Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving was fun this year. We met at our house for prayer and visiting before going to the restaurant (Chuck-a-Rama- awful name, yummy food).

Bear had his thanksgiving feast. before we left :) Unfortunately, when we got there, we discovered we had to wait- outside. Grandma stuck with the kids (EJ, Birdy, Cyndi's Sis, and Bear) in the car while the rest of us braved the cold. We came up with creative ways to stay warm, though (Esp. after Cyndi got hot chocolate!). Cyndi's hot hands helped:

When we finally got in everyone set about fulfilling the true meaning of Thanksgiving- eating until we burst. Birdy only ate a bowl of bean soup, some roll with cinnamon honey butter and a little turkey before heading straight to the desserts - 2 bowls of ice cream (strawberry with mini m&ms) rice krispy treat, and bowl of M&M's.

EJ had a more respectable (and balanced) meal including goldfish crackers and a bunch of olives before putting away her own 2 bowls of ice cream and piece of cake.

The food was good, (Scones w/ cinnamon honey butter! Salad Bar! Bread Pudding!) and the diet Coke flowed freely- what more could you ask for?

Afterwards, we went to Cyndi's to digest. Brad introduced me to Angry Birds (Stupid Pigs!!). He and I are playing that and Birdy is decorating cookies. Nice family together time, right? We also played "Would you rather" and visited until Bear had to go home to bed.

In all it was a good Thanksgiving. It was OK that we went to a restaurant because we still had our own little Butterball:

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How was your last two weeks?

I haven't blogged in a while, probably because we've had the craziest two weeks ever. Here's what happened in roughly chronological order:

• DMP's mom had a stroke and was life-flighted to MT. DMP left class and drove up to be with her, his siblings, and Papper.
• The decision was made to take Grandma off life support. It was sad and difficult, but made a bit easier because of her living will.
• I get pulled over the same morning and get two tickets- one for overdue registration, another fixit ticket for a dim back light. Awesome.
• Meanwhile, I'm holding down the home front- complete with non-sleeping babies, childcare issues and a whopper of a cold.
• DMP's mom passes away Thursday, Nov. 18. We are very sad and grateful that we know we are an eternal family and that we'll see her again. I'm posting a remembrance tomorrow.
• I make Cyndi stay and help me tell the girls. Birdy is immediately sad and cries, EJ listens to me with her "family home evening face" and then asks if she can play with Thomas. We later have much deep discussion on Heavenly Father's plan and other far-reaching philosophical and religious questions. ("Mommy, if a funeral is to celebrate someones life, why do we wait until they die?"
• DMP finally makes his way home on Friday. We are all very happy to have him back.
• Birdy complains of an earache Friday night. After a trip to the pediatrician we find out she has a bit of an ear infection and sore throat. Antibiotics are procured.
• Sunday, we all pile in Mom and Dad's Santa Fe (because it has 4-wheel drive) to drive to Salmon for the funeral.
• We arrive in Salmon, happy to see family and relieved to be out of the car (esp. DMP).
• We go to feed Bear his bottle and discover that the carefully packed bag full of formula, bottle nipples and liners, Birdy's antibiotics, other cold medicines for both the kids and me, are all still at the Applebees by I-15 in Pocatello.
• DMP and Papper discover that the gas stations and the corner store do NOT stock formula. The regular grocery store opens Monday AM.
• Someone (Papper? Kathy) has the owner of the grocery store on the phone ready to go open up the store so we can get formula when Kira saves our bacon by lending us some of Kadri's to get us through the night. There was much rejoicing.
• Monday is DMP's Mom's funeral. Enough said.
• We are eagerly anticipating driving home Tuesday. We wake up to a giant blizzard in the Idaho Falls area. The highways and freeways between us and home are closed with snow and 30-50 mph winds.
• Cabin fever sets in as the 5 big kids and 4 babies bounce off the walls. It was 20 degrees outside, so sending them out to play wasn't an option.
• Late Tuesday night my Mom and Dad call to let us know that their insurance policies on ALL their vehicles have been cancelled for no reason.
• Wednesday we wake up and eagerly await the go-ahead to drive home. We wait while Mom and Dad switch policies and get on the road at 11:30.
• EJ starts sniffling and coughing.
• From Salmon to Pocatello is like a big ice sheet. It takes us almost 2x as long to get home as it normally does.
• We get home late Wednesday night. There is much rejoicing.
• Bear starts sniffling (more) and coughing. If you are counting, that is now 4 of 5 of us sick.
• The car didn't get fixed yet and we can't get it registered until we replace the mirror that got knocked out a couple of weeks ago. I have to call Monday and plead for mercy.

