Best “poo” I ever tasted ;)

One of my favorite holiday traditions (and favorite treats too) is making fudge with my mom and sister-in-law. You may think I’m just saying it, but I promise I’m not: my mom’s fudge is the best! It takes a long time (about an hour and a half) to make, and a whole lot of work, but man is the finished product worth it.

My mom was dismayed when she made a batch of fudge a couple weeks ago to discover her candy thermometer (which is about 25 years old, PSBTW) does not work properly anymore and would have to be retired. She bought a new one but hasn’t been brave or ambitious enough to try it out . . . until today.

While the rest of us played a rousing game of Aggravation (which my nephew and I won twice in a row –wahoo!), my mother stirred a batch of fudge together. As it got closer and closer to the point where it had to come out of the pan and be worked with our hands, we all ran over to the sink to wash our hands and butter them up so we could help out.

The new thermometer helped, but the fudge still didn’t quite turn out how we expected. It tastes fantastic but didn’t set up correctly. Sometimes that happens, even though my mom is ever so careful as she makes it. We’re going to leave it be for a few days and hope for the best.

The best part of the experience, however, was my darling two-year-old niece’s comment about the fudge as my mom finished stirring it on the plate. “Ewwwww!” she exclaimed. “That looks like poo!”

Yes, she’s my brother’s daughter all right.

She’s at the age where she says many things that are cute. I’d love to write about all of them, but that’s not the point of the post. But, gosh dang it, we all started laughing hysterically at this comment. We couldn’t help ourselves. And she isn’t necessarily wrong, although I can’t stand to even think about my mom’s delicious fudge being compared to something so yucky!

Here we are working it and hoping it turns out just right.

Just look at what a mess it left on our hands!

Trust me when I say it’s very much worth the effort we put into it. The finished product speaks for itself, even if the analogy leaves something to be desired. Ahh the honestly of children. You’ve got to love them.

Things that make you go mmmm

I just got back tonight from spending the weekend with three of my siblings and their families, which was fantastic! One of our favorite activities while we’re there is going to an ice cream place called Casper’s in Providence. I discovered it a few years ago when I made a market visit to Logan. We had to try it out, and now it’s a family favorite.

Since I’m mean like that, I’m going to show you pictures of exactly why this place is fabulous. How about some hard ice cream? And in a chilled glass no less?

A couple of the favorite treats:

Are you drooling yet? But, it’s really the company that makes this place as fabulous as it can be.

Finally, some kids may have skipped dinner, so after inhaling their ice cream, they ran across the street to grab some breadsticks to go with their ice cream. Salt with sweet is kind of a family thing.

Next time you’re in Logan, I highly recommend you stop by and try Casper’s because it’s great, just in case the pictures haven’t convinced you yet.

Thank heaven for little girls (and puppies too) :)

I must confess that I was really lazy the other day and instead of doing something productive that made the world around me a better place in some way, I sat and read my old blog posts for quite some time. In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit how long it was. But it did help me have an important realization.

One of my goals for this year was to be more grateful. Part of that goal was to write a thankful post at least once a week in gratitude for the many blessings I receive. Yeah, I have pretty much failed at that so far. But, the year isn’t over yet! I still have time to repent. I feel like I’ve been a little too negative of late anyway, so I’d like to write something more positive.

Today I’d like to express gratitude for my beautiful youngest niece, KK. She was sent to our family at a key moment when her mother was grieving the stillborn birth of her baby and just a short time before everything started happening with Ashley. My dear sister-in-law told me a short time ago that she believes part of KK’s mission in being sent here at this time was to bring comfort. Look at this little sweetheart.

In seeing her interactions with members of my family, including all my siblings, as well as my nieces and nephews, I must say I think that’s an accurate description of her. She is so sweet, hates to be dirty, is very good tempered and is so patient to let the bigger kids pack her around. She had the most fun in Yellowstone the night when she was running around with the big kids chasing her. So cute!

In addition, Ashley dearly loved her, even when she was so desperately sick and miserable. The baby truly brought her comfort, as she has all of us. She melts all of our hearts.

I had some very cute times with her while I was at home in Idaho last week. I’d like to share the pictures here. See, she was playing in the bird bath, but it’s just no fun to do it by yourself. So, she grabbed her sucker of an aunt and put her hands in the water so she could play too. And if that aunt took her hands out, well she put them right back in. I taught her to do a little dance and say “shake, shake, shake” to dry her hands off. It was really cute. She might’ve suckered a few of her cousins into playing in it too.

Here she is running around with the big kids in Yellowstone.

Not that darling little girls should be compared with dogs, but I love this little pooch too. A beagle named Dot, she’s definitely still a puppy, and I wasn’t sure at first that I liked her, but since I’ve seen what a great kid dog she is I’ve changed my mind. And she looks up at you with those big brown eyes and you just melt!

Believe me when I say I’m grateful for many, many more things. This is covering only two of them. Goodnight everyone!

Family is where it’s at

So once again it’s been far too long since I’ve posted in my blog. My only defense is that life happens, and mine seems to be happening a LOT of late, so I haven’t gotten around to writing as much as I’d like to. Hopefully it’ll be better now.

