The Evil Cookbook

As a family we aren't great about eating our veggies, unless you count the potato (which I don't). With dinner I regularly serve peas, broccoli, uncooked baby carrots and less often corn, which again I think is not truly a vegetable, but a grain.  Recently, I've been trying to incorporate more vegetables into our diet and less meat and dairy.  This is mostly as a result of reading a book called "The China Study."  The essence of the book is this: most western diseases, i.e. heart attacks, cancer, strokes, high blood pressure, etc. are a result of a diet high in animal protein and less a result of "bad" genes.  These diseases can be prevented by eating a diet rich in fruit, vegetables and whole grains and by omitting all meat and dairy.  I got the book from my parents who got it from my dad's sister.  

My parents have pretty much gone vegan (no meat, dairy, eggs but they do eat some fish).  My dad now dramatically refers to milk as "white poison."  I've taken a less drastic approach, mostly because Justin refuses to read the book and doesn't want to give up all meat, milk and ice cream, etc and I have to accommodate him.   The kids and I have switched from milk to soymilk.  Brynne and Barrett made the switch easily, but Blythe only did under duress.  I've tried to cut out red meat, so I use ground turkey in our spaghetti sauce and meatloaf now.  When I do make chicken I try to serve a dish that has a high veggie to meat ratio, such as making a chicken and broccoli stir fry.  The only chinese food we eat anymore is what I make at home because of Barrett's nut allergy.  I also have to do a lot more baking because I don't feel comfortable giving Barrett any store bought cookies, muffins, breads, etc any more. (I did find a brand of bread that is made locally in Salt Lake called Prairie Grain that I buy because I called to find out if it was processed with nuts and it turned out that the owner of the company has a nut allergy.  So that is now our brand of bread.) My SIL Amy gave me a great vegan dessert cookbook called "Sweet and Natural", which has a good chocolate chip cookie recipe in it.  I read the cookbook a lot, but have only tried two recipes from it so far.  This is not however, the "evil" cookbook of the title of this post.  

For Christmas, my SIL Brittney gave me a cookbook called "Deceptively Delicious" written by Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry.  The premise of the book is the art of sneaking pureed vegetables into all sorts of food, from pancakes and muffins, to soup, macaroni and cheese and tacos to, yes even brownies, chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake.  Blythe, the perceptive girl that she is, was instantly suspicious when she saw the cover of the cookbook  . . .

"Why would there be spinach and carrots on the counter if the woman is making brownies????"

As it turns out there are pureed spinach and carrots in the brownies.  I've been too chicken to try this recipe or any other one involving spinach.  However, I have made several recipes from this cookbook and attempted to do so without Blythe realizing which cookbook I was using.  I didn't have much success.  She's much too suspicious and she quickly realized that I tend to rate a recipe after I've made it (see photo below.)

She soon learned to flip through the cookbook looking for my notations and checking to see if any matched up with the meal I was serving.  The meatball soup was one of the first ones I tried.  It has carrot puree in the broth and sweet potato puree mixed into the turkey meatballs. It went over well with the rest of the family.  My favorite recipe from the book so far is the one for Applesauce Muffins which I am now going to share.

Applesauce Muffins with Butternut Squash or Carrot

Topping:

2/3 cup quick oats

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbl trans-fat-free soft tub margarine spread, melted (I use Earth Balance)

Batter:

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour (I use part whole wheat)

1 cup old-fashioned or quick oats

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup milk (I use soymilk)

1/2 cup butternut squash or carrot puree (I've only tried the squash option)

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar (use less if your applesauce is sweetened)

1/4 cup canola oil

1 large egg

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Coat a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray or line with paper baking cups.

2. To make the topping, put the Earth Balance spread in a small bowl and microwave it to melt it.  Then stir in the sugar, cinnamon and oats in that order.  Set aside.

3. To make the batter, combine the flour, oats, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a large mixing bowl.  In a second bowl, mix the applesauce with the milk, vegetable puree, sugar, oil and egg and stir with a wooden spoon.  Add the flour mixture slowly, stirring until just moistened.  Do not overmix--the batter is supposed to be lumpy.

4. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups and sprinkle with the streusel topping.  Bake until the topping is lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the muffins, about 18-22 minutes.  Let the muffins cool for a bit in the pan before removing.

