Pixie Turns Three

Today we are wishing Pixie a happy birthday. She has brought so much joy and happiness to each of us, and she has finally stopped chewing up George's toys. We will be celebrating with turkey bacon, a Puppuccino and some new toys.  

Carnitas

With the return of extracurricular activities, we have been really pushed to have a reasonable nightly dinner.

Are you in a similar situation?

The slow cooker has been brought back into the regular dinner routine, and I may share a few slow cooker recipes here. (Please feel free to send me your regular recipes, too!)

We have taco night at least weekly, and we alternate between beef tacos and Carnitas. Both are favorites.

Carnitas

Pork loin (or some other cut of pork, fat removed)
1 cup water
1 onion, halved
4 cloves of garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dry oregano
1 orange, halved

Instructions:

Trim the pork of excess fat and combine all ingredients into slow cooker. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Serve with tortillas and favorite taco fixings.

If you are in a rush, the following recipe is also good:

Carnitas

Pork loin
1 cup water
McCormick Taco Seasoning
Orange

Instructions:

Trim the pork of excess fat. Coat pork loin with taco seasoning and place into slow cooker. Carefully add 1 cup water, without removing seasoning. Slice orange in half, squeeze the juice over the pork loin and leave orange in the slow cooker. Cook on low for 8 hours. Service with tortillas and taco fixings.

Honestly, my family cannot tell the difference between the two recipes, and the "easy" recipe takes five minutes.

Weekend Update

Currently, the trio are home from school due to an abundance of caution about what is now Tropical Storm Irma. We are only getting some rain now but may possibly experience increased rain and wind later. Our thoughts and prayers are with the many affected by Hurricane Irma.

In addition to keeping a watchful eye on Irma, we had a pretty busy weekend. Our sweet neighbor came home with the trio from school Friday, and we celebrated the completion of another week by picking up ice cream. They all enjoyed playing all afternoon, and we had a fun pizza night Friday per George's request.

We had some pressing studying Saturday morning, and George had a birthday party to attend Saturday afternoon. George and his kindergarten friend P are attending different school for first grade so he was especially glad to see him and catch up.

After church Sunday, we joined Skip's parents for lunch, and then we had another pool party with our Sunday School class. The trio had a great time visiting their friends, and we had a good time catching up with everyone as well. We were so busy at both events that no photos were taken, but we definitely had a good time. On the way to the party we got the call that school is being canceled for TWO DAYS due to Hurricane Irma. The trio erupted in cheers, and we have been managing expectations since.

So today everyone had to complete their assigned homework, study and read. Afterward, they had some assigned jobs, and then they finally had some play time. We are trying to prevent cabin fever and get in a little study time.

So far so good, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  

Enumerated Update

Hello, friends. Like you, I am very concerned about Hurricane Irma, who is scheduled to strike the southernmost portions of Florida tonight. We are sending prayers, love and hope for our friends in Sarasota and to all of the people at one of our favorite vacation spots, Marco Island. And just to the entire state.

There have been a couple of bright spots in a week that has been alarming in terms of natural and political disasters.

1) Pumpkins: My local vegetable stand displayed PUMPKINS this week! I have been waiting for weeks to see them out, and now they are here!

2) U2: I stumbled across their new release, "You're the Best Thing About Me," in iTunes this week, and it was a pleasant surprise. Have you heard it? What do you think?

3) Prince George: His first day of school.

and finally, business as usual:

4)  e-Mail: How to write a cold email.

5) e-Mail, Redux: The Definitive Rankings for Creative Professionals. As always, there is truth in humor.

6) Inauguration Letter: In other writing news, Obama's inauguration letter to Trump was released this week.

7) Serial: Not the podcast, the comma. What is your position on the serial comma? I am aggressively pro and am glad to see a resurgence in its support.

8) Reading: How to raise a reader. Read early, read often.

Have a fantastic weekend!

PS: Did you hear about the 70-something woman who is charged with staying at the Hemingway house in Key West to secure the 55 cats? Apparently, she has a nine-person team to help her with this task. Now, you would be hard pressed to find someone who loves cats more than I, but at most, I would be getting 4.5 dozen crates and a school bus and evacuating. Maybe I would take some extensive photos and measurements so that the structure could be rebuilt, but I would definitely be high tailing it out of there.

Road Trip Organization

When we were planning a family vacation to OBX this summer, we jokingly compared pack lists to sort of check everyone's progress and to, admittedly, express some dismay over what is involved when transporting a family for an entire week. And! The younger those people are the more involved and lengthy the lists become.

As an aside, our first trip as a family was for a work trip I had at the beach for a client's convention. The event was VERY family friendly/oriented. Skip had attended a few times previously, and there was no question at all that our eight month old twin girls were expected to be splashing around in the pool in between meetings and events. (Needless to say, this was a wonderful perk of an even more wonderful client.)

Any rate. We definitely looked forward to this trip, but we also knew that first year with the girls would be much more challenging than past years. My pack list was in notebook form and took up about six pages. We jokingly wondered if we should rend a U-haul to transport everything - and I do mean everything. We survived, and we got better at it. I'm so glad we stuck with it because going to the beach with the trio has been one of our favorite things ever.

For comparison, below is an image of our car while traveling to Williamsburg and Outer Banks in 2009.  So this is a minivan, with the back row removed, and packing starts just behind the second row of seating and extends to the gate. The blankets in the bottom right? That's a changing station. Although it was no longer really needed for this trip, this was our basic set up for a couple of years, and we kept it up for any roadside situations, e.g., first aid, car sickness, etc.

