Piles of Laundry

Aside from actually getting Oren to school on time, the only thing I can boast about having accomplished is folding several batches of laundry. I got about 5 batches done, and still have several more to go, but the ones I got done were even put away in drawers. Miracle of miracles! It astounds me how many clothes 3 little boys can go through. I wish I had found all their underwear, but no such luck. I'll be scrounging around again tomorrow for some for them to wear. Isn't that sad?

I know today was Cinco de Mayo, and I really did intend to cook some amazing hispanic yummy stuff. Honestly! What did we end up having? Frozen ravioli in jarred spaghetti sauce. How inspiring. In order to cook something other than that we would have had to have clean dishes, and that just didn't happen. It's a good thing I recently bought paper bowls, because that's what we used along with plastic forks, which I will wash and reuse. At least I ventured to the store today to get milk, so the kids could eat cereal tomorrow without using powdered milk. (not their favorite)

My living room did end up getting semi-picked up and I drug the vaccum out, so that I could put laundry piles on the floor. I am trying not to think of the thousand of other things that need done, and would love to stop jumping in panic each time a neighbor kid rings the bell for Oren, thinking it's a friend that wants to come in and would then call the Center for Disease Control on me or something. Not that they would, or that it is as bad as that, but right now the backyard looks cleaner than my house.

On the plus side, we are all feeling better!

Recipe's have been posted...

Just a quick note, I got the recipe's posted on my recipe blog. I included some easier instructions for the roast that do not involve smoking, or a grill, so you guys can try it if you want. Far easier way to do it, I will be doing it this way next time. I also put up the sweet bread and brownie recipes! Enjoy!

Can I live here?

The suite at Anniversay Inn was beautiful! I am so glad we went, and I would love this to be a yearly tradition. It's a bit pricey, but it was so nice. There is a tub for two in every room, complimentary cheesecake in the fridge, sparkling cider chilled on ice waiting for us, and the tv was set to a relaxing music channel. Lights were beautifully dimmed, and best of all... there were no children!



I asked Mark if I could put mosquito netting over our bed at home and he said "Sure. If you could guaruntee the kids wouldn't pull it down in 2 minutes." Okay, I guess I'll wait a few years. First I have to train them to stay out of my room!

The tub was right in the room with us. Half the floor was stone, and then closer to the door and the bed it was animal stripe carpet. The tub was huge. One like this will be a must when we have our own home, for sure. I took 3 baths in this thing. Just laid there in 100 gallons of deliciously warm water, with the jets going. Ahhhh. No kids coming in to ask questions, or splash the water all over, or climb in head first.

This was actually the shower. He sat above and to the side of the tub, and the shower head came out of his head on the left.

Being the Jungle Safari room, there were little swinging critters all over the place.

Our own little waterfall. There was a switch to turn it off so we could sleep. But we had it going during our massages. Wonderful! I want one of these in my backyard!

I guess this guy thinks someone will make off with our cider. He was a little scary, quite realistic. And I have seen these guys up close!

This was a wonderfully relaxing weekend. They gave us a deep tissue massage. Did you know those hurt? Ouch! It felt great when they were done though. Mark never did guess what his suprise was. He did say massage at one point, but I had told him it was for both of us and so after he said massage he said it couldn't be because it was for both of us and how would a massage be for both? He didn't know they would send two masseusses! Ha ha! They adjusted my hips for me, they get out of place very easily, then I end up slightly tilted and one leg is longer than the other! That kind of hurts my back. But to adjust them, they had me lay on my back and then pulled on my ankles a little. They recommended I see a chiropractor. We'll see.

We went to some yummy places for dinner and lunch. Dinner was a seafood and steakhouse. The food was beautifully plated and the fish fresh. The menu is printed each day according to what is available. But I still wasn't feeling well, and didn't hardly touch my food. It was all too creamy for me. I want to go back when I am actually hungry, because what I ate tasted wonderful, I just couldn't eat it. That was pretty much the same with lunch the next day. Only then Mark was doing the same thing. We went to an italian place I had seen a couple of times but never gone into. They pour the olive oil onto a plate for dipping the bread into and grind fresh pepper onto it. They have real italian sodas they make there. Again, the food tasted amazing! I just got full after a dozen bites and had to box most of my pasta and Mark brought more than half his small pizza home. It didn't go to waste though, my family dug in pretty quickly. It was delicious, but we had almost no appetite. Another date, perhaps.

It was wonderful to have this time with Mark. I think we really needed it. And Marie enjoyed the wad of 20's I handed her... So my house is still a wreck, my kids are still nuts, my schedule insane, but I feel a little better about tackling it all. A little more refreshed. And very much in love with the sweet man that let me spend this much money on one date!

Oren's school play

I guess they did something like "brown bear, brown bear", but it was "children, children". Oren was the fire-breathing dragon, and Mark said he breathed very well. Not having been there, I don't know what all the pictures were. I would guess the top is him being a dragon. The middle 2 are probably a little group recitation (they did something similar for an earlier musical performance) and I think the bottom one is sharing a memory from his "memory book". They have been working on those all year.

Thursday Pictures!

Ok, I have lots up updating to do! I guess we'll start with Mark's birthday food pictures. Warning, do not attempt unless you are nuts, have nothing but time, and don't mind smelling like smoke all day long.

