Reelfoot Lake

The Cub Scouts had a very "cool" January outing to Reelfoot Lake State Park a few weeks ago.  Our group of 70+ ventured to Reelfoot to visit the museum, experience up close encounters with owls and snakes, and go on a 2-hour tour of eagle nesting sights.  After our chilly picnic lunch and hot cocoa, we ventured out on a cypress boardwalk nature trail.

Reelfoot Lake is a shallow natural lake created during intense earthquakes the winter of 1811-1812, when more than 15,000 acres of forest sank beneath the level of the river.  It was said that the Mississippi River reversed its flow for 10 to 24 hours and filled the lake.  The partially submerged forest provides 25,000 acres of wildlife habitat and, over the years has attracted hunters, including Davy Crockett in the 1830's.  Today the State Park is popular for recreational fishing and boating (using the unique "Stumpjumper" boats necessary in this shallow lake), and is noted for it's bald cypress trees and nesting bald eagles. 

During the winter months, the park offers bald eagle tours around the park.  A park ranger drove us to several nesting spots and common viewing areas.  What a thrill to watch these glorious birds soaring overhead.  Yes, it was chilly out there, but it was wonderful to get our boys outside enjoying God's amazing creation. 

Crash-Streak

We're on quite the crash-streak around here:

two china bowls
one coffee mug
four glass jars
one cup

All in one week!

Our concrete floors are absolutely wonderful - the kids can ride bikes indoors . . .
but they're not very forgiving.  

I see more plasticware in our future : )

Birthday Girl

A special day for our birthday girl:

last week we celebrated our five-year-old with a tea party, painted fingernails, crafted flower headbands, family game time, a princess movie, dinner out, and (the requested) pink strawberry cake.
All with spectacular ice decorations outside : )

Happy Birthday Maegli!

Five

Our pretty, pink, princess-ballerina-gypsy-artist is a whole hand . . . Maegli's FIVE!

Happy Birthday!

Q & A with Maegli:

What's the best thing about you? - because I am beautiful and pretty, and so pretty and pretty
What's your favorite thing to do inside? -  to play with toys and do ballet, and making hair things
What are your Favorite toys inside? - dollies and books, ballerina books
My sheepy is my little lamby an we can suck hands with lamby and i like it and I suck my hands with lamby when I sleep.
What do you like to color? - pretty pictures and pretty girls in the pictures and handsome boys
What are your favorite foods? - fruit and strawberries, and apples and banana and cucumbers an spinach
What is your favorite dinner? - pizza, pizza, hot burning pizza!
What do you like to do outside? - play battles with my brothers, pretend battles, and build forts
What is your favorite restaurant? -  Denny's because it's lovely and Daddy takes me there
What is your favorite ballet move? - Plie, you bend down your knees and that's how  you call it plie
What is your favorite thing to do with daddy? - to play with daddy, he wrestles with me
What is your favorite thing to do with mommy? - cooking and to hug you on the cheeks and you love to kiss me.
What do you do best? - sing and color and dance
Favorite color? -  pink!
What is the best thing about being 5? - I'm same age as Hiwot, and I get cake, strawberry cake!
What is your favorite animal? - panda bear
What is your favorite movie? -  Sleeping Beauty
What do you like to wear? - twirly dresses and tights and sparkly shoes and headbands
 What do you hope to do when you're grown up? -  to play and take care of my kids
What do you want to do when you grow up?  - I want to be a queen
What will you do as queen? - I'll sit on a big chair and wear big pretty dresses and that's it.  I'll only be queen.  After I'm queen, I'll be a mom.  I'll only be queen one day, then I'll be a mom. 

What a joy you are - We love you baby girl!  

Big Van

I recently took a trip to Memphis with the kiddos. 
We loaded up the big van for a trip to the Zoo.

One Mama, Eight Kids. 
We got a lot of looks,
and a lot of comments. 
The usual.

But then,
one sweet lady walked right up to us,
and boldly stated: "My, you are so lucky!"

Her comment made my day : )
I am lucky.
I am blessed.

She continued: "You must drive a bus!".

Yep.  A 15-passenger van.

For our next stop, we drove to a Memphis hotel
where Daddy had been for the previous week.
When he emerged from the front doors,
7 kiddos piled out of our bus,
excitedly greeting their daddy with shrieks, giggles, and bear hugs.

The joyful sight made my day : )
I am lucky.
I am blessed.

Maegli watching for Daddy

Happiness

Happiness = catching a snowflake on your tongue : )

Master Builder

 Our master builder has moved beyond Legos into the world of Micro Nano Blocks! 

Legos are by far the most popular and most favorite toy in our household.  Everyone loves to build and create (and Maclaren tries to eat them).  They were thrilled to get new additions to their collections this past Christmas and they all save up chore money to purchase new sets. 
We have amassed quite the collection of blocks - so much fun!