To make the butternut squash puree:

Cut off the stem, cut squash in half lengthwise and scrape out seeds.  Roast the halves on a cookie sheet, flesh side down at 400 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until very soft to the touch.  Allow to cool, then scoop out flesh and puree in a food processor or blender for about 2 minutes.  

To make the carrot puree:

Peel, trim the ends and cut into 3" chunks.  Steam for 10 to 12 minutes, then puree in a blender or food processor for about 2 minutes adding a few teaspoons of water if needed for a smooth texture.  

Some of the recipes were less successful, such as the spaghetti pie, which calls for broccoli puree to be mixed into the ground turkey meatball mixture.  This was not deceptive at all because the meatballs were obviously green!  The sauce also was too soupy and it just was an overall failure.  I was using this cookbook regularly when I first got it and it didn't take long for Blythe to dub it the "evil cookbook."  Every morning on the school bus she would tell her best friend Kaelena all about the disgusting meal I had tried to get her to eat.  She was over playing at this friend's house during this time and told my friend all about my evil plan at Kaelena's insistence. Then she got invited to stay for dinner because Kaelena felt so sorry for her.  Blythe is definitely my most picky eater, which is too bad because her younger siblings often follow her lead.  Justin comes in second, followed by Barrett, then Brynne. Brynne actually loves to eat raw red pepper and dried plums and really likes soymilk.  Also the other night at dinner Barrett was stealing broccoli off his sister's plates and eating it with much gusto.  I tried my best to hide my delight from him.  Sadly, I am the only one in my family who will eat sweet potatoes, which I absolutely adore.  I do recommend this cookbook to anyone who feels like their family should be eating more veggies and needs to be sneaky about doing so.

The Wind Rivers

I've recently been informed that I've been neglecting to post much about my dear husband.  So here's a post dedicated to Justin.  For the past three summers due to his church calling Justin has taken some of the scouts from church on week long "High Adventure Camps."  This has involved backpacking for the most part as well as some canoeing.   Last summer they did a 50 mile backpack trip in the Wind Rivers of Wyoming with a net vertical gain of 14,000 feet.  I think this is usually the highlight of the year for him.  He gets to hike, fish, enjoy beautiful scenery, not to mention the lack of a nagging wife, whining children and no Barrett in his tent kicking him in the kidneys all night long.  So here are some photos from last summer.

The happy backpacker.

Mike and Justin weathering some rain.

The whole motley crew.

Further Adventures of Barrett

Barrett has been doing very well with using the potty.  In fact I'm now going to declare him officially potty trained.  However, he will still occasionally pee while asleep.  Last Friday my Mom was watching the kids for me at her house and Barrett fell asleep on her bed.  Murphy's law kicked in and he of course wet the bed.  When I got back I immediately noticed that he had on different clothes and asked him if he had had an accident.  Barrett's response, "No, Blythe tinkled in my undies."  I thought this was an extremely creative and hilarious explanation.  He apparently truly doesn't believe that he was the one who wet his pants seeing as how he was deeply asleep at the time.  I'm not sure why Blythe got the blame instead of Brynne because he generally favors Blythe.  

A newly discovered perk of being potty trained for Barrett is using a urinal.  He calls it the "little potty."  At church I work in the nursery with the 18 month old through 3 year old kids.  I actually requested this position after Barrett was fed trail mix one Sunday.   So when Barrett told me he had to go potty I was immediately available to take him to the women's room.  He threw a temper tantrum when we got in there because there was not a little potty.  I had to get Justin out of Young Men's so that he could take Barrett into the men's room.  

Justin's comment upon seeing us was, "Oh, not you again."  He was less than overjoyed to see Barrett because of an incident that occurred during Sacrament Meeting.  Barrett has a hard time sitting still and Justin usually ends up taking him out part way through the meeting.  We are in the same ward as my parents so my Mom sits with us, but my Dad plays the organ so he sits up on the stand for the entire meeting.  So it's almost the end of the meeting and the Bishop is giving a deeply spiritual talk about Christ's atonement when Barrett comes running up the aisle.  He runs right past our pew, pauses for a moment and I hear him say "Granddad" then he's off again.  Blythe was sitting on the end so I sent her to go get him.  She catches up with him as he's right in front of the pulpit and he starts screaming.  Just then Justin walks in at the back of the chapel to look for Barrett who had gotten away from him.  The Bishop  says, "Justin come on up here and get your kid."  Justin mumbles something about having lost him and walks up and grabs Barrett and takes him back out.  My Mom was totally mortified.  I'm just glad I wasn't the one called by name to come get my unruly son.  Justin says I should have just let Barrett go to my Dad, but I think he would have started playing the organ which would have been worse.  Justin did have Barrett apologize to the Bishop after church and he graciously said it was not a big deal.  However, we still have the most infamous almost 3 year old in the ward for the time being.

