Gatherings

Well hello friends!  Let's pick up where we left off, shall we?  Somehow in the whirlwind that has been my second semester of college we four sisters found ourselves back at home.  All of us, at the same time.  I will never take that for granted again!  It was such a relief just to be with all of my family members.  I come to learn more and more how priceless the encouragement of family is.

We were home for Easter weekend and I know I enjoyed every minute of it!  We had lunch with our extended family and had our traditional Easter egg hunt, which the younger three sisters still participate in.  After a rousing game of Dirty Easter Bunny (we've just recently started playing the gift-stealing game at our holiday gatherings) we waved our extended family goodbye and dyed eggs with just us 6.

I love the smell of vinegar, I think it's because I love dying Easter eggs so much! 

We combined efforts this year and had a joint carton, which worked a lot better for those of us who are a little more meticulous about our egg art. (yours truly)

We went to our Easter Sunday service and then returned home to open our Easter baskets, which were especially well-stocked this year!  I even got a Starburst jelly bean dispenser, which is the best Easter present I have ever received!!  We looked through our baskets on our stairs, which, other than the front porch, is our traditional spot for some reason.  Don't ask me why. 

We had lunch with my dad's side of the family and then had a photo shoot, 

because it seems like I can never find a good picture of us four.  Here you go, with a special thanks to M and D, our faithful photographers!

Of course we had to get Tucker in one, which is easier said than done.  She was camera-shy that day.  

The time at home for Easter was short and sweet, and was the perfect interruption for a busy semester.

Sarah and I were extra busy this semester because we spent most of it preparing for Variety Show, our school's dancing/acting/singing competition.  We practiced almost every day from February to April and I loved it.  It felt great to get back into the swing of learning choreography and figuring out costumes and characters.  Our sorority's theme was The Lion King and Sarah and I got to be lions.  We had so much fun dancing together, and our hard work paid off when our sorority won!   Dad even came up to watch us which was so wonderful.  Here are some pictures of our crazy costumes, hair, and makeup!

 We did each others' makeup, which looked especially scary mid-application!

 Finished!

Here's a close-up of our lion group during the show!

The morning after the show Sarah, Daddy, Karl, and I drove back home to see Mary Claire perform in Hello, Dolly at our high school.  Anna came, too!  Even now I still have songs stuck in my head from it; it was incredible!  I was SO proud of Mary Claire, she was a beautiful Ms. Irene Malloy.  She acted and sang her part perfectly.  

Only a few more weeks are left of school and I can't believe it.  I'm focusing on finishing strong and then speeding home to spend some summer days with my family!  Here's to more memories and blog posts! :)

-E

Carpe Diem

Hey, y'all!

Sorry for the lack of posts; these little ladies have been busy! We had sorority initiations, weekend roadtrips, Homecomings, formals, and a Valentine's Day!

I'll let the others tell about their events, I just want to give a little update on things back at the ranch! Deb Deb and Tom Tom have been parenting this little lonely one by herself again. We miss those girls. :) But we have been going going going here too!

Homecoming: I had my last Homecoming as a student! Ah!! I can't really believe it myself. It was bittersweet; it's just another "last" for my Senior year.

Our theme was "Holly Jolly Homecoming" and our senior hall was 4th of July!

We were proud:

^^There's my friend Anna! :)

My favorite part of the week was when my Senior class set off sparklers in our cafeteria. Yes. INSIDE. It was neither allowed nor prohibited by the administration... The smoke alarms did not go off! Which was good but also kind of scary. It was pretty smoky!

Next is Formal! My high school has a Winter Semi-formal dance the week after Homecoming...yet another "last"! It was a good time:

That's me on the left with my friends Katie and TA!

THEN I HAD A SNOW DAY!!!!

I shouldn't be so excited; there wasn't actually any snow. Yet, the threat was enough for our FAVORITE head of school to cancel school! The early Valentine's Day present was much needed. Daddy woke me up with the news. I was so happy that I hugged him! Then my mommy woke me up with Chik-fil-A! IT WAS A GREAT DAY. :)

Also on this best day ever, I baked. Cupcakes and cookies to be specific. The cupcakes were nothing special, but the cookie recipe I must share.

This is an old stand-by for our family. We call them "Drop Cookies" because you drop them onto wax paper to cool. Apparently, most people know them as "No-Bake" cookies. Daddy doesn't like them, so that always means more for the rest of us! ;) You can tell this recipe is well-loved:

RECIPE:

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup milk

1 stick butter

2 1/2 TBSP. cocoa

Mix together on the stove top in a sauce pan and let it boil for 4min. on medium high heat. Take off the heat and add these ingredients quickly:

2 1/2 cups Quick Minute Oats

2 tsp. vanilla

(and an optional 1/2 to 1/3 cups peanut butter that I usually leave out)

Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper. They will harden with time.

