We Had Fat Tuesday on Sunday

Lent starts the day after tomorrow, Ash Wednesday. The day before Lent is called Mardis Gras, or "Fat Tuesday." It is a day where everyone feasts and makes merry as a last hurrah before the Lenten season of fast and abstinence comes in. It originally started because in the days of the early Church, Christians would give up quite a bit of sweet foods, spices, condiments, and beverages, and they didn't want everything going bad just because they couldn't eat it. So they would have a big feast the day before Lent began to make use of as much food as they could. Catholic's give up different things now than they did then, and obviously it isn't as easy for things to go bad anymore; but the tradition stuck, and Catholics today still celebrate in much the same way.

This year I was with my brother for Fat Tuesday. He worked on Tuesday, so I had the bright idea of celebrating on Sunday when he was actually off and could enjoy it. He agreed. We bought a ton of food, we brought Tiny up for a visit, (My awesome sister) and we invited his fiance. Then we started the feast!

YEEEEEEES FOOD IS AWESOME.

See dat coffee cake in the corner? I made that. And it was fabulous.

My brother's beautiful fiance. *I am terrible at selfies.

SEE DEM SAUSAGE ROLLS? THEM SAUSAGE ROLLS MAKE-A ME CRAZY! TOO GOOD! GOOD FOOD!

BRO.

Tiny tried to photo-bomb, but her hair got in the way.

Lalala, my selfies suuuuuuuuuck.

Such hair. Wow curls.

Again with the horrid selfies.... anyway, we played dominoes! With my bro!!! In fact, he was the one who suggested it. Cause he is awesome and plays games like that. (Reason #404 Why My Brother is Better than Yours.) I've never done that. It was lots of fun! If I stared at the blocks too long the colours made my eyes cry a little, but otherwise it was great! *Tiny won.

To sum up the evening, we watched Captain America - the Winter Soldier. *cue flailing and feelings and fears*

Both Toink and Chloe had seen this before, but I don't think either of them remembered it very well. It was like Toink was watching it for the first time. Everything was so cool! or, that's rude! Like, when Cap fought his way out of the elevator and jumped out without dying, she was like;

"He's so cool, I want him."

She had a running commentary through the whole show, but I'll just give you the highlights.


*Cap throws his shield at Bucky*  Toink: "Wow. He can throw it so hard! How does he do that? Is he... awesome?

*Bucky shoots Black Widow*  Toink: "Why would he do that?? It's rude! He's rude!"

*Bucky attacks Steve* Chloe: "They're supposed to be friends! I hate this!"

*Sam gets his wings* Toink: "I love the wings guy, he is so cool. He can fly. How can he fly?"

*Bucky gets smacked: Toink: "WHY THAT GUY SMACK HIM? IT'S MEAN! Poor Bucky!" ...."Why is he in a chair? Why is he so sad?"

Chloe: "Why are they so mean to him?"

*Bucky knocks Sam out of the sky* Toink: "He took his wings! Now he's gonna die! That's rude! Why he... do that?"

*Bucky starts punching Steve* Toink: "HE SPANKED HIM IN THE FACE."

Me; I KNOW!

Toink: IT'S RUDE! POOR STEVE."

Toink: "WHY DOES HE KEEP SPANKING HIM ON THE FACE? It's rude! Does he remember him? Stop hitting him in the face, it's really, really rude!"


*Gasp* He shot him! Why he shot him? SO mean!"

.... "When is he gonna remember him???"

Chloe: "WHY hasn't Bucky remembered him yet? This is dumb!!

Toink: Why can't he remember?

Me; They took his memories and they put drugs in him so he would do what they said."

Toink: "That's. So. Rude! Why would they do that?"

Me: "So he could kill Captain America."

Toink: "They're so mean bad guys!"

.....

*The plane gets blown up* Toink: "WHY DID THEY BLOW IT UP, I DON'T WANT HIM TO DIE, ITS STUPID!"

Chloe: "WHY hasn't Bucky remembered yet?? This is dumb."


They were both very into it... crying and stuff.

OOoooh, here's a bonus of their reaction when Bucky saves Cap.

Toink was kind of in shock... lol.






