Our Little Fireman

So I'm pretty sure that LeGrand is going to have a career as a pyromaniac. Every chance he gets he tries to eat the fire poker. Not the healthiest habit, I will admit, but doesn't he look adorable with all the ashes on his face??? No, this is NOT a habit that I'm encouraging, but he's a fast little booger, and I don't have eyes in the SIDE of my head (just the back); although I do need to develop them with him. I also need to develop better x-ray vision; since most of the things he does he waits until I am in another room to do. This is his look of "I know I got caught, but as soon as Mom turns around and leaves the room, I'm going to eat the poker again...".

Duckdate

It's an update on the ducks...

We're out of the duck business. No, they didn't ALL die... just two of them. I had no idea that a duck could drown. Aren't they supposed to be, like, the supreme swimmers??? At any rate... we lost one last week, and then yesterday, woke up to another one "sleeping" (and not waking up...) and I have no idea what happened. Soooooooooo... in an effort to let the remaining ones survive, I stopped at the neighbor's house down the hill (they're in our ward and have somewhere around 75 chickens and ducks) and asked them if they would please adopt 9 little ducknapped ducks. And so, they did. Margaret sobbed for a good 5 minutes, I'm just glad to get them out of the house. It was starting to really stink.

We're back to being chicken and cat farmers. One of these days, I'll get a picture of the kittens posted. They're awfully cute. All seven of them.

And now, I'm off to get the kitchen cleaned and the remaining strawberries frozen and the living room clean. I have one hour, and then I promised the girls (LeGrand doesn't care) that we could go to the free summer movie... The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything - Another Veggie Tales Movie. Next week they're showing Kit Kittredge, American Girl... (And another too, I just can't remember what it is. Our movie attendance is based solely on completion of chores during the week...)

Look for a movie review soon!

Make Way... for DUCKLINGS!

No, this isn't a book review, although that's an excellent book if you have time to read it to your children. This is, in fact, about real, live, in our house ducklings.

Last night, while working at the temple, we were informed that sometime during the night we might need to do some "duck relocation". A mother duck and her 11 ducklings had decided to make the reflecting pool at the temple her home. There are just a couple of things wrong with that:

1. Coyotes. They live around the temple and, because the city won't do anything about them (something about "habitat"), they aren't afraid of people anymore. AND, they're fond of duck. Since the reflecting pool is a favorite photography spot for brides and grooms, it was determined that they need to move.


2. Chemicals. I'm not a fan of chemicals in my water, and I don't imagine that the ducklings were either...


3. Lack of food... another of those essentials. Mommy Duck might have been able to find food, but babies were not doing as well in that department.


4. Add in there the little fountains that are inside the reflecting pool that the little ducklings couldn't get past, and all the little places for them to get stuck, and it just adds up to not a good place for ducks. Not to mention the poo factor. Who wants to have poo on their wedding dress?????

So... it was determined that they needed to be relocated. Since we have a farm (no, we have no pond), and there are other people in this area that have ponds that would LOVE to have ducks (no, I didn't ask, but if you're floating fake ducks in your pond to attract the real ones, that's a pretty good indicator), I volunteered to take them home. That also meant being part of the capture team.

At 2:30 this morning, we went outside to capture the ducks. We'd already put the ducklings into a box (no, they weren't quackers in the box for the coyotes...) hoping that Mom would just join them... no such luck. Instead, she was sitting on the ledge waiting. And the sprinklers were giving all of the ducks a cold little shower. Ducklings moved to a smaller, drier box, and the hunt for the Mom was on. An HOUR AND A HALF later... Ducklings said goodbye to Mom (yes, I know it's sad. But it would be much sadder to have the coyotes eat them...), and our girls woke up to 11 new pets. They're having a grand time swimming in the bathtub (we shower anyway), and all of the children are loving seeing them. Some more than others. (They started out by swimming in the sink, but when I needed to sanitize it to do the dishes, I moved them to a larger location.)

In our house...

Licking your plate is a sign of a fabulous dinner. One that ranks a #10 on a scale of 1-10... I, personally, don't like to get food on my face so I'm not a plate licker. Andrew has taught our children how to show their appreciation of food... I will readily admit that this type of behavior is NOT a frequent thing at our table (maybe that's a bad thing, if it's an indication of how good the food is...), but Margaret was thrilled at the raspberry sauce that went on her French Toast (and pancakes this morning as well...). Her plate was almost clean enough to put back in the cupboard.

