Snow Day/ Tamales

One great thing about living in Albuquerque is that it rarely snows here in town.  So when it does, they close the schools and call it a snow day.  You can imagine the jubilation at our house when there was an early morning phone call telling us that school would be cancelled for the day.

Since it was so cold, and everything we would normally have had on the schedule was cancelled, we decided it would be a perfect day to make Tamales.  Julianne had written down some instructions from mom, who learned from someone who really knew what she was doing.  So Jewels brought over the ingredients and we went for it.

First we made the red sauce: Here are the chilis boiling in some water with garlic cloves, allspice cloves, and whole cloves.  I would never have guessed those two spices would be included in a red chili sauce.

Julianne's husband, Eric was awesome and went to Pro Rancher's Market to get this special prepared Masa.  He got 16 lbs of it!!!  (Just for the record, if you go to get prepared Masa, you don't actually need that much, but we felt safe knowing that we definitely would not run out. :)  He also got us a bunch of corn husks.  

Here's Emma with darling little Caleb, because I know mom and all the sisters are probably wanting to see pictures of him.

So you take the the boiled chilis and blend them up.

Make sure the lid is on tight, or it will jump out and burn you.  

(sorry, Jewels, for posting this picture, but your expression really makes me laugh.)

Here's Julianne getting the lid on very tight. 

You strain the sauce to remove the skins and seeds.
(don't actually eat that stuff.)

Meanwhile, your corn husks are soaking in some water.

So then you take a nice big corn husk, and spread a thin layer of Masa on it.  Julianne had brought over some shredded pork that she'd cooked in the crockpot a day or two before. We added our pork directly to the red sauce, and spread some of it onto each layer of Masa.  The tricky part is wrapping up the corn husk.  We started out pretty amateur but got better by the end.

Then when you have a ba-jillion tamales assembled and wrapped, you put them into a gigantic steamer end-down, and squish them in there vertically.  You let them steam for two hours.

When they are done, you take them out and eat them, or bag them up to freeze them and eat them another day.  

Here I am holding up one of our beginning amateur tamales, and then a bigger, better one as a result of us perfecting our technique. (Well, perfect enough for three white girls, anyway.)

And here we are with our beautiful bags of Tamales.  That's only half of our finished product. We made about 50 pork tamales with red sauce and 30 chicken/green sauce tamales.  They take forever, but they are TASTY!!!  So all you Albuquerque friends, if we have some more snow days, and you're wondering what to do with all your spare time ;)  Give me a call, and we can make some tamales.

What a Birthday!

We celebrated Arthur's birthday this past weekend, and it really was a celebration all weekend long.  

Thursday night we left Emma with the kids and Arthur and I drove up to Farmington where we stayed the night en route to Durango Ski Resort.  We went skiing the next day and even though the snow was old, the weather was PERFECT, and the lines even better.  Purgatory is now one of my favorite ski resorts.  Fun terrain and great food--(the burrito we shared was about as big as my head, and I thought about my brother Reed when I saw it.  I know he'd appreciate a burrito that size, and could probably eat the whole thing himself!)  We had such a fun day!  I told Arthur that it was one of my favorite days that we've spent together.  We drove all the way back Friday night to find that the kids were in bed, and Emma had survived.  ;)  Thanks so much Emma!  (we forgot the camera, so no pictures . . .)

The next day, we had tickets to the sold-out BYU/UNM basketball game, thanks to the family who rents our other home.  He is an assistant coach for the Lobos, and since he knew we were BYU alumni, he asked us if we wanted some tickets.  He was able to get us 4 tickets, and what a great game!  Sad for us, since we didn't win, but it definitely kept us on our feet for most of the game.

Here is the back of the famous Jimmer Fredette--very fun to watch.

You are probably thinking how lame we were not to wear BYU apparel, but trust me, it's not because we were afraid of being the only blue in a sea of red (holy cow-I've never seen so much red!)  We weren't sure if we should wear blue & white since we got our tickets from a UNM coach.  (We should have made Emma a shirt that said, "Marry me, Jimmer!")  Despite our lack of BYU apparel, when BYU scored, we definitely stood up and cheered.  And it felt like we were the ONLY ones cheering when BYU scored.

