A week with Hannah

Matt's brother Nate and his wife Candy were asked by a relative to go to Hawaii for a week to clean, paint, and furnish a condo to be used for a timeshare, expenses paid. They jumped at the chance and had to figure out what to do with their kids. Her niece came to stay with them for the nights. The other kids went to school during the daytime and I had Hannah Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and again on Monday. Grandma Cynthia came Thursday afternoon and took care of them for the weekend.
So Tuesday went very well. Hannah and Elody played happily the whole day. Actually, they had a little disputing over toys, but I think it was good for both of them to have to learn to take turns. By evening time I got really worried about yo-yo-ing her around. So wrote her mom a letter through facebook: "I want you to consider thinking about letting me keep Hannah day and night. I really think she needs to stay in one place. She's happy here and it won't matter if I get woken up in the middle of the night as much as it would matter if Meagan is. I just think she would be sad to go home and not find Mom there and that Mom's not coming home. Just think about it." I also talked to Meagan and she said No, but that she would talk to Candy about it, from her point of view and she said No too. So I feed her and took her home.
On Wednesday morning I wrote this letter: "Just so you know, I think you are wrong in not trusting my judgement. Your poor little girl came to me this morning, buried her head, put her arms around my neck and stayed there. I sat and cuddled and rocked her for about 20 minutes with a sad pitiful little frown on her face until she fell asleep. I tried to put her down and she opened her eyes. I snuggled her in bed for another 20 minutes and then she was finally ready to get up and play. It breaks my heart seeing her being yo-yo(d) around. I didn't last night and I won't tonight take her home to be without a "mommy." I will take her back to your house after Meagan gets home. She really just wanted to be held and loved on."
Later on Wednesday I wrote this letter: "She's happy now and doing well. She ate lunch really well. We went to the Relief Society Wacky Wednesday to help with a quilt and they served potato soup for lunch. Oh, and another thing, I was listening to Elody and Hannah's conversation and Hannah said, "I don't have a Mom." Maybe the next time you call home, you could talk to her and let her know you are alive and so on..."
Then even later on Wednesday: "After the Wacky Wednesday, The girls went outside to play. When they came, I put a movie on for them. Hannah fell right to sleep at about 2pm. Just after 3pm Matt came home and I left with Jileigh to her High School Registration. What a Nightmare! We didn't get home until almost 5 pm. She grabbed her backpack and I took her over to your house and them came back home. I walked into the house and saw Hannah STILL asleep. I woke her up and picked her up and snuggled her for quite a while until she was ready to be social again. When I picked her up, she looked am me sadly like, 'You're still not my mom.' After that I made my whole multi grain pancakes. I haven't seen Hannah poop yet. I figured this would do the trick. She ate 3 of them gone! She ate as much as Elody did. Then I them both a head to toe bath. After I got her dressed, I called your house and Megan had just got home. I took Hannah home and inside the house. They all said Hi to her, but it was Colton that put his arms out to her and snuggled her by his side."
Thursday's letter in the morning: This morning Hannah came to me in good spirits. I think she is finally becoming accustomed to the routine. I finally feel better about the routine of here to there to there, etc. Although I am glad that I decided to keep her until the next "mommy" figure is available. I told Cynthia to call me when she gets to your house and I will take her there."
Thursday evening letter: "Today we went shopping at Lin's because I was asked to take a salad to the funeral by 12 noon. I didn't make it out of the house until 10:45am so I didn't end up getting to go to the funeral, just made a salad for it. I don't think I want to go shopping with 3 little kids again. That was a little too much. After I took the salad over to the church, I decided to see the state of your house. Needless to say, we stayed. I did one load of dishes then cleaned, swept, and vacuumed the front room and swept the kitchen floor. Then the Colton and Brandon came home. I got them to help me gather ALL the dirty laundry and I got that going plus took two loads to my house to get going. Then we collected all the baskets of clean laundry, that you washed before you left, and we all together got those clothes folded and put away. Then I got the boys to finish cleaning their rooms and Angelique and I cleaned the girls room. Then I got the boys to unload the dishwasher and I loaded it up again and ran it through again. At that point, I left Jileigh and Angelique there and came home with the rest of the kids. Hannah was doing so well today that I left her there too. I got my dishes done and by then the two load were dry. I took them back to your house and Cynthia had just gotten there. We all folded the three loads and the kids put them away. There was just one load left in the dryer. Cynthia was tired and was very grateful to come there to a clean house, which is why I did it. I knew she would be left to take care of it and I couldn't bear the thought. Colton was so good at helping do the laundry. You now have two baskets of clean folded laundry in your closet to put away when you get home. So, all is well. I talked to Colton and Brandon about calling me mean. The plead innocence and blamed on Austin. I told them that I am not mean. I am direct, but not mean. I don't punch or kick them, but I do expect them to comply. And they did, very well. I didn't get a chance to talk to Austin though. Ok well, I'm exhausted. Signing off."
Saturday I went over there to pick up a movie that we forgot there on Thursday and go get Colton's broken dresser drawer. After I pulled out the drawer, I notice something in the back. It was a small picture frame and then noticed something else. It was the missing library book that they lost several months ago and she kept hoping that they would find it. Well, I did! She's gonna love me for that one. I took the drawer home, Matt fixed it, and I took it back, hoping they don't really notice. (I actually ended up telling her.)

