Engleberts in Missouri [miz-er-ree]

Another one bites the dust … hey hey and another one gone and another one down Another one bites the dust….

I know you’re all dying to see pictures of April’s 18th birthday. We celebrated Friday night with our traditional dinner and plate breaking. One less mouth to feed - but not really. I thought there might be tears but there weren’t. April got a little misty but that’s about it.

I started out the morning by making April that bento that she’s been begging me for the last few days. Giving in to begging is probably the wrong way to start out her 18th year. Adulthood means that asking for stuff doesn’t always result in getting it. But what the hey - if it gets her to stop begging I’m all for it.

After the kids got off to school, I spent the day decorating cakes - Look at all these cakes!

Of course one of the cakes was for April’s birthday.

The other was for my friend Donna’s wedding reception Saturday night. We were pretty pleased with how well it turned out. They got married on the beach in the Bahamas so the theme for the reception was beach/sea. The shells are chocolates made with a candy mold (some white, some brown, some mixed) and then some of them were brushed with pearl and copper dust. The cake is a pound cake and the frosting is buttercream. The “sand” is crumbled up Pecan Sandies. At the reception additional “sand” and shells were placed around the base at the corners.

After Steve and the kids got home for the evening, we had April’s “last meal” and then took her outside for the traditional plate breaking. Jon commented several times that he loves this ritual. I do too. I think it is the perfect way to symbolize the transition from childhood to adulthood.

April and Jon’s band teacher was none too pleased that both of them had to miss the football game (and half-time show) Friday night. He actually asked April why we couldn’t celebrate her birthday on a different night. I don’t think he gets the importance of this day.

There are lots of birthdays that are special… Your 13th birthday when you enter your teen years. The day you turn 16 and can drive (if your parents let you). Many people look at the 21st birthday as the Big One because now you can drink! But to me the really big birthday is number 18. The day you become an adult. That moment is huge and can’t just be celebrated on some other day when it’s more convenient.

After the breaking, we went back inside for cake, ice cream and bits of wisdom. Some of the wisdom cards April got were absolutely hilarious and had us all laughing. Others were more thought-provoking and insightful. She loved them all - thanks to everyone who sent one.

April - my daughter, my near-perfect child - is an adult now. Responsible for herself. She can sign contracts and get into big trouble with credit cards. Vote and make an impact on the political landscape of the country. Marry without our consent. She can gamble and buy ciggarettes (I hope not!). She can make decisions without considering our advice. Soon she will graduate and go out on her own to make her way in the world. As frightening as that is, it is also exciting. I can’t wait to see what she makes of her life.

I made another bento box for Violet this morning. It took me 30+ minutes to create a Strawberry Princess-themed lunch and sadly, it didn’t turn out exactly as I’d planned. Violet seemed happy enough with it although that may have been due entirely to the beef stick princess wand.

It seems as though there has been an exponential increase in the number of school lunches that she would prefer not to eat lately. The school lunch calendar is littered with “Pack Lunch” notes. I’m pretty sure that if I reverted back to a sandwich in a bag the appeal of school lunches would rise once again. April is jumping on the bento bandwagon too. In the last two days, she has asked me approximately 9 million times to make her a birthday bento. Hmmm…. I found this inspiration bento that I might be able to replicate.

On another crafty note, check out this new outfit I made for Violet’s Felicity doll. It turned out really well. I love the apron.

Today I’ll be spending lots of time in the kitchen baking cakes. First, I have to make a birthday cake for April. It will be a pretty simple raspberry layer cake but will have a replica of her 18th Birthday plate for a topper. Then I’ll be making a wedding cake for my friend/neighbor Donna’s reception. She recently married my other neighbor John in the Bahamas so I’m going to try to make a beach-themed cake that will look something like this. I am praying that it turns out well otherwise tomorrow will be spent scouring the bakeries in town for a replacement cake!

I can’t remember my mother packing me lunch for school when I was a kid. Maybe when I was really young. I never wanted to pack my own lunch, that’s for sure. Mostly I just ate in the school cafeteria. Occasionally, when I was teenagish, I would pack my dad’s lunch for work during the summer. Boring. Sandwiches in a brown bag.

My own children have mostly eaten school lunch. There have been times when a packed lunch was required. Field trips. The first and last weeks of school when they all attended St. Philip’s. And when I felt sympathetic to their absolute hatred of what was being served at school on a particular day. I tried to make the lunches a little more exciting. Packing thermoses of soup, or my own homemade luncheables of crackers, cheese and meat. Still pretty boring. More often it was sandwiches, chips and cookies in a bag.

But now I’ve discovered Bento. Do you know about bento lunches? Apparently Japanese moms are expected to prepare appealing boxed lunches and they spend a good part of their mornings preparing bentos for their families. Like most things moms do that are on display for others to see, it turns out there is even a sense of competition among mothers to see who can produce the cutest, most appetizing, and healthy lunches for their children. And boy do they take it to an extreme. Their bento are very elaborate with the food often arranged in such a way as to resemble other objects. They are edible works of art.

Computer:Spray Bottle:

Giraffe: Bird in a Nest:

Of course, not all bento are that elaborate. Mine certainly won’t be. The main thing is to create a visually pleasing lunch and add a little fun to the meal.

As a beginner bento artisan, I am facing a couple of real challenges. The biggest one being that my daughter isn’t really into Japanese style cuisine. So I’m trying to come up with ideas to make her American-style bento cute and healthy.

I took a little more care packing Violet’s lunch yesterday. It wasn’t a bento but it was better than usual. I am ill-prepared to create truly beautiful bento because I don’t have all the cute little containers and what-not. But after a shopping excursion I was able to make a somewhat cute bento this morning.

Violet was thrilled with it. And really that is the most important part of making something like a bento box. It is said that when you eat a bento lunch prepared by a loved one, the preparer’s feelings for you are transmitted through the food. So today Violet’s getting some love with her lunch - and that’s always a good thing.

There will be no joy in Mudville tonight. Not because of rain - but due to illness. I had an inkling Violet wasn’t feeling 100% last night when she got home from school. Then, when she said she didn’t want to go to Awana’s I knew for sure that she was ill. Fever, cough, achy body. I think it’s a “weather change” cold - you know, when the weather gets really warm then cold then warm then damp and cold, like we’ve been having for the last week or so. We dosed her up with Children’s Nyquil and put her to bed early last night.

Two winters ago Violet had pneumonia five times. She just couldn’t seem to stay healthy so I take it pretty seriously when she gets a chest cold or the flu. Today she stayed home from school. She still had a slight fever and wasn’t feeling well this morning. She’s been sleeping most of the morning, waking up long enough to get a drink and go back to bed. So…there will be no soccer for Violet tonight.

To cheer her up I decided to finish another doll project for her. One of Felicity’s outfits (her Holiday gown) came with two different insets that you could swap to give the dress a different look. That gave me an idea…

Here is Felicity in her Summer Outfit:

Here is the same dress, minus the ribbon and hat, with a coordinating apron to change the look of the outfit:

How cute is that? Now back to our regularly scheduled vacuuming and other chores.

Why haven’t you posted those pictures of the stuff we can have yet? Well, that would be because I spent my spare time working on this coat for Violet’s Felicity doll.