sand(wich)s of time...

 in which I ramble about sandwiches with no apparent purpose, although the original purpose was just that I was thinking about sandwiches and thought I'd journal about it a little for posterity.  Then waxed bragadocious and then even acted like I know more than you.  Also it's the middle of the night.

I love sandwiches.  When Spencer and I first began dating, he asked me what my favorite food was, and almost broke up with me when I answered "sandwiches".  He didn't understand.  And I didn't understand what there is to not understand.  And in time we ate eachother's versions of sandwiches and we understood.

An interesting bit of trivia: in spite of the fact that I can pretty much spell anything, and loooove sandwiches, I spell it wrong 99% of the time.  (sandwhich)  Now you know.

I've often been told I make the best sandwiches.  I hate to brag, but, uh, yeah...I'm kind of a big deal.

Along with my dream of being a rockstar, I've always dreamed of opening a cute little sandwich shop.  Seriously.  Ask anybody who's known me for a long time.  They will probably know this.

For years I refused to eat Subway Sandwiches because those so-called "artists" built the dang thing backwards (who puts mayonnaise on the MEAT!?!)  and didn't have spinach. 

Sometimes I reeeeeeeeally miss Utah, because the smoked-turkey-salad-on-home-made-wheat-with-cranberry-sauce-avocado-and-sprouts from Hickory Kist was heavenly...I can still taste it.

And sometimes I miss San Francisco because at Boudin's Bakery the most lovely of sour dough sandwiches could be procured...oh! just the thought!

In Chicago I mostly made my sandwiches at home (being super poor and often pregnant/postnatal).  So my Chicago food-pinings are mostly for cake-shakes and plantain nachos.  Moving on...

Anyway, are you wondering why  my sandwiches are so much better than a boring (pardon the language), run-a-the-mill wonder-bread-balogna thing you are picturing?

I think I just have the special touch.  But here are some tips for you without that touch:

Don't use cake in bread's clothing.  White bread isn't bread.  Use something with substance.  REAL, 100% WHOLE WHEAT.  Or Rye, or something real like that.  No cakes.

Lubricate that.  No dry bread.  How's your sandwich going to stick together without it?  You may as well build a bicycle without screws, nuts, bolts or whatever you use to keep it together.... hmmm, that analogy was really good in my head, before it had words.  But I mean it.  If you are scared of making it fattening--man up.  You only have one life to live.  Quit eating junk food and eat sandwiches that make you happy.  And then junk food, if you so desire.

This sad sandwich just found out that he's not really wheat after all...

Meat goes on one slice of bread, cheese on the other.  No vegetables should be touching the bread.  You do want it saucy, you DON'T want it soggy.

Go big or go lame.  If it's a peanut butter sandwich, put peanut butter on both slices, then plenty of honey or jam.  If it's a lunch meat sandwich, pile the ingredients on.  pleeease don't put on a slice of pressed processed turkey, a slice of cheese, and call it a sandwich.  Put some crunchy stuff on, some sweet stuff, some savory stuff, some juicy stuff, and put a lot on.

And as a final tip, here are some ingredients besides your typical meat/cheese/tomato/pickle to consider:

-spinach spinach spinach
-arugula
-kale (btw, I was a kale-lover way before it was cool.  just sayin'.)
-leftovers (potatoes, hashbrowns, fajita filling, side dishes of all kinds....)
-marinara sauce
-poppy seed dressing
-cottage cheese
-pine nuts
-shredded brussel sprouts
-wheat germ
-cranberry sauce (like the best sandwich topping ever)
-fried egg (really good on a bagel sandwich)


So there are some ideas you may not have come up with on your own.  Now, go make yourself a new kind of sandwich.  You can thank me later.

The Family That Rocks Together, Rocks Together

Last Saturday, I had the biggest surprise of my life.  Wait--second to Layla.  Spencer and I were on a day-date, which I had planned.  We were going to go out to eat when Spencer realized he had forgotten the coupon for the restaurant.  We had to turn around and drive back home after being out and about for about 45 minutes.  So I sneakily ducked in through the front door, ready to dart in, grab the coupon, and get out before the kids saw me, and....