Then eat them!! They are especially yummy warm. Do not be deterred by the copious amounts of sugar and butter. You only live once. ;)

I hope you are enjoying your February. Happy belated Valentine's Day!

~Mary Claire

Traditionnn...Tradition!

   Welcome to 2012, everyone!  Even though Christmas is over, I thought it would be nice to share a few of our Christmas traditions.   Two of our favorites are decorating the tree and making pretzels for our neighbors.
   First of all, we get a REAL tree.  This is very important to us... we pick it out together and it always makes the house instantly turn Christmasy when we haul it into the house and the pine-needle smell fills the living room.  We use a homemade felt tree skirt and our collection of ornaments.  Atop the tree is perched an angel that Mama and Daddy bought in Maine before any of us were born!  We put on Christmas music and decorate the tree.
   Every girl goes into her own decorating zone.  Sarah puts her favorites and the prettiest ones on the tree, and gets done pretty quickly.  Anna wants to get as many ornaments hung as possible and be done with it as quickly as possible.  I take my time and am in my own little world of remembering.  I put mine all over the tree, making sure each part is decorated.  Mary Claire is systematic and puts on her favorites but doesn't waste time.  She knows when to stop and is usually finished first, or second to Anna.  Mama and Daddy love to watch and give suggestions or join in on the reminiscing.  What I love about our tree is that every ornament has a story.

Dancing with Tucker!

Never too old to dance on Daddy's feet.

Daddy playing the Hershey kisses bells.

Already finished and relaxing, of course. 

Anna and my first Christmas!  And Sarah's is the Precious Moments one to the left.

    Now that the tree's all decorated, on to our next tradition...white-chocolate-pretzel-making!  Every year we make white-chocolate-covered pretzels for our neighbors and deliver them to everyone on our street.  We have been told that our neighbors enjoy them and we enjoy the time spent making them!  By now we are a well-oiled pretzel-making machine.

Every girl takes a corner of the wax paper and we work until there is no room or pretzels left!

Mama supervises and Daddy eats.

The finished product!  These go into bags that we hand-decorate.

   Usually Mama drives us down the street and we all ride in the trunk and hop out at each house.  This year Anna manned the wheel and we brought Tucker to escort us.  We persevered through the cold (it was Christmas Eve) and left surprises on our nieghbors' porches.  A few days later we ran into one of our neighbors.  She thanked us for the pretzels and said that her husband had been afraid that we had outgrown the tradition.  We answered, "Of course not!"  It takes effort and planning to get these traditions done (especially now that 3/4 of the sisters are at college), but they are important and we enjoy them year after year!  Here's to another year of old and new traditions!

'Tis the Season

'Tis the season, right? Yes. I love Christmas. It is absolutely the best. But before I get into that, I will give a small update on the past few months.

As you all know, we went to New York for Thanksgiving, which at first I will admit, I was not very enthusiastic about. Just because I wanted to sleep at home. Who knew people were actually telling the truth when they said you don't sleep in college? I know now. Anyway, so we went there and saw the Macy's Day Parade, which was great, did some shopping, and saw a few shows. The highlight would definitely seeing Daniel Radcliffe in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". Super good and just really cool seeing him in person! It was a great Thanksgiving and so much fun being in NYC, but it is always good to get back to the pup on the stoop!

Here are some pics from that little vacation:

The seesters in NYC!

Mary J. Blige for ya!

There he is!! The back of Daniel's head.

*due to his shorter stature and the position in the crowd I was in, no facial picture was taken! but oh well!

Us with Daniel!

Anyway, so that was the trip! Onto Christmas! I love it. and the lights. So pretty. And yes, i am that person who makes a Christmas Pandora station the day after Thanksgiving! This Christmas was a bit different than ones in the past and I am not one for change. haha :) It really put Christmas into perspective. Not focusing on the presents and the gifts, of course those are great, but really paying attention to the whole reason we have in the first place. "The reason for the season", if you will.

I'm slowly but surely learning to focus on my blessings and not my wants. Which is a challenge, but I've accepted it whole-heartedly. Not to get all sappy and what not, but really just putting it into the truth as I see it, and what Jesus means to me and that He is the reason for everything. Our candlelight service at church focused on the question:

how did we get here?

that's all I have to say. Hope everyones' days were filled with blessings and joy from Jesus.

Merry Christmas!- akh

Christmas Cardigans

It's that time of year!  There were many opportunities to take the family Christmas card picture in N.Y.C., but how could we take a picture without our fifth sister, Tucker?  So we waited until Christmas break when all of us girls had returned home.  We decided to set up the tripod at the church, bring Tucker, and see how the pictures turned out.  THEY WERE AWESOME!  Maybe I'm biased, but I think these are just the sweetest pictures ever.  We put two on our card, but I thought some of the other ones were worth sharing.  I love the candid ones, and they show our family dynamic really well.  So here you go!

