Morning After the Sleep-over

These first three pictures were taken last night as the girls settled in to watch DVDs. Poor Grant thought they would go to sleep at 9 pm (since our daughter's normal bedtime is 7:30 pm). When he mentioned that to me at 8:30 last night, I said, "WHAT?!! Honey, this is a SLEEP-OVER!" He naively replied, "Don't you SLEEP at a SLEEP-over?" Silly guy!!! The girls watched several Barbie DVDs and quietly laughed and whispered happily for hours. They finally drifted off to sleep after 2:30 am and were back up and running (as cheerful as could be) at 7:55 am this morning! This was the first sleep-over for all three of the little girls and the youngest one got home-sick at 2:30 am (being the LAST to fall asleep...happy as a clam until her buddies dropped into unconsciousness!). Thankfully, she quit crying the moment I picked her up, and she fell asleep quickly with just a little bit of motherly rocking. I had to re-rock her again at 4:45 am, but, again, she was fine the minute I picked her up and sleeping deeply within the first moments of rocking. It's been a long time since I rocked a child to sleep. I was exhausted at the time, but, it still was pretty precious getting to rock someone! The fourth child was unable to make it to the sleep-over, but happily joined us all for breakfast at 8:30 this morning and was able to enjoy the last two and a half hours of the party. I was amazed at how cheerful ALL the kids were the entire time. I would have anticipated some touchiness from lack of sleep, but there wasn't any!



The girls were amazed to look out the window this morning and discover that the ground was covered with freshly fallen snow. Doug quickly decided the backyard with all that tempting snow was calling to him. He ran around the backyard, entertaining Ransom most of the morning, while the girls did their partying inside. (Darcy had wrangled a last minute invitation to spend the night at her best friend's house last night, just as the little girls were arriving, thus escaping being the handy, built-in party entertainment director(!) and didn't come back home until after the party was over! Teenagers are slippery like that!)

All of the kids had HUGE appetites this morning and ate so many eggs and so much bacon and toast that I had to go back to the kitchen and fix more! One little girl ate THREE pieces of buttered toast and just went on and on about how good the toast was. I have always believed myself to be culinarily challenged, but Crystal informed me that I was a terrific cook, based on the toast alone! (And, I would like to assert here, that she is probably an EXPERT when it comes to ranking cooking abilities as her family owns and operates one of our restaurants here in town!)

Grant says, based on my new reputation for culinary excellence, I should share my recipe for buttered toast with the rest of the world....

1) (this is very important) verify that the toaster setting is at "2". If it is as "1", it just warms the bread up and dries it out a bit. If it is at "3" the toast will have blackish edges and everyone will complain.
2) (also very important) make sure the toaster is PLUGGED IN. Many a time I have fumed at how long the toaster is taking, only to discover it isn't plugged in.
3) (extremely important) spread butter all over one side of the toast.

You really should try this recipe! It is great (just ask Crystal!)...and it goes really well with eggs and bacon!


(Hey, Mom and Dad C...notice that gorgeous corner China hutch in the background of the pictures taken in the dining room? Your Christmas present arrived safe and sound!!!)


(Click here to see more photos of Doug playing in the snow today.)