Dear Friends and Family,
Our daughter has a major baking bug! Claire has really enjoyed planning and baking cakes. Since we had to delay her special 10th birthday sleepover until we were 95% sure the girls coming were COVID free, Claire wanted to make a special cake that they would all enjoy. She planned a chocolate cake with mint buttercream frosting and a chocolate mirror glaze on top. She had SO many ideas and I told her to go for it! We ordered the peppermint extract online and when she opened it to drop a few drops in the icing, I said, "It makes you wonder what it would be like to work in a candy cane factory! So minty!"
Little did I know that Will was just about to walk in and knock over the bottle of peppermint extract all over the floor! Claire and I immediately smelled SO MUCH PEPPERMINT! I laughed and said, "Well, I guess we get to find out what it feels like to work in a candy cane factory!"
It seriously smelled very strongly of peppermint for the next few days. I think the scent was absorbed into the wood floors and cabinets! Chris noticed it when he arrived home. I told him what happened and he said, "Well, there are worse things to have to smell for a few days." After a while we would forget the smell, but when Claire's guests arrived, and we saw the looks on their faces, we said, "Oh! Right! You are smelling the peppermint!"
Claire invited her three best neighbor friends. These are the friends we consider to be in our "bubble." Luckily, Claire just assumed Will would be another guest because she included him in all the games. Finally a few girls suggested that Will let them have girl time and we were able to lure him away with his pick of a superhero movie.
Claire started planning her party in October when the COVID numbers were low. Unfortunately they kept climbing and we had to delay our gathering. In the meantime she was planning the exact agenda for the party. One of the party games she planned herself - it was based on a video game called Among Us. In this game one person is "an imposter" and tries to secretly kill all the "crewmates." The crewmates have to perform tasks while watching for suspicious behavior. They can call a meeting if they find a dead crewmate or if they think someone is being suspicious or "sus." Anyway, in this picture you can see that Ava (with her finger over her mouth) is the imposter and everyone else is a crewmate with their task cards. They had so much fun with this game that they played it almost the entire time.
Singing to the birthday girl!
The next morning we made the girls crepes for breakfast and then they headed home to go take naps!
For Super Bowl Sunday, our good neighbor friend, Mike, bought a huge brisket! He called Chris and suggested they grill it together on Chris' new grill. Chris is always up for grilling. I'm glad Mike suggested it, because it was delicious! The kids and I did more baking and vegetable roasting and we had a feast!
I'll close with a few cute pictures of the kids and our sweet puppy!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!
Love,
Bethie
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