Melba Toast Diaries

2010-12-24T15:28:00.001-07:00

Digital scrapbooking design created with Smilebox

Ruby's Birthday

2010-03-27T15:00:00.006-06:00

Ruby turned 3 yesterday! Hard to believe our "baby" is growing up so much. Here are some pictures from our celebration.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T14:33:00.002-07:00

Merry Christmas Everyone! Hope you have a wonderful celebration!

Much love from all of us!

You Look Humongous!

2009-11-26T10:04:00.006-07:00

My brother Michael is getting married tomorrow. I have a lovely, light-blue satiny and very flowing dress that I was given to wear for the wedding. It's all one color, floor-length with a lot of flowing fabric, which I've discovered, for me, isn't the most flattering. When I tried it on a couple of days ago, Will (age 7) commented:

W: "You looker bigger than you really are in that dress".
C: "Oh really?"
W: "Yeah. In fact, YOU LOOK HUMONGOUS!"

Nice. Looking forward to wearing it tomorrow...

Back to school and Oprah!

2009-10-14T22:42:00.006-06:00

We are back to school and going full swing with homework and other activities. Anna spends all her free time studying (way too much) and yet is barely keeping up with all her AP and Honors courses. High school has definitely become too competitive! Mark started Jr. High and is busy with guitar, voice and piano lessons. Molly started 5th grade and still keeps busy with voice and violin lessons. Will started 2nd grade and is mostly busy doing somersaults across the couch (with a little bit of homework and violin on the side). Henry started half-day Kindergarten and is loving it! Ruby is busy unrolling the toilet paper and smashing food into the carpet.

I need a lesson in formatting these blog posts (anyone?) so that I can actually label the pictures-sheesh! We spent a week at Aspen Grove celebrating Brian's parents 50th Anniversary and I had a fabulous weekend in Chicago with my friend Anne. From top left: Anna playing an old fashioned game at Aspen Grove, Henry's first day of Kindergarten, Molly modeling an outfit that she sewed herself, , Ruby and Henry ready to swim, and me with friends at a taping of The Oprah Show.

Millie and Doodle

2009-08-28T12:53:00.013-06:00

We lost our sweet Doodle dog today. I wanted to pay tribute to these sweet friends that have been such a big part of our lives for the past 16 years. Oh how we have loved these dogs! Doodle joined our family the week after we got married, and Millie (our only native Vermonter) joined us 3 years later. Even though we lost Millie a year ago, these two were inseparable friends and I always think of them together. Our hearts are heavy for the loss of these 2 sweet and loyal beings. We will miss them so much. Goodbye sweetest hearts!

Millie August 24, 1996-December 12, 2007
Doodle March 10, 1993-August 28, 2009

2009-06-26T21:34:00.009-06:00

A quick glimpse of our summer...

Guitar recital

5th Birthday

BYU Fathers & Sons Basketball Camp

Dance recital

"Loving" the cat

Summer Theatre Camp

Anna is at Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan. She left last Sunday and will be there 'til July 11. We haven't heard from her, so we hope she is happy and busy playing her violin. We miss her!

May Insanity

2009-05-22T22:08:00.009-06:00

It's been a crazy busy month: 2 birthdays (Anna-15; Mark-12), TONS of school programs, dance recitals, piano recitals, violin recitals, guitar recitals, choir concerts, WHEW! May is like a whirlwind and I'm hoping to catch my breath soon. One more week...

Of course I forget to take my camera to at least half of the activities (I'm grateful just to get myself there), and apparently when I do take it, the pictures are often blurry as you can see from the one picture I have to post! Oh well.

Henry's graduation from "Little Leopard Preschool"

Anna got her "Learner's Permit" yesterday and actually drove on the road today! (After a fair bit of parking lot practice.) They have a new program in Utah: It's called "Parents teach their kids to drive BEFORE they take the Driver's Ed. class"! Seems all backwards to me.

Cruise to Mexico...or not

2009-05-10T11:22:00.010-06:00

The last week of April, I was scheduled to go on a cruise to Mexico with my friend, Paula, from law school. We happily set sail from San Diego, spent a day on Catalina Island and then headed for Mexico.

