This little girl of mine is in the "must change my clothes every half hour" phase. It makes for a lot of laundry since she usually manages to get her clothing dirty each time. Anyway, I told her to go put some clothes on the other day and this is what she came up with:

It's her own shirt, a diaper (we're working on it), some of her own under pants, and two pairs of her sister's underpants as well. The crocs are Tag's.

Dropping kids off

I dropped the kids off today. Of course. (Napoleon Dynamite moment: Duh! What d'you think?)

Anyway, Pebbles picked up a little chant from the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks from when Alvin does his little sexy dance ("bow chicka wow wow") and turned it into "ah chickee dah dah" and a little booty dance of her own. She does it to tease the older kids who yell "ew!!" and run away to complain about her indecency.

This morning she was absently chanting it in the van, likely trying to mentally escape how miserably cold it was this morning (it's only 35° -- they ain't seen nothing yet) and of course take a parting shot at her uber-sensitive sibs. We finally decided to correct her though. It was so strange to hear her little voice say "chicka wow wow?" and I confirmed a few times with the kids that it was from the Chipmunk movie and no other source. -sigh- Some day they'll have to know what this iconic reference means.

Tag and Princess each gave me a kiss (something I never discourage and hope it lasts a while longer) and then Tag called out "I love you! I hope y'all have a good day!"

Y'all? Y'all?? Oh, dear. We can't move soon enough.

Man's surgery is this Wednesday. We're not sure what time yet as they will be calling us tomorrow with the nitty-gritty, like whether I'm supposed to stay at the hospital and wait or if I can go do business and usual until they give me a call. But this is it folks. This is the one and only surgery he'll be getting, this is his last orthopedic surgeon, his last chance to have a real difference made for his shoulder. The results of this procedure will influence so many things for us, both in his career as well as almost every aspect of home life. The pain is really wearing on him and the rest of us as well. We've been hearing some really great things about his surgeon from people at church who are also part of the medical community.

So, any prayers you have, any good thoughts or good vibes, think about Man on Wednesday. He has had a blessing and we know that God will somehow provide a way for us to take care of ourselves, but we'd really rather do it without Man hurting.

If things go well: we stay in the military, Man completes his training, completes his contract, and then we decide whether to reenlist or get out and try our hand at the real world again, but with a very marketable skill.

If things go poorly: he gets med-boarded out of the military before his training is complete, and he ends up jobless and 80% disabled, not to mention that "pain for the rest of your life" part. I would go get my nursing degree (nurse practitioner if I have the stamina and funding) and become the bread winner, but with a house-husband too injured to even carry a laundry basket.

Of course, even if things go well I'd want to get my degree. I'm already looking into schools at our next station.

Wow, that got long.

You put the lime in the coconut

This kid. This kid right here. She and Pebbles love the weirdest foods. Pebbles eats lemon wedges, every kind of cheese we offer her, and any fruit whatsoever. She eats almost anything.

Freida has begun to eat just about anything as well. Out of all four of them, she's the most frustrating about stuff she puts in her mouth. Just yesterday I had to do the baby Heimlich on her to get an acorn out of her mouth that Tag left on his dresser, which Pebbles then found, played with, and left on the floor. The only thing to do is vacuum twice a day and just keep an eye on her.

-sigh-

I've said it before and I guarantee I'll say it again: it's a darn good thing she's so cute.



And, by the way, she walked across the living room yesterday for the first time. It won't be long now.

Pictures

Here are some catch up pictures.


All the kids have been sick lately, especially this little one. She's been having a cough and conjunctivitis.


Peeking out of her blanket. This cute girl just grew into a woman's shoe size 6. That's right, folks, she only has 5 more sizes to catch up with her old mum.


She was trying to pose for the picture and watch the movie at the same time.


Ah, that's better.


"Hey, lemme take your picture." "Do I have to?"


It's a 15 minute class, so of course I need this many books and binders of information...


I also need some visual aids representing my various menu planning strategies.

This was my most successful attempt at menu planning:


An example of the note card system. It has a grocery list and recipe notes on the back, complete with side dish suggestions.

Since it's an Enrichment night class, I had to make one of the note cards using funny shaped scissors, funky scrap book paper, and a glue stick. It's a law. Ignore the big hair on the card that I couldn't see but my camera evidently did.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE!!!

Not that there ever was one...

Back to menu planning.

A nice lady in the ward has asked me to teach a class on menu planning. I laughed, and laughed some more, then I got ahold of myself and just laughed on the inside for a while.

It's called irony, dear readers.

So, anyway, like I always do when I get to teach a class, I've researched the heck out of it. Here is what I have so far:

Meal Planning Class.docx

This is the incomplete version. I have yet to flesh out all of the subpoints and I have a ton of recipes I want to add in there.