Here is the roast being prepped for it stay in the fridge overnight. Big, isn't it.

Here is the roast being barbequed. Nowhere in the recipe does it say to add water to the pan occasionally, but henceforth that is what I will do, to prevent the lovely burning of the meat due to the heat below the pan. All the seasoning was burnt and to get to the meat that didn't taste of charcoal I had to cut the seasoned crust off.

But here is the end result, with the mustard sauce that I would change, it's a little runny. We had real mashed potatoes, and corn with butter. I was to tired to make gravy, but the potatoes tasted good anyway.

Luckily, our hawaiin sweet rolls fared better than the roast did. Mark raved about them. I brought some loaves to my parent's this weekend, and they all raved about them. They taste really good warmed up!

And, tada! The piece de resistance (snooty french accent here, please)... the brownie! Note the carmelized brown of the coconut frosting. This was deliciously sinful, and the brownie a light but chocolatey counterpart to the moist topping. This was oh-so-good with a scoop of vanilla ice cream eaten alongside!

All recipe's will be posted here !

The day after...

Well, after rubbing the spice mixture on an 8 lb roast, figuring out how to saran wrap something that big, letting it sit all night, smelling like hickory smoke all day because I was adding charcoal and smoking chip packets every half hour, and setting the backyard on fire, wrapping it in a big paper bag to let rest for 1 hour, and getting the meat off the bone.... it didn't come out how it was supposed to. Don't get me wrong, it was good, just not Oh-my-word fantastic. I could do this in the oven with our cast iron smoker box thingy and get pretty much the same result, with a little less char... Or a smaller roast and finish it after oven smoking, in the crock pot.

The bread and brownies however were divine. I accidently made a double batch of bread. I dumped in all the flour instead of half and mixed the potato flakes in before I realized it. Oops! Well, I guess I am finding people who like sweetbread, because I have 4 round loaves, 1 bread pan loaf, and 12 dozen rolls (half of which were eaten last night). Those rolls were the best ones I have ever made, light and fluffy, wonderful texture! I haven't tried the bread yet, but I imagine it is just as yummy. No more store bought King Hawaii sweet rolls for us! The brownies were kind of fudgy, but somehow light, with this carmelized coconut topping on top. I'll be making these again, for sure.

I know you guys would love to see pictures, but Mark has the camera at Oren's school play. Why am I not there? Because my stomach kept me up most of the night, and I couldn't even help get the kids ready for school today, I kept running to the bathroom either to use it or to almost throw up in it. So he took the kids to school for Oren's play and I stayed here with William, laying on the couch trying to talk myself into breakfast. What's sad is Oren's play wasn't until 9:00, school starts at 8:20. By the time 9:00 came around, just a few minutes ago, I suddenly felt better, Pepto Bismal having kicked in, but I had no way to get to the school. Mark took the van, with William's seat. He has been talking about being a dragon in this play for 3 weeks and I couldn't go! I was able to get a banana down and if I keep taking Pepto, I should be okay for our weekend. I would reschedule, but if Oren needs glasses, I want to look at some places in Boise today. But I am glad I am feeling better, Mark will take lots of pictures for me, and I was able to give William a big hug without running for the bathroom. Now to get the boys clothes packed...

I will post pictures of the food later, I don't know if I will get to it today, but I will get them up sometime. Recipe's too, the pork tasted good, just not what he remembers. But I don't have a 50-gallon drum with hinges to bury in the backyard!

Finally over 20!

20 pounds that is...

Last night we got an automated call from our doctor's office reminding us that the "patient born on October 4th has a appointment". Huh? Oh, right... well baby. A look at the calendar revealed that it was a 9:15 in the morning, for William. Not good! Nathan's therapy is at 9:00 down in town!

Fortunately I remembered that Mark has the next two weeks off and therefore will be home. We discussed and decided that I would take Oren to school and then head to town for Nathan's therapy. Mark would venture to the hospital and take William to his appointment.

I am so proud of him! He has only been to a handful of the kids appointments due to his schedule, and this is the first time he has taken the kids to one by himself. Ever. He has taken a child to the ER occasionally, but never and official scheduled check-up. He had to fill in the "check your child's milestones" paperwork that the doctors want. The can your child stack 2 blocks, or jump up and down, or say 5 words or more kind of stuff. He was proud of himself too and called me on my way home to tell me how it went.

William is finally over 20 pounds! When we took him in for an ear infection not even a month ago, he was only 19lb 11oz. Up 1 oz from 2 months before! Not great. Of course, he had spent 3 weeks being sick with different things and not eating a lot. Today he weighed in at 20 lb and 9 oz. He is closer to the actual lines on the growth chart now, and his height line has jumped up a little too! I thought he felt a little heavier the other day, kind of all of a sudden. So I guess he had a growth spurt. This means he is legal to be forward facing in the car, which is good since we switched him 4 months ago!

I'm sure this seems like a silly thing to be so excited about, but this is the kid who we had to bring in every week with a food diary of EVERYTHING we put in his mouth, for a good 3 months, and then once a month for the next 6 months. Then we were down to every 3 months, and now he is on the normal well-baby track. Just because his growth chart kept going down. They were talking about running tests to see why he wasn't gaining weight. So finally being over 20 lbs is a huge thing for us. They are finally leaving us alone and have finally figured out he is just a small guy.