This morning I had to leave to clean a house. I walked out the front door and got in the car when I saw the front door fly open and heard a bunch of screaming. I ran back inside expecting dismemberment or at least a gaping head wound. All the girls were on the top of the couch screaming, "There's a real live frog in our house!!!!" (OK, so I must add in here that Leah was not on the couch screaming. If she ever reads this, it will be important to her that she was not classified as a "girly girl".)

So this frog was maybe two inches long. The girls said when I opened the door to leave it just jumped right in. I scooped it up and put it in a jar. After a few memories of loosing "pet" ladybugs, rolly poly bugs and slugs in the house filtered through my mind, I quickly re-evaluated my decision and just let the frog "go back to it's family who would miss it so much". Frog crisis averted and only minor emotional trauma sustained.

Mirror Mirror...

I was laying on the couch and Yaya brought out a hand mirror. She held it up to my face and said, "Your face looks a little..."
"Sleepy" I said.
"That's right." agreed Yaya. "You're face looks a little creepy."

After Party

During the pie eating contest, I used the opportunity to sneak up behind people and smash their faces into their pies. of course my friend chad used that as an open invitation to throw every remaining pie at me. It was so disgusting. He got a banana creme pie in my hair and it seriously looked like barf. So I went inside to wash it off my arms and maybe pick some pie chunks out of my ears and my friend Jaclyn came in the bathroom. She had just eaten a whole chocolate pie. She took one look at me and said, "Oh my gosh that looks like vomit" and then ran to the toilet and barfed. It was the best part of the whole night. Definitely worth scraping pie off every part of my body...and out of my ears. :)

Pioneer Party and a Pie fight

Leah and friend Lilli after the three-legged race

Heidi dunking her little smokies in a cup of water

Naomi and Yaya during the Jell-o slurping contest

Me winning the watermelon eating contest.

Chad smearing me with the remaining pies from the contest.

July 24th is celebrated as "Pioneer Day" in the state of Utah, and throughout most of Mormon culture. It is the day Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon Pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. So in a very historically accurate way (muffled laughter), we had a party to do things that the Pioneers did back in 1847. For instance, we drove in our air conditioned cars to my friend's house, so we wouldn't have to go without the convenience of indoor plumbing and restroom facilities. Then we had three-legged races, sack-races (with stylish pillow cases), we made butter with cream we bought from the store in Mason jars, we had jell-o slurping contests and watermelon eating contests and a pie eating contest. We made "home-made ice cream" with store bought ingredients, zip lock bags and cubed ice. We had a pot-luck dinner with food everyone made at home with their electric ovens and stoves and then transported in crock pots.

Man, sitting outside for three hours on a fold up camping chair really helped me appreciate the sacrifices the pioneers made for us. I couldn't wait to drive home and take a nice shower and sleep in my comfortable bed.

Sassy sassy girls

Monday evening the girls were all coloring in the living room. Heidi ALWAYS seems to find a marker somewhere, even when I'm sure I've thrown them all away. So Heidi was sitting in our arm chair with a red marker, but she was actually coloring on the paper, so I let her be. Of course the second I took my eyes off her she started coloring on the chair. Long, dark streaks of red marker. When I saw what she was doing, I said, "No Heidi!". Heidi looked at me directly in the eyes and then started coloring on the chair as fast as she could until I ran over and ripped the marker out of her hand. That little stinker is being defiant already!



Today, as with every other day, I asked the girls to please pick up anything that belongs to them and put it away. And today, like every other day, Yaya flopped down on the floor and started crying like I had just asked her to run twelve miles barefoot in the snow. So I told her to get up and pick up her stuff before I threw it all in the trash ('cause I'm nice like that.) Yaya stood up, shot me a nasty glare and then SPIT on my floor. I was shocked (and I had to try really hard not to laugh) and told her to march her sassy little buns down to her room. Of course she wouldn't go without a fight, so I ended up standing outside her door holding it shut while she pitched a gigantic screaming fit. I was laughing the whole time as she cycled through her different attempts to get me to open the door. First-PITY "I wish this never happened to me." (Repeat one million times) Second-RAGE "I HATE MY MOM!" (Repeat 300 times) Third-SCARE TACTICS "I'm scared! This room creeps me out!" (Repeat 200 times) Fourth-COERCION "I'm not crying. I'm not crying (gasping desperately for air)" And finally-BARGAINING "Let me out and I'll pick up my clothes. I'll pick up my clothes!" (Repeated as many times as it took me to compose my hysterical laughter and open the door with a straight face)

Artistic Interpretation

Yaya wanted to wear this to church yesterday
wings AND dog carrier. love those multi-taskers

Valuable Information

Did you know that diversity is bad? It's true. Just ask my girls. EVERYTHING must be EXACTLY the same or "it's not fair". We bought the girls some fun summer plates in the shape of flowers. One pink, one yellow, one orange and one green. There was no, "Thanks Mom!" just a whole heap of whining that Yaya always gets everything that is pink.

When I give the girls their vitamins in the morning, they don't find it an unreasonable request to ask me to dig through the entire economy size bottle to find everyone matching kitty vitamins.

Birthdays have been a challenge recently as well since some of the girls are at the ages where they don't understand why only one person is getting presents. Clearly this must mean that child is the favorite and therefore must be ostracised unless they pinky promise to share every toy, every day for the exact number of minutes demanded and with a smile on their face.

This is most likely karma. The universe is giving me a dose of what I dished out in my own childhood. My mother is most likely smiling while reading this, and quite possible drumming her fingertips together with a vindictive chuckle. I know in 20 years when the cycle repeats in the next generation, I will be doing the same thing!

