Family Wedding

Sometimes it's good to go home.  I'm getting to that middle age when you only get to see your extended family at funerals.  Last weekend we traveled to Illinois for a joyous purpose - my brother's wedding.  My four brothers and sisters, husbands and wives as well as most of their children, were there to celebrate.  We are really quite the crowd:

I didn't realize my immediate family was so big until I looked at this picture.  Not only did my immediate family attend, a good number of my cousins with their kids (and a few grandkids) showed up.  I had 23 cousins on my mother's side growing up and counting their spouses, children and grandchildren, there were 21 family members there representing the original 23.  That might not sound like a lot of family members to some people, but my cousins are scattered from Boston to Virginia, from New Orleans to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and everything in between, especially southern Illinois.  The best part?  Because of social media, I feel like I still know what my cousins are doing most of the time.  Gotta love it.

We don't get too many chances these days to gather for occasions like weddings.  My mother was one of five girls and in the last four years, 3 of them have died, including my mother.  It's wonderful to know that even as my mother's generation is waning, their children still enjoy getting together and introducing new members of their families.  How ironic that probably the last wedding of the cousins is my brother's, the oldest cousin.

My kids were very surprised to find out how many "cousins" they have.  Here are the first cousins:

My daughter kept asking how she was related to all the other family she was meeting.  I kept repeating that they were all "cousins," some just farther removed.  During her week in Illinois, she also visited with my husband's family, including "cousins."  After we returned to Arizona, she missed being so far away from her extended family on both sides.  As the unofficial family genealogist, I was thrilled to see both of my children so interested in their family roots.

My cousins used to comment that such a large family came from the five "Wilbourn girls" (my mother and her sisters).  As we get older, our families have become very extended.  My kids and their cousins will now look to the five "Hendricks kids" as their source.

Mom and Dad would be so proud.

cindy

Scrapbook Sunday - Summer Splash

Here's a summer page to get you feeling warm.  I'm not sure why I didn't get a picture of the entire page when I photographed this a couple of weeks ago, but you can get an idea of the layout.  I'm not thrilled with the pictures with Christian and Kent because of the shade.  However, I wanted that interaction in the layout.

The background paper is a blue and green dot vellum over a green patterned paper.  I like the pictures to have some progression in a layout because it seems to tell a better story.  Here, Christian was giggling about getting into the water, but eventually did and even trusted his dad to float on his back.  I loved using the "tape" on the pictures - great product!  The letters are stenciled and cut (when I had time to do that type of thing!).  They are outlined and layered over blue gingham ribbon so they pop a little more.  My favorite part of this layout is Christian's expression.  I miss that baby - he is 11 tomorrow (Monday).

Happy birthday baby boy.

cindy

Southern Cooking

The last couple of months I have been longing for comfort food I remember from my southern family.  My dad used to make a couple, and my mom made a few too.  Some things I definitely don't miss - brussel sprouts, liver & onions and "greens".  (However on a recent trip to Louisville, we had some great "greens" with spinach sauted in pork fat - yum!)  The two I've been particularly interested in making were chicken & dumplings and peach cobbler.   One of the interesting things about these dishes is that my husband and I both remember very similar recipes from our childhoods.

For those of you with "northern" families, I'm not talking about chicken & dumplings that are big round globs of flour dropped into boiling water.  I'm talking about the thinly rolled and cut dumplings that are gently placed in a pot with lots of chicken and broth.  My mom and grandmother never gave me a recipe for this fine dish, but I recently found a promising one on allrecipes.com.  I'm not listing it here as a recipe, because I'm not quite sure I perfected it - a little too soupy for me.  I also didn't roll the dumplings quite thin enough or have the water boiling enough.  Have to try it again.

In the meantime, it's peach time and I'm ready to try some peach cobbler.  I was wimpy (and not true southern) by using pre-made sugar cookie dough as the bottom crust, but hey, I did try grandma's pastry crust for the top.  My results were OK, but not quite good enough.  Here's the peach filling before I put the crust on:

I used white peaches, which I don't think were as sweet.  Being wimpy on the bottom crust wasn't very satisfying, but the top pastry part was promising.  I'm going to have to give this one another try too.

I'd love to hear about your favorite childhood comfort food.  In the meantime, I'll keep working on mine.

cindy