My Ice Cream Bummer

I know what you're thinking...I'm not supposed to eat ice cream so how can I have a "bummer" about it? Well, I found a recipe for "One Ingredient Ice Cream" - the one ingredient being bananas. I was so excited!

I chopped up my ripe (but not mushy) bananas, put them in the freezer until they were set, ground them into tiny pebbles in my food processor, scraped said banana-pebbles into a bowl and then stirred until smooth. The result: something that looked amazingly like ice cream!

Alas, it was not very good. It was very creamy, which was impressive, but the after-taste was slightly bitter. Maybe I should have let the bananas ripen more, I don't know, but I'm no longer desperate enough to try it again...after all, I only have 12 more days to my due date! I can hang in for that long and then eat the real thing. I'll think about trying banana ice cream again in the summer. ;)

My Dream Lunch

A member of our Stake Presidency recently spent 7 months in Russia. He came to a meeting I was in and shared some of his experiences. I think my huge pregnant belly made him think of a particular story because he told us about visiting with a Russian member whose wife had just had a baby. When he asked how the baby looked the man replied, "I don't know. I haven't seen him yet." He explained that in Russia, women go to the hospital to give birth and stay for a week. They are not allowed any visitors...not even their husband. They are also supposed to bring their own food (I don't know if that is for the entire time or just one meal a day). That got me thinking: what food would I bring to the hospital? Here's my list:

A PB&J sandwich
(plum jam please - peanut butter and jam in almost equal proportions...slightly more jam than peanut butter)
Ruffles Potato Chips
Yoplait Yogurt
(Key Lime Pie, Vanilla, Coconut Cream Pie, Orange Creamsicle or something equally yummy)
A Pink Lady apple
Chocolate Chip Cookies - homemade of course
Chocolate Milk

That may sound like the most pedestrian of lunches but the only things on that list that I've been able to eat for the last nine months have been the chips and the apple. I look forward to being reunited with my favorite lunch foods. What would you bring?

An Essay

I love Merritt's homework. I sort through the graded papers every week and put the "keepers" in a box that I'll give to him later in life...or maybe not. They make me laugh so possibly I'll keep them always and he can visit his 3rd grade homework when he comes over. This latest is a writing practice. The teacher puts up a question on the board and the children turn in a written response. The question is not listed on the paper, but it must have been something about uniforms. Here is Merritt's paragraph essay; spelling and punctuation as in the original.

"I think you should wear uniforms because god made your bodys. and he would not like to see you naked. If I sou you naked I would close my eyes. and say oww grows. you should onley be naked is in the shower or bath. that is the time to be naked."

Merritt

Son, that is awesome! If I was your teacher I would have laid my head on my desk and laughed myself into a coma.

The Rundown

Oh my goodness...Christmas is a busy time of year! We made bags of Peppermint Bark Popcorn to give out. (That stuff was extremely popular.) We made the yearly pilgrimage to see the lights at Temple Square. On the way down it was raining like crazy and I kept thinking that maybe this wasn't our best idea ever but after picking up Chad from work and eating dinner at Costco, the rain stopped and we enjoyed an evening of mild weather. Of course we forgot our camera, but we got some fuzzy cell phone pics to commemorate our outing.

At the reflecting pool...what is it about water that makes kids want to climb in even when it is winter?

The temple doors...love that cheeser on Merritt.

The reason for the season. As Elder Holland said, "It is the life at the other end of the manger scene that gives Christmas it's true meaning."

The days before Christmas were filled with parties. On Thursday, many of my family members came over for food, good chats, and fun games. Unfortunately (or not so as you will later see) our couch suffered an accident. Note to 20-year old nephew: flying 8-year olds can cause couches to collapse. The funniest part of the whole episode was aforementioned nephew's expression of shock, disbelief and horror tinged with a wild desire to laugh hysterically. No worries my dear, we got a killer deal on a new sofa and love seat and they are waaaaay nicer. I'm thrilled!

See!?

