To be a Princess

Over time, a lot of negative things have been said about the female characters in the classic Disney fairy tale movies. The original princess, Snow White, finds her greatest worth in cooking and cleaning for seven little men. Aurora actually just sleeps until Prince Philip makes out with her, and instead of standing up to her wench of a stepmother, Cinderella passively endures abuse after abuse until her prince (does he even have a name?) sweeps her off of her slipper-losing feet.

The more modern Disney princesses have a little more spunk, and more often than not, control their own destinies. Belle wants adventure in the great wide somewhere, Merida bucks tradition and refuses to get married, and Elsa and Anna rely on their own act of true love to thaw Anna’s frozen heart. Awesome.

As a mom of two girls, and a self-proclaimed Disney-phile, I fill our house with the movies, merchandise, tiaras, and princess dresses. And while I’ve never taken much stock in the idea that these movies “train” young girls how to behave, I do wonder what, really, it is that they are learning from these movies. Because let me tell you, these girls love them some princesses. Love. And truth be told, so do I.

So a few weeks ago, I decided to ask my Mazie, aged 4, what she liked about the princesses. Is it their dresses? Is it the castle? Is it their beauty? If I had any misgivings about letting my girls watch (obsess over) the princesses, I don’t anymore. Here is what she said she liked about each of the princesses:

Merida – I like that she shoots bows and arrows

Rapunzel – I like her long hair and frying pan

Snow White – I like that she’s nice to the animals

Sleeping Beauty – I like the way she dances so beautifully

Mermaid – I like the way she sings

Cinderella – I like it when she makes clothes for the mice

Elsa and Anna – because they love each other

What I’m taking away from this, folks, is that my daughter is learning that it’s pretty cool to have a good talent and to be strong. She’s also learning kindness. She’s learning that people express themselves in different ways. And she is learning that sisters can also be best friends. What great lessons; critics be damned. I guess we’ll be renewing our Disneyland Annual Passes again this year!

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Holiday Stuff and Such

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It’s the advent of Advent.

And since I am always—ALWAYS—standing at Michael’s on the first Sunday of Advent afternoon, begging for someone, anyone to show me a pink taper candle in November, I thought I would share my newest and greatest discovery:

THERE ARE PACKS OF ADVENT CANDLES FOR SALE ON AMAZON!!!

With Prime shipping even. Which means you could have your Advent candles whole DAYS before Advent begins.

I know, I know. #ThisJustIn

Also, Thanksgiving is three days away which means you have probably not yet done your menu planning and/or shopping.

Have no fear. Dana and I are here for you.

Here are our favorite holiday meal recipes from years past.

Pumpkin Pie, Cranberry Sauce, Cranberry mustard, Holiday Cobbler, Caesar Salad

Plus, I highly recommend this Brussel Sprouts and Quinoa recipe with a lemon vinaigrette. BUT. If you click that link you need to know it’s a Thug Kitchen recipe. So there will be curse words, mostly ones that start with F.

We’re going to try and post a daily Advent reflection starting Sunday November 29 on our Facebook page, so join us over there if you’re interested.

And lastly, just in case this is the year that you are ready to do the Advent thing with the little people in your house, here are our two previous posts with ideas and resources.

A Time of Sacred Leisure and 2nd Annual Advent Ideas.

Have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving.

May your turkey roast to perfection, may the marshmallows brown but not burn on your sweet potatoes and may your gravy hold and not break. And if you don’t know what any of that means, may you remember to the hug the people who do.

We’ll leave you with this prayer of grace, given to us by a great man many Thanksgivings ago:

Dear Lord, thank you for this food and especially for those who grew it, those who cooked it and those who brought it to the table. Thank you for the friends and family who gather round to share it. Help us to always remember and honor our blessings, come to us through your goodness and mercy.

In your name we pray,

Amen.

Boo Fail

I’ve written about Boo Baskets before. But I have an update.

For the first time in 5 years, we got caught.

Boo Baskets are not a thing in Southern Oregon. When I texted the moms of the four families we picked to tell them we would come a’booing, I found myself explaining the entire concept, four times.

