Lookee What I Found

I came home from Visiting Teaching this evening and this is what I found:

My two guys were asleep on my bed and Nichole was "reading" Daddy's thick Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson book while sitting on him. I wonder how long she was quietly doing that before I came in.
She didn't do it for much longer. We had some good playing time and read "a whole bunch of books" before she went to bed. The guys had a good late nap, and I think they'll be up for a while. I think I'll be going to bed before they are tired again.

Italian Scallion

Shhh. Don't tell the kids I tricked them, but I actually got them to eat green onions. My kids are not really into trying new things. They each have their likes and their dislikes- one of Nichole's being that she complains about anything green. Sigh. But ah ha. I did it.

Here's how: The kids had a friend over all day, so I thought it would be fun for us to do an activity together. Partly to pass the time (with two 2-year olds and a 4-year old, it was going to be a long day), partly because I'd been wanting to try this out with my own kids. So... we watched Veggie Tales- Sumo of the Opera. It's a story about perserverance. In it, Larry the Cucumber plays a character called the Italian Scallion. He wears a mask/hat that sticks up like the greens of a scallion. So, after the movie we made "Italian Scallion Treats." If you put the word "treat" in there, Nichole is more likely to try it. I figure if scallions and green onions aren't exactly the same, they're close enough. Does anyone know if there's a difference? I showed the kids the green onions I had in the fridge, calling them Italian Scallions- See, kids? They look like the Italian Scallion in the movie. Cool, huh? Then we followed a recipe from FamilyFun Magazine for Scallion Pancakes, letting the kids do as much as I could handle letting them do. They mixed dough, kneaded it, rolled it out, sprinkled scallions on (all with some help from me).

I did the frying, however.

And Nichole, my little picky eater, ate a whole pancake or "treat."

The other two ate a few little pieces.
I thought they tasted pretty good. I think next time I make them, I'll try making the soy-ginger dipping sauce to go with them.

Catch of the Day

Spontaneous fun- Daddy was kind enough to take a break from work to play with us.

Valentine's/New Year

February 14th this year was Valentine's and Chinese New Year. It was action-packed so I have a lot to write about and a lot of pictures.


First, starting the night before- Happy Anniversary, Chris and Rachael. I told the kids that Sunday was Chinese New Year as well as Valentine's Day, told the kids how a lot of places will do parades and make big Chinese dragons to run around for the New Year. We weren't able to make a Chinese dragon, but we cut out and colored paper plate masks.

We were going to show Daddy when he got home, but Nichole suggested we make it a surprise, so we decided to wait until the next day. Which didn't stop Nichole from telling Daddy when he got home that we had a surprise for him.

On to Sunday morning- over pink pancakes that Daddy made, I told Jr. that we would do a surprise for Valentine's Day after church. He said, "Yeah, a family picture. For our family." What a great suggestion. I was pretty surprised he had come up with that on his own (he's two), but thought that would be a perfect opportunaty to do a family picture after church. Unfortunately, making those pancakes did Daddy in. He didn't feel well enough to go to church, so he got dressed up afterward so we could do family pictures (and because he had a meeting).

While he tried to go to his meeting (couldn't find the people and didn't feel well enough to search too hard), we wrapped an early birthday present for him. I decided to give it to him early because it had to do with the Valentine's plans I had for our family.

It was a new pizza stone. We love making homemade pizza, and usually when we do, we make two. We'd been wanting to get a new pizza stone so we could use both at the same time, instead of making one pizza and waiting to make the other.
The pizza stone came with two styrofoam pieces on either side of it, which the kids had no problem taking and using for swords. Unfortunately I broke one of them which taught the kids that they could destoy them, and boy, did they.

Our two-year old of course was the best at it. After a lot of vacuuming this morning, we're still finding tiny bits of styrofoam about, just a little bit at a time.

Jeremy loved the masks we made, and for our Valentine surprise, we got to make pizza. But, we each got a half a pizza to decorate how we wanted. I made lots and lots of toppings. Jeremy and I both love jalapenos on our pizza, but I figured they wouldn't be too spicy if I took the seeds out. So I cut up two jalapenos and used my fingers to push the seeds out of all the little slices, foolishly thinking that if I washed my hands right after, I would be fine. :Ha! A little while after washing my hands, they burned. They burned so much. So, I got myself a bowl of cold water to soak my hands in, as I would if I had burned myself on a pan.

So when it was time to decorate the pizzas, I sat there with my fingers in a bowl of cold water, while Jeremy helped the kids each decorate their half of their pizza.

Mostly meat, but Jr. did put on some onions and Nichole and/or Jr. was/were willing to put on some mushrooms, and they both had olives. Jeremy was sweet enough to put my toppings on for me, as I didn't want to take my hands out of the water.

Kids' Pizza vs. Parents' Pizza

You can see how light our new pizza stone is. I can remember our old one being that light when we first started using it, too.

