i hosted a cupcake swap saturday night. and i’m afraid i’m still suffering the consequences. my stomach is in much too tight of confines to take that kind of abuse. if only we could do it again.

the girls each brought a finger food and a batch of unfrosted cupcakes. so we grazed and decorated and were very happy.

even marc was happy. because sharla brought him chocolate cupcakes, stuffed with cream cheese and chocolate chips. he almost didn’t notice that his house was full of girls and that his wife was insane. “you don’t dust off the top of the fridge for me…” (whine, whine). he’s not that fond of the pre-party fervor.

here are the boys. they had the whole spread to themselves and stayed there most of the night. actually, i spent a lot of time there myself. kandi made a gourmet, deviled egg tray that was very exciting. boy made mini-papads with mint and tamarind chutney and one of the girls made a lovely spinach dip.

and here is kandi herself, who makes yummy eggs and is cute. what do you know? and on the right you have the otto’s breakfast this sunday morning, courtesy of sonia. all the reason a girl needs to get out of bed. works like a charm. corn flakes have no similar effect, whatsoever.

for the birthday girl.

although, i am afraid that is all the closer she would get to it. those birthday girls, you never know.

but i am very pleased to announce that i did learn to crochet straight. finally. although this sense of well being was entirely shattered when i tried to crochet a simple, pineapple dishcloth. six times, to be exact. in the end we settled for a nice, square dishcloth.

oh yes, we forgot to show the little wooden dollies we got mallory too (to make up for the scarf). they are made by plan toys, we like.

if i died, he could all be yours.

and, in the event of any sad accident, someone does need to marry him. who else would iron my children’s clothes and wet down their hair?  you could think of this as a resume.

when i took the the jane austin quiz in the sidebar it wanted to know my ideal mate, whether he would be romantic, dashing, humorous, etc. which is all well and good, but i was taken by the last item on the list, “constant”. that is my hubby, tried and true, never faltering from one emotion to the other, content and if not, at least resolved. he is the most responsible, hard-working, self-sacrificing and un-murmuring person i have ever met. considerate to a near fault and entirely unassuming, yet he epitomizes teddy roosevelt’s famous quote about “speaking softly while carrying a big stick”.

and yes, that is his butt. definitely part of the resume but we shouldn’t go into detail.

the young lestat has his own blog now (since yesterday). what a pile of cuteness. yum.

for little lydia maude. i spent the morning helping kandi get ready. i got to comet out the tub and rearrange furniture. invite me over any time, i can’t resist.

here is the hostess with the mostest.

yes, thank you miranda.

and here is her house with stephanie on the left and melissa on the right. below is sophie and baby maude and one of billy’s strange sculptural sensations.

kandi made the loveliest food. i do believe i ate steadily from 2:00 to 5:00. here it is:

i never really made it to the deserts because i was too enraptured with kandi’s cream cheese dip. i made her write down the recipe before it defigmented itself from her imagination:

sharla came an hour early and helped get ready. i remember she did this at jehu’s birthday party too, and i couldn’t help but think she had the most wonderful way with carrots. it is true.

i spent saturday evening making tartlets. gayla had given me all these little infinitesimal molds that had, up till now, sat and mocked me in their little diminutive piles. “ha, you will never use us, we will just sit here and make you feel guilty for the next 5 years.” i couldn’t take it. although i would have, if i had known what making tartlets entailed. suffering.

it’s just that they were half the size of normal tartlet pans and you had to foil and pie weight each one. then half-way through cooking (when you were most likely to burn yourself and fling pie weights everywhere) you had to remove the foil and weights - and this was just for the crust. you still have to make the filling. but they were good, so i’m including the williams and sonoma pastry recipe and linking to the filling recipe, since people seemed to want it:

it was a good time all around. i still need to clean the pie weights out of my kitchen. i am procrastinating. sharla (the girl in the middle) made a neat little book of individually scrapped pages where everyone wrote down something they appreciated about sophie. to quote sophie, “no, don’t do that, you’ll make me cry. …and if i don’t cry, i’ll feel bad.”

(not me, i still have 6 more months) aunt becca and uncle doug. little “isaac douglas otto”, weighing in at 8 lbs 2 oz (3 weeks early at that).

to quote gideon, “the baby in becca’s tummy came out?” yes, yes it did, after a 9 hour labor and a few pushes it popped right out. hooray for more boys! i’m sure becca will post some pictures on her blog when she gets home so be sure to check.

we visited the farm this weekend. gayla made us scones, cupcakes, fried salmon burgers, homemade salsa and homemade jam. tractor papa took the kids to pick corn and feed the cows. how much fun is that?

lots. i’m afraid gideon wasn’t at all prepared to leave. “wanna stay with grammy, wanna stay with chocolate milk.”

here is jehu fleeing from supposed rabid dog. you can see his abandoned green wagon in the background too.

here is grammy telling jehu what she is going to do to said dog. “yes, yes, that sounds good.”