Sunday we had Cynthia, Candy's kids, and Dan and Lise with there kids for dinner. We also invited Amanda's family came over too. We had breakfast casseroles. Dan's family was here for a week for Thanksgiving. Yes, it was very nice of me to do that for them.

Monday I went back over to Candy's house and sure enough it needed cleaned up all over again. I put one load in the washer there, loaded the dishwasher and got it going, swept and vacuumed again and then went home and put a load in my washer. That evening I made sure everything was clean and put away. Nate and Candy got home Tuesday morning early. Candy called me later to thank me for everything that I did for them.

I decided that I don't want to have to leave my baby for a week anytime soon.

Angelique's 5th grade Veteran's Day Program

November 11th was Angelique's Veteran's Day Program. They sang all sorts of patriotic songs. This is the whole 5th grade class.
I video recorded the last song: God Bless America and posted it on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIm_tkBGydo

Jaren and Angelique testing at school

Angelique and Jaren have both been chosen at school to participate in a High Ability Learners Test program. Monday was their first testing. They test for one hour everyday this week. The results won't be back for another month, so we will see then how they did.

Parent / Teacher Conferences

Last Wednesday was the middle school's parent/teacher conferences. It started at 4:30pm, but we didn't get there until almost 5pm. Basically what we do is go to a door and wait until the teacher is done with the parent she is talking to and then we go in for our turn. My two children, Jileigh and Talon, each have 8 teachers. We were there until almost 7:30pm visiting with each of their teachers, minus Jileigh's choir teacher and seminary teacher. Sometimes we could walk right in, but there were a couple of teachers that we had to wait 10 minutes or so to speak with them. Fortunately, I had a dinner planned and half of it prepared. Matt took over and finished making dinner while we were gone and we were able to come home to a warm dinner. Jileigh has 3 honors classes and so I really need to know how she was doing and what was coming up in the classes. Talon's doing OK. He just forgets to hand in his assignments and so in half of his classes he was handing in homework and was finding out what else was due. It was a crazy, exhausting afternoon.
For dinner we had a new recipe that I found on Allrecipes.com called Brown Rice and Black bean casserole. I changed it a little to make it better and it turned out fabulous. No picture this time. I was too tired to think about it.

Brown Rice and Black Bean Casserole from Allrecipes.com.

Ingredients
1 C brown rice
3 C vegetable or chicken broth
¾ tsp salt
2 T butter
1 T olive oil
½ C diced onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini, thinly sliced
2 cooked skinless boneless chicken breast halves, chopped
1 C sliced mushrooms (optional)
½ - 1 tsp cumin
Salt to taste
Ground cayenne pepper and/or chili powder to taste
1 (15 ounce) can each black beans and pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 (4 ounce) can diced green chili peppers
1 (14.5 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes
1 C shredded carrots
2 cups shredded Cheddar, Colby Jack, or Mexican mix cheese

