Ethnic Cooking

I love food from all over the world and I love to try and cook all different kinds of food too. Two helps to my cooking has been these cookbooks. For Chinese cooking I like Yan-kit's classic Chinese cookbook. Brent and Anna introduced me to it and it is fabulous. The recipes are great and they even show pictures of the ingredients that are more unusual to help you find them at the store.

The other cookbook is Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking. I love Indian food and this has given me some great recipes. I'll have to admit though that it's not the easiest to follow. It uses litres and grams instead of cups and pounds. So I always end up guesstimating exactly how much I am supposed to use. For that reason I have only tried a limited number of recipes in this book, but it sure is good food.

I have to tell you before you rush out to buy these cookbooks where my favorite place is to get cookbooks from is. The Library! I actually don't own my own copy of the Chinese cookbook yet (but that is soon to come). You can get lots of cookbooks at the library and then decide how much you really want to buy it instead of ending up with yet another cookbook in your cupboard that you only actually use two recipes out of. Lets hear it for the Library!

I think I might die

Current temperature=110

The AC in our van = Broken

Happy Fathers Day

John and Alan

This is my absolute most favorite picture of John. I think he is so incredibly handsome. It was taken just a few minutes after he became a Dad. John was incredibly handsome before we had kids (why do you think I married him), but in that moment that he became a Dad something changed. Suddenly no other man could light a candle compared to him. People magazine has it all wrong. This is the sexiest man on earth. And . . . he is an amazing father.

John Hyrum and Alan

John is the kind of Dad who tells great bedtime stories, teaches the kids to play go fish, and jumps on the trampoline with them even when it is 105 out. He is also a father who teaches them from the Scriptures, comforts them when they are sad and carries them back to bed when they are fast asleep after they have crawled in bed with us when they are scared.

John and Alan reading a book

So here is my tribute to my handsome husband and also the wonderful father that I have. To the man that made sure that we had Family Home Evening every week. The man that made sure our family took a vacation every year together. The man who told me every day that he loved me. I love you too Dad!

Me and My Dad!

Delectable

de·lec·ta·ble

–adjective
1. delightful; highly pleasing; enjoyable

I don't know where Hyrum learned the word but he really likes saying delectable while eating. Even if he doesn't really like the food he still loves to say "delectable!"

His other weird word that he has started saying is plastic. I suppose it is not too weird except for the context in which he uses it. If something doesn't go his way he says "aww, plastic!" just like others might say "darn" or other less pleasant words.

Come to think of it Hyrum isn't new to making up uses for words, or making up words for that matter. About a year ago Hyrum's favorite word was "Talmingo". What is talmingo, you might ask. Well we still aren't totally sure. I think it started when he was trying to say "Flamingo". But he liked saying it so much he started using it about 20 times a day. Driving in the car he would say "look, talmingo!" We would always look trying to figure out what a talmingo was. I think we were trying so hard to figure out what it was that he just started saying it to get a reaction out of us. We thought it was crazy at the time but the truth is. . . I kind of miss talmingo.

Crazy Kids and More

Alan told us last night that he didn't think his bed was very comfortable. He only thought that our bed was comfortable. "What a bummer!" I said "because you can't sleep in our bed." Apparently he meant it that he didn't like his bed because he put his blanket on the floor and decided to sleep there. Uh. . . did I mention that we have TILE floors! Ouch.

Also, here are some cute pictures of the kids helping Dad mow the lawn

Yes our grass is dead. I know.

Check out the bush with flowers in our yard. We have three of them and for the three years we have been in out house they have been nothing but ugly. Finally this year they decided to bloom beautiful flowers. I'm not sure what did it but it might be that I didn't water it for the ENTIRE winter and then finally 2 weeks ago I gave them a good soaking. It's like threatening the plants with death if they don't become beautiful. They took the hint and decided to bloom.

Very Blessed

When we moved into our house three years ago we knew that the school that it was in was terrible. I mean really terrible. The state graded it as a failing school. But it was a time where houses were selling in less than a day. We were lucky just to get a house in our price range. We felt (and still do) that we made the right choice with the house. In Arizona you can take your child to any school in the state if there is room in the school. I have spent 3 years researching schools trying to find the best one for Alan, and 3 years praying that Alan would be able to go to the right school, because unfortunately, there are no guarantees that there will be room in any of them.

In the end we applied for open enrollment at three nearby schools. At our first choice we were told that we wouldn’t know if there was room for him at the school until 2 weeks AFTER school started. The other schools we applied to were good schools, but we didn’t feel as good about them as we did John Jacobs. We know lots of families that have gone to John Jacobs and we have heard nothing but wonderful stuff from them about the school.

Well we found out a month ago that Alan was accepted to John Jacobs. What a relief. I was wondering if we were going to need to start him at one school and then switch him to another. This makes my summer a lot more relaxing.

The icing on the cake is that we just found out last week who his teacher will be. Every parent that I talked to have all recommended one particular teacher. Alan is in her class. 3 years of praying has paid off. I am feeling very blessed.

West Valley get's a Temple

I posted when it was first announced that there are two temples to be built in AZ. Not long after that they announced that another one will be built in Phoenix. Yea! We don't know exactly where it will be but the rumored areas are only about 15-20 min from out home. We are very excited, and it will be worth the 3 year wait to have it built!