6th grade graduation

Sarah graduated from 6th grade last week, which Peter calls a "celebration of mediocrity." At least that was his excuse for playing with his itouch until I would jab him and say, "Get this one!" He was supposed to be manning the video camera while I did the still pictures. He completely missed them calling her name and her baby picture up on the overhead. Very annoying.


They sang a whole lot of songs, including "There Can Be Miracles" from Prince of Egypt, which kinda got me teary! This is the girl's number from Sarah's 6th grade program. Forgot the name of the musical--something Molly--and the boys did one from "Newsies." The last song, which is always a big production was "Footloose" and had kids doing flips down the aisles and girl/boy dancing which got the audience all hooting and howling. Peter and I had to stand through the whole hour and a half program because of a major lack of chairs. Plus we didn't get there an hour in advance.

The kids were SO glad to have this thing over with!!
And I think the teachers and parents weren't too sad either.

My new bird feeder

I hung a bird feeder over the front porch so we could see it out the living room window. It has been really cool and Peter took these pictures of them, which came out pretty good considering they were out of a window!



Silly birds keep getting stuck in the feeder when the birdseed runs out and they crawl through the holes. Then I have to go and rescue them by pulling them out the top.
This bird is looking at me like heh, are you going to do something about this or what?

Track 2010

Nathaniel finished track recently. He ended up with both jogging class and PE in the same semester and so with track practice after school he would run up to 5 miles a day on top of doing P90X in PE. I was very impressed that he did all of this and it has definitely created a more lean, even more ravenously hungry boy.

Almost looks like he is smiling here! The boys in front are fast. Some of these kids regularly run in triathlons and marathons. They are very competitive as you might imagine.

This last event was kind of left to those who stayed for the whole meet because by this time everyone is exhausted and just wants to go home. Needless to say the boys weren't going their fastest. The meets ran at least 3 hrs and the last one went all day. Peter and I took turns on that one.
He did well, scored some good points for his team and plans on doing it next year. I asked him if he was planning to try out for the high school track team (the Jr High goes through 9th grade, but you can run on the high school team if you qualify) and he said no. He wanted to be able to show up all those 7th and 8th graders. Oh Nathaniel. You kill me.

My first goaround with the Bosch

Kind of sad I didn't get to use this until yesterday, but with Peter gone this week it just didn't happen. The bread came out divine and quite light, and trust me I've made a lot of bricks so I think I can judge this with some authority.

Some people have been impressed that I actually grind the wheat. It isn't because I'm Molly Homemaker (though I try to be:) and really there are three reasons.

1) I actually get to use my wheat! We have always used our food storage in one way or another because it is easy to use beans, or sugar, or flour, but wheat? I just didn't fall in love with the smorgasbord of wheat delights we were able to sample at this Relief Society function I went to one time. Wheat cereal in my crockpot? Wheat chili? Wheat meat? Are you serious?
But bread is something we can all love and I'm kinda hard on my kids about eating whole wheat. Of course I didn't know about the difference between red and white hard wheat until I moved here, which would have been nice to know--I never would have bought so much red. I've also starting buying it in buckets instead of canning it and that has worked lots better too. I've almost gone through a whole bucket and this makes me more proud of myself than it probably should.
2) Grinding it fresh makes better bread I think. But grind it right before you use it.
3) It is SO much easier than I thought it would be. Sincerely and truly. I have a Whisper mill and love it. Works great and cleans up very easily.

Of course in here in Mormonland I have lots of neighbors who actually grind their wheat and make their own bread all the time, and have for years, which is probably what gave me the confidence to finally use my wheat grinder for the first time. I guess I thought it would be complicated and awkward to set up and take down. It's not. I promise.

The batch I made gave me 4 loaves, which is currently all I have pans for. Guess I should get more. Everyone has been devouring them and they are almost gone already. Even Mr. John picky man has been eating it all day. Very positive sign. Except that is all he will eat today.
And yesterday.
I'm wondering how this is going to affect the system...hmm.

Where all my tape goes

My Day after Mother's Day gift

Peter came home yesterday with this box.
Turns out he drove around for 3 hours on Saturday looking for it. Apparently he didn't understand that you couldn't just go into Target and buy one. Then by the time he found the Bosch distributor in Orem they were closed. Poor Peter! He's the man.


So here it is in all its glory. Oh the baking that I will be doing with this sweet thing. Peter said he was a little worried about getting me a domestic gift and I was like are you kidding? I'm way past that one. I'd have been thrilled out of my mind if he got me a vacuum cleaner. Not a mop though. No. Or a broom or some sort of cleaning agent.

He learned a lesson when we were engaged (for NINE months) and apart for a good part of that while he worked in CA and I was going to school in Idaho. I had my birthday and Peter sent me a cookbook. Remember in "Father of the Bride" when he gives her a blender? Picture that.
I love it when Steve Martin goes with the fiance to the bar and thinks he is going to be rid of him once and for all but ends up reassuring him instead. Then he goes in to talk to his daughter Annie suggests that her fiance he had no alternative motive. "He just thought you might like to blend something."


Peter asked me if now I will sell my Kitchen Aid. I said no, I didn't think so. Great for smaller stuff. But inferior. My friends and I have talked about how our husbands don't really grasp the difference between blender capacities/power/etc and why that is such a big deal to us, but I think it is probably just the same men and guns. I don't get why if Peter has a rifle he needs another one and then he explains to me how this one is different than that one.
I just look at him blankly and say, "Whatever. Fine by me."
Bonus points for Peter! Now I just need to find a moment to try it out because so far it has just been sitting there all lonely.

My Happy Mothers Day

This was a very nice Mother's Day for me. It was very relaxing and my family gave me presents:)

I came down this morning and Sarah had made this for the fridge. Very cute I thought.
Then Nathaniel played with the letters to spell things like "Bob is Mom."


Sarah gave me another window piece and told me how they planted them at school but they all looked dead because they didn't have any sunlight or water and she brought it home resurrected it.

We had the most fun with this card. When I opened it the Hallelujah chorus belts out really loud. John couldn't get over it and Peter kept coming up with new reasons to open it like, "Sarah is graduating from the 6th grade!" (open card) "Here's what we'll be doing on the first day we drop John off for kindergarten!" (open card) or "Look! Nathaniel took out the trash!" (open card.) Very entertaining. I got a puzzle of Leonardo DaVinci's "Last Supper" which is 2000 pieces. Oh dear.

Peter gave me this. Due to my woeful computer skills you'll have to read it sideways.



The point is that there is a gift coming for me in the mail tomorrow. Nobody was talking. I asked Nathaniel to give me a hint on the store they bought it from and he said it had doors. Have I already mentioned Nathaniel is like his dad and his mouth is like a vault? He will never divulge a secret. It's like they don't have the desire--I don't get it.
I'll update when I find out.