Here's the score at half time, when we were still ahead.  

We were sad BYU didn't win, but it was still a GREAT game to watch, even if it got painful towards the end.

But the party wasn't over, because that night, we drowned our sorrows in Lettuce Wraps and a Great Wall of Chocolate at P.F. Changs.  We went with four other couples and had a super fun time  eating and talking and laughing.  When we got home, I couldn't believe how long we'd stayed!

By Sunday, Arthur had had so much fun, it basically overwhelmed him.  He was sick in bed all day.  He managed to make an appearance for his birthday dinner the next night, though, so that was good.  We had Jewels & Eric and their family over to share the cake and ice cream.

Daphne made this special present for her Dad, and wrapped it and decorated it all by herself.  She put a lot of work into it.  It was a book she'd written.  (she put it in an unnecessarily big box. :)

Happy Birthday, Arthur!  We love you!

January Update

1.  My sister Emma flew out when Mom came to help Julianne with her baby.  Emma is staying with us until the middle of March, and we are so grateful to have her here!

2.  I am in the middle of directing our Stake's Youth production of From Cumorah's Hill.  The count as of the first rehearsal was 180 in the choir and about 30 in the orchestra. (I'm sure that number has gone down a bit since.)   I'm excited and nervous and it occupies a part of my brain almost constantly.  A regular part of my prayers lately is that this will be an uplifting and unifying experience for the youth who are participating and pleading for help on my part in not only preparing the youth for the performance, but helping them internalize the words.   

3.  Here are some pictures of a day at the park on a beautiful day in January.  

I can't get enough of this little sweater and bonnet  

It was made for Sydney by one of the parents of a piano student of mine.

4.  When Mom was here helping Julianne's family, we went to the zoo one day.  Mom, Emma and I took Lilly, Sean, Hayden and Sydney, so Jewel's had some quiet time to rest with the baby.  It was pretty cold, so we did a lot of the indoor exhibits first.  We found a perfect sunny spot, sheltered from the wind, to enjoy our lunch.  It was a fun day!

5. Sydney is 7 months old now, weighs 16 1/2 lbs, and is awesome at sitting up.  She is also a pro at a special kind of crawl that looks like an inch worm.  I think maybe she'll end up being very good at swimming the butterfly stroke.  She loves to blow raspberries especially when it's very quiet during church.  We just love this girl!

Quotes of late

Mom:  Whoa, Hayden, let me get you a kleenex.  

Hayden: (sniff, sniff, sniff.)  It's okay mom.  I got it back inside.

On Christmas Eve, Daphne was sick with that yucky stomach flu that got most of us.  Daphne had a fever, and her body reacted with a strange rash all over her!   Daphne said, "Mom, I think I have that disease from when Jesus was on earth. Look, Mom, I'm a leopard!" (leper)

Dallin:  (regarding girls at school chasing and kissing boys) I had a very close escape, Mom.

Sean is our hungriest kid ever.  "I'm hungry" are the two most used words in his vocabulary.  He has a special talent for being hungry when he doesn't want to do something unpleasant (such as cleaning the playroom or going to bed).  Sean is always thinking about the next meal.  This was our conversation one night as I was tucking him in for bed.

Sean: What's for breakfast mom?  

Me:  I don't know.  How about pancakes?

Sean: Well, no.  They are too flappery.  Let's have waffles.

Hayden is in his terrible 3's.  One particularly rough day with lots of whining and destruction (including Sean's lego creations) I decided that boy needed a nap.  Sean was so relieved and said, "Yeah, he has to take a nap, forever! huh, mom?  He has to take a nap FOREVER."

Me: So do you get rewards for bringing your scriptures to primary every Sunday?

Dallin:  We don't get any treats.  The only thing we get for bringing our scriptures to church is a testimony.

At the dinner table:

Sean:  Do you have milk in your boobies, Mom?

Mom: nope, not anymore.

