Little Cooks in the Kitchen

Since the flood we have had many people sacrifice to make our load lighter, but there probably hasn’t been anyone that has sacrificed more on a daily basis than my sister, Jenny. Here are the “Top Ten” Reasons that she has been a model of self-sacrifice in the last month:

1.  While Ricky and I sleep in her bed, in the master bedroom, this is where she’s sleeping. On the floor in her office/storage for her wedding stuff room.

2.  Yeah…so…um…apparently Jenny’s dog Sadie umm freaks out if the doors are shut when a thunderstorm comes. She tried to “dig” into the master bedroom (because I shut the door before we left the house) because a storm came and no one was home. Yeah. I’m just having Jenny add that bill to my tab…

3.  That is not only alot of our possessions. It’s also where she used to park.

4.  Her mantle was neat, with one picture, 2 candles and the big flowers on the left before we moved in. Now our 4 candles, our PBJ Creations art, kid’s “art” and Garrett’s class picture among other things are cluttering it up.

5.  Hmm. How do I explain this and not look like we’re messy slobs. Umm…we always take off our shoes and leave them in the entry way (she doesn’t. Because she’s neat.) As I took the picture I thought about neatly straightening them up to make myself look better, but hey, that wouldn’t be authentic!

6.  Since I’m being authentic. I’m a bit of a coffee snob. So…this is our (awesome) coffee maker and grinder. Her’s is under the sink. There’s nothing else I can say about this picture without sounding like a total prima donna (if I don’t already. :))

7. Her bonus room has turned into my kid’s dressing room.

8.  In case you can’t figure out what that is…it’s pink glitter nail polish on Jenny’s BLACK chair. Ahem. I have no idea which little girl in the house named Gracie did that, but when I get to the bottem of it….

9.  This cabinet used to have all grown up glasses in it. In fact all the sippy cups and other kid cups had been washed and put up in this cabinet, by Jenny, before I even knew we had brought them to her house.

10. The dog food goes in the bowl on the right. My youngest child has some facination with the food and water bowl. The food and water are never where they are supposed to be anymore.

These are just a few pictures. I could have added about 20 more.  There are a few I’m too emberassed to put up here. Like one of the master bedroom, where we’re staying. It is a DISASTER and I’m not THAT authentic! And there are things that pictures can’t even capture. Like the many hours she spent helping us clean up the house. Like the times she’s watched the kids so we can take care of things. Like the fact she’s in the late planning stages of her wedding in August. She should be only focused on that and have plenty of time to be spending alone time with Tom (her fiancee), but she has company all the time.

What makes Jenny so special is that she never complains. She never acts like she wants us to go home. Even though the house stays a mess, the carpet and door trim is ruined upstairs. I mean, I want us to go home. I’m tired of us. I appreciate her sacrifice more than I can ever begin to express through words.

I told someone today that I thought this might have been one of (definitely not the, but one of) the best weeks of my life. That statement even surprised me when it came out. A week ago today, we were wondering what kind of shape our house was in, if it was damaged, if we’d be able to salvage it and whether we’d ever be able to live in it again. Today…those thoughts seem. well, rather silly.

God has continued to send the right people at the right time. I could give you 100 examples. But I won’t because I would never stop. I could start thanking the hundreds of people. Yes. Hundreds. That have helped us, but I don’t want to leave anyone out.

Here are the highlights from my week: God is faithful. Community is priceless. I really like my neighbors. Well…most of them. I love my family and as long as we have each other, everything else…is just stuff. Oh! And my husband…is sexy.

As many of you know, last Sunday, our house was flooded, along with many others in Nashville. We are still a little shell-shocked. Our house has been gutted thanks to so much help from so many people. We got it worse than some, but are in much better shape than some. I would upload photos, but for some reason, I can’t get the photo card to read - which is not good b/c all the photo documentation is on there.