It was hilarious.

Anyway, that was my "Fat Tuesday." I hope this post wasn't too jumbled.

I AM GOING TO DISNEYLAND IN A WEEK YOU GUYS.

Peace out y'all!!!

*swings around cape and leaps off stage*

Bella

In Preparation for Easter

Its Holy Saturday!! Easter is almost here! Lent has actually gone by pretty quickly this year. I hardly feels like six weeks. Okay, yes it does, but it feel like a speedy six weeks. I think Jack's visit might have something to do with that. At any rate, we now have only three and a half hours left! I might stay up till midnight and welcome in the morning, but I'll have to see. I was up really late last night.

Today has been a big bustle as we prepare for the Resurrection of Our Lord, and we've been rushing about the house all day cleaning, baking and egg-dying like mad. Well, when I say we.... more like me. Me. and Me.

Okay, that isn't fair. My brother made some luscious s'mores muffins for our dessert tomorrow and he's going to make Tiramisu also, which will be so yummy!!! and when my sisters were actually home they helped with the baking a bit. But there were a good couple hours when I was in the kitchen pressing out hundreds of sugar cookies all on my own. With loud music playing.

It actually wasn't that bad. We had a nifty little Designer for our cookies - this cool little gadget - and you could put a roll of dough into it and press out the Sugar Cookies in all these amazing shapes and it was surprisingly fun. I was like "PRESS!!! FLOWER!! *Press* CLOVER!! *Press* SPADE!!... STANDIN-IN-THE-HALL-OF-FAME!!!!!!" *Spins around* Since everyone in my family was gone - some to the store, some to baseball sign up, some to book-reading - I was entirely alone and I took this opportunity to began dance along with the music as my cookies baked. It felt good to be wild and free. Loud music has this effect and me.

source

It was a lot of fun.

That was at the beginning of the day when I was chipper and full of energy for our preparation day.  

See My wonderful cookies??

Don't they look just FABULOUS?

They were masterful.

I was very proud.

Standin in the Hall of Fame!!! (yeah!)

After the moping was done and all the wee-on's returned from the store, we lay out newspapers, set out the cups and began dying eggs.

Lots of eggs.

Am I the only one who has never really liked dying eggs? I think fourth grade ended my love for egg dying. It just .... it isn't my thing. But it is fun watching all the little kids plop eggs into the cups and 'oooo' and 'ahhhh' over what happens to them. It was especially fun to watch little Toink making eggs. She was so cute and funny! Her very first egg broke before it had a chance. She had drawn all these pretty little flowers on it and it looked nice, but then Treskie told her it was time to dye it and she crushed it with both hands! Like, totally crushed it. Beyond repair. We were all shocked. The poor thing had thought we were dying the inside of the egg. After that incident she made it very clear that all the eggs had to be dyed "Without the insides on the inside." Which was fine with us.

Even my big brother helped decorate eggs!

and my mommy!! She made some of the 

best ones I think.

We even got my dad to do his own - Look at what he did :)

He drew all 11 of us kids with him and mom at the top. How awesome is that? I don't want to eat this egg.

This is me, attempting to make a purple minion.

I guess he turned out alright. My brother's minion was better though. Look at Joey's Minion!! Look how cute it is! And he hasn't even been colored in yellow yet!

So

Many

Eggs.

By this time I was bored and my imagination was getting burned out and I was starving. I had skipped lunch for snacking purposes later on, so my stomach took upon itself the right to protest from 1:00 on. By the time 4:30 rolled around I was cranky and ready to eat. My human form needed sustenance!  

Once I'd had food I was substantially more cheerful and ready to buckle down to the task of decorating Easter cookies.

I had pressed out so many freakin' cookies! I think there were over a hundred. and we had to do them all super fancy and beautiful because they're Easter cookies and they only way to make them is with beads and multi-colored frosting!!

As odd as it may seem, decorating 100 Easter cookies in several shades of frosting and strings of beads is not a speedy job. We spent close to an hour and a half at the dinner table.

My cookies started getting less and less fancy as the evening went on.

