Mother's Weekend 2010

First off, happy happy Mother's Day to my mom! And to my grandma! I talked to my mom tonight and could hear my family - my dad, sisters and brother, their spouses and kids - all in the background and it made me feel happy that everyone was together celebrating my mom and I was on the phone with her too. Of course I wish I could be there and having dinner and treats with everyone, but it was nice to talk and hear those familiar sounds of a big family gathering in the background.

Today was a lovely day. It really was. I had my breakfast shake in bed (not a big breakfast eater) and all of my children took me aside sometime during the morning to give me special little presents and cards they had made for me (Nina had actually hid her present for me under the ottoman in the family room and when I came downstairs reached under with flourish and said "THIS is for YOU!!"). As I was getting ready my i-Pod, set to shuffle, seemed to play all my favoritest songs, and Adrian got all the kids dressed and ready (aside from hair which I did) and we got to church only about 5 minutes late which is kind of a record for Mother's Day. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes Mother's Day is not my favorite holiday. I love the special treatment from my family and hugs and kisses and "happy Mother's day Mom!" in the morning, but I do not love it when it feels like a guilt-fest at church. And guess what, today was not a guilt-fest or even guilt-twinged at church. It was really nice. I got to go to Relief Society. I got a big cookie and 3 Musketeers bar and all of my children went up front to sing Mother's Day songs (a first since Nina is a Sunbeam now). Then I came home and took a nap. Ahhhh.... Adrian made dinner and a fantastic chocolate mousse for dessert and I got to open presents (America's Test Kitchen Baking Cookbook and See's chocolates). And now tonight I am blogging and watching America The Story of Us and the kids have been happy and generally non-whiny. I can't image a nicer day.

Oh and I didn't even mention how my Mother's Day weekend actually started on Friday when I went to see Babies (which was the cutest movie!!) and out to dinner with Jenny. It was awesome and I love our girls nights! Then on Saturday after a primary activity which I was partially in charge of with the rest of the primary presidency, we had a day where I got to do "whatever I wanted" as Adrian put it. So we went to See's Chocolates in Denver of course and then window shopped at The Cherry Creek Mall which is the coolest mall. I am in LOVE with the store Sur La Table. It is my mecca. I used to think The Container Store was my mecca, but I was wrong. I loved Sur La Table even more. BUT it is an incredibly over-priced mecca so I just soaked in all the wonderful cookeriness without buying anything. The kids got to play in the same play area that Sophie played in almost 10 years ago when she was a little under a year old and we lived in Colorado. This play area is so cool - it looks like a big breakfast spread with softish-sculptury-things of bacon, eggs, sausage, strawberries, and a big bowl of shredded wheat cereal. Super super cute play area and Nina and Ben had a blast! Sophie is now too tall and old for play lands so she had as much fun as Adrian and I had watching Ben and Nina treat the sausage links like balance beams. Then after window shopping and frozen yogurt we went home and the babysitter came and Adrian and I went on a date. We had Chinese and saw Iron Man 2 (which just may be the loudest movie I've ever seen - man I'm getting old) and it was great. All great and fun and lovely.

Big thanks to my family for making me feel special and pampering me all weekend with all my favorite things including snuggles and hugs and kisses. I love you all so much and am so grateful to be a woman and a mom. Happy Mother's Day!

Feeling the Cooking Love

I think freezer meal cooking fills a need I have to package and label and put things in neat little rows. I love ziplocks and foil containers and the feeling I get when my freezer meals are safely tucked away in my freezer. So today was a packaging/cook-fest for me as I made 6 lasagnas for my freezer meal swap. It was a lot of work, but I did it during Nina's nap and Ben's quiet time so I had quality time with my favorite tunes and love of cooking. The lasagnas are all stacked in my freezer ready to be swapped for other yummy meals and I am happy.

A lot of times I struggle with whether or not I should post about my everyday mundane like making freezer meals, but I think it's a good idea to record these moments. What we do with ourselves everyday is a good snap shot of what is important to us. Cooking is important to me. Since moving to CO I have made home-cooking a focus in my life (partially because I have a much better cooking kitchen now and also because I started recipe blogging and love it) and I feel like it's making a difference to our family. We go out to eat a lot less and I'm cooking from scratch tons more than I used to, including bread! I am a bread maker. That feels good to say. And the convenience meals that I do use are freezer meals that I or members of my freezer meal swap have made at home. It all makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Today I took pictures to record a day of freezer meal cooking. I wish I would have taken some with me actually in the picture, but since I was cooking alone and I never take a good camera-held-as-far-away-from-my-face-as-possible-picture (always a double chin!) I guess I'll only have food pics to document the day.


