Change

Nope, my voice isn't changing.  And I am not going through the "big change"  (though at certain times I think that might be nice.  Aw, who I am I kidding.  I have heard it is pretty rough.  Maybe they should call it the "big bad change").  Ok enough digression.  Onto the point. I just got a new calling on Sunday.  I have been the chorister in Primary for only 6 short months.  I was really looking forward to staying in there and "playing" with the kids for awhile and helping them get ready for their program in the fall.  I guess that was not in the grand scheme of things, unfortunately.  Sit down for this one.  I  I just got asked to be the Young Women President.  I am excited about it for sure, but my head is still spinning. I really have no idea what I am doing.  I have been out of YW for 18 years.  Yeah.  That makes me feel old.  But not old enough to have such a "grown up" calling.  That's the weird thing.  Sometimes I still feel like I am just a kid and I am not old enough or mature enough to be in charge of stuff like this.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Yuck.  Who even wants to talk about this?  It's something that is going on in our family so I need to blog about it even though I don't want to.  We found out about 3 weeks ago that Kent's brother who is 2 years older has leukemia.  He has a rare form of cancer that is specifically called acute erythroid leukemia.   He started chemotherapy just 4 days after he was diagnosed and is currently in the hospital.  When you hear news like this it definitely shakes up your world.  It is hard to hear news like that and to hear the updates that the chemo is making him miserable and sick.  And that after the first round of chemo all the cancer isn't gone so he has to do 5 more days of a different chemo drug.  Our hearts go out to his wife and kids and especially to Carl who has been in the hospital for 2 weeks.  It's hard when stuff like this happens because you have to think about disease, and suffering and the possibility of bad outcomes.  And you are too far away to really do anything but send care packages and talk on the phone.  You have to explain to your kids what cancer is and try to reassure them when you aren't sure yourself what the outcome will be.  It's just a really hard time for Kent's family and we hope and pray that Carl will be able to go home and be healthy.  Soon.

Valentine's Guidebook- By Emilia

She wrote this in 2011.  Click on the pictures to see them larger and read the words.

 

Hamburger

The Way They Play

 

I have been hanging on to this picture for awhile.  Not quite getting around to posting it, but not wanting to delete it.  It is a common occurrence around here to have the "circle of toys" out.  The kids sit in the middle of it and play with the Littlest Pet Shops and whatever people and animals they can find.

Julia & Jacques and the Chicken Liver Pate

Oh, where to begin.  Where to begin?  This is one of those things that has evolved from something small into something bigger and must now be forever preserved on the blog for posterity.

One night Emilia got out of bed and came upstairs to have me clean her ears.  Ever since she got her ears pierced they have been infected off and on.  I was in my bedroom getting ready for bed and Julia Child was on the Create channel making some dish or another.  As we were cleaning her ears I was doing my best "Julia" voice and making funny comments about the things Julia was doing.  Emilia was laughing hysterically and a love for Julia Child was born in her.  She asked if we could watch Julia again sometime.  We checked the schedule and saw that Julia wasn't going to be on tv for awhile.  So we got on Netflix and saw that they have the 4 disc series: "Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home." 

 

Kent and I were familiar with Jacques.  (And Julia too, of course).  We had made fun of him on a regular-ish basis.  He has a very heavy French accent and an even heavier lisp.  It makes listening to him quite hilarious.  And we can never forget 2 of our favorite dishes he has made:  Cooked pears covered in cold coffee and meat with raisins, grapes and ketchup.  (Fine French cooking.)  When we discovered Julia and Jacques cooking together in one show, well,  that just raised the bar on cooking entertainment.  This is what we do at night.  We watch the Create channel and mock all the people who make "art" and home decor out of glue guns and trash, teach grandmas how to paint horrible beautiful flowers,  cook gross food, and of course drink lots of wine.

Chicken liver pate, Julia style.

So, to make a long story short, now that we have received and watched several J & J DVDs we have turned our children into sarcastic, mockers of fine French cooking.  One of our favorite family activities is sitting down with a big bowl of popcorn and watching J & J make chicken liver pate and fight over black pepper vs. white pepper.  We have even started an ongoing competition between the two to see who wins the episode.  Whoever makes the grossest food loses.  They get a point if what they make is edible and actually looks good.  They lose points for: drinking wine, eating meat and fish raw, making disgusting food, and combining foods that don't go together.  Usually they both end up with no points.  When there is a winner, it is usually Jacques.  We laugh and joke about how much butter they use, and how Julia substitutes 1/2 bottle of wine for the 1/2 cup she is supposed to use.  And how everything is "lovely".  And how she can't wait to get her fork into the food, and the food into her mouth.

