Friday once again

It's been a busy week.  Here's what we've been up to...in brief.

Ashlynn's walking!  It's been a little over a week now that she's become fairly comfortable on her feet.  It's her preferred method of mobility now even though she can only go about 5-6 steps in a row before she loses her balance.  She can move much faster crawling so if she sees the front door open or the gate to the stairs left unlocked she will crawl to try to beat us to the danger zone.  She's thrilled with her new ability and seems to completely understand our excitement for her.  Step one to getting rid of pre-toddler frustration-master walking!

A bit wobbly but walking!!!  You can tell she's pretty thrilled with  herself.

Addie's moved past her matching school outfits and perfectly coiffed hairstyles.  She's been much more practical about her choices for kindergarten lately, choosing jeans or leggings and a shirt with tennis-shoes.  It's really quite amazing.  There was a time I never thought my eldest daughter would wear anything but a dress to school and today she came down wearing loose cotton pants and tennis-shoes.  She came home from school filthy so I'm thrilled she's realized that being comfortable enough to play and get messy sometimes outweighs the benefits of getting dolled up.  We are still working on a positive attitude about sweating though.  I told her that when I was in high school P.E. was my favorite class (I was a Varsity athlete in H.S. if you can believe it?).  She laughed smirked at me and said, "Not my P.E. class.  We have to work out!".  Which I thought was hilarious.  It's a work in progress.  I'm just pleased to report that this girl LOVES kindergarten.  Loves it so much she is bummed there is no school on the weekends.

Aunt Megan sent a box of crafting goodies for us which is always appreciated.  I never know when I'm going to need fun colored buttons or stencils.  Having a well stocked craft closet is key to surviving long days with the kids in Ethiopia.  An awesome monster play stage kit came along in the box and Arabella and I had so much fun putting it together and decorating out little monster puppets on Thursday while Addie was away for her long day at school.  Bella's head almost popped off from excitement when she saw the goggly eyes provided for the puppets.  She then proceeded to put on a monster puppet show for the next hour and later in the day made up endless adventures for the monsters (who all had extraordinary names-which I can't recall now).  I was cooking dinner while she played out an elaborate scene where the monsters were being rescued by Woody and Meles (Meles is the new name of her baby doll.  Named after Meles Zenawi the former Prime Minister of Ethiopia).  This kid cracks me up!

Halloween costumes have been ordered for the children.  Addie is going to be TinkerBell (it took me awhile to find one that was pretty and not a crummy Disney store itchy piece of crud). Bella is dressing as Woody from Toy Story ( I purchased a back-up costume just in case though because of the Curious George debacle of last year).  Ashlynn is going to be an adorable owl-because she's still young enough that I get to pick for her.  I am beginning my preparations for our annual kids Halloween party that will also double as Ashlynn's first birthday party.  Yay for party planning!  I have some fun crafts in mind and I should be receiving a box in the mail soon full of fake spiderwebs!  Do you get excited for Halloween like me?

I reworked my chocolate chip cookie recipe so now it behaves as if I were cooking at sea level.  They are soft in the middle with a crust on the outer edges, just how I like them.

Market Day today was a success.  I sold out of all my goodies in 45 minutes.  I could have easily sold another batch of everything.  It was wonderful to hear some feedback about the treats from last Friday.  I was especially thrilled that everything was well received.  Someone loved my little leaves on the apple pies (which is my favorite as well).  Someone else told me they literally "wrote home" about the cranberry white chocolate almond scones, which is a very nice compliment.  Overall, I had a lot of returning customers, lots of people who had heard about Ladytroupe Sweets during the week and had to come see for themselves, and one offer from another vendor to go into business together-no kidding!  It was so much fun!  Next week I might have to have a few more batches so no one goes home empty handed.

I was really thrilled with how my Icebox cupcakes turned out.  They are imperfectly pretty which is how I like my goodies.  I'd rather eat a ragged gooey cookie than a perfect looking tart any day of the week so I especially loved these leaning chocolate wafers stacked with dollops of whipping cream.  These little treats mean a lot to me and I hope my MIL is proud.  They sat in my icebox for two days and then I topped them with whipping cream and chocolate shavings this morning.  They looked divine.  Don't you think?  We have a friend who's daughter is allergic to eggs and will be turning one a few weeks before Ashlynn.  I'm hoping they will let me make an icebox cake for her for her birthday.

I spent a lot of time this week trying to make sense of the events in Libya and the tragic death of the US Ambassador and his colleagues in Benghazi, Libya.  I completely failed in doing so and instead I've been praying for the victims and their families.  I've also been giving my husband a few extra meaningful hugs and "I love you"s just knowing that it could have been anyone's loved one involved in a similar horrific tragedy in any country around the world.  The older I get, the more these type of things hit me hard and make me want to move to a small rural farm, raise chickens and bake pies.  Sometimes the ugliness in the world is just too much to process.  

In lighter lame-oh grown-up news, we received season 3 of Community in the mail this week so you can guess what we are doing this Friday night!  Hope you all had a wonderful week too!

Freebie iced green tea for my customers!  Leftover from kindergarten potluck the night before!