Plate Lickin' Raspberry Sauce

Enough frozen raspberries to fill a small
saucepan (about 3 cups)

Sugar to taste (about 1/2 c.)

1 c. water to help with the cooking

2 T cornstarch

1/4 c. white sugar

1/2 c. water

Put raspberries and first sugar measurement and
first 1 c. water into saucepan. Heat slowly so that the raspberries melt
and mix with the sugar and water. In separate measuring cup, combine sugar
and cornstarch. Add cold water and blend well. Add to hot
mixture. Heat and stir until thickened. Can add 1 T lime juice
before serving. This is divine on pancakes with whipped cream
too...

Updated Cute Kids

It's been a while since I had all of the children playing at the same time when I had my camera out... (Timing is, in fact, everything). However - I took the camera outside the other day and caught a few really good ones. Savannah was hunting for flowers that had fallen off of the tree; Margaret was getting ready to go "shopping", and LeGrand was crawling as fast as he could towards the camera. The picture of Savannah will be her school photo - as soon as I get copies of it back from the printer... (which could, in fact, take a while since I haven't taken them to be printed... those of you who still haven't gotten last year's picture can understand the time frame here...). But... here they are on the BLOG... so you'll at least get to see them, even if you don't have them in your hand.

Feats of Daring

There are some things a mother should never catch her children doing... This is one of them:

This is what I walked in on after trying to get some photos ready for the website and for the actual clients to see. He's now confined to his high chair with the belt on... tightly. So far, it's working. A little about this particular photo... My flash didn't go off when I took the picture, so I had to add a little backlighting to it just to bring out the kiddo. Then, because it changed the color of the picture, I made it a Sepia colored picture and vintaged it. I kind of like the way it turned out... He kind of pops off the page - in my opinion.

Andrew and I keep telling LeGrand to sit in his chair... he was - at the time - sitting... On his tray. I guess this means the buckle from now on. At least he can't get out of it... yet.

Little Stinker.

What I like about our House...

A newly remodeled Kitchen! Of course, it's not finished yet - we want to eventually put in a new countertop and paint the kitchen, and there are the unfinished pieces that you can see... but doesn't the floor look WONDERFUL???!!! (Andrew did that... :) He's so handy with a hammer...)If you look closely, you'll see that the stove isn't attached to the wall... yet, but it will be... eventually.

a little behind... a Margaret Story.

And no, I'm not talking about an actual "Be-Hind..." Although - and this is a total sidebar here: yesterday as I'm in the kitchen doing the dishes and Savannah and Margaret are outside, I hear a tap-tap-tapping on the window, and Savannah summons me to come see what Margaret is doing. What Margaret was doing, ended her outside time. Little girls (and this goes for big girls too...) DO NOT pull their britches down and drop their skirts to the ground and squat to water the flowers! It's just not acceptable. All the way in the house, Margaret was wailing, "I won't pee outshide adain! I pwomishe!" Once in the house, the tune changed a little to "wemember when you let me pee outshide lasht shunday yeshterday?..." Um... No. Not a memory that I have.

Needless to say... I hope that she has learned that little girls use the toilet. I'm not ready to explain about little boys.

I'm just a little behind on my posting. Pictures will follow. As soon as I download them. In five minutes.

Margaret... Asleep.

I don't know HOW shes remotely comfortable, or WHAT she's doing, but when I was a teenager, I would do my hair at night and then try to sleep like this so that I could get the most sleep possible and not have to worry about my hair in the morning. It NEVER worked, but it was a phase I went through anyway... I think Margaret just fell asleep, and there wasn't room on her pillow for her head...

Family Photo Shoot

My mom is putting together a Family Photo Thing for my Grandma Jensen, and asked for a picture of us. Since we didn't have one, we had to create one. Here is the result, and one of the kids too...
Margaret is 3 (she'll tell you she's 7); Savannah is 7 (she won't tell you she's three); and LeGrand is 10 months old. Andrew and I are much older than that...

Kitchen Remodel

So we took all the floor out of the kitchen - down to the subfloor (and when I say "WE", I mean "Andrew". I certainly didn't do anything...I'm not as "handy with a hammer" as Andrew is.) and had a bricklayer come to put our new hearth in. The wood cook stove will sit on top of it sometime later this week...There is no longer a screaming hunk of metal that likes to call itself a dishwasher, the island is now in the basement for laundry and those supplies, and we'll be putting the rest of the floor in later this week. (Again... "we" means "Andrew"...) Looking forward to posting a final photo!!!