It wasn't all bad, though. Folks in Salmon were so kind to us- bringing food and letting us stay at their house for 3 nights! Don, Nichole and Chris watched the kids so we could go see the new Harry Potter (on the $5.50 night at the Salmon theatre no less) Jenn let us stop at her house on our way home to stretch our legs and she even fed us. DMP's professors have been amazingly cool about rescheduling (and re-rescheduling) a test, excusing a quiz and etc. His classmates have also been awesome- helping out with taking notes and group project stuff.

In spite of the kids and cabin fever, it was nice to spend an extra day with DMP's family in Salmon. We got to spend more time with the babies and the nieces/nephews. Thanks to Grandma and Pappers friends, there was plenty of good food (cake!).

My Dream Pet

I squandered my recent "you've-just-had-a-baby-and-you-can-have-whatever-you-ask-for" opportunity. I think I asked for (and got) some food or something lame like that. What I should have asked DMP for is one of my dream pets...
I really, really want a pet octopus. Seriously. They are so cool- they change colors, they can squeeze themselves into tiny spaces, and they are smart. Did you hear about the lab that had a tank of crabs and a tank of octopus' in the same room? The crabs kept disappearing and the lab guys couldn't figure it out. One night they left a camera in the room. One of the octopus' got out and made it's way across the table to the crab tank, got and ate a crab and then went back to it's own tank. Awesome.

If I couldn't have an ocotopus, I'd settle for a cuttlefish. They have cute faces, they change colors, and they have that cool ruffly skirt. Or a dragonfish might be nice too. I don't think they do anything particularly interesting, but they sure are cool looking.

Hmmm- maybe for Christmas?

My Big Friend Andrew

Birdy has her own imaginary friend these days. Her (yes, her) name is "Big Friend Andrew". She is less akwardly named than EJ's friend Killme, but has simlarly permissive parents. Birdy talks almost non-stop about her Big Friend Andrew. She is coming to her birthday, she gets to do everything Birdy wants to do, she is a singer, actress, teacher and buddy.

Who is your Big Friend Andrew?
She's a big girl and she can do whatever she wants and she can go to her school all by herself.

What else can she do?
She can go to the store by herself and buy her own toys.

Tell me about her Mommy and Daddy
Their name is Ela and Bela. the tell her to go to time out if she is being mean to her baby named Eli.

How do you spell her name?
6o0i7r5z (this was done by Birdy pointing at keys on the keyboard)

Who is baby friend Andrew?
The baby friend Andrew is 5 yrs old. She goes gee gee goo goo. She can walk by herself and crawl.

Anything else?
Big Friend Andrew is in a beautiful dress. She already is bath-tized and she is married. Even she has a little pet dinosaur.

Does this qualify me for the DAR?

I love Ancestry.com and more than just for the obvious reason! I was playing with my tree and accepting hints and I came across a treasure of family history information on one of my lines that is well researched and documented!

It turns out my 6th great Grandfather, William Edward Stacy (great-grandfather of Joseph Stacy Murdock) is a Revolutionary War hero and pioneer! There is an interesting (and well-sourced) Wikipedia article about him here.

He was born in Gloucester, Massachusets in 1734 and worked as a shoemaker- a profession he learned from his father. He may have also worked in the seafaring business. After he married his wife, Sarah Day, they moved away from the coast to New Salem and was a farmer, shoemaker and later became a commercial banker.

In 1775, he was 41 yrs old and was an active revolutionary and reportedly helped rally the militia of New Salem to the American cause at the beginning of the war. He served in the battle of Bunker Hill. He then served in a regiment who were sent to Cherry Valley, New York that was attacked by Native Americans and loyalists who had banded together. William Stacy was captured and became a prisiner of war. At one point in his captivity, he was going tied to a stake to be tortured and burned to death. William was a Freemason and reportedly appealed to an English-speaking Native American who was also a Freemason to save him and he was spared.

