Giving Thanks

Once again, this November month rolls around and I pause for a moment to take silent stock of all my blessings.

I am so thankful that I was able to travel to Chicago 3 times this year and see my family and friends.  Circumstances notwithstanding, I am so grateful for the memories I was able to make, and the memories I was able to relive.

 

I am grateful that my Aunt Deanna and my cute, little Gramma Grace have been promoted to angels.  No longer needing to suffer or worry, now they are able to watch over us and be with their loved ones that went before them.  God Bless.  And thank you for being a part of my life.

I am thankful for a boy who gets himself dressed every morning, but still asks me to tuck in his shirt.  A boy who loves his sister beyond compare and always wants to look at “beautiful babies”.  A boy who is so polite, strangers can’t help but to comment; and so wonderful that other kids can’t help but want to be around him.

 

I am thankful for this little 3-year old.  I am thankful that she is no longer 2.  I am thankful that is she is our little comedian.  She is the light of my eye and the laughter of my heart.

I’m thankful for this guy.  He has made all my dreams come true.  I’m thankful that he works so hard for the good of his family, even when I worry he’s working too hard for his own good.  I’m thankful that he gets to be home in the winter since we hardly see him in the summer.  I’m thankful to have someone to share my life with.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Birthday Girl!!

My baby-girl just turned 3!  We celebrated at Boondocks, which was her idea (ever so subtly planted by her brother). 

This little girl makes me laugh every day.

Some things about Burgundy:

She thinks her name is Baby Burgundy.

She is losing her cute little words for some things: Christmas is no longer Grimace, snowman no longer noseman, she no longer puts the “s” at the end of the word instead of the begining (stuck=tucks, swimming=wimmins, sleep=leeps) I am pretty bummed out about that one…

Her favorite food is sausage.

She loves Beauty & the Beast and says, “Daddy, you’re the Beast.”

She also loves the Princess & the Frog, and calls it Princess & the Frog Kissin’ Together.

She sleeps in Finn’s room every night and neither of them would have it any other way.

She loves to pick out her clothes and undergoes multiple costume changes throughout the day.

She sleeps with books instead of stuffed animals.

She loves her big brother to pieces.

                        

Poor Boy Chili

So I've issued myself a challenge. I am not going to buy groceries for 2 weeks. I have a lot of food in my house. My pantry is overstuffed and both freezers are basically overflowing with food. The lazy susan, well I don't even know half the stuff that's in there. The problem is, we've lost our inventiveness for food...

In our house, we tend to buy what we're going to eat for a couple days, or one day and once that's gone complain that there's nothing to eat. (picture cartoon woman staring into overloaded closet saying, "I've absolutely nothing to wear!")

So this is the end of the first week. We've done spaghetti with meatballs, which we didn't have to buy anything for. Other than that, Cody has bought ingredients for meals 2 or 3 times, I've eaten Wendy's for lunch, the challenge doesn't seem to be going very well. But tonight, a breakthrough! And a delicious one at that. Chili. And oh how yummy it was.

Had the steak and the ground beef, frozen for who knows how long in the deep freezer (2 years, now? 3?). I am happy to report that it's still good. Went out and plucked the last bit of goodness from the garden. That is what bummed me out the most. Our garden is done for the year. I absolutely love our garden. I am not that great at eating vegetables, but I do love salsa and I love having the ingredients to make it. Interestingly, chili requires basically the same ingredients. So tomatoes, anaheims jalapeno and green pepper. Got it.

I've had this award-winning chili recipe for about a year now and had never made it before. But I did have the chili mix, the spices, the beans, etc.

So, the end result? Probably the best chili ever. I didn't have ingredients to make corn bread or anything, but we had cheese to grate on top, and oh my was it delish! I set it out for the kids and was about to get out the crackers when they started devouring it. If you've ever been in my house, you know how unusual that is! So I decided to forgo the crackers.

The moral, or the point... I am proud I made a delicious meal with what I had. I am really trying to get better at that. So chalk one up for me!

And here is my modified version of Don Staib's award-winning chili recipe, if you're interested:

1/2 lb round steak, diced small, simmer for 1 hour until tender, add water if needed to avoid dryness (I may skip this next time or add less)
1 lb ground beef
brown each, combine
1 anaheim pepper
1/2 onion
1 jalapeno - remove seeds
1 lg green/red pepper
-chop small in cuisinart, add to separate (chili) pot
Add generous toss of each:
paprika
chipotle chili powder
cilantro
clove garlic
cumin
mexican oregano

simmer low

cuisinart and add to chili pot:
1 can diced tomatoes (w/chili peppers)
4 or so Lg Tomatoes

add 1 can chili beans, drained

from Shelby chili mix, add chili spices & salt (no cayenne or masa flour)

if you like it spicier, add cayenne & more jalapenos

add meat to chili pot

simmer 30 minutes to an hour

Serve with grated cheese, cornbread… enjoy!!

