Warm Fuzzies

Something about this picture gives me warms the cockles of my heart.  Maybe because of the excitement that ensued when I placed this on the table of the younger girls' room.  Maybe because it has been an image that has been swimming around the left side of my brain for many months and is finally put together in all its simplistic glory.  Just as fabulous as I had imagined it.  The dish came from goodwill and was quite ugly in its raw form.  I had a little spray painting party the other night and gave it a new life.  The robin eggs and the acorns came from Casey's Wood (along with many other treats that I am sure you will see sooner or later on here) and were greeted by Elise, running for her chipmunk while squawking about the chipmunk's food.  I am not sure what the future has to hold for the robin eggs.  Will they become lunch in the girls' kitchen?  Will they be for the fairies to play with? (I was kind of hinting in that direction when I placed the fairy in there with them!)  We'll see where those creative minds take them.  Ah, the joys of creative play.

 

Kudos to Casey's Wood!  I finally called about my missing order the other day and it was sent to our town home, now MIA.  I tried tracking it down, but the transient nature of the town home didn't help much.  They immediately sent the package again and three days later our little bundle of joy arrived.  Thank you, Casey's Wood!  And thank you, blogger, for not letting me de-underline my post.  Ugh!

Adventures in bread making

As excited as I was when I came across sodium free bread in the frozen food aisle, I have still wanted to "conquer" my beast and learn how to make sodium free bread.  That wonderful visiting teacher of mine makes the meanest bread around without oil and with the salt being optional. (Although, quite honestly, I feel like the sodium free bread is awfully bland without honey, jam or something of the like)  Being the incredibly awesome visiting teacher that she is, when she made an appointment to come see me this month, she asked if I wanted her to teach me how to make bread.  Why, yes, I would love that!  She reads minds, too. 

We had a lovely afternoon with Carol teaching me the art of breadmaking.  The secret?  Proofing the yeast.  Every time I try to make bread, I never know if we will end up with a yummy loaf of goodness or a rock.  Proofing the yeast will prevent this unknown result factor as you know before adding the flour if your yeast is alive and kicking.  For those of you out there who are like me and not so experienced in the bread arts, proofing involves mixing the lukewarm water, yeast and sugar together and letting them sit for about 15 minutes to see if they get all foamy.  no foam=killed yeast.  If you don't want a rock, you don't want to be a yeast murderer.  Thou shall not kill thy yeast.  The other secrets she shared with me was the nice touch of putting corn meal under the loaf.  She said it was to make sure it doesn't stick, but I think it is to strut your fancy cooking skills.  And the last, most important thing (next to thou shall not kill thy yeast) is to make the slits in the top of the loaf with a knife to make it look nice and professional.  

Can I just say that the smell of homemade bread is intoxicating?  If you add to that fresh homemade bread a little bit of, oh, some lavender infused honey, everything else could go wrong and you would still be okay dokay.  (Thanks, Dad, for letting me steal the lavender infused honey that I gave you.  You know, since you hated it and all!) 

Side note #1: Does anyone know if babies can have honey if it is cooked? Like in bread?

Side note #2: After being instructed by my sister to take pictures of my bread for her, Autumn automatically started telling me how to pose the bread for the right "effect".  She is going to have quite the photography skills!

Edited with Recipe: 2 TBSP yeast

2 TBSP sugar

2 cups lukewarm water

You start by mixing the above ingredients with a whisk.  We then put them in the oven (at 100 degrees.  We just turned the oven on to 350 for a minute and then turned it off.) for 15 minutes with a towel over it.  When we took it out, it was nice and foamy, indicating that the yeast was alive and well.  Then we added in 6 cups of flour, 2 cups at a time.  We would mix in the 2 cups and then add in 2 more.  By the last 2 cups, you are kneading the bread instead of mixing.  You knead away for about 5 minutes and place it back in the bowl.  Cover it with a towel and put it back in your 100 degree oven (you might need to turn it on to 350 for a minute again) and let it rise for about 15 minutes.  It should double in size.  Now you take your cookie sheet and sprinkle cornmeal where you are going to put your loaf.  Cut the bread in half and begin shaping the loafs.  This includes some kneading, some "compressing" the bread of sorts to get out air bubbles and some shaping it into beautiful little loafs.  When you are happy with your shape, you put it on the cornmeal, cut those ever so important slits in the top and cook at 375 for 40 minutes.  (30 was enough in our oven)  

You can play with the flour, doing half white flour and half whole wheat.  You can also replace the sugar for honey for some extra healthy yumminess.

