Something Unexpected Happened

Usually I reserve this blog for important updates on the random silliness that I see in the world around me. However, today I wish to reflect on something a little more important and personal. Enjoy (or, stop reading--whatever works for you).

You may have figured out that I have three children. Just yesterday I was sitting in the living room looking out at our modest little backyard that sits in front of a giant cornfield (yes, I live in Indiana). There were my two "little" girls, ages 11 and 13, jumping and playing on the trampoline. You could tell by the looks on their faces that not only were they having fun...they love each other and enjoy one another's company. Yet, these two are SO different. Bird (13) is sporty and spunky with tomboy tendencies. She wants to be a fashion designer. Snip (11 1/2) is the girly-girl ballerina who wants to nurture everyone and start being a mother today. It seems like just a year ago they were getting on each others nerves, picking at each other and not wanting to do things together. It honestly brings tears to my eyes to see them together. God has blessed me with two lovely daughters and the blessing seems doubled when I see them together.

Dance of the Dogs (or...Featuring the Dogs)

Here's a great example of what three little girls can do with their ballet training, music, stuffed dogs and a crowd...



My daughter, Izzi, is in this video with my niece, Eva. They are better known on this blog as "Snip and Snap." In addition, their little buddy "Lids" is also featured.

What does she REALLY think about me?

My youngest daughter, Izzi (often referred to as "Snip" in this blog) gave me a home-made card to open up while on the airplane as I was headed out west for a week-long business trip. It's a very sweet thing to get this kind of hand-crafted sentiment from such a cute little eleven-year-old girl. Per her instructions, I opened it up and read it while on the plane, cruising at an altitude of about 30,000 feet in the air.

For your enjoyment, I've scanned the envelope of the card along with the front and inside (the best part). I also added a picture of my little Izabella ballerina so you can appreciate the source...

In case you didn't catch that, it reads as follows:

I love you very much. I hope you are safe. I don't want you to live but I have no choice. I love you sooo much. You are the Best Dad in the world.

I Will Miss You.

Izabella

Contrary to her wishes, I survived the trip.

Snip's Desire

Well, hello there. I just haven't had anything interesting to say lately and the world still seems to be spinning on its axis.

My wife posted something great today. Here's my girl blogging about one of my girls. This little one is known as "snip" on my blog. She's a cutie.

Give Your Kid a Camera

I predict that in ten years or less you will be able to get a digital camera as a free toy in a McDonald's Happy Meal. I'm only half kidding. The price of digital cameras has dropped so much that it's no big deal for a child to have one. In fact, if you kids have cell phones they probably already have a phone.

Just like anything, a child can get into trouble with technology and abuse it (the same can be said for adults). But my ten year old girl, "Snip", has a camera and I love to look at the things she decides photograph. Here's a sample of some of her most recent work...

1. Legs Dangling Behind Bunk bed

2. Snip's Favorite Bible


3. Cousin Kylie

(True story: Kylie lives three houses down from us and we recently discovered that we are related!)

4. Sasha the Build-a-Bear Striking a Pose

5. Crab Tree Falls

This last picture is spectacular. Be sure to click on it to see a larger version. This little girl may have an eye for photography.

Entering THEIR World

Here's an easy parenting tip for you all--especially you dads with little girls. Anytime you get a chance, enter into their little fantasy world. Their eyes light up and their spirits will glow.

As I write this, Snip and Snap (my daughter and my niece) are playing Pretty Pretty Princess with their Build-a-Bears, Sasha and Sissy. Sasha and Sissy are an important part of their lives. A few minutes ago I heard Snip tell Snap that purple was Sasha's favorite color. Well, last night I had to pick up Sasha at around 11:45 at night because Snip left her at grandma and grandpa's house. So, I decided to interrupt their game to tell the girls that Sasha's favorite color was orange and that I knew this because she told me last night when I had to pick her up (she was also a bit miffed about being left at the grandparents' house and having to sit on the front porch in a doll's car seat--but that's another story). Apparently, Snip thought that purple was Sasha's favorite color all these years and Sasha just went along with it so as not to hurt her feelings even though she really prefers orange. Of course, I told Snap all about this and I love how she went along with the whole thing. It has been incorporated into their world and it's precious. I'm a bit of a goof (or "doof") anyway, so it's easy for me to enter into this world now and then. Dad's--DO IT. I'm quite certain that your kids will love it.

Update, Sasha the bear was running away with this game of Pretty Pretty Princess until Sissy came out of nowhere to win it all.

Skyline with Snip

If you live anywhere near Cincinnati, then you know about Skyline Chili. In addition to Ohio, they have locations in southern Indiana, Central Indiana, Kentucky and Florida. I guess it's an acquired taste because this is not what most Americans think of with regards to "chili."

