Teeth, birthday cakes, and boxes, oh, my!

Somehow, I totally forgot to mention that 2 weeks ago Eliza lost her first tooth! Poor middle child. She actually lost it on a Friday at school, but managed to make it home with it in an envelope. We put it in a baggie on the counter for the weekend because we were going out of town. Sunday when we got home, Eliza took the bag with the tooth off the counter and did something with it. A little while later, we found the plastic bag all torn up (probably Brian’s handiwork), but no tooth. I looked and looked, but it was a few days later when at last I found the tooth in the floor of the living room, and Eliza finally got to put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy. Such drama for a missing tooth!

Here is Eliza showing off her new gap:

And a prettier smile:

James’ birthday was last Saturday, but we put off celebrating it until Tuesday night since my folks were out of town. We did have some fun on his birthday, though; we met Jill and Robbie and Hannah at Greer’s Ferry Lake where they were camping. We hiked, ate sandwiches at their campsite, and jumped off the rocks into the lake. (Well, I didn’t jump. But the kids did!)

The weather suddenly changed last Monday, with highs in the low 80s instead of the high 90s. I guess fall was ready to make it’s appearance! We decided to have James’ birthday party at Mill’s Park because the weather was so nice. It turned out great, and even his cake was a success! James loves Ninjago, the Lego Ninja sets, so I determined to try to make a Ninjago cake. Of course, I never plan ahead for these things, being a last-minute kind of girl, so I usually have to make do with what I have. I had a spice cake mix and some cream cheese frosting, so I thought I would see if I could get some good colors from the cream cheese frosting. For some reason, I had a set of liquid food coloring and also a set of gel food coloring. It took all of the red from both sets to get that bright red color needed for the ninja. I’m glad I had it! The yellow was much easier to achieve; just a few drops of the yellow food coloring. The black for the eyes and outline started out as purple decorating icing, to which I added lots of green food coloring, plus some Nutella to make it darker. I was surprised that I actually managed to get it to look black! The finished product:

Modeled after:

And here are some pictures from the party:

One last thing… I found these pictures on my camera and just had to share. My sweet little Brian-in-a-box!

When life hands you lemons…

Forget the lemonade, make a lemon cream pie! That’s what I did. Jay’s Aunt Becky has a lemon tree at the beach house, and before we left she sent Uncle Chuck outside to pick us a couple of lemons to take home. First, though, she asked if I would use them. Now, I’m not much of a cook. It’s not that I can’t cook; I make plenty of easy dishes to serve my family for supper, and I have even attempted some impressive things that have turned out okay. Mostly, though, I’m lazy. I don’t enjoy spending large amounts of time slaving over a complicated recipe in the kitchen, then spending even more time cleaning up the mess I made. Not to mention that my family is not very adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. So, my cooking is generally limited to necessity. But I also don’t like to turn down free lemons, so, I said, “I guess we could make some lemonade.” Aunt Becky was not impressed, so she gave me an easy recipe for lemon pie. “I can do this,” I thought. But things got busy when we got home, and the lemons sat on the kitchen counter for over a week. But I knew I couldn’t let Aunt Becky down, so I resolved to use them as soon as possible.

The other day I bought some heavy whipping cream to use in a soup mix that we had been given. This was the first time I had ever bought whipping cream, so I was feeling a little more adventurous than usual. I wondered if I could use the leftover cream with the lemons to make a dessert, and I started looking for a recipe that called for both of them. I found a Lemon Cream Pie recipe, and I decided to give it a try. Have you ever tried to “zest” a lemon? It’s not too difficult if you have a sharp knife or a tool called a “zester”. I actually gave away 2 zesters that we had been given as presents early in our marriage, certain I would never have use for even one of them. :) I made do, though, and since you strain the mixture after you cook it, it didn’t matter what my lemon zest looked like. The first difficulty I ran into was that I had to use salted butter instead of unsalted (it was all I had). I think it turned out just fine, though. Then the process of straining was a little hard. I might have overcooked my egg-lemon-sugar-butter mixture a tad too much, because it did not “pour” through the strainer; it had to be “pushed”. But I got it through, and the resulting custard (if that’s what it’s called- I’m not sure) was deliciously lemony and smooth. This recipe takes a long time to prepare from start to finish, but most of that time is waiting for the mixture to cool in the refrigerator, then waiting for the pie to cool after adding the whipped cream and pouring it into crust. We haven’t tried the pie yet, but I did sneak some tastes of the finished mixture, and it was pretty yummy.

I’m glad Aunt Becky gave me a reason to get out of my comfort zone and actually make a dessert. I don’t think I’ll be making any more any time soon (this is a busy time of year!), but if it turns out we love the pie, I just might consider making it again for a special occasion. :)