Keeping Up With The Joneses: March 2014

Hailey has been learning about pioneers this month at school. I told her all of the pioneer stories I remember MY grandma telling me, and after reading a school book about a pioneer girl who is responsible to churn the butter for her family along the trail, we decided to try our hand at butter-making.

Since we didn't have a wagon to tie our butter churn to, I used the tried-and-true method of shaking heavy cream in a mason jar.

After about 50 shakes, Hailey was done. I shook it another 5000 times. Hailey, your poor family is going to be butterless along the trail if you don't step it up!

We do believe something is happening!

We spread some homemade butter on our authentic pioneer bagels atop our genuine pioneer plates.

We tried the buttermilk. Two thumbs down from two little girls-

but homemade butter on bagels gets two thumbs up.

Since we couldn't walk the Oregon Trail to burn off all of that homemade butter, we jumped. In true Pioneer spirit, we ignored the snow still melting in the yard.

Saturday both Makayla

and Hailey walked in the St. Patty's Day parade in downtown Billings.

Since I don't feed Amy and family on Mondays, we celebrated a day early on Sunday, using all those St. Patrick's Day crafts we've been working on for atmosphere.

I wonder if any of my kids remember our green dinners? On St. Patrick's Day, all of our food mysteriously turned green.

This year a leprechaun was nice enough to make us a rainbow,

but while we were at church, he turned the bread I was making bright green. Trust me, this picture does not do it justice.

It's really odd, since Hailey has been hard at work making a Leprechaun catcher for a school assignment.

Naturally, we checked it after seeing the bread, but the sneaky Leprechaun apparently managed to slip away. I wouldn't mention that part to your teacher, Hailey. Let's preserve your grade!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Watch out for those leprechauns!

Amy and I have been feeling completely winter weary. We did the obvious--we headed to toasty Denver for some R and R.

Kelsey was good enough to have a baby shower while we were there.

The best part? Two little munchkins didn't make the trip with us. Not that we don't love them and enjoy their company, but come on! I explained over and over that we were going to a shower for Kelsey's new baby and the only people there would be Kelsey's friends. Makayla said, "But I'M Kelsey's friend!!!" We still didn't let her go.

In my excitement to get away and party, I brought my nice camera but was too lazy to pull it out. Instead, I have just a very few iPhone pictures of our adventures, blurry and overexposed. Oh well. I wanted to remember the fun we had, but I didn't want to ruin it by actually getting my camera out of the car.

Here's the Jones's blurry cat, newly shaved. Love that tail!

Here's the same cat, drinking from the nice glass of water his two owners helpfully leave out for him. Someone should tell Kitty that glass is going to disappear in a few short months when the coming arrival learns to crawl. Or maybe not. Ignorance is bliss.

We journeyed to the local malls, where we found a booth willing to "thread" our eyebrows for a small price.

They didn't speak any English, so they either have studied the Art of Eyebrows for 12 years, practiced on famous models for 10 years, and set up a successful business in a busy mall for 5 years, or we were their first victims.

Yes, even I now have perfectly shaped and plucked brows.

When I'm visiting Kelsey, we always eat the most fabulous foods. Kelsey demonstrated the "making of the breakfast quiche" for me--eggs, feta, spinach, a little milk, a few spices. I'm pretty sure I need to have a few thousands more lessons before I'm ready for primetime.

Kelsey's friends came and set everything up for her shower. Her friend, Wynn (Winn? Wyn?) made the food and another friend made cute decorations, like those animal cutouts on the counter and a "Welcome Baby Koen" in another picture.

Her friend's sister made this adorable cake. "Koen" is the cute name Kelsey and Scott have chosen, as in "Oen", Kelsey's maiden name, plus K for Kelsey.

You know how some cakes are cutely decorated but taste "meh"? This cake was adorable AND tasty.

Lucky Koen now has lots of adorable new clothes, toys, blankets, and assorted baby paraphernalia.

We spent Friday night with the Joneses and Saturday night with the Bassetts. I found that Caden had shed a tooth since I saw him a couple of weeks ago,

and that the Bassett family is still charging forward, with lots of sweet baby-holders and family harmony.

Lest you think Amy left behind her precious princesses to boredom and drudgery, let me assure you they had lots of fun with Party Grandpa, who sent regular updates. Grandpa took the girls to the school carnival,

where Makayla became a Flower Child

and Hailey became a puppy.

We heard from a reliable source they also ate breakfast at McDonald's and played at the mall while waiting for an oil change. Does Makayla look less than delighted? Apparently she couldn't talk Grandpa into Build-a-Bear. Sorry Makayla, you can't win them all!

Our trip ended with a thump. Amy started to have a lot of pain in her tooth and ended up needing not one, but two root canals on a couple of abscessed teeth, one on Monday, the second on Tuesday. She's going to love that I posted this picture of her tortured, swollen, post second root canal face. You're welcome, Amy!

Here's Hailey's imitation of Amy's numbed lips.

All that time at the dentist means I get extra Grandma time. I pulled out all the stops.

Here are Hailey and Makayla, getting inspired by something Grandma found on Pinterest.

It involves toilet paper rolls and paint--right up these girl's alley.

There was also cutting

gluing, and drawing.

I spent several hours trying to explain why leprechauns say "o"

as in "Top 'o the morning to ya".

Hailey, Makayla, and I cut shamrocks out of coffee filters. I spent another several hours explaining why shamrock has "rock" in their name when they are clearly leaves. The reason is: I don't know.