The View the other day...

This rainbow was so large that I couldn't get it all in one shot... no matter how I tried. So... sorry, but you'll have to imagine the other 3/4 of this rainbow!

Margaret's Quote for Today

MOM! My Mouth is Leaking! I need a napkin!!! Hurry! It's leaking out the top!!!

Remodeling the House

Our time lately has been taken up with destruction... and rebuilding. Over spring break, Andrew and I had a few days by ourselves (well... we had LeGrand with us, but he's not the talker that the girls are... it was really quiet around here...), and during that time, we decided to take the Pergo out of the main living area. When I say "WE", I really mean "ANDREW" - I was just here for moral support.

In taking the floor out of one room, we discovered that there had been a wall there. SO... We put the wall back in. The plan with this wall is to build a bookshelf with a cupboard in. We'll do the same thing on the other side of the wall - making one room a study, and the other the Music room. We're excited to be able to really use the room, and to have a spot for visitors to sleep where they can close the door...

Currently, I'm listening to the sound of the Brick Mason as he builds a wall and Hearth in the Kitchen for our Wood Cook Stove. As soon as he's finished, Andrew will put the floor back in, and we'll start Barbecuing. (What?! Did you REALLY think that we were going to cook with wood in the middle of the summer in the HOUSE????) If we want to bake something, we'll use the wood cook stove that's going in the canning kitchen. At least that one's portable... and outside!

So... I'll post some pictures of the inside of the house - when I've had a chance to get all the dust off the floor and the floor looking somewhat normal again.

I like Trucks... and cars and things with engines...

A couple of weeks ago, during a brief break in the rain, Andrew and I took the children (Margaret and "LeDwand" (Margaret speak for LeGrand)) outside while we torched some Ivy that was becoming bothersome. Savannah was at school... Instantly, LeGrand gravitated towards the trucks and cars. Incidentally, these are the same toys that Andrew played with when HE was a little boy. I have come to think that it's built into your Genes. Either you are a girl and LOVE dolls and makeup and dress up stuff, or you're a boy and LOVE cars and trucks and things with engines that you can take apart. The Girls were NEVER this interested in the toys like this at this age.

There's NO WAY that's Comfortable

I'm no expert, but I'm fairly certain that High Chairs weren't meant to be sat in this way...

Around Parts of the Midwest in less than 6 days.

And yes, we're tired. Andrew's friend Chris got married, and we went to the wedding. Before hand, we decided to make a quick trip to Utah so that we could go to the Salt Lake Temple.

After much deliberation, comfort won out over fuel mileage, and we decided to pack the children and what amounts to half of their worldly belongings in the truck, and 1 in the AM on Wednesday morning, we drove out of our driveway. At 6 in the PM, we arrived at our destination: Justin and Melissa's house in Tooele. And at 6:05 in the PM, they left for their meetings. Leaving us with their wonderful bounty of Chicken Patties for Chicken Sandwiches. Yum. Then, it was letting Savannah and Margaret play with Legos until "Uncle Bubba" came home, because as Savannah said, "I can't have come all this way to NOT see Uncle Bubba and Aunt Melissa." LeGrand was more interested in what Bruce was doing. Some rousing games of Hide and Seek with Bruce (the monstrous German Shephard) later, and Uncle Bubba got the sleeping beds out for the girls... needless to say, it was late when we went to bed.

Thursday, Justin and Melissa went to work and we took the girls and LeGrand to Salt Lake to see the Church History Museum. We were ALL impressed by the Tabernacle (or Tabelnacker, however you prefer to say it...) display. The girls especially liked the "I am a Child of God" display. Then, it was to lunch and dropping the children off at yet another relative's house where Savannah learned to play Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater on their piano, and Margaret proceeded to show them how great an appetite she had. LeGrand just had to have his clothes washed... again. Andrew and I went to the Temple where we had a MARVELOUS time. The SL Temple is absolutely gorgeous, and it was a unique experience for us. One that we won't soon forget. (And in case anyone wonders, the sessions start on the hour. If you're there at 3:10, you wait until 4...) Then, after we were already late getting back to dinner with Justin, Melissa, Ian and Christen, we FINALLY got back to the dwelling in Tooele sometime around 8:30 PM. (Dinner was scheduled for 6:30... I'm still sorry, guys...) Melissa made some DIVINE Taco Soup (which I promptly burnt my tongue on, ruining the flavor of ANY food for the remainder of the trip), and we enjoyed a visit. Andrew wants to play the game you have where people get the shock of their lives, Justin... Savannah doesn't.