Anyway, while wandering around the web, I found this stunning website. Now, THERE IS NO EXCUSE for me to not have a meal plan. None, whatsoever. As if I was able to justify an excuse before.

BTW, the class is only supposed to be 15 mins long. Think it'll work? I'll have to talk fast and not take questions.

I also need to trim my stack of about 15 handouts and offer to email the linked doc above, since I'm sure the relief society doesn't want me to copy 30 pages per person in attendance.

Salt

Last night I made homemade pizza but, for the first time in quite a while, forgot to put the salt in the dough. What can I say? I had four little people stepping on my feet, asking when dinner would be ready.

Man approached me later, after eating, and asked if I was trying to get us to eat less salt as a family. I turned from him, determined to not give such a question the time of day.

I wasn't quite sure what bothered me about it, but I returned to him later to voice my conclusion:

I'd rather be thought of as incompetent than conniving.

After all, why would I leave the salt out of the dough then put Prego spaghetti sauce, cheese, and pepperoni on it? That's like those weirdos who get a Supersize McDonald's coronary in a bag along with a 32 ounce diet Coke.

Maybe some day when I goof on dinner, he won't think I have some sort of secret agenda to make him healthier. I can only imagine what he thinks actually happens in the kitchen.

There I stand, over my cauldron, in a black apron and my book of herbal witchcraft, cackling gleefully as I put BRAN into his muffins and BEAN SPROUTS in his green salads and OLIVE OIL instead of butter in my sautee pan and SPINACH in our lasagna, among other dastardly unmentionables in a secret plan to make him healthier, MWAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!! Soon, he'll have more energy with which to complain that my cooking doesn't taste like it used to, he'll have stronger bones with which to beat his chest in the agony of healthy meals, and his mind will be sharp enough to argue concinvingly in favor of transfat, refined sugar, and bleached flour.


NO, I did NOT leave the salt out on purpose.

-sigh-

Check out this awesome website though, where this lady teaches people to use shelf-stable ingredients to make some really great recipes.

Someone else's baby

I went to a baby shower tonight for a friend who I met in California. Our paths have crossed again and are about to uncross, as they once more move on before we do. She recently gave birth to her second child, a mere 14 months following the grand entrance (or exit) of her first.

This tiny baby was just perfect. Her skin had a slightly ruddy newborn cast to it, her mouth was delightfully puckered in unconscious nursing motions, and her fingers were delicately spindly and gorgeous. At 9 days old, she still weighs slightly under 8 pounds and appears to be the size of a scrawny cantaloupe.

I got to hold her for several minutes at the party while every other lady in the room laughed about their messy, hilarious, life-altering deliveries. I held her cradled and then tried her in my favorite newborn position: curled in a lump on my chest, right above my heart. Newborns fit just so perfectly into hands and arms and on chests.

I savored her velvet skin and her newborn smell, the fluttering movements of her skinny limbs governed by a very immature nervous system, and the yawns that seemed that they would allow me to peer straight into her wee lungs. She was warm, soft, and absolutely beautiful.

And then it was time to go. I handed her back and was briefly overwhelmed by relief that I got to enjoy that sweet little creature, and yet I get to sleep aaaaaaall night tonight with no guilt. I smiled. I felt sympathy for this poor woman who would have to get up every 2 hours to feed her slightly jaundiced baby, deal with painfully engorged mammaries, and somehow care for her two kids who are all but Irish twins.

I've done my time. I've lost enough sleep. Tonight just confirmed all over again how grateful I am to never again be pregnant. I'm going to snuggle into my nice, heavy blankets and snooze the snore of the well-contented mother who has moved beyond one phase of her children's young lives.

I'm sure I'll once again lose sleep once they start driving and going to parties. But that's an entirely different blog post.

Comfort Food

It has finally been cold enough for a few days that we've been able to make soup and biscuits for dinner. We had some friends over for a roast chicken meal (baked acorn squash with brown sugar and butter, stuffing, mashed taters (what'ssss taterss, preciousss? every time), steamed carrots, and the chicken was moist inside, crispy outside = tres yum) and thus had two little chicken carcasses with which to make some delightful chicken soup. I love whole chickens and the two meals I get from just one small bird. Around here, they can be had for about $3.50 each. Here is the spread of recipes:

Roast chicken

1 whole chicken
1/4 cup of sea salt
1 T ground black pepper
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp poultry seasoning
2 T softened butter

Take your thawed or fresh chicken and rub that sucker with butter. Get your hand between the skin and meat and rub butter there, too. This makes the skin crispy. Sprinkle with all the spices, saving the salt for last. Make sure the salt gets all over the whole bird. You can put aromatics in the cavity if you like. (onion, celery, carrots, crushed cloves of garlic) Cover with foil, bake in 350° oven for about 30 mins or until a thermometer reads 160° in the breast. Take the foil off and let the skin crisp up in the dry heat until desired color is reached. Don't be shy.