We had been watching the news and wondering if the H1N1 flu would affect our trip. In preparation, we stealthily stocked up on sanitizing wipes from the dispenser in front of the cruise ship restaurant, but alas as we set sail for Mexico, the CDC announced that US Citizens should avoid all "non-essential" travel to Mexico. What?! My planned shopping trip through the street vendors in Ensenada considered non-essential?! Alas, despite my pleas to the cruise ship Gods to let us off somewhere, we circled around the ocean for 2 days, stuck on the ship. Oh well. Lots of adventures involving food (lots of it), karaoke and dancing in bathrobes with Les (in the main dancing area no less-I can't even tell you how hard I laughed.) We met lots of nice people, including a prison chaplain assigned to our dinner table. All in all, it was pretty great, and much thanks to a fabulous husband who took 4 days off to stay home with the kids!

Help me win a new cargo bike

2009-04-23T08:50:00.003-06:00

Ok, I guess I'll make this an official post instead of just putting it on the side. A friend of mine designed the cool cargo bikes (pictured below). Salt Lake City is making an effort to get people to walk/bike more, drive less in an effort to help reduce the terrible air pollution problem we have here and this is Jared Madsen's answer to transportation to the grocery store, etc. Kinda fun to see what's out there anyway. Click on the banner if you want to help me win one of these.

Happy Birthday Ruby!

2009-03-26T18:05:00.003-06:00

Ruby is 2 today! Her favorite words are "yummy" and "cookie", usually in the same sentence. She is feisty and opinionated, but then when you are the sixth child, what other choice is there? She is unabashedly adored by us all. Here is a picture of our sweet girl on her day.

A night in the ER and Las Vegas

2009-03-20T09:23:00.017-06:00

The past couple of weeks have been a little crazy. Last Monday, I went to the ER with a high fever and severe abdominal pain. I had been really sick for about 24 hours before, and finally decided it wasn't just "the flu". I was fully expecting an emergency appendectomy as everyone thought it was appendicitis, but 6 hours and $4000 later, they could find no apparent cause. Nevertheless, those experiences are always a little traumatic. I'm happy to say that I am feeling better now. The cause of the illness is still a mystery...

This week Brian and I spent two days in Las Vegas where Brian had a conference. It was the first time I have left the kids since 1998! We saw the show "Jersey Boys" (which was great), ate lots of good food, stayed in a beautiful hotel (The Palazzo) and overall had a wonderful time. Thanks to my mom who stayed with our kids (and made it a lot more fun than if we were home)! Here are some pics from the flower display at The Bellagio Hotel. Pretty amazing. All the displays are made from real flowers.

On Wednesday, Mark and his class put on Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" musical. Mark played Major General Stanley and sang several solos, one of which is pretty famous:
"I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral..."

OK, maybe you had to be there, but they did a great job and it was a lot of fun and great to see Mark having a fantastic time. If he had his way, he would be performing in plays year-round.

2009-03-06T08:48:00.005-07:00

Will at Aspen Grove

Split Pea & Sweet Potato Soup

2009-03-01T13:51:00.011-07:00

I found this recipe on the Whole Foods website, made it today and it was super delicious - so I have to share. Tip #1: the onions cooked in garam masala and cumin are delicious by themselves (dare I admit how many I ate before adding the remainder to the soup?!) and I not usually an onion fan, but these are great. Tip #2: I thought the peas were a little too mushy the first time I made this, so the second time I didn't soak the peas overnight and they stayed intact, which we liked better.

Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 cup yellow split peas
1 quart vegetable broth
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch slices
7 whole green cardamom pods
1 to 2 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter) or canola oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground cumin
Lemon juice
Cayenne pepper
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Method

Soak the peas in water to cover overnight. Drain and rinse.

Bring vegetable broth to a boil in a medium pot. Add soaked peas, sweet potato slices and cardamom pods. Reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Simmer for 30-60 min. (Depending on how soft you like the peas and sweet potatoes.)

