Owen's Prayers

Owen has been more involved in saying his prayers, as in he has been thinking of his own things to say rather than asking what to say or repeating common prayer phrases. He has said some pretty funny things, borderline irreverent. I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing sometimes.

One of the first weird things was, "Please bless Yourself." That can spark some theology debates.

"Please bless me to grow bigger than a house."

"Please bless me to fly."

"Please bless me that I can get light-up shoes."

"Please bless me to learn more about birds and to know what's an eagle and what's not an eagle."

"Bless me to catch better like in baseball so then I can play football."


There are probably more, but we still can't understand some of the things he says, so I'll have to wait to laugh until I read the angels' notes in heaven.

Birthdays, Birds, and a Dog

More of the same.

Owen and Camille both celebrated their birthdays. Owen wanted a car cake, and I produced a pretty decent one. He was excited to move into a booster seat until the doctor dashed his hopes by telling him he won't hit the weight guideline until he is 6.

Camille had her first friend party and was super super excited about it. I suggested a no present party, but that idea caused tears, so we had a normal party with presents. I chose the theme and went with ice cream.  It was 97 degrees and humid, so the outdoor portions of the party were pretty short. One game we played was the candy bar game where everyone rolls dice, and when you get doubles, you get to take a candy bar from the middle or take someone else's candy bar that they already chose. Note to everyone: 5-7 is too young for that game. The scavenger hunt was a big hit, as was the thimble game/baptism.

Here are some pictures of Maple. She's gotten pretty big already. She was only a cute little puppy for a week or two. Or maybe she was actually older than they guessed when we got her. She has almost doubled her weight in the month we've had her. Her breed is still a guess.

Time for a bird identification quiz. I'll give you a hint: they are all sparrows except the first.

I've been using an app called Merlin to identify birds I don't know. I was super excited when the sparrows came through in migration. Also yesterday when I was out running, I saw not one, but two new birds, both of which were supposedly somewhat common here, a flock of cedar waxwings, and a northern flicker. This has really been a cool hobby.

Birds!

I'm happy to report that I can identify many of the common birds around here. It's harder than expected since males and females sometimes look different, breeding and non-breeding males sometimes look different, juveniles look different.

American goldfinch on the left, pine siskin on the right

European starling

Dark-eyed junco

Another goldfinch

Downy Woodpecker (I think? There's an almost identical woodpecker and this was a bad picture)

Killdeer

White-breasted nutchatch

Easter

Easter is one of my favorite holidays. Sadly, the only thing people seem to do to celebrate is egg hunts. We missed doing the Friend Easter countdown. I also have some awesome Christ-themed Easter activities on Pinterest that I want to do, but haven't yet. I did enjoy the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus, life, hope, and rebirth in other ways.

I always try to make hot cross buns.

I stayed up past midnight finishing the Easter outfits. 

For the first time, no cups of dye were spilled during the egg coloring!

If you look closely, you can spot the hidden eggs.

Happy Birthday Emily

The days are long, but the years are short. That sums up Emily's life so far. 

I had good intentions to make a cute cake, but I used all the powdered sugar frosting temple cookies for priesthood and temple prep meeting, so I improvised with coolwhip and sprinkles.

She was more interested in her milk than her presents.

 Since her birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, I felt the need to acknowledge that holiday, but this was the extent. We celebrated her birthday the next day when Brian got back from wherever he was working.

Emily has developed quite the personality. Some things she enjoys are:

playing in the dishwasher;

sitting on things her size;

deshelving;

getting into trouble in the bathroom;

looking out the window.

Things she dislikes are having things taken away from her, when I limit her milk usage, and taking two naps a day.

She is still by far our most solid baby. She has stayed around the third quartile for height and weight. Most of the weight is in her thighs.

She is generally a happy baby, and we're happy she's part of our family.

Dog Daze

We are thinking of getting a dog. Quick, talk us out of it before it's too late!

The neighbor's dog came to visit when the kids were playing outside in the snow one day. Owen had a heyday playing with her. Camille screamed and screamed, and when I took her inside, she and Emily sat at the back door looking out and sobbing. When we were out for a walk/scooter ride one morning, some dogs came walking by with their owners. Owen asked to say hi, and loved the dog licking him and socializing with him.

We have been wondering if a dog would help Owen. It would give him some responsibility, allow him to burn off some energy, give him some nonjudgmental love and a stress outlet. I would like to have a dog to run with. Brian just likes dogs in general.

Those potential benefits aside, we live in a climate where it is bitter cold in the winter and hot and humid in the summer. We would want the dog to spend most of its time outside, but it would have to come inside during much of the winter. Dogs are expensive. We have small children. We would like a puppy so we can train it and get it used to kids (especially for Camille's benefit), but puppies have accidents and come without knowing their personality. We already have a cat.


But look at these cuties!

This one is for Jacob (isn't this the kind he wants?)

Olympics Fare: Korea Edition 2018

This was a challenge for me. England was easy. Russia, not too hard, lots of root vegetables. Brazil was up my alley. But I know nothing about Korean food. It actually turned out pretty well considering that.

I didn't do my Olympics pizza. Brian was out of town on the opening ceremony evening, and it was one of those nights where I couldn't do everything. I'm still waiting to do the fruit bagels or colored icing on donuts for the Olympic rings someday.

The first meal I did was Korean BBQ chicken. It was easy and probably not very authentic because it wasn't very spicy, but it was good.

After the gimme meal was done, I had to actually put effort in. I bought a few supplies.

It turns out that kimchi is pretty good. I was nervous after I opened it and it was bubbling and weird looking. Brian and I both liked it and ate it with both the next meals.

Next was japchae, Korean stirfry. I Americanized it by using ground beef (that got way over cooked). This being Vermillion, my best option for noodles was rice noodles. I think Koreans would use mung bean or sweet potato noodles, but I was happy to find the rice noodles. My back up was to use Ramen. It isn't very good-looking, but it tasted good. Brian finished cooking it while I rushed off to parent teacher conferences, so he gets some credit.

Last was mandoo, Korean dumplings. It was very similar to egg rolls. I, of course, couldn't find mandoo wrappers, so I used won ton wrappers. This was also good. I used ground pork, cabbage (coleslaw mix), mushrooms, rice noodles, and my homemade soy sauce for the stuffing, and I steamed them. It felt way more healthy than deep frying.  I have like 25 wrappers left that are supposed to be used within 2 days.

And that's all for Korean food. I wanted to do bibimbap. Look how nice and compartmentalized it is, plus I like eggs. I ran out of time and motivation. That's also part of my Olympic food tradition.

Photodisc/Getty Images via thespruce.com