Easter 2008

So does anyone really understand why Easter Sunday can fluctuate from as early as March 23rd to as late as April 25th; because I sure don't!  I just know it has something to do with the moon.  It was hard for me to feel like we should be celebrating Easter, when we had some friends over for a sledding party the day before.  Our yard is still covered in many feet of snow.  On Easter morning the kids came downstairs and found their Easter baskets with some candy in them, including solid chocolate Cadbury Dairy Milk bunnies and three kinds of creme or caramel Cadbury eggs that didn't have nut warnings on them (Yay!); we are definitely a Cadbury family  They then had to "hunt" for the rest of their candy which was in plastic eggs "hidden" in our living room and dining room.  I put the words hunt and hidden in parentheses because about 5 minutes after all the egg were "found" Blythe says to me, "I was really looking forward to Easter, but it just wasn't that fun because the eggs were too easy to find."  It's hard to grow up sometimes.  I have to admit the egg hunt was more for Barrett than the girls.  I told Blythe that maybe next year we'll spend Easter in Moab where we'll be able to have a more challenging Easter egg hunt outside.  I think it warmed up to a high of 47 degrees by the afternoon, but at least we had sunshine; it could have snowed.  Here are a few photos of the day for your perusal.

The kids in their Easter outfits.  

Although none of them are looking at the camera,

 at least all of them have their tongues in their mouths

 (see below).  And yes, sadly enough Barrett is wearing

 his Lightning McQueen socks.

I couldn't resist using this photo because Brynne is so hilarious.  

She obviously wasn't disappointed with the Easter egg hunt.

This was my first attempt to get a photo of the kids together.  Barrett has this car that he carries with him everywhere.  It is Lightning McQueen with his tongue sticking out. If you look closely you can see that he's holding it in his hand.  He likes to stick his tongue out like his "Tongue Queen" as he calls it.  I was trying to get a picture of him doing it the other day but he wouldn't cooperate.  So of course as I'm trying to take Easter photos he decides it's the perfect time for some tongue action.  Then Brynne decided that she needed to stick out her tongue too.  Luckily for you I'm not including that photo.

This one looks a little too much like a mug shot. Oh well.

Barrett was generally uncooperative every time I had

 the camera out.  He was more interested in his tootsie roll

 than in looking up for me.

The girls all in pink for Easter.

We had Easter dinner at my parent's house. 

 I made the chocolate cake and my Mom made the cute cupcakes.

Master Track Layer

We have a fairly large collection of Brio train track that we started when Blythe was a toddler.  Barrett is of course much more interested in the trains than the girls ever were.  The result is that most days my upstairs hallway looks like this and I have to navigate the train track every time I go up or down the stairs.  Justin has become quite talented at creating new and diverse tracks for Barrett.  My sister saw one (first photo) and was quite impressed with his ability.  Justin usually isn't satisfied unless he's used every single piece of track that we own, although he didn't manage to do that in either of the tracks shown below.  The end result either way is one happy little boy.

I *HATE* food allergies!!!!

It's 10:45 p.m. and I should be asleep except that Barrett woke up about an hour ago crying and very disoriented.  We finally got him to open his eyes and he started saying "Ow ow."  So we started checking him over and I realized that his top lip is swollen.  So I checked our food allergy action plan and according to it if it's only his lips and even his tongue that are swollen we only have to give him Benadryl and not inject him with the Epipen.  So I gave him one of his Benadryl quick dissolve strips, which he loves fortunately because getting the liquid kind down him is a nightmare.  So now Justin and I are waiting up to make sure that this reaction doesn't get any worse.  We were actually at a Love and Logic parenting class tonight and my Mom was here watching the kids.  So I called my Mom to find out what he ate while we were gone.  He had some Dreyer's Thin Mint ice cream in a Keebler ice cream cone, that's all.  Both are foods that I'm pretty sure he's eaten before and I thought were safe.  Although, I know that there are some mom's of kids with nut allergies who won't give their children any commercially prepared ice cream because of the risk of cross contamination.  Justin LOVES ice cream and we haven't had any problems with it in the past so I haven't tried to ban it  . . . yet.  The other possibility is that he fell asleep on my Mom's shoulder and she eats nuts and maybe she had some nut residue on her clothing that his face came in contact with.  

