For Melissa

Melissa, Doggies was all you ever said it would be and more. I am now officially excited for Christmas.

See what commenting regularly does for you? It gets you a blog post of your very own.

And no, Monica, you're not chopped liver.

Do service or we'll break your fingers

So while we're on the subject of how irreverent I am, I'll tell you the thought I just had. But first the background.

We're doing a helping hands program in our Relief Society where people write acts of service on adorable little hands and then we display them during Relief Society. I pass around the hands in my binders and generally just make myself obnoxious trying to promote it. In the RS newsletter I have a little blurb about it as well.

Monica and I were brainstorming ideas for how to promote it in the newsletter. I needed to scan the hands so my newsletter wouldn't be so boring and we came up with the slogan of "let these hands jazz up your service" or something equally awful. We then proceeded to come up with a lot of truly amazing (not in a good way) hand puns as a campaign. Everyone in my ward, if they knew, would be grateful that we didn't use any of them.

So anyways, I have a bunch of hands running around my house and, because I can't keep anything nice, some of them aren't in the most pristine condition. I saw some of those crumpled little hands on the floor just now and thought about scanning them and advertising them with the slogan, "Do service or we'll break your fingers."


Aren't you glad I have a tiny bit of a filter?

Madam Librarian

Peter and I were discussing that we both want to be librarians at church. We decided we could switch our callings on the white board in the Bishop's office and change callings in the computer. Then we would just start showing up to the library and helping people. It kind of fell apart when we pictured ourselves being dragged out of the library yelling, "Inspiration..inspiirraaaation." We were planning on being all efficient and stuff: Organizing in our spare time. Knowing right where the thumb tacks were. It was going to be great.
Oh well, I guess I'll have to be content with visiting our poor (not as in quality--they're awesome) librarians at least three times a Sunday and making them make copies for me and finding me the three hole punch.

And why is it that I'm obsessed with using lines from musicals as blog titles lately? Weird.

Nice night for a coon hunt

So Peter started complimenting me because I said I needed validation and instant gratification. We were discussing why I blog and why I took over stirring Monica's quinoa so I could send her in to read my new blog posts.

Peter: Wow, you're stirring that really well.
I think Benton really likes being held by you like that.
The spit-up stains on your shirt really aren't all that noticeable.

Andrea: You might think it's spit-up but it'snot.

Then he complimented my near perfect Chinese accent.

Twenty-seven

I think I might have blogged about my mini-obsession with the number twenty-seven before. But too bad.
When I look at a clock I usually make the numbers into a date. I've come to realize that I have a lot of ties with 27. I was born on the 27th. My brother-in-law was born on the 27th. One of my best friends was born on the 27th. (Happy Birthday today, Molly! I love you.) I went to Ukraine on the 27th. Benton should have been born on the 27th. I put my mission papers in on the 27th. Brita was born on the 27th. That covers more than half the months. I wanted to be like my sister-in-law and have all my kids on the same day of the month, but it didn't work out. It didn't work out for her either, but she was close. Anyways, I tend to notice the clock at 27 minutes after the hour and think about all those things in their respective hours about once a day. Just in case you wanted to know how weird I am.

And some more pictures

We've been going for a lot of walks lately. I usually would put Benton in the sling and push Brita in the stroller. One day I didn't have the sling and we needed to go a couple places, so they both went in the stroller. Now it's their favorite way to travel.

Here's Benton taking a nap in the book room. He had about a week where he didn't sleep worth beans. Thankfully he's mostly better now. Just in time to be getting sick.

Here's Brita at FHE one night. She was pretty sad and had a frown just like Peter's mom, but then when I got the camera she wouldn't recreate it.

And here's Benton hanging out in his toy. He's a pretty happy kid. And he likes to chew. Everything.

Father and Son

Here are some pictures of Benton and Peter hanging out.



They match.

White Bread and Toast

When I was in Illinois my coworker (or co-graduate student or whatever you want to call her) Carol got me hooked on the comic White Bread and Toast. I came into the office one day, sat down at my chair, looked around and started doing homework. Carol started laughing because she had printed out four comics and put them above my desk and I had looked right at them and hadn't seen them. I found them again yesterday and decided to post them on my blog. They remind me of Carol and all the good times we had.

The second one was a reference to the conversations we always had in stats class. The third one was because I always asked her to spell things and the fourth was one that I always laughed really hard at and she didn't think was all that funny.
So there you go.

Lessons learned from the day

When people say not to cut toward yourself with a knife, you should listen. That's good advice.