First attempts!

Tucker spotted the maintenance man...

"Give her a treat!"

"We can't see Tucker's dress!"

This is what happens most of the time at home.

Merry Christmas from the Hills!

Love, E.

Winter "Happies"

Hello, Winter! It's getting colder down here; you know what that means?

-Snow!

-Cute doggie outfits

-Dad's birthday (AKA time for cake)

-Brunch experiments

So, welcome to our house. This is what it looks like at 7:00 AM on my way to school:

This is the best house in the entire world.

There is no other place I would rather be.

I know you all have been wondering how little Tuck is doing. Mrs. P. loves cold weather because she gets to stay inside on her stoop much more. She also loves (read as: "puts up with because she gets treats") her cute outfits! Here are pictures of her favorite pink "Snuggie" and cute Christmas dress:

We know; she's absolutely adorable.

Also, December marks a wonderful time for celebrating births! Not only do we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ in December, we also celebrate our Dad's birth! So this past week we partied for Tom Tom's __th birthday. :) It was a lovely evening of steaks, potatoes and good conversation around the dinner table with all of our chicks home. I took charge of the meal and thoroughly enjoyed my time in the kitchen. (Am I seventeen or sixty? Goodness, I need to get out more...) ;)

In preparation for the party, I made Dad's favorite cake! Warning: it has no recipe.

Truly, that's not my style. I like the fact that recipes are 1+2=3. Much more straightforward.

After doubling the amount of batter, resulting in overflow cupcakes, I finally produced a cake. I had to call in some reinforcements, AKA Sarah, to finish it.

Needless to say, I struggled.

MY recipe:

1 box of yellow cake mix

1 small can of Eagle Brand

Whipped Cream

Shredded Coconut (Dad likes it, we don't).

After the cake is baked, quickly poke lots of holes into the cake and pour the can of Eagle Brand over the top. Allow it to sink into the cake then cool in fridge. Put whip cream on top and coconut if you wish! :) It really is delicious!

Side note: Sarah is absolutely obsessed with Eagle Brand. She begged me to let her have the majority of the can.

It was a good time. :)

Since I am out of school, I have the opportunity to experiment with Brunch! The majority of our household does not especially love Breakfast foods, or mornings in general, so Brunch is much more our style. I decided to try out this lovely Ham and Cheese Puff Pastry recipe from Ina Garten.

(Click on the link for the recipe!)

I neglected to take pictures throughout its creation, but here's the finished deliciousness:

Mom and I, the only ones at the house awake at the time, enjoyed it very much!

Overall, this season has been treating us very well; I hope you are enjoying it as well.

Merry Christmas!

~Mary Claire

The Big Apple

After some prompting from this sister, our family decided to take a trip to N.Y.C. over Thanksgiving. Why did you want to go to New York, you ask? I'll be honest with you, it was all to see a guy. I'll give you a hint: boy wizard. Yep, we made a special trip to New York all so that I could see Daniel Radcliffe in his musical, "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying." I am not ashamed; I am a big fan. And I figured, why not? Our family loves musicals so I figured this was the opportunity of a lifetime to see a musical in New York featuring my favorite actor. And so our Thanksgiving New York trip was born.

We flew in Wednesday evening and our first stop was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade early Thursday morning.

It was not as cold as it could have been, and it was worth the wait. We loved seeing the floats and balloons and couldn't believe we were actually there!
We toured New York and Central Park, my favorite spot.  I loved the little pocket of natural beauty contrasted with the harsh lines of the city.

For Thanksgiving dinner we went to a family-style Italian restaurant called Carmine's. It was delicious and a very fun atmosphere.

After dinner we went to see the Rockettes. We all enjoyed watching their tap-dancing and kicks and it got us in the Christmas spirit!

Friday morning was shopping time.  Black Friday in New York was a busy adventure but we braved it in search of deals and steals.  After our shopping we headed back to the hotel room to recuperate and watch the ill-fated Razorback game.  As much as we loved being in the city, our relaxing time together in the hotel room was one of our favorite parts of the trip.

The whole week led up to Friday night... the night we would see Harry Potter IN PERSON.  Can you feel the excitement?  We went to eat with our Uncle Robert at a slightly less-than-par pizza joint.  It was so fun to see the city with a "local." :)

And then....

The show was better than we expected!  Daniel was a star and I was so proud!  The whole family loved the play... it was clever, upbeat, and fun.  Afterwards we rushed to the stage exit and waited for an hour and a half to catch a glimpse of Mr. Radcliffe on his way out.  And we got it!  Due to both my and his short stature the picture is only of the back of his head, but it's something!  (The little one in front of the security guard is Daniel!)

We were exhausted by the end of this wonderful trip, but the days away did us good.  We enjoyed our time together and loved N.Y.C.!  

Elizabeth