Heat ghee in a skillet over medium heat. Add onions, garam masala and cumin and cook for 10 minutes, stirring often. When sweet potatoes and peas are tender, add the spiced onions to the pot. Stir and cook 5 minutes more. Remove cardamom pods and season the soup with lemon, cayenne, salt, and pepper to taste.

Nutrition

Per serving (About 13oz/374g-wt.): 190 calories (60 from fat), 7g total fat, 3.5g saturated fat, 6g protein, 27g total carbohydrate (7g dietary fiber, 8g sugar), 10mg cholesterol, 660mg sodium

Leaf raking....in the spring???

2009-03-01T11:22:00.015-07:00

We try to have the kids do jobs every Saturday morning and here is a picture of yesterday's activity. You are probably wondering why in the world we are raking leaves in February?! (In case you were wondering, we wish that we weren't.) We live on a street with trees that have a record number of leaves (Sycamore, so they NEVER decompose.) In the fall, you can't even see the asphalt on the street because it is covered with leaves. It seems like we rake them a dozen times, but then the snow comes and there are still mounds of leaves on the grass, in the driveway, in the bushes, everywhere! So, when the snow begins to thaw, we have to rake again. We didn't get them all yesterday, but on this street it is almost a year-round activity. Sigh. We have resigned ourselves to this. (Although I have to admit that at some point when we move to a new house, I will definitely be looking at the type of trees planted nearby.) I shouldn't complain, as it does make for a picturesque setting in the summer.

And a picture of Ruby and then Will dressed up as a knight after the leaf raking. I just can't resist these sweet pictures...

Infirmity

2009-02-08T10:47:00.007-07:00

We've been sick for the last week or so. Ruby was very sick and throwing up for 6 days. It put quite a crimp in our potty training routine. I haven't been able to even get her to sit on the potty since. Oh well. Then Brian, Mark and Molly followed suit. (Being sick, not potty training:) Delightful. Brian actually stayed home from work for the first time I can remember since he hurt his back in 2000. (Of course, he did have his laptop so that he could work from home.) By some miracle, 4 of us escaped without getting sick at all - very rare!

On a brighter note, Molly wanted me to do something fun with her hair this morning and this is what we came up with:

Polish Dance

2009-01-26T21:56:00.004-07:00

If you can ignore the dim lighting and bad video quality, here's a little clip of Anna playing a fun song at her violin lesson tonight: Severn's Polish Dance

Basement remodeling

2009-01-24T17:23:00.018-07:00

We have known since we moved into this house 4 years ago, that something was wrong with the floor in the basement. We have also wondered why we have been sick so much since we moved here. We checked carbon monoxide, mold, etc. etc. to no avail. Finally we decided that we needed to deal with the basement floor.

The previous owner had installed a radiant heating system on top of a wood floor (in case you're wondering, no, it's not supposed to be done that way). We could tell that part of the floor was wet, but were astonished at the amount of water as we pulled the floor up. Initially we thought that we could just replace part of the floor, but as we began to rip part of the floor up, it became clear that the damage was much more extensive. The floor boards were wet, rotting and full of mold and had obviously been that way for many years. (Ah, so nice to know that we have been breathing in mold spores for the past 4.5 years!) So we decided that we would also need to tear out the radiant heat piping and all of the wood floor above it. When we got that done, we realized that the mold had extended into the walls and even the insulation.

After we got the floor and the walls torn out, it rained one day and water began pouring into the house through the crack in between the old and the new foundation! There were even tree roots coming through the gaps! (See pics. 3 &4.) After we fixed that, but fortunately before we installed new walls, it rained again and the floor was full of water again! What in the world?!?!?!! Long story short, after Brian sawed through much of the wood framing at the base of the room, we realized that the entire foundation cement was allowing water in through the wall. So frustrating! Turns out that the cement had not been mixed properly when they poured it and was like a honeycomb letting water into the house. Lovely. They tried to seal it and now we are crossing our fingers that it will stay dry.

This week as we were trying to arrange the furniture, water began to pour out of one of the ceiling light fixtures. Mark and I hammered out 4 feet of ceiling and after calling a plumber we learned that the pipes used had a manufacturing defect and were recalled years ago and even the subject of a class action lawsuit. Unbelievable! The money pit house adventure continues...

