Category: Our Family

Does Daddy even know how to cook?

A couple times a year, my work does a site-wide Dutch Oven cook-off, where around 20-30 people make different foods to show off, plus we get to mingle with everyone at work.  I had expressed an interest in participating, but never had a dutch oven and used that as an excuse.  So when the person in charge asked me to join in, I told him I did not have one, and he said I could use a crock pot instead.  I agreed, and began contemplating what I would cook.  There were categories for main dishes, breads, and desserts, and I figured I would try the hardest and attempt to cook bread in the crock pot.

I checked recipe books to see if it was even possible, and found a whole wheat bread that sounded curious.  I decided to do a trial run the day before, and mixed it up and left it whilst I went to work, asking Rebecca to turn it off a few hours later.  When I came home, it was well done and somewhat dark brown, but at least I knew it would work.  We put the kids to bed, and Tyra asked Rebecca, “Does daddy even know how to cook?”

I made another loaf for the cookoff, along with a pound of honey butter, and took it to work with ingredients to make another batch to cook on-site.  The second and third attempts were actually really nice and soft, and I had a ton of compliments and surprised looks from people who didn’t realise crock pot bread was possible.

As it was a competition, people had the chance to vote on which food they liked best.  I actually came in first place for the bread category, and am now a proud owner of a Dutch Oven.  No more excuses for next time.

Turnabout is fair play

We sat down for dinner tonight, and as always, children were volunteering to pray. Jeremy was sitting with his arms folded the longest, so I selected him to pray. Chloe also wanted to pray, but she was okay with Jeremy praying. She offered to help him, as typically someone else offers to help her pray.

Chloe: “I hewp you, Jewemy!”
Jeremy: “I don’t need help.”
Me: “Jeremy, just let her help you.”
Chloe: “Say, ‘deah Heavvy Favvah'”
Jeremy: (pause…) “Dear Heavenly Father.”
Chloe: “tank you fowr da food”
Jeremy: (pauses again)
Me (whispering): “Jeremy…”
Jeremy: “I know how to do it!”

Still, we thanked Chloe for helping.

Mother’s Day

For Mother’s day this year I actually got to have all my kids home with me! At church most of my kids went up to participate in singing Mother’s day songs with the primary. Ethan has never gone up to sing with the primary, probably never will. The kids made some things for me in school, and they gave them to me after church. Ethan’s looks like a newspaper article in the “Mom’s Gazette” titled “Worlds Best Mom”.

13 May 2012

In case you can’t read all of Ethan’s handwriting it says: “My mom rocks. She is so Awesome. When she plays vidio games with me it makes me so happy. I love doing things with her especially cleaning my room. She is so good at cooking. She really is the best!”

Tyra’s teacher helped her fill out a questionnaire for me.

  1. What is something your Mom always says to you? Clean up my room
  2. What makes your Mom happy? A clean house
  3. What makes your Mom sad? When we have a dirty house
  4. How does your Mom make you laugh? By tickling me
  5. What do you think your Mom was like as a child? Long hair
  6. How old is your Mom? 29
  7. How tall is your Mom? I don’t know
  8. What is your Mom’s favorite thing to do? Sleep
  9. What does your Mom do when you’re not around? Clean the house
  10. If your Mom becomes famous what will it be for? Cleaning her house
  11. What is your Mom really good at? Cooking
  12. What is your Mom not very good at? Yelling
  13. What does your Mom do for her job? Take care of her kids
  14. What is your Mom’s favorite food? Pizza
  15. What makes you proud of your Mom? Coming to my baptism
  16. If your Mom were a cartoon character who would she be? Minnie Mouse
  17. What do you and your Mom do together? Wake up
  18. How are you and your Mom the same? We both have brown hair
  19. How are you and your Mom different? My mom is an adult and I am a kid
  20. How do you know your Mom loves you? By being mean to bad guys, she takes care of me
  21. Where is your Mom’s favorite place to go? Her mom and dads house
  22. Why do you love your Mom? Because she is my mom

Jeremy made a packet for me, about me.

It is titled “My Mom”

Inside there are several pages, each with one sentence and then a picture that he drew to go with. I won’t post that many pages here, but I will include what each page says.

I like to cLean up with my mom.

My mom looks prettiest when Seh she win wearS a purpl necKlace.

The best thing my mom cooks is chiLi.

My mom makes me feel really special when she PLAYS with bat man.

Her favorite color purple

Her favorite foods tacos

Her favorite flowers daisies

Her favorite music Abba

Her favorite thing to do help Tyra do girl scouts

My mom smells like normal

So all three of my school aged kids mention cleaning. Ethan and Tyra both say that I am good at cooking. Tyra and Jeremy have different ideas of what my favorite food is. I have no idea where Tyra’s answer for question #20 comes from. I think it’s funny that Jeremy claims the best thing that I cook is chili, when most of the kids won’t eat homemade chili. They prefer western family chili from a can. And I really don’t play with Bat Man. I have played Lego Bat Man with Jeremy, So I think that’s what he means there. 😉 I have to admit their answers to the questions did make me laugh.

Kyle got me some See’s, and a Kindle Fire. I have made it very clear to him that I much prefer reading actual BOOKS to using an electronic reader. But I think he got it for me because I complained about missing my to do list and my calendar on my Palm Zire (which died a while ago). So I think he intends this to replace that. All in all Mother’s day this year was much better than last year, which I spent sick, and alone with my newborn Lydia. I had a much better day this year. 🙂

A Mystery

Last weekend when my family were here for Tyra’s birthday and baptism, Debby spent a lot of time out in our garage, and out walking around our neighborhood looking for Diva. We also noticed that Rolly wasn’t hanging around either. Here we are a week later and there is still no sign of either cat. I have no idea what happened to them. Kyle has been to the animal shelter in Lindon to search for them (considering that is where the officer that picked up Jango, on the loose, took her). And Debby has walked all over our neighborhood and she even went to the local Eagle Mountain animal shelter. They weren’t at any of those places. I have been running through all the possibilities in my head. If  they were hit by a car, or eaten by a coyote or a cougar or something I really think they would have gone missing one at a time.  The fact that they both disappeared at the same time tells me that maybe a police officer picked them up and took them somewhere. But they weren’t at the shelters when Kyle and Debby checked, so the whole thing is just a mystery. And just for the record, both cats did have collars BUT cats don’t like collars and therefore don’t stop messing with them until they figure out how to get them off.

Debby is really upset that her cat is missing. I am also really upset that Rolly is gone, mainly because he was an excellent mouser. We have not had any problems with rodents of any kind while he was on duty. The only voles or rodents we have really seen are the dead ones that he left on the porch for us. I have heard many of the people in our ward complain of the voles, and even moles and gophers recently. So now that Rolly is missing, I’m really nervous that we are going to be seeing more issues with rodents.