Daphne: I don't have boobies because mine haven't poofed out yet.


and while we're on body parts, enjoy this one:
In the car on the long drive home from California:
(regarding the next potty stop) 

Daphne:  Mom, I have to go bad! 

Sean:  Just hold your penis really hard 
I guess he forgot Daphne doesn't have one of those.

While I was changing Hayden's diaper, he said, "Thath's the motht bithguthting poop I ever theend."  

(That's the most disgusting poop I've ever seen.)  

And it was.

On new cousin Caleb:

Dallin's comment about his wrinkle-y little feet: "It looks they were in the revolutionary war."

Sean:  "I wish I could hold him thirteen times."

In the car--

Daphne:  When you get married, you have to wear a tie, and you have to get married to someone who is in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Sean, you could marry Ellie.

Sean:  Yeah!  I'm gonna marry Ellie.

Daphne:  But Ellie has to love you.

Sean:  Well, I love Ellie!

Daphne in dress up.  "I'm a Frenchkin princess."  (Took me a couple seconds to figure out what she was talking about, but here's what I concluded:  An American is from America and a Frenchkin is from France.)

Mom:  Dallin, can you pause your game for five minutes and clean that down-stairs bathroom?

Dallin:  But, Mom, we just started an AWESOME game!

Mom:  Maybe you could make it part of your game.  You could pretend that the evil empress made you clean the bathroom.

Dallin:  Mom, we're playing legos.  Legos don't clean bathrooms.

A conversation in the car:

Sean:  When I find a giant, Mom, I'm gonna kill him.

Mom:  Well, what if he's a nice giant?  How will you know if he's nice or bad?

Sean:  If a giant is bad he says, "Ha ha ha! (sinister laughter) I am bad!"

Mom:  I see.  

Sean:  But Mom, it's just pretend.  I'm just gonna shoot him with my water guns.  And he'll say, "huh?  I am getting wet!"


Dallin brought home a science worksheet this week.  The last question was
Would you like to have a lizard for a pet?  Explain.
Dallin wrote:  No because it would die within a week.

Sadly, that's probably true.  We don't have good luck with pets at our house.

A Letter Daphne wrote to us

Date: 1-11-11

Dear mom and dad,

You have ben so good to me.  I love you gise sooooo much.  You gise are the best. I hope I can do beter to obay you and do my chors for school.  I am so sory for the days we did not obay you mom and dad.  But I still love you so so so so much.  Mom thank you for haveing Sydny.  I am sooo happy that you had her.  Dad thank you for going to werc so we can get more muny so we can get the stuf that are family nedes to get.  I rily love you gise.  I love you rily rily much.

love,

your doter,

Daphne

When I grow up . . .

A recent dinner conversation:

Dallin:  When I grow up, I'm gonna be a scientist.

Sean:  When I grow up, I'm gonna have an axe.

Hayden: When I grow up, I"m gonna be a prithipal, or a caterpillar. (he's quoting an episode from The Simpson's that he's never seen.)

Emma:  When I grow up, I'm gonna be dead.

Dallin: You're already grown up.

Daphne:  Emma, when you grow up, you're gonna be a mom, like my mommy.  But you're not gonna be my mommy.  Just like my mommy.  I hope you don't die when you have a baby.

Emma:  me too.

a couple days later:

Hayden: When I grow up I'm gonna be a printhipal or a thquare.

Sean:  When I grow up, I'm gonna a "who-are-you?" or a Hammy-the-squirrel.

Hayden:  When I grow up, I'm gonna be a printhipal or the floor.  or the couch.  or clothes. or a toy.

Hayden:  When I grow up, I'll be a king, or FIRE

Hayden:  When I grow up, I'll be a . . 

Sean: a SHARK!

Hayden:  yeah, a Shark, like (chomping sounds) EATING SOMEONE!

oh, the possibilities!

Waited Long Enough

I've given Julianne and Eric more than a fair amount of time to be the first to post about the new addition to their family.  But enough is enough.  So, I will happily be the first in the blogger world to welcome Caleb Eric Anderson, born Wednesday, January 12th, 8 lbs 3 oz, 20.5 inches long.  Isn't he darling?

My kids are enjoying their new little cousin.