My Dinner Salvation

"Oh, chicken casserole again, my favorite!" My husband's smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. I listlessly move the cream-of-soup concoction around my plate. Dinner has gotten so boring. I have nine or ten people to feed every night, and as you can imagine, my grocery bill kept going up. I would pull out all of my penny-pinching stops with menu planning. It wasn't working, and I was getting SO sick of all my super-cheap dinners. Just the thought of cheesy potatoes leaves me nauseous. When my friend Cindy told me how she tries 100 new recipes a year, I perked right up. I went home and dug out a cookbook I'd bought at Costco a while ago. I figured if I'm using all new recipes, they'd better all be from the same book so I wouldn't have to hunt all over before dinner. I decided to just forget about my budget and make whatever looked interesting. It has been interesting indeed!
We've discovered orzo, pesto, mango chutney, curries, cous cous, paella and nut-encrusted fish.
My husband comes home every night to play food critic. Each recipe gets a 1-10 rating, and I've been hitting them out of the park. Here are a few of our favorites so far:
Chicken and Apples with Dijon Cream
Curried Chicken with Spinach and Tomatoes
Pleasing Paella
Spinach Pesto Pasta with Chicken
Greek Chicken over Orzo
Sausage and Pepper Pasta
Herschel's Spanish Fish
The funny thing is, my grocery bill went way down! I never set out to do it, I just picked recipes that sounded good, or like nothing I've ever made. Shockingly enough, cooking is FUN again, and the recipes are really healthy. We're eating way less meat, and what we do eat is white meat and fish. I didn't plan to do that either, but it's nice.

Our General Conference Adventure!

I have five boys, and what I want more than anything in the world, is for them to grow up to be righteous priesthood holders. We had a big year, #3 was baptized, and #1 was ordained a Deacon. #2 is only half a year from being ordained. I felt so strongly that I need to do everything I can to give them every opportunity to get a strong testimony. President Hinckley first felt the Spirit as a deacon in priesthood meeting, so I figured if it worked for him.....When I found out my husband couldn't come, I panicked. Then I girded up my proverbial loins, took fresh courage, and DROVE BY MYSELF TO UTAH! Correction, by myself and three boys. We drove through wind, rain, snow, fog, and bladder disasters. We mastered the Salt Lake freeway system, the light rail, parking for Conference, and discreet disposal of emergency bottles of liquid waste. We had a ball!
I bought each boy a journal and special color coordinating pen to document their adventures, thoughts and feelings.

We stopped by my sister's house near Logan. My nephew wants to kiss me. Sorry Babe, these lips are taken!

Here's my spunky sister on her hip pink four wheeler. She's way smaller, but very tough. She could beat the crud out of me any day of the week. In fact, there was this one time in high school......never mind.

This is what I had to drive through on my way to temple square. See, I'm used to just driving to Winco and back, and only rarely at freeway speeds.

This is how I looked during that drive. Note the white knuckles, the eyes focused and tense. I actually took this picture of myself. Just kidding! It was during this drive we had the great bladder disaster. A child, who shall remain nameless, was sitting behind me chugging one juice box after another. We were in rain, snow, construction, with semi's freaking me out right left and center. There was no way to pull over. We did what we had to do. I'm not proud. Well, not really proud anyway, we did get some video of said child with his very full bottle. The problem was, what to do with the tainted cargo we bore? Where do you drop something like that? One simply can't carry it in her purse to drop off at some random garbage can on Temple Square. It was a dilemma that haunted us for days. For days, the offending bottle lay lurking in the van.

With the help of very nice people, we figured out the whole train thing.

We Ooed and Aahed over the beautiful Joseph Smith memorial building.

This guy waxed eloquent when he was invited to speak. We get that all the time.

The Christus was so neat. I'll always remember sitting there with my boys while the Spirit was so strong.

We had great seats for the Sunday morning session. So great, that I spent a large amount of time in terror that the binoculars the boys were using were going to land on someone's head below. Thankfully, no one below encountered any falling objects.

It was a trick to not get separated in this crowd.

This chick was nice, singing Amazing Grace at the top of her lungs. The boys had never seen anti-mormons before, and although they were instructed otherwise, couldn't resist throwing acorns at them.
This is Grandma's baby sister. She has ten kids, the youngest just got married this summer. She's awesome. She didn't even strangle me when I accidentally set off their fire alarm at five in the morning.
We ended our fabulous trip with a stop at Chuck a Rama. Here was a very special event for me, that I will always treasure. An old man was watching us, and turned and asked the boys if their big sister always took them out to eat. Sniff.

How to get a soccer partner- too cute!

Kim's Personality Test

I saw this on Kim's blog and had to try it. Bossy, inappropriate and loud? It's a pretty good test!