Christmas Eve included a party at SannDee's, a party with Chad's mom and brother, final wrapping and the stuffing of stockings and then BED! We started Christmas morning with our family tradition of reading from Luke 2 and Matthew 2, then watching The Nativity, then having family prayer, then opening our stockings, then waiting 20 minutes for fresh cinnamon rolls (seriously people...homemade cinnamon rolls in 20 minutes...I found a tutorial online about how to make them ahead of time, partially cook them, freeze 'em up, then serve them hot and fresh when you want them...freaking genius!). We sat at the table together and I ate Cheerios and admired everyone else's breakfast. They were beautiful looking rolls if I do say so myself. Then, it was present time!





















That sweet chair Grant is sitting in was free. Chad gave it a few hours of TLC and it looked brand new! The last photo is Grace and Grant playing with Grace's new castle...that thing was a total find. She loves it! We had lots of fun searching for presents the kids would love. Merritt's happiness at getting 5 new books made my day.

We finished out the year by staying up til midnight painting our bathroom (thanks for all the help getting this project done Dad!). My dad and Chad had previously moved the bathroom light casing to the center, Chad pulled down the mirror, and he and dad patched and mudded and perf-a-taped and sanded until everything was smooth. Everything was ready by New Year's Eve so it was paint and paint and paint again until it was finished. Today we installed the light with all its fixtures, hung the mirror and put up new hardware. Whew! It's nice to now have a bathroom that is 80% done. :)
Sorry I don't have a "before" picture to compare it to, but it looks great. We need to re-caulk some areas, replace the water-damaged baseboards, get a new towel bar (the one I bought was too small), purchase a hand towel for the ring, and paint the cabinets...then we'll be done! (We won't talk about the new counter top I'd like to have...give me five years to raise the money.) It really was a busy end to the year! Now on to 2011 and the much anticipated arrival of our sweet baby who now has a newly assigned due date one week earlier than the previous one...YES! Can we say 35 weeks people?!

Reindeer-licious!

Every time I look at these reindeer cupcakes I have to laugh. They are hilariously adorable! I knew I had to make them after I showed the magazine picture of them to Grant and he absolutely squealed with delight. Who thinks up this stuff? People are so creative...I'm glad that I can benefit from that. Christmas goodies...what fun!

Little Ballerina

Grace had her dance recital last Thursday. Her little class was so darling! They did a tap number to "Here Comes Santa Claus" and a ballet performance to "The First Noel." She has been dancing and singing around the house for weeks now, but the funny thing is that she only knows half of "The First Noel." This is the rendition we regularly hear:

"The first Noel the angel did say
hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm fields where they lay.
In fields where hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm sheep
hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm deep.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel!
Born is the King of Israel!

The outfit chosen by her teacher for her class couldn't have been any poofier and Grace loved it. The matter of her hair was something I was stressing over, but Grace has come to the point where she regularly asks for a ponytail, which is no small miracle. Because her hair is so fine, that was about the only hair-do we could manage in answer to the teacher's call to have the little girl's hair done "cute." We put the pink bow that came with the outfit above the ponytail and she was as fancied up as I've ever seen her.

Pirouette, plie, de cote, and all that.

Grace and some of her "ballet friends" on performance night.

Hugs for our tiny dancer.

She was so excited! Thanks to everyone that was able to be there and to all the rest of you who cheered her on from afar.

O Christmas Tree

It has been such a blessing to have Heather and my parents close by. Living near my parents, especially, is an experience I never expected to have. For the first 9 years of our marriage we lived over an hour from Chad's mother and 3 hours from my parents, so now living minutes from Chad's family and mine is nice change. They can stop by here any time and we can do the same. We can also get together and do fun things, such as our 2nd annual Christmas tree excursion which ended with hot chocolate and gingerbread men at our house. Good times! I made peppermint whipped cream this year to top our hot chocolate with, which everyone really liked, and the gingerbread men are always tasty. I have to admit I ate an arm to go with my glass of water. Where is my self-control??

The victims...

The big debate...which part of the gingerbread man do you eat first? Whichever it is, that first bite is always accompanied by screams of "Ahhhh! Don't eat my (fill in the blank)!"

The grown-up table...ha-ha!

This year's beauty...what a wonderful, green, fluffy, divine smelling tree!