Boy meets paper

I was at Austin's Ballet class, and as usual was chasing Samuel around, trying to keep him out of stuff. There is a wall with a bunch of flyers stapled up, so Samuel runs over and as quick as lightening(I'm serious this kid is quick) starts grabbing papers, crumpling them up into a tiny ball and throwing them on the floor, by the time I caught up to him, he was already on his 3rd flyer, and I tried grabbing it out of his hand, but he didn't let go, so the flyer ripped, he looked at me and shoved his portion of the flyer in his mouth, and quickly chewed it up and swallowed. I couldn't believe it, my kid actually ate the flyer. I turned around and glanced at the lady at the desk to see if she saw what happened, and sure enough she was staring right at us with a shocked expression on her face. I sheepishing grabbed the crumpled remaining flyers from off the floor and took them over to her, and apologized. I have no idea what came over Samuel, but I made sure he didn't get any where near those flyers for the rest of the time. What I wouldn't give to see what goes on in the brain of a 2-year old.

Joseph's Booger Analagy

I had a very interesting conversation with Joseph on the way to Judo yesterday. We were talking a little bit about going to heaven, and what we have to do to get to the Celestial kingdom to be together forever again, when Joseph was quite for a moment and then said
Joseph: "Mom, Boogers are like sins aren't they?"
mom: "What?" (I had to make sure I heard him correctly)
Joseph: "boogers are like sins, they are sticky and sins stick to you. So you've got to be a nose picker like me, and pick out those sticky sins, or i guess you could blow your nose too, that would be like repentance."
mom: "but Joseph, you like to eat your boogers after you pick them, isn't that like sinning the same sin again, and not truly repenting"
Joseph: "But, they taste so good to me" (ewww gross)
Mom: "Isn't it true that sometimes, sins do momentarily taste good, but in reality you're just putting all that icky stuff back into your body?"
Joseph: "yeah, I geuss so mom, I need to work on that. I guess when you do that you have to repent extra long and hard, so that you don't do it again."
Mom: "That's right joseph"
At this point we arrived at Joseph's Judo class and off he went. I never thought boogers would be a good lesson for the gospel, but hey I guess that's the logic of a 7-year old boy.

Father/Daughter Dance

Girls sure love their daddy

Travis, Austin and Betsy got to go to a Father/Daughter dance at their school on Feb. 12th, they had a wonderful time together, and loved dancing with their Daddy!

Albuquerque Trip!

Having a fun time at the route 66 diner!

The kids looking at the sleeping lions at the zoo

Daddy feeding the peacock some popcorn

We decided to go to Albuquerque this weekend, so that Travis and I could attend the temple. Travis didn't get a pass to leave, until about 5pm on Friday, man that sure took a lot of paper work, just to get a pass for the weekend. So we left about 6pm and stopped and got dinner at Johnny Carinos, which was yummy, and stopped at the outlet mall on the way out of town for valentine's day gifts, and didn't leave until 9pm. So we didn't end up arriving at our hotel until 1am. Man were we tired, so we carried sleeping kids up to our room, and put them back to bed, then of course samuel woke me up at 4am, I was not happy, I managed to get him to go back to sleep a little longer, but not much. Travis went to the temple, while I watched the kids and helped them get ready for the day. Then when Travis got back we had to pile up all the kids and check out, because I wouldn't be ready in time to check out. So I had Betsy carry my shoes, pants, and socks that I was going to change into after the temple out to the car, but apparently she set them down, outside about 10 feet from the car, because they were "too heavy" and she didn't tell anyone, so when I got done at the temple and came back to the car to get my clothes to change into, they were no where, so we drove back to the hotel, and they were gone, and nobody at the hotel had them, so we went to Kohls so I could get some new shoes, pants, and socks. I was lucky they were having a big president's day sale, so I got a pair of nice jeans for $15, a nice pair of walking shoes, normally $60, for $32, and some valentine's socks for $1. So we finally made it to the zoo, and had 1 hour before it closed. So we walked as fast as we could, and tried to see as much as we could, we had a lot of fun in that one hour, and we also got to see a lot of animals, because they were getting fed.

After the zoo, we were all hungry so we went to a route 66 diner, that was a fun place to eat at with yummy shakes. You can tell by the pictures that we were all a little silly, but we had fun. There was also a hopscotch on the floor by our table, so the kids had fun doing that, and samuel looked so funny trying to hopscotch that I had to video it.

We ended up getting home about 11pm, and woke up exhausted this morning, but we had a wonderful trip!

the rest of our around the world dinners!

Life has been very busy, so I'll catch up on our dinners.
Asia Night!
For Asia night we had some friends over for dinner, so it was a little crazy, but everyone loved the vegetable fried rice, especially the kids, and we also had vietnamese lettuce rolls, with a vietnamese dipping sauce that was made with fish sauce, so I didn't like it, becuase I don't like anything that tastes "fishy". The lettuce rolls, had rice noodles, chicken, bean sprouts, and carrots in them, but instead of using Bibb lettuce, I used romaine lettuce, and I had a difficult time rolling all the ingredients into the lettuce, and getting it to stay put. Joseph really wished we had chopsticks to eat the rice stuff with, but I didn't get them, becuase I thought it would end up as sword fights instead of eating utensils. We had fun with our friends, and we'll definatly be making the fried rice again.

