The girl can work a crochet needle

Back in May, while the grands were here, Jenna developed a new skill, under the expert tutelage of her grandmother, Alice. On previous visits she had learned a very simple crochet stitch, and had done this simple stitch off and on over the past 2 years, making a few things the size of, oh, a drink coaster.

On this last visit, Grandma showed her how to do some sort of stitch that makes a pattern. When employed correctly, you get not just a bunch of yarn tied together, you get a bunch of yarn tied together with strategically placed holes and arranged symmetrically into a rough square.

I confess I know zero about how they did this, how the yarn stays together, how those holes magically appear. As far as I'm concerned, it's some sort of voodoo, or it may as well be because if I started twitching a crochet needle and yarn, I'd just end up with a big ol' knot the size of a Texas grapefruit.

Jenna, however, became quite masterful at this skill, and did it regularly during the visit with the grands. She's also continued to crochet regularly (we've since bought two more skeins of yarn, and she's halfway through the last of those) until what was once an afghan that barely covered her lap is now almost as big as she is and ready to cover the lap of, say, a full grown orangutan.

If orangutans valued lap blankets, that is.

She's not only good at this newly acquired skill, she's speedy. In about 3 hours, she started and completed the second white section you see and began the last multi-colored yarn (Variegated? Is that what that's called? I guess I need to do more crochet-related research before I blog. I could google it, but...meh).

Here's to Jenna. New Smith queen of yarn work!

Sweet Sixteen

I admit it. This is WAY overdue. I haven't posted for 5 weeks.

Gulp.

In my defense, we have been a bit busy. End of school, two week vacation, two birthdays, an anniversary. There hasn't been just a ton of time for this.

Perhaps more correctly, I haven't made time for this.

But after multiple occasions of hearing the many women in my house ask, "When are you going to post on the blog?", I decided I needed to step up.

So we'll begin with what occurred the day after the last post. Anya turned 16. SIXTEEN!?!

Yikes.

We celebrated on her special day with just the fam. She got presents from all of us.Multiple gift cards to the bookstore (perhaps her favoritest place on earth).Earrings and bookmarks from her sisters.
Grandma and Paka were still here for her day. After a lovely dinner at Macaroni Grill, we grabbed two last snaps with them before they went to bed and left us the next morning at o'dark early.A few days later, we celebrated with a "little friends" birthday party.

You see, Anya has several kids that she babysits regularly and sees at church. They all think Anya is the bomb. Kind of her own little mini posse. And when her 16th birthday approached, she said, "I want to have a birthday party with all my little friends, so we can play games, and act silly and do all the fun party stuff. If I invite my older friends, that kind of stuff would just be awkward."

So that's what we did.There was pizza, of course. On the floor, because pizza tastes better there, I think.And the cake. Complete with Sweet Sixteen tiara. Tres chic.Lots of fun gifts from friends.
And the always popular unwrap-the-multi-layered-multi-boxed-present-while-wearing-annoying-plastic-gloves game.Good gravy! How many layers did I wrap that thing in?15 minutes later the present was finally unwrapped.

There was more frivolity, crafts, and a final group gathering on the trampoline.
My baby is really 16! - {lump in throat and watery eyes inserted here}-

Verenika!

No. It's not a foreign expletive.

Nor is it my pet name for Karen.

It is a calorie-filled, heart-attack inducing lump of culinary deliciousness, passed down through the generations of Karen's German heritage.

Karen's parents have been in town this week, and whenever they visit, we always have this wondrous meal.

Before I begin to declare it's gloriocity, I will confess that upon my first exposures to verenika, I was not won over. I saw not its attraction, nor fathomed its tastefulness. But after a few years, the grafting of my wayward branch into their German vine had taken hold, and I became a disciple of the verenika.

So, just what is a verenika, you ask? It's a pocket of homemade noodle dough, stuffed with a mixture of dry cottage cheese (think something closer to ricotta, not the runny stuff you eat out of a carton), egg and a little seasoning. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's all in the presentation.

The wonder begins with the homemade dough, rolled out thinly and cut into circles.The little circles of dough are stuffed with the cottage cheese mixtureand then folded over and pinched to make a nice little pocket.Any remaining dough is cut into noodles to use for...well, I guess anything you want to use noodles for.Once the little cheese/dough pockets are all made, they are boiled for 7-10 minutes. (Sorry, no picture. The cooks were too busy working to stop and document this part of the process).

At this point, you might think that the verenika would be ready to eat. The pasta has been boiled, it's now cooked, so they are ready to go.

Wrong.

I should say, you CAN eat them that way, but then you're missing several steps of goodness that only improve their delectability.

Once they've been boiled, they are then sauteed in butterWhile all this is going on, another necessary part of the meal is begin prepared: ham slices browned in a skillet.The ham is a nice addition, but it's really there so that ham gravy can be made from its juices, because after all it's not enough to boil, then saute the verenika; we have to smother them in a succulent cream gravy before we eat them, just in case we don't have enough calories or cholesterol.

Add some of Karen's homemade bread basted in her strawberry jam, and you've got a plate of German yumminess just waiting to be eaten.I know, even as I write this, that some of you are skeptical and don't think this can possibly be as good as I say. And possibly you wouldn't enjoy it as much as Karen and I do.But all that would prove is that you, dear reader, have no taste.

Birthday Mama

Let me say as this post begins that having my wife's birthday and Mother's Day within three days of each other is, in a word, wrong. I love my wife, and I love doing things that show her I love her. Is it too much to ask for a week in between, just so I can recover from one before I begin the other?

Alas, it is not to be.

But now that it's Mother's Day afternoon, and we've all made it through, I can breathe and see that really, it was a lot of fun.

It could have been just as much fun with 4 more days thrown in there.

Okay. Moving on...

We honored Karen's day of birth by decorating the house before she got home from a check up with the doctor (yeah, I know, not the best way to spend your birthday, but meh... you gotta do it sometime). Jenna provided the art work/posters, and we all scrambled to blow up balloons and hang the decor before Karen got home.On the previous night, I made Karen's favorite cake, a Chocolate Strawberry Torte, which was now chilling nicely in the fridge.{I must pause here and say, this cake is one delectable bomb of goodness}

For dinner she requested a steaming pot of Jambalaya.
Just checking to make sure all the flavors are marinating together nicely.

She arrived home, and the girls insisted that we open presents immediately.
Jenna made Karen a beautiful portrait of the two of them with our mountains in the background.I got her a new iPod (her old one was 4GB and filled up way to quickly with all her podcasts and music. Emily is gladly inheriting her old one) and Em and Anya got her an iTunes gift card so she can put some hip new music on her new purple gadget.Afterward, we enjoyed the yumm-o-riffic meal and dessert.
And I started thinking about Mother's Day.

In three days.

Actually, all of us had started our Mother's Day prep two weeks ago. iPhoto has a cool feature where you can design a book using your photos. You choose the photos and arrange them into the book layout in iPhoto and when you're finished, you e-send it to them and they send you a beautifully bound book in about a week.

So we had gathered together years of photos and culled them down to about 50, scanned all the old ones into the computer and then laid out the book. It turned out smashingly!I also took the pictures and some short video stories the girls recorded for Karen, added the Caedmon's Call song "Sacred" as a music bed, and made them into a movie.

Yes, there were tears when she opened up and looked at/watched her presents today.

And a contented sigh from me.