Well . . .

I've been working on the blog for Relief Society, and we're going on vacation next week, and Audrey starts kindergarten soon after that . . . so we've been pretty busy.

Dave is working on a trial right now and is keeping busy.

Audrey draws constantly (as usual) and asks when we're going on vacation (constantly).

Jane tries to play with Claire (who doesn't like it) and has been using the words "thank you" extensively.

Claire has been caught playing in the toilet, digging in the garbage, emptying the cupboards, and tearing up books--but she's also finally decided to come down the stairs on her own now (as opposed to standing at the top and yelling until someone helps her down).

I have been reading Getting Things Done and, yes, I have been getting things done because of it.  I am getting switched from Enrichment Leader to Primary Music Leader.

That's all the news for now!  Look for pictures after we get back from vacation!

Clairby

This is Claire's default mood.  

 Hello, Baby.

Yes, you are cute.

It's been too long since I took a picture of her, so while I had the camera out, I snapped some.

Claire loves to read books, do things the big kids like to do, and poke at people's faces (and if opportunity presents itself, sit on people's faces).  She plays in the toilet at every given opportunity, and eats any and all crayons she can reach.  She does not like pulling half full bowls of cereal and cups of water on her head.  I don't like that either.

She's been practicing giving kisses.

So, next time you see her, beware of her irresistible little lips.

On second thought, beware of her entirely, because she's irresistible in every way!

Paper Planes

In an attempt to get the kids to stop asking me if they can watch a movie, we made cootie catchers and paper airplanes.  I don't count this as doing crafts, so I was happy to play.  The cootie catchers were really just fun for them to watch me fold . . . and they liked to say "cootie catcher."  But the airplanes were really what got them excited.  While I folded two airplanes, Audrey drew and cut out these pictures for them.  I glued them on and they're still playing with them hours later.  

4th

This year we made little fireworks.  Doing some sort of craft on the 4th was totally an accident tradition.  I secretly hate doing crafts with the kids.  It's just a series of messes--the initial mess during construction, the following mess over playing/destroying it, and finally the end mess that Claire makes when she gets a hold of the discarded crafts.  This picture is after mess #2.  It had been folded like a butterfly.  Jane ran around yelling , in a low giant-like voice, "FEE FIE FOE FUM!  I SMELL THE BLOOD OF A BUTTERFLY BUM!"  :)  It's always moments like that that redeem these crafts for me.  The kids get so creative and imaginative with them.

Anyway, this year Dave had to do some work in the morning and I had to run to the grocery store :D, but we did try to keep the essentials.  Festive meal, patriotic music, the craft, and the fireworks.  I made burgers, oven fries, corn on the cob, Hooberbloob jello (with strawberry jello because everyone cleaned out the blue jello before I got there . . . it was so not the same), and watermelon lemonade.  Simple and delicious (my new motto), and even the kids ate really well.  Oh, the watermelon lemonade was just 1/4 small watermelon juiced (about 1 quart) and mixed with 2 quarts prepared pink lemonade.  I'm sure we had popsicles at some point during the day.

We stuck around Rockwall this year for fireworks.  I wasn't really anxious about all the work that goes into taking our family to see fireworks, so I let David take Jane and Audrey on a little date, and Claire and I stayed home.  Which meant that I put Claire to bed soon after they left and I had the house to myself for a while.  I really needed it.  

Dave said that he was waved over to a patch of grass to sit and watch the fireworks on by our neighbors.  All of them, I guess.  He said he had lots of time to chat and get to know them.  The kids played in the splash park while they waited for it to get dark.  The thrilling news was that Audrey actually played in it!  She's had issue with water for a while, but this summer she has made major progress--swimming in the pool and actually getting wet at the splash park!

I heard the show was good.  And the girls were so tired when they got home that they went right to bed (after having some jello).  

So, the day was a success. 

Eureka!

I've been getting lazy with my cooking.  I mean, I know how to cook.  I'm not bad at it really.  I just get sloppy and add too much of this or not enough of that, or over cook or under cook . . . just sloppy cooking.  So, I've tried to get back to the basics, apply what I know, be more careful and thoughtful, simplify a little bit, and see if I can kick things up a notch.  

I started with some rice.  Because we just don't eat enough rice, and it's cheap and delicious.  I use basmati rice because it smells SO good and it has a better consistency.  White or brown is good.  I had some wild rice I threw in there also to make it pretty.  I just cooked it in the rice cooker, no big deal.

I had some red and yellow bell pepper in the freezer from forever ago.  I threw it on a cookie sheet, sprayed some olive oil on it, and roasted it until it made the house smell awesome and was browning a tiny bit.  

I started growing basil in a pot outside (I mean, not as I was making this, but . . . you know), which is pretty much the easiest and fastest stuff ever to grow.  I chopped some of that up, which also smelled great.

I chopped the peppers, mixed it with the basil, then added the rice to that instead of adding it to the rice.  I didn't want to screw up the consistency.  Turns out, I had twice more rice that I needed and I just would have ruined it.  So, applying this to pasta dishes by adding the noodles gradually to the sauce instead of the other way around will do wonders for me already.  

Anyway, toss it all together with olive oil and salt.  Perfection.  So simple.  So good.  I was truly proud of myself.  More proud than I was mastering birthday cake, bread, chocolate mousse, omelets, you name it!  I just took it slow and stuck with the basics.  I didn't get fancy.  I didn't add anything processed.  I totally won  at cooking this time.

I paired it with some pre-seasoned salmon, which I cooked carefully instead of just throwing it in and taking it out when it looked done, which I usually do.  Although salmon is kinda hard to mess up, it's amazing what a difference a couple of minutes will make in how dry or moist your fish is.

This is starting to sound boring, huh?  Anyway, try the recipe.  It's good.