Thursday night found us in Logan, UT for the night, and then up on Friday morning to go shooting with Andrew's Uncle, "Brute". (Margaret speak for Bruce). That all fun and games done, we had lunch at Costa Vida (if you've ever been to Cafe Rio, you've been to Costa Vida... but that's another story), then left to go to the wedding reception in Idaho Falls. After the reception, we headed North to Rigby, Id, where we stayed with cousins of a cousin. And no, that wasn't at all awkward. (No sarcasm at all, by the way.) Come to find out, we had a lot in common with the cousin's cousin, and thoroughly enjoyed their hospitality. Enjoyed it so much so that we were up talking with Bob and Tasha until 2 in the AM!

Up on Saturday to attend the wedding in Idaho Falls (yes, it's the new trend to have the reception and then the wedding...), then the luncheon, and then down to Whitney to visit with some dear friends, our former neighbors. It was a good visit.

Saturday night we were back in Logan with Ethan and Shannon, then up Sunday to get ready for church and Easter service... after church, the drive home. We pulled into the driveway at 6 AM Monday morning, put everyone into their own beds, and proceeded to sleep for most of the rest of the day.

Today, I'm doing laundry and finally getting the house back together. I need a vacation from the vacation. I'll post pictures from another day later. I didn't take the camera on this trip.

Just a reminder...

There's still a chance to Play it Forward... You never know what you might win...

A few things to catch up on...

Like the fact that LeGrand has four teeth now....

And we are now Chicken Ranchers... the cows will return soon to take their place in the freezer... and I am totally thrilled about that - looking forward to some home-grown beef!

And I'm ready for Spring Break to be over.

Cooking with a Wood Stove...

Isn't really as difficult as it seems. It's like doing Dutch Oven all the time. 99% of the time we cook with Cast Iron (saves on dish soap), and the other 1% of the time I'm trying to figure out how to keep the food from sticking to the bottom of the non-cast pan. It's a delicate balance of lots of shortening and getting the pan really hot. I haven't remembered which yet.

So when my parents came to visit, we did something really fun. We went to some Antique stores in Aurora, OR - the Antique Capital of Oregon (for those of you who really care...). It was a BLAST! In fact, it was so much fun, that Andrew and I went back... and then we went back again. And what do we have to show for our return visits???

A wire chicken. It comes in "eggstremely" handy as the egg basket. (Sorry. The pun just slipped out like a bad yolk...)

A popcorn popper. It's really cool. You put the oil in, put some popcorn in, sit it on top of the wood stove, and wait for the kernels to start poppin'! Then, you turn the fun little handle on the top until the top pops off, and you've got yourselves a nice, healthy snack. At least it's healthy until you add the butter and the caramel and the other toppings. We never do this... RIIIIIIGHT.

And then... the piece that we're MOST excited for... (and I would be lying if I didn't admit that it has a few people wondering if we've lost our collective minds...)

THIS:

I will be the first person to say that there is going to be a learning curve when it comes to baking in the oven. That's not something that I've ever done, and I'm certain that the bread isn't going to come out quite the way I want it to the first time or two. However, I am thoroughly looking forward to "slaving over a hot stove" literally.

Yes, we know this is a step back for most people. Frankly, we don't care. We are planning on putting this new stove in the kitchen where the old stove (the electric one that gathers dust and is only used on Sundays - and then only maybe...) currently sits. We're also moving the refrigerator (no, we're not getting rid of it) into the pantry so that we can have a nice work area next to the stove. The next step is to take all the tile out of the kitchen so that we can actually use the wood floors that are underneath it... (We've already taken the pergo out of the dining room to some VERY pleasant surprises...), and then... the hearth. And after that, we'll install the stove, and then... as I've heard, We're prepared for some of the best meals we've ever tasted.

It's going to be fun. I'm looking forward to the challenge.

P.S. Look closely, and you'll see the chicken and the popper on top of the stove...