India Night!
India night was supposed to be a cauliflower pea curry, but when I pulled out my cauliflower it was moldy, so we had leftovers instead, but we also had Anzac biscuits (which are more like cookies) from Australia and New Zealand. They are actually named after the New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) because they make good energy bars with the cocnut, and oatmeal in them. They were pretty yummy, and were gobbled up quite fast. For dessert I made Pavlova, which is also from Australia and New Zealand, which is made from meringue and fruit. I don't think I did it quite right, becuase it was supposed to form a white mound on the pan to bake it, and mine was too runny so it was all flat. But after the meringue was cooked I put whipped cream and then topped it with kiwis, I was going to put strawberries on too, but Samuel got into them and ate them. It was still very delicious, and everyone loved it, and look forward to making again, and seeing if I can get it to be a mound.

Cuba Night!
For cuba night we had Cuban Black Bean soup, and Tostones. Everyone loved the soup, the beans we're blended up, so it made it creamy, and also had ham in it which everyone loved. The tostones, which are basically fried plantains, with a little sea salt on top, were very yummy. Not all of the kids liked the tostones, but that was okay with Travis and I, we had no trouble at all finishing them off.

Tonight is our last around the world dinner, and it is the good ole USA. We're having parmesean baked Tilapia, sourdough bread, artichokes, and acorn squash with brown sugar and applesauce.
I'm sad that I have to return the cookbook this week, their are so many more recipes I want to try, so I'm planning on buying it, if anyone is interested it is called "Around the World Cookbook" by Abigail Johnson Dodge. It has been a wonderful experience and has really livened up our meal times, and taught us a lot about different foods, and trying new things. Our kids were amazing at trying all of these new foods, every single one of them tried everything I made. And even though they didn't like everything, they tried it, and no one said "eeewwww, gross" they would just say, I don't really like this one Mom.

Middle Eastern Night

This dinner actually ended up a disaster. I made Lebi Lebi soup from Tunisia, which is basically chickpeas, chicken broth and herbs, which was actually pretty tasty. We also had ratatouille from France, which I have made before, but I liked this recipe way better. Then we just had salad, because I needed to use up some lettuce. Then we made individual flourless chocolate cakes from Israel, that were scrumptuous. The meal started off okay, except for the fact that I'd had to sent Joseph to his room a couple of times right before we started Dinner, so in the prayer Betsy prayed that Joseph would stop yelling at mommy, and Joseph didn't like that so he punched Betsy when we said that, so I sent him to his room again, well he threw his usual fit and broke my broom stick from handle in his anger on the way to his room. So Dinner got off to a bit of a rough start. Austin said she didn't like any of the food, but would eat it anyway (she is so sweet), so she would take a bite and then take a drink of milk right away so she wouldn't have to taste it. She actually got herself three full glasses of milk which I didn't like, but it was too late by the time I realized what she was doing. Betsy liked all the food and was eating it slowly but surely, when Samuel decided he was done with his food and dumped his bowl of soup on the floor and his milk and plate too, splattering food up the walls and all over the floor, then seeing Joseph's empty place, he moved over to where his food was and proceeded to dump everything Joseph had all over the floor, then before anyone had time to stop him he did the same to Betsy, Austin and my food and drinks too. Everyone had full glasses of milk, so we had a lake under our table of milk, filled with salad, veggies, and soup. So I put all the kids over to the counter and gave them their chocolate cakes to eat while I started cleaning up the mess. When I was finished I looked over and found that Samuel had finished his cake, and was wiping his chocolate fingers all over the kitchen cupboards, floor, and refrigerator. So I grabbed him and cleaned him up, then started cleaning up the chocolate messes. Well the other kids had left their chocolate liners on the counter, so Samuel climbed up and got his hands all chocolatey again, and was wiping them all over again, so I picked him up again, cleaned him off, then took him into Austin's room, had Austin go in with him and play with him, so I could clean up, without having to worry about what he was doing. So I finally got everything cleaned up, and in hindsight I probably should have made samuel help clean up all his messes, but when the mess is that big it just seems easier to do it by myself. So although the food was tasty, I doubt I'll be making it again, until Samuel is out of his dumping everything on the floor phase.

Russian Night!

Tonight we had things from Russia and Northern Europe. We had Apple-nut brussels sprouts from Belguim, that were awesome. Brussels Sprouts have never been my favorite vegetable, but the combination here was delicous. Most of the kids ate it really well too. We also had mashed potatoes from Ireland, that were a pretty basic recipe that were good too. I also made some homemade bread, from a recipe that I got from my mom that is called 5-min. bread. For dessert we had Pfeffernusse cookies from Germany. They were pretty yummy. We had to rush dinner pretty fast becuase Joseph had Tae Kwon Do at 6pm and we didn't sit down to eat until 5:30pm But it was still fun.