 This is the thing that is driving me crazy right now:  I think I'm doing everything I can to keep my child safe and he's still having reactions.  Although I'm praying that this one stays minor.  Most allergic reactions occur within minutes of a person coming in contact with the allergen.  This has not been the case with Barrett.  His last episode when he ended  up in the ER for 12 hours happened hours after he had last eaten.  He woke us up at 11:15 p.m. that time.  This makes it so much harder to try to pin point the cause of the reaction.  It also makes me afraid to go to sleep if he's coughing at all because that's how his last and worst reaction started.  I'm actually surprised that I haven't posted about Barrett's nut allergy before now because it's become such a major part of my everyday life.  I have to carry his Epipen with me where ever I go and make sure Justin does the same when he has Barrett.  I have to read every label, every time I buy something at the store or before he eats it.  We've severely limited where we feel comfortable eating out with him and I could go on and on.  

There's a little 4 year old boy who goes to our church who also has nut allergies in addition to milk and egg allergies and I heard tonight that he was at a friend's house and somehow ingested a nut and is in the hospital.  It is so hard for me not to be scared all the time.  My friends who are also dealing with nut allergies in their children keep telling me that it gets easier when they get a little bit older and understand about their allergy and can take on some of the responsibility for what they eat.  I sure hope it's true.  

So here's a photo I took of Barrett a short while ago.  It's a little out of focus but you should be able to tell that his lip is swollen.

For comparison, here's a photo I took of him 

yesterday with two of his Easter eggs.

One more with the eggs just because he's so cute

 and I forgot to put it on my previous post.

Easter Eggs

We spent a relaxing day at home yesterday.  We were supposed to attend Stake Conference but opted out since it's held in the high school auditorium and we figured there was no point in taking Barrett to a 2 hour meeting.  So we basically stayed in our pajamas all day long.  The major events of the day were getting out our few Easter decorations and dyeing Easter eggs.  The first time around we ended up with 14 uncracked eggs.  When we finished with those the girls wanted to do more so I boiled the rest of the eggs and we had a second go round while Barrett napped.  The photos are from our second time round.

Blythe applying a rubber band to her 

egg so that it will have stripes.

Blythe dipping the same egg.  

She used four different colors on this one.

Brynne is trying for a two toned egg.

Brynne's pink and yellow egg.

We weren't quite finished when disaster struck.  Brynne knocked over the glass with the green dye in it which brought Easter Egg Dyeing 2008 to an abrupt end.  You other mothers are probably wondering right now how I reacted to this situation.  I'm ashamed to have to admit that there was a fair amount of yelling involved as I had visions of my bench and floor permanently stained green.  Luckily for Brynne, a Scotchbrite pad took care of all the dye.  

And voila, the finished product.  They turned out quite well in my opinion.  You can see the egg Blythe was working on in the upper right hand corner of the photo.  Barrett's eggs are the ones with lots of crayon scribbled on them.  Now the only question is what do I do with 20 hard boiled eggs when my husband refuses to eat potato salad or egg salad sandwiches?

HB 140 Passes!!!

This blog entry is a little late in coming.  I should have posted about this exciting event as soon as I heard about it, but I wanted to have some photos to accompany it and that took me awhile.  So most of you are probably wondering what in the world HB 140 is.  Well it's Utah's new Booster Seat law!  You should all know by now that I am a very safety conscious person and have been trained as a Child Passenger Safety Technician (CPS Tech for short) since 2003.  So I volunteer at car seat checks and help to educate parents about using car seats and booster seats properly.  The CPS community has been trying for many years to get the Utah legislature to pass a booster seat bill.  Our current law only mandates that children age 4 and younger must ride in a child restraint while in a motor vehicle.  Some of you may be asking, "What's so bad about that?"  Well here's a letter that I wrote in support of HB 140 that will answer that question for you.  

