Taking a Poll

Dan and and I are thinking about what to replace our van with. While we are fully aware that the Odyssey and Sienna are head and shoulders above the rest, they are also significantly more expensive. We thought about all that before we purchased our current Mazda MPV. And let me mention how much I LOVE our van. It drives like a car (minus good get-up-and-go), has a lot of fun perks, and it has just been a great van for us. Some of my favorite features are these:

1. The second row captains chairs. They slide forward and backwards to give more legroom. Also, one of them slides sideways as well! This is nice because I can have both seats right next to each other, or I can have space between them. They both come out easily as well. I love the middle seats.

2. The back bench seat folds flat. I cannot tell you how convenient this has been for us. It makes life nice and easy sometimes.

3. The roof rack is fabulous. I'm so glad the van came with one, because we have used it a lot. Long and lengthy road trips have been made easier because we could toss all our stuff on the roof and keep the interior of the van a little less cluttered.

4. There are lovely pockets and nooks and crannies everywhere. I have a great sunglasses compartment in front, and there is a wonderful little hidey hole in the back- that's where I tuck the spare clothes for those unexpected accidents. Oh, and the passenger in front gets a little drawer under their seat. How cool is that?!

Anyway, I love this van. Still, I am going to have to get a new(er) one soon. We're coming up on 100,00 miles, and considering we've never done any maintenance other than oil changes, I think things are going to fall apart fast. What I want from you, my friends, is your opinion. If you have a van, what kind? What do you love about it and why? I admit I am leaning towards the Kia Sedona (after 2007 they get better). What features do you like? What can you not live without? Is there anything you hate? I need some advice here! I need to be ready in case the van has something catastrophically wrong before we are planning to buy something else. And no, we do not intend to buy new! Oh, and we are open to the option of an SUV, since we will be a family of 7 soon.

Mostly Pictures

This is Marian with her homework she did not want to do. Note the happy face she has. Ha ha ha.

This is Marian, giving an evil cackle. You can see her very scribbled picture here. She's a funny funny kid.

There was a Primary Activity on Saturday and it included an Easter Egg Hunt. the kids brought baskets and here, you can see what Joshua was doing with his basket.

Marian has the funniest faces!

Callie got to be a big helper during the lesson portion. It was really well done.

Okay, Joshua was not impressed with the lesson. This was his attitude.

Here is Callie, in her new favorite pink pants, with her haul of eggs.

And here we have Marian, being silly. Notice her super-cool frog basket?! It was a birthday present from Grandma and Grandpa and she LOVES it!

How my week has been....

Well, I always intend to post 2-3 times a week. I'm sure the 3 of you who await with bated breath to see if I have posted will be happy today. It has been a week of high highs and interesting lows. I'll mention just a few things that have kept me busy so far:

The van went into 'park' after Church on Sunday and refused to come out. This was bad. However, I amazed and impressed myself. I read the manual, and figured out how to get it out of its "shift-lock". I then came to the conclusion that other electrical issues could indicate a blown fuse. I discovered that this was the case, replaced the fuse, and viola! The van is working! I think I am so brilliant sometimes! Unfortunately, the next day the "check engine" light came on, and I have to decide if I really do need to get it checked. Sigh.

The oven finally frightened me enough to stop using it. It wasn't always getting hot, yet the house was smelling of gas. Not a good combo. I finally called it in and they sent the fantastic maintenance guy over to fix it. He's my new favorite person, and he fixed the oven in 15 minutes. I had 2 meals sitting in the fridge just waiting for the opportunity to be cooked. I had made Dan go get pizza one night because I was afraid of the oven. So now we're back to home cooked meals.

One of my children, who has been potty trained for a significant amount of time is suddenly having issues. No one likes a smelly kid, and this child has been smelly waaay too many times this week. I have a no-cleaning policy. If one of the kids poops in their underwear, I'm not cleaning it; it goes in the trash. So I'll be buying new underpants for this child. And Dan is getting cross and concerned with the frequency of these accidents. I'm more concerned with the nonchalance of the child towards the issue.

I had the very unpleasant opportunity of going in to have a ginormous sebaceous cyst removed from my back. I had a great doctor who did not mock my neurosis and silly fears and he did a nice job. Still, its not a fun thing, and my back really hurt for about 24 hours. He said I could take Tylenol, but I discovered we had none. I still have stitches in my back, but its feeling fine now and I no longer wake up every time I roll over at night.

I had Activity Day on Wednesday night. For those of you unfortunate enough to have never played the game of "Curses", I will merely say, it was a very entertaining evening! I laughed much and the girls did too. And I still got home in time to see most of Survivor!

