Highlights

Things that just should not be said: "The popcorn bag just fell into the toilet."

 

Most awesome recruitment letter (yes, Megan is getting recruitment letters from colleges because of her ACT/PSAT scores): from Ohio State (yes, you read that right). It basically said, "You're awesome, we're awesome; let's get together sometime." Cracked us up.

 

Biggest accomplishment: making Indian food (chicken Tikka Masala). Took three days -- okay, not three entire days, but between shopping for the spices, grinding the spices, marinating the chicken and cooking the chicken -- I did something for it over three solid days. However, it was delicious and very worth the effort.

 

Gratuitous entertainment: staying home (from school, for Megan; she was in a lot of pain from her back.) and watching Di Bole Hadippa.

 

Nerdiest moment: bringing our Monday morning schedule to a grinding halt so I could listen to/watch/tweet the American Library Association awards. I did get the younger two to school on time, but just barely. And yes, I've read the Newbery and Caldecott winners. And no, I didn't particularly like them.

 

Really?: We saw Harvey, the play. I don't get why it was entertaining. It was long. And not all that funny. (I've never seen the movie.) Granted, it could be me: I caught the cold Kristen and Alison have.

 

Add one, subtract one: Alison had her friend Sophia over here to sleep over; Caitlyn went to a different friends. As a bonus, we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

 

You never talk about me!: Kristen's lowlight was borrowing a headband without asking from Caitlyn and then breaking it. Her highpoint was mommy taking her to Target to get new headbands just for her. Ah, to be five.

 

Schedule Crunch: Missionaries over for dinner, Pack Meeting, and New Beginnings (for both Megan and Caitlyn!), and Activity days all in a 2 hour time frame. Huh. Maybe we are busy sometimes, in spite of what Alison says.

 

Winter? What winter: Today's high? 54. Tomorrow's projected high? 65. Lowest it's been this week? 40. I'm not complaining, though I am a bit concerned about summer...

 

That's about it for us. Have a great week!

The Great Indian Food Quest

It's January, and January is always better when there's something to look forward to. This time: finding Indian food we can make at home, so when Megan says "I want Indian food" we don't have to go to the restaurant.

The cookbook we're using:

You can see more here

So, we perused the cookbook, and realized one thing from the start: Indian food is all about the spices. So, off to The Spice Merchant (really cool store, by the way. I'd never been inside) I went to find all the unusual spices. (Well, some were unusual. Others I recognized.)

The second thing I realized was that Indian food is not exactly a half-hour deal. Sure, in the end it came together in less than a half hour, but there's a lot of prep work and planning (especially for the first time out) in making a dish. The dish we chose to start with was Chicken Tikka Masala: a marinated, then "grilled" (seeing as we're not getting out the charcoal grill) chicken in a tomato-yogurt sauce.

So, step one was roast the spices, then get something (I bought a mortar and pestle since I didn't want to pop for an electric spice grinder) to make the whole spices not whole anymore. (That's the technical term):

Now you have Garam Masala, which is basically the base spice for a ton of Indian dishes.

Step two: make the marinade. It said marinade for four hours, but since I had to work, and the girls wanted to help, we made this the night before. It's yogurt, spices and garlic and ginger.

Step three: throwing it all together. I grilled the chicken in a pan

Then sauteed some onions with crushed tomatoes and tomato paste (then mixed it in the food processor), and threw the chicken in that.

Added some  yogurt, made some basmati rice (which takes a bit longer than regular rice), and voila:

Indian food that everyone really, really liked. Not bad for the first time around.

Because She's Cute

The outtakes from Alison's 8 year old portrait session:

The problem with doing these is that there's always more pictures we want than we can choose/afford/need. But we did splurge and get these five:

She's such a cutie!

January Grump

Some rights reserved by egg on stilts

You didn't think we'd get through a January without be being grumpy about it, did you?

Granted, it hasn't snowed once here. The weather vacillates between low-30s and mid-50s (sometimes on alternating days), and I have a reason to leave the house most days. So, I shouldn't be grumpy.

But.

Alison was penalized at Girl Scouts because a coworker of mine was in Kansas City helping out her 96 year old dad and I was asked to open (at 8 a.m.) the store which means Russell got Alison and Kristen to school and didn't know that Alison was supposed to bring her Girl Scout sash and bag.

Caitlyn has had multiple run ins with a kid named Nick who is doing everything he can to sabotage their (they were assigned to work together) science project that's due on Tuesday. So much so that she needed a day off on Wednesday. Which made Alison incredibly jealous and upset. (WHY doesn't SHE get to STAY home?)

Kristen has asserted herself on multiple occasions by SCREAMING at the top of her lungs. At her sisters. At her parents. And I have lost my temper multiple times. Unfortunately.

And Megan is, well, Megan. She's smart enough to hide in her room, rearranging the furniture, watching the Bachelor on YouTube and basically avoiding the rest of us drama queens.

(Russell is smart enough to have night classes and evening meetings and weekend protests so that he doesn't have to interact with us grumpy people. Though he stayed home all day on Tuesday and remarked when I got home, "You know, it's BORING here at home." Yeah. That's why I got a job.)