We got into a canoe. In our driveway. We had about 30 minutes to prepare. That was more than some people had. No one expected the water to rise as fast as it did. Ricky and Tom (my sister’s fiance) and Garrett. Yes. My sweet, brave and dimply-cute Garrett carried almost everything we had on the floor upstairs. Garrett even slipped (the floor was incredibly slick) and fell and just kept going. He was like a little man. So…all of our clothes are fine. Our books and toys…fine. Almost all that was left was furniture and they even stacked alot of that up on top of other furniture.

Before I go any further, you should know. My brain stops working in a crisis. Once I was downtown when a tornado came through and did major damage to the building I worked in and they evacuated us and I giggled the whole time. Yes. Totally inappropriate. So…I got the job of packing a little clothing. Um. So for myself, I packed pjs and a weeks worth of underwear and 3 pairs of shoes. ???? Gracie and Griffin ended up with no shoes packed for them. Ricky…I don’t know what got packed for him. It was crazy. I was probably in there for 20 minutes but in my mind it seems like I only had 2 minutes. I just kept wandering aimlessly around the house.

Garrett and Gracie went out first. Gracie sat our our friend and neighbor Robby and Garrett sat in the bottom of the canoe by himself. I came out after they had dropped them off with Griffin in my lap. I was terrified, so I can’t imagine how the kids felt. The current was river-like. Did I mention that I got into a canoe. That was floating. In my DRIVEWAY? Anyway, we went to my sister’s house that is around the corner and up on a hill, along with 4 or so other families. We had no electricity, cell or phone service. It was crazy.

On Monday, we just waited for the water to go down. We finally got into the house about 2 and when we first went in, it didn’t look so bad. I thought, wow, we’ll only have to replace the floor. There was an area meeting at 4 and I went to that while Ricky cleaned up. We’d dropped Garrett and Gracie off at Garrett’s friend Alex’s house - whose family has been a God-send to us. Griffin was…I don’t remember who was with Griffin at my sister’s house, maybe Tom. Anyway, after talking to and listening to some people there, I knew we had to come home and start getting stuff torn up. I had gotten a message from my sister-in-law that Ricky’s family had all these generators, box fans and a dehumidifier. I have to admit, I really thought at the time they were over-reacting. They were JUMPING on taking action before we even know we needed it. I am so grateful that they didn’t wait for us or we would have been MUCH further behind where we are.

God blessed us by sending the right people at perfect times who either knew exactly what to do or were willing to have someone tell them. We had over 25 people there between 5 and midnight and they moved all of our furniture to our covered deck, tore out all the floor and padding, pulled up all the baseboards, took down door jams, took out closet systems and one of the bathroom cabinets, tore out the drywall up to the 4ft mark and cut out all the wet insulation. I have never, in my life see so much work being done so fast. Everyone was in great spirits and seemed to be enjoying it. Especially three of the teenage boys that were there that were having TOO much fun beating up my drywall. They worked at warp speed.

The next day we sent some of the crew that showed up to help us, down to our neighbors, Danny and Katrina. Their house was flooded up to about 5 ft (ours was about 1 ft). Danny pulled me and Griffin out of the water. While he could see his house going deeper and deeper under. He wasn’t trying to salvage stuff, he was rescuing people. With a smaller, but very dedicated crew, they finished pulling all the cabinets - kitchen and bathroom out (they’re gone - we couldn’t salvage them), the small amount of drywall and insulation, took out all the insulation under our house and under the bay windows, took our shower out and cleaned up so we can spray it all today with an anti-microbial, anti-fungal solution.

Our house is a shell from 4 ft down. But I have Never. Felt. So. Much. Love. In. That. House. God has blessed us in immeasurable ways and will no doubt, continue to do so. I hope to let you know about many of the miracles we’ve seen later - besides just getting out when we had NO idea it was going to get that bad. I will go ahead and share one. I forgot to move our wedding album that was under our bed, so everything got moved up, except what was hiding under our bed. It was the only thing I was worried about, because it can’t be replaced. The photographer has destroyed the negatives. When Ricky and I went into the house, I went straight to the bedroom to see if it had made it. I pulled out a box that was still dripping with water and literally disintegrated when I lifted the top. I started crying and looked at Ricky and said “we lost them”. When I peeled the top off and lifted our album up. I was dry. DRY. UNHARMED. In pre-flood condition.