To Representative _______,

I am writing to you to express my support of HB 140.  This is a bill that should have been passed a long time ago.  38 states and the District of Columbia have passed booster seat legislation and I cannot understand why the State of Utah has thus far ignored the safety of our children ages 5-8.  Car manufacturers design seat belts to  protect the average adult male.  We should not and cannot expect a seat belt alone to adequately protect  children under 4'9" tall.  Studies have shown that children in booster seats are 40% less likely to be hospitalized following a crash.  

Many parents falsely believe that the current law provides adequate protective measures for their children.  As a Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician I have often had parents ask me what the law is regarding safety seats and I have had to tell them that if they follow the guidelines prescribed by Utah State law their children will NOT be safe.  There are many people who will only use a booster seat for their child if it is THE LAW.

I am a stay at home mom of three children ages 2-9 and became a CPS Tech in 2003 because I wanted my children to be as safe as they could possibly be while traveling in a car and I wanted to be able to teach other parents how to keep their precious children just as safe as mine.  I don't work for a hospital or a health department; I am strictly a volunteer who cares about children.  My oldest daughter is 9 and is still riding in a backless booster seat because she is not quite 4'9" tall.  She know that she will  not "graduate" from her booster seat until she is tall enough for the seat belt to fit her properly.

Child passenger safety is something that I am passionate about and it breaks my heart when I see children riding in cars with the seat belt across their necks or behind their backs because it doesn't fit properly and knowing exactly what the consequences will be if they are unlucky enough to be in a crash.  I strongly believe that if more parents truly understood  the serious injuries that can result from not having the seat belt positioned properly on their child that more children would be in booster seats every time they rode in a car.  Passing this bill would make a huge difference in educating these parents.  I just don't understand opponents of this bill who claim to be in favor of "parent's rights."  What about the right of a child to have the adult responsible for him or her to put safety above convenience?  I can't imagine having to tell a child who has suffered serious injuries as the result of a car crash that they could have been spared their suffering if I had just taken the time to make sure they were sitting in a booster seat.  

Please do all that you can to get this bill passed.  This is a bill that truly can make a positive impact on the lives of the children of our state.  Please show your constituents that you care about children too.

Thank you,

Jill Petty

Congratulations for getting all the way through my long letter; now you are educated too!  

This law goes into effect on May 4, 2008 and requires that all children be in a child restraint up to age 8.  A child who is taller than 4'9" prior to their 8th birthday would be exempt from the law.  In my opinion, while this law is going to protect a lot of kids it would have been better to have ignored an age requirement and focused only on the height requirement of 4'9" because most 8 year old are nowhere near that tall and lots of kids are still going to "graduate" from their boosters too soon.  Here are a few other sad facts:  Between 2002 and 2006, 34 Utah children between the ages of 5 and 8 died in motor vehicle crashes.  Between 2003 and 2005, 2,188 Utah children between the ages of 5 and 8 were injured in motor vehicle crashes.  

Blythe sitting in her seat in the middle row of our Toyota Sienna mini-van without a booster seat since she refused to be photographed while sitting in one.  She is currently 4' 8 3/4" tall and the lap portion of the seat belt rides up a little higher onto her abdomen than I'm comfortable with.  You can compare the lap belt on Brynne (below) and see how hers sits much lower on her hips.  The third row has a narrower bench seat and the seat belt back there might fit her better but she prefers the middle row next to Barrett.  She is very excited about the idea of not having to ride in a booster any longer.

Brynne will turn 7 in May, she is tall for her age at 4'2".  She currently rides in this high back booster with side impact protection.  It is made by Recaro.  She went to a birthday party on Friday and all the girls went to see Horton Hears a Who at the nearby movie theater.  She didn't give me any trouble about having to take along her booster and neither did the mom hosting the party.  

Justin says I've probably killed my blog readership with this post but like I said earlier I'm passionate about child passenger safety and I love to share my knowledge with others.  I'll aim for a more light hearted post next.

Endless Winter

So it's been snowing on and off for the last two days and I'm getting mighty tired of it.  I know it's much too early to start whining, because we'll most likely have a snowstorm in June, so I should hold off for at least another six weeks.  The one good thing about today's storm is that it warmed up afterwards, so I didn't have to snowblow the driveway; the sun took care of it for me.  This is the time of year when I wish we still lived in Salt Lake City, because it does actually feel like spring there.  My sister says she already has a few crocus in bloom.  I planted some crocus bulbs last fall but they are still under 4 feet or more of snow!  

