piece of aluminum for the roof and it has some rust spots on it, giving it a nice shabby chic look.

Next I went to the Davidson County Farmer's Co-op and picked up five chicks. I think they were a few days old. I picked out five Ameracauna chicks. We picked that breed because their eggs are blue, green, and even a dusty pink. Driving home I was honestly more nervous than driving home from the hospital with Maggie. I was totally freaked out to have these five living things protected only by a cardboard box, sitting on the seat next to me. I imagined them being totally freaked out by a new environment and the motion of the car. I was a basket case. I know I have problems; I'll seek therapy as soon as I have some free time. I got them home and set up a little brooder and checked this site obsessively. The chickens really brought out my OCD at first. I was OCD about everyone washing hands after touching them, I was OCD about their temperature being exactly correct. When one of them (Felicity, named by Maggie) started looking a little wimpy, I could hardly sleep. I got up several times a night to check on her. Unfortunately, the next morning, she had gone to the great farm in the sky. Maggie was beside herself. She cried all day. We had a solemn burial for her in the back yard. Strangely, once she died, I felt a little better. It was like I realized my chicken ownership would go on even if one died. We named the rest of them, too. Maggie named Felicity (after her American Girl doll) and Rosie, the only white one. The remaining three brown ones were named Maybelle (after Mother Maybelle Carter, who strangely looks a little birdish to me now), Clementine (my pick for another baby girl, which Grant vetoed), and Fiona (Grant's pick for another baby girl, which I vetoed).

 

That was all back in May, and now in October they're five months old, full-sized, and doing well. Well, Rosie and Maybelle are doing well. Fiona was eaten by a raccoon or some other animal that pulled the chicken wire off and broke into the coop, and we think poor Clementine was eaten by a hawk when we let them run in the backyard and were inside for a little bit. My kids think that chickens just die all the time. On the other hand, Maggie's initial collapse at the news of Felicity's untimely death turned into a resigned acceptance by the time Fiona died. As my sister-in-law Kajsa's dad says, "You can learn everything you need to know about life by raising chickens."

As for the delicious eggs we've been eating, well, about a month ago we found out that our super special, beautifully-colored eggs we've been waiting for won't actually come until they're closer to nine months old, rather than the usual 4-6 months old. So sheesh. That's annoying.
Here they are now, being chased around by Carolina:

As for some commonly asked chicken questions, here we go:
1. Don't you need a rooster? Nope! You only need a rooster if you want chicks. Otherwise the hens lay unfertilized eggs, which is what you buy at the grocery store.
2. Are they legal? Yes, they're now legal in Davidson County, but you have to register them, pay a $25 fee, and roosters are illegal.
3. What about cleaning out their coop? It's not bad. It takes me about 10 minutes and I try to do it once a week. We also move the coop around so they have access to fresh grass and the poop gets rinsed off of the ground when it rains. 

I also found some more camping photos from last weekend, courtesy of Grant.
Here are Finn and Maggie in the tent, after getting into pajamas:

Here I am with Carolina and Maggie inside the tent. Note: I am smiling, therefore this must have been before Carolina kicked me in the head a hundred times.

Beating a hasty retreat, all still dressed in pajamas. Grant cracked up at the sight of us all walking to the bathroom so he had to take a photo.

And here are Grant and Maggie at the Blue Chair Bakery in Sewanee. Ahhh...so warm and cozy.

And I have a few more random tidbits!
If you haven't seen 2011's The Muppets, you need to rent it ASAP. It's fantastic. We've been listening to the soundtrack ad nauseum. It's impossible not to be happy when you're singing "Life's a happy song with someone by your side to sing along."

Here are two short video snippets of Finn and Carolina. The first is Carolina saying a chant she learned from her cousin, Jack. I'll tell you the words she's saying because I know you won't be able to understand everything she's saying. She's saying "Miss Sue, Miss Sue, Miss Sue from Alabama, sitting in her rocker, eating Betty Crocker, watching the clock going tick tock tick tock banana rock. ABCDEFG wash those spots right off of me. Ushe mama Ushe mama Ushe mama, FREEZE!"

Here are Finn and Carolina cheering for our friend's son, Edison, at his football game. They cheered like crazy. It was adorable.

Camping Fail

Maggie's school is currently on fall break and for the past few months Grant and I have been dreaming about taking the family camping. Back in the day, Grant was a big backpacker. He would hike in with all of his gear and go for long stretches (long for me anyway - I am good for one night and that's it). We've camped quite a bit since we were married, but once we started having kids, the camping trips were few and far between.

Grant took a day off of work on Friday and we planned to leave right after lunch, hoping Finn and Carolina would take their naps while we drove. We went to the Stone Door, part of South Cumberland State Park, near Monteagle. It's a beautiful, beautiful place with great campsites and lots of trails. We LOVE hiking and that was the part of camping I was most looking forward to.
Well, of course we started off the trip two hours later than normal, which meant the kids were up two hours later than normal for their naps. Needless to say, they were cranky. We were in such a rush to get out the door that we left dishes in the sink and actual pieces of food on the floor. Ugh. We got there in good time and everyone did great in the car, with no potty accidents or meltdowns.
We strategized in the car as it was later than we planned, and I knew it would take a while to get the fire going and get coals to cook our dinner on (hobo packs with lentils), so we decided that as soon as we got all of our gear to the campsite, Grant would start working on the fire and I would get the tent up (and make sure the kids didn't wander off a ravine or anything).

 

Where we camped, you have to walk in about a quarter of a mile with your gear, which isn't a long distance and actually makes it more fun to me. I like that we're not right next to the car. Everyone had to carry something, even Carolina.

