What's for dinner...

I enjoy cooking and baking, but that doesn't mean I always prepare gourmet meals for my family. In fact, my food is hardly ever "gourmet". I would probably call it something closer to "cheap and simple." Tonight, for example, we had Broccoli Casserole. Some of you might even classify that as "just plain gross," but not my children! They came to dinner, looked at the main dish, and said:

"Oooooh! Broccoli Casserole? YUMMY!"

While we were eating, their compliments continued.

"I can't believe some kids don't like broccoli...especially, broccoli casserole!"

I bet if I offered them one of those "gourmet", extravagant, beautifully-plated, reality t.v. show worthy dinners, I would probably hear things like, "I don't like that. How many bites to I have to eat?" and "I'm not very hungry."

They have no idea what they're missing....and I plan to keep them in the dark about that as long as possible.

The Perks of Parenthood

This was an unusually busy week for me. (I can see some of you rolling your eyes at that...Stop it!) Anyway, the best parts about my busy week were all about being a mom. It's (usually) the best job!

On Wednesday I took Hannah and Lauren and went to pick strawberries at a farm. I wanted to go last week, but didn't make it. I knew I had to squeeze it in to this week, although it was busy, because these berries are only ripe for a short season. We're all out of freezer jam, and we've been suffering through store-bought jam for a couple of months, so we've been anxiously awaiting berry season so that we could stock pile our freezer again. So, I just had to fit it in. Looking at my calendar, I realized that Wednesday had to be the day. So I took Hannah and Lauren and our picnic lunch, and we headed to the berry farm. I had invited a couple of other gals from the ward to come along, which they did, with their young kids. But when we got to the fields of strawberries, Hannah and Lauren and I made our way down the rows, just the three of us, in search of the best berries, and we had the best time together! Lauren really got serious about picking strawberries with me--she carried her own basket and all--and Hannah got really serious about taste testing the berries.

Then we came home, and got back into our busy week. Now, four days later, the strawberries, which I washed and stuck in the refrigerator for making jam "later"....are still sitting in the fridge, getting soft. I think I might have to start over. But it was worth the 17 bucks just for the fun afternoon in the sun, picking berries with Lauren and Hannah.

Thursday was Emily's day to make me smile. I had signed up to go on a field trip with her. All year long, every time Katelyn or one of Emily's friends from another class went on a field trip, Emily complained that she NEVER gets to go on field trips. Apparently, she must have complained to her teacher, too, because they scheduled about four field trips during the last couple weeks of school for Emily's class. This one was a trip to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. It was enjoyable for three reasons:

1) I learned more about dinosaurs than I ever thought I would care to know. We watched an IMAX movie as soon as we got to the PSC, and it was all about dinosaurs. It made me want to take my kids to that place near Vernal, Utah (is that right?) where my parents took me as a kid, and we saw the people in white jumpsuits brushing dirt right off the dinosaur bones in the side of the hill. That stuff, it turns out, is pretty darn interesting. That movie also gave me another desire--I wanted some popcorn! You just can't have a proper theater experience without popcorn. They even had a snack bar, but I wasn't about to buy popcorn for the entire 2nd grade student body.

2) I got to eat lunch with Emily, outside. It was even a lunch I made just for my own self--it wasn't even the left-over crusts from Hannah and Lauren's lunches! Now that's a good lunch! I had to do some sweet talking to get Emily and her two classmates I was in charge of, to eat lunch outside, in the sunshine. Honestly, it was partly sunny, and maybe 65 degrees out, but all I heard from those girls was, "Oh, my eyes! It's so bright out here, my eyes are watering!" and "Can we sit in the shade? I need to find some shade..." I refuse to let my children become sun weenies.

3) Emily still likes to hold my hand. How much longer can that possibly last? I was sitting with her on the big yellow school bus on the way home from the museum, and watching all the kids around us bouncing up and down in their seats and yelling at each other. Then I'd look at Emily, sitting quietly next to me, sucking on her cheeks like she does, and holding my hand while we both enjoyed the scenery out the window. I almost started crying, when I realized that very soon, she'll be too big to want to hold my hand and sit by me instead of her friends. I couldn't help it--I had to snap a picture, without letting Emily know what I was trying to capture...

My New Favorite Cookie

If Grandma James had ever discovered this cookie recipe, I'm sure she would have perfected it long ago, and it would have been my old favorite cookie. These are DEE-licious!

PB&C COOKIE SANDWICHES
(I think they need to be renamed--that sounds boring)
Published in some magazine--contributed by Melissa McKay from Washington, D.C.

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 11-oz. pkg. peanut butter and milk chocolate pieces

1/2 cup purchased chocolate frosting

1/2 cup peanut butter

1. In large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar, brown sugar, soda, and salt. Beat until combined. Add egg and vanilla. Beat until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour and the cocoa powder. Stir in peanut butter and milk chocolate pieces. Cover and chill dough for 2 to 3 hours or until easy to handle.