Marian had a homework assignment. Part of it was for her to either write or draw workers in our community. She did not want to do it. ( big surprise.) She finally buckled down and scribbled some interesting, yet indecipherable "pictures" and told me it was the post man and the garbage man. I wrote that translation for the teacher and left it like that. She does draw some spectacular pictures, she's just a pill!

Dan has been reading "Amelia Bedelia" books to the girls at night and it is the cutest thing ever! Okay, that actually saves me time, but it was worth mentioning!

I got to go to Enrichment last night. I love gabbing with all my friends. And there are so many cool people in this ward that there are quite a few ladies I would love to get to know better, but there's just not enough time! So I stayed late and talked and had a marvelous time. And, I didn't puke or even think I might yesterday. Life is looking up!

I checked on Delaney last night at 10pm, before I went to bed. She was sleeping sweetly. I went in to wake her up at 8am and she was nowhere to be found. Almost as alarming was the stench of vomit, and the copious amounts of that nasty stuff all over her bed. I looked all over her room for her and finally hollered for the other kids to see if they had seen her. Then I heard a sad cry. Poor little Delaney had apparently removed her clothes and crawled under the bed after emptying her tummy. It was so sad and pathetic. And gross.

So, that's what I have been up to. And now it is 9am on a Friday and I am unshowered and in my PJs still. Good thing I have absolutely nowhere I need to be today!!

Birthday Girl!

This week Marian turned 6! I can't believe it. When did I get so old?! It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that she was born, 8lbs 3oz and 20 inches long. She was an adorable, beautiful baby, who refused to nap, but looked so sweet.

Six week old Marian.

That's my girl, almost 18 months old, and look at that face! Delaney sports that look a lot lately.

At 2 1/2 years old, she was something else. Lots of fun and a neat kid. She threw some colossal tantrums, but mostly was sweet and easy-going. She is still a lot like that!

Marian wanted a lion cake for her birthday. I made a decent attempt at it. I was short on time to get everything done, and I did not notice till I got started frosting, that I had orange gel frosting, NOT orange frosting coloring. So I tried to wing it on the orange thing. It was fairly unsuccessful, but Marian was pleased with the cake.

This picture was facing the correct way when I uploaded it. I don't know why Blogger flips some of them. But yes, this was the lion cake. Mock it not! It was delicious!

The birthday girl was happier than she looks in this picture. By the way, that is the crown that she got in school on her birthday. She refused to take it off, even going to bed with it on!


She had a good time and the cake was a hit.

She liked the presents even better. And in case anyone is wondering.... do NOT buy anything labeled "sidewalk paint"! Its messy, messy,messy. More than that, its not very user friendly.

And that was Marian's birthday. We did have a few neighbor friends stop by for cake, but I did not want to do a full on party. It went well, and Marian was happy with her day, other than she wanted an Easter Egg Hunt and I didn't do one. I figured that can wait till Easter!

Life with Delaney

I know, Delaney gets the most pictures and posts. That's partly because she is home all day with me, every day. And mostly because she is the most interesting child right now. And I do NOT mean that in a good way. Let's take a look at how our week has been so far....

Monday we had to stop by the grocery store for a few items. Delaney pawed through the diaper bag, saw the camera and demanded "picture!". So I obliged. This is her new pose. You may recognize it as the same one her sisters like to do.

Later that afternoon, after 2 changes of clothing, we had lunch. You can see how much she ate and how much more she played with her sandwich. And then she put her feet on the table and laughed hysterically. I tell ya, she is trouble!

Tuesday morning I got out of the shower and it was quiet. Too quiet. I didn't even get dressed, just wandered out in my towel to see what the girls were doing. Delaney had used a chair to climb up onto the shelves, discovered paint I didn't even know we had. She then dumped it (and the change jar) all over the living room floor. Callie was in a panic, trying to be a helper and clean it up. That's why the green is smeared. Callie was running over there with a (totally saturated) washcloth, trying to clean it up.

This is the tear streaked, non-repentant face of Delaney before I cleaned her up (still in my towel. I then plopped her in her room and left her there till I was dressed and mostly done cleaning the carpet. It was "water-reducible" paint, which is not the same as washable. It did not all come out. (Sorry Kirsten, I tried, really, I tried!) My wonderful friend Raina came over with her carpet cleaner and used that on the spots, but they are still visible. The green blends better.