SURPRISE!!!  50 friends filled my house, in costume, ready to rock. 

Wha?!?  What are they even here to celebrate!?!  I was laughing my head off, totally shocked, and seriously confused.  Plus grateful that I'd spent all day cleaning my house.

"Happy half birthday!!!"  They yelled.  It's my half birthday?  And people showed up to celebrate it?  In full-on dress-up fashion?!? What have I done to deserve this?

It was some unquestionable awesomeness.  My soul was rocked in a serious way by how great they are. 

Spencer explained that since I was so sick when my 29th birthday had come along that we didn't get to celebrate it in any exciting fashion, and since my next birthday I'll be 30 and hence, old and boring, this was our chance. 

Seriously, thank you so much.  Thank you husband who knows my heart (surprise party + dress-ups + rockband = yes, please).  Thank you to friends who have my back (Tara, who was prepared to pack a costume for me, or clean my house if needed, Jill who spent a lot of time on my cakes, Amanda, who did pics, and all those who dressed up to make the party really rock.  And Michelle, who wore blue eyeshadow :)  ).

A couple of families had already left by the time we took this picture, but here's a pretty good group shot.  Everybody was worried that my neighbor would think we were weird.  I should probably start worrying about things like that...

---------------

In other news, if you are wondering what normal things we've been up to, I can't help you.  this is the collection of photos that were waiting until today to be downloaded from camera to computer:

Dan and Spencer took Cadence and Gavin to see Star Wars 3D a few weeks ago.  Tara and I put these costumes together in under and hour.  And the kids put the attitude into them the whole night.

The beautiful people pictured below threw a murder-mystery dinner one night and I have to say, I think they started a trend.  I sense more of these to come.  It was so fun!!!

And Spencer and these fun friends performed "Am I a Man or a Muppet" (if you haven't heard the song from the new muppet movie, go watch it on youtube.  it's niiiiiice.)  It.Was.Amazing.    and that skin suit has been mistaken for skin.  it's a suit, people!!!   This was a highlight in our ward history, as was the entire night.  You should have see us ladies forget that we are now mild-mannered, responsible adults without personalities when "footloose" and "loveshack" came on.  That dance-floor has NEVER seen the moves we were throwin' at it.  Surely not at the youth dances.  It was a memorable night, to put it lightly.

I feel a bad moon rising...

something weird happened tonight.  So weird I don't know how to process it.

Dinner.  dinner was so unusually successful tonight.  Well.  It was an hour late.  and Spencer wasn't even home (scouts) so you would expect this to be the beginning of a story of food-tragedy and madhouse-ness.  No.  no.  The kids were smiling, and speaking politely.

 Campbell only spilled her drink once. 

And the weirdest part was that they ATE. 

 Not one word (!) was uttered in complaint against the unfairness of having to eat the worst food on the planet. 

 No veggies were hidden under plates in a most obvious of fashions.  Carrots, peppers, peas, hummus, all happily ingested.

 Are you feeling freaked out yet?  Because this is not just exceptionally rare. 

It has NEVER happened before. 

 The home-made noodles were too wide and conspicuously wheat. 

The sauce was a little burned. 

 But rather than hearing "mom, you make the grossest food of all moms!"  I heard, "You are the best mom.  in the world.  no, the best PERSON!"  and "I'll never forget you, mom!"

Yes, it was an incredible night.  As in, I still can't believe it. 

And now I just have to sit and wait for the Universe to do something unexpectedly bad to return to balance.  It's the only thing that makes sense.

waiting..... waiting.... waiting....

(pictures are unrelated but cute.)

Are you asking for a CHALLENGE!?!

Oh, strongbad...

------------------------
So, I've decided this year to do a 30-day challenge every month.  It's fun.  wanna try?

The month of January was the financial Ramadan, and by that I mean that the challenge was to spend NO money (except the absolute necessities: food, limited gas, bills).  It was harder than I thought it was going to be. 

I chose this challenge for a few reasons:
-there are only so many ways I can contribute to the family finances.
-I thought it would be a good reminder to me of how easy it is to slip into a habit of spendiocity (yes, I did.)
-I wanted to get a good idea of my wants vs. needs spending.

