Cheerios in my Salad

Tonight I tried yet another trend in cooking. Lester bought this delicious Asian Sesame salad dressing that just cries out for those crispy noodles. Since we were out of the noodles, I thought Cheerios might make a suitable substitution. However, those toastly little O's looked quite odd when nestled among the cherry tomatoes, grated cheddar cheese, and iceberg lettuce that constituted the rest of my salad. Needless to say, the taste was as odd as the appearance. So let that be a lesson...no cereal in your salad!

On another note, the other morning I was being a good mom (a.k.a. sleeping in) as Mahina noted in her blog. When I came downstairs, I discovered a winter wonderland of sugar adorning my kitchen floor. The kids had wanted to "sweeten" their Golden Grahams cereal.

Alexis got the broom out of the garage to try and sweep it up. We have a childproof gadget on our door to the garage, but did that stop Alexis? No! She opened the sliding glass door, went into the backyard, through the gate to the side yard, and entered the garage door code and brought the broom in! Kudos to her for initiative. It also taught me that we should probably dispense with the childproof door-thingamabob.

Later, when I looked in the sugar, there were a few squares of Golden Grahams.

Cereal and our family just don't mix.

Observations from the Backseat

Yet once again I had inflicted damage to our poor little Maxima by inadvertantly ramming it into the posts at the Beaverton City Library book drop off. You know the ones...they're supposed to keep you from running into the building. See, they work. I didn't run into the building.

Anyway, so the kids and I followed Lester to the auto-body shop in Forest Grove yet again. He was driving his 1995 lime green Eagle Talon, a.k.a, the Lima Bean. I, of course, was driving the damaged goods. Here are some comments from the kids about Daddy's driving:

Alexis: "When we go 45, he goes 55! When we go 55, he goes 65! When we go 65, he goes 75! And all the way up to 95 mph."

Brandon: "Daddy go super fast."

Daddy had gone so fast, he had to pull over to the side of the road to wait for us. When Alexis noted the Lima Bean at the shoulder of the road, she said: "Daddy must have had to go to the bathroom."

Finally, we're all gunning down River Road, and this final observation from Alexis: "It's a sports car. He has to go fast."

If he is the one going so fast, then how come I'm the one getting in all the accidents?

Some Alexis Funnies

The things that come out of the mouths of our children are truly hysterical:

1- When Darilyn asked Alexis's Primary class to name a few of Jesus's miracles, Alexis's hand shot up. "Jesus healed the 10 leopards!"

2- When asked who she would vote for for President, she said, "That lady."
"You mean Hillary?" I asked.
"No."
"Clinton?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"She will fix our schools...I think."

3- We were driving down the street the other day and we saw an old wooden silo. Alexis said, "Only daddies can reach up there. But Mitch (Mahina's husband) is the tallest daddy."
So when Lester and Mitch stood side by side, I compared their heights. Maybe Lester was just having a bushy hair day, but it was pretty close.

Top 5 Things I Missed While In Utah

I just returned from Salt Lake to an amazing writer's conference. Before I jump into the top 5 things I missed while in Utah, here's the top 5 things I got to do in Utah!

1- Have a one-on-one meeting with an editor from NY who looked over the first five pages of my manuscript. After my nerves recovered, I was grateful for his feedback.

2- Meet an agent face to face. I told her about my book and she said it sounded "cute" and "marketable." Considering the uber-competitive world of book publishing, I'll take it as a positive sign!

3- Sift through old pictures of Lester's childhood at my in-laws. Some of them will make for great blackmail, but they're all adorable. :-)

4- See my wonderful parents who drove 300 miles from St. George just to spend Saturday evening and Sunday morning with me.

5- Meeting with other fellow LDS writers and authors. They are an awesome, creative bunch of people.

NOW, the top five things I missed.

5- The kids' last days of T-ball, swimming, and music class.

4- The Easter egg hunt at the Vial farm.


3- A fun day at the Children's Museum.
("Look, Daddy, I'm a Lamanite!" Alexis painted her face all by herself!)

(Daddy painted Brandon's face with a mustache and beard. Like father, like son!)

2- The finding of Tom Worm. The kids and Lester were weeding in the front yard. They found a worm they named Tom. Lester put the worm into the flowers. A few minutes later he noticed Brandon throwing dirt at the flowers. He asked Brandon what he was doing. "I'm feeding Tom Worm!"

1- And the number one thing I missed (but not really), was the beginning of potty training Brandon. The quote du jour on this one (uttered when Daddy requested Brandon use the potty): "But, Daddy, I don't have any pee-pee in my p****!"

Prayers and Tears Come Easily Now

By now everyone knows about Ross Barfuss, who is being called a hero for giving his life trying to save that boy. You can read the latest updates here.

Deanna, Ross's mom, is my visiting teaching companion. I've grown to love and admire her spunk and spirituality. I especially admire her request to pray for the other boy's family.

I also am in awe of our ward family who spent all yesterday combing the beach in search of Ross.

My heart is sad for this wonderful family, but my prayers will go on.

Teal Cake, Be Gone!

I have finally redeemed myself. I had a hankering to make something with Dutch cocoa, since I had a whole new can of it. Mahina recommended trying the Texas sheetcake recipe on the Pioneer Woman's blog.

As a side note, I discovered my baking powder had November '98 stamped on the bottom of it! I am blaming the teal cake fiasco partly—okay, mostly—on the ancient baking powder. That sounds better than admitting I'm not a so-great chef. :-)

So with the teal cake disaster fresh in my mind, Alexis and I tetatively whipped up the sheetcake. Several positive omens were in our favor:

- I had to borrow sugar from Mahina. Between the two of us, I EXACTLY the right amount.

- I did not attempt to use food coloring.

- The recipe did not call for baking powder, fresh or otherwise.

We peeked into the oven as our sheetcake was baking. It smelled and looked divine, except for one small problem. It was higher on one side than another. But being a sheetcake, the difference in height was not too noticeable, especially when slathered with chocolate icing.

But most importantly, it passed the taste test! Everyone who tried it loved it. And it even looked like the picture on the Pioneer Woman's blog:

It's nice to have at least one recipe I can make well.

279 Pieces of Candy

Oh, wo is me.

We attended the Cub Scout's annual Blue and Gold dinner. They had a count-how-much-candy in the jar contest. Lester and I, with unusual self-control, said we weren't going to guess. However, Alexis did. She wanted to guess 78, but I told her there were way more than that. I wrote down 307 on her piece of paper, and she put her name on it.

Guess who won?

Guess which household, in addition to leftover Halloween candy, Valentine's Day candy, AND potty-training-reward candy now has an additional 278 pieces of candy? (Alexis ate one already.)

The only thing that made it worthwhile was the look of sheer joy on her face when she one. Oh, for a camera. Oh, that I were Mahina who practcially has her camera surgically attached to her hands. The closest reaction I can show you is the one she had two years ago when she got her Dora dollhouse for Christmas:

Maybe I should just remember whose candy it is.

But, then again, what parents have never helped themselves ("steal" is such a strong word) to the kids' candy after they were safely asleep?