I missed days 4 and 5. Oops. Maybe I’ll try to do those soon. But for today:

Remember when I talked about using up candy canes? I recently (by accident) discovered some leftover pumpkin in the freezer that I had used for Christmas baking. How did I discover it by accident? I thought it was pizza sauce and thawed it out for our pizza, only to discover that it was pumpkin and our pizza sauce was in another container…still frozen. I likely put the pumpkin in the freezer – not labeled – thinking that I would surely remember what it was. But my failing memory is another story for another time – if I remember.

Every Christmas season, candy canes appear in our house. Our children come home with them from church, school, and their grandparent’s homes and then beg to eat one every day. We oblige some of the time, but I don’t give a second thought to candy canes with all of the other goodies we have around at Christmastime, even though they are one of the four main food groups (for elves). Name that movie.

When I was a kid, if you were to ask me what my favorite color was, I assure you that yellow probably would have been toward the bottom of the list. Enter the year 2010 and my sister asked me to wear a yellow dress in her wedding. I told her that I do not look good in yellow, (the one yellow top I have ever owned made my teeth look yellow-er. Gross.) but I would absolutely wear whatever she wanted. This was just the push I needed to get on the yellow bandwagon.

When I asked our sweet girl what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, she replied, “A pink princess cake!” (Well, she says “pruncess” instead of princess, but I don’t correct her). Knowing that we had a very full weekend ahead with no time for an elaborate cake, I resorted to pruncess cupcake liners and toppers and a very pink, very girly cake. Maybe an elaborate castle cake will happen next year. Maybe.

Growing up under my parents’ roof with four siblings, some things were pretty much guaranteed:

1. If you wanted a hot shower, you better get in the bathroom first. This would also ensure maximum time in front of the mirror with the hair-dryer, hairspray and the curling iron to get a totally awesome 80′s hairdo/hairdon’t.
2. If you asked Mom to go to a friend’s house, she would always ask, “Is your room clean?”
3. Our definition of a clean room was different than Mom’s. Our definition involved piling everything in the closet. The closet is like a separate room, ya’ know. Her definition included a clean closet and nothing under the bed.
4. Though there are many others, a big one is that there would always be good food. Both my parents are excellent cooks, and we were spoiled with tasty meals paired with fun times around the dinner table.