Erin is one for establishing and maintaining traditions. Unfortunately, at least one of her traditions is not so worthy of the attention it too often gets. She has this thing for getting sick on holidays. At age two, she broke out with the chicken pox in church on Easter Sunday. Her little pink dots matched her pretty pink dress. Her first experience with the flu was on Thanksgiving and then there was the swine flu on Earth Day, the stitches on Mother's Day . . .Unfortunately, today she kept with her tradition.
The kids had planned to make a gingerbread house today and Erin had delegated all of the various components of her birthday meal. Brooke was to make bread for the chicken pesto sandwiches that Edgar was going to make. I was to make broccoli salad. And Brooke also was to make a strawberry cake. But, this morning I got a text from Erin saying that her throat hurt and all that she wanted to eat was soup and smoothies. We offered to postpone her birthday until she felt better but that wouldn't do. After negotiating an acceptable Plan B, we settled on macaroni and cheese from scratch, brussels sprouts and spinach and pear salad. Doesn't that sound like comfort food to you?
Macaroni and cheese slides down a sore throat fairly easily and roasted brussels sprouts are just pretty darn good. Erin didn't even want her cake today. Her sister is going to make it for her on New Year's Eve. After our meal we went out for frozen yogurt. That soothed the birthday girl's sore throat and was somewhat of a birthday treat.
The girls and I started the birthday festivities on Friday by going out to lunch and spending the afternoon shopping. Erin arrived today in a big cozy sweater that she found that day.
I suspect that she didn't want to postpone her birthday because if she had to feel so crappy she should at least get to open her presents!
As she started opening her gifts, the fact that we are a bunch of foodies whacked us all in the face! This is what was in the big green package . . .
. . . a juicer. Doesn't every twenty year-old want a juicer? Well, this one did and her dad got it for her.
And Brooke got her this.
I think it is in response to text messages asking her sister what to do with twenty pounds of peaches or oranges or cucumbers.
Another family tradition that we have is that on your birthday you get a dollar lottery ticket for each year of your age.
Brooke is usually the big winner here, winning often times double her age. That was not the case this year. Though neither of the girls won big, Erin managed $11 with her twenty tickets to Brooke's $9 with her twenty-three. Since we only
After all of the excitement, Erin fell asleep on the couch. By 5:30, we scooped her up and sent her home to rest in the hope that she will feel better before Christmas.
Happy Birthday, Erin!