You Are An ENFJ

The Giver You strive to maintain harmony in relationships, and usually succeed. Articulate and enthusiastic, you are good at making personal connections. Sometimes you idealize relationships too much - and end up being let down. You find the most energy and comfort in social situations ... where you shine. In love, you are very protective and supporting. However, you do need to "feel special" - and it's quite easy for you to get jealous. At work, you are a natural leader. You can help people discover their greatest potential. You would make a good writer, human resources director, or psychologist. How you see yourself: Trusting, idealistic, and expressive When other people don't get you, they see you as: Bossy, inappropriate, and loud

What's Your Personality Type?

William Tell Overture for Moms- This is my life right now!

From the Mouths of Babes

"Iz dat a Muff-dang?" These words floated up the van from the far back seat where my two year-old was avidly looking out the window. My mind slowly translated from toddler to English. "What was that, honey?" I play for time while my mind searches it's database for possible matches. What comes up makes me stifle a laugh. I whip my head around to see what he was looking at. A yellow sports car that does, indeed, look like a Mustang.
You see, he copies everything his older brothers do. His very oldest brother is currently obsessed with sports cars. As we drive, he keeps up a running commentary on every car we pass of interest to him. This habit has spread to even the littlest boy. They all do it now. Brother #2 is an avid Hot Wheels fan, so I was only mildly surprised at what I heard this morning. He was turning a little car over in his hands, examining it from every angle. "I yike dat Fwah-wee" Yes, honey, but what kind of Ferarri is it? When you can tell me, then we'll talk.

He shocked my dear husband the other day, when he was studying for a lesson in bed. This little angel walked up and said, "Dat's Missy and Mee-um's bed, not Daddy's bed." Now, he's never referred to me as anything but Mommy before. To emphasize his point, he pointed to the pillow. "Dat's Missy and Mee-um's bwoo piddow." Well, possession is 9/10 of the law, and we do spend WAY more time in that bed than Daddy, but still....it was a little freaky!

I've changed my life

That sounds a bit inflated and grand, but it's true.

It all started after I weaned my fifth child. When I nurse, my baby weight just falls off me. I actually have to cut back on nursing toward the end, because I get dangerously thin. I always put on a few pounds when I wean, and I'm fine with that. I've weighed the same since I got married.

After #5, something changed. My favorite jeans started getting tighter, more and more unflattering photos were cropping up. I chocked it up to laundry shrinkage, and bad angles, maybe I was retaining water. When most of my clothes no longer fit, and more than a few hideous jowly pictures surfaced, I knew this wasn't just "a bit of a bloat". After years of eating with impunity, I'd hit the wall: the big 30's metabolic slowdown.

I panicked and lost the weight in a crash diet, but hated controlling what I ate so I gained it back and then some. Then I decided to just own it. So I'm almost middle aged, I've had 5 kids, I'm going to end up a squishy, cookie grandma anyway, why fight it? I should embrace my jiggles, exult that I can finally fill an A cup! My husband, whose muscles had looked like they were carved from stone, was getting softer too, so I thought "how cute, we're getting pudgy together!" But he was not as accepting of this as I was, and started working out during lunch. Those chiseled features returned, and I thought "Dang." It's not nearly so fun to get pudgy when your husband looks like you won him in a raffle!

I decided that yes, the day would come when I would become a cookie grandma, but (cue the inspirational music) today is not that day! I would reclaim that young, lithe body whilst it was still within my grasp! I bought a treadmill, and began to run every day. At first it was pretty gross to feel just how much of me was trembling, jiggling and bouncing as I ran, but I kept it up. I loved the glorious feeling of sweat dripping off of me, of my heart pounding and my legs pounding and the power of my body as it worked. I would feel antsy and eager as the time for my workout approached.

I had avoided weighing myself for the first month of my "big life change" because I wanted to be bowled over by my success. Finally, I couldn't resist. I stepped on the scale and CURSES, I had GAINED two pounds! Yes, I know, they were probably two pounds of muscle, but honestly, who needs that? I still couldn't fit into my jeans!

Then, it finally clicked in my brain: I hadn't changed the way I was eating. All those weeks of running, of watching the number of calories burned slowly creep up, one truth sank in. It takes a long time, and a lot of work to burn calories, and my body doesn't need very many of them. I started reading labels, and I was shocked at the things I had been eating. I began filling myself up with real food: fruits, vegetables, or my favorite- beans and rice with pico de gallo on top.

I knew it was finally ingrained in me when I went with my sweety to Carls Jr. I would usually get a milkshake and fries for a snack. This time, I looked at their nutritional information, and almost gagged. A milkshake was 700 calories! Do you know how long that would take me to burn? I was repulsed by what I read. I sat, and watched as my husband consumed almost 2,000 calories. Every now and then he would ask me, "are you sure you don't want any?" Yeah, I'm sure.