I have to say it was harder than I thought.  By a lot!  I did fail a few times, like the week I had all my kids home with Strep throat and didn't have much by way of crafting supplies stocked up.  So I jumped the gun on a craft-closet revamp I'd been planning.

And we might of gone on a few more dates than was neccessary last month, but Spencer paid for those :)

But groceries, that is where I excelled.  I wrote out a detailed menu plan, wrote shopping lists for those, and stood my grounds on my list.  NO IMPULSE BUYS!  And that felt good.

So in the end, did it benefit me?  Well, yes, even though I failed a little here and there and I hated it most of the time, I'm really glad I did it. 

It DID open my eyes to how my spending habits have gotten more lax than they need to be.  It did make me grateful that we are no longer starving students.  It did get me in the habit of menu planning and it did get me out of the habit of impulse buys.

It did NOT get me new boots.  It did NOT get me new red pencil pants (although February is a new month!).  It did NOT get me the new photos and frames I wanted.

But I think it was worth it.  A good reminder of what things are worth waiting for, how spendiocious I'd become, and all that good stuff. 

So yeah, it was worth it. :)

and February's challenge...bum bum bum....get up and at 'em before the kids 6 days a week. 

This is a particulary hard one for me.  I sleep better in the morning so Spencer has been doing the morning shift.  But I know my day will go more smoothly if I start earlier.  So here goes.  I've been doing it since Thursday and so far have been really grateful for this challenge.  But we'll see what happens when the kids keep me up all hours of the night.

because I'm a good mom

 I want to nap.  And/or go eat raw cookie dough.  Or plan a big project that I'm not going to start soon. 

But, it's Sunday afternoon, I'm fasting, my brain is strangely "on" (in spite of my body being slumped over), so I'm going to blog.  It's for fun.

Did you know Campbell got stitches?  Probably, since "you" is probably one of 3 people who are also my facebook friends.  Let's say "you" is posterity instead.

The week before Christmas, a lovely but slow Sunday afternoon, Spencer headed off to do hometeaching.  The girls and I planned on playing together until Daddy came home and then we would go to the Christmas open house at the Chandler's.

Because I'm a cool mom, I let them jump on the beds.  You know, why not?  It's not like anybody ever got seriously maimed from jumping on soft mattresses.  I went downstairs for who-knows-what-reason and was followed by Cadence, leaving Campbell and Layla in the bedroom. 

That cry.  It's the unmistakeable "something is REALLY wrong" cry.  You know it when you hear it.  and I heard it.  I ran to the staircase and there was Campbell at the top, hand on her head.  I saw the blood pouring down her face only seconds later.  At that moment, Layla and Cadence also noticed the blood, and you should have seen their faces.  Shock, horror.  I ran up and put her on the sink to take a look.  The sisters were wigging out so I put Cadence in charge of keeping Layla out of my face--as soon as Cadence had a job to do, she had her wits back.  Campbell was staying pretty calm.  Or I should say, was easily calmed.  After rinsing a little to see what was going on I could see a big gash in her head.  I carried her down stairs to find my phone.  I took a picture of it to send to Spencer's mom to ask if she needed stitches.  As soon as I saw the picture I realized, uh, yeah, no question.  So I called Spencer, he came back, along with the sister he home teaches, Gail, so we could go together.  And we were off to the urgent care clinic.  

"Campbell, what happened?"
"I was jumping to the bed and Way-yah (Layla) got in my way."  She fell between the two beds and smacked her head on the wooden bedframe.  Hard.

She was very brave for her stitches.  The doctor was good with her and I held her while Spencer distracted her/took pictures/looked on curiously.

Then we went to the party. 

Sigh.  Campbell, you are going to cost us much in medical bills, aren't you?
----------------------------------------

Campbell.... that kid.  She is too much sometimes!  Like how every time she goes "#2" she runs out of the bathroom and yells, "Mom, come see my poop!"  And then she drags me in there, with instructions to "cwose wew eyes---SEE!?!"  Only then will she flush.

the other day this happened and as she grabbed my hand to lead me to her poop, I noticed they were moist.  "Campbell!  You washed, I'm so proud of you!"  This was greeted with a guilty look and so I watched her for a few minutes.  I left the bathroom as she flushed and then watched her walk out licking her hands--big, comprehensive licks.  "Campbell, what are you doing!?!" 

