More Kitchen Capers

Ever since I did the Great Chicken Experiment, my kids often ask things like, "Are you doing another experiment on us?" or "Are you trying to give us salad every night until we tell you to stop?" Nothing like causing paranoia in your children.
Well recently Eric conducted a food experiment of his own. Last fall he went deer hunting and came home with two big, black garbage bags full of deer meat. I'm not a big fan of cooking or eating venison, so Eric said we were going to donate it. He put the meat in our deep freezer and I didn't think much about it.
Then one night last week Eric called to see what was for dinner. When I told him spaghetti, I didn't think twice about him saying he would fix it when he got home. See, if I am being perfectly honest here, Eric is probably a better intuit cook than I am. I can follow a recipe with the best of them and I can even change and doctor up a recipe fairly well, but Eric has more of a "kitchen whisperer" sense than I do. I have a bigger repertoire of what I can make than he does but that is just because I have to cook more often, but if all things were equal, he would beat me anyday in the cooking department. But don't tell him I admit this. I like to keep a psychological edge in my kitchen.
All of this is to say I wasn't surprised when Eric offered to make the spaghetti, especially spaghetti. Italian is his forte. If I ever invite you over for dinner, insist that Eric make italian. Anyway, Eric makes dinner and I move from head chef to sous chef. As good a cook as Eric is, he is a bit unrealistic about what he expects from his kitchen. I think he expects the cabinets to magically divine what ingredient he needs and move it to the front of the shelf right where his hand would reach for it. So this is where I come in when he is cooking. My place is not to question his methods or do the actual cooking. My place is to make sure all the ingredients are within quick reach of his hand. I've never been in an OR, but I can imagine that the set-up in our kitchen is very similar to a doctor asking the nurse for a scalpel during surgery, except without the masks. Mine is a supporting role, not a life-saving role.
So after we have conducted this life-saving task of making spaghetti for our family and have enjoyed the fruits of our labor, Eric asks everyone, "So can you guess the secret ingredient in the spaghetti tonight?" I knew immediately what is was not because of the taste of the spaghetti, but because the one ingredient I hadn't divined for Eric was the meat. It was deer meat. I was honestly surprised because I couldn't taste the difference at all. I think if I ate the meat straight, like in a hamburger, I could taste the difference, but because it was in a sauce it tasted just fine. In fact we have been so impressed with this deer meat that we have made sloppy joes and chili with it and they have both been fantastic.
So my cooking club may have to watch out. Last year I fed them fish and this year they may just get deer!

What we have Mastered in 2010

If you got a Christmas card from me, then you have already read this. So sorry to not give you any new reading material, but I thought it was so clever it deserved to be posted. And if you didn't get a Christmas card from me and would like one, let my know in the comments and I'll put ya on the list for next year! So here is what we have mastered this year:
Finn: The art of eye-rolling and pre-teen sighing, playing tuba solos and making us and his classmates laugh with his wit and humor.
Annie: The art of noticing each and every slight or injustice committed against her with statements like "That's not fair" and "Finn always gets to go and I never do", being an excellent piano player and constantly creating new games and activities for her sisters and friends to do.
Katie: The art of infuriating her brother and sister by taking her own sweet time getting ready for school in the morning, having more friends than a 6 year old needs and being an expert reader.
Suzie: The art of getting whatever she wants through charm or sheer will. (Part of this art may also lie in the fact that she is the baby and her parents are just plain worn out), getting everyone to adore her and she is still working on the art of sharing her Polly Pockets.
Mom: The art of getting dirty while she runs (Dirty Dash and Warrior Run), remembering when each kids' library day is and what the letter of the week is in preschool and when the kids' run out of lunch money and when scouts is and when she is suppose to drive to band... you know just the art of motherhood, although she wouldn't claim to have mastered it yet!
Dad: The art of repairing dings in the walls (Turns out raising girls can be just as hard on a house as raising boys!), keeping his heart rate in check through the ups and downs of this year's Utes football season and getting his girls to squeal with delight when he walks through the door each night.
Can't wait to see what we master in 2011!

Christmas 2010 and classic kid stories

We had a great Christmas with all the usual memorable parties, nativities, visits from Santa, yummy food and family fun. I wanted to post some of the funny things my kids have said during the course of all this holiday merriment.

Finn- Finn has had several opportunites to share his newly acquired tuba talent this season. The latest was on Christmas Eve with Eric's family. We were having a little cousins talent show as part of our Christmas Eve program. Finn was practicing his tuba downstairs in front of a a few of his girl cousins. These cousins are about Annie's age. When Finn finished his song, they started clapping real slow and saying, "Good job." in a sarcastic tone. Finn turned to them and said, "I've been playing for a month, so shut it!"