2009

Also, not to leave George out, while we had packing down to a science by the time he was born, he threw us a curve ball because he would only sleep in his swing. Since he was suffering from horrible allergies (and itchy all the time), we let him! Doing so was such a small thing to try to keep him comfortable. We packed everything, but we had to have room for the swing. The SWING! We mentioned our dilemma and Skip's dad successfully got the thing folded, which was the only way it would go in the car, but it still took up some serious real estate.

That was a big packing tangent, yes?

So anyway... the packing list I use most frequently is a free printable form from MomAgenda. Since we are way out of the baby stage, I've thought about personalizing a pack list, but I ran across this updated one this week from IHeartOrganizing. I'm still leaning toward a personalized list, but these are two great options.

Although we relax our eating habits on vacation (Our kids probably burn 5,000 calories a day on vacation, and we figure they can use all the fuel they can get.), I LOVE this packing system for food/snacks during road trips. We really don't like to eat fast food when traveling, but transporting food - and especially keeping it cold - is challenging. I mean, sure, we have a bag of snacks and some fruit, but this:

Image by IHeartOrganizing

Image by IHeartOrganizing

is pro-level.  This is aspirational snack- and meal-packing.

We keep hoping to have fewer things to transport, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Therefore, getting the system fully organized is very appealing.

Summer Photos

William George recently announced that his front tooth is loose. For months I have been meaning to take some five-year-old photos (to match/coordinate/complement some we had taken of the girls when they were five), and that obviously extended past his six birthday. Oops. We kept trying to make time in the spring, and then it was too hot in the summer. However, since I want George's five-ish photos to match the girls' photos (at five), a loose tooth gave us motivation to get it done because all of the girls' baby teeth are intact in their photos.

George has been looking for an opportunity to wear his tuxedo (he really loves it), and formal photos were the perfect occasion.  

Below is the candidate for his official portrait for framing, or I may do a single head shot since the girls' are more close up.  

These lovely ladies were kind enough to let me photograph them as well, so that we have fall summer (Who are we kidding? They will have to pose again once the leaves burst with color.) photos of everyone.  

George's favorite part was the train car, of course. Frankly, I talked up this red train quite a bit to get him to agree to photos in the August heat. 

Skip was a great assistant... he got everyone posed, and he even performed a street rescue when a loud motorcycle came by.  

After the pics, the trio changed in the car, and we had a fun, family date night. Even George wanted to change out of his favorite clothes into cooler clothing! This ended up being a really fun evening, complete with pizza and Target, two of our favorites.  

Weekend Update

How was your last, unofficial weekend of summer?

Skip's sister and her family were in town for the weekend so we spent Friday evening and Saturday visiting with family (hooray for cousins!) and then we had a laid back Sunday, including lots of play time for the trio, tennis for Skip and some downtime for me, i.e., drinking tea and reading (Lust and Wonder + The Cursed Child). 

We decided to have a final summer trip to the pool and, accordingly, woke up Monday, packed some bags and lunches and struck out for the aquatic center.  

We had just enough time to get in a few last minute dives, trips down the water slide and meandering strolls down the lazy river.  

And the Torque slide got to claim Skip's pair of sunglasses. 

Summer 2017:

Sunglasses, 2; Skip 0

Overall:

Sunglasses 4; Skip 1

(Just playing, Skip:)

Skip and Gracie performed some synchronized diving.  

Generally, we just had a great day, and we gave Summer 2017 the farewell it deserved. It's been a good one. 

How was your Labor Day weekend? 

Are you ready for fall?

Enumerated Update

Happy Friday, guys.  

1) Hat Day: Today is "hat day" at the trio's school, and they carefully went through their hat inventory to find the perfect hat. George also informed me that he has outgrown all of his Alabama Crimson Tide summer gear and made a request for new Bama gear.  

2) Hurricane Harvey: Like you, we have been watching our neighbors in Houston (+surrounding areas) all week. If you feel led and can do so, please give what you can, remembering to be aware of what needs exists. If we all contributed $10, imagine the impact that would make.  

3) Osteen: I've been watching this story unfold and have wanted to give Osteen's church the benefit of the doubt. At the end of the day, I agree with John Pavlovitz's tough words for Osteen.  

Our church just completed a series wherein we studied the decline (in attendance, support, etc.) of the Christian church. Osteen did nothing to help with the perception of organized religion this week. 

Do we think Jesus Christ would have opened the doors of that church? 

Do we think Jesus would have waited to until other facilities were overcrowded? 

Do we think Jesus would have waited for a phone call from government officials and a specific request for the use of their spacious building? 

4) Generation X: Finally, my generation gets some attention that is less that negative.  

We are the last Americans to have the old-time childhood. It was coherent, hands-on, dirty and fun. 

Irony and a keen sense of dread are what make Generation X the last great hope.  

5) Related: I was driving the trio around in the car this week when Simple Minds' Don't You Forget About Me randomly played. Somehow, we haven't shared this song with them yet, and when the the opening notes played, I totally threw my fist in the air Judd Nelson-style and made them listen to the song in its entirety. High volume mandatory.   

Remember their performance at the Billboard Music Awards a couple of years ago? 

6) Roll Tide: College football has officially kicked off, and we will definitely be cheering tomorrow night.  

In order to set the tone: 

Have a fantastic, long weekend.