 

It took two trips but we got everything to our campsite. 

 

The kids had fun exploring right around our campsite while Grant started working on the fire. Due to lack of proper planning, we didn't bring any dry wood or fire starter or anything, and everything around us was damp. He could get a fire started but the bigger logs simply wouldn't catch on fire! (I have to note, in Grant's defense, that he can build a mean fire...as long as he has dry firewood!) He worked on it for at least an hour, during which I put the tent up all by myself! That's usually a job we do together but I was proud of myself for doing it alone. The kids "helped" and had fun threading the poles through the loops. At this point it was starting to get dark quickly and I was worried that not only was dinner not ready, it hadn't even started cooking yet! 

We made a quick decision to skip the dinner that I spent time preparing, and ate a cold dinner of bread, cheese, and apples. Grant rigged up a crazy little fire with his camping stove and roasted 1 marshmallow, and we ate the rest of our s'mores with unroasted marshmallows. At this point it was about 8pm, already half an hour past their regular bedtime. We hustled into the tent to get ready for bed. After everyone got settled and into pajamas, we read played for a while, then read a bedtime story and said it was time for lights out. Somehow we have acquired quite a stash of glow sticks, so we brought those for the kids to use. They must have used fifteen. Once we turned out the flashlights it was still very bright in there with all of the glow sticks, so I ended up hiding them under stuff. Here's Finn with a few of them.

Finn and Carolina were crawling all around the tent and refused to settle down. They were amped up and exhausted, which, as any parent knows, is a brutal combination. I am not lying when I say I got kicked in the face a hundred times. I finally told myself, "Maybe this is how Carolina winds down in her crib at night, by rolling around and kicking. Maybe if I just ignore her she'll eventually fall asleep." Well, it worked, but I was pretty annoyed by that point. I am a finicky sleeper anyway, so I probably got about two hours of sleep that night. At one point I needed to go out and go to the bathroom, but my fear of spiders kept me in the tent. Let's just say that may have added to my inability to sleep. And since we're on the subject of spiders, let's discuss. Have you seen Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, when Harry goes into the forest and it is teeming with spiders of all sizes? Well, we somehow pitched our tent in a daddy longleg nest. I have never seen so many daddy longlegs in my entire life. They were everywhere. I know they're harmless but I honestly think I have arachnophobia. By the grace of God (I'm being serious here), we didn't have any in our tent until right as we were leaving. But anyway, I was afraid to leave the tent by myself in the middle of the night thanks to those buggers.

Somewhere around 2 or 3 AM I was awoken by the lovely sound of rain falling on our tent. It was such a nice, soft sound. We had put the rain cover on our tent so I wasn't worried about getting wet. I just hoped it would stop by morning. (Spoiler alert: it didn't.) I was laying in my sleeping bag at 5:45AM, not sleeping, when Grant said, "Courtney...we need to get up. Finn and I are soaking wet." In our haste and lack of preparedness, we forgot to bring a tarp to put under the tent, so as the ground soaked up the rain, it started seeping into the tent. We immediately decided that we would just get out of there as quickly as possible. Everyone was awake, so we started packing up everything that we could. Eventually we got out of the tent and the kids and I started carrying everything we could manage back to the car, while Grant broke down the tent. The rain had thankfully let up at this point, so we weren't totally soaked.

We happily got on the road and decided to drive to Sewanee, a mountain/college town that we love to visit, and eat at a bakery we like there. It was about 45 minutes away, so we were ravenous when we got there, but we really enjoyed our breakfast and the warm, dry room we were able to eat in.

Grant had more realistic expectations about our trip than I did, but we've both decided it'll be a couple of years before we attempt camping again. And a sweet neighbor reminded me that even though it wasn't great in my mind, that the kids will probably look back at it with fond memories and gloss over the imperfect parts. I hope that's true! I think we made the best of it but still...

And now, to make this lengthy post even longer, here are a few random photos from the last week.

I did the popular top bun on Maggie last Sunday for the first time and I think it turned out pretty good for a first attempt. When I tried again a few days later, it was really fab. It's so fun to have a girl (well, two girls!).

The boys installed a new thermostat in Grant's car. I feel like this was an example of the really amazing parenting Grant does. (SEXISM ALERT!) I love that Grant can identify strange knocking sounds in the car, or certain smells or dripping fluids, and then fix them! He can't fix everything, but he can fix many of the problems that come up. I want Finn to have this same knowledge for his family's sake. And before someone complains that the girls can learn these skills, too, let me say that Grant is showing them all the same things.

 We have lunch most Fridays with my mom and as many sisters/sisters-in-law as possible, and we often go to Bella Napoli in Edgehill Village. Finn and Carolina would have loved to climb to the top of these ancient, rickety stairs, but we restricted them to the bottom third.

Last Saturday I met my sister-in-law, Kajsa, and my nephew, Jake, downtown to watch the Dragon Boat races. I really thought that the boats would have huge papier-mache dragon heads on them, but in actuality, they were pretty dinky. Luckily, we take the party with us wherever we go, and the kids had fun looking at the river, climbing up and down the stairs, and walking on some rails-to-trails unused railroad tracks, AND I got some cute photos of the girls (Finn was at home with Grant, not feeling great). Maggie is looking so grown-up these days. Also, have I ever mentioned how much I love my city? I heart Nashville.

Carolina kept putting her hands in the pockets of her windbreaker and it just killed me. It upped the adorable quotient by about a thousand.

Stay tuned for more Howard adventures! We're always up to something around here, even if it doesn't always turn out the way we hope!