p.s. over the weekend i watched the painted veil. i was suspicious of this movie so i tried to check for spoilers on the internet. i remember reading things like “romantic”, “edward norton is a sexy beast” and “not your typical happy ending.” well they were quite right, edward norton is dang hot and it wasn’t your typical happy ending at all. usually the lovers don’t die of diarrhea and vomiting. very profound, i’m sure they could have mowed over their last remaining son with a train and it would have been even better. maybe i’ll run out and watch ‘hero’ while i’m at it and then something about a nuclear holocaust, just to keep me in the mood.

kandi has been making these lovely miniatures from modified photo prints. this is about actual size. she has more up on her blog and is willing to take orders if anyone wants to send an image her way.

they would look so neat framed and in a nursery. i will have to get some made of the boys for a certain grandma i know.

my family and boy’s came to visit us for the weekend. and what’s a visit from grandparents without rampant spoilation? here we are watching gideon unpack his new plan city parking garage from grandma gayla. (some assembly required.)

it was also entertaining to observe grandma sandy pull an entire go-cart out of the back of the little subaru outback.

along with this.

yes, that would be a third boob. just be glad i neglected to take a picture of the little removable fetus on the inside. i’m sure it will add quality taste and atmosphere to my living room for quite some time. until one of my friends (mackenzie’s due soon…) has a baby and then it will make the most opportune present.

later, all the womenfolk drove around hidden springs and oogled houses while the boys baby-sat. it’s our favorite thing to do. last time we performed crazy hit and runs in some of the more outlandish eagle subdivisions and no doubt aroused suspicions (you should see my car). and the time before we took a very legitimate tour of harrison boulevard and marveled at how many people don’t clean their baseboards.

here they all are.  my mom on the left, then jehu, natalie, reuben, granddad and part of gideon (who would otherwise be stark naked, yes, even at breakfast). i’m sure it will be a while before i see you all again, i will be sad.

if you’ve missed me, i’ve been on vacation in northern idaho. sister sarah was visiting from north carolina with sir suckling, husband, husband’s sister, daughter, and mum. consequently sister violet hopped over from maine to visit too, causing a general chain reaction compelling me to drive seven hours. here is auntie piolet toting the brand new scrom.

mackenzie and laura visited too. and you must excuse my smurf face. apparently that was the best i muster at the time.

here is boy with suckling. he insists that he doesn’t like other people’s babies. who would believe him?

mom had eight little kids over so she devised this lovely little tea party for them. however the hornets planned a mass attack and we had to move it inside.

it wasn’t quite as lovely, but i think the minions were only in it for the frosting and didn’t notice.

it certainly didn’t make one whit of difference to reuben, who should not be invited to tea parties in the first place.

saturday afternoon we headed out to go camping. i think there were 20 of us, all together. when our convoy pulled into the little four site campground, you should of seen the looks of horror on the faces of the legitimate campers. you know, the one’s who drive subaru’s and mull about quitely in their columbia jackets with their well behaved dogs and don’t pull the seats out of their van for extra seating.

this is a picture of the boy’s when they were still clean and below is a picture of the boys 10 minutes later. this is why mavis does not like camping. i had to change their clothes constantly. fortunately, i pack just about everything they own and find laundry to be a therapeutic adventure.

this is granddad on baby duty.

and here is reuben and boy ‘helping’ jehu get a rock he wanted. apparently no one wanted to get wet and there was a shortage of rocks.

i can’t say how much fun the boys had. it’s hard to understand once you reach the stolid old age of 26. …how lady bugs, sticks and gravel can be so overwhelmingly enchanting. but i guess they are, so we will keep at it on a faith basis and hope they thank me when they get older.

here is reuben handling gideon, who had just become a bio-hazard. two of a kind, if you ask me.

this is jehu right before he tried to saw off his finger. lots of blood and screaming but he’s quite fine.

it rained two days out of the four. dad forgot his hat and was always running about with something strange on his head. he had jehu’s overalls on for a while until i advised that he smell them. if you are going to put something on your head you shouldn’t find it in someone else’s laundry especially without making inquiries.

the little girl on the right is mia, sarah’s step-daughter. she is six “medium-sized” and cannot be lifted, “six year olds cannot be lifted.” she is the cutest thing ever.

we drove up to one of the lookouts. this is just like the one boy and i rented for a bit on our honeymoon, where we ate piles of cowgirl caramel sauce and skinny dipped in very cold rivers. you know, back when we were young and i was less expensive.

gideon liked throwing rocks in the river, almost as much as he liked peeing in the river. every time he had to go, someone had to walk him down to find the most strategic spot.

here we are on a little romp into the middle of nowhere. marc can’t wait till the boys can walk so they can explore the deep dark woods. i am less thrilled since marc and reuben found two rattlesnakes on their last walk. this we can do without.

tuesday, it finally warmed up and the boys got to play in the sand. they were less excited about the boat, however.

come on, tough it up.

grandma fed gideon animal crackers while he was in the midst of being buried and the inevitable happened. mmm.

and here we all are, looking good. they eventually got the pile up to natalie’s neck and she is probably still finding sand to date. thank you mom for taking such good care of us and making me french toast for breakfast. i think i survived.