It's payback time!

Whatever could I mean? When I was little I would volunteer my mom for all sorts of school projects: sewing costumes for 25 hand puppets, creating an assortment of confections and baked goods for the school carnival's cake walk, a chaperone for a field trip to the local petting zoo... and the list, unfortunately, continues to a point where neither my mom nor I can recall them all. And did I mention the critical detail that all of these were offered with little more notice than the night before the event? And this is where revenge is a dish best served cold. Like 20 years cold. My generous daughter, Marin, offered to bring the class a sample of a recipe called "Thunder Cake" from the book above. All the while assuring her classmates of my culinary genious. Apparently, they all started chanting, "cake! cake! cake!" which you can imagine boosted my ego and provided a situation in which I certainly could not refuse.
Did you see the time on the clock in the picture? That's p.m. people. It better be worth it. This cake better knock their socks off! Who am I kidding? You know they'll take a swipe of the frosting and dump the rest.
But the truth is, I'm not complaining. I'm grateful my daughter thinks I can whip up anything her heart desires. The time will soon come when she realizes she suffers from delusions of grandeur, but for now I'm going to savor this moment.
The pictures below show just how sweet my girl is. About a month ago, she surprised me with this cookbook she'd been working on for weeks. She had hand written several recipes she'd found in library books at school. I'll be sure to add "Thunder Cake" to my favorites.









"Thunder Cake" by Patricia Polacco

Cream together one at a time:
1 cup shortening
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs, separated
(blend yolks in, beat whites until they are stiff, then fold in)
1 cup cold water
1/3 cup pureed tomatoes

Sift together:
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup dry cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Mix dry mixture into creamy mixture. Bake in two greased and floured round pans at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Frost with chocolate butter frosting. Top with strawberries. Enjoy! (I love how Marin writes "enjoy" after all her recipes!)

Finally...

Kimball Lloyd Hulse has arrived! Another Hulse baby? The world just became a better place (We Hulses are revered for humility). Congratulations to Cam and Kathy. You guys are great parents. And super Congrats to Sadie Pants for becoming a BIG SISTER! ...Lucky! Man, I love that girl!
And I want everyone who reads this blog (all two of you) to look at how amazing Kathy looks just after having a baby! Can you freakin' believe it? Thanks for setting the bar impossibly high for the rest of us. I think I'll have to photoshop my next post delivery photo op. Smokin'.

February 10 Girls

Happy Birthday to some of the coolest girls EVER!

My daughter, Santi girl, with her little porcelain face and sweet pink cheeks.


My mom, Yolanda, who by this photo you can see quite obviously IS fast fashion. I love it. She's always been a great mother and a dear friend.


My great grandmother Maria. A very regal woman who tolerated two rambunctious mouseketeers snooping around and raiding her pantry. She made the best tortillas and I haven't tasted anything like them since.

As you can see, Santi is a lucky gal to be born on such a blessed day. And my mom can never claim that I never gave her anything for her birthday. That's the gift that keeps on giving. If it does in fact skip a generation, perhaps one of Santi's grandchildren will be born on Feb 10. I hope I'm around to find out.

Six Shooter

Six years ago:

Our family was not complete.

I'd yet to see your face and adore your little fingers and toes but my heart swelled at the mere idea of you. I wondered if it really was possible to love another child as much as the first.

Mommy was taking a midterm when you decided that it was time to be born. No one could have predicted your grand entrance at 9 pounds 5 ounces. (Well I think the doctor should have, but who's complaining?)

On February 10, 2002:

Our family became more complete.

I finally met the little girl who I'm sure was part of my life long before. So much fervor and zeal in one little body and simultaneously, endless tranquility in those soft blue eyes. And there is always more love in a mother's heart than she can ever imagine.

I am a stronger woman, more empowered, more faithful, more submissive to the Lord, and more certain of who I can become because you were born to me.

Plus you completely crack me up! And keep me on my toes. I love you Santi girl. Happy Birthday!!

Stair Master

Our little guy has mad skills. And he thinks this recent accomplishment should be lauded with praise. Every three or four steps, he stops, turns around and raises his eyebrows like, "Are you getting this? Is this working for you? Because I'm personally unsatisfied with your reaction." And he'll wait for the validation and then he will proceed with his hike.
Sure, we're proud that he can scale each step to the top. Are we happy about it? And, see this is what we could call a gray area. You might already imagine that this is an activity which requires critical adult supervision. Well it seems critical when you're confined there, scooting up every few steps at a time, laying back, but not too far, while you have a million other things to do. And because this has become his activity of choice, he will brave whatever obstacle that blocks his path to the ultimate rush.
What's that? Safety gates? Yes, well, we're on round two of that approach. Even though Brian was quite explicit in his instructions to our other children that safety gates are for safety and not for swinging out over stairs, the explanation was lost in translation (translating is hard). And I'm not going to divulge which child was the culprit but I'll give you a hint: it starts with Santi and ends with Hulse.
So although Abram is very adorable, for his parents, his recent skills are more madening than mad.