2. Preheat oven to 375. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheets. Flatten cookies slightly with a glass dipped in sugar. Bake for 7 to 8 minutes or until tops are cracked and look dry. Let cool on cookie sheets for 1 minute. Remove and cool completely on wire racks.

3. In a small bowl stir together frosting and peanut butter. Spread a scant 2 teaspoons frosting mixture on the bottoms of half of the cookies. Top with remaining cookies, bottom sides together. Store sandwich cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 24 hours or freeze in freezer container up to 3 months. Makes 24 sandwich cookies.

What time is it?

6:00 pm, Saturday
We're at the ward talent show--an annual event that includes a chili cooking contest. I was invited to be a judge. I hardly ever ingest medicine--over-the-counter, herbal, or prescription--but once I looked at the line-up of 18 hot pots of chili that I was about to sample, I got desperate. A member of the ward heard my verbalized concern about the lining of my digestive organs, and pulled a little sandwich baggie out of his shirt pocket, with four white pills in it, and handed me two. He called it "food enzymes". To my own shock, I actually took them and swallowed them!! I still can't believe I did that! I mean, I know the guy, and I trust him, but that's just so unlike me!!! Anyway, I think they worked, because I tasted a few chilis that just about knocked my socks off, but once my taste buds recovered, I experienced no ill effects from my judging assignment.

7:00 pm, Saturday
Katelyn and Emily played their piano duet (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik--Mozart) in front of the ward. It only took them about 10 days to learn and memorize that. I was really proud of my students/daughters.

8:50 pm, Saturday
The show goes on....and on....and on....
On Wednesday, a gal from the ward asked me to sing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" with her and three other ladies. We practiced a couple of times, and it was really fun. We thought we sounded pretty good. But unfortunately, we were the last act of a very long program. Those who stuck it out to the end (this did not include Doug and Hannah--she had hit her limit of sitting still long before that point) were obviously ready for the evening to end. It almost made me laugh in the middle of the song, as we're singing this peppy, jazzy number, and I scan the audience, and see all these blank, sleepy looks on the faces of the ward members. At least I enjoyed it, myself! :)

8:00 am, Sunday morning
Doug is at a meeting, and I'm sitting at the computer, reviewing the lesson I have to teach the Young Women. Hannah is the first girl to wake up. She comes walking slowly out of her room, rubbing her eyes, and asks me, "Is it morning?" Yep. She doesn't quite believe me. She points out the window at the dark gray skies. "Is that morning??" You wouldn't think so, would you! She's lived here all her life, and still she knows that something is not right. It is supposed to get LIGHT outside, and that's how we know it's time to wake up! She's definitely my daughter!

8:45 am, Monday, June 18th
Katelyn and Emily are rushing out the door to get on the school bus. Yes, they are STILL trying to finish this neverending school year! Is it summer yet? No. I'll tell you why not. Because Katelyn and Emily still have this full week of school, plus a half day next Monday, before summer break begins. Reason #2: As Katelyn and Emily ran out the door, it was raining, gray, and cold enough that even though Emily was wearing a sweater and boots, I felt guilty not sending a jacket with her today!

What time is it?!

Keeping up with the Jones-Bloggers

In the past few weeks, I've received a rash (sounds bad, but I don't mean it that way...can a "rash" be pleasant?) of e-mails from my cousins, all close to me in age, announcing one engagement and three pregnancies. This is great news, and I've been waiting for this flood to come for quite a while. Twelve years, to be precise. It has been twelve years since I was engaged and about to be married. And it has been eleven years since I announced my first pregnancy. It was so long ago (you're not going to believe this) that I didn't even have an e-mail account at that time, so guess what I had to do....I had to pick up my phone, dial seven or ten numbers at a time, and actually use my voice to say the same thing over and over to each friend and relative that I called. (*gasp*) I'm being obnoxious about this, but honestly, I'm not perturbed that I didn't get a phone call from any of these cousins or anyone else in the grapevine (including my own mother). In fact, I think it's great that they have the ability to send mass e-mail announcements, because otherwise I would probably still be in the dark about those upcoming events.

I just think it's amazing that this technology exists.

I don't have any announcements worthy of a mass e-mail to make. And yet, every week I broadcast reports about mundane life. If it takes a major life event, like a wedding or a birth, to inspire my loved ones to send me a quick message, maybe the message between the lines is, "Quit filling up my inbox with your yapping about diapers and dates and the weather. Save it for the good stuff."

So I've been exploring this new format for my yapping: a Blog. Maybe this is the perfect solution for me. I can write as much and make it as boring to anyone else as I might want, and no one else will be compelled to read it all, skim over its contents, or even just send it to their electronic trash can. Those who do like all the nitty gritty details (maybe my mom?) can read and re-read as often as they choose. This sounds brilliant.

Too bad I'm still not much more proficient with this technology than I was ten years ago when I first started using e-mail.