Choir today was the MOST pathetic it's ever been. I swear I live in the only ward where the men in the choir outnumber the women 2 to 1. (Well, there was 3 women and 8 men, so maybe that's 3 to 1?) And singing time was HORRID. Seriously. Having the entire Primary together for singing and sharing time is. not, working. Why am I the only one who sees this?

However, amid all the grumpiness, there was some bright moments.

Megan went to a dance.
Alison had her 8-year-old pictures taken.And cooking lessons.
Kristen got something to announce at announcements and went to art lessons.
Caitlyn got to go work at a Girl Scout event on Friday and had Merry over Friday night.
We made cute Valentines courtesy of an idea from Aunt Katie.
There was Downton Abbey and Castle and 30 Rock to watch.

So, maybe, all was good.

Have a great week. 新年快樂!

We've Been Invaded!

Sure, they're about an inch tall, clay, and they didn't stay very long. (Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of the expressions on their faces. They were pretty fierce.)

It was a project for Caitlyn's social studies class. They had to do some sort of 3-dimensional representation from something in ancient China. She chose to do the Silent Army built to protect Shi Huangdi's grave. (I would say I didn't know what that is, but it featured pretty prominently in Mummy 3. So I was clued in.) Anyway, the teacher liked it so much she asked to keep it as part of her "museum". Pretty cool.

Awesome Mom

Caitlyn's Creation

She hasn't done this in a while, but she felt inspired last week to write a little piano piece. And then she filmed it.

Jill in the Box

Or what you do with a leftover computer box:

What Amuses Us These Days

Megan says, "AH! The outfit!" But we find the whole concept hilarious.

From Kristen's Point of View

For the last couple of weeks, Kristen has been complaining that she never gets to do anything, that nothing ever happens to her, that all she wants to be is BIG. So, I'm going to write this letter from her point of view.

This week I learned chants of the letters of the Alphabet: 'D says duh, dog on a doghouse, duh duh duh.' 'E says ee, eels on wheels, ee ee ee.' Also, we did writing about the letters. Also what happened this week, I had a new best friend called Maria. She plays with me outside on the playground, and she also plays with me at free choice (it's a time when we play). And she sits by me at music, and P.E. and art. We also got new spots: I used to be on W, but now I'm on N. I got to go over at Sarah's house, where we played. We played monsters vs. plants with us (not the video game). Sarah's the plant, usually, and I have to be the zombie. She keeps killing me, usually, because she's the pea shooters. And she pulls me down into the water. Sometimes when she goes ice skating, though, she goes ahead of me. I have great time at school. I learned in music a song called 'Sing about Martin, sing about love, all over the world, sing about peace.' Then it goes over again. I learned about Martin Luther King. We learned that he died and was a hero, and the white signs came down. This is the last thing that I can remember: we have seat work tables at our school, and we got new spots. I used to sit at the yellow round table, now I sit at the big square table. By Chase. Carson always makes the wrong decisions.

Thank you, Kristen. 

Other things happened, too. Caitlyn was on TV for science (but a cable channel, so we didn't get to see her). Alison went to her first sleep over (away from home; she had a good time, though she said she missed us). Megan had an IEP (in which I heard how wonderful she was, and she impressed the counselor with her ACT score) and took Friday off (well, she had all the work done, and a personal day is always nice). Russell started classes and drove to Watermark on Friday to see Thomas Frank and then went out to dinner with a bunch of socialist-type people. I worked four days out of five, got to help write book blurbs for the paper, and got invited to a girl's night out (in which we watched Something Borrowed, which would have been much better if there was more of Jeff Krasinski as the sarcastic-but-loyal best friend).

As you can see, poor Kristen has the least going on. We should change that.

New Beginnings Biographies

So, for New Beginnings this year, they asked me to write biographies of my girls (the one that's in Young Women's and the one that will be. Soon. Eep.). I thought, just so we have a record of them, mostly, that I'd stick them up here.

Megan Elaine Fox was born on Friday, August 9, 1996 – which also happened to be her grandmother’s 45^th birthday – at 11:50 p.m. in a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. She’s been a go-getter since she was born (we had this theory she was unhappy as an infant): walking and talking early. Her first word was “HI!” which she said to everyone. It didn’t take long for her to realize that the purpose of legs was to climb, and soon there was nothing she could not reach the top of: couches, benches, walls, swing sets, trees. To this day, if she sees a tree, she must climb it. It’s what they’re there for, right? We moved a lot as she was growing up, so she’s lived in a myriad of places: Frankfurt, German (for a summer, anyway); Starkville, Mississippi; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Macomb, Illinois before settling here. As a result, she got pretty good at adapting to new situations and making new friends. Somewhere along the way, she developed a passion for reading, devouring books by the truckload. (Seriously: it’s hard to keep up with her!) She currently (as you may well know) has a passion for all things India. Her favorite color is blue, she loves to make snickerdoodles, and enjoys President Uchdorf’s talks at conference. Her biggest aspiration is to be 5 foot 5 inches tall.

