Picture Perfect

A lot of people complain about how "fake" the Internet is. They say that bloggers/social media users only post pictures of the presentable parts of their lives: clean houses, happy kids, beautifully staged photos of delicious looking food, etc. I don't really mind other people's cleaned up photos, because I know how crazy my life is, so I know that behind their beautiful pictures is likely another busy, tired, frazzled photographer. But I also know that between moments of craziness in raising young children, there is beauty, and joy, and hilarity.

Anyway, in the interest of full disclosure, here's the birthday cake I made for my 6-year-old today. Public Service Announcement: Whipped cream frosting should not be decorated with M&M's. It's pretty much going to ruin an otherwise tasty cake. Buttercream works. Whipped cream doesn't.

But you know what? The kids didn't mind that much. They still got to eat a cake covered in candy. It doesn't make for beautiful pictures, but it's real life. Messy, funny, and delicious.

Friday Tea Party

Celebrating the gift of some fancy dresses from a friend, 

and the completion of the school week, 

the girls hosted a tea party this morning.

Jenny presides at the tea table like a little queen.

Even in her Sunday best, Annie Sunshine is still a total flower child.

Laurel and Judy prefer to be quietly dignified.

When tea got boring, they moved on to games, including Simon (Annie) says, 

Duck, duck, goose, and  Ring Around the Rosie.

All fall down! Except Jenny. She's above such things.

Happy Birthdays, Annie and Laurel!

Laurel and Annie’s birthdays are just a few weeks apart, with my birthday in between, so we’ve been eating a lot of cake lately. In mid-August Laurel turned two, and on Sunday we celebrated Annie’s fourth birthday.

One birthday tradition we have is to go pick out a Happy Birthday balloon from the Dollar Tree every year. Laurel picked out a cupcake balloon with purple on it. It was perfect for her. In this picture she's pretending to call Collin to tell him about her new balloon. The phone call went something like this: "Hi Daddy! I two. Hupcake bawoon! Purple. Bye."

Laurel is really into anything purple, so I made her strawberry cupcakes with purple strawberry frosting on top. On top I tried making some fondant laurel flowers and leaves. It was my first experiment with fondant, and it isn’t as easy as it looks on Cupcake Wars. (Incidentally, Cupcake Wars is the girls’ and my favorite TV show to watch together on Hulu.)

These cupcakes won't win any decorating awards, but they were delicious!

Of course, we had to find some purple ice cream. I was about to grab a container of blueberry pomegranate chocolate chunk, which is sort of purple and very delicious, when I saw this berry parfait frozen yogurt. It was the exact same purple as the cupcake frosting, and turned out to be quite tasty as well!

For Annie's birthday we decided to make a sunshine cake. It's just a basic 2-layer round cake (lemon, of course), but the second layer we chopped into six pieces, turned them around, and frosted the whole thing in lemon and orange frosting. Add a smiley face and some fondant eyes (I saved some of the fondant from Laurel's birthday for decorations on Annie's cake) and you've got a happy sunshine!

Laurel had to lick the frosting to see if it was any good.

Then Jenny wanted to get in on the action, so while Annie was saying "Cheese!" and Laurel was trying to lick the candles, Jenny did a face plant on the closest sun ray and licked the frosting. Mmmm.

Annie and Laurel are both like, "No, Jenny! Don't eat the cake!"

We were traveling on Laurel's actual birthday, so we decided to save her presents and let Annie and Laurel open them together. Annie got the light purple fingernail polish she'd been asking for for months, while Laurel got her own pair of sunglasses since Annie was given a pair earlier this summer and the girls are frequently fighting over them. Yesterday I painted 40 toenails purple, and there was a lot of happiness on that account for the rest of the day.

Laurel's main birthday present wasn't finished in time for her actual birthday, which was the other reason we postponed giving her presents until Annie's birthday. I made her a quiet book, which she is unwrapping in this picture. She likes it. A lot. I took many pictures of the quiet book, and I'll put up a post about it soon. It's really cute, if I do say so myself!

Annie's main birthday present was a big set of cookie cutters, something else she's been begging us to get her. Our big project in preschool right now (year 1 of 2, since Annie won't be starting kindergarten until 2015) is to learn the ABCs. We're learning a letter a week, and happily this week we're on C... which is for cookie cutters! We've already made ABC biscuits for dinner last night, and today we made ABC oatmeal raisin breakfast cookies for Collin's morning microbiology class.