So the summer is more than halfway over now, which really kind of freaks me out. Time passes so quickly these days. It kind of scares me. In any case, I have had some fantastic experiences this summer. Many of them have centered on my wonderful family. I think I’ve mentioned in here before, but I just love them so much! My life would not be complete without them.

I think I would feel lost if I couldn’t call my mom or dad when my evening didn’t go as planned, and I was really upset about it. Or if I couldn’t call my sister just to shoot the breeze for an hour on a weekend night. Or if I didn’t have a close relationship with my brother so when he and my sister-in-law purchase a car online they feel comfortable coming to stay at my house and having me shuttle them to the airport.

But since I’m close to all my siblings, there are all things I can and will do. I love my siblings, and it’s always a joy for me to see them and be a part of their lives. I dearly love being the favorite aunt to their children too.

It’s funny how often one of us plans a trip to Mom and Dad’s for the weekend. And when another of us hears about it, we plan our own trip to come at the same time so we can see each other. This is especially true if we haven’t seen each other for awhile. We know space will be limited, and it will surely be a beehive of activity while we’re there, but that doesn’t stop us. We just go anyway and do our best to roll with it. Perhaps we even enjoy the chaos to a certain extent, even if we may not admit it.

My mom often tells me that she considers it one of her greatest accomplishments that her children love to be together. I’m glad too because I think I have some of the best siblings in the world. And I’d like to take it one step further and include my extended family. We don’t all get together very often, but, we enjoy seeing each other when we do. It was great to have our first family reunion in 11 years earlier this summer and to catch up on one another’s lives. Things have changed a lot in that time.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the family for your enjoyment.

It all starts at the top—my wonderful grandparents and my cute parents.

Here’s my siblings and their families

My adopted family

Others of my extended family

See, aren’t we a great looking bunch? We’re happy and we love each other, and really that’s what matters the most anyway.

Oh the joys of being 4!

Sometimes when you're an adorable four-year-old girl who looks like this (see picture below), life is just much more fun. For example, you can tell fibs and not only be honest about your lying but it's so cute that nobody can actually be mad at you. When you demand to talk to your aunt on the phone, she asks you how your school (meaning pre-school) is going. You tell her "I have to go back tomorrow. It sucks."

And your aunt replies, "But I thought you liked school."

You say, "Well, I'm actually lying. Sometimes I just lie."

But your aunt can't be mad at her cute little Bumblebee for such an innocent offense so she laughs instead, and when she jokingly relates the story to your mom, she just says, "Well at least she's honest about the fact that she's lying."

* As a disclaimer, I'm sure if this was something serious, simply shaking your head and saying it was so cute would not be what would actually transpire. Her daddy would never allow that because we know better, cute girl or not.

If you're four, you also don't have to go to bed in boring old pajamas. No sirree. Instead, you get to wear interesting things like a dance costume, a dress or even your swimming suit.

Oh the joys of being a four year old. :) We love our little Bumblebee.

And the Award for Worst Parent Goes to. . .

Generally speaking I try to be positive in my blog. I want my readers to have a happy, fun experience, but tonight I'm going to have a little rant, so bear with me.

I was in the store tonight just wandering around, when I happened to witness an interaction between these two ladies and their children. I'm not sure how long they'd been in the store, but it was immediately apparent that the children were bored. Two of them were playing chase around the clothes racks, another one was whining at his mother and kept asking when they got to go home.

I have nieces and nephews, and I've witnessed for myself what happens when you take them any kind of shopping but clothes shopping in particular. I didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary that the kids were behaving this way, and I wasn't appalled by their behavior. I was frustrated with the way their parents handled the situation.

It looked like the mother didn't want to bother with her whining child (I know whining children are hard to deal with but she kind of brought it on herself by taking her kids shopping in the first place) because she refused to answer anything related to when they'd be going home. She was harsh in everything she said and also kept telling him to get lost. When the little girl decided to try to entertain her brother (the whining child) by chasing him around, the mom got mad and again told the kids to get lost. They were begging to go to the toys (also a typical child request) and the mom refused to even acknowledge the request. The other lady kept saying "freakin'" every other word and then swore in front of the child, telling him/her (I can't remember which) not to remember that word because it was bad.

Through all of this, the two ladies continued to talk, refusing to do anything to deal with their bored children. Before I moved to a different section, I heard the mothers fairly shooing their children away, so they could continue shopping in peace and then acting like they'd taken care of the problem.

I am well aware that I am not a parent so I don't fully understand what it's like. And I know that taking children shopping can be a trying experience, to say the least. I also know that I'm too idealistic and don't have to deal with whiny children on a daily basis, so that influences what I think and feel.

But with everything going on with my niece, I have started looking at children and parenting in a different light. I couldn't help thinking how sorry these women would be if something happened to their children because they had pushed them away. I also couldn't help thinking these women should appreciate the time with their children because you never know when you could lose them. And if you're going to be a parent, you have to deal with all the annoying things your children will do because, well, they're children, which means they sometimes just do annoying things.

Okay, I'm stepping away from the soap box . . .