“I first set my eyes” and “through the streets wide and narrow”–Molly Malone
“virgin mama” and “silent night”–Silent Night.

“Lift your arms up”–Blue Bowl Down, Ava’s favorite book of the past year, which I sing to her.

“come to thee”–I Need Thee Every Hour

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow”–Surely Goodness and Mercy

“in a one horse open sleigh.”–Jingle Bells

I thought that MCK Mama’s sister Hillary had won the contest and actually gave MCK Mama the prize today to give to her sister. After careful review however, it was actually MCK Mama who takes the prize (so sorry, Hilary)–and I think that makes three contests that MCK Mama has won!

Oh, and what did she win?

Lavendar blue, dilly, dilly,

Dolphins dark gray, dilly, dilly,

In the deep pool, dilly, dilly,

They dive and play.

“I first set my eyes on the sweet virgin mama.

Through the streets wide and narrow on the silent night

Lift your arms up and come to thee

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you in a one horse open sleigh.”

Beautiful, isn’t it? Sounds even better lying down with a three-year-old combing her fingers through your hair.

The first person to name the most songs in this lullaby jumble wins a prize. What prize? Well, it’s coming out of the Great Purge, more on that tomorrow.
I will leave the comments open until Sunday at midnight and announce the winner on Monday! Happy guessing.

In addition to her own lullabies, Leah included our family’s favorite version of “Hush Little Baby.” The lyrics where take from Ava’s book by Sylia Long (with permission of course), and tell the story of a Mama sharing the beauty and wonder of creation with her child.

If I was as tech saavy as my husband, I would find a way to post one of the songs here, but I’m not and he is still sleeping off his beef tenderloin and pecan pie from last night’s oh so wonderful Christmas festivities. I can however, put up a link to Leah’s myspace page, and send you to the source. “Moon in my Window,” is written by Leah and the title song of the CD.

Grab your favorite blankie before playing “Moon in my Window,” for I assure you that you will be curled up and sucking your thumb before she is finished lulling you to sleep.

I have long wanted to share this CD with you and now I get to give out two CDs for Christmas!

Pretty Leah will mail a CD to two readers as a Happy Christmas present to you. To enter the contest, simply post a comment on this post before 2:30 AM Monday morning (have to give HuberHadley a fair shake). Ava and I will hold another official drawing and post the two lucky winners Christmas day.

Oh, and if you would like to purchase “Moon in my Window,” Leah is offering these CD’s to my readers and friends for $6.oo, including shipping. Simply send Leah an e-mail at backtheroad@gmail.com, and then settle into your rocking chair with your favorite cuddlebug.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

“Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line. The approximate waiting time to speak to a representative is…“

Some days I feel as if my life is plagued by phone queues. Thanks to a healthy dose of laughter, I may be able to pick up the phone and call my insurance company without grimacing. If only I could sleep so peacefully while waiting for Blue Cross Blue Shield to PICK-UP! Okay, perhaps I’m not completely healed, but it’s a start.

Way to go Huberhadley, the Starbuck’s gift certificate and internet fame is yours!

Runner ups are:

“Can you hear me now.” Shanel, I loved this one as you know. It still makes me crack up.

“I hear the secrets that you keep, when you’re talking in your sleep.” Nice work, Jennifer! This was very clever and one of Nate’s favorites: “Oh, that’s a good one.”

Thanks to everyone for playing! It was so fun to hear all your creative entries. You all are an impressive bunch.

Oh, and the Pioneer Woman is this sassy photographer lady who lives on a working cattle ranch out west. She regularly hosts name-the-photo contests on her equally sassy blog. While her prizes are unquestionable superior to a latte of your choice, your odds of winning substantially better here. Her last contest attracted 1698 contenders!

Hopefully I will figure it out before Monday morning.

This is the scene that I found when I went to wake Ava up from her nap today.

Yes, that is her daddy’s retired phone, which he gave her last Saturday. “How come it’s not pink?” she asked him as she stuffed it in her fluffy pink poodle purse. The phone has become her constant companion, with which she communicates with just about everyone she has met and hasn’t met.

Today that phone accompanied her to bed.

Apparently the person on the other line got severely long winded.

This photo is in need of a good name, don’t you think? And so I’m turning it over to you, my creative internets.

