30 Apr
We took the girls to the very family-friendly Pride Parade downtown last weekend.
We simply explained that it was an event that promoted the importance of accepting people as they are and treating everyone with equality. We left it at that, agreeing to handle any additional questions as they came up.
Ava’s only inquiry? “Why isn’t there a marching band?”
Those gathered on the streets joined in along the way, and we did too. It was a pretty incredible experience!
We were proud to be part of it.
26 Apr
It’s been a hectic few weeks (months) at our house, and a few (many) things have slipped by the wayside.
One of them is appropriate footwear for the girls. Ava has a number of shoes, but her preschool teacher has some very specific guidelines about what’s appropriate (no laces, no flip-flops, nothing that remotely hard to put on). My own requirement? Cheap. Preschoolers are hard on shoes.
Ava’s teacher recently informed Bryan that Ava’s (winter) shoes no longer have functioning Velcro, therefore rendering them completely unacceptable. Since Ava’s other shoes all land in the previously mentioned categories, she needed something new. And, in all fairness, I do usually try to do brown and white sandals each spring, preferably one for play and one for dress in both colors. I just haven’t gotten around to it.
To make matters worse, Olivia should probably be moving on beyond soft-soled Robeez, at least when she’s outside. I did pick up a new pair of interim shoes for her, though they are a bit warm for the recent weather.
I realize things like this should be a priority, but in my defense, it’s not like you can buy kids’ shoes on Endless.com between meetings—it requires a shopping trip . . . WITH BOTH CHILDREN.
Bryan finally put his figurative foot down Saturday morning, telling me that both girls required new footwear that very day. So, I loaded everyone up and landed at Target. We made it back home two hours later, and given the spoils from the trip, I’m guessing Bryan will voluntarily take care of all future shoe purchases himself.
You may notice Ava has an extra pair beyond the play and dress sets. She found the rhinestone flip flops and HAD to have them. She made a pretty convincing case, and as I was wearing rhinestone flip flops myself at that moment, I didn’t’ have the heart to turn her down. She was ELATED.
This apple did not fall far from the proverbial tree.
25 Apr
Bry: We could adopt…
Bec: I hadn’t considered that.
Bry: Yeah, we could adopt a 14 year old so we have a built in babysitter for the other two.
Bec: I think that’s indentured servitude.
Bry: No, think about it–it’s perfect. There must be so many teenagers in need of good homes.
Bec: Yeah, no.
22 Apr
You may have noticed that when you visit this blog, the URL automatically changes to http://www.smithfamilyweblog.com. This is thanks entirely to Josh, who knew that we wanted to move to a non-Wordpress designation.
When I started this quest several months ago, I searched for a number of combinations, finding that most anything with “Smith,” “family” and “blog” was already claimed. I did find http://www.smithfamilyweblog.com, and I immediately emailed Bryan, asking him to please purchase it as soon as possible. He found that it had been bought in the mere moments between my search and his. I gave up hope completely.
Then, a few weeks later, Josh mentioned that he purchased a URL for us—www.smithfamilyweblog.com. Quite a coincidence that we were all working toward the same end, at the same time. I’m glad it worked out the way it did.
Thanks, Josh!
21 Apr
Every once in a while, I come across a recipe that just works perfectly the very first time. This chocolate stout cake recipe from Bon Appétit was wonderful—start to finish.
Of course, luck had quite a bit to do with it. Thankfully, I didn’t have the 8″ pans the recipe called for, so I used three 9″ pans instead. Had I used smaller pans, I would have ended up with about three cups of batter on the bottom of a very hot oven. I also made one and a half times the icing recipe as many of the reviews suggested, and didn’t have a single spoonful left over.
The cake was huge–probably eight inches tall. And, even more impressive was Bryan’s reaction when he came home at 5 pm, saw three empty bottles of Guinness, and assumed I downed them all during the course of the afternoon.
20 Apr
Believe it or not, there’s a 12 acre farm in the middle of Kansas City—and it’s amazing. Katie’s here visiting this weekend, and the three of us took the girls to check out the livestock and other country attractions. By the way—3:2 is the perfect adult:child ratio for an outing like this . . . I hope she never leaves!
Olivia LOVED the animals–especially the cows. “Cows” just happens to be her new favorite word, in fact. Check out this video of her experience with a calf:
Speaking of cows, Ava picked up a new trade.
She wisely decided to keep her distance from this guy.
Katie bottle fed a few overzealous goats. The whole thing was a bit much for Ava, though, who fled the pen halfway through the feeding frenzy. The goats, in turn, ran from Olivia, who chased after them saying, “Nice, nice…”
17 Apr
Thanks to Grandma Smith, who was willing to keep my children busy for a couple of hours last weekend, I found a bit of time to use the new cupcake pans and tree my mom gave me for my birthday. As I noted over on the THOH, Laura’s photos more than do them justice.
Smith Family Weblog 