My friend Leah—and she’s six months pregnant so I’m going to cut her some slack—didn’t tell her husband. Which led to this:

Leah’s house has enormous front windows. They also own a huge English Bulldog named Ozzy. The house sits a block from the town football stadium–I’ll take responsibility for choosing a Friday night when their street was packed with cars, mostly driven by mostly sober teenagers.

We had a strategy session in the car after we cruised the house. It was decided Shea would man the getaway car, the girls and I would hide behind Leah’s minivan and Gabe would do the real sneaking.

We neglected to notice the fence around the front yard to keep Ozzy in. And the screen door that swings instead of shuts so that he can get in and out.

Gabe made it to the door and back the first time, no problem, except that nothing happened.

“Did you ring the doorbell?” I whispered. He smacked his forehead and went back. I remembered too late that Leah told me the doorbell doesn’t work so I had to send him back a third time. “Knock loud!” I told him over the minivan.

And he did.

He barely made it back to the minivan before we heard the door squeak open and closed. Usually this is followed by “Hey, look what we got!” but this time there was nothing. Dead silence. So Gabe peeked. I wish I had a picture of the terror in his eyes when he came back down. He pointed, mouthed “A MAN” and then made himself into a tiny ball.

Well, dang. Sure enough when I looked around the corner, I saw a man who I hoped to God was Leah’s husband crouched around the other side of the minivan, preparing to launch himself right where Annie was hiding.

He wasn’t wearing his Welcome to my house face either.

So first I got big and then I got loud: “Hi! I’m Jen. You must be Jason! Did Leah tell you we were coming?”

He shook his head no, and you best believe I noticed that he didn’t actually speak to me. So I shoved Annie out where he could see her and pulled Kate–who, bless my smart girl, was already talking as fast as she could about her “great friend Ella”.

It took thirty seconds of explaining before his jaw relaxed, but then he was all in.

“Knock again” he told Gabe. “I’ll make sure the girls answer the door.”

Down we crouched and off Gabe went, for the fifth time in case you’re keeping score at home.

We heard the girls answer the door and find the basket. Squeals of excitement. The it got quiet. Gabe peeked, nodded that the coast was clear and I grabbed Annie’s hand and stood up.

To a chorus of screaming.

Ella and Anna came around the corner just as I moved and caught us stone cold.

Ozzy came out the gate and peed on my foot, he was so excited to see me.

(Later I told Gabe he was lucky that Ozzy must have been somewhere else, or we would have gotten caught the first time.

“He was right there, mom. He saw me. He wagged his tail like he was excited.”

#Guarddogfail.)

At this point we had been gone so long that Shea came up the street to find out what the heck was going on, and that is how we met Jason, Leah’s husband.

Leah was not at home.

Best laid plans and all that.

For a reminder of how Booing works go here. Or Google it. There’s lots of cute ideas out there.

Summer 2015: Camp Happy Update

Clear water swimming is a lot less stressful than ocean water swimming. (Except when your son yells “Mom, I found an underwater cave!” and you tell him not to swim through it and he already did. That’s stressful, maybe even more than the thought of a shark lurking in the surf.) We have enjoyed swimming holes and rainbow trout nibbling our toes and water so clear we can see forty feet down. And we learned that lake hair is much better for our hair than beach hair. But not as cute.

The summer pool membership was a good call. Mostly because they serve booze there.

I came out large against camps and our kids only did a few. For the most part, it was a good call. We really got into a summer rhythm of going to bed late and sleeping later. There were lots of activities up my sleeve that we never even had to try, like the $2 summer movies or the local kid’s museum. However, I was really ready for school to start yesterday. Really, really ready. I need a break from refereeing Every. Waking. Moment.

There were lots of playdates. I enjoyed getting to know the moms better. We bonded over muffins and floaties and even a camping trip. There are some rock star moms here in our valley.

This was a playdate. At a swimming hole! Oregon rocks!

In August, there will be smoke in the valley. And when I say smoke, I’m talking 31 days straight. Not like in So Cal, when the smoke can hang out for three or four days and then the wind shifts and blows it all back to Arizona. It just sat there for weeks and weeks. Can’t see across the valley bad. Can’t go outside bad. Shouldn’t be having football practice but the season starts in two weeks so what are you gonna do bad. Bad.

