Half-Pint House

And Now We Are (thirty) Six

Happy Pie Day to You
Happy Pie Day to You
Happy Pie Day Dear Everyone
Happy Pie Day to You!

I'm thankful that I'm finally done peeling eggs and that I finished before 3am. I'm thankful that all seven layers of my jello salad set up. I'm thankful the rolls are yummy and that Craig and I managed to only eat one each tonight. I'm thankful I can sleep in the van on our way to the farm later today. Oh yes, I'm thankful we have a van again. Our own normal van. And it's running just fine for now. I'm thankful for my kids who picked out some funny things for me to unwrap later today. I'm thankful for four days at the farm in which we can rest.

I hope you find plenty to be thankful for today as well.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

My Family's Secret Chocolate Pie Recipe

Okay, so it's not really a secret anymore if I share it here, is it? I'm not sure why I've been possessive of this recipe online before, but I've had a few people ask for it and my sister said to share it, so I'm sharing it.

My Favorite Great-Auntie's Chocolate Pie

2 C evaporated milk
1 T butter
1 t vanilla
3 egg yolks
1.5 C sugar
4 T flour
4.5 T Hershey's cocoa (remember - has to be Hersheys)
1/8 t salt

Combine the milk, butter, vanilla, and egg yolks together.

Combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, and salt together.

Sift the dry into the wet in a saucepan. Cook on medium high, heat until thick (can sometimes take a long time).

Pour into a pre-baked pie crust. Don't forget the old wax paper trick!

This recipe doesn't seem to make enough for a deep-dish pie, so I always triple the recipe and make two pies. You could always 1.5x the recipe too, or just use a regular pie dish, not a deep dish.

Also, I'm pretty sure the rationale behind just using egg yolks was so you could save the whites for meringue. Nobody in my family likes meringue, so I stopped making it a long time ago. Instead, when I triple the recipe, instead of using 9 egg yolks and tossing 9 egg whites, I just put in 5 whole eggs. Seems to work okay.

My Auntie never wrote this recipe down and was never quite sure how to tell someone else to do it - every time she tried guessing it came out different. She didn't measure, but just knew. Her pies were always perfect. Ours, however, never were. Eventually my sister perfected the proportions. Here it is! But I don't know what it is about the cocoa. I've tried several different kinds (Nestles and Girhardelli) and neither of them work in this recipe. Has to be Hersheys.

Enjoy!

12th Week, 1st Week!

Anyone from Eagle Lake Camp still read my blog? Come on, say it with me, "Enthusiasm is... annoying! CONTAGIOUS!!

Yep, still have that stuck in my head even though we left Colorado five years ago and haven't lived up at camp in eight. And as much as that little cheer did annoy the snot right out of me every week, I find myself using the principle of it even now.

Tomorrow is week 12 of our Classical Conversations semester. This means it is the last day for the fall. We'll have our second annual pie feast and then be done for a while. We do have a Christmas party scheduled in two weeks (be still my heart, is it really coming that fast?), but the hard work of weekly class prep will be over until mid-January.

We're all breathing a huge sigh of relief right now. But even still, I don't want to blow off tomorrow. Week 12 is every bit as important as was week 1 or week 5 or week 9.

And I hope it's better than last week and that nobody cuts their chin open during lunch. Please, God. 

So here's to finishing the semester well. And here's to an enjoyable and restful 6 weeks off.

Open Letter to Fellow Choir Parent

Dear Fellow Choir Parent Dropping Your Kid Off This Morning,

Delmar is a street, not a parking lot. When you double park next to other people who are legitimately parked on the side dropping their kids off (blocking them in), and then get out of your car and proceed to do your child's hair, and then see a friend across the street and start chatting, you cause the driver who is, in fact, waiting for you to finish up and drive off, to experience acute symptoms of road rage.

Please do not do that again. Ever.

Sincerely,

Another Choir Parent Who Just Wants to Get Home, Darn It

Trust Me. This is Funny.

Have I ever asked you to call anyone before? No. Because I'm phone phobic. But trust me on this, you should call this number and wait as instructed below. It is seriously hilarious.

Thanks, Becky, for the info!

"Need a little smile? Just call the Nestle Crunch Hotline at 1-800-295-0051. When you are asked if you want to continue in English or Spanish, just wait quietly for about 10 seconds and you will smile. Promise! (if you comment on this after listening, don't give away the surprise...) keep going and press 4 it gets even better..."

You Wanna Hear Another Secret?

This post by John Lynch could just as easily have been written by yours truly this past Monday. Craig and I had a doozy of a fight on Sunday. Then, on Monday, we were asked to consider speaking at a conference somewhere next fall together as a couple (and with our kids). We got the message before we'd had time to reconcile and were still, as John put it, very fragile.

So fragile, in fact, that when E6 cut her chin open at Classical Conversations over lunch that afternoon I started crying. I don't normally cry when my kids get cuts. On Monday, I did. So fragile, in fact, that when the van started sputtering on our way home from the ER I started crying again.

I needed this message from John Lynch on Monday, but I'll take it today, four days later:

I will always display some measure of foolishness, pain and immaturity, because, well because, there is still foolishness, pain and immaturity in me! It will never nullify the veracity of “Christ in John Lynch”. I am fully righteous. I am fully fused with God Himself. I am fully a new creature. I am fully God’s adored, I have everything in me I need, I am a man unable to be condemned no matter what I get myself into…But I am still a kid. And I am not always yet willing to humbly trust God. There is still something in me that fights this health. And this new life is undoing stuff all the way back from the goofballs in my family line. Some of what I am living out will be better seen in my kids than me.

