Nothing to say

Just trying to get rid of the garbage post because it no longer applies since we are officialy houseless and no longer have the responsibility of a city garbage disposal container.

What to say. Hmmm.

My sister in law Krys said that she only types in one space after periods and that her college professor told her to do that. Is this the new thing? I have a difficult time implementing this but I will try hard if it is the new wave in word processing. I don't want to be the old fart that can't adapt to 21st century.

The other week we were watching the movie The Freedom Writers. I thought it was a great movie and was feeling very inspired and shocked by condition of some of the students lives. The kids were watching with us and Eliseo mentioned that he liked the movie. I asked why and he gave some typical boy answer about "because they fight in the classrom." I felt disappointed and angry about his answer and with my very serious 'mother' look on my face said "You think it's funny that people hate each other?" Rune gravely said "No, it would be funny if Earnest P. Whorl crashed through the middle of the ceiling on a bungee cord." (Obviously, the kids have been watching Earnest movies on Netflix) I haven't laughed so hard since my slook days of college. I'm sure you had to be there, but I found it so funny that I couldn't sleep because I kept laughing. It was so bad that I was snickering all through the prayer that Grant tried to say that night before bed which is funny because that is the exact thing that we are constanly getting angry at Elieso for doing. So Thanks to Rune for the great laugh.

Why do I always forget to put the garbage by the road?

Because I'm stupid.

For Grandma and Grandpa

This is just a collection of recent-ish photos that I thought the grandparents would enjoy.

Violet says, "I'm surrounded..and lacking the motor skills to extricate myself!"

Violet says, "You people are just.....rotten!"

I love this one of Violet grabbing Lily's hair. Everyone says they look alike. What do you think?

Violet says, "My sister extraordinaire, she lets me pull her hair."

Violet says, "Hey man, I think you're in my space."

Violet says, "Phhhhtttt."

Shen Bei Bei's Chicken

Shen Ye Ye sneaking Lily a cookie at church.

Numerous times people have asked for this recipe and I can never answer since I always just throw it together without measuring. But I'm not always fabulous at the 'ol eyeball method and while it usually turns out great, sometimes it...doesn't. So the past couple of times I've tried measuring and have come up with a recipe for:

Shen Bei Bei's chicken

6-7 lbs chicken thighs
1/3 cup soy sauce
3 T sugar
1 T pepper

Throw everything in a bowl (or two) the night before you want to cook it and let set in fridge until the next evening. Place on baking sheets skin side up. Pour over marinade. Bake at 300 for about two hours or until very tender.

Recipe notes:
1. If you find 6-7 lbs of chicken to be a ponderous amount, remember I have 5 kids.
2. Don't even think about using boneless skinless frozen chicken thighs. It would mock Shen Bei Bei's culinary genius. The Shen Bei Bei who makes pumpkin pie filling entirely on the stove top. The Shen Bei Bei who drinks a peanut butter jar of water and does 100 leg kicks every morning. The Shen Bei Bei who faithfully eats 7 pieces of fruit daily. The Shen Bei Bei who despite being nearly blind from macular degeneration, would every Tuesday and Thursday painstakingly cut up fresh fruit and put it in bags then bring it to the courtyard for my kids to eat while they played. The Shen Bei Bei who sings American Christmas songs from the '30s and '40s every ward Christmas party for at least a half hour wearing his purplish/plaidish suit and bowtie. The Shen Bei Bei who is, I believe, the one and only Chinese man of his generation who likes to cook and sew. You see where I am going. This is Shen Bei Bei's chicken. It's simple, yet brilliant and I can just see the look on his face if he was told someone were to use bonesless, skinless chicken in his recipe. So don't do it. Please. However, feel free to frig with the other ingredients as Shen Bei Bei doesn't have set amounts since he really is good at the 'ol eyeball method.
3. This recipe keeps on giving. Pour the chicken oil in a bowl and use it during the week for stir frying and egg frying or for frying whatever it is you like to fry. Scrape up the rest of the junk from the pans (except the stuff that is REALLY stuck), put it a bowl and away in the fridge. The next day heat it up in a pan with the leftover rice and eat it with a fried or soft boiled egg.
4. Soak your pan for at least an hour before you attempt to scrub it.