The thing I like most though is how it is something that we do together as a family.  Everyone gets excited to watch Julia and Jacques.  And Adele loves docking points off the scores.  It's fun for me to know that my kids will always remember this about their childhoods.  That they will laugh and look back with good, warm memories about watching the show, and joking later in our "Julia voices" that we need to add more butter to the sauce or whatever.  Or that it the chicken is "just lovely".  Things like this make us feel like we are part of something.  That we share something that is unique to us.  Kind of like an inside family joke.  And if they are ever playing Trivial Pursuit someday and need to know something about chicken liver pate or how to make a roux, they will have it covered.

 Here we are, all snuggled in bed watching J&;J.

Good times.

Our last disc of the series is coming tomorrow.  No worries though, we still have plenty of the independent videos of Julia Child and Jacques Pepin available on Netflix.  And if  Ian gets his wish, we will buy a copy of Julia & Jacques "so we can watch it anytime we want and even take it on trips to watch in the car".

Wreath

 I saw this wreath over on Our Best Bites and thought it was so cute. I wanted a spring-ish wreath to hang on my door so I decided to give it a go.  Here it is.  I really like how it turned out.

Troublemaker Girl

Adele:  Mom, you're the troublemaker girl.
Me:  I am?
Adele:  Yes.  You are the one who makes everyone in trouble in our family.  All the kids.

I guess she's got that right.

Crafty Thrifty

My big girls got new sheet/comforter/bedskirt sets for Christmas.  The sheets were zebra striped and the comforters were reversible with zebra on one side and pink leopard on the other side.   When they opened the packages on Christmas morning we saw that the comforter sets came in a zipper bag that was made out of the same fabric as the comforter.  Of course I saw it and thought that there must be something cool we could do with the fabric that the bags were made of.  Then I thought of curtains and decided to make some.   I put the bags on the table in my sewing room and they sat there for 3 weeks.  Today I was cleaning up the reproducing mess in my sewing room and decided then and there to get those curtains done.  So here they are.  Just a simple window valance.  The stripe at the top is the rod pocket which was made from the handles of the bags. 

I wasn't really planning on blogging about this, but making something from nothing gave me such warm fuzzies, I had to.  I felt like the queen of thrift, taking something that I was just going to throw away and turning it into perfectly matching curtains.  (Patting myself on the back.)

.

If I would have been planning on blogging about this I would have taken pictures of the bags BEFORE I cut them to pieces.  But I didn't. So here is what was left after I made the curtains.

And then, if THAT wasn't enough, I used some of the scraps to make some cute twisty circle clips for my kids.  Its been a good crafty thrifty day.



Picnic with Cooper

Adele's friend Cooper came over for a couple of hourst the other day. His mom packed him a lunch to eat while he was here so of course Adele wanted a lunch in her lunchbox too.  I let them have a little picnic on the kitchen floor and they loved it.  It was pink day at preschool for Adele which is why she has the monochromatic pink outfit.



Choose the Right?

The Primary Theme for 2012 is "Choose the Right".  The primary presidency gave all the kids notebooks for journals and CTR pens.  I bet you know where this is going huh?  (For the record, the Pres. made sure to instruct the kids to only write on paper and in their notebooks.)

I guess we still have some work to do huh?  Let's hope they never give out "Choose the Right scissors."

Sunset 01/09/12

Spectacular.  Better in real life.

14th Anniversary Celebration

Kent and I had our 14th anniversary on December 19.  We  knew we would have grandparent access while we were visiting Kent's parents in Idaho so we asked them to watch our kids overnight.  They were kind enough to agree so we were free for the night!  We booked a room at the Black Swan Inn, a bed and breakfast in Pocatello.  We have stayed there on 2 other anniversaries, again with the G-parents watching the kids for us.  We went there on our 4th anniversary and also on our 8th (ish?)