If you keep taking the first aid cream all over the house you will eventually forget where you left it.

Peppers from the garden make everything better, even when they're frozen.

Three timesing my chili recipe doesn't fill up my stock pot.

The smell of chili kind of negates the smell of corned beef.

I only cook when we're going out for dinner.

If I make Peter leave work early it will backfire because he will have to go back in.

If I make Peter leave work early Monica's visiting teaching will cancel.

We need a Zans.

Timesing should be a word.

Even though you tell something not to stick on the bottom and have it on low, it still might stick.

Choice and accountability

So I made a choice a long time ago to co-sleep. A lot of people don't make that choice and that's fine. People can do whatever they want.

Last night Benton was waking up pretty much all night long--like every forty to seven minutes. And he wasn't going back to sleep easy. It was pretty awful. I was dead this morning. Luckily my presidency meeting was canceled and I woke Monica up and made her watch my kids so I could lay down. Brita came and got me when it was time for Monica to get ready for work. Benton was peacefully sleeping on Monica. Then Brita went down for her nap and Benton took a nap.

I got to watch Benton sleeping and he was so calm and tranquil. I love watching my kids sleep. I love sleeping next to them. I love knowing that they know I'll try to fix their problems for them.

I just can't let my kids cry it out. It's a choice I've made. Some nights I want to, but I can't do it. Maybe that will change some day, but for now that's the way it is.

What a day

Equality, Fairness, Feminism, Death, Missing People, Poop, Pee, Pee, Pee. What a day.

Do you want to watch Benton pop?

Brita had some packing bubbles and wanted Benton to help her pop them. Now she always wants to "watch Benton pop." Over and over and over again.

My personal favorite is when Brita takes off running down the hall and Benton doesn't let go until he's off the ground.

Two pictures

I just made Brita find the camera card for me and then I realized that Peter took all the pictures off the camera two days ago or so.

So here are two pictures.


Benton has taken to sticking out his tongue. It's pretty much the cutest thing ever. I think I might have told you that already. Anyway, just to prove I'm right, you get a picture.


Brita likes to hold Benton. She's a big Benton fan, actually. She's even getting better about telling us when she's done holding Benton.

A real recipe

http://twopeasandtheirpod.com/recipe-for-oatmeal-berry-muffins/

Yum. Yum a lot.

Fried Cauliflower

My first area on my mission was in Donetsk right by the mission home and office. Because of that we got quite a few perks. One was life changing--I learned to make fried cauliflower.

Two Sisters were leaving to attend the Moscow MTC and they went to our mission office to be set apart. Then they spent the night at our apartment before they left. On was Anna Bigun. She was from Mariupal. Her mom always cooked for the Elders in Mariupal and she wanted to make us dinner. It was quite a treat for me because I was pretty much living on yogurt and bread at that point. Oh, but it was really, really good yogurt and bread. She made several things, but the only one I remember was fried cauliflower. The other two Sisters didn't seem quite a sold on it as Anna and I were, but that was probably just because they were more health conscious than we were. I never said it was healthy. At the end of the meal Anna and I took bread and dipped it in the left over grease until we had the pan cleaned out. Oh yumminess.

All this just to bring you to the point that I really don't have a recipe. But I'll tell you how I make it.

First you put some oil in a frying pan. Kind of a lot of oil. Then you fry an egg with salt and pepper. I don't know what it is about the egg--you don't use it for anything, but you have to do it. Maybe it's for a snack as you're cooking.

Actually at the same time as you're doing that, or maybe before you steam the cauliflower. Just put it in a little bit of boiling water and put the lid on. In case you didn't understand the word steaming. This is why I'm not a recipe writer.

When the cauliflower is soft you take it out and cut it so you have big florets. Then you slice those about a quarter of an inch thick or maybe a little thinner. Then you fry them in your oil that you fried the egg in. Just salt and pepper it. Lots of salt. A bit of pepper. You need to not stir it very much so it gets brown--the brown parts are the best. And man, it is good. If you're in to that sort of thing. I don't think I've ever met a person that wasn't in to that sort of thing.

Oh--when it's done take it out of the pan and put it on a paper towel to try and get at least a little bit of the grease off. There you go. Eat it hot.

Oh--and don't use a plastic pancake turner to stir it with if you're using a metal pan. Every time I've done that I've melted it. Nasty. Truly nasty.

That's about all. Sorry it wasn't very recipe-like.

If you have any good Ukrainian bread sitting around I would highly recommend you make this and use the left over grease to dip your bread in. Serious yum.