Inversion Alert

2009-01-22T09:26:00.009-07:00

We are in the middle of a terrible inversion right now. The air quality in Northern Utah is the worst in the country (by a wide margin)! It's very unhealthy, especially for kids. There are signs above the freeways with warnings about the air quality and requests to limit driving. Of course that would be a little more practical if government offices and schools would actually close down and tell us all to stay home, but oh no, we couldn't possibly do that. It's much more important to learn cursive today than to be able to breathe clean air! One can actually see the haze when one walks outside. I've been trying not to breathe as much as usual, but it's not really working:) There is an eerie feeling when driving at night because it's so hard to see. It reminds me of the images I had of foggy London nights while reading about Jack the Ripper. Lovely. I'm trying to remember why it was that we decided to move to Utah?!?!?!? Oh yeah, that annoying need for a job...

I'm sitting here typing with one hand while my other hand pushes redial on my phone. I'm trying to get tickets to a taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show. No luck so far. Actually, someone from the Oprah staff did actually call my friend a couple of weeks ago with the offer of tickets to a taping, but Brian couldn't take that particular day off. Aaugh!!! Not that going to Chicago in the winter would be my first choice, but I need an excuse for a vacation.

Diet Sabotage...

2009-01-21T16:37:00.009-07:00

A couple of days ago I was cooking this...

when Mark decided to make this...

Well, you can guess which was the more popular dish...
Needless to say, the caramels didn't really help my diet out any either. But they did taste good:)

FYI: The Potato Cream Cheese Soup above was delicious! I made it with veggie bouillon and veggie bacon and even the kids loved it. The recipe can be found here: http://annemarie-tastebuds.blogspot.com/

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

We're potty training, so this is what I get to see all day:

I may never put pants on her again...

6 year old art work

2009-01-16T09:10:00.006-07:00

Will brought this work home from school yesterday. Pretty nice cursive and drawing for a 6 year old, if I do say so myself. So fun to watch them learning and growing up.

Biggest Loser contest

2009-01-09T15:55:00.004-07:00

So, I'm starting a new diet today. Oops, supposed to say "lifestyle change". Whatever. The act of losing weight is hopefully not a lifestyle change. I don't want to starve myself forever! For me, once I get the weight off, I can usually keep it off. Then again, I am getting older.... My previous excuse for gaining weight was always another pregnancy. Since I definitely don't plan on any more of those, this weight loss will of course be easy to keep off! My friend, Mary, invited me to join a "Biggest Loser" contest with her. I must admit that I had to think long and hard about whether or not to do it, since part of the entry is to send shocking pictures of one's body via email to some unknown person across the country with the possibility that, if one wins the contest, these very same pictures will be blasted out to all of the other participants and then who knows where else. They are "out there" forever. I tried to think of all the possible ways around revealing my identity (does my face really have to be in the pictures?), but in the end I just blasted them away, never to be recovered. Now that I think about it, what possessed me to give my REAL name?! Dang! What was I thinking?!!! And I could have worn one of those D.I wigs.... Obviously I should have given this a little more thought before blindly exposing myself in the hopes of some new weight loss motivation.

Speaking of weight loss, I just ran across another blog with a very nice little life lesson blurb about accepting your body the way it is. I can't figure out how to make a link without the actual web address (Mary, help!), so here it is if you want to look it up: http://wordtoyourmother-mindi.blogspot.com/ (Look for the post entitled "Size 20 and loving it".)

And just in case you were wondering.. NO, the aforementioned pictures will not be posted here!

The Ponytail Club

2009-01-02T22:26:00.005-07:00

It's official - Ruby has a ponytail. I put Ruby's hair in her first ponytail last week. Isn't there something special about a girl's first ponytail? Mother bliss... You're part of the club, now she's part of the club. Welcome to the Ponytail Club Ruby!

A new blog!

2008-11-02T10:09:00.000-07:00

Wow. After months (maybe years?) of thinking it would be great to start a blog, I finally did it! So, here it is. Still working on the layout, etc., but here we go...