Yesterday I had the horrific experience of driving Delaney to Walter Reed Medical Center. Delaney enjoyed the trip. I did not. The GPS sent us smack through the center of Washington DC. It was a rotten drive. Then there was no parking. And although we left 90 minutes before our appointment, we were still late. (Dan asks why I do not like DC. THIS is why!! 90 minutes to get somewhere less than 20 miles away? Ug!)

Delaney screamed whenever anyone touched her. Oh, she was there for her annual Kidney screen. Since she only has the one kidney, they like to check it. This still ended up being a pointless appointment, that took over 5 hours of my day, but at least I jumped through that hoop to ensure the good health of my kid.

After the appointment, they wanted a pee sample. Um, I've been there 2 hours already, and the one juice box I brought was drunk a looong time ago. They attached a collection bag under Delaney's diaper and we went to play in the waiting room. Delaney had a blast ans was perfectly content with her day. I eventually hauled her up to the third floor and discovered the mini-mart, where we bought juice. It took 45 minutes to get her urine sample. And then another hour plus to get home. Ug. Not my favorite day!

This morning I was checking email at 8:30. I asked Callie where Delaney was, because she had been so quiet. Callie came back and said, "I don't know.". Hmmmm..... I was getting ready to go look when Callie raced down the stairs, shouting "Delaney is in the middle of the street!" Oh shoot.

Yep, the little stinker snuck out when Joshua ran out for the bus. She had been outside about 10 minutes. That was long enough to sneak to the next door neighbor's, steal the girl's trike, and go riding it down the center of the road. I dashed out to get her.... still in my PJs.

Later this morning, I again enjoyed an interruption-free shower. Once I was dressed, Callie came to tell me that "Delaney's in trouble". Yes she was. Here she is, reveling in her trouble! She climbed up on that counter, got into the candy hidden on the top shelf, and opened as much as she could. Then she ate as much as possible.

Defiant and quite happy with her efforts. What am I going to do with this kid?!! She's going to be the death of me!

Name that Photo!

Hi! And welcome to today's fun game. Look carefully at the pictures and see if you can guess what it represents. There are no prizes for winning, just the joy of being right and knowing something new. So, let's begin. I'll caption under the picture so you'll know if you were close.

Why look! There's a bun in our oven!

Wait, it looks more like a peanut. We'll know for sure the end of September.

What Marian sees and chose to draw in class. Good thing she didn't go with "Why does my mom puke so much?". Its a great picture though! Check out the "Z's" and the dream I'm having. such cute creativity!

The forgotten boy...

I realized there are not a lot of pictures of Joshua. I have not forgotten him. I promise. This is my boy. I am very proud of him. No, really, I am! This is his favorite pose. He actually likes anything silly or gross, but this is his favorite. I seem to have very few pictures of him at all, and not many make it to this blog. I hope you understand why, now that you have seen this picture.

Heh heh heh.... he was planning to make a silly face in this picture, but I fooled him. 1 second before and one second after I snapped this shot, Joshua had the most horrid face. Callie is making a funny face, Marian is eating a cracker, and Delenay is checking to see what they are doing. I love my kids. Life is never dull with them!

And this is to document Joshua's diorama. He had to make one on Native Americans, and this is what he did. Okay, I held the glue gun and he told me where to glue stuff. I admit to doing the fabric paint crops too. No way was I letting Joshua use my fabric paints!! He did add an adorable bow and spear to the side of his house (sorry, I am not studying Native Americans, so I don't recall the real name for it.). That little thing glued there now is an Ax. Joshua designed it himself and made it. He was very proud of his diorama. And so was I . He worked hard on it.

Fingerpainting and Gum

In the Joy School manual, for this last week, they suggested finger painting with shaving cream. It seemed like a brilliant idea- it washes off, it smells good and the table top should be easy to clean, right?! It sure WAS fun.....


Delaney enjoyed it a lot. She was a bit unsure at first to get messy hands, but once she saw everyone else getting into it, she had a blast.

Yes, Callie had a great time too. All the kids did. In hindsight, I could have done a few things differently. Smocks would have been good. Most kids got at least some shaving cream on their sleeves. Mauricio is the most talented and had it all over his shirt, pants and even behind his ear. So smocks would have helped. Also, they all finished at the same time and it was awful trying to get their hands all washed while saying, no! don't touch anything! to those who still had shaving cream all over. Still, everyone enjoyed it a lot and we may do it again. Well, I may do it again with just MY children. 7 kids was a lot to do this with.


