The Day of Luciana

She woke up and came downstairs to find that her Daddy had decorated the kitchen with streamers and birthday balloons, as he always does. Mark took the day off work. She decided that she would like to go to the Milwaukee Public Museum for her day, so we left in the morning and went to the museum. I love that museum. It's always very clean, and they have lots of great exhibits. We spent the day there, and we all had a blast. We were able to get back to town to have her birthday dinner at my mom's. L. wanted veggie burgers, fries, tomatoes, and peas for her birthday dinner, so that's what we had. She got a few small gifts for her actual birthday, but had to wait until Sunday's family party to get the rest.

Thursday night (her birthday) was her first tae kwon do class. We gave her the option to go or to stay home and play games. She chose TKD class, so she and Mark went to class together. She enjoyed her first class, so we'll both be interested to see if she chooses to stick with it. Since she gets to do it with Daddy, I'm guessing she will. They have lots of fun no matter what they do together.

Friday we spent a lot of time on history. We just moved into early Egyptian history, and she is really excited about mythology and the heiroglyphics. In retrospect, I see we should have done language first. It's a lot easier to convince her to go from pronouns to ancient Egypt than the reverse!

I tried a new recipe Friday night for dinner. It turned out pretty good, but I will need to tweak it a bit next time. I made Roasted Tomato Bean Soup from Dreena Burton's "Vive le Vegan" cookbook. Dej loved it, Mark liked it, and L. ate it (she rarely loves something the first time she tries it, but eating it is a good sign). Next time I make it, I will use less black pepper than it calls for. I'm just not a fan of the taste of black pepper, and I could pick up enough of the flavor that it bothered me.

L. and I spent a good portion of the day in the kitchen on Saturday. After we returned from her gymnastics class, we started baking cupcakes. She requested cupcakes as her treat of choice for the family party. She wanted vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Meh. Boring. We have all these tantalizing gourmet cupcakes in the vegan cupcake recipe book we were using, and I kept trying to lure her to one of the more exciting choices. She was determined to stick with the vanilla, so we did. She wanted to have green frosting with pink decorations. She also wanted to bake a pan of mini cupcakes, as she had gotten a mini pan in a cooking set from Aunt Bobbi last year. She thought since M. isn't much of a sweet eater, he would like to have a little cupcake instead of a full-sized one. That way he could enjoy her birthday treat too. I'm pleased to say that yet another recipe from our cupcake book turned out fabulous! They were very good, and she did a great job decorating them. I have learned that if I fill the pastry bag with just a small amount of the frosting, she can squeeze it out herself, and she just loves that part of the process!

Saturday night Mark and I had date night, and he had planned another top secret activity. I didn't know what we were doing or where we were going. He only told me to dress nicely. We went to Rockford's Coronado Theater to see the symphony orchestra. They had a performance by a female trombone player who was very good, and it's unusual to see female trombone players. She was a small pretty, delicate woman from Tokyo, who really worked that trombone. Mark very much enjoys listening to trombonists (I have no idea if that's the correct term for it), as he plays trombone himself. We were very impressed by the concert as a whole, and even more impressed by the Coronado. It is absolutely stunning! It's restored beautifully--very ornate--and words cannot possibly do it justice. We agreed that we will return to future events there, as we really enjoyed the whole experience.

Dej's birthday gift to L. was to take her to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. L. and D. have never actually gone anywhere alone together with D. driving. L. was very excited to be going out with her sister like grownups. They had snacks and both girls said the movie was very funny. L. will remember this gift forever, I'm sure. They returned from the movie this afternoon shortly after M.'s parents and brother Dan arrived for the celebration. They built with blocks and with Lego's until it was time to go out for her dinner. She selected Red Robin, and my parents met us there. After dinner we came back so she could open her gifts and to have cupcakes. She got lots of nice gifts--more than she needed of course--books, clothes, more Legos, jewelry, electronics kit, etc. We gave her a gift she has been asking for since before xmas, one of those claw machines. She was really excited and had my dad get it ready and operational right away. It was then that we discovered that it plays a hideously loud circus song the entire time it is being played. It has no volume. It has no "off" switch. I may never get the stupid circus song out of my head. She went to bed a tired, happy girl. She's eight now! Eight. Wow.