But it was pretty fun anyway. Unfortunately it is way too late for me to share those pictures with you tonight. I'll try posting them tomorrow though :)

Then, because I hadn't done enough baking that day, I floated out to the kitchen to make muffins for our snack. The snack I had skipped lunch for. They were the same muffins I made at the beginning  of Lent, so I knew they'd be good if I did them right. And, of course, I did. And they were epic. The perfect way to end our festive, baking day.



That's all. I'm tired and my brain hurts and its time for me turn in. Otherwise the end of this post is going to get really weird. And I'll kindly spare all of you that. God Bless! And Happy-Almost-Easter!

~Ben The Robot~

Its the little things

Because it's Lent we try not to watch too many movies and TV shows. In fact we kind of go off them cold turkey. So during this Lent we though that it might be fun to listen to Musicals during the week instead of having our evening movie. It seemed like a grand plan. Now, lately I have had a fierce craving for muffins. Hot, moist Poppy-seed Muffins. They were all I could think about. So I got all 'in the mood' and decided that the night we listened to "Secret Garden" I would make those muffins and we would feast! Of course that would mean skipping Lunch, but it would be worth it. I NEEDED Muffins. I proposed my plan to the family. My sisters (wonderful people that they are) were very good sports and went hungry for the muffins I'd be making that night. They all did it. For me. This meant my muffins had be the stuff of LEGEND!

Now. If you remember I have a past with baking. I don't. Its not that I don't like to - I do! baking, cooking, anything to do with food is good!! but my baking expeditions never work out. Which meant I was super nervous about these muffins. They needed to just right. They couldn't burn. they couldn't fall flat. they couldn't taste like biscuits. They couldn't turn out like those poor abused cookies I had once tried to serve. They needed to be proper muffins that melted in your mouth. Nothing else would satisfy my craving. The whole time I was stirring and sifting I anxiously wondered if skipping lunch would be worth it. I would hate to have given up my lunch for nothing. I stirred. I sifted. I dropped little spoonfuls into the muffin pans. I slipped them into the oven.

 They were perfect. I was so, so happy! They were all a muffin should be: Firm but not crumbly, moist but not too doughy or soft. Perfect. It was doubly amazing because I had a very narrow escape with them. I stuck them in for an hour. That is what the recipe said to do. I was feeling all efficient and hopeful when a sister's voice from the kitchen called out, "BELLA!!!! GET OUT HERE AND CHECK YOU'RE MUFFINS!!" Out I rushed, fully expecting to find charcoal in a cup and thinking to myself in a panic, "its only been thirty minutes!!" But see, I had made a recipe for bread. Muffins only need half an hour to cook. I was informed this by a helpful older sister as I slid into the kitchen. Funny how she didn't mention it sooner seeing as she was the one who had given me the recipe!! How was I suppose to know it was bread? I whipped the oven door open and.....

Look at them!!! They look like the type of muffins that you would see displayed in a cook book!! They were amazing!!!

Happiness!!!

Quickly I piled two plates high with golden, poppy-seed goodness and, feeling quite happy with the world, carried my prize into the living room. They were warmly welcomed. We brought out the CD player. We stuck in "Secret Garden." We let the feasting began.

I am pleased to say, the muffins tasted as luscious as they looked. That has never happened for me before! Nothing I make tastes that lovely! I was so happy! They only thing needed to complete the evening was tea. Since I have given up tea I contented myself with boiling water. It wasn't quite fulfilling, but the muffins made up for the lack of British flair in my evening.

Oh hot water, how I love you!

It ended by a really fun night, even though there were a couple moments when conversation interrupted our long-awaited musical. But I suppose that's to be expected when one is having a feast. We did lots of singing, especially when the music crescendo-ed and many characters began singing at once. Don't you love those moments?

There. I just really wanted to share that all with you. It was so much fun and I want to do it again before Lent is over. I know I'm gonna try those muffins again at least. Maybe for breakfast this time. Ooooh! How yummy would that be! I would have to get up pretty early though. Hmmmmm. Is it worth it?

ONE MORE THING!!! 

I make freakin' awesome music videos. 

Even with crummy video makers. Subscribe to me!!

(many thanks to my sister Tiny who helped make this video the awesomness it is)

God Bless!
~Bella