IMPORTANT UPDATE!! (or, why I’m posting on a Saturday)

The most amazing thing happened this morning while we were eating our chocolate chip pancakes!

I suppose I should start by explaining yesterday’s post. I don’t usually post a picture without an explanation; I had thought that the story was more in the silly sign than the sad story. But with today’s events, I’d better explain:

About a month ago, Hubbs was in the backyard flying piloting his remote control helicopter before dinner. A sudden gust of wind came out of nowhere and swept up the little helicopter, taking it over the neighbor’s tall redwood trees and far into the distance. Hubbs, Dad, and my brother-in-law rushed out to the street to see where it had dropped, but the sun was going down and they had a hunch that the dark, overgrown creek nearby may have been its final landing spot.

Hubbs was SO sad when he came back inside – his lifelong love of aviation only has one outlet these days, and in one terrible moment, that was gone. He hung his head and cleaned up the wrapper from newly replaced landing gear, and sadly packed up the useless controller.

Well what else could I do but make some signs – because if anyone did happen to find it in their backyard, even if they wanted to they wouldn’t be able to return it unless they knew someone was looking. (That’s what you saw yesterday, though they were hung up last month, the day after the incident.) We copied the signs, packed Elle up in the baby carrier, and the three of us walked around to the neighbor’s houses, trying to look friendly enough to be allowed into their backyards to search for the lost helicopter. Eight houses and one creek-walk later, no helicopter.

AND THEN, as we sat eating our chocolate chip pancakes this morning, a knock at the door.

A kind neighbor had let the dog out in her backyard after last night’s storm, and he ran right over to sniff a tangled, dirty, plastic thing that the rain had knocked out of the tree. Remembering our signs (and probably our sad faces when we came to her door) she brought the helicopter back.

And so one month later, what once was lost, now is found. Hubbs is in the other room as we speak with a blow dryer to see if his little helicopter will fly once the mud and rain are cleaned off. Isn’t God kind – who knows each bird that falls, and cares to return even silly things like lost helicopters.

 

Lost

Hunting for Eggs

You just have to indulge me. Its been 5 months since the chickens have really laid anything, and even then, after the incident with the dog, and then with the raccoons, and then with the one being a rooster, we were down to just the three Old Maids who were actually laying anything. And then winter came, and then they molted, and so we’ve maybe been getting one egg a day for the last while. Then all of a sudden, I find a half dozen eggs of all shapes and sizes scattered around the coop each morning when I let them out.

I know I’ve already told you about the chickens once this week, but I just had to show you this.

Make a Pretty Napkin Stack

Instead of putting out a messy pile of paper napkins on your nicely decorated party table, try this easy catering trick to turn them into a neatly twisted stack.

1. Remove any rings you might be wearing, then place a stack of paper napkins on a non-slip surface like a tablecloth or place-mat; any size napkin will work.

2. Place your fist on the the stack of napkins, and pressing down firmly, turn your fist 90 degrees. Lift your fist up, place it back on the napkin stack right where you started, and do it again. As you repeat this pushing down and turning, you’ll see the whole stack slowly start to spiral around.

3. The top part of the stack will spiral quicker than the bottom, so depending on the height of the napkin-stack, you might take the top couple inches off once it has a nice twist, and carefully set that aside, stacking “mini-spirals” on top of each other as they are formed. Keep going until you have a spiral that continues down the whole stack (it looks sloppy if the top half is nicely twisted and the bottom half isn’t.)

4. Remove the top napkin that your fist has wrinkled up, smooth things out with your hands, and there you have a fancy napkin stack! These stacks stay like this pretty well, so you can make them in advance and put them out when you need them. Of course they also come together pretty quickly, so its an easy last-minute addition to the table.

Kate’s Babe

Sister had a baby, and to celebrate, of course I hosted a shower for her. The theme of her bachelorette party was Tiffanys (her first favorite store) and so what else could I have done but plan baby’s shower around her second favorite store, Kate Spade.

The Food

The shower was for 50 people, at 2:30 – not quite lunch and not quite dinner. I was looking for classy, tasty shower food that was, well, reasonable: reasonable effort to prepare, reasonably neat to eat on your lap, reasonable cost, and reasonable “heaviness” since it was for an in-between time – I knew not everyone would come super hungry.

Here’s the menu I came up with:

Salad Bar: with chicken, candied walnuts, mandarin oranges, cranberries, and honey mustard or cherry balsamic vinagerette.

Sandwiches: turkey with apple butter and brie, or roasted vegetable with herbed cream cheese. (Served in tamale bags cut to size with pinking shears)

Chopped romaine lettuce was served in plastic take-out containers from the restaurant supply store – this was done in advance and provided an easy container to eat from. Guests would take the lid off and add toppings and dressing, and could put the lid back on to toss it all up. To make them look catered (not so that guests would think that we had it catered, but so that the plastic containers looked less out of place) I designed a little label that we stuck on the side. (Babe’s Gotta Eat is the catering division of Kate’s Babe, of course)

For dessert, I also wanted something fancy but not super fussy. My friend Bex recommended macaroons, and assured me that they were easy. She was right! SO delicious, and WAYY less work than I expected. And since they are purchased for $2.00 a pop at bakeries, making them was the only way to go. Here’s the recipes – we made guava and raspberry butter-cream to go inside.

Pictures moving clockwise: Pink Guava macaroons,  Guava Gelées (also easy, like little gumdops) Cream Puffs with lemon and guava butter-cream. Trader Joe’s Meringues were a great addition too – very pretty on the plates and tasty as well!

The Decorations

I designed little signs to put in Ikea Frames and hang on the walls from ribbons. Also found Sixlets (candy) that looked like little pink and white pearls and filled fancy bowls and purses with them.

The Activities

Hubbs gave me a remote shutter for my camera, which was perfect for a photo booth. I set up the camera on a tripod, and attached the remote to the chair in the photo booth. Guests could write a piece of advice to baby, grab a prop, and click the remote to take a self-portrait. This way, no-one needed to spend the whole time taking photos. (you can see the remote in her hand in the picture)

We also played Name that Tune, featuring songs with “Baby” in the title. Since it was a multi-generational shower, we used songs that spanned the decades, from Frank Sinatra to Mariah Carey to Justin Bieber.

Well there’s more, but I think this post is long enough. Thank you SO much to my Mom, Bex, Bex’s Mom, and everyone else who helped out. It couldn’t have happened without you! For Sure.

Back in Business

The days are getting longer and the chickens are getting older – which means, after a couple month lull, we’re back in the egg business. And with a big surprise.

As is turns out, Turbo (who did make it past Thanksgiving, fyi) is a lady Turkey. We know this because the past few days she has laid us the biggest speckled eggs we’ve ever seen! So she’s started pulling her weight (finally!) which is a good thing – we didn’t really know what we were going to do with this 30 pound bird who eats more food than all the chickens combined, plops herself at my feet asking for back-rubs when I go outside, and in the evenings collapses dramatically onto the grass like a dying swan so she has to be carried back to the coop. Yes, our turkey is high-maintenance.

From top to bottom, see 1. Baby E meeting Della 2. A hidden nest in the weeds 3. A mini-Monet on the hen-house roof, compliments of the plum tree, the sprinklers, and the March breeze 4. Egg sampler, from turkey eggs on the left to chicken eggs on the right.