That big pot has about 36 cups of meat sauce in it - my arm still hurts from stirring, but it's one tasty sauce so it's worth it. Oh and just in case you want it this was the recipe I used. Isn't there something satisfying about those foil containers of lasagna lined up and labeled?!

Fear and Loathing in the Dentist's Office

The Dentist by Gerrit Van Honthorst, c. 1622 (This is a real 17th century painting! Though I think I understand why I've never actually seen hanging in a dentist's office.)

Yesterday I had my bi-annual trip to the dentist. Joy. And in this case I mean loathing when I say joy. As I was laying there having my teeth scraped and poked and polished I narrowed down just what it is I hate about it all. First, the x-rays. Those suck big time because I have an overdeveloped gag reflex and cannot help myself from choking horribly on the plasticy-whatever-things you have to bite down on during the x-rays. My eyes were watering and I was trying my hardest to breath through my nose and go to my happy place (usually Forks or the Swiss Alps), but as hard as I tried I still gagged and sputtered and choked and the poor x-ray tech had to keep repositioning the bite-thingies. By the end of the x-rays I started to feel like I was a member of a terrorist cell and the x-ray technician was a scrubs wearing Jack Bauer. Seriously, do CIA operatives use dental x-rays in interrogations? I think it might work. That all said, I'm glad I got it done so that I don't have to do it for another 5 years. Next on the list is the broken conversations that the hygienists and dentists try to have with you. They are working on your teeth making it clearly unable for you to talk, but they still ask you questions. Questions that require more than a nod or shake of the head, like for instance "where did you go to college and what did you study?" I know the hygienist was just trying to put me at ease, but wow how to you answer that with your mouth wide open without drooling or biting her finger. I nodded and grunted "BYU" and "Art History" and felt very silly. You can't tell someone about your love of art history when they are scraping away or polishing with that whirly toothbrush. Then there is the actual scraping part. Ooh it gives me the eeby-jeebies just thinking about it, but the feel and sound of metal scraping teeth is nasty. During the nastiest bits of the metal-scrapping-teeth part we had a very one-sided conversation about the mining tragedy in WV. Sad and horrible - I thinks that's what I open-mouthed grunted. Then there's the music. Always Lite FM. I'm afraid I will always associate poor Phil Collins and now Taylor Swift with dental work. The visit ended with a new silver toothbrush and an appointment to do it all again (minus the Jack Bauer interrogation) in 6 months.

I don't mean to be a hater. I am really very grateful for dentists and hygienists and I am thankful that because of them I don't have gum disease or halitosis. And the dental practice that we go to is wonderful. The whole office is full of very kind and friendly people and they are great with my kids. I like the feeling after my teeth are cleaned and how shiny and smooth they are. That all is great. It's just that there are very uncomfortable parts to dental visits and the truth is I wish teeth would stay nice without dentists, which is a very silly wish I know.

On a related note we are currently pricing out different orthodontist practices for Sophie and she will soon get braces. Crazy! I am seriously amazed by how much orthodontics has changed since I had braces. The orthodontist that we had a consultation with yesterday uses these cool springy devices which make it so you don't have to wear a head-gear! Awesome. And Sophie is excited to get braces and I've decided not to burst her excitement bubble with any of my horrible orthodontist stories (honestly those stories are wherein I developed and honed my current loathing of dentistry).

Happy Birthday Adrian!!

We had a lot of fun celebrating Adrian's birthday. There was 3D movie watching (How to Train Your Dragon), amazing onion rings eating at Cheeburger Cheeburger, presents, cake and candles, and of course some Wii playing. It was a super fun day and I'm so glad because my awesome husband deserved it! Here's a list of random things I love about my man:

• Adrian is my rock. He is incredibly even keeled and I love that I can always rely on him to be calm and handle everything with sanity and deep thinking (let's just say I'm pretty much the opposite so I'm very fortunate to have him).
• Adrian really does love Scifi in a way that I will never understand, but I find it endearing. I love that he is that cliched computer geek with a vast knowledge of classic and contemporary Scifi to prove it. We had his birthday cake on Star Wars paper plates and he of course held his Darth Vadar plate over his face and told each of the kids "Sophie/Ben/Nina I am your father" in his best James Earl Jones impression.
  