Annie- Even with all the good cheerful that abounds during this time of year, I still find the occassional occassion that requires the use of a four-letter word on my part. I am trying to curb this habit, really I am, but Annie took it upon herself this week to create a "Swear Jar" for anyone who swears. If you swear you have to put a dollar in the jar. I asked her where the money went and she said all proceeds go to a charity. I asked her which charity and she said, "The charity of helping me get some jamberry nails." Jamberry nails are about $15 so I figure with all the kids being home next week, she will have reached her goal before she goes back to school!

Katie- As we have been driving back and forth to activities our girls, much to Finn's dismay, have loved singing along with all the fun Christmas songs on the radio. One night they strayed from the tradition Christmas carols and started singing another family favorite..."When Suzie was a Baby, a baby, a baby..." If you haven't heard this song before it a song that builds on itself as "Suzie" grows up. For example the first verse is- "When Suzie was a baby, a baby, a baby she went like this... waah, waah." Then the next verse is "When Suzie was a toddler, a toddler, a toddler she went like this... waah, waah. gimme a sucker." In each verse she gets a little older and another phrase is added to the end. Having a Suzie in our house, you can see why this is a family favorite. The kids like to substitute different family member's names in it and then make up verses that fit that person's personality. Katie decided to make a verse for Eric and I. My verse went like this-"When mommy was a mommy, a mommy, a mommy she went like this...(Katie scream-singing in a shrill, loud voice) Why do I have to clean up this mess all by myself!" Then she made a verse up for Eric that went like this-"When daddy was a daddy, a daddy, a daddy he went like this... (Katie speaking in a tired, slow voice) I don't care, whatever, go ahead." I wish I could say she was exagerrating for dramatic effect, but I can't. Her impersonations were spot-on.

Suzie- Suzie has a blanket she adores, especially the smell. For some reason she has a thing with smells. I could tell a myriad of stories about her obsession with smells, but I won't. I'll stick to the one at hand. Her grandpa likes to tease her by trying to get the blanket away from her or take it and say it is his. This gets Suzie all sorts of riled up. He does it to her almost everytime he sees her. Christmas Eve was no different. Except this time she stopped him in his tracks when she said to him, "For crying out loud Grandpa, quit teasing me!"

And with that, I'll leave you with "For crying out loud, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas."

Now tell me again, Why do I do this to myself?!?

Since it was unseasonably warm on Monday night I thought we would go down to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights for FHE. We haven't gone down there to see the lights in a few years, so I thought it would be something everyone would enjoy. Boy, was I wrong.

Conversations had before we went:

Mom: Come on, everyone get your coats. We are going to see the lights on Temple Square for Family Home Evening.

Finn: What? Why are we going all the way down there just to see lights? They're just lights.

Katie:A square? How can we walk around in a square?

Mom: Just get your coats.

Conversations had while looking for a parking space:

Finn (while looking out the window at the the Church Office Building Plaza lights): Is that all? Is that all we came all the way down here for?

Dad: Yep, so soak it all in.

Mom: Holding her tongue and rolling her eyes.

Conversations we had while actually looking at the lights:

Finn: It's just a bunch of lights. What's the big deal?

Katie: This is lame.

Suzie: I WANT TO RIDE THE ESCALATOR! (Suzie had to go to the bathroom as soon as we got there and we made the mistake of going to the North Visitor Center, where they have an escalator, to take her to the bathroom. We told her we would go back at the end to ride the escalator, thinking she would be so mesmerized by the lights that she wouldn't even remember the escalator. But we were dead wrong. She cried the whole time about riding the escalator.)

Finn: I've been here like 3 times.

Mom: Trying to make it a meaningful experience by talking about what we were seeing- the temple, the nativities, the statues, etc. But finding no one is really listening and they are all moving onto the next thing to see without registering a thing she is saying.

Conversations we had in the car on the way home after being there for about 45 minutes:

Annie: We weren't there for very long.

Dad: We were there long enough.

Katie: We didn't even get to see any Jesus sets. ("Jesus sets" was how Katie referred to the nativities.)

Dad: Well if you had been paying attention you would have noticed that we passed by like 6 "Jesus sets."

Mom: Well. thank you for all making your mother happy by coming to see the lights on Temple Square so we can make a memory.

Annie: I loved it!

Katie: I had fun. (I'm not sure what she thought was lame earlier, but she seems to have forgotten it.)

Suzie: I rided the escalator!

So I guess maybe that is why I make myself vulnerable to "unsolicited" comments about what I plan so our family can create tradition and meaning. The "I loved it" and "I had fun" make it all worth it!