Everyone has been asking how you can help. First, Please stand in the gap for us. Pray for us and all the people of Nashville that are going through the same thing EVERY time you think of us. Stand in the gap and fight for us. As far as physical/material possessions, I’m going to make a list when I can. Here are some things I know we’ve lost:
All our pots and pans
Bakeware
Pampered Chef baking stones
Breadmaker
Sound machine

There are alot of things we don’t know about yet; lawnmower, appliances, hot water heater. Our air conditioning unit won’t work so we’re going to get them to come look at it. We’re going to need a lot of building materials: drywall, insulation, cabinets, paint. So if you have a connection… I hate doing this, but have been advised to do so. What we need most right now is financial. We have food, clothing, a place to stay but we (and most flood victims) are not covered by insurance, so we’ll be doing all of this on our own. FEMA is coming in but we’ve been informed they’ll be offering us loans, not grants. I don’t know that is a fact and am hoping it’s not right, but I’m not holding my breath.  I’m trying not to get discouraged by the expenses we’re about to face and I know God will supply all of our needs.

Thank you. Everyone. We owe a debt of gratitude we can never repay.

Dear Griffin,

You turned 2 today. It’s amazing how much you have changed since the last time I wrote you a birthday letter. You are walking, finally. You scooted around on your bottom until you were 17 months old. We thought you’d never walk, but when you did, you were ready to go! You are growing so big! You’ve started talking. Your favorite things to say are “ball” and “Daddy”. You also point out every truck you see and yell out a word that doesn’t quite sound like truck. You have also become quite opinionated and pretty vocal when you don’t get your way. You are starting to show some stubbornness.

You still love to go outside. You also can not get enough of sports. You will stop what you’re doing if sports come on tv and watch it. You like to play with baseballs, basketballs and footballs. You can throw the ball really well for a toddler. When you throw the football, you throw it where you you want it to go and you throw it with a spiral. You can also shoot the basketball and get it into the hoop. Tonight you went to sleep with your new baseball that Aunt Jenny and Tom gave you. You are already a sports fanatic!

You are a pretty serious little guy but you have one of the best laughs I’ve ever heard. When I hear you laugh, it instantly makes me happy. You are pretty independent. You rarely offer hugs and kisses, but you are so sweet. You have a great smile. You absolutely adore your Daddy. You prefer him over everyone else. That quality is something we have in common.

We moved you to a toddler bed several months ago and you have done great in it. You really like the freedom. You like sharing a room with your big brother, Garrett too. There are many nights that the two of you lay in there talking and giggling with each other when you’re supposed to be sleeping.

You continue to bring so much fun and laughter to our family. We are so blessed that God gave you to us. We love you more than words could ever express. Happy 2nd Birthday!

Love,
Mommy

I’ve spent the last week and a half trying to bake a good loaf of bread. I am a bit of a perfectionist. I want a healthy, whole wheat loaf that I can enjoy plain or make a sandwich with.  That means crumbly loaves while they might taste good, are out. After 5 loaves of bread (4 of which are now in the compost bin) I got an acceptable loaf.  In the process, I scrapped my original recipe that I spent months perfecting last year, and used my friend Larissa’s recipe. I did make a few very minor adjustments, so here is the recipe I used:

2 1/2 Tablespoon of Oil or butter (Grape seed oil is a good oil to use)
1/4 Cup of Honey ( I used just a little less than the full 1/4 cup)
1 1/2 Cup water (warm)
1 1/4 cup whole grain flour
2 1/2 teaspoon yeast

Put oil and honey in a bowl, pour in the warm water, pour in the flour, mix well, then mix in the yeast. (Cover and let sit and become foamy for about 25 minutes). I do the entire mixing and resting process in my bread maker. I mix the ingredients above (sometimes I use a fork to break it up a little more), close the lid and let it sit.

