Heard In the Hall

Mom: Clark, you are a baby.
Clark: What?
Mom: You are a baby.
Clark: Did you say firefighter?

Bread Boats

When will my kids learn that food tastes better when it's warm?  Well, not ice cream.  Or water.  I'll revise that:  When will my kids learn that the chef (me) knows best and food tastes the best at the temperature that the chef says is best.  Usually warm.  These kids don't even get ice cream these days because they won't eat their dinner!

I'm sitting at a dinner table all by myself.  My husband is gone to a dinner meeting.  Aside- honey?  Did you eat your dinner?  Was it warm?  Maybe not the salad.  I ate a lot of food.  My son is sleeping in late from his nap (yes, it is 6:23.  I do not have the willpower to get him up.  See above-mentioned dinner meeting).  My girls took one look at dinner and ran away crying.  I do not have the willpower to cajole them to the table (again, the meeting.  (Yes, Paul is the heavy around here (and he hates it) why do you ask?)).

Honestly, I don't know why I take pictures of food.  This looks awful.

Let me tell you what we ate.  I made this recipe from Martha Stewart for lemon, parsley, prosciutto, egg bread boats.  I think that this is destined to be a new brunch favorite and easy weeknight meal for the whole world.  Basically, you hollow out a baguette, line it with prosciutto, then fill it up with scrambled eggs that will bake in the oven into a savory loaf.  You can then slice it into pieces or eat half of the thing like me.  Doesn't that sound like a great brunch?  No one knows how to serve eggs to a crowd.  Now they know.  Thanks to me and Martha.  If you make the recipe, don't bother dicing up the top and adding it in.  That is silly.  Instead, save your bread pieces for the roasted carrot salad also on the same page.  But add more lemon juice.  Okay?  Trust the chef.  Please trust me?  No one else around here does!

December

So, I haven't blogged for a long time.  I'm sure that you've missed me!  I find that I don't take pictures of some of the important stuff (conspicuously missing is having Christmas with my siblings and parents) but here are some pictures of things I did remember to take pictures of.

 I like this picture of our family at the ward Christmas party.  Patient Paul holding cute Clark with darling Grace wiggling her lose tooth.  All that's missing is Camille wiggling her tooth next to Grace.  Grace has now lost her 2 bottom middle teeth and Camille has lost one.  Also, I wish that I had a video of the primary and nursery children singing at the ward party.  It was basically the sweetest/funniest thing I've ever seen.  And only Camille cried this year for Santa.  So, I guess we're making progress.

 The holiday sing along for the K-2 grades.  I wish that you could have been there to hear the sweet songs and feel claustrophobic with me in the auditorium that was packed to at least twice its occupancy.

I am now the activity days leader, which means that I lead the girls between 8-11 in our ward and have an activity with them twice a month.  This activity was being "Santa's Helpers".  We babysat the kids in our ward for 3 hours with different centers, fun stuff, and food.  The girls did a great job keeping everyone happy and entertained. 

 Our friends Jordan and Claire moved away (like so many friends, recently) and we miss them!  Here they are sitting with us on their last Sunday.  Their parents gave such great talks- they are such inspiring people, and I'm a little sad that I have to be inspired from afar now.

 I made my mom a tree skirt.

 Christmas morning.  Santa ate the cookies!

Everyone wants to help Clark open his gifts.

 Paul's Christmas gift- a solar cooker.  I can see myself being super excited about this in case of emergency.  It's really huge.

But it grills a mean cheese sandwich.

I Love a Parade!

Sarah and I decided to attend the Rose Bowl Parade in person this year since neither of us had done this before.  Here are some pictures of various floats we saw:

Miniature horses

Fantastic floral arrangement I

Eclectic Trader Joes float

Dream machine...roses go in, ideas come out

Fantastic floral arrangement II

Fire breathing Chinese dragon

Kenny G on the Honda float

Animated float

Here are a few observations from the parade:

1. We did the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus package where you get driven up in a charter bus, park near the grandstand, and your seats are included.  I would highly recommend this--not too much more expensive than just buying seats, and you are spared the aggravation of driving through the hordes of people, finding parking, etc.
2. There were a lot of people before the parade wandering around with various religious-themed signs.  Also a lot of people with carts selling various knickknacks.
3. Buying the program is a good idea.
4. It definitely pays to think ahead about where your seats are going to be (we didn't do this, just got lucky.) We were sitting in a very comfortable partially shaded area with the sun behind us, not too cool and not too hot. The people across the street from us had the sun shining basically directly into their eyes for the entire 2-1/2 hours.
5. The sweet spot for kids is probably around ages 6-8.  Any younger and they won't be able to sit that long without getting wiggly and annoying the people around them.  Any older and they will spend the entire time playing handheld video games as did the kid sitting right in front of us.  Why pay $55 bucks for your kid to play video games?
6. For those sitting towards the end of the parade route, there is plenty of opportunity to buy food from local vendors before the parade reaches your area, so you don't have to bring your own.
7. It is definitely more comfortable to watch the parade at home rather than sit on a crowded, unyielding metal bench. But the floats are a lot cooler in real life than on TV.

All in all, I'd give this experience a high rating, and I'd definitely recommend it to others.