Birthday: Part 2

Just for the record, I am considering any event this month as part of my birthday celebration...because I can.

My awesome friend owns a house on the coast. When I heard the vicious rumors of 90+ degree weather, we escaped to her house for the week. I packed our bags for some hot beach weather and ended up stopping at the local Wal-Mart to purchase myself a jacket because I was freezing!

We spent a bunch of time just playing around on the beach and building a sweet fort with drift wood, building sand castles, running away from the waves and watching Heidi discover just how much fun a beach could be. I don't think Heidi has really enjoyed any beach experience up to this point. When we first got there and I put her little feet in the sand, she just stood there with bucket and shovel in hand, looking up at me with a "Just what exactly do you expect me to do?" expression on her face. After I got down and started digging with her she warmed up to the idea and pushed the sand around a bit. Finally she realized that the WHOLE beach was covered with sand and started running around with her shovel. Heidi would stoop down, scoop up a shovel full of sand, throw it in the air, squeal! and then run another four steps and do it again. It was so funny to watch!

Two of the days we went to Yaquina Head lighthouse and tide pools. The first day we bailed early because it was so foggy and cold and none of us were dressed appropriately, so we went to the museum part. Heidi thoght that was pretty great as well because the (stuffed) birds didn't run away when she went chasing after them! The second day was much nicer. There is a big set of wooden stairs to climb down to get to the tide pools. At the first landing of the stairs, Naomi dangled her feet through the railing and one of her flip flops fell off, down the cliff side. We had to trek back up to the car and the only other shoes in there were my flip flops, so that's what she wore. What can ya do?

Lars and the girls had a great time exploring all the little tide pools. We saw fish, crabs, snails, purple sea urchins, bright green anemonies and only one star fish this time. The last time we were there in April, Leah counted over 100 star fish, but I guess they move around a lot. The "beach" is all cobble stones, so when you walk on it, it creates a very hollow sound. Heidi thought this was the greatest thing there, so I spent the majority of my time sitting on the rocks, dodging Heidi's poor aim as the threw them and laughed at the sound. I did get one bruise on my leg from a flying cobble stone when I let down my defenses and was talking to Naomi.

We got home friday afternoon with just enough time for me to shower and head out the door to my friend's house for a little birthday gathering. It was a great week!

Birthdays: Part 1

me and heidi baby
yaya and heidi stamping
leah and naomi working with clay
at the fireworks
my flag cakes
my great friends Steph (me) and Jaclyn
June and July are busy months at our house. Naomi and Lars both have birthdays in June and I claim the entire month of July to celebrate mine, so there is a lot of partying going on! I decided to respect Lars's anti-socialistic behaviors this year and repressed my desires to throw him a giant graduation/birthday party. He appreciated my efforts and summed up his feelings as a face book post. "Thanks to all who wished me a happy birthday. It was uneventful--so in other words pretty good".

We started partying for my birthday on July 3rd with the community events, art in the park, music on the waterfront, farmer's market and fireworks. Heidi was SO funny watching the fireworks. Obviously, this was her first time as a conscious human being with abilities to vocalize her thoughts and she did! Every time a firework went off she yelled, "WOOOOAAAH! BOOM!!!" It was adorable.

On the 4th we had a birthday brunch with some of my bestest friends and a great BBQ that evening with them as well. They even made me my traditional flag birthday cake!

Dough

When baking bread I've always stuck pretty close to my original recipe, unlike cooking pretty much anything else where I just throw in whatever sounds good at the moment. Yesterday, however, I was at my friend's house and we decided to make bread sticks. I didn't have a recipe so I made one up and might I say it was really really good! I just used it again today, with a few minor variations, to make cinnamon rolls. So here it is.

Bread sticks

1 c warm water
2 T instant yeast
2 T sugar
Proof

1/4 c butter
1 c milk
Scald together

2 eggs
1 t salt
6 c flour

Mix together yeast/water and 2 eggs. Mix in 1 cup flour and then pour in the milk and butter. Stir in salt and remaining flour 1 cup at a time.

Form into bread sticks. Sprinkle with onion powder, garlic salt and Italian seasoning. Bake at 375 for 15-ish minutes until brown. At the last minute, sprinkle liberally with cheese to make them extra delicious.

Cinnamon Rolls
Follow recipes as above except add 2 additional T sugar with the flour.

Roll out to a large rectangle. Spread with butter. Mix together 1/2 c brown sugar and 1 T cinnamon. Cover dough. Roll up and cut into 1 inch rolls. Bake at 375 for 20-ish minutes until golden brown.

What to do, what to do?

Sooooo....it's July 1st. Three days until my birthday and I have yet to make any plans. Usually I have my whole birthday week scheduled with parties and parades and fireworks, but I just haven't set anything in stone yet. I figure since I am the only one in my marriage that likes parties, I just throw one for myself every year. I'd better get crackin'.

Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Cookies

I'd take a picture of these bad boys, but my camera is out of batteries and it seems to escape my mind every time I go to the store...so you'll just have to use your imagination. This is just a twist on your basic peanut butter cookie recipe.

Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Cookies

1 c butter
1 c sugar
1 c brown sugar
1 c natural Almond Butter
Mix well
2 eggs
Mix well
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Mix well
1 c whole wheat baking flour
1 1/2 c white all purpose flour
Mix
1/3 c slivered almonds, slightly crushed
1 large bar dark chocolate cut into chunks
(or dark chocolate chips)
Mix

Scoop out into 1-inch balls. Flatten slightly. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.
ENJOY!

p.s. When I made these I accidentally left out a cup of the sugar and they were quite delicious anyway! Give it a try.