Happy Birthday, Tamale Pie

Yum! tamalie pie might just be my favorite food. It is savory and warm. It has corn meal, which is comfort food and olives, which are delicious. I'll post you all a recipe later. The big news is


Tamale Pie turned 6 last week!

She asked for bean salad & tortilla chips for dinner and carrot cake for desert. What a good girl to ask for such easy food for me to make.

She wanted one of those big Barbie heads that you can style the hair. She has wanted it for a whole year, so she got it. I'm pretty sure she loves it, but the picture of her with it, her eyes are half closed, so she looks possessed and I'm not posting it.

I also managed to finish her slippers! This pair took me the longest time because I forgot about my sewing machine and hand sewed all those hearts on. Duh, GlowWorm, way to create more work for yourself.

A few days later, I finished Pumpkin Pie's slippers. Yay! 3 down, 2 to go.

Tamale Pie is my most dramatic child--usually in a happy way. Pumpkin Pie takes the Oscar for nuclear meltdowns of woe.

Tamale Pie laughs the most, dances the most, sings the most, hugs the most (and I'm talking about running from the other side of the room and jumping on you in a koala bear/monkey kind of hug) and she TALKS the most.

She went to Kindergarten this fall, and the house is so quiet during the day now. No longer do I have her constant monologue/questions/bossy paragraphs about what I should be doing. It is nice to have quiet. But I miss her little voice, too. I'll be cleaning or driving somewhere and realize something is missing. There is no little voice asking me where we are going or what I am doing.

The other day I found a movie that she had made of herself on the computer.
#1 I don't even know how to use our computer to do that. I don't know how to post it so you can enjoy it also. I can't even find it again to watch it. And I'm not that computer illiterate either.

#2 Many times the constant talking didn't quite make sense to me, but I figured it was because I wasn't always really listening. After watching her video, I realized that she often does not complete a sentence or a relate causality clearly. In other words, sometime she just doesn't make sense.

#3 Her video was hilarious. She was clearly copying a you tube video I had watched on how to style your hair with a flat iron. She mimicked the girl's gestures and vocal inflections (rather valley girl style) almost perfectly, even though we only watched it once.

"Okay, what we are going to do today is a hair style and we have this pony tail holder...yadda yadda and you take it like this and braid it, and you have to do this because when we all go to the store we get cereal....and don't forget to go to www.tamalepie.com."


That's right. Apparently my six year old has her own website.

Tamale pie loves to help me and often asks what job she can do for me. She loves to dance ballet. One of these days I might be able to find her a real dance teacher. (our town lists 3 in the phone book, but the numbers are either wrong or no one answers/returns calls.) Until then, we are making do with ballet class DVDs from Amazon.

When Cherry Pie was baptized, Tamale Pie and Grandma Rosi were walking through the hall at the church. Tamalie Pie stopped at the picture of President Monson and said, "That's my prophet."

Very impressed, Grandma Rosie asked, "Do you have a picture of him in your house?"

"No, " says Tamale Pie, thoughtfully, "but we do have Mary Kay!"

(In my defense, we don't have a picture of Mary Kay hanging on the wall. What was hanging on the wall in my office was a goal poster of the things I wanted to achieve in Mary Kay--pay off our mortgage, buy new clothes, take the kids to Disney World.)


Tamale Pie likes all the normal food kids love, plus broccoli. Her favorite color is pink and right now, her favorite song is "Away in a Manger." She wants to go to Disney World and has saved up $3 and some change to help pay for our trip.

She always notices things that are inconsistent in what adults (ahem) do and asks me about it.

One morning I came downstairs to make breakfast. There on the counter was the delicious half of a chocolate cake my mother-in-law had given me, missing all the frosting from the top. Tamale Pie was sitting on a stool near the cake.
I asked, "Did you lick the frosting off of my cake?"
She replied, "No, Mama."
I said, raising my eyebrows, "It's rude to lick the frosting off of my cake."
She said, "But I just used my finger."

There you go. Logic that cannot be argued.