Sunday Dinner July 29, 2007

Quiche Lorraine, green salad with lots of fresh tomatoes from the garden and carrot sticks. Toaster-oven s'mores for dessert
Bill is on call this weekend and didn't make it to dinner. But no more weekend call till January--wahoo!

Speaking of wahoo. Zoey went to Vacation Bible School this week with her friend Mia McConville. Each day they would have a new theme such as, "God is real" and then all the kids would yell, Wahoo! (It had a western theme.) It was at a Presbyterian church but the camp was infiltrated with Mormons. Two of Zoey's counselors were from our ward--one is the Bishop's daughter. It's refreshing to work with a Christian church that is not only tolerant but welcoming to Mormons. Lizzy went to the camp for a couple days but it wasn't her thing.

On the last day of Vacation Bible School they had a lunch and Carnival. John had his face painted as a tiger--note the short hair cut.

We had two other important events this week but no photos from them--sorry. First we had a going away party for our friends Gina and Nephi Thompson on July 24th. We had cookies and homemade ice cream. I made raspberry ice cream and Gina said it's the best ice cream she's ever tasted. Recipe to follow. It was lots of fun but it is sad to see the Thompsons go.

Fresh Raspberry Ice Cream

1 quart half and half
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 T vanilla
1 pint whipping cream

Mix till sugar dissolves. Freeze in 4-5 quart ice cream freezer according to directions.
In the meantime gently mix and mash

3-4 cup raspberries
1/4-1/2 sugar (depending on the sweetness of the berries)

When the ice cream freezer stops. Open container and pour berry mixture in. Turn blade several times and put back in to freeze until it stops again. Don't try to save time by putting the raspberries in at the beginning. Then you'll just be stuck with rock hard raspberries and soupy ice cream. If you do it my way you get firm ice cream and soft berries. As Gina says the best ice cream she's ever tasted.

The next day we celebrated Bill's birthday. We had leftover Indian food and pound cake with the leftover homemade ice cream it was nice and low key and I think that's how Bill wanted it. I thought I might take a nice photo of him and post it today but alas he is not home from work yet. So no photo. But I still want to say Bill is great. I appreciate how hard he works. He has to work twice as hard as many of his colleagues because when he's finished with work he can't goof off or go to bed early instead he has to come home and do dishes and change diapers and wrestle tigers. I know he enjoys all that but I also know he gets tired.

Thank you Bill.

And finally the John quote of the week:
"Mom, would you like me to start the car for you?"

Sunday Dinner July 22nd

Stuffed shells, garlic toast, broccoli and cauliflower and pumpkin pie for dessert. Except it was pumpkin pudding because I forgot the eggs. Oh well that just made it lower in calories and cholesterol.

I think a blog is something like a dog. Lizzy begged me to have a blog and now I'm the one stuck with the upkeep. But I'm OK with that. Just if I'm going to have to maintain the blog it's going to suit my purposes and so I'm going to greatly expand the dinner theme and once a week post a few photos with captions to let you know what we've been up to. If Lizzy wants to post in between, so be it. Actually she did just post about her birthday and I'm sorry there are no pictures. (The photos are on a CD and our CD drive is not working.)

Will in mud Monday, July 16, 2007

We started this week with a mud party. Whenever John has friends over all they want to do is play in the dirt which is something I'm OK with. The only other thing they want to do is turn on the hose which is something I'm not OK with. John's favorite friends to play in the dirt with, Joseph and Caleb Thompson are moving to Dayton, Ohio this week. So for just one morning we let the boys go wild. When they tired of the mud, we let them wash off in the sprinklers. We had lunch and a mud pie--made with ice cream not mud.

Zoey and Lizzy with new Harry Potter book. Saturday, July 21st about 1 a.m.

For two months now we've had the countdown to the release of the last Harry Potter book on our computer. Lizzy put it there. And lately all she wants to do is read the various Harry Potter websites. Lizzy asked if she could go to the Harry Potter party Friday night. And being the boring sleepy parents we are, we said no. Lizzy asked if she could just go to the party and not stay up till midnight and we said no. But after the girls went to bed Friday night, I had a change of heart. I went to bed at 9 and set my alarm for 11:15. I woke the girls up and took them to the book store in their pajamas. I couldn't believe how many people were there. The fun part was that all the kids there (all 10 of them. It was mainly adults) were Lizzy's friends and we also saw lots of people from school and church. It really wasn't much more than waiting in line in the dark for a long time but Lizzy loved it. I made her promise not to stay up and read the book that night. She kept her word and also waited to get all her chores done Saturday before she started reading. She's finished now and I've made her promise not to tell me what happens. Because I'm not going to start reading until after I finish this. I

This is how John looked last week at church. One member of our ward said he looked like a Greek god. I must say I think he looks dashing with his sun bleached curls but Bill thought he needed to be cleaned up. So he gave him a haircut. It was Bill's first haircut on a boy. (He has cut the girls' hair for more than a year now.) Sad to say I didn't take a short hair picture. But he does look nice and I think with all his wild hair trimmed, John seems to behave better.

In other firsts: Zoey had her first piano lesson on Tuesday and John is almost officially potty trained. He went to church in underwear and had no accidents. He's very pleased with himself and we are all pleased as well. Especially since every time he uses the potty he gives everyone in the house an M&M--after he has washed his hands of course. Actually, he's so zealous about hand washing that Zoey complains that the M&Ms taste like soap. Well I got to go now. Harry Potter is calling my name.

My Birthday

Wednesday June 20Th, 2007 was my birthday!!! Yeah! I had a cooking party and it was the best party ever! Yeah Mom! Not only was it a cooking party it was a French cooking party. We made Quiche, salad with a vinaigrette, and---Eclairs. It was really fun. There are pictures to come!