• Adrian loves Nyquil. He only takes it when he is sick, but I really think he would be a boozer if he wasn't a firm believer in the Word of Wisdom. Just saying. :) I think it's so funny and love to make fun of him about it!
• From my last post you may have noticed that Adrian sets up all our dates. I love that he calls the babysitter and plans things out. Isn't that awesome?!
• Adrian is in charge of bedtime with the kids. I love this and it is his special daddy time with each of them. I read books and give hugs and kisses, but Adrian tucks the kiddos in and brushes teeth and all that. I love that he is a hands on daddy and always has been. When we had little babies he would change diapers in the middle of the night and bring babies to me for feedings. Thanks for being a wonderful dad Adrian!
• Adrian can put anything together. Flat packed furniture? No problem. A new toy, bike, bunk beds, big ol' swing set, anything... It's amazing. In fact, when we had only been dating like a week or something he came over to my house and helped my sister and her husband put together all their kids' Christmas stuff (they got little ATVs and other various assembly-required things). My brother-in-law took me aside and said "Jenni, this guy is a keeper". I agreed.:)
  
• I love Adrian's dry sense of humor. He is funny. And because he is so quiet I love his jokes even more because they are pretty much just for me (and the kids) and that makes me feel special. We also both love British humor especially because it's dry - Vicar of Dibley, Father Ted (which is actually Irish), Absolutely Fabulous, Keeping Up Appearances, Dr. Who, and Red Dwarf are some of our favorites.
• Most of all I love my man because he is truly good. He does the right thing and has a wonderful testimony. He loves Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and our family. He truly has the right priorities and I'm so glad that my children are growing up with him as their example of a righteous man and husband. Adrian inspires me to be a better person.

Happy happy birthday Adrian!! I love you and think the world of you! You are such an awesome guy!!

Sneakiness Revealed (with a movie review tacked on the end)

So in the back of my mind I had been thinking of how I was going to get my hands on the New Moon DVD. I thought about trying to find friends to go to a midnight release party. Then I thought that was probably silly. I could wait until the morning and go get it on it's release date (today) like a normal person. I can be normal when I try very hard. So I stopped thinking about it. Kinda. Then about a week ago I thought to myself, hey what if I planned a date-night and then at the end of the night said, "Hey Adrian, you know it's close to midnight and New Moon is coming out... Why don't we just swing by Walmart and pick it up," thus getting New Moon at the first possible chance and dragging my hubby along with me. So I suggested a date-night and Adrian set it all up with the babysitter. But he set it up for Saturday. Not Friday when my little hey-let's-just-stop-by-Walmart-at-midnight plan would have worked. Oh well, I was back to the plan of getting the DVD like a normal person in the morning. Normal is good and I could do it. Then our babysitter called back and said Friday would work better for her! Ha! Score for Jenni. Now I just had to wait the date out and then slip in the DVD getting bit at the end. Nice.

So then it dumps snow and we decide to stay local because the roads were bad thereby seriously limiting our movie choices (our town movie theater does not have the best movie times or selection of movies) and I needed a movie that would get out at or near midnight. Enter Rotten Tomatoes. We had thought we were going to go to The Bounty Hunter - you know the new one with Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston, because that was pretty much the only new movie not rated R. Well, Adrian and I have this thing now about not going to movies that have a terrible score on Rotten Tomatoes (we got burned with the stupid Valentines Day movie) and The Bounty Hunter got 8%. Now I will contemplate a 20% romantic comedy because chick flicks always get bad reviews, but I'm not paying 20 bucks for an 8% movie. So then Adrian looks up what movies got better reviews, that we haven't seen, that aren't rated R, and that are playing at the local movie theater. A pretty short list to tell you the truth. But for heaven's sake guess what movie popped up?? Remember Me (24% on Rotten Tomatoes) !!! And it would get out at about 11:50pm! Oh my, how perfect. A Robert Pattinson movie (that I never dreamed Adrian would go to with me) and sneaky New Moon buying at midnight... This was turning into the date of my dreams and Adrian had no idea. It was as if the whole thing was his idea and I was just going along with it. Perfect. I kept it cool, but inside I was ecstatic (see why I have to work so hard at normal).

So yes, we went to dinner at a local Japanese restaurant, we saw a Robert Pattinson movie (which was well worth it just for the preview of Eclipse that they showed before it!) and I said hey let's go get New Moon right at the perfect time and guess what?? It worked. The whole thing worked! What are the odds? Now, if I would have planned it all with Adrian well aware of every step I can guarantee you my husband would have come along. He is very supportive of my crazy and I love him for it. But I can also guarantee you there would have been much eye-rolling and joke-cracking (at my expense of course). It's just that this slightly naughty sneaky approach went off so much better and my sensitive Twihard heart never had to see any eye-rolling. Of course I am now fessing up to it all because I can't be sneaky for any length of time (say over 19 hours). And I will of course only use this sneaky approach on the rare, once in a lifetime, occasion, but since I did use it and it worked I had to blog about it. And then I stayed up watching New Moon till 2:30am - that's probably also blogworthy and one final time to show my crazy in this post.:)