We had a storm last Saturday night and Justin did have to go out to snowblow the driveway the next morning and he took this picture of our house.  The wind was whipping the snow horizontally and it caught in the board and batten siding of our house.   I thought it looked pretty cool.  Be sure to notice how high the snow bank is on our driveway.  It has melted down a ton from it's former height, but as I mentioned earlier we've still got a long way to go.   Of course once the snow melts it'll be mud season which means every time the dog comes in I'll have to spend 5-10 minutes cleaning the clay and pebbles out of her paws.  But at least I should have some crocus to look at then.  (By the way I just learned that if you click on a photo you can see it enlarged.  I thought I'd pass this helpful hint along to anyone who might be more of a blog novice than myself.)

This photo is of Ruby's tracks in the snow.  You can see that she ran across our yard and immediately jumped the fence into our neighbor's yard.  Last fall we put in an invisible fence to keep her in our yard after deciding we at least ought to try to be responsible pet owners. However,  we didn't have the wire run along the existing fence so that she would still be able to interact with her doggy friend Kaya.  We didn't even think ahead to winter and to the possibility that the snow could be as high as the fence.  So being the smart dog that she is it didn't take her long to figure out that she could just jump the fence and then jump it again on the other side of the yard and she reaches FREEDOM.  Our only saving grace has been that so far the snow has been too deep for her wander very far from home.  

This has been my only sign that spring is on the way.  

We had a small avalanche in which the snow and ice came 

crashing off the small roof over the bump out for our dining nook.  

Unfortunately, it did some damage to our deck railing, 

but luckily no one was on the deck when it happened.

Here's a better shot of the broken slat of our deck railing.

My parents have a much larger avalanche that comes off their roof every spring and lands right on the walkway to their front door.  So for a few weeks every year we try remember to enter their house through the garage because anyone who happened to be standing there when all that ice comes off the roof would most certainly be killed.  They've had 17 years with no injuries so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that we luck out again this year.

Baby Moose

Living where we do we see quite a bit of wildlife wandering around, including skunks, a fox, deer, and moose.  Yesterday, a baby moose walked right through our yard but unfortunately we weren't home at the time.  As we were coming home from Brynne's first piano lesson and we turned the corner onto our street there was a baby moose walking right down the side of the road.  Then I realized all the neighbors were out taking photos.  My car scared the moose and he ran down the road, so I had to apologize to the neighbors.  When we arrived home our dog Ruby seemed a little agitated I wondered if she had seen the moose.  Well right by our front porch was a pile of moose droppings.  I walked around the side of the house and could see the moose's tracks coming right up our sledding hill and then around the corner of the house.  When we left for Brynne's lesson Ruby was lying on the front porch sunning herself.   My guess is that the moose came wandering around the corner of the house and surprised Ruby, who immediately  started barking her head off and scared the poor baby moose and it ran up the driveway after leaving us a present.  I grabbed my camera and we got back in the car to find the moose.  We soon located it lying down in a vacant lot at the other end of our circle and were able to get a few pictures of it.

The moose tracks in our yard, notice how small Ruby's paw prints 

look in comparison and she is not a small dog.

The corner of our house that the moose walked around, before surprising Ruby.

The moose droppings right by our front porch.

We keep the blue cooler on the porch in case we get any packages 

so the delivery person can put them in there so Ruby doesn't chew them up.

The moose after we tracked it down on the other side of the neighborhood.

The moose resting after it's harrowing encounter with Ruby, the hunting dog.

Why Boxers are better than Briefs

EXHIBIT A

Barrett wearing his new Thomas the Tank Engine

 undies backwards, so he can see the picture.

EXHIBIT B

Rear view, luckily these are a size 4 not a size 2 so they don't look quite as uncomfortable.

EXHIBIT C

Barrett in his new Cars boxers.  

The pictures are on the sides of his legs 

so he can still see them even while wearing them the right way!

I rest my case.

Barrett finally gotten interested in the potty again.  He's been wearing his undies almost all the time and has only had one accident so far.  I've been learning that potty training a boy is a very different experience from teaching a girl.  The whole standing up to pee part has thrown me for a loop.  Who knew it was so hard to aim?!!  The worst is when he accidentally gets in his hand in the stream of pee and it sprays everywhere.  Now I wish I'd tiled the walls behind all the toilets instead of just the one in the kids bathroom.

