Children's Day - Tennis Clinic

Every month our church schedules an activity for the young children. This month we organized a tennis clinic for them.




We had great participation and the children loved it. I was suprised by how well they listened to the instruction and how long they stayed with it. We gave them instruction on how to hit a forehand and a backhand and then they played some games. We started at 12:30 and the kids were still hitting tennis balls at 2:30.




The kids loved interacting with some of our "seasoned" tennis players. I think the older ladies loved it too.


We talked about being a good sport and that Jesus said that we should treat others like we want to be treated.






At the end of the day one little boy who doesn't attend our church ran up to me and said, "Can we do this again? I loved it."


It is such a joy to work with children and watch their eagerness glisten in their eyes. They soaked up our every word. How wonderful it was to spread some of God's word into their lives through the physical abilities He has blessed us with. What a blessing it was to us, the instructors, to be encouraged by their pure and open hearts. God truly blessed us with a great day.

Quick-change Artist

Miss G ran up to me today.

"Look, Mommy. I'm the President of the United States."

"Oh, wow. It's nice to meet you Madame President."

She spun in a circle and said,

"No! Wait! Now I'm the President of the World.

No! Wait! Now I'm the President of Outer Space.

No! Wait! NOW I'm the President of Heaven."

I raised my eyebrows and began to object when she said,

"No! Wait! I'm REALLY the President of Mexico."

Since I'm now confused and unsure how Mexico has obtained a higher level of status than heaven, I began to object again when she dropped to the floor and said,

"Now I'm a turtle and I'm scared of people.

I can't open my eyes because I'm so scared.

No! Wait! Now I'm me back to being me...but I'm asleep."

I think she needs to be in theater. Maybe she could do a one person play where she could be the whole cast. Several presidents, a turtle and a sleeping child...WOW...now that could be an interesting storyline. Stay tuned. If she writes the play, I'll let you know.

Refusing to Read

And not for the reason you might be thinking.

Miss G and I have been concentrating on her reading. She usually loves to read her silly sentences but today she told me she was not going to read a couple of my sentences anymore.

A couple of you may know that Miss G is full of drama. So full, in fact, that as we practice her reading flash cards she MUST act out or give an example of each word. This truly defeats the "flash" part of the card because it takes us a long time to get through them. She can read them all. She just has to act them all out. I've tried to keep her on task on many occasions but it's against her nature to mechanically read them.

Today, I wrote the following sentences for her to read:

I will not step on a squid and squish it.

And...

The mud went squish under my feet.

After she read the sentences she announced that she couldn't possibly read them again because they were too gross. And this is from my dirt lover.

I guess they weren't too gross because she re-read them to her Daddy tonight. Being gross and giggling about it must be different with your Daddy. There must be a gross acceptance level that mommies just don't have. It's just another perk of being a daddy.

So, when your children must be themselves and learn to read in their own dramatic way, try to turn it to your advantage instead of forcing them into a traditional school mold. It's taken me awhile to relax to her learning style, but I'm finally learning even if Daddy is the only one who can write gross sentences.

Italian Cream Cake

My favorite cake is Italian Cream Cake. My family LOVES this cake (except for Mr. Reserved and only because it has nuts and coconut). My mom would make us any cake we requested for our birthday and we all asked for this cake. We looked forward to our day just so we could taste this delicious cake.

Last Sunday, I made this cake for one of my dear friend's baby shower. It was so yummy that I thought I should share the recipe.

I'm sorry I forgot to take a picture of it. So instead, you get a picture of the shower flowers.


Mom's Italian Cream Cake

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
5 eggs, separated
2 cups cake flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup angel flake coconut

Cream butter & shortening. Add sugar gradually. Add egg yolks one at a time. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk. Add vanilla, pecans & coconut. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Bake in 3 greased and floured 8" cake pans at 350 for about 25 minutes. Frost after cake has cooled.

Frosting:

8 oz. pkg. cream cheese (at room temp)
1/2 cup butter (at room temp)
1 lb. box powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts

Soften cream cheese and butter. Mix cream cheese and butter until well combined. Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix in walnuts or sprinkle on top of cake.

This cake is best when made ahead one day and served cold.

On a side note: I make this cake in 9" round pans and it turns out fine. I also usually just spray the pans with Pam baking spray instead of greasing and flouring them. If I'm decorating this cake, I usually double the frosting recipe just so I have enough icing to use to make frills.


Go make this cake! Only your hips will regret it.



P.S. I noticed that I had taken a picture of the "food" table and you can see part of the cake. Sorry it's not a very good picture but you can see the basic cake.

Glasses

Do you have some of these at your home? These are the 3-D glasses that come with your ticket for "My Bloody Valentine, 3D". My crazy husband and his crazy friends went to this movie on their last guys night.



I think the best thing about the movie was that Miss G got to have another accessory for her dress-up box.




And as you can she, they suit her.

Her Mommy picked up a pair of glasses for herself just last Friday. I've bought magnifying glasses before to do some embroidery but it seems lately that I need magnification to read (either that or shorter arms). I'm afraid that my 40's are catching up to me. In an effort to stifle the mini mid-life crisis that reading glasses are causing me, I bought red ones. I guess that's better than buying a red convertible. Although I'll never be as cute as Miss G, I think the red ones suit me too.