Caitlyn Barbara Fox was born on Monday, March 13, 200, at 2 in the afternoon in the same Alexandria, Virginia hospital that her older sister was born in (though not delivered by the same doctor). Always one to make an entrance, she weighed 9 pounds 14 ounces, which helped us develop the theory that big babies are always happier. She was a delightful baby, and grew into a delightful toddler, an intriguing child, and a fascinating and fun pre-teen. She has always had a flair for the dramatic: she loves being in play, and wishes her parents could drop more money into acting classes and tuition for camps. (They’re hoping for a good high school drama program.) We have often said she has a gift for fiction (ask me about the time when she convinced a friend that I was pregnant, two months after I’d given birth), and she channels that gift into writing stories. In fact, in second grade, she won second place in the KPTS young storyteller’s competition. (And got an honorable mention in third grade.) She’s a supremely loyal friend – having the same group of friends since second grade – though she loves to talk to and get to know new people. Her favorite color has been aqua since she learned what the word was, and she collects all kinds of knick knacks for display in her room. She loves listening to President Monson’s stories at conference, and her biggest aspiration is to go to Russia someday.

Bumpy Landing

After spending all of Christmas break staying up late and sleeping in, we knew that the end -- Wednesday -- would be hard to adjust to. And so, in spite of the gorgeous weather (I'm not complaining about 60 degrees in January, even though it does concern me a little bit. I do want peaches and strawberries this year, Mother Nature...), we spent the week schlepping about in half-zombie states waiting for the weekend.

 

Before school and seminary and work all started up again, we had a party. It was a smallish party -- I guess you can't win when New Years is on Sunday -- but everyone seemed to have a good time. At the very least, all the cheesecake was eaten. I realized about halfway through that I was bone tired of doing stuff and just wanted to sleep. Thankfully, no one stayed terribly late, and we were able to go to bed at a decent(ish) hour. The girls didn't want the partying to end, however. Sometimes it's tough being an introvert in a family of extroverts.

 

Aside from the roughness of adjusting to an earlier schedule, everything seemed to mostly go okay. (Don't ask about the meltdowns. I don't want to remember them.) The girls are mostly happy about being back in school; Megan has food and nutrition this semester ("It's full of preppy jocks, but we're going to make cinnamon rolls, so it's all good.") and Caitlyn has choir ("She's taking a REALLY long time getting to the music.") Alison is just happy to be back at the work; I never once have to remind her to do homework. (Unless it's reading. Then she says, "I can read good enough. Why do I have to read better?") And Kristen, well, she's enjoyed having no structure to her days, so it's hard for her. She's a trooper though.

 

This weekend was typically low-key (it is January, after all), though Russell and Megan took off early on Saturday morning for the temple with the youth. The rest of us cleaned house and played and wondered when exciting stuff was going to happen again. It's always hard right after the holidays, especially when you've had exciting things like grandparents and baptisms to occupy your break. Ah, well.

The Top 10 Highlights from 2011 (The Last Two Weeks, Anyway)

I actually had a letter mostly written last week, but opted not to send it. It being Christmas and all. I'm pretty sure you don't want to read every single little thing we've done for the past two weeks, so how about some highlights:

10. The weather has been gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous: mid 40s to low 60s. I am not complaining about a green Christmas. I dread the impending winter. I could learn to live with this. (Remind me of that when I complain about the 100+ degree heat again, will you?)

9. Megan pulled off straight As (her motivation being not having to take finals. I'm serious about that; she loves not having to go the final two days of the semester), but the big news was her ACT score. As a sophomore, without studying or anything, she pulled off a 30. She's one smart cookie. Caitlyn, not to be outdone, worked hard this marking period and came off with straight As as well. She really enjoyed being in Science Olympiad and is going to miss that when she gets a new elective this next term. 

8. Our traditional Bradley Fair carriage ride.

7. Dinner out with our parents at the swanky Larkspur restaurant on Russell's birthday.

6. Seeing Hugo (the movie). Russell thought it was one of the best he'd seen this year. The girls -- except for Kristen who said it was a "bigger kid movie" -- enjoyed it. I cried. It was that good.

5. Ice skating.

4. Staying up late and sleeping in: we can't seem to get anyone to bed before 9:30. Megan and Caitlyn are taking advantage of our new desktop downstairs to watch Hindi movies, and Russell and I have been plowing through Downton Abbey. I think we generally get to be before midnight. (Except last night; we were up until after 1 a.m. waiting for Megan to come home from the New Year's Eve dance. For the record: if your ride needs to stick around to clean up, you're going to get home really late.)

3. Being off of work. I have an amazing boss (have I mentioned this before?); she is completely aware of the needs I have as a mom, and has given me the entire Christmas break off. I've appreciated being able to be home with the girls, with having the time to read and write (and go to Zumba), and to just be lazy. It's been lovely.

2. Christmas. It was quite lovely; lazy enjoyable (Church was nice, too); everyone got along. We played games, watched movies, ate junk food, and just enjoyed being together as a family. Every Christmas should be like this.

1. Alison's baptism. We had both sets of grandparents come (fun times!), it was a lovely service, and we're so proud of her. A great way to end the year.

Here's to a great 2012!