Then add:
3 Tablespoon Gluten
2 teaspoon Sea Salt
Mix well, cover, and let sit for 45 minutes - the mixture will actually rise while it sits (again, I let it sit in the bread maker)

Then add:

About 2 3/4 - 3 Cups more of the whole grain flour (this amount will vary for different baking environments), and knead for 5 minutes. The dough will come clean off the sides, and after 5-6 minutes of kneading, it will be ready for you to roll into a loaf with your hands, and put it in a well oiled bread pan and let rise about 45 minutes.

When it’s summer, it will rise faster. The best way in my house to get it to rise well is to put a 4 cup glass measuring cup full of water in the microwave and heat it until it’s boiling and then put the loaf pan in there WITH the measuring cup full of water still in the back corner of the microwave.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bake for 34 minutes. (This time will vary a little for different ovens.) I also lay a piece of aluminum foil over my bread to keep it from getting too brown on top.

Here are some other tidbits of bread info:

• I get my whole wheat flour from Great Harvest (because I don’t have a grain grinder). They grind it fresh every day and you can buy it for $1/lb. Once you use freshly ground flour - you’ll never use bagged flour again. It tastes SO much better and it’s more nutritious.
• I will sometimes use plain (unbleached - b/c really…do you want Clorox in your bread?) bread flour for the first 1 1/4 cup of flour to “lighten” it up a little. Like tomorrow, when I take it to my Mom’s Bible Study as part of snacks. It’s not as healthy, but whole wheat bread is very dense. If whole wheat is too dense, you could start half and half and work your way to whole wheat.
• If you don’t have grape seed oil or have no idea, why you would buy such a thing, you can use any oil. I used Canola today because that’s all I have, though it’s not my preference.
• Freshly ground whole wheat flour breaks down really easily so you will probably have a hard time getting a good loaf out of a bread machine because a bread machine cycle will mix for about 30 minutes and you usually need to mix it 6 minutes or less. I do have some friends that use the bagged whole wheat flour from the grocery store (like King Arthur’s or Hodgson Mill) and they do the whole thing in a bread maker with no problems.

Well, there you go! Enjoy!

I keep intending to write regular blog posts and well…life gets in the way. However in the last week, I’ve come to my blog and checked my own archives for information twice. Yes…I’ve checked my blog for information on my own life.  Seriously. My brain is still not back to normal. And that really makes me want to keep up to date so if I need to know something in a year or two, I can check back.

So…here’s what’s going on around here:

• Garrett has lost 2 teeth. His two middle bottom teeth. And the permanent ones have already broken the skin. He’s doing great in kindergarten. He loves school. He’s reading really well and is always a bundle of information. He doesn’t miss much. We’re working on helping him control his emotions. He tends to explode at the slightest thing. So we scream back at him calmly explain that he needs to calm down and then he screams louder everything is fine. Honestly, it is getting better. We’ve instituted the system they use at school that lets them know where they stand based off of what color is on their card and that seems to be working really well. He is wonderful everywhere but home and his teachers think he’s near perfect, so the worst consequence for him is that we’ll call his teachers and tell them what is going on. That is the only consequence that gets his attention. I guess he likes his teachers. Good thing I do too!
• Gracie is a mess. She is so ready for summer, she dresses herself every morning in shorts, sundresses or a bathing suit. Even when it’s snowing outside. She is afraid to go #2 on the potty so she won’t even try and just holds it when I try to make encourage her. She can however, change her own diapers. I know…don’t even get me started. She loves to sing and dance and she LOVES princeses. She wants to be a princess when she grows up. When she’s not wearing summer clothes, she’s wearing a princess dress.
• Griffin is going to be an athlete. He is always carrying around a football. He throws it. With a spiral. He also shoots it into the basketball goal and hits it with a bat if you toss it to him. He loves to watch football and basketball on tv. One day he left the toy dept. at Target to go watch football on the tvs. Seriously. He is a cutie. He looks alot like Garrett did, except he has blue eyes.

That’s such a brief, shortened update. I could go on and on, which I’m sure is no surprise to the 4 of you that still read this blog, but, it’s time to go pick up Garrett from school!