Acorn squash

I like to get these done fast. I also have only one rack in my oven, so this method is my ideal solution.

2 medium acorn squashes (squashi? squash?)
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 teaspoons butter

Split the squashes in half and remove seeds. Clean your microwave plate very well. Put the squash, cut side down, on the plate and nuke for at least 5 mins or until soft. Turn over, put into a pie plate or whatever will hold them (I put them on the rack of my toaster oven), and sprinkle with brown sugar and add a pat of butter. Bake at 350°, basting occasionally with the gooey liquid in the middle until you have nicely browned squash. You can slice these pieces in half and just serve in their shells (my favorite, no hassle method) or allow them to cool slightly and scoop the flesh into a serving bowl (the kids' favorite no hassle method). Add salt if desired.

Mashed potatoes

I was a bit leery of making mashed taters with skins, but these turned out great. The secret is to have a friend who can really scrub potatoes, or use thin-skinned yukon golds. (scrub those, too)

1 large potato or two small potatoes per person, scrubbed and nasty parts cut out
1/4 cup butter (at least)
1/2 cup sour cream (at least)
2 teaspoons chicken bullion granules
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

Cut the potatoes into large chunks and boil until soft. Drain thoroughly and allow to cool/dry for just a minute before dumping into mixing bowl. Add all of your add-ins before mixing, sprinkling evenly over the top so you don't have to mix too much. Begin mixing on medium-low, using your spatula to encourage larger chunks through the blades. Mix until lumps are mostly gone, but not until potatoes get slimy. Some people call slimy mashed potatoes creamy. They are wrong. Creamy mashed potatoes should still have a somewhat starchy texture and shouldn't ooze on your plate when you plop a pile of fluffy potato goodness in a place of honor next to the chicken. Correct spices early on so you don't have to over-beat.

The carrots were just steamed in my rice cooker steaming basket and tossed with butter and salt. Stuffing was from a box and made according to the directions. I also like to steam whole kernel corn and eat that with my mashed taters.


What to do with a carcass:

Remove as much meat as possible. Dice up meat and set it aside in the fridge.
Place the remaining carcass, including the wings, tail, neck, and any drippings you might have accidentally left in the pan from gravy making (heck, you can even add left over gravy) into a pot large enough to hold your bird, a couple of quarts of water (or enough water to cover) and a few extras.

Extras:
An onion, peeled and rough chopped.
Any carrots you might have, even those slightly old, dry-looking ones.
Celery, especially the hearts and any leaves you're not going to use for the soup.
More cloves of garlic, smashed.
A few cardamom pods, crushed.
1 T pepper corns.
3-4 bay leaves

Put the heat up to high until it's simmering. Reduce the heat to low or med-low and simmer. If you boil this, the flavor will be off. Just simmer for at least an hour, but the longer the better, up until about 6 hours.

IMPORTANT: I've heard of people making their broth and then putting their strainers in the sink and dumping their precious soup stock down the drain while retaining the ugly, sorry-looking pile of trash that made it. DON'T do this. Put a bowl on your counter (one large enough that the drainer can nest inside), put your drainer in that, and then dump. Don't worry if your "other stuff" is still sitting in the broth at this point. Simple lift the drainer and place it on a plate with a lip. Let this cool while you work with the rest of the soup. If desired, run the broth through another fine sieve just in case your big one isn't thorough enough. This will keep any rogue pepper corns or cardamom seeds out of your soup.

1 large onion
3 large carrots, scrubbed, or three handsful of baby carrots
Celery, if you have any, washed
MORE garlic (mwa-hahahaha)
fresh ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup of long grain rice (or brown rice, yum)
any other veggies you want to add. I like to put at least one green thing in, as well as some chopped cabbage.

Chop the onion up and add to a sautee pan with butter. Grind some pepper over it and sautee until it begins to turn color. Add chopped or small-diced carrots and brown those up a bit, too. Deglaze the pan and put all that into your broth. Add the rice. Honest, it gets huge, so don't go over-adding. Add garlic, chopped celery, and cabbage. If you're adding broccoli or peas, do that last. You can also add in herbs of choice at this point:

2 T parsley
1 tsp Oregano
1 1/2 tsp basil
optional: 1 tsp ground coriander

Simmer until the carrots are tender but still firm and the rice is soft. Add in your broccoli, peas, and chopped chicken from the fridge. Warm through.

If you need to extend the broth, add water and bullion granules.