Preschool meets Microbiology

Oatmeal raisin cookies don't lend themselves to getting cut out with cookie cutters, but I more or less used this recipe, substituting raisins for the dried blueberries, and added a pinch of nutmeg and 3/4 c. flour. I had to thoroughly chill the dough before rolling, and then several times again as I cut out the letters. It was a lot of work, but the girls and I had fun using the cookie cutters, and how many times can you safely eat E. coli?

Now that birthday season is over and we're settling into more of a regular routine, I hope I'll be able to post here more regularly. I have a backlog of really fun posts waiting to be written, including Laurel's quiet book, some of the fun projects Annie and I are doing together in preschool, and more pictures showing you our new home and town.

Goodbye Bloomington, Hello Huntington

Collin, Jenny, Laurel, and Annie relax in our front porch hammock one last time in Bloomington 

What a whirlwind these past few weeks have been! Since we've finally gotten past the frantic "Which box has the shower curtain??" stage of moving, and are into the more gradual long period of settling in, I thought it was time to start updating my blog again.

Three weeks ago, Collin successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, "The Biogeography and Phylogeography of Disjunct Eastern Hemlocks Populations." Pretty much, it means he knows a lot about hemlock trees (the tall evergreen tree, not the poisonous herb), and he's spent a really long time in school. Anyway, now the girls and I get to call him Dr. Daddy, which is pretty fun. Grad school has been a long, difficult, and very good journey for both Collin and me, but I'm glad it's over and we can move on to the next chapter.

Collin's parents were able to come visit us to see Collin defend, so we wanted to move quickly while they were still around to help. Collin gave his defense talk on a Monday, and we were up in our new house on Saturday. As soon as Laurel (who is a week and a half shy of two years old) figured out we were packing everything up, she ran to her room and packed her prized possessions to make sure we were bringing them. Although she did a great job packing her blankets and teddy bear, I had to unpack them all again and put them in her suitcase so they would be nearby at all times.

With help from both our families and friends from church, the impossible-looking task of packing up and cleaning out our house was completed, and soon everything we owned was strapped into a large moving truck.

Then we said goodbye to the little house that Collin and I have lived in since we got married five years ago. It wasn't a terribly special house, and it had it's share of problems, but I loved it. It was the perfect place to begin our lives together. Toward the end, though, we were really bursting the seams of the two bed, one bath house, and it was time to move on even if Collin's job hadn't changed.

I'll write more about our new house soon, but I'll just say that God has provided so amazingly in giving us this place to make our home. It's a lovely, 145-year old Victorian, well maintained and with all sorts of potential and quirks. In this picture, Collin's dad is on the porch roof, handing our box spring through the window since it wouldn't go up the narrow old staircase. We've been up here for almost three weeks, and I still wake up sometimes and wonder where I am and what happened to the view of the park-like cemetery I used to see out my bedroom window at our old house. But every day we get a little bit more settled, rearrange a bit more furniture, hang up a few shelves, and make this house a little bit more homey.

Five Years Later

Five years ago, on a hot June day, Collin and I got married. We honeymooned in the Smokey Mountains, spending most of our time out of doors and in a cabin up in the mountains. It was perfect. The only touristy thing we did was to head into Pigeon Forge one day to get an old-fashioned wedding photo. We loved the portrait, especially when my grandma gave us an old frame that couldn't have fit the picture better if it was made for it.

To celebrate five years of marriage, we drove down to Nashville, IN this morning, and had our picture taken at Nashville Image. This studio seems to specialize in cheesy photo shoots for tourists, and I don't think the photographer really listened when I said I wanted a nice, classic family photo without too many props. The first dress they pulled out for me looked like something a barmaid might wear, but after a few tries we found a pretty green one that had a more elegant look. I did love the antique christening gown that Jenny got to wear, and I am happy to have a fun way to remember our fifth anniversary.

For our 10 year anniversary, I'm hoping we can stage the photo ourselves. We're going to be moving into a beautiful Victorian house, built in 1868. One of my many half-finished projects right now is reupholstering a Victorian-style fainting couch, which would be perfect for an old-timey photo shoot. All we'll have to do is make friends with some people in the theater department, so we can dress for the part!

Keeping things real

Here's a picture of my living room just before lunch today. Most every day is a tug-of-war between the kids fighting for chaos, and me trying to keep some order in the house. This morning, the kids won.

On a happier note, Collin turned in the final chapter of his dissertation to his committee today. In just a week and a half he'll defend his dissertation, and in two weeks we'll be moving! But for tonight, it's just nice to have my husband back. It's been many weeks of Collin coming home after midnight, every night.

Music Appreciation

My girls take music very seriously...

