Miriam's 15!

Miriam turned 15 on Friday! 

She (and Rachel) had some friends over for a game/movie night so we had her birthday dinner and cake on Saturday, but she still opened her presents on Friday. She didn't have much on her list, but asked for some new clothes, some novelty pins, and a book. Most of what was on her list was actually marked "maybe for Christmas?" but that was probably because she only got me her list a few days before her birthday and knew those items would need more time to ship. 

For example, she wants new organ shoes. I can't find or ship those in a couple of days. 

Last time (or the last couple of times) we just got her (boys'/men's) latin dance shoes because they're cheaper than actual organ shoes but are...along the same lines. But now that she thinks her feet have stopped growing she wants real organ shoes. So we'll probably look into that for Christmas. 

Anyway, here's Miriam opening presents, with Phoebe right beside her so that Phoebe can be in charge of telling Miriam which order to open her presents in:

Auntie K sent a bookmark that says, "Where words fail, music speaks."

This was perfect for today (which is not Miriam's birthday, but it's a day we continued celebrating Miriam) because, as Miriam told me, "New Chopin just dropped."

She came into my room while I was reading this evening and said, flapping a sheet of paper around, "Do you want to come downstairs to listen to something on the piano?"

"Sure," I said. 

"New Chopin just dropped!" she squealed. 

"Chopin...is...dead..." I told her. 

"They just found this piece in the library!" she explained. "It's a whole thing! Come listen!"

So I listened while she played Chopin's new (to us) waltz.

Anyway, music is a huge part of her life, so the bookmark was perfect. 

Here she is enjoying Alexander's card (which says, "You are 15 going on 17" because he "forgot 16 existed for a minute!").

That kid. I can't even quite remember what we were talking about. Incantations...for some reason. Were the kids talking about Dungeons and Dragons? I honestly can't remember. I feel like there was a larger context. 

Anyway, Alexander goes, "Incantations. Yeah. We say those every week at church."

And everyone around the table was like, "We do?"

Because...we don't.

"Yeah," he said. "Every week the bishop or whoever gets up and they say, 'So-and-so will offer the incantation.'"

"Invocation!"

"Invocation?! For seven years I've thought it was incantation!"

Then one of the older kids (Rachel?) sarcastically sighed and said, "No wonder they think we're a cult."

Anyway, Rachel and I split making Miriam's birthday cake this year. Rachel baked it. From scratch.

And she did the crumb coat, which was probably a good thing because in her words, "That's the most likely part of the process to make [me] cry."

(She's not wrong, by the way—crumb coats have been my undoing on more than one occasion and although the human body is typically around 60% water, I was, like, 90% water last week with tears ready to surface at any given moment). 

I put on the actual layer of icing and although we'd discussed an Anne of Green Gables theme, we settled on Over the Garden Wall because the girls were planning on introducing their friends to that show at their movie/game night. But...then I didn't finish decorating it in time so we ended up having cake on Saturday instead...but we still stuck with the Over the Garden Wall theme. 

I haven't attempted a freezer transfer since Rachel's 9th birthday when my freezer transfer was a fiasco (that I'm pretty sure I cried about), but I'm nothing if not unflappable. 

I fail at things and then (8 years later) try them again. 

This time the freezer transfer worked very well. It wasn't perfect. But it worked well. 

I didn't use store-bought black frosting, though. I used some homemade stuff that Rachel made for Alexander's cake earlier this month. Everything froze up nicely and I just popped it off the wax paper and onto the cake as easy as anything!

Phoebe almost got hosed off in the garden over this cake. Not really. But almost. 

The kids like to talk about this one time that I was making a cake for Rachel and...sweet little three-year-old Zoë cut herself a big piece of cake...before I'd even finished assembling the cake. I was pretty mad about it and sent her and Benjamin to play outside in the backyard. 

But they kept trying to come back inside. 

So I...went outside...cranked on the hose...and sprayed them both down and told them to stay outside until they were dry. (In other words, I completely lost my mind).

That sounds mean and perhaps it was, but keep in mind that kids are time blind and they needed a way to know when I had had enough time to cool my temper. And also...it was July so it was "hot as anything" outside. Spraying them off with the hose was in no way cruel at those temperatures (and was maybe even a kindness). 

Well, Phoebe came up when I was on the very last layer of my freezer transfer. Luckily I was freezing it between colours and I had just taken it out of the freezer so it was as hard as a rock because she walked up to me, said, "Ooooh! What's that?" and swiped her little finger right across my beautiful work of art. 