Now on to today's story. As I was getting ready for bed last night, I noticed what appeared to be hair in the trash can. Closer inspection revealed this to be true- a good 3 inches of hair, wrapped around gum. Hmmm... Now who could the culprit be? No question there- Marian is the only one sneaky enough to get gum at bedtime, and the only one quiet and stealthy enough to trim her own hair without drawing attention to the fact. Since she was already asleep, I had to wait till morning to assess the damage.

Thanks to daylight savings, we were running behind today. That is my excuse as to why I did not do a better job with her hair. Had I time to consider it, I may have attempted to taper around the front, or I may have been able to keep more hair on her.

Here is where she snipped of a chunk. There was still a little gum crinkled in her hair, which I think is why I didn't think about tapering the front. And did I mention I was in a hurry? Plus, it was darn hard to cut her hair! I could NOT get it even! I finally gave up and figured it would just look like I layered it a little.

This was how the back looked when I thought I was done.

Then I took this picture of the front and realized just how uneven the sides were. so I had to lop off a bit more from that side. I expect its still not entirely even, but too bad. I had pancakes to make and lunches to make and kids to get on the bus! Plus, Marian is a cutie pie, no matter how her hair looks.

Slacking

I like to post pictures.  That's the main point of blogging.  Well, that or being fantastically witty or wise.  Thus, I stick to the pictures.  Unfortunately, there are no pictures on the Apple, and that's what I'm using now.  We need to get a memory card reader so I can download pix to this computer and then I can post something interesting.

For now, let me just say that I am glad tomorrow is Monday and 2 of my children will be off to school.  I seem to have lost control in the last week or 2 and its hard work to regain it.  Marian is fighting more with Callie, and Callie has the scratch marks to prove it.  However, I have no idea when it happened, because Callie didn't complain.  It is possible the scratches came from when they were actually playing nicely.  Marian and Callie pretend to be puppies or kittens or tigers and crawl around with occasional snarls and such.  I will allow that the snarling and scratching may have gotten a little too real.  However, the "Shut-up"s and kicking are real enough and need to stop.

Joshua is now complaining about everything.  The very sad thing is that I recall doing the very same thing when I was a kid. "She's staring at me!  Make her stop!"  "She's annoying me!  Make her stop!"  It gets pretty old, pretty fast.  He's being pretty disrespectful to me as well lately and that really needs to stop.  He did spend a good part of the afternoon in his room, but its going to take more than that.  So this week I think I will have to be the mean mom and see if I can regain some control and get my sweet children back.

Delaney.... well, I don't quite know what I'm going to do with her.  I thought I had the cupboards latched securely, but alas, tis not the case.  She poured out some of my essential oils this week.  She got the salt and pepper shakers and destroyed Dan's yummy bread pudding (LOVE the Pioneer Woman's recipe).  She got into the bandaids and ripped most of them open and trashed the bathroom with the wrappers.  She has spilled more water than I care to clean up, and gone through more outfits than I care to wash.  She's wearing me out!  She has also decided she doesn't want her hair done anymore.  As soon as I start she shouts "Ouch!  Hurt!  Go WAY!"  And I'm not even touching her.  Silly pickle.

So, I am committing right now to be more vigilant.  To stop the bad behavior in the beginning and regain the love and peace that may never have existed here at all!  So let it be written; so let it be done!

Make Ahead Meal Tutorial

Some of you may know that I am part of a "Make Ahead Meals" Group. Every 2 weeks 7-9 of us get together. Each of us make 7-9 of the same meal and when we get together, we exchange them for 7-9 different meals. So, this time, I made 8 BBQ Cups. I met with my group on Monday an I returned home with: Apple Chicken, Lemon Chicken, Pork Chops, Spicy Korean Pork, Enchiladas, Chicken Macaroni Bake, Mexican Chicken, and my BBQ Cups.

I love this dinner group. It means I spend about 3 hours every 2 weeks making multiples of my one meal and in return, all I have to do every night is to pull out of the freezer what I want to eat tomorrow. This has saved me so much time, energy, and money, it is fabulous!

Now, I am no Pioneer Woman, but I thought you might like a peek at the process. So, I documented the making of the BBQ Cups. Here is the Recipe:

BBQ Cups
1 lb hamburger (or ground turkey)
½ cup chopped onion
1 clove crushed garlic(optional)
½ cup BBQ sauce
½ cup shredded cheese
1pkg uncooked refrigerator biscuits (or make your own dough)
Cook meat with onion and garlic. Drain fat and add BBQ sauce. Press biscuit dough into 10 muffin cups. Spoon meat mix into cups and sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes.