Directions
1- Sauté onion in 2 T butter until soft. Add 1 T olive oil and minced garlic. Sauté for 30 seconds then mix in the brown rice, salt, and broth in a pot, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 2 hours.
2- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a large casserole dish.
3- Season diced chicken with salt, cumin pd, chili pd, onion pd, and garlic pd. Heat 1-2 T olive oil or bacon grease or beef tallow in a large cast iron pan. Sauté half of the chicken until cooked through to 165 degrees. Move chicken to a bowl. Sauté the second half of the chicken in a little more oil until cooked through and add to the chicken bowl. Set aside.
4- Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Sauté zucchini, carrots, and mushrooms. Season it with cumin, chili powder, salt, and a dash of ground cayenne pepper. Cook and stir until zucchini is lightly browned.
5- In large bowl, mix the cooked rice and onion, chicken, zucchini, carrots, and mushrooms, beans, diced tomatoes, chilies, and 1 cup cheese. Transfer to the prepared casserole dish, and sprinkle with remaining cup of cheese.
6- Cover casserole loosely with foil and bake 30 minutes in oven. Uncover, and continue baking 10 minutes, or until bubbly and lightly browned.
7- Top with sour cream and cilantro.

Angelique's story telling contest video

http://youtu.be/wbmn0jv0EM
My Angelique was in a story telling contest and won her class competition. She told her story in a school assembly and gets to go on to the district competition. The above link with get you to the video on youtube.

sleep walking

A couple of weeks ago, my little 4 year old, whom shall remain nameless, came into my room at 10:30pm. I wasn't quite asleep, so I popped my head up and asked him what was wrong. He proceeded to pull "it" out and pee on my carpet! I quickly jumped up and took him to the toilet to finish. He peed on my bedroom carpet which is the only room in my house that has carpet, down the hall, on his pjs, on the bathroom floor and on the toilet. All we could do is laugh as we cleaned it all up. Funny kid!

Beau's preschool progress

Beau is progressing very well with his preschooling. Today he finished Book B of the Explode the code series and tomorrow wants to start Book C. Books A, B, and C cover the consonants and Book 1 covers the vowels and making the word families, cat, mat, sat, etc. It is clicking so much better with him than I expected. Also, today he pulled out the boggle Jr game and started making words. It was so cute. And also, the other day in the car, he yelled out, "It's 8!" I said,"What's 8?" He replied, "4 plus 4 equals 8!" How cute is that?!?! On his own, he is trying to add. He melts my heart!

Safia's award for student of the month in Citizenship

Today Safia was awarded a certificate for Student of the Month in the first grade class for Citizenship. We received a letter in the mail inviting us to go, but it was a surprise to her. She does very well in school and her teacher always tells me how much she enjoys having her in her class.

Stay-at-home / non-candy Halloween Party

Yesterday I went to Safia's classroom to help with her class Halloween party. Then I got to watch the students in the costume parade. I forgot my camera but Alyssa's dad was there and took the first three pictures at school. (1st picture: Safia, Mary Jane, and Alyssa.)

Last night was our stay-at-home / non-candy Halloween Party with my friend, Jennifer, and her kids. Their craft was spray painting milk jugs orange and making jack-o-lanterns out of them. I made 7 pizzas all on my homemade wheat crust. I made BBQ Beef, chicken and veggie, chicken/bacon ranch, pepperoni, Hawaiian, and 2 dessert pizzas. There were all fantastic! Then the older girls made award certificates for each of the kids for their costumes. Then we watched Captain America. We really like the Marvel movies and are looking forward to The Avengers!

Going to the Dance!

Jileigh went to the Halloween Saturday night dance. She took some fun pictures of herself and I thought they were cute!

Chicken pot pie

After weeks of my kids' begging, I finally spent the day making Chicken pot pie. As Matt was rolling out the pie dough, Angelique brought out one of her birthday presents, a little pie dish with mini kitchen utensils. She wanted to make her own with the leftover pie crust and some of the filling. So we let her, of course. It turned out fabulous!

Chicken Pot Pie

6 T butter
½ C flour
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
4 C chicken broth
1 C milk
½ tsp onion pd
¼ tsp garlic pd
4-6 oz Colby jack cheese
2 chicken breasts or ½ of a chicken cooked and shredded
1 lb mixed veggies steamed (carrots, peas, corn, green beans)
3-4 medium potatoes diced and cooked.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Melt butter, add flour and mix. Add chicken broth and milk and whisk until it thickens. Add seasonings and cheese. Stir until cheese melts. Add chicken, veggies and potatoes. Stir.
Have bottom pie crust ready in a 9 x 13 casserole dish and the top ready. Pour into bottom pie crust and cover with top. Seal bottom and top pie dough together.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until top crust has golden brown spots.