My husband, while a wonderful man, likes to laugh at people when they get hurt. I know. It’s terrible. However, after spending 8 years in his family, I think it might be genetic. I’ve seen grown men laugh at boys that have suffered an accident in a back yard game. Of course, we women in the family never even utter a chuckle.

Anyway, it stands to reason that the love of my life would love America’s Funniest Videos, or AFV as my kids call it. He has also passed on that love to my children. Instead of recording episodes of some cute educational cartoons on our vhs tape, we record AFV. And they want to watch it.

All.

The.

Time.

They usually watch it with Ricky every night and I haven’t sat down and watched it with them, so imagine my surprise when Gracie and Griffin started walking around saying something that sounded something like, “Ow, my wienie hurts.” Yes. You read that correctly. Wienie. When I asked Gracie where they’d heard that, she said, “AFV”.

Humf. Great. All my work, censoring their tv, and that slips by. Let’s just hope that one doesn’t slip out at an inopportune moment.

Eight years ago…I did this:

Besides the day I accepted Christ as my Saviour, February 9, 2002 was the most important day of my life. I walked down the aisle and made a promise to the man that God had set apart for me. I promised to love him, be faithful to him and be committed to being the wife he deserves and needs. I make mistakes every day, but those promises are never far from my thoughts.

We were watching a home video we took of our first trip after our honeymoon. We went to Glacier National Park in Montana. It was a great trip. The one thing we kept noticing was how happy we were. How much we smiled. Seriously, I was smiling so much, I got on my nerves! I was so excited about life. I had the best life in the entire world and it showed, on my face.

My smile, is not quite as evident on my face (because, let’s be honest. My face would hurt all the time if I smiled that much.) My joy, though, is still shining in my heart. I am so excited about my life.  I believe my husband is the most amazing man in the world and that God has blessed our marriage and our family immeasurably.

Ricky, you are exactly the man I knew you were on that day, 8 years ago. You are kind, loving, fun, consistent and exciting. You bring me sanity, so many days. You are ALWAYS on my side. You let me know I’m important and that you treasure me. We make a great team. (ok, so maybe we’re not very good at playing spades as a team, but we dominate in Sequence together.) You make me feel beautiful, although I know you have to notice the extra weight I need to lose. You do what you can to make things easier for me, whether it’s getting the kids ready for church on Sundays or doing baths and bedtime so I can clean up the kitchen. Nothing goes un-noticed. You are beyond what I could have expected and I love you more every day. I am so proud of you and so glad that I get to call you mine. I love you.

Oh - and you’re hot!

Happy 8th Anniversary Ricky!

…And it allows us to snap photos like this:

And this:

And this:

Oh, and I can’t forget this one:

We’ve never had a camera that takes the picture so fast. I can’t believe how much easier it is to get a good shot!

Garrett lost his first tooth on Sunday, which should have been exciting for him, but I think it was a little, ahem, traumatic. He was eating a Honey Butter Ritz - his new favorite snack, and one of mine too since I got the box for 35¢ at Publix, but…this is not about my ability to find a good deal. Anyway, he was eating a Ritz and realized his tooth was not there and his mouth hurt. He came frantically running in our room, crying hysterically. I thought he looked like he was losing his marbles, but Ricky figured out what had happened. The tooth came out when he chomped down on his cracker. And…he swallowed it.

So, all that to say, if we do start a “Lost Tooth Collection”, we’ll be missing his first tooth. Unless…well…we’ll be missing his first tooth. Check out our snaggle-tooth.

Also complicating the situation, was that the um, Tooth Fairy, was snowed in and Mr. Tooth Fairy (Ricky will kill me for calling him that) completely threw his back out, thus leaving us both unable to get anything to go with the 2 dollar bills we had to give Garrett. Luckily, Aunt Jenny came to the Tooth Fairy’s rescue and dropped off a pack of Trident. Here is what Garrett got from the Tooth Fairy:

Maybe next time, we’ll be better prepared. And we’ll end up with the tooth.