Halloween 2010

This year, Halloween fell on a Sunday. Since we live in Utah that means we went trick-or-treating on Saturday evening. I was not in the best mood all day, for various reasons, and was further annoyed that trick or treating was happening on Saturday, especially since the weekend was supposed to be lovely weather, except Saturday afternoon/evening when it was raining and very very cold. But hey, when in Rome...

So to back up a bit, Friday, Finn had his Halloween party at school. No costumes allowed. (There have been many things annoying me this Halloween, it seems) I didn't tell him I was volunteering so it was fun to see him so surprised and happy that I was there! My game was TP mummy wrap up. The idea was to have teams of two, wrapping each other up like mummies. Of course, with kindergartners, your plans often go out the window and it was basically a free-for-all of flying toilet paper and 5-year olds. But they loved it so that's all that matters.

Other moms had stations of wreath-making, necklace making, a memory game, other fun little stuff. When we were all done, the teacher wanted to do another big mummy race so all the kids were wrapping each other, themselves, anything that would stand still (including me) with TP. Good times.

After school, we went to visit Grandma Jean to go trick or treating in the med-rehab center. That was fun, for the kids and for the residents I'm sure. I always get a kick out of how people react to my kids. Going in to each room, everyone said, "oh what a beautiful little princess!" And leaving each room, they said, "what a polite young man!" That's because Finn, who somehow managed to overcome genetics to be an outgoing and friendly person said in every room, the standard "trick or treat," followed by, "thank you very much, happy Halloween & happy fall!" Every single room. Little charmer, that one. No wonder he's already engaged to a girl in his class ;)

Then a costume party at our neighbor's house, which brings us to trick or treating. Finn was a train conductor on Friday and a cowboy on Saturday. Burgundy was princess Belle, which she loved telling everyone.

Raining, cold, ended up in hats, coats & gloves not too far into it, but lots of candy so that's all that mattered to them. I'm just amazed each year how big and yet how little they are.

Here's daddy driving the princess around in her carriage. She did about 10 houses and then was perfectly happy to be carted around like a princess. Finn would've gone until he got frostbite if we let him, but was happy to go home and get in a hot bath when it was time. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Preservation

Much has been happening. So much so, that I have been too busy (or too tired from being too busy) to blog. But I know that you, dear reader, anxiously await my updates, so here we go with one…

This harvest season I have been quite busy.

First, I did peaches. With the help of my friend Heidi, we processed probably around 150 pounds of peaches. Peaches from our little tree, peaches from Jim & Paula & peaches from Cody’s tree at work (pictured on the forklift below).

We had a great set up for doing the peaches, using Cody’s camp chefs (high BTU camp stoves) in the garage. Saved the mess in the kitchen.

We also have a LOT of salsa. We have salsa that Paula helped with, Cody’s salsa (which he roasts the peppers on the grill first) and my salsa.

Because our garden was not quite as productive this year, we were lucky to be able to get a ton of stuff from a friend’s garden. Here’s what we got from him, and some fun pics we took while there.

Then my parents came to our house, and my mom made a bunch of her yummy spaghetti sauce so now I have a bunch of that.

Then came the apples. Lots & lots of apples. We filled this 5 gallon bucket 3 times.

In the end, I decided to line up all the jars down the hallway. So we did, but the line had to turn and come back down the hallway, then had to turn and go back down again. So I think we’re set for now… Until next harvest season.

Finn's lip, part 2

Just wanted to update you on Finn's lip. It is truly amazing how quickly kids heal. Lucky little suckers!

Here are some progressive pics of his injured lip. I was trying to take these to show the progression of healing, but they are all different lighting and sometimes even different cameras, not to mention how hard it is for a 5 year old to sit still long enough to get a macro of his lip. Anyway, long story short, it's been less than 2 weeks and it's pretty much healed.

The stitches have dissolved and/or come out, the swelling is mostly down and it is looking great. Today as he was crawling past Burgundy to get out of the car, I guess her foot came up and her shoe caught him on the lip and a tiny tiny area re-opened and had a pin-prick worth of blood there. But, I gave him an ice pack which I think he held on there for all of three seconds, so I guess he was ok.

We go back at the end of the month to get his lip buffed out, they use a little rotary tool to buff up the scar so it heals better. I hope they will use a topical anesthetic for this.