George Washington tried to arrange a prisinor exchange for Col. Stacy but he wasn't released until the end of the war.

In 1788, when he was 51, he became a pioneer to the Ohio Country and helped establish Maretta, Ohio. There he helped build a stockade to protect settlers from Indians, and owned one of the Flour Mills in town. There is a story that in Dec of 1790 he skated 30 miles up a frozen river to warn his sons of an impending Indian attack.

You should read the wikipedia article- it has lots more detail and is really interesting! This is a great find!

School Lunch

About 6 months or so, I somehow got linked to a blog about school lunch. Check it out here. Mrs. Q is a teacher who decided to eat school lunch every day for a year and blog about it to raise awareness about school lunch (and breakfasts- those are scarier).

It has been really interesting and eye-opening. As a parent Kindergartner, I never thought about school lunch. This blog has been eye opening for me about how unhealthy (and unappetizing) school lunch can be and it has made me think about the lessons about food it is teaching our kids.

Those who know me (and like to mock me) know that I like to feed my kids healthy food. Yep- I'm the mom who brought steamed broccoli for my 18mo. old to a pizza birthday party (she didn't know the difference!). Because I like to cook and we're kind of foodies, my kids are exposed to lots of different kinds of food and they aren't picky eaters (thank goodness!).

However, I know that there are a lot of families who aren't like us and perhaps school lunch is the only time kids see a meal that includes all food groups. It is especially interesting when you consider that the kids who get subsidized lunch and who eat more often are more likely to fall in that group. We have a shot at teaching kids that healthy food can be good and a lot of times we miss the mark.

Through Mrs. Q and her blog I've learned that lots of schools are outsourcing lunch prep to companies who provide "heat and eat" options. In many districts the days of lunch ladies baking those yummy peanut butter bars with the chocolate frosting are long gone. And who can blame the cash-strapped school districts? It is hard to come up with food that meats federal requirements at 2.50 or less a pop. By outsourcing, they don't have to pay a specialized group of employees to make food from scratch and they still provide a lunch.

The problem is that many times the outsourced food is pretty much like eating cheap TV dinners- not appetizing and who knows what kind of nutritional value. Plus it makes me stressed when I think about the amount of waste all those little individual packages generates! What happened to plastic reusable trays?

If you have kids in school (or not, like me) it is worth checking out this blog. My only beef with it is that it has skewed to preachy a bit in the last couple of months. Sometimes I feel in reading some of the comments and guest posts that anything less than fresh organic fruits and veggies and home made gluten-free organic bread made by angels is child abuse or something. But it still will make you think about the food school kids eat.

Plus if you are a real school lunch nerd like me you'll want to check out this blog too. It is all about school lunch in other countries. Interesting to see what other kids eat (and how they eat it too, some countries have "family style" serving at a table with a teacher supervising)

So readers with kids (or who have been school kids)- do me a favor and ask your kids what school lunch is like at their school because they think I'm wierd when I ask them detailed questions about it! (Sam at least thought I was this AM when I drove him to school!).

No really ask them and comment here- Do they remember what they ate? Did it include the fruit/veggies? Do they have options like a sandwich or "salad bar" line? How much time do they have to eat (Mrs. Q's kids only get 20 min. and they often run out of time after waiting in line for their food). Is the food served on disposable trays/plates/containers or old school plastic trays? What is your opinion/thoughts on school lunch?

I like the things in Nature...

I like the things in Nature.

A book by EJ

I can see a piece of grass.

I can see a petal.

I can see a stem.

I can see a gold leaf.

EJ put this book together at Aunt Cyndi's. Notice how she used "the things in Nature" to make up her pictures. It is so cute!

Halloween 2010

We had lots of fun for Halloween this year. DMP and the kids came for Trick or Treating at my work on Friday. They got a ton of candy, and I got to show off my cute family!

Birdy was a butterfly fairy and EJ was a genie. Or, as she calls it "Barbie starring as Jasmine".

Bear was a rock star complete with curly mohawk. Doesn't he look dangerous? On Saturday, he went as a cute brown bear (because Tunk or Treat was cold!).

I wasn't going to dress up this year (too much effort) but I woke up on Friday and decided to find one at the last minute. That's where having a box of costumes comes in handy.

I used components of DMP's pirate costume from 2008. Check it out- who wore it better? :)