We did a lot of reading. I am three books into the Clan of the Cave Bear series and have three Alice Hoffman books waiting on the bench. I love me some Alice Hoffman. Gabriel highly recommends the Wings of Fire series for boys his age (9-12). He’s read it twice this summer, he loved it so much. Kate continues to believe that reading is over-rated, but she liked her Frannie K. Stein required reading book well enough.

Once Upon a Time is a really good show. Not really, but it’s been my summer TV binge and I’m Hook’d.

The garden. The garden is a whole other post which I don’t have time to write because I have one million tomatoes to turn into sauce. And I’m nervous about that because there have been two canning fails over the last few weeks. I’m shook.

The seals blew on these red hots apples. They aren't supposed to float. And they surely are not supposed to be up side down. — The seals blew on these red hots apples. They aren’t supposed to float. And they surely are not supposed to be up side down.

The bottom of the jar blew out of this one. What??? — The bottom of the jar blew out of this one. I don’t even know…

We have one last camping trip this weekend, and then we say goodbye to summer 2015, one of our best yet! Next up: 100 Days of Holidays!

Only 115 days until Christmas!

The Dog Who Cried Monster

We have these two dogs.

Sugar is 12 and the greatest dog in the history of dogs. Seriously.

Lizzie is almost 3. She is not the greatest dog. She is not even the greatest basset hound. She has a very pure heart, but she’s 70 lbs of ready, fire, aim.

She and Sugar rarely see eye to eye and as Sugar gets older and more arthritic, Lizzie has begun to assert her place in the pack.

Shea is not having this. Sugar is his dog and he will fight to preserve her place. Even though I have told him that dogs do this. The leadership naturally passes to the younger dog. It’s useless for us to interfere. There’s nothing we can say or do.

This does not stop him from trying.

So when Lizzie started barking at Sugar constantly last weekend, Shea had no patience.

Lizzie barked at Sugar to get up from her bed. Shea yelled at Lizzie to stop.

Lizzie barked from the top of the stairs at Sugar down at the bottom. Sugar whined back and Shea chased Lizzie down the stairs and out the doggie door.

Lizzie howled from downstairs at Sugar asleep in her bed. Over and over and over. “She needs to leave Sugar alone” Shea said. But I wasn’t sure that was it.

I did a once over on the floors. Sugar has been known to have accidents and Lizzie has been known to tattle on her.

I checked their food and water. I fed them. We have to separate them and this resulted in Lizzie barking frantically at the closed door where Sugar was eating.

I told Shea “She’s not barking at Sugar. She’s trying to tell us something.”

So Shea checked the backyard for signs of critters, invaders, space aliens. Nothing.

This went on for four days.

Yesterday afternoon, Lizzie set up a giant fuss in the girls’ room. I finally called her up the stairs and she came. But then she whined at Sugar in her bed for five minutes until I made Gabriel take her for a walk.

Last night she did it again. And let me just say again, she’s a basset hound. She only has one volume: full-throated. It reverberates through the body.

I’d had enough. Off I stomped down the stairs.

Lizzie was on pointe in the doorway of the girls’ room. That gave me pause.

When I stepped into the room, she gave one last bark and bolted.

Holy moly, I thought. What’s in here?

Then I saw it.

When Lizzie was barking at Sugar to get out of her bed, what she was really saying was “DUDE! There’s something down there!!! Get up!! I don’t know what it is!! Get up! Get up! Get up!”

Then “It’s right there. Right there. RIGHT. THERE. Be careful. But get it! Get it! Get it!”

And “PEOPLE. I don’t want food. There is a thing in the house that is going to eat the children if you don’t get it right now!!!!

She was right.

Beware the sheepskin.

My inlaws gave it to the kids on Sunday. Since then it has been spread out and folded up in different places all over the house. At one point Gabe put it on and chased his sisters around.

To a dopey dog with a small brain, I’m sure it looked like a monster. A monster that moved, curled up on the couch and slept on the floor in the girls room.

DANGER.

Poor thing. Just trying to keep us all safe.

Shea has apologized.

And I’m pretty sure that Sugar laughed herself to sleep.

Sugar is not scared of the sheepskin monster.

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