Back to Basics

After rocking the yarn twisties and pink beads for 6 weeks, we decided to go fully natural for a little bit.  Hiwot was thrilled to see how long her hair has grown over the past several months, fully protected in yarn twisties.  Her hair, stretched, is now nearly 5 inches long!

It was time for a trim.  After detangling and conditioning, I trimmed off about a 1/4 - 1/2 inch all-over, to remove dead ends and promote healthy growth.
Next, we shingled her hair (conditioning in layers to allow natural curl definition and prevent frizzies. This worked great for a few days, but took a lot of daily maintenance, so we moved on to style that required less work: flat twists.

She is very proud of her "ballet hair".  Tesfaye especially likes this style - it reminded him of how women in their birth village wore their hair.
I expect this to last about a week. . . I hope! 

Playmates

It sure is nice to have playmates.  The kids do a great job tenderly caring for the littlest in our household.  They keep her entertained and busy . . . what great helpers! 

11 Months

Today our sweet baby girl is 11-months-old!

It's cute to hear the other kids exclaiming "Oh my, I cannot believe she's so big. Maclaren's growing too fast!"  And what a joy to hear them talking about how blessed we are to have a baby girl. 

It's so much fun to watch as her personality is beginning to emerge.  She is growing more curious and more interactive each day.  Her latest thrill, blowing raspberries, which always gains her a roar of audience approval.  She is very proud of herself : )

  At 11 months:

.  SEVEN teeth  .  sleeps 10 hours at night  .  takes two naps each day  .

.  nurses 5 times per day  .  snacks on finger foods during family meals  .  wears 12 mo. clothing  .  

.  busy!  .  blows raspberries  .  loves attention  .  snuggle bug  .  fast crawler  .  

.  curious and into everything  .  puts everything in her mouth  .  talks with squeals and squeaks  . 

.  snuggles with a lovey blanket at night  .  attached to her pacifier : )  .

She is the favorite playmate and favorite entertainment of all. 
What a joy it is to have her in our lives.

Unique

Burke has a very unique and very distinct style to his art. 
He is an artist, with a perspective all his own.

I love his art!

The other day, the kids set to the task of coloring the Texan flag. Five were very straightforward:

Burke added his own flare to his Texan flag:

Davy Crockett and the Texan Flag

His artwork is wonderful, and very distinct.
- Each piece is framed : line of green grass at bottom, line of blue sky above, trees left and right
- Each features a beautiful golden sun
- Each has his wonderfully unique floating cartoonish figures
- Each has a lot of negative space
- Each has a story

Fantastic!

Learning

We're gaining confidence in our Ethiopian cooking.  After years of experimentation, we've successfully kept our injera starter going strong for 9 months, and have 9 dishes we feel we've mastered.  We typically make a big Ethiopian feast twice a month - making 4-6 dishes and injera each time.  And each time we learn new tricks. It takes a lot of time, but is a worthwhile investment. Ethiopian food is the very favorite of our household.  I only wish we could make it more often.

To prepare for our Ethiopian feast, I begin working with the teff starter for injera the day before.  I have also learned to prep my veggies in advance.  Spending time to chop everything the day before makes the cooking day go much more smoothly.  I also pre-cook as needed.  I brown the beef (if using) and fry the potatoes.  

On the day of the feast, I rise early to mix and blend my teff starter (to make injera, three seperate steps are required, each 8-12 hours apart - so if I want to start cooking injera at 4 PM, I like to complete step 2 by 6 AM.  Depending on how many dishes I make, I typically start the actual food cooking at noon (this gives me time to get some school done with the children in the morning).  I utilize all 4-burners on my stove top and every pot on my kitchen!  If we're making more than four dishes, I transfer a completed dish to a crock pot to free up a burner for another pot.  Everything is created at a relaxing pace, with plenty of tasting and lots of simmering.  The hands-on cooking only takes a few hours, then these dishes are left to simmer til dinner time.  

I like to make my injera in the afternoon so it will be cool and ready for rolling by dinner.  Each injera takes only a few minutes to cook, but since we make them one-at-a-time, making 20 requires over an hour.  This is the busiest part of the dinner prep.  Tesfaye is my helper, and each of our moves are choreographed as we fly around with grass mats, transferring injera from the skillet to the cooling area.  This is definitely a two person job and still seems very frantic. 

When it's time to serve, we roll up injera, and serve up several platters of food.  We like to serve the food "family style" - making up a platter for several people to share.  The platters are each lined with a piece of injera and topped with a scoop of each dish.  We put the injera rolls in a basket and the platters along the center of our table - convenient for everyone. 

It's been really fun to share our food with friends - and we certainly look forward to eating it ourselves.

Misir Wat (lentils), Fosulia (beans and carrots), Men Chet Abish (beef), 

 Costa (spinach), Shiro (ground chickpeas)