Some awesome cheddar drop biscuits.
(inspiration for these comes from here)

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsps baking powder
2 T sugar
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup butter-flavored crisco
1 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheese (cheddar or co-jack)

Put flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, and garlic powder into a medium bowl. Stir thoroughly with a fork. Add the crisco and stir that with your fork until you get that coarse-crumb texture we all know and love. Add milk and stir with fork until just combined. Add cheese and stir lightly until combined.

Drop by tablespoons onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 425° for about 10 mins or until the tops get gold in spots. Let them rest a minute after you pull them out before removing from pan.

Election

I woke up last night from a dream that Obama had won the election in a landslide. I shrugged it off, telling myself to wait until morning to go check the numbers again.

By 4am, I lost the fight with my curiosity and got up. Man was awake from illness and pain, so I told him I was going to get a drink of water. Of course I got one so I wasn't lying, then ran to the computer. There, before my tired, puffy eyes, was the realization of my dream.

I took a box of tissues to my violently sneezing husband and asked him if he wanted to know who the next president of our nation was. We talked for a couple of minutes, staring at the ceiling, our minds in a whirl of hope and wariness.

We both supported Obama. Despite the videos depicting him as a baby killer (he didn't vote for it because the wording of the bill would have suspended any abortions from taking place, putting many lives in danger and removing a woman's choice to abort), despite the accusations of being a Muslim (1- he isn't, and 2- what's so evil about Muslims? Christian extremists are just as bloody, just as deluded as their Muslim extremist counterparts), despite his middle name - Hussein (if my middle name was Ladin, would I be considered a bad person? or is who I am what I make of myself with God's guidance?) we liked what he said, liked his track record, and he was clearly better than McCain in thought and delivery. They are both highly moral people (or, that's how they both present themselves) but definitely have a different way of going about encouraging those morals.

I'm thrilled that he won. I'm also thrilled that he won by a landslide so we won't have any of this recounting nonsense. I'm thrilled that the man whom I consider to be the vastly superior choice for president has been elected such. I'm thrilled that Palin will never enter the White House as a resident there.

I'm also wary. I've been burned enough times by people and government to keep my hope in check until he does what he has promised to do. Further, even if he does come through, I'm waiting to see that the desired results come to fruition. I admire his acceptance speech and hope that everyone takes it to heart, as I have. Being American is about work, and trying again and again to make the best homes, families, cities, states, and country we can. I have mixed feelings about the Dems being in total control now, since that makes everything so one-sided, but I'm also glad that Obama won't have as much resistance when it comes to the changes he wants to implement right away.

I also admire McCain's concession speech. He trod a hard road the past several months and bowed out with grace and dignity. I wish him well.

Folks, no matter how you voted, thanks for voting. The American people have chosen my husband's next boss, the absolute last word in his chain of command. The fate of my husband and family rests precisely in God's hands but this man will have a huge impact on every aspect of our lives.

So.... here's hoping.

Voting

Princess came home today to hear us talking about voting tomorrow. Man has already voted via absentee ballot. She got excited about a project they are doing at her school where all of the kids get to vote for the guy they think should be president of the US.

I immediately got wary.

Me: So, is it anonymous? Are your teachers going to find out who you vote for?

Princess: I don't know.

Man: Do you know who you're allowed to vote for?

P: Nope. Who are they?

Me and Man: [exchanging glances]

Man: Well, the whole idea of voting is to educate yourself and vote for the person who you think would best serve our country.

(I thought he did a really great job of being totally neutral on the topic)

Me: Texas is historically Republican, isn't it? How do we know their teachers aren't going to be biased? Is she going to come home and tell me I'm wrong?

Man: -sigh- (I have that effect on him sometimes)

Princess: So, what are their names?

Me: There are two people the nation is focusing on. Their names are John McCain and Barack Obama.

Princess: I think I'll vote for the guy whose name is easier to say.

Me: Um, I think you should hear what each of them has to say before you choose.

Princess: Who are you voting for?

Me: Obama.

Princess: Why?

Me: I think he's better than the other guy.

Princess: Ok, I'll vote for him.

Tag: Do you know who I'm going to vote for? Obama.

Me: Come on, guys. You need to hear what they are about before you vote.

Man: Not that it'll matter anyway, with the electoral collage and all that.

Me: Oh, come on. I'm not going to waste women's suffrage on political pessimism.

-sigh-

So, go vote. Educate yourself, pray, and do this great country a service.



Princess: I've had perfect attendance at school so far!
Me: That's great! I'm glad you're going to school and liking it.
Princess: [pause] Jesus was perfect. Did he have perfect attendance at school?
Me: Well, um, he died kind of young. I think he missed out on a few things in life.
Princess: Oh, that's sad.
Me: Yeah.