Hats for Haiti (just slightly tardy)

I am the queen of planning, but not always the queen of carrying out those plans.  This is why an executive decision was made to cancel school today for a service project. (one that we have been planning on doing for quite a while!)  We took all of our old shirts and turned them into cute little baby hats for premature babies in Haiti.  39 hats later, we are out of shirts. If any of you have some t-shirts laying around, we would love to transform them.  They can have holes or stains, as we cut the pattern out around those.    This was a great project for kids of all ages that can be kept busy with cutting, trimming thread, knotting the hats, etc. (Except 2 year olds, who tend to take cutting t-shirts as an invite to cut up their own, non-stained t-shirts.  Just warning you.  We caught Elise before she cut up her cute panda shirt, but you might not be so lucky!)

Lessons learned instead of the typical school: 1. To serve others (most important) 2. Where Haiti is and a little bit more about it 3. How to cut out a pattern 4. How to operate Mom's serger 5. How to recycle something that looks like it is destine for the trash into something very sweet and adorable 6. Service projects are fun! 7. Sometimes, school isn't all that important

After explaining to the girls that although Haiti is pretty hot, they still need these knit hats for the premature babies to keep their body temperature up.  I continued to tell them that this increases their chance for survival.  This is when Autumn started counting.  Every hat that she cut out came with the announcement that she had now saved ___ babies.  Next are baby quilts made out of (cute) old sheets.  Sounds trashy, but I swear that they are stinking cute.  We only do cute.  Pinky promise.

A new week.

Sigh.  Today Chris and I spoke in church.  In itself, this is not a bad thing.  For those of you who aren't familiar with LDSness, when you are asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting, it is normally for about 15 minutes, you are assigned a topic and then you are off.  It is quite normal to be asked to speak when you are new in a ward because they would like to get to know you better and it is quite a spiritual experience because of the growth that you experience normally while preparing your talk.  

Besides the fact that I am, in general, a very shy person who would prefer to sit behind my blog and type, talks are a blessing.  I get so stinking nervous, talking in front of all of those people.  Once I get past the knocking knees and sweaty palms, I am always glad that I didn't continue to dodge the Bishop in fear of the inevitable. :)  Today, Chris and I spoke about the things that we learned from the past 5 months.  It was a great time for reflection about the things that we took away from this trial and the things that we SHOULD have taken away from this trial.  The great things that came from this are that A. Our kids got to hear about some things that we had neglected to tell them about (I think just from us being really busy or really bad parents?) B. I feel like we know our ward a little better now and C. We ended up getting hooked up with the man that we ran into in the parking lot a few months ago.  Dinner this Sunday at our place. 

With all of the good things said, I am still glad that it is over.  I just stress a little too much about public speaking to not be glad that it is over. 

Side note:  See my new profile picture?  Thank you, Rachel!  Yes, my sweet little baby (who is growing up WAY to fast for me) took my picture in the middle of the chaos of bed time.  It doesn't look like kids were running around in the pre bedtime festivities, does it?  My budding photographer, Rachie Roo.  Can I call her that when she turns 11?

Healthy Mommas Unite

It is that time again.  You know, the whole "I can't use the postpartum excuse anymore because my baby is almost a year old" time.  It is time to start reducing the size of my empty baby house.  Because I am one who truly gets pleasure from checking off any box on my to -do list (and I even add things that I have already accomplished just for the free check off!), I had to make myself a healthy momma checklist.  In addition to having to have a checklist, if it is really going to inspire me, it better be cute.  AND because it is so stinking cute (and despite the fact that Chris looked at it and said "What is this for?  What do those lips mean?  A moment on the?"), I am going to share it with you.   Because it is late, I am still a little sick and to top it off,  my computer technician is sleeping, I can't figure out how to post these so they actually make a good print.  (how is that for a run on sentence?) If you would like a copy, let me know in the comment section and I will e-mail you the version of your choice.  I have the weight watcher's version, the spiritual version (complete with a check box for reading your scriptures and saying your prayers) and the plain jane version.  Maybe if I can feed Chris enough sushi tomorrow, he will help me upload these files successfully.   Let's cross our fingers. 