BTW, if you are wondering how Remember Me is, but don't actually want to see it I'll give you a quick run-down. Alright so it was Catcher in the Rye meets Rebel Without a Cause meets Reality Bites. From the Catcher in the Rye angle I totally think the screen-play writer thought to him or herself "how can I do Catcher in the Rye without getting sued?" and this was the movie that followed. We are talking New York City, rich kid, lost and meaningless sort of life, trying to deal with brother's death, kid-sister who he wants to protect with whom he also frequents museums and muses about the meaning of life. Yeah, Holden anyone?? It was a little crazy. But if you throw in enough Rebel Without a Cause fight scenes and yelling at disconnected parents I guess you can get enough away from Holden not to be sued and also giving a very popular actor, Robert Pattinson, a reason to evoke James Dean - chain smoking, hair, and all. Reality Bites comes in with the romance. It felt very Wynnona Ryder, Ethan Hawk to me -art, sociology, and poetry references a plenty. Then the ending. Wow. Wasn't expecting it, but it made you think so that's good in a sick sort of way. So anywho fun times if you are willing to deal with the glaring plagiarist quality of it all. And I was willing to go along with it. It was okay.

Punked

If I could take a moment to compare Colorado's weather to a celebrity it would definitely be Ashton Kutcher and I totally feel punked. It was beautiful, nay gorgeous, for the past 3 days. My kids played outside everyday after school with bubbles and sidewalk chalk and trips to the park and everything. We had BBQ sandwiches and fruit salad for dinner the other night and it felt like June for pete's sake. And what did I wake up to today?? Snow. Snow. And it's still snowing. I guess they say 5-10 inches. Whatever. I'm kinda mad. I know this is totally expected for March weather around here, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Sure if it was cold this week and then today we had snow I would have been fine, but once you break out the flip flops it's SO hard to put on Uggs. Yes, Colorado is a beautiful state with awesome skies and beautiful weather (sometimes), but it is also a persistent trickster who lures you into thinking about the lazy days of summer right before it dumps a whopper storm on you. I guess I'll get used to it all someday, but for now I am reserving the right to feel ticked on days like this. I'll get over it soon. I'm still a little grumpy because it's morning, but I'm sure baking a batch of cookies or bread will help me feel some snow love.

Back and Alice

I'm back. Sadly not even Adrian's skillz were able to save my old laptop, so I'm typing right now on my lovely new laptop. I am very happy with it even though it is another windows machine. A Mac just wasn't in the budget I'm afraid and I continue to feel more comfortable with windows much to Adrian's chagrin. He is very happy though that I have a laptop capable of joining him in joint Diablo games - his adorable Paladin Pippin and my little Assassin Fai have quite fun together beating up monsters. It has been so hard to be without my own computer the past little while. I can't believe how much I rely on google and wikipedia. Isn't it weird to think of how different life has become in the last 10 years. I don't think I even had an email account 10 years ago.
Over the weekend Adrian and I went to Alice in Wonderland in IMAX 3D. It was pretty cool. I am a Tim Burton fan. Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my all time favorite movies. I was not as impressed with Alice. Now don't get me wrong, I thought it was visually stunning. I loved big headed Helena Bonham Carter and stretched out Crispin Glover. Really really loved the styling of Anne Hathaway as the White Queen - she looked like she was in black and white! And Johnny Depp's crookedy eyes were SO cool. Ooh ooh and the part when Alice was on the balcony at the White Queen's castle with all the waterfalls behind her. Gorgeous. It looked just like a Maxfield Parrish painting. All that was absolutely awesome. It was just that along with the great stuff it was also so heavily "Tim Burton" branded that I found it slightly annoying. I don't think he has to have fat kids in striped T-shirts in every single movie. We all know you are Tim Burton and we love you for it, but I like it when things are freaky and creative and new rather than just stripey if you know what I mean. Do you know what I mean? And the Mad Hatter ended up feeling a bit "been there, done that" too - like he was a cross between Captain Jack and Willy Wonka (with awesome crazy hair and eyes!!). So I left feeling it was really entertaining, but overall kind of feeling like it lacked that special something. Honestly the middle part even got a bit boring... Oh I feel so bad saying that! Maybe my expectations are too high and I'm always looking to relive the experience of seeing Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time. That's probably a lot of it. I would see Alice again (probably will take Sophie if she wants to see it) and will probably end up owning it, but will continue to think of Nightmare as the pinnacle of Tim Burton's awesomeness.