Real chili has big chunks of beef and it's spicy hot, right? Real chili has beans, too...right? You don't put pasta in real chili...right? This could be the biggest debate on Big Doofus Blog since the Coney Dog vs. Chili Dog post nearly a year ago. I still get comments on that post from people doing Google searches. And in case you're wondering, that's Jason's face from Uvulapie and His Amazing Accordion that I Photoshopped into the hot dog costume. But I digress...

Skyline Chili has no beans (but you can add them). The ground beef is practically pureed before it goes into the chili--and I think they actually boil it before it goes in (Skyline afficionados will probably comment later). And the spices? I'm pretty sure it's cinnamon but there are uban legends suggesting things like chocolate (but it's not chocolate). It originated in Cincinnati by Greek immigrants and got it's name from the city's skyline.

Needless to say, Skyline Chili is different. It's not for everyone, but it's for enough people to make it a regional success. I love it and I was convinced that my son would love it, too, as we have similar tastes when it comes to spicy foods. But he doesn't care for it. My middle daughter (Bird) hates it. The wife (Miss Sniz) shares these feelings of hate and disgust with Bird. I thought I was all on my own...until little ten year old Snip came down and tasted it. I never offered it to her because I never dreamed that she'd like it. To my amazement (and to Miss Sniz's amazement) she loved it.

Since we have "special nights" where one of our kids gets to do something with mom and/or dad, a Skyline trip was planned. Last night she and I made it to the restaurant on the Northwest side of Indianapolis (we need a west side location!). While most stores are run like a restaurant, this store has you order at the counter and you bring your food with you back to the tables (and yet there was still a place for the "tip" on the receipt). Snip had the 3-way chili (chili, spaghetti noodles & cheese--tons of cheese) kids meal and I had the 4-way (same thing, but with onions or beans and I chose onions) and a "cheese coney" which is really a "chili coney" but I don't want to get into that again.

The chili was tasty and we had lots of conversations about Build-a-Bears, condensation and what it is that a store in town called "Tasty's Gift Factory" sells--but that's another post.

Sleeping Izzi

Here's another video I put together a few years ago (can you tell that I'm going through some old files on one of my computers?). Our youngest was one of those kids that could fall asleep just about anywhere. She's still the gifted sleeper in our house and the rest of the kids are pretty jealous that all she has to do is lay down in her bed and she's out.

Enjoy...

Triple Duty for the Tooth Fairy

This may not be one of my more witty posts, but it's something I want to remember. Last night "Snip" (my almost ten-year-old daughter) came down and showed me a tooth that she had just lost. That's not too out of the ordinary when you've got three pre-pubescent kids running around the house.

A few minutes later, "Bird" (my 11 year old daughter) came down and told me that she had a tooth that was really loose and wanted to know if I'd help her remove it. This is strange because I could never do this as a kid (i.e. have someone yank my tooth out) and none of my other kids would ever let me mess with their loose teeth. It took a few yanks, but it came out--and so did some blood. Within a few more minutes, "Snip" came down with another tooth that came out.

For those of you keeping track at home, that's a total of three (3) teeth in one evening. That makes for a busy, expensive Tooth Fairy outing since the going rate at our home is $1/tooth. If it wasn't for the fact that I knew these teeth were actually loose, I'd suspect that I was getting taken--I mean, that the Tooth Fairy was getting taken...but I guess it's not possible to fool the Tooth Fairy, right?

Someone's Looking Out for Snap

I've posted a few times about Snip and Snap. Snip is my youngest daughter (9) and Snap is her 8-year-old cousin and bestest friend in the whole wide world. We often comment that they are connected at the hip and just the other day during baseball games and softball practices they made it official. They literally became connected by tying themselves together with a rope around their legs.

But that's a story for another day. This post is about sweet little Snap and how her patience was recognized and rewarded during the first part of our church service yesterday. Once every few months our worship team will purposefully NOT plan out our worship service. The idea is to let the Spirit lead us in choosing songs, reading scripture, sharing, etc.

The kids like this because they get to raise their hands and request their favorite songs. It's sort of like the old "Stump the Band" bit that Johnny Carson used to do, but these are real songs from our list of Choruses and the Hymnal and the band actually knows how to play them. Snip and Snap were seated next to each other (of course) and were both about as cute as you can imagine. While the rest of us were in our comfortable, casual church outfits, these little ones were in full church gear with dresses, pretty shoes, bows, fancy hair, etc. They are "girly girls" through and through and we love it.

Towards the beginning of the service, little Snap politely had her hand raised just to the height of the top of her head hoping to be seen. She didn't waive her hand in the air or anything like that--it wouldn't be very lady like. This went on for the entire time while poor little Snap was overlooked by the worship leader. There was time for one more request and it went to Mr. K, a tall adult who was standing just a few rows behind little Snap. Mr. K was a very respectable and sincere man of God who picked his moments to share carefully, only allowing real inspiration to move his hand in the air. The congregation always looked forward to what he had to say. With permission to share or choose any song to close out the worship time Mr. K spoke. "I was going to read Psalm 119, but since it has 176 verses, I've decided to yield my time to little Miss Snap." It was a moment that I never want to forget (hence this the blog entry). Snap picked the song Lord I Lift Your Name on High and we closed out the worship time with joy in our hearts and smiles on our faces. Thanks, Mr. K. You made this uncle very happy.