 Technical Notes: I printed mine with 4 on each side of paper and plan on cutting it in half and making a quick little book out of it. (As in, fold in half with a cover and staple)  The other option would be to cut them in rectangles and glue them into a spiral bound index card book.  Whatever the style, the concept is still there.  Hey!  Being the realist that I am, I even included a confession part to write the things that you ate when you fell off of the wagon.  Realist or pessimist?  In the fiber section, I am going to tally all of my fiber. (likewise if you use the points version for those of you doing weight watchers.)  The nike shoe is next to the check box for exercise and I think the rest is fairly self explanatory.  Enjoy!

Sick....Whiny....Tired....

Sorry, guys.  I don't even have the brain power to blog.  I just want to be able to breath again so I can sleep.  Or not be nursing so I can drink up some NyQuil.  Do you know how long it has been since I could take NyQuil?  I am either nursing or pregnant.  

I will say this much: I am very upset at the people at the inauguration yesterday that boo-ed Bush.  Shame on them for lacking some major class.  I will disagree with any president of any party when necessary, but I will not disrespect the office of the president.  Very disappointed.  (And for those of you not here, I am making my very disappointed motherly look that I have become very good at for instances just like this...although I don't think my kids, who happen to be 10 and under, would be that disrespectful.  And I have made it clear to them that they can treat someone with respect even when they disagree with them.)  And now I will sniff myself through the night, making my big pile of tissues even bigger.  

Shaking up the bedtime routine

Bedtime has been a little bit interesting as of late at the Kang house.  Elise, Hannah and Chloe share a room and appropriate to the ratios of age and naughtiness, Elise and Hannah sure do give us a run for our money at times.  Yes, they are normally asleep by 9.  Maybe 9:30 at the latest.  But this comes at a great cost to our electricity bill. :)  Elise loves playing with the lights.  Off and on.  Off and on.  Flicker, flicker.  Jumping from bed to bed.  Giggling .  Jumping.  Keeping Chloe awake.  (Not Hannah.  Hannah is playing with her.)  

Today Chloe mentioned to Miss Jill (our angel of a piano teacher) that she was tired because all of that light flickering had kept her awake.  I must say that I start to giggle everytime I imagine my neighbors watching our house from 8:30-9.  Flicker, flicker.  Silhouettes of little girls jumping from bed to bed.  Peering out of their window.  If they have ever caught it, I would think it would provide quite the entertainment.  I have always just let it work its way through until they are sleeping because I am normally nursing away, but tonight we shook things up a little.  

I gave the girls their "back pack rides" to bed.  We tucked them in and said goodnight.  I turned off the light and shut the door, BUT I did not leave before I shut the door.  I stood in the darkness while I waited for the little hooligans to start their mischief.  It was a long wait.  (I am going to guesstimate 10 seconds?)  Hannah hops out of bed to open her blinds as Elise starts jumping.  From the dark corner, I simply say "Go to bed, Hannah."  You should have seen her jump!  It was absolutely hilarious and it almost ruined the whole plan because I was laughing hysterically.  And there I stood, waiting.  I put Elise back to bed about 6 times and listened to her whisper over and over, "Get out of my room, mommy."  Pretty soon, the two older ones were fast asleep and Elise was close enough to dream land that her shenanigans did not tempt her anymore.  I figure I will do this for the next week or so, but I doubt it will be quite as fun as tonight.  It is always nice for kids to think their moms have eyes on the back of their heads.  I am reminded of the father in Meet the Parents, reminding Gaylord Focker that he was being watched.  That's me.  The ex-CIA mom, waiting in dark bedrooms, spying on her 2 and 5 year old.  Yep, that's me.