They're listening to Veggie Tales version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" on Grooveshark, which is one of our all-time favorite songs. And not to be giggled at.

Chocolate cake batter

 A couple mornings ago I accidentally made a chocolate cake. I say, "accidentally," because I really meant to make brownies. I wanted the brownies so I could fold them into a coconut chocolate chip ice cream that Collin had requested, but I grabbed the wrong box of mix and didn't notice until I stirred together the ingredients and realized something didn't look right. For Laurel this was a very happy mistake because it meant I had to pull out my handheld mixer and she'd get to lick a cake batter beater. This made my often stoic almost 2-year-old enormously happy. So happy that one photo can't do it justice.

Chocolate cake is the bomb!

The chocolate cake mistake had a happy ending too. It turns out that coconut chocolate chip ice cream tastes amazing with chocolate cake. As an ice cream it still would taste better with brownies, so it will take a few tries before I have the recipe perfected enough to share. Collin was hoping that would be the case, since it means I'll get to try making his favorite ice cream many more times. And Laurel will still get to lick the brownie batter spatula, so all will be well with the world.

The Five Hobbits

Why the Hobbits?

Our last name is Hobbs, and we’re raising a bunch of little people. Hence, Hobbits!

This blog is primarily for friends and family to keep up with us, as we begin a great Adventure of moving to a new town and job. As we’re about to enter a new stage of life, now seemed to be the right time to start writing on this blog again. I’d like a fresh start, so I’ve archived all of the previous posts.

One of the things that has made me slow to start blogging again is I’ve been trying to get a focused vision for what I want to write about. I want a place to share family updates and adventures, especially for family and friends as we move away. I want to be able to post recipes of things that turn out particularly well in the kitchen. I really want to write book recommendations and reviews, both of books I read or listen to myself, and of children’s books I read to my girls. And I also want a place to share pictures of the projects I’m working on, whether they’re knitting, sewing, spinning, weaving, upholstering, re-decorating, etc. Any one of these interests would make a good special-interest blog, but I don’t have time to keep multiple blogs, and I’d like the ability to write about any of these. So they’re all going on my personal blog, and if I write about a topic that doesn’t interest you, you can just scroll on through.

Although I am writing mostly for our real-life friends, it seems like a good idea to introduce you to our family here at the beginning. So here’s a little bit about us.

Who we are

We’re Christians. I always like to know where people are coming from, so if you want some labels, we’re reformed and evangelical. I like the term “Deep-water Presbyterian,” since we’re big fans of elder rule, but believe in believer’s baptism. Our home church while we've lived in Bloomington has been Clearnote Church Bloomington.

Collin and I have been married for five years. I grew up in Bloomington, and Collin moved here from Wisconsin seven years ago for graduate school. We live in a little 1940s rental house close to downtown, and some of our favorite evening activities are walking downtown to visit the library or get ice cream. Here's a little more about each of us:

Collin is in the final few weeks of his doctoral program in ecology. This fall he will be starting work as biology professor at a small Christian college. In the spare time that he doesn’t have right now, he loves gardening, outdoors activities like hiking and canoeing, woodworking, and restoring old things.

Kara (that’s me!) is a full time wife and mama. In a few weeks I’m going to complete my Ph.T. I love my job, and wouldn’t trade it for any other. This fall I’m looking forward to preschooling my (then) 2 and 4 year old girls. Besides Collin and our girls, I love sunshine, happy colors, books, food, fiber arts, and restoring old things.

Annie (3 ½) is a girly girl. She’s totally a firstborn, and loves rules and alternately taking care of and bossing her little sisters. She loves the color purple, picking flowers, and reading (looking at the pictures and listening to) books.

Laurel (22 months) is hilarious, independent, and adventurous. She presents a very serious face to strangers, but can be a total goofball at home. She also takes eating food very seriously, but is quite pleasant as long as her belly is full. Laurel is always making us laugh, and just old enough that she consciously enjoys doing it.

Jenny (4 months) is our little red head. She loves rolling around and chewing on things. Her first two teeth just came in, much to all of our relief. Generally she’s a pretty happy baby, and her smiles and giggles are infectious.

That’s about it, except for a quick note about comments. I love hearing from you, and knowing that you’re reading and hopefully enjoying this blog. Please comment! I hate that I even have to add this one caveat, but let’s keep things friendly. One of the reasons I stopped writing three years ago was because my blog got attacked by Internet trolls. Disagreement is fine, but personal attacks or threats really kill any enjoyment in blogging. Like our mama’s used to say, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

I’m excited to share our adventures with you!