I sent her to go play downstairs—no harm, no foul.

She had a couple of things going for her that Zoë didn't. First, she didn't actually damage the cake, and second, it's the end of October so spraying her with the garden hose isn't really an option. 

The reference to "hot as anything" is a little Phoebe quote from this week, wherein she tasted Nutter Butters for the first time and declared, "What the heck is this?! It's tasty as anything!"

And, oh, speaking of Phoebe...

Miriam was an absolute delight on her birthday. When she got home from seminary she spent some time with Phoebe, reading her stories, and making her bed. She then went to the kitchen and started doing some tidying up. And then she went downstairs to start on her schoolwork. 

Phoebe was still dragging her feet about putting away dishes, but was slowly plodding along. And then she roped Benjamin into helping her (even though all the dishes she technically needed help with had already been dealt with by Miriam). And then she noticed the last cupcake on the counter (from a friend's birthday party last week—we have sweets coming out of our ears these days) and wanted that. 

Somehow she wheedled Benjamin into giving her the cupcake, which she happily sat down to eat at the table, assuring everyone that she wouldn't get messy this time. 

(She ate a cupcake earlier in the week and got purple frosting everywhere). 

Meanwhile, Benjamin was just committed to the task of emptying the dishwasher (Phoebe's daily job).

Later, I noticed Phoebe with a toy I hadn't ever seen. But that's not entirely uncommon. Toys multiply around here. 

When we went on a walk that afternoon, Miriam boasted, "I got Phoebe to do her job without complaining by bribing her with a prize from my prize box!"

"Oh, did you now?" I asked. "Is that where she got that little Kinder Surprise toy from?"

"Yup!"

"Would you like to know was really happened?"

So I told Miriam about Phoebe and Benjamin and the cupcake. 

"And then she came downstairs to tell me she'd finished and claim her prize?!" Miriam gasped. "I...I mean...really I'm impressed."

Usually we accuse Rachel of being Tom Sawyer...but Phoebe might give her a run for her money!

We sure do appreciate how thoughtful and kind Miriam is. She is so sweet with her younger siblings and is always willing to share her talents.

She has been pulling 7–8 hour days at church on Sunday, playing organ for the Spanish ward sacrament meeting, and then piano for the Spanish ward primary, and then organ for our ward...and then this particular week we also had a linger longer and then choir practice. She was at church from 8:45 am to 4:30 pm! But she loves music and everyone appreciates her so much!

Yesterday our friend Edson gave his mission farewell talks. Yes, two—he spoke in the Spanish ward and in our ward. Just as Rachel and Miriam attended the Spanish ward (as they do every week—because organ...and because Miriam needs someone to drive her), some of his good friends from the Spanish ward came to hear him speak in the English ward (as they don't do every week). So many people came up to me at the linger longer to tell me how much they appreciate her not only for playing the organ, but also for playing for the primary kids because they just don't have anyone who can do it. 

He said that once they had a meeting where people were choosing their favourite songs and then Miriam was just having to play them on the spot while everyone sang. And someone chose a hymn that is only in the Spanish hymnbook (not the English one) and so this man (who plays a little piano, but not anything like Miriam) was kind of biting his nails for her, knowing it was a completely unfamiliar song to her. But she just played it beautifully! He was very impressed.

She really is a treasure!

Tonight (October 28), we went to Grandpa and Darla's for dinner. Darla had decorated some doughnuts with little eyes and vampire teeth—they were so cute!—for dessert. She handed them out and then said, "Wait! We need to sing to Miriam first! I'll go grab some candles!"

And sweet Phoebe got her cues mixed up and thought we were going to pray again!

Grandpa and Darla weren't able to visit Miriam on her birthday because they went to do hurricane cleanup. They actually offered to take our teens with them...but were told the minimum age for participation would bar our kids from going (except Rachel, who felt she was swimming in homework). Miriam had "fall festival" for piano, anyway, so she couldn't have gone ("fall festival" sounds like it should be a fun little show, doesn't it? but it's really a private adjudication event). Anyway, Grandpa and Darla went to help with hurricane clean up, so they wished Miriam a happy birthday today.

Marion came as well—we always love getting to spend time with her (even if no one is ever sure whether anyone is saying "Miriam" or "Marion"). 

Darla put five candles on Miriam's doughnut. After Miriam blew them out she joked, "Okay, now we have to do it two more times for it to count..."

Here's everyone checking out Zoë's new vampire teeth:

It's been a fun few days celebrating Miriam!