P.S. That's little Snap pictured on the top left. I'm honoring her parents' wishes for privacy with this photo (getting tons of chocolate from me and Miss Sniz for her birthday) so you'll just have to trust me when say that she's a cutie patooty.*

* P.P.S. The spell check for Blogger doesn't recognize the word "cutie" or "patooty" but did suggest I use the words "cootie" and "toothpaste".

Pancake Hugs

This morning at church I got a pancake hug from my youngest (aka "Snip"). I'm sure you don't know what that means because I just made it up. Sometime last year I told the kids that Sunday would be a special breakfast day. I'd make sure to get up and make a breakfast for everyone before church. It sounded like a good idea at the time...because it was. Of course, I stopped doing it. Kids don't remember things like that anyway, right? Right? Duhhh. You betcher darn tootin' they remember. They don't have a lot going on in their lives to keep track of, so it's easy for them to memorize entire levels of video games and remember "promises" we make to them.

So, last night I was reminded of my Sunday breakfast idea from little Snip. She said something like, "Daddy, remember when you said you were going to make breakfast for us on Sundays? You don't do that anymore? Are you still going to do it?"

How am I supposed to dodge that one? I felt pretty bad about it and decided to bring it back. So, this morning I got up and made a batch of homemade pancakes. All of the kids were pleased to have a nice hot breakfast, but little Snip was especially happy and thankful. Later on at church she gave me a BIG HUG (what I now refer to as the "pancake hug") and bragged about me to her cousin Snap.

Have you ever made homemade pancakes? It's really not that difficult and they taste so much better than the kind from the box. If you have leftovers you can throw them in the freezer and they will be obliterated in the next week by your hungry kids--or anyone else that you have in the house. Here's the recipe I use (below). This is actually a double recipe of the original. It's supposed to make 24 pancakes, but they'd have to be very little. Suffice it to say, this is usually enough for my family of five.

DRY INGREDIENTS (bowl #1)

Throw the following into your SIFTER* and then into a big bowl:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder

WET INGREDIENTS (bowl #2)

2 Eggs (slightly beaten)
4 Tablespoons Sugar (Sugar is a wet ingredient. Ask Alton Brown)
1 1/2 Cups milk
4 Tablespoons cooking oil (I use canola oil)
1 Teaspoon Vanilla extract (if you want--I do)

Slowly add the sugar and beat into eggs. Then you can add the milk and oil.

Mix the WET INGREDIENTS (bowl #2) into the DRY INGREDIENTS (bowl #1). Mix just enough to get everything wet. Don't stir too much and don't worry about lumps.

Pour pancake sized amounts onto a medium high electric skillet (or whatever you use). Leave room for them to expand and if you want you can even pick up the pan and let them move around a bit. If you want to add something like blueberries or chocolate chips now is the time. Just plop them onto the pancakes.

When you see bubbles throughout the pancakes, they are ready to be turned. Then, just keep an eye on them until they are done.

For best results set them on a wire rack when you take them out.

Now eat them and wait for your pancake hugs. They are worth it (i.e. the pancakes and the hugs.)

*If you don't have a sifter, get one. They're cheap.

Snip and Snap Update

Yesterday we had my youngest daughter and her connected-at-the-hip cousin/best friend together in the van. These are the two that I and Miss Sniz have referred to as "Snip and Snap" (see "Snip and Snap on Adulthood" and "things you brag about when you're 8") They are, among other things, notoriously slow when it comes to doing things like getting ready, getting into the van, getting out of the van, getting dressed, running into the house to get their Build-a-Bears, etc. Well, we were waiting on them to get out of the van and I made the mistake of saying, "Come on, Snip and Snap. Get out of the van." They both looked up at me and glared with excitement. They thought that was the coolest thing in the world and they were calling each other Snip and Snap (and figuring out which one was Snip and which one was Snap) for the remainder of the evening (as far as I know because they were getting dropped off at the grandparent's home). I just hope they're not keen to the fact that we've been writing about them on our blogs.

Snip and Snap on Adulthood

Last night we had the privilege of having one of our nieces stay the night to be with her cousin and best friend, Izzi. These to peas in a pod like to do a lot of things, but the one thing they do the most is talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. It's actually quite cute and sometimes very endearing. In order to protect their privacy, we'll just refer to them as Snip and Snap. Early in the evening, Snip and Snap were talking about the freedom that comes with being an adult and it went something like this:

SNIP: When you turn 18 you're an adult and your parents can't tell you what to do anymore.
SNAP: Yes, I know, but they can still hug you.
SNAP: I know.
SNIP & SNAP: Heee, heee, heee, heee-hee.

(NOTE: If you're going to make a comment and use the real name of the cousin, I will not be able to publish it out of respect to the parents. Thanks.)