When it was time to eat, I slathered my fingers with Petroleum Jelly (my new best friend, since my skin doesn't like the dry Utah winters) and I was creative in my pizza eating (holding the plate with the palms of my hands, while sliding the pizza over to eat). Every once in a while, my fingers would hurt enough to put down my plate and stick my fingers back in the water. Jeremy looked up suggestions for jalapeno burns on the hands (isn't the internet amazing?) and found a suggestion for using milk. It makes sense, since when you're eating jalapenos, you should drink milk instead of water- unless you're my father-in-law, who would eat jalapenos with anything he could find to make them hotter. So, I put my hands in a bowl of milk, which helped for a little while. I was even walking around for a while doing things.

Long story short- ouch ouch ouch, anything I tried only provided temporary relief, milk, flour, first aid burn cream. My fingers always went back to hurting really badly. Even though Jeremy wasn't feeling well, he stayed in the kids' room with them to help them go to sleep. I tried distracting myself, making up nonsense songs and such while swinging my hands and feet in the air. I didn't notice as much while I was swinging my hands around- most of the time. It felt soothing to run cold water over my hands, so I was often running to the bathroom to do that then going back to try to lie down on my bed again. Pain makes me tired, too. Wears me out. And it was time to go to sleep, so I was having a really hard time trying to figure out how to sleep. Petroleum jelly, cold running water. Waving them around. Jeremy had the thought that if waving my hands around helped, maybe moving air would help, so he got out our little fan and put it on a stool next to our bed. After a while it did start to help, but cold air blowing is not the most comfortable in the winter for the rest of my body. So I was trying to cover the rest of me up but have my fingers exposed and trying to sleep. What an adventure. It was hard. I distracted myself by saying random nonsense, which must have been really funny had anyone taped it, as I was dozing off at the same time, so weird things must have come out of my mouth. I woke up a few times to adjust my fingers, sometimes I only had to have one hand exposed to the cold air. I'm glad I was able to get some sleep. The fan did help.

Today my fingers haven't hurt for the most part, but they do start hurting when I try to do some tasks, such as washing dishes, so unfortunately, that is on hold for now. Luckily we have plenty of pizza toppings left over that double as nacho toppings (we have chips, too), so I haven't had to worry about cooking anything. Sometimes rest is the best thing, so hopefully I'll be back to doing my normal activities. But I'll think twice about touching the insides of jalapenos with my hands next time.

Note: Don't you just love how my long story short is so long.

P.S.: The jalapenos were plenty hot for me, even without the seeds. Good thing we had milk for my mouth as well as my hands.

I Have Another Good Reason

I'm not sick anymore. Hurray. However, I haven't had as much access to the computer lately. For a very good reason:

Heh Heh Heh.
Actually, Jeremy's rebuilding his website and spending a lot of time on that when he's home. It's the slow season for work, so he's been spending a lot of time at home. And like I said, making good use of his time. He works hard on his website during the day and late into the night. On days he does have shows or does balloons at the Brick Oven, he'll work up until the time he has to go and start again soon after he gets home. He has been working hard and I think the kids and I have been doing a pretty good job of supporting him, making sure we don't ask him to do too many things while he's working.
With all that hard work, he does get worn out from time to time and sometimes has to crash. One day, the kids wanted to jump around on Daddy, but I let them know he needed rest so Nichole brought him a blanket and a pillow and a towel for the pillow so it wouldn't be cold. Isn't she a sweetheart?
Jeremy's learning a lot and is very excitied about how it's coming together. It's great to see how happy he gets when he figures something out. I'll let you know when the remodeling of his website is finished. You can see the current version at balloonguyentertainment.com

BLT

The other day, I wanted a BLT, so I made one for everyone. Normally, Jeremy doesn't like raw T, but he ate the whole BLT. The kids, however, decided all they wanted was B. I enjoyed the B, the L, and the T. Mmmmm-mmmm.

I just love how the kids both took the top piece of bread off the same way.

I'm Cute... Again

I've mentioned before that from time to time I can be cute. The other night I had another one of those experiences.
I was starting to get over my cold and sleeping better at nights. One night our son crawled into bed with us and as I carried him back to his room, I was still in that groggy sleepy state. When I set him down in his bed I felt some congestion in my sinuses and a bit sore on the roof of my mouth and throat. And for an instant I had a panicky thought of, "Oh no. I think I'm coming down with something." Then as my brain woke up a little more, I realized that I wasn't coming down with something. I already had something.
Yeah, I am pretty cute... again.

I Have a Good Reason

I'm letting you know in advance that I probably won't be doing any blog posts in the next few days, and here is my reason:

I've got a cold, and I don't feel up to doing a lot right now. I just want to sleep. The timing was good, however. Jeremy just got over his cold, so now it's my turn. It's nice that we weren't both sick at the same time.

Later Cookies

One of the girls from my Sunbeam class brought by some Valentine cookies. My kids asked me if they could have some. I told them, "Not right now. We'll have some later." They let me know they understood. "Oh, they're Later Cookies." So for the rest of the evening the kids talked about "Later Cookies."

I also didn't want to give any to Jr. right then because earlier he found the bag of brownies and had several pieces. Every time I turned around he had a new piece in his mouth. Oh these kids get so independent.

Nichole decided to help me out by wiping Jr.'s face. He didn't like the idea, but finally stood still long enough for me to get a decent picture while Nichole wiped his face.