Taken: Monday, 8/23/10, right after stitches

Tuesday 8/24/10, this was the worst of the swelling (not to mention a funny-looking picture)

also Tuesday 8/24, see the ouchie inside
(ps, i was trying to keep the flash out of his eyes, not subdue him with a death-grip, as it appears)
Wednesday 8/25/10, already the swelling is down (shiny from Neosporin)

Friday, 8/27/10

This was today, Saturday 9/4/10. The little red spot is from getting whacked with Indi's foot. Otherwise, looks pretty much healed, doesn't it?

Finn's slip and clipped lip.

Today didn't turn out how I had planned it at all. Here was the plan: take the kids to the park, eat lunch there, change into school clothes, take Finn to school, do a few errands, pick up Finn, etc etc.

Here's what actually happened: we went to the park. The kids were having a great time and we had been there about a half an hour. Burgundy came over to me crying because she got sand on her hands. I was brushing her off and Finn walked over to me crying with his hand over his mouth. I saw a little bit of blood and thought, uh oh. So I told him to let me see and he moved his hand. There is this moment, as a mother, when you go from thinking, "oh let me kiss it better" to "oh shit". I had that moment today. He moved his hand and there was A LOT of blood. I was trying to see if he had knocked a tooth out (which luckily he didn't) and I could see the HUGE chunk missing from his upper lip. oh shit.

So, at this point I kick into high gear, remaining calm, I gather our things and say ok, let's get in the car. Of course at this park there was no parking lot and we had to walk about 200 hundred feet or so to our car. Finn was crying, but I think he was more worried that his arms were full of blood. So I just kept saying to him, "it's ok buddy, let's get you cleaned up and take a look at it." So I drove (quickly) home, brought him in, cleaned the blood off, got him an ice pack, all the while trying to figure out what to do, take him to the ER? the doctor's office? I called his pediatrician who was luckily in the office and said bring him right over. Finn was calm and not crying at all after it had initially happened. As we were driving to the office I was calling Paula, who was luckily in the neighborhood and could come meet us to watch Burgundy while we got checked out, Cody, Finn's school, my mom who I was on the phone with when it happened and I basically hung up on, etc. Telling everyone what happened, don't know if he'll need stitches, whatever. When I hung up, Finn's little voice from the back seat, "mommy, what are stitches?"
So i explained to him just like mommy sews up a hole in a pair of pants, they would sew up his lip. he asked, "are they sharp?" i told him they would numb him up so he wouldn't even feel it. he seemed ok with that answer.

So we get to the doc's office and he came in and looked at it. I asked, "will he need stitches?" he nods his head like "oh yeah." shit.

So, I was going to ask him about going to a plastics guy since it was on his face, but he told me that before I could ask about it. So off we go to the Layton Tanner clinic. Finn was doing fine, I was still doing fine at this point. Luckily I thought to ask for a topical anesthetic before the shot. The nurse put it on, telling me they normally don't do that because the lip is usually numb anyway. While I do buy that, once they start sticking needles in it, I'm thinking he's gonna feel that. So they put it on there. Good.

I told Finn, when the doctor is working on your lip, try to stay super still and quiet. You can close your eyes and picture yourself walking on the beach at Disneyworld, telling him all these things and I guess it worked. I will save you the gory details, but the jist of it is 11 stitches. 3 interior, 8 exterior. I know because I was there holding his hand the whole time and I counted them out loud for Finn as the doctor put them in. They kept looking at me, like are you sure you're ok to watch this? If you feel woozy, sit down. And i'm thinking, just fix my kid.

So, Finn was a champ. A totally brave little trooper. I thought he would cry when he got the numbing shot. Nope. He sat perfectly still, though that was the hardest part for him, which means he just kind of curled his lip up and squeezed my hand. He was perfectly calm and still the entire time. The doctor said he was by FAR the bravest 5-year-old he'd ever met, and was braver than most of his patients, regardless of age. He also remarked to the nurse at one point it was like working on someone under anesthsia, he was that calm.

Afterwards, he really wanted to look through the doctor's microscope which they let him do. Then he ate lunch because he was starving. Later we went out to dinner. It was hard for me to watch him eat. But it didn't seem to bug him at all. His biggest worries were, missing his "learning" since he missed class today, and he was also a little worried that everyone will ask him about it tomorrow.

Of course, after I put him to bed, I burst into tears. I think I had mild PTSD. Or maybe just a super stressful crazy day.

Here are some pictures, in case you're into that sort of thing.

These first few were with my phone so not super quality, but this is the missing chunk before stitches.
I told Finn he could tell daddy he was like a fish today with a hook in his lip and the nurse told me I should take a picture. So i did.
Looking through the doctor's microscope
And here we are post stitching.