Nursery

I am so proud of Charlee! She just turned 18 months on the 19th of this month. The next day was her first nursery day. I always am unsure of how my kids will react to being left in nursery at church. But she just walked right in and started playing! The leaders said she was so good the whole time. And since our nursery has 23 active kids every week, I am glad to contribute a well-behaved child to the mix. This was her second week, and she did just as good as last week. Hooray for a social child!

My interesting food day

For my holistic health class, I have to do a bunch of "practical" assignments, which basically means make and do lots of fun stuff. So, this past week I have made my own creme frache (European sour cream), homemade cream cheese and whey, and sprouts. But today I stayed home all day and make lots of fun stuff. First off, I made a "green drink." Here is what I put in it (and I drank the entire thing, I might add): handful of spinach, 3 stalks celery, fresh homegrown sprouts, a thumb of ginger (yes, that is what it is called), juice of a lemon and a lime, an apple, a handful of parsley, and a banana. I can't say it appealed to my epicurean side, but I did feel good knowing I had all those servings of fresh fruits and vegetables. I think I'll make this a once or twice weekly habit.

My next feat was to make my own chicken stock. It took all day, but the results were awesome. I can't wait to make something with it.

Then, over the last week, I've been preparing a sourdough starter. Today it was ready and I made sourdough bread. It's...interesting. There was no yeast in the recipe, and they turned out a little brickish. They taste good, but they're not so much light and fluffy like I'd hoped. Anyway, it was a learning experience. I didn't take a picture of them because they are simply not pretty. Tomorrow, I am making a potassium tonic (it's gonna taste gross, I already know it) and starting a mint chutney (what do I even do with that, anyway?). Wish me luck.

As part of the class, I have to go on an "optimal" diet for a week. This basically means I have to eat food full of vitamins and healthy fats and such. So for dinner, of course on a night when Jason was on alert because he HATES fish, I made grilled salmon, sweet potatoes and whole wheat and oat rolls. It was super fabulous. I mean, I am only beginning to be a fish lover, but this was some of the best fish I've had yet! I am so proud of myself. I have to give the credit to my dad, however, because right before I made dinner I called and asked him how to grill the salmon and he gave me some ideas that made it so tasty. Basically, I grilled it skin side down first and put on melted butter, sprinkled on lemon juice and garlic and then flipped it, peeled the skin right off and added the same seasonings. Sooo Yummy!! Even my kids ate it, and that is saying something. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture because life gets crazy at the Hope house around dinner time, especially when Jason is gone.

In other news, I'm finally posting Jayden's pictures from his first day at Miss Carol's preschool. He is loving it there.

smoke alarm misadventure

I had to blog about this because it's so funny/annoying. About midnight our smoke alarms all through the house start blaring. We raced around the house trying to figure out what it was. The poor boys were in their beds curled up in fetal positions with their hands over their ears. Charlee was sleeping right through it until I opened her door. Anyway, we couldn't figure out why they wouldn't turn off, so we finally had to call the fire dept. They told us to wait outside for them to arrive. We got the kids and waited in the car. When they came, Jason went inside with them. The boys thought it was totally cool that there was a fire truck (with their lights on and everything) and firemen at our house.

Well, after what seemed like hours (it was probably only about 30 min) the firemen came out and I asked what was wrong. They said that it is common in our base housing for dust to get into the smoke alarms and set them off. So they had blown the dust out. They left and we put the kids back to bed and not 2 minutes later the alarms were back on again. It was so nerve wracking!! We called the fire dept again and they said that it was now a housing maintenance problem. So we waited with the kids in the car again (the house was just too dang loud) and the guy took forever getting here. Here is the really funny part. (sorry if this is distasteful to some, but I think it's hilarious) James said, "Mom, I think I set the fire alarm off this time cuz when I went to the bathroom I accidentally farted." He was so serious! He was like, "I'm really sorry, it was an accident." After laughing really hard, I assured him that it was not his fault that the fire alarms were going off, it was just probably still dust. I'm not sure he believed me, I think he was convinced that this was his doing.

Jason went in again when the housing guy showed up while I stayed with the kids. They watched Cars on our laptop and I tried (unsuccessfully) to snooze. By this time it was almost 2 in the morning. So Jason came out and said the guy had replaced our smoke alarm and we could all go back to bed. Needless to say, we are all a little tired and grumpy. Poor Jason had to get up early and go on alert.

Another race and a new school year

It's been a while. I hate it when I go this long without updating because then I can't remember all we've done. Well, first of all, I did another race. It was supposed to be the base triathlon, which me and a couple of friends were doing together. We got there the morning of and saw that the pool was only about half full. I guess the guy that usually takes care of the pool levels and all that went on vacation and his replacement screwed up big time by emptying the pool! Oops! We were all pretty disappointed that our triathlon was canceled, so we decided as a group to just do a biathlon instead. So we did the biking and running portions of the race. It was super fun. Once again, it was harder than I thought it would be, but I was so glad I did it. Unfortunately, I still can't say I've ever completed a triathlon, though. :)

That afternoon, I drove down to Idaho to see my brother who had just returned from his mission (Texas, Houston East mission). It was awesome to see him. He has sure grown up a lot. We did a lot of fun things. We went to a movie together, just David, me and Kelli. We took the kids to an indoor playground/arcade and once again Kelli, David and I got to escape for a while to play mini-golf while our angel mother watched the kids. It was so great to spend time with my siblings. We missed Brent, though. David gave a great talk in church and we had a whole lot of family there. They all came to my parent's house after and had lunch. It was nice to see so much family that I hardly ever get to see anymore.

James started first grade the day after we got home from Idaho. I can't believe he is old enough to be in first grade! I blows my mind. He is doing very well in school so far. His teachers name is Mrs. Kakalesic. Try saying that 5 times fast. The poor first graders just call her Mrs. K. He says he likes her and that she is nice. That's always good news. Jayden will go to Miss Carol's preschool again this year. He starts this week.