From the second photo you can tell that he is not only the stair master, but he is also the thigh master.

P.S. Please pay as little attention as possible to our nasty carpet. Unless you're going to email Brian convincing him to change it. I just want you to know, that I already know it's awful.

Sweet Santi

Let me first start out by saying that Wednesdays are not my best days. Bri leaves early for some special meetings at work or whatever and then doesn't come home until late into the evening because of Bishopy stuff. So usually I crockpot but I didn't even have it that together today. I grabbed the kids greasy cheeseburgers for din tonight. Sad. I know. Being Santi's turn to pray she says all the regular things about being thankful for the day and the chance to be together, etc... and then, "We're thankful that Mom let's us have fast food." My heart sank a little. And then, "Please bless Mom to get enough, enough, enough sleep tonight and tomorrow." It sank a little deeper. And the clincher? After Santi's prayer, Marin says: "Did you guys know that no two french fries are alike?" What? doesn't she mean snowflakes? Nope, she really meant french fries.
Because I have to monitor my kids' diets for more than just fast food fat content, I am quite confident we don't eat too much fast food. In fact, hardly ever, but it took me for a second, like, "Am I a highly-processed-food-serving sleep-in mom?" But even if I was, my daughter is so sweet to be thankful for me, whatever I am. She is so gracious and so forgiving. The redeeming part of her prayer? "I'm thankful for Mom who does everything for me and makes everything easy." That's the stuff I need to remember, for those moments when everything isn't easy and ALL I want to be is a highly-processed-food-serving sleep-in mom.

Fergilicious Bday!

...one year older and wiser too,
Happy Birthday to You!
Have a good one Jen! We hope that you have a great day and that when you blow out your candles you'll wish that we visit you and get a fergilicious tour of Chicago.
I can dream can't I?

High as a Kite

This weekend we went up to the kids' school to finally fly Bri's new practice kite. It was crazy windy and the kite just took off. It drew so much power it lifted Bri off the ground a few times which I thought was insane for a little trainer kite. The kids thought it was awesome. Marin and Santi both got a turn. It's not for the faint of heart. I tried it and was totally humbled by the kite's energy, which is to say that I told Bri not to let go fearing the kite would drag me across the field or worse. I'm a scaredy cat. So what.
We had tons of fun. As we're packing up everyone's gear: bikes, scooters, walkers, kite, etc... Bri coyly said that this trainer kite is big enough to land board. Um, what? So that's his hint that now he wants a landboard. Maybe. It is good recreation for the whole fam. I'm happy that he's getting a chance to practice before he takes a real kite out to the gulf. And when he can't get down to the island to kiteboard, he could use a landboard over at the Telemundo Soccer Fields. Yes, Telemundo.

Marin on her tippy toes and Bri making sure she doesn't take off.

Santi made it clear she prefers activities where her feet stay on the ground. Sort of.
Below is a clip of Bri with his new kite. I'm so supportive.

And speaking of High as a Kite....
The backstory is: We had a yard sale Saturday, of which I have no pictures and I wish I did because we were crazy mobbed by yard sale junkies. Actually, people have businesses out here called Ropa Usadas (Used Clothes), and if you served a South American mission, you might also be familiar with Ropa Americana where they sell or auction clothes by bales or drums. So people serge upon yard sales here and then sell them to or from a Ropa Usada. It's a huge enterprise. And all of this isn't very relevant except that we had a yard sale early on Saturday.
The real story is: Bri and I were in the garage late friday night sorting through our junk, getting ready for the yard sale when Bri said, "Do you smell that? Can you smell that?" As I'm walking outside, he says, "It kinda reminds me of my high school, or..." and before he said "rock concert" I said, "It's WEED!" I was like, "do you think one of our neighbors is having a party?" which is a stupid question because of course one of them is at any given time, at any time of the day (but that again is another story) But it was really breezy and the smell was so potent that we both looked at each other and knew that someone's field somewhere was on fire. And we were dying that we better hurry up or else we would both get contact highs or that all of the yard sale clothes would smell like culican. I guess that's just part of border life, or atleast, South Tejas border life. The borders truly are so porous and I can't even tell you how corrupt law enforcement is. So it says a lot about the people who really are trying to do their jobs. There's a sign at the border check that lists all different kinds of drugs seized presently for the year. The m.j. confiscated last year was several tons. Bri was like, "Several tons? Weed is so light, do you know how much they would've had to confiscate to weigh even just a ton?" So if any of you come to visit us and it smells like Dana Hills High School or Lollapalooza, you'll know why. And come to think of it, Brian did play a little Jane's Addiction the next morning... hilarious.