Shen Bei Bei, Shen Ai Yi, Lin Ma Ma (standing)

P.S. It's possible Eliseo has a booger on the end of his finger.

Feel free to be impressed...I made a quilt!

I decided if I was going to stay home and call myself a homemaker then I might as well do something homemaker-ish. So I made a quilt.

It looks sort of blue here, but in reality is a solid purple. If you are really impressed by the pattern I, sadly, cannot take the credit. Grant was the mastermind there.

Detail of the binding

I lied. I didn't make a quilt to elevate myself to talented homemaker status. I did it because a really talented person in my ward made the below quilt for Violet and gave it to me at my baby shower. I love it so much that I just had to have one for myself, in my favorite color..purple. And since I thought that my talented friend probably wouldn't super want to make one for me I figured I'd have to do it myself. My motives were purely selfish.

Isn't this quilt awesome? If it had a Hello Kitty on it somewhere it would be the pinnacle of my girlish dreams for Violet. And the binding! I would never think of something so clever.

Am I going to become.....A QUILTER???? I don't know. It was pretty fun, kind of tedious, fairly expensive (like $80!), all in all a good experience but I think I'll mostly stick to projects that can be done in an afternoon. Like this.

A dress for Violet made from the leftovers.

TV show vent

We don't have cable and generally don't miss it, although it does mean that we are horribly behind media-wise. I mostly have no idea what people are talking about when they discuss the latest shows. It's occasionally embarrassing.

Then we signed up for Netflix and have been having fun renting movies that everyone on the planet has seen except for us (because they came out at least 5 years ago) and watching fun things on instant play like Scooby Doo movies and old Dr. Who episodes. Then we had the brilliant idea that maybe we will watch one of those TV series that everyone seemed to love and we would no longer be the freaks that don't even know what is playing on TV. So we started watching Heroes. And to tell the honest, embarrassing truth, I didn't even know the show existed until a week ago. Four episodes later and I'm torn. The story line is very interesting....BUT here is a list of the character vices I've noticed so far:

1. Violence
2. Murder
3. Rape
4. Underage drinking
5. Purposeful drug abuse
6. Fornication
7. Adultery
8. Internet "soft" porn

Could they have packed any more sensationalistic depravity and debauchery into FOUR EPISODES??? It's bordering on ridiculous. I mean, has our culture slipped so far that an engaging plot of ordinary people discovering they have super powers is no longer sufficiently interesting? We need all of the above listed items to hold our attention? Apparently so. Good grief. I guess this is why I gave up TV in the first place and I'll have to go back to my old TV show inexperienced ways. Sigh.

FHE poetry

This was FHE tonight. We were attempting to pass off one of the talent portions in the Faith in God booklet. Here it is, unadulterated, all punctuation and spelling exactly as written.

Rune:

David slew a lion, with a little knife,
he was surprised with such a sight
with very little strife,
he went to war, to fight till sore,
but 'ol goliath stopped them,
so the army needed more,
David went right up and let that slingshot fly,
and then when the rock fell off, it was a red bullseye.

Eliseo: (spelling and punctuation are not his strong point)

The gold plats are so vary golde.
my eys wer rolen. I'v neve-
r sene plats of gold. I neve-
r sold the gold plat's. the ange-
l Maroni bared the gold pla-
ts. in the hill of camora.

Lily: (This poem was a collaboration. Lily gave me a line and then the rhyming word of the next line and I would provide the bulk of the second line. All Lily's contribution will be in red.)

They ate the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
They were no longer as dumb as weevils.
They were naked in the Garden of Eden,
It was a place that didn't need weedin'.
Satan told a lie.
We all know why.
He wanted them to die.
They went out of the Garden of Eden,
To a place that did need weedin'.