In honor of the Pioneer Woman and her fabulous blog, I am hosting a name-the-photo-contest (I really like contests). Of course, I don’t have the ad kickbacks to put up $350 gift certificates to Williams Sonoma (which I did not win by the way). I can, however, buy you a cup of joe to keep you from falling asleep while chatting with me on the phone.

So there you have it, name this photo and a $5 gift certificate to Starbucks is yours! As well as internet fame, and you really can’t put a pricetag on that.

To enter this contest, please write your clever title in the Comments section of this post by Saturday at noon (CST). The savvy Winner will be announced Monday morning.

Happy Naming!

So the first time I counted the candy, I counted 99. If I hadn’t found four suckers stuck in the interior knitting of the bag, Yvette would have been spot on. Lucky for late-comer Kieran and lollipop-craver Ava, I did find the suckers bringing the total to 103.

So neither previous-winner Shanel nor near-winner Yvette will claim the prize. And while I would love some Norwegian chocolate, 81 isn’t close enough. With a guess of 100, boy wonder Kieran is the winner!

Congratulations Kieran!

How any 3-year-old brings home 103 pieces of candy after visiting less than 30 houses is beyond me.

How many pieces did she eat on Halloween? One. Yes, just one. A pink Tootsie Roll.
How many pieces has she eaten since? Three.
How many pieces are left in her stash? Never going to tell.
How many pieces will be left after I’ve posted this post? Nah, not going to share that either.

So, congratulations again to you Kieran!

The Minstrels are in the post.

If you guess how many treats were in Ava’s purse, I will send you one of my favorite treats.

My last bag of Minstrels from Northern Ireland.Mmm, they’re so good.

Let the guessing begin!

**Unless someone guesses spot on, the person closes to the number without going over wins.

Edited to add: Contest ends on Sunday night or when someone guesses the right number.

The results:

Can you see the bunny?

• Of course, it’s obvious: 18%
• As soon as you mentioned it: 48%
• Not until someone traced it out on my monitor: 25%
• There is no bunny: 7%

Seers out-see non-seers by 66%, see? Si.

I have been so long divorced from my laptop that it was actually Nate that posted about the contest winner. In fact, I didn’t even know who had won until he returned to my parent’s cabin from his extended excursion at the internet cafe. And due to a miscommunication and improper instruction on my part, he was unable to locate and publish these important pictures:

Yes, there it is. The official drawing. I find it necessary to point out that Ava drew the number that corresponds to her age. She is clever like that.

So congratulations to you, Shanel! And to me, since I no longer have to ship the soap across the country. I can just keep forgetting to bring it to our lunch dates.

And now that I’m able to type freely on my laptop, I would like to send my love to all the lovely lurkers who said hello!

It was seriously so much fun to hear from you!

Thank you, thank you to all the former roommates, old highschool friends–of course I remember you Beth, favorite co-workers, and new internet friends who brightened up the dreariest of days during the wettest week of the rainiest month in my memory. (You know it’s bad when six urban woman–read non-farmers–get together and their number one prayer request involves the weather. “Please Lord, make the rain stop, please.”)

I had know idea that delurking week would be so rewarding, I wish I could give you all a huge hug.

But since my arms won’t be able to extend all the way out to Northern Ireland again for sometime, I will give you the next best thing: the recipe for Ava and my absolute favorite chocolate chip cookies ever.

And they are so easy to make that the resident three-year-old now “reads” me the recipe.

In fact, the hardest thing about these cookies is figuring out how to get your microwave to properly soften butter. You could just leave the butter on the counter for a couple hours, but that would require planning ahead. And in my experience, these are the “I’m-craving-something-warm-soft-and-gooey” kind of cookies that are made on very short notice and generally include knocking on the neighbors door for an egg while the butter and sugaring are creaming upstairs.

While you will have to supply the butter and eggs, I promise they will return the smiles you sent me.

Virtual Hug Cookies

3/4 cup of butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)
1/2 cup of brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup of white sugar
1 egg (slightly beaten)
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 pkg semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together dry ingredients (including oats). In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Taste to make sure that the sugar is sweet and the butter is creamy, then add the egg and vanilla. All samples now contain raw egg, taste at your own risk (a risk I tend to ignore repeatedly). Slowly add in flour mixture. Add in chocolate chips. Resist temptation to eat all of the cookie dough. Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 9 to 13 minutes. It’s suppose to make 3 dozen cookies. This has yet to happen for us–I blame Cookie Dough Monster Nate. Cool for one minute or let them cool in your mouth. Either way–Enjoy!