Can't you just see the "unsolicited comments" just oozing out of eric and Finn's faces!?! And notice Suzie is turned around, looking longingly back at the escalators I'm sure!

Decorating-Check

I feel like I have spent the majority of this past week decorating for Christmas. I don't remember it being as long and drawn out as it has been this year. But I think I have finally got it all up. One of the things that makes the process so long is that I first have to clean my house because I am not about to set baby Jesus up among dust bunnies. Also my kids really like being part of the process- the putting decorations up process, not the cleaning the dust bunnies process.

I have found there are some things you do in parenthood that sound and seem a lot more quaint and charming before you actually do them with your kids. One of these things is baking with your 6 & 3 year olds. Another one is decorating with your 6&3 year olds. They go through the boxes all willy-nilly pulling out decorations and scattering them everywhere except where you actually want them to put the decoration. And because I have a 9 & 11 year old, I know this. So in the past I have learned to do the majority of the decorating while they are at school and save a few things for them to put up in their rooms and I do let them decorate the tree . But for some reason, that didn't work out this year. So I spent a lot of my time trying to keep Suzie out of the Christmas boxes or redoing her decorating choices. So this may have added to the lengthy decorating process.

But all this decorating reminded me of about 7 years ago when Finn was about 4 or 5 and we were putting up decorations. We had this little Christmas wreath that had a train that would travel around the wreath in a circle and make noises. He LOVED it and wanted to put it on his bedroom door. He asked if he could put it on his door but I told him I would figure it out later. Later in the day I walked by his room and saw the wreath hanging by a screw on his door. Eric hadn't been home between the time Finn asked me and the time I saw it hanging there. So Finn must have taken matters into his own hands and gotten a screw and hammer out of the toolbox and jimmy-rigged the wreath on the door. I was impressed by the resourcefulness of this little 5 year old. But I was also a bit ticked by the hole he put in the door. I told him I was glad he figured out how to solve his problem but that he had put a hole in the door! He didn't seem to get the permanence of the hole or the fact that I might be upset by the damage done to the door by driving a screw into it. He seemed to think he was doing himself and me a favor by thinking ahead because when I said, "Finn, you put a hole in the door!" he responded, "Yea, now I won't have to do it again next year."

Well, if that isn't a logical little man-in-training, I don't know what is!

Touchdown Jesus and the second closet I've come to having a heart attack.

Despite what the title of this post might imply, seeing touchdown jesus is not what caused me to come the second closest to having a heart attack. And it wasn't the fact that the utes suffered an embarrassing loss so close to touchdown jesus... I'm not that big of a ute fan. (Although it may have been the closest eric has ever been to having a heart attack when the utes gave up a touchdown within the first 13 seconds of the second half of the game that was so close to touchdown jesus.) I'm sure I have utterly confused you with the post, so I will back up a bit. First of all this is touchdown jesus:

And he is found on the Notre Dame college campus where eric and I went to watch the utes play on one of the most historic football fields in the country. We went for the 123 years of football tradition that is found on this college campus. We went to see the 11 national championships won by a college football team. We went to see the statue of the "Gipper"- the most winning football coach in college football history. We went to see the campus that "Rudy" walked on. What we didn't do was go to watch the utes lose. And to be perfectly honest here, I personally didn't go for any of those reasons at all. I mainly went for the yummy food I would be having in Chicago. But the point is we almost didn't go at all. And that makes for the second closest I've ever come to having a heart attack.

About two months ago eric came home with 4 tickets to the Utah vs. Notre Dame football game. He gave 2 to our friends who would be going with us and he kept the other 2 for us in an envelope which he set on the counter. I have this big, long counter that separates my kitchen from my family room and it is the catch-all for all kinds of things- receipts, backpacks, mail, magazines, notes from school, keys, cell phone chargers, etc. I'm sure you all have a space like it. Well eric put the tickets on the counter and they kept falling on the floor or being lost in a pile of mail or moved around to a different pile of stuff. So one day after I had picked them up off the floor for about the tenth time, I told eric, "You need to put these tickets in a safe place because I don't want to be responsible for losing them." Do you see any foreshadowing here? Anyway by proclaiming this I "washed my hands" of keeping track of them. But apparently what eric heard was "I'm going to put these tickets in a safe place so you don't have to be responsible for them." because on the morning of our flight about 10 minutes before we needed to leave he asked, "So where are the football tickets?" I replied, "I don't know." To which he replied, "Seriously, where are they?" To which I replied, "Seriously, I don't know. The last I saw them was on the counter." To which he then went into the kitchen to look for them and to which I proceeded to finish my hair thinking, "Silly man. Doesn't he remember I absolved myself of all responsibility concerning those tickets." To which after 5 minutes he comes in and tells me they aren't on the counter. To which I then go into the kitchen mumbling under my breath "He's as bad as the kids. He expects the tickets to reach out and grab his hand. Can't he just move a few papers around to look for them?" To which after 5 minutes of me moving papers and going through piles of mail and emptying out drawers I start having heart palpitations.