Eating some yummy food at Texas Roadhouse Grill

Here's our room:  The Caveman Suite.  It was decorated really fun!

A view of the big tub in the cave.  I could live in this cave.

Thanks to Kent's parents for being awesome and letting us go have some good anniversary partying! It is really nice to be able to have a night without the kiddos once and awhile.   Kent and I had a good time talking and reminiscing about our lives together. It is fun to remember how things were in the "good old days" when it was just the two of us.  We wouldn't trade our kids to have those days back but it sure is fun to have some time away.  Thanks for the fun date Kent. I love ya.

Band Concert

Emilia started playing the flute this year.  At first she was really frustrated and didn't like it at all.  Over the last few months though she has been faithfully practicing the required 20 minutes per day.  She has progressed amazingly and had her first band concert a few days before school got out.   The concert was in the school gym with standing room only.  Supposedly the 6th grade band has a record number of students this year. As usual, the band was made up of a plethora of flutes and an even larger number of clarinets, a few brass instrument players and some percussionists.  I didn't see any saxophones but I am pretty sure the squeaking I kept hearing during the concert was from a sax.  Anyway, this concert did 2 things for me 1.  It amazed me how fast kids can learn to play an instrument and actually make it sound pretty decent(ish).  I was so impressed by the school's band teacher. In fact, I was so impressed I vowed to email the teacher and tell him what a great job he is doing.  2.  The concert took me WAY back to when I was in junior high and played the very same flute in a very similar band.  It made me realize how big my little girl is getting and that she is a a point in her life where I feel like I was only a few short years ago.  (Even though it is definitely more than a FEW short years. I guess 20ish years is more than a few.)  I was having such a moment of pride and nostalgia that my eyes actually got all teary. And then I had to pull myself together because really, who gets all teary eyed at a 6th grade band concert?  I couldn't be bawling my eyes out and embarrassing myself and my family. (And I didn't want people thinking I was crying because of the music.)

A side tangent about embarrassing my family:  There are times when I am really looking forward to embarrassing my kids in public.  I say it is payback.  Just because they can't remember all the times they have embarrassed me in their short lives doesn't mean it didn't happen.  And I will remind them when I am embarrassing them (not on purpose, of course) that there have been many many times that they have embarrassed ME in public.

Christmas Morning

Santa was good to us this year.  We feel very blessed this season to have a roof over our heads, food on the table, everybody healthy and presents under the tree.

Now that is excitement!

Kids are what make Christmas fun!  The kids were so hyper and excited.  They didn't wake us up til about 7:30 and we started opening presents around 8.   My friend Amy couldn't make it to our house this year for Christmas so we skyped with her while we opened presents.

Cheese Party-Christmas Eve

Here we have the Christmas Eve 2011 Cheese Party spread.  It is one of our favorite traditions that we take part in every holiday season. The date of the party isn't important.  We just make sure we have our cheese party sometime between Christmas and New Year's.  We have it at different times depending on whether we have company coming for any of the holidays or if we will be going somewhere.  If we have people visiting us we like to include them in our cheese party.  This year we had plans to be home for Christmas but gone for New Year's so we decided to do the party Christmas Eve.

Kent caught red handed drinking from the bottle. 

We love CHEESE! (And olives.  We could have an olive party every year if there were more types of olives to try.  And if we LIKED gourmet olives, which we don't.)  One of the kids (I think it was Emilia) asked Kent how we started the tradition of the cheese party. His response was not exactly accurate (but a good answer nevertheless).  He told her that when we were newlyweds we were so poor at Christmastime and we didn't have any money to buy fancy treats and food.   So we went to the BYU creamery and picked out a fancy cheese and bought it and had our very first cheese party.  The part about being poor newlyweds was true.  And the part about buying stuff at the BYU creamery.  The cheese party, however, did NOT originate in that way.  Here is the real story, recorded for posterity:  The year after we were married Kent was working in the Microbiology stockroom at BYU  making media (the stuff that goes in petri dishes for the microbes to grow on).  He had a department party around Christmastime where they had a sampling of many different fancy cheeses and appetizers.  He came home from the party and told me all about it and how fun it was to try all these new types of cheeses. I was intrigued and we decided that it would be a fun tradition to have a cheese party every year and feature a different type of cheese.  THAT is the true story of how the cheese party originated.