My pan is only big enough to hold 5 pounds of meat, so here is 3 pounds of ground beef and 2 pounds ground turkey. Hey, I like to make healthy choices when I can! Also, there are onions and garlic in as well. It does take longer to thoroughly cook such a large quantity, so I like to stand there with a book in one hand and a spoon in the other.

Not! I have Delaney wanting to be a helper. So I gave her her very own biscuit to play with, and she requires constant monitoring.

Delaney took her biscuit and immediately went for the knife. While she did have a very good time, I wondered what this said about her psyche.

Now, moving on to how we make our dinner..... here we see our meat is all cooked and drained. 5 pounds makes a lot of fat! Once that's done, you add your BBQ sauce. I use whatever is on hand, but I prefer the stuff that says "honey" or "brown sugar", over the stuff that's hot or spicy. And I like a lot of BBQ sauce on my cups! I add more than the recipe calls for and mix it in nicely.

Then we move to the table and make our assembly line. If you are lucky, like me, you can have a passel of helpers too. First, you need to press your biscuits into the (greased) tins. Next, I scoop the meat on top.

Callie was a wonderful biscuit separator, but not so good at the pressing and spreading. She worked fast, too. I had a hard time keeping up with her. I put the meat on top of the biscuits and then passed them on to Marian for the cheese.

Marian loves sprinkling the cheese on top. She was quite generous, but she also enjoyed snacking on the pieced that dropped on the table. She was pretty methodical and took a while to complete her job. When she was done, they looked pretty good.

Here you can see the ones in process, and some finished trays. It was actually pretty quick. Once done, it is time to cover them with foil and label them.

Darn blogger! This picture was not rotated this direction when I uploaded it! Still, you can see: covered with heavy duty foil- I like to double cover sometimes. And the label is printed with the recipe, thawing and cooking directions, and my name & number in case anyone has questions about them. Packaging tape is the best for affixing the labels, and you have to put them on before you freeze them, otherwise they won't stick.

Now I take them all to the freezer in the garage and wait for exchange day! See, not to arduous, and the benefits are wonderful! Plus, now you can try out a new recipe tonight. Okay, not if you are in my family and grew up eating tasty BBQ Cups!

Snow Day #2

I love it when I don't pay attention to the weather and get surprised with snow. Not really, but its better than knowing its coming, I think. Sunday was gray and icky and drizzly. By the evening (when I had to go out to a baptism), it was snowing slush. I did watch the news that night to see what was in store with the weather- snow and more snow. So, no school for the kids on Monday.

They were ecstatic. I was not. I'm not sure why. I mean, Joshua only came in to run to the bathroom and for a short lunch break. Other than that, he was out in the snow. Marian was in and out a bit, but she wasn't harassing her sisters when she was inside. Dan had the day off as well.He had to get up at Zero dark hundred to call in and the word was a 2 hour delay. So, at 8am, he was getting ready to go in to work and his boss called just as he was walking out the door and said, "stay home." Whew! It snowed till about noon.

Here is my manly hubby, shoveling the walk. He did the driveway too, and helped the neighbor clear out her car, since she did have to head in to work.

This is to prove that we DO dress Delaney for the weather. See- boots, hat, mittens, jacket.....

I know, this is an entirely different outfit, down to the jacket and mittens. Delaney likes to change clothes frequently! I wanted to show you that this is what she does after she's been out for 10 minutes. First she pulls off the hat. Next go the mittens, and last comes the jacket. She just tosses them on the ground.

5 minutes after she sheds her warm stuff, she's not having fun anymore. She was crying, but stopped when I pulled out the camera. I know, her hair is a mess. It got worse too, when it got stuck in her runny nose and dried. Gross. This is why she has to have her hair done, but it wasn't worth the fight yet then!

Here is Joshua and his friends. They took cardboard boxes and big Tupperware totes and made snow bricks to make an Igloo. They worked on it all afternoon and did a pretty good job. It was a "roofless" igloo.

I'll have you know Marian unzips her jacket and refuses to keep it zipped. She is wearing boots, mittens and a hat, so I do not complain. Neither does she. This is the half finished "Igloo". They packed the snow so tight, the thing may stand till summer! They got all the sides up pretty high and had a marvelous time. Poor Joshua came in around 5pm, just red cheeked, blood-shot eyes, and exhausted. He was so cold too, he had to take a hot shower to warm up and even then he complained he was cold. He sure went to bed easy though!

Today it was back to school, but a 2 hour delay. The 2 hour delay is just silly, but it meant I got to sleep in and had time to drag my feet. It also meant squabbling in the morning which we do not usually have.