So after about 20 minutes of frantic searching all our usual and unusual piles, paperstacks, drawers, and crevices they were no where to be found. Eric decided to go check his office and I decided to pray- not to touchdown jesus, but to the real one. As if He cared, but I did receive a text during all this and for a split second thought that maybe the man upstairs had gone high-tech in answering prayers these days. Eric came home empty- handed and started making calls to the Utah chapter of the Notre Dame Association, where he had bought the tickets and the Notre Dame football ticket office. So suffice it to say we were able to get reprints of our tickets that would be waiting for us at will-call. Heart attack averted! We were able to enjoy the game and trip with these lovely, incredibly tall people- our friends Marcy and Andy. (eric and I are standing on bleachers, they are not!)

And coincidentally enough the absolute closest I have ever come to a heart attack involves Andy and his incredible tallness. But that is a story for another day!

"Three dollars downtown at the newspaper"

The title of this post may make absolutely no sense to you if you haven't seen "Farley Family Reunion." "Farley Family Reunion" is one of my all time favorite movies and is probably the most often quoted one in my family... meaning my siblings and parents. It is a Mormon culture classic. I even had my non-Mormon friends quoting it in high school. It is a one man act by James Farley where he depicts all the stereotypical members of an extended family. The set-up is a program at a family reunion where different members of the family come up and report about their "doings" or perform a talent or give a family history report, etc. He nails every character from the annoyed teenager who has to do her baton twirling routine because her mother is forcing her to the Relief Society lady who tells pioneer stories while wearing her apron that turns into a bonnet to the old grandma who brings her x-rays to show what is wrong with her. The list goes on and on. And if you are a member of a LDS family and have ever been to a family reunion you will relate to at least one if not more of these characters. It is hilarous!

Anyway, what that has to do with this post is in the movie there is a character who has won "three dollars downtown at the newspaper" for a story he has written and the proud parent tells everyone over and over and over how the kid won "three dollars downtown at the newspaper." Well in our family we also have an award winning writer. And even though Finn didn't win "three dollars downtown at the newspaper" he did win a free ticket to the city's Haunted Halloween trail, which is worth less than 3 dollars. But nevertheless he did get to read his Halloween story at the "spooky" storytellers evening at the park.

So in honor of this prestigious award, this proud parent is posting his "free ticket to the Haunted Halloween trail" winning story, complete with pictures and all.

The Three Mutant Alien Pigs

Once upon a time there were three Mutant Alien Pigs. Their names were Mario, Alfonzo and Jerry. They were too old to live with their mother so they got into their spaceship and flew to the Planet Eggplant. But before they left their mother told them to watch out for the Big Bad Mutant Space Wolf. They told her not to worry; then they left.

Mario was looking for a spot for his house when he saw a spot for his house. He saw a big box of Cracker Jacks just sitting there. He had a great idea. A hosue built from Cracker Jacks! So he did.

Alfonzo was doing the same when he saw a Big Orange selling little oranges. He had the same idea. (But with oranges.) So he built his house. Now I know what you are thinking. Houses made from food? Let's just say they aren't very smart.

Now onto the older, smarter Jerry. Jerry saw a metal store so he went inside and bought a 5000 lbs mix of titanium steel, and built his house from that. Then an unknown spaceship landed in Eggplant and out came a bounty hunter named "The Big Bad Mutant Space Wolf." He came to capture the pigs because they were on the F.B.I. most wanted list, and the F.B.I. sent the wolf to capture the pigs!

First he went to Mario's house. He knocked on the door. "Let me in you Mutant Alien Pig!", cried the wolf.

"Not for all the Cracker Jacks in my house!", shouted the pig.

"Then I'll throw a watermelon at your house.", said the wolf. And he did.

So Mario got in his hover craft and flew to Alfonzo's house. He told him everything. Then the wolf came along. The pigs didn't let him in. So he threw another melon and of course it broke the house. So Mario and Alfonzo flew to Jerry's house. They told him everything. Then along came the wolf. He did the whole watermelon thing. But this time it didn't work. So the wolf went down the chimney but Jerry tazed him. He was so scared he left Eggplant. He reported back to the police chief and was slapped across the face and sent to the deserted Planet Grapefruit never to be seen again.

P.S. The pigs are still on the lose.

Too proud of him to speak... but did I mention he won "a free ticket to the Haunted Halloween trail!" :)