Scare Me!

This has been Barrett's phrase of the week.  He's very into acting scared.  We were at the grocery store earlier this week and the bagger was an older man who had a long gray beard and longish hair.  Barrett in a stage whisper, "Mommy who's that?"  Me brightly, "He's just a worker."  Barrett, "Worker scare me!"  I hope the man didn't understand Barrett.

Then this morning our whole family went to watch the Women's Snowboard World Halfpipe Championship at the Park City Mountain Resort.  Justin had us there a half hour before the event started so we had a great spot alongside the halfpipe.  There was a television camera above our heads that was mounted on some wires and it moved down the halfpipe with the snowboarders.  Then it would zip back up to the top.  Every time it went by Barrett would look up and say, "Scare me!"  

Barrett will say he wants me to be "Mommy Dinoswar" then I roar and he freaks out, "Mommy scare me."  He's also afraid of the dark, the Thestrals on Harry Potter and the flames on the hood of his Darrell Cartrip car, the newest addition to his collection of Disney Cars ("hot fire scare me" only he pronounces it "hot pire", but hey a pyre is just another kind fire).

So I wish I had photos to post from the halfpipe event because they would have been really cool, but I left my camera at home. Oh well.

Princesses are Passe

My little girls are growing up.  Blythe at age nine has definitely left the Princess phase far behind and I fear that Brynne, at almost seven, is soon to follow.  Currently the worst thing that can happen to one of them at breakfast is to be given a Disney Princess bowl out of which to eat their cereal.  They will happily eat out of a Blue's Clues bowl, but NOT a princess one.  I guess it's like the saying, Blue's Clues is so out that it's in again.  All the princess costumes, dolls, movies, coloring books, t-shirts and of course dishes that we've accumulated over the past nine years will soon be banished to the basement or given away.  At least the Princesses outlasted Barbie.  Barbie has already spent the last few years in the basement, only making brief appearances when their younger cousin visits.  It's hard not to be a tad nostalgic when the Princesses have to give way to Hannah Montana and High School Musical.  We don't even have television at our house (network, cable, dish or otherwise) only DVDs and I'm still amazed at what my kids get exposed to.  The following pictures were taken last June, a mere 9 months ago.  How times change!

Brynne, Hannah and Blythe all dressed as Cinderella for Hannah's 5th Birthday Party.

Blythe, Sleeping Beauty and Brynne at Disneyland, at the Princess Lunch.

Leap Day Luau

Yesterday evening, Justin and I attended a Luau themed party at church.  This was our attempt to get into the Hawaiian spirit of the party.  Justin borrowed the shirt from my brother Peter and Blythe insisted that I wear the shell ankle bracelet that Hannah just brought back from California for her.  We had a fun time and Justin good naturedly participated in the "First Annual Wild and (Especially) Woolly Kimball Ward Anything But White Night Men's Leg Contest" where he was voted most exotic legs.  Although for the record, I voted him Best Male Legs.  My Dad also participated and was unsurprisingly voted "Most Razored" legs.  Peter snapped this photo of us when we dropped the kids off at his house where they had a great time playing with their cousins.  We are lucky that between my parents and Peter and Britt we almost never have to pay for a sitter. 

  

Zoo Redux

The girls get out of school at 12:30 p.m. on Fridays and my sister called to invite us to go to the zoo with her since it was supposed to hit 60 degrees.  I couldn't pass up the chance to be outside in the sunshine and warm weather, so we went.  It turned out that just about every other family with young kids had the same idea.  I have never seen the zoo so crowded.  When we went last week we practically had the place to ourselves and it was very relaxing to just meander around at Barrett's pace.  Yesterday, it was very stressful because Barrett wouldn't stay in the wagon that I had to rent for him to ride in and I kept losing him.  Athough it was only momentarily, nothing scary like the time my niece Hannah got lost at the zoo for probably close to half an hour.  I did however have my camera this time and the train was running to Barrett's delight.  Barrett is very interested in trains lately and we have been checking books out of the library about trains, including the kind that show them dissected into cross sections, etc.  So needless to say the train was the first thing we did after my sister arrived with her two boys.  The other highlight was the playground with the long snake slide.  We didn't play there last week because it was still too snowy.  There were still patches of snow and there was huge puddle at the bottom of the slide, Barrett was soaked by the time we left.  Luckily, we had saved the playground for last.