Part of the cheese party festivities this year included playing Hero Quest.  It's one of "our" favorite family games (Our=kent and the kids'. I play it because of peer pressure, and so that I am not a party pooper).  Kent used to have the game when he was a kid and he used to play it with his brothers. Last year he bought the  game on Ebay (and paid a steep price for the discontinued game).  Just watch, Hero Quest will make a comeback just like Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and the Smurfs.  And then you will be able to get your very own copy of this game for 10 bucks at Wal-mart.

The cheese of the year was Dutch Vincent cheese.  As you see, it sports a picture of Van Gogh whom the cheese is named after.  The cheese is quite similar to the flavor of a Parmesan cheese, but I thought it tasted just a touch more like mold than Parmesan.

I'm ALIVE!

Yeah.  I haven't blogged forever and now I am finally playing catch up.  I hadn't realized that it had been SOOO long since I blogged!  I guess my Inner Blogging Voice has just been covered up by my Inner You-Have-A-Lot-To-Do-To-Get-Ready-For-Christmas Voice.

• All my presents are bought/made, wrapped, and shipped.  Whew.  I have been sewing fleece pajama pants for the kids, some doll pajamas for Adele's new doll and a blanket for Adele.
• I actually sent out Christmas cards this year (*gasp*).  I hardly ever do but I was bullied into it this year.  And I am glad because there are some people out there who don't read my blog (shocker!) so they never get a chance to see how the kiddos are growing and how many more wrinkles Kent and I are developing.
• I made fudge today. I felt really proud of myself. I love fudge but I have feared making it since the Christmas of 2000 when I tried to make it and failed.  It was all grainy and gross.  All the years after that I just hoped someone would give us some.  This year I got brave and made this recipe.  Just leave it to my bffs Kate and Sara to save the day again!  Today I declared fudge to be my favorite food.
  Then I went and ran 5 miles on my treadmill to help mitigate the fudge-damage I have done today.
• My great friend Amy won't be able to make it to our house for Christmas and we are all really sad about that.  She has spent many Christmases with us over the last 8 years and this may only be the second or third time she won't be here.  (Amy, we will miss you soooo much this year).
• Adele has been trying to be obedient lately.  She is very determined to stay off the "naughty list".  She has done a pretty good job too.  She hasn't cut her hair, drawn on the walls or anything truly destructive since last time I blogged about her drawing on the wall.  Her main offenses continue to be stealing other people's treats, gum etc. or eating ABC gum out of the garbage can.  (EWWW).  She has been really sweet lately and I am really trying to enjoy her because this is a fun age.  She is really growing up fast and I am kind of sad to see all my babies grow up. 

Decorating the Tree

I was feeling kind of "bah humbuggy" after Thanksgiving.  The Christmas music playing at Wal-mart starting Nov. 25 wasn't doing anything for me (which is no big surprise since they have the collection of the worlds most annoying and horrible Christmas music). I wasn't really excited about putting up the Christmas decorations, mostly because I didn't want to have to drag all the stuff up from the basement and put away all the decorations that are usually out.  Plus I just didn't feel like it should be Christmastime.  We had planned to decorate on Dec. 3 but actually didn't get to it until the 5th.  Once everything was up I was glad that we had finally gotten everything out.  The tree looked pretty and the decorations looked really festive.  But mostly the kids could really start getting excited about Christmas and that's really what it's all about isn't it?

 Wearing clothes that match is totally optional at our house as you can see.

 

Christmas Card

14th Anniversary

Yesterday Kent and I celebrated our 14th anniversary!  We went out to dinner at Chili's (not so good last night, we were a bit disappointed.  Note to self: stop ordering pasta at restaurants that aren't specifically pasta places.) After we got home and got the kids to bed Ian got sick.  He was havin some fun puking and running to the bathroom all night.  Fun huh?  Kind of represents where we are right now in our lives right?  So it was fitting for the occasion.  Reminds us that because we fell in love and got married we have a family.  And that family is very real.  Especially when they are throwing up during the night.  It was a good night though and still fun to reminisce about the day we got married and the other anniversaries we have had over the years.  We have plans for an overnight anniversary date next week when Grandma and pa can watch the kiddos.  We are definitely looking forward to that.

I Love you Kent!