And if you catch me at any particular moment I may not look much healthier than someone without Christ. I can get just as loud or irrational as about anyone I know. But the magic continues on. God does His beauty. And Stacey, although she might not have admitted it that Thursday evening, is better and more authentically loved by me than 25 years ago. And so is everyone else I know, including my God.

It is imperative that we who carry this message, who dare take grace and identity into a religious culture of performance and self-willed sanctification, that we give ourselves the grace we promise to others. God is not ashamed, embarrassed or surprised by our junk. He just smiles, puts His arm around us and says something like, “Stick around kid. I’m growing you up from the inside out. I know what I’m doing and I’m proud to be doing it in you.”

So there.

Go read the whole thing yourself.

PS: Nothing helps communication restart in a hurry like having to decide whether or not to take a child to the ER and having to deal with serious car issues. I'm not even kidding.

You Wanna Hear a Secret?

I kind of like being a one-car family.

Wow! Can you believe I just said that? I mean, sure, it's going to get old here pretty soon. And I'm super thankful we have our pastor's family's second van for the weekend. But here's why I've sort of enjoyed the past few days: Families who drive together stay together.

Or something.

You know, life with four kids the ages ours are just gets put on auto-pilot sometimes. Craig and I slap hands and say, "Tag!" as we're coming and going. This week we had to be very intentional about who was going where and when and how we were going to get various places with only one car.

It meant on one day we had to skip a class we usually go to. It meant on another day Craig had to dash home right after school to pick us up so we could go drop him off before taking the girls to choir rehearsals. 

That day was today. Because Craig works the bookstore after school, and leaves before we get up, we usually don't even see him until 6:30pm each day. But this week it seems we've seen him more.

And six people crammed into an Oldsmobile '98 is just some kind of fun right there. 

Sure, I'll be super happy when I don't have to beg friends to come get my kids and take them to ballet for me. But for now, this is pretty novel and I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

On Having Faith

So I just put up this post on trusting God in the midst of our goofy car situation right now. Commenter number 1 thinks what I said is a cop-out. 

All I can think to say right now is that I'm sorry he thinks so. I don't believe I ever said having faith is easy. But I do love trusting God to care for us because get this: I know this is a situation out of our control.

Maybe that's a cop-out for him. For me? Relief. How about you?

Teacher Gifts and Stocking Stuffers!

Thanks for stopping by this tiny "shop" for Half-Pint House Handmade!

I'm making the following items available for sale this Christmas season. The pictures shown are merely examples of the available items. I will send pictures of fabric options for you to choose from when you place your order.

I am primarily using Michael Miller fabrics with an occasional Moda or Amy Butler thrown in to mix it up a little.

All prices shown include shipping.

First up: Tea Wallets - $8.00 each including 4 tea bags of Trader Joe's English Breakfast tea

Due to request, I made some for men as well. You can see a few of those in this photo.

Next, I have these cute zippy bags featuring an appliqued initial. The bag measures 5"x8". They are $13 each. Click here for current options. I will be updating this page as time goes on.

Third, I have these fun crayon keepers. I keep several of these in my purse and pull them out in church for my kids to draw pictures (take "notes") during the sermon on Sundays. They have saved my hide on other occasions as well. $7.50 each. Crayons are not included.

This next item is pretty specialized, as I make them for many folks involved with the ministry of The Navigators. I make verse packs that have two folded up fabric pockets on the inside with one clear plastic window on the outside. I make them in three sizes. The size shown is considered the "traditional" verse pack size for 2"x3" cards.

Traditional Size Verse Packs: $4
Business Card Size Verse Packs: $6
Index Card Size Verse Packs: $8

Order Details:

Orders will be filled first come (and first paid), first out and I'll send photos of current inventory as I get them done. I have a TON of cute fabric all ready for crafting, too!

I can accept Paypal payments so long as the following guidelines are met:

Payments CAN NOT be from a debit or credit card. Bank transfer or paypal balance payments only. Payments must be marked "personal" and then "payment owed" rather than "purchase"

I also accept Revolution Money Exchange payments and a good, old fashioned check in the mail.

If you would like to place an order, leave a comment here or email me directly at halfpinthouse at gmail dot com to let me know.

I am a one-gal operation. There will come a time I will reach my capacity and I will close orders for the season. I will post an update here three days before I do that.

Thanks so much! Let the crafting begin!

WTB: Horse and Buggy

Wanted: Dependable transportation that will seat more than a few (preferably 8). It would be nice to be able to store things in the back, too, like a tent or several bags of groceries.

Our 1996 Honday Odyssey van kicked the bucket on Monday, three days after being reintroduced to our family. As a result, we're a one-car family for a while until we get things sorted out and figure out what comes next.

It would seem to make sense we would be interested in the new Chevy Traverse that we just spent the last 30 days driving around. And we would, except for one tiny problem: $$$$$. We were told we would get a pretty good deal on a new Traverse if we decided to buy one, but Chevy and I have two different interpretations of the term "good deal."

So here's my official inquiry:

• What do you drive?
• How many does it seat?
• How is it on the storage capacity?
• Do you love it?
• Would you buy it again?

The Dunhams have officially entered the auto research game. Darn it.