Little tidbits.

Today Rachel crawled into the bathroom and started drinking from the little cup that rests in Lily's potty - luckily there was nothing in it. Yum. She also has learned the art of tugging at my pants when she wants to be held. When my next door neighbor Malauna and I were canning peaches a couple of weeks ago (gosh, has it really been that long?) her son Hyrum was doing that to her for much of the morning and I remember thinking, "I am SO glad that my baby is so content to play by herself in the family room while I completely ignore her." I'm being punished for my thoughts.

Lily is an absolute riot. This week in the car she up and decided that she was going to start saying her "L"'s. She has now graduated from saying "pwease", "Wiwy", and "cwean" to "please", "Lily" and "clean". I guess we can start working on her "R"s now. Except that it's so darn cute. She's also regressed in potty training. Once we stopped rewarding her with stickers and jellybeans, she decided that she was, as she put it, "never going to go pee-pee again!" Yikes. I don't be around when she figures out the truth about that one.

Anna got really upset at the Primary activity yesterday. First, she made a wrong turn down the hall and became frantic when she discovered her class was nowhere to be seen. She tends to be like men when it comes to asking for directions so she just stood in the hall crying until Melissa from our Primary Presidency put her arm around her and showed her the way. Thank heaven for caring church leaders. Then, when the activity was over, a bunch of the kids were running wild, as kids often do and ran into her. I found Anna standing there, looking as if the world was crumbling around her, trying to stifle the tears and was reminded of the tenderness of this, my oldest, and in many ways, my most difficult child. She looked so vulnerable. She was shocked that someone would hurt her (albeit accidentally) and "not even say they were sorry". I joked later that I need to rough her up a little more so that she can just roll with the punches a little better instead of being so sensitive. But inside I was glad that she has spent most of her life in places that are safe, where she is treated fairly and with kindness. Thanks to all of you who have been so kind to my Anna, who is not always the easiest to love.

September has turned out to be a busy month for our family. I thought that after I had taught Joy School early in the month that I would be home-free. Whoa, was I wrong. Tim has spent a lot of time over at our rental house fixing an attic vent that blew off in a windstorm, replacing a less-than-stable ceiling fan, digging enormous holes for 3 large trees, and fertilizing. He has come home each time on Cloud Nine. At first, I couldn't help but wonder why he was so happy at having spent hours away from his family on a Saturday. Then I realized that he was just experiencing the sense of accomplishment that comes from completing a project, particularly one that he has never encountered before. He was feeling like he was the man. Now, if only I can convince him that cleaning up poop is as rewarding... I suppose that's why I'm the mom.

I'll post some pictures soon. Something is up with the software that we use to download pictures from our camera. I've got some good ones. Stay tuned...

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home.

I remember when I was about 7 and my mom went on an extended trip, leaving us with my dad. It was great. Why? Well, if your home is like mine was, Dad let us get away with murder. We got to eat sugar cereals every day, stay up late, go to PG movies, and have pizza for dinner every night. At least, that's how I remember it.
I am now a mom. And it's a darn good thing the kids don't "get" to hang out with dad for extended periods because this is what would happen:

Can you see the look of sheer glee in her face? 9 months old and having an Oreo for dinner. Aren't dads great?

Speaking of dad, it was his birthday last week. He is not a tough one to please. He just needs a few minutes to rub in the fact that I will always be older than him. Even so, I gave it my best effort and cooked him some Indian food and a pretty outstanding birthday cake, if I do say so myself. Still need to learn a bit about decorating it, but when it came to taste, we were all pretty satisfied.

We had a few friends over to share the grub and had a pretty great time. We love Tim, he is a hoot to have around. Happy Birthday again! Here's a few more pictures:

Extra tomatoes anyone?

For those of you who, unlike me, planted way too many tomatoes this year and need a few delicious recipes for using them up, I have included the following two:

Fresh Tomato Sauce

6 pounds ripe tomatoes, peeled
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves, thinly-sliced
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup chopped basil or flat-leaf parsley

Core tomatoes and halve crosswise. Working over a sieve set over a bowl, squeeze tomatoes gently to remove seeds. Discard seeds and reserve juice. Coarsely chop tomatoes. Heat oil in a 6-7 quart pot over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until just golden, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes, reserved juice, sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 45 minutes to an hour.

Note: You can peel the tomatoes by blanching them (putting them in a pot of boiling hot water for 30-45 seconds and then transferring them immediately to ice-cold water for at least a minute. The skin should practically fall off at that point.


Slow-Roasted Tomato Bruschetta

4 pounds plum tomatoes, sliced
6 garlic cloves, minced
8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons salt
Black pepper, to taste.
1 baguette, cut into 40-50 slices

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.

Put tomatoes on baking sheet(s). Stir together garlic and 5 tablespoons of oil and spoon over tomatoes. Sprinkle with 1 tsp salt and season with pepper. Roast, switching position of sheets halfway through roasting for 3 hours; tomatoes will shrink but retain their shape. Let cool slightly. Increase oven temperature to 350 degrees. Arrange bread in one layer on baking sheets and brush with oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake until pale golden and crisp, 10 to 12 minutes. Place a tomato slice on each slice of toast and serve warm or at room temperature.

If you still have too many tomatoes, please, please, please send them my way. I don't have nearly enough. Actually, I don't have any this year.

Just one of those days...

Today was day number two of potty-training Lily. What a nightmare. I'm not sure if she understood cognitively that the reason her pants were wet a gazillion times yesterday was because she had failed to eliminate in the proper place. When I asked her why her pants were wet, she just kept saying, "because they're WET!" No connection between her actions and the natural consequences of those actions. Weird.

Last night she wet her bed at midnight and kept me up until 2 am because she wouldn't go to bed without her "red blanket" (which had, of course, been peed on). I was not about to do a load of laundry in the middle of the night.

Today hasn't been much better. Tim came home to a very frazzled me. Since he came home, Lily has had zero accidents. In fact, she did her first #2 in the potty! Why is it that when dad comes home, the kids behave as if they haven't been torturing me all day, leaving Tim to wonder what in the heck is so hard about being a mother? Arrgh.

Luckily, Jill (my sister) was here for much of the day to testify. Today has probably convinced her to go on a mission, as soon as possible. The best form of birth control is a toss-up between
1. a calling to serve in the nursery at church or
2. moving in with your older sister and her husband and 3 (very young, very strong-willed) children.

Better luck tomorrow.

Handy Dandy

Today, when I took the kids to the grocery store, I pulled into a parking spot fairly close to the store and Anna said, "Mom, don't park in the handy-dandy spot, we don't have a handy-dandy license plate". I resisted the urge to correct her, it was so cute. She went on to say that "when daddy gets old, we can get a handy-dandy license plate but we could get in trouble if we parked there now."

Go Fish.

Last night our entire family (including my sister Jill, who now lives with us) was playing Go Fish. I don't recall the exact order of things, but somewhere in the midst of "going fishing", Rachel decided that she wanted to "go fish" too! My sweet sitting (and sometimes rolling) angel decided that those Go Fish cards were worth the effort it took to shift into crawling gear. We got the camera out and, of course, got her first few moments of crawling glory on film. But we fell short of capturing perhaps the best part, when Lily tried to get on Rachel's back and ride her. Tim pulled Lily off of her little sister so that all 30 pounds of her would not hinder Rachel's efforts. I guess the sight of Rachel on all fours was too "horselike" to resist because she protested "I want to ride her!"

Needless to say, the game was over. Rachel was the winner for sure.