"Washing my hands."

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

------------------------------------------

So my other kids are hilarious, too.  But she's just at that age.  Let's see...

Cadence gave a talk in primary today about Noah's ark.  What she had rehearsed was almost exactly what the first speaker said!  She got up and without help from us, she gave her talk.  She was timid and slow, but didn't stop to ask for help.  She forgot the end but instead of stammering she just gave her own little ending and sat down.  I was really proud of her!

Layla is crazy.  She loves to do whatever her sisters are doing.  She is exactly like spencer in every way.  So excitable! 

Okay, I'm tired.  that's all I've got at the moment.  Really good post, I know.

New Year's Eve--wha!?!

*because blogger is taking ffffffffffffffffffffffforever to upload pictures, I'm posting as is and not spending any more time on making ths one make sense.  I need to move on....

We had the distinguished honor this New Year's Eve to attend the wedding of our friend Adam, and his beautiful bride Stephanie.  They decided to just go all the way out and throw the party of the year, since they were getting married on such a party-day.  And they did.

I myself have never been to a wedding so schmancy.  it was two full days of events.  And they treated all their guests like royalty.  Wow!

Oh, and Spencer was asked to prepare a toast for the groom, which he did, which shocked the socks off the poor bride's family, and might have all but ruined it for some of them.... but I don't like to talk about that much.  I will add that at least 40% of the attendees were laughing their heads off and came up to him afterwards to tell him it was awesome.   Oh, Spencer...

After the wedding we were only about 5 hours from Chicago so we decided to go crash Cliff and Gina's place, which was a really really good idea, if I do say so myself :)

We had so much fun and the kids just loove eachother.  Thank you to them for being such wonderful hosts.

Can Christmas Please Post Itself?

Wow, it's like my body instictually knows it is now the year in which it turns 30 (and therefore: old) because all the sudden 9 o'clock hits and I'm in a dream world, just dying to climb into bed!  and this is my new excuse for becoming a negligent blogger.

But seriously, folks... Christmas was wonderful!  I tried really hard this year to have a good balance of checking off the "things that make it Christmas" list as well as the ever elusive "slow down and enjoy the reason for the season" thing.  I have to say it made for quite a wonderful time!

Here are the pictures, with captions and probably more of my ramblings interspersed:

made gingerbread houses (graham cracker houses) and used all the candy we had on hand instead of the traditional stuff.  nobody complained.

Layla looked like this the whole time.  "CANDY!!! TWEATS!!  AAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!"

Spencer's (above), Campbell's (below)



Cadence's, above.  I love how it looks like a stable. 



The Angel and Mary with Baby Jesus, waiting to begin our traditional "Shepherd's Dinner" on Christmas Eve.

One present before bed, Pajamas from Mamaw and Gramps.

You know you did something right when the presents they are hooked on enough to ignore all the pretty wrappings cost you 4 dollars.  (our oooold laptop and a "grocery store" we got a a garage sale).

traditional Christmas morning breakfast: pannettone, hot chocolate, and eggs.

SANTA CAME!!

How did Santa know that watch is just what I wanted?!?  I guess he got the link I sent him.

Santa spent a good amount of time in the dark, cold middle of the night setting up this huge tent from Mamaw and Gramps. 

just thought this was adorable.  Enjoying the beautiful, spring-y Christmas day together.

Had lunch with the Flemings and the Hanbergs and the missionaries, followed by the cutest little nativity reenactment you've ever seen.  during rehearsals, Mary and Joseph (Cadence and Gavin) were seen travelling by donkey (Gavin's new bike) to Bethlehem.

I always get really homesick on Christmas, so to battle that, I typically invite as many people over as I can.  This was our spread.  I have to say it was pretty awesome food.  So fun to spend Christmas evening with my adorable family and some really beloved friends.

I decided to do New Year's Eve separately because I have too many pictures, and blogger takes about a year to download them.  So that will be next.