downs, dumplings, dinosaurs

 The first weekend in February the girls insisted on dumplings to celebrate Chinese New Year,

and bread bowls and clam chowder on Superbowl Sunday.

 Sophie's preschool class went on field trip to the BYU Paleontology museum.

 Grant tried  to be brave around the T-Rex.

festiggiando

Festiggiando is one of my favorite words in Italian and my new word for the act of participating in local customs, or celebrating local holidays that the participant knows nothing about.  Festiggiando is one of the side effects of State Department life and it has persisted, even as we've return to normal life, as evidenced at our house in February.

We were happy to spend time in the kitchen with Aunt Courtney. She and the little cousins joined us for Super Bowl soup and bread bowls. This is her amazing cheese and broccoli soup.

As it turned out, Bethany and I were the only ones interested in the game, inspired by our east coast- west coast rivalry. Although Bethany should know, no true Mainer should be loyal to any team from south of Boston. She is obviously confused...our fault for moving her from Augusta.  Bethany mentioned half way through the half time show that her friends probably weren't allowed to watch it. I was too busy with my face two inches from the t.v. screen, jaw dropped in awe. I am praying to come back in the next life as Beyonce.

 The next weekend we took a trip down to my favorite Asian market on the corner of Fifth west and Center in downtown Provo.  It was unusually crowded with other howlies like us getting ready for Chinese New Year.

Caitlin is a native Hong Kong ren.

Sam chased Sophie around the store with a frozen fish.

 She was terrified.

Sunday evening I fried up the frozen dumplings. The girls ate them happily, but informed me that Dad fries them better than I do.  I agreed and decided not to take a picture.

February was a busy month for other reasons.  Bethany took part in the school spelling bee for the third year in a row. 

Olivia presented her Curious Cub project on violins to her class.

 Ben took part in the high school performance of  Shakespeare's As You Like It. Here we are in the post play hubbub.

january 2012

It's the last day of  February and I am still feeling irresponsible for January.  So just a few phrases to help me remember the experiences I am grateful for.  One beautiful Wednesday--Kathy's wedding at the Provo temple.

Chinese New Year..missed the drums though.

Annie's spanikopita recipe with Grandma Martha.

An afternoon with my son and his dream camera...well he dreams even bigger than that.

Mother daughter day with Caitlin at BYU.

Missed the dragons too, but the dresses came out.

Bethany, Olivia, and friends at the school science fair.

The hundreth day.

One or two days of snowmen.

"The prince is dead." Sam said it much better than that in "A Winter's Tale" at the high school. He made me cry.

The invention convention.

inside the hawthorn

God gave ten children to a disorganized, wanna-be artistic type with unfinished plans. So Sunday morning was like most, fifteen minutes after the meeting started I was still at home, trying to drag myself out of my daydream state into an entirely different stupor of eight unstockinged feet. I was surrounded by stockings too tight, stockings too dirty, stockings too holed, stockings too flowered. Too bad for our punctuality, we still needed fifteen minutes to load into the van, and another thirty to commute into town to the office building where we hold church in Beijing.

At least I'm fun when I'm not being mean. See the pizzas we made Friday night? I just had to turn into a monster to convince the kids to help me clean up after the guests left. Then I felt like a terrible parent, well, because I was acting like one, and I thought..."Man, I need a degree in adolescent psychology."

This is what I do love about being a mom, going to school and watching them grow into their own people.

Here's Olivia reading The Three Little Pigs, as Retold by Olivia to a kindergarten class.

Friday was the ISB Temple Fair, the school's finally final Chinese New Year celebration of the year. All the elementary school kids perform in a dance with their Chinese class.

It was my third year to attend the ISB Temple Fair, and my third year to sit at just the right angle to get bad pictures of my kids. I'll have to give this one to Hunter's mom. See Kyle way in the back?

What happens after three years? You eat to the inside of the candied hawthorn. I used to call that a rotten apple. Mary ate three sticks, which proves she's part Chinese.

Kyle ate two of these egg pancakes.

It was Mary and Olivia's third year to listen to this old man sing out a dramatic narration while they peeked into the little windows to watch the paper puppets dance inside.

Saturday's picture...Kyle's first day of Dribbling Dragons basketball.

I did say ten children. Here is a bit of news for anyone who diligently endured to end of this extra-long post. We are expecting number ten. I always wanted to have a Fourth of July baby. No luck this year, so how about September Eleventh? I've never had a baby born on his or her due date. But if this one is, we can plan some fun costume themes for his or her birthday, like ...dress as your favorite rescue hero.

And for those of you concerned about my health, mostly mental, or just wondering when that gray haired lady is going to stop having kids, we are planning this to be our last batch. I told Rob I felt like we had three more, a boy and two girls, but they all needed to come in one more pregnancy, or they would have to join the family in the here-after or as grandchildren. God, in his wisdom, did not give me triplets. We've already had an ultrasound to determine that. More on that later in another post...adventures in Chinese obstetrics, companion post to (with or without Rob's permission) adventures at the Chinese urologist. That may be one you want to miss!

In the meantime, March 8th was another snowy Monday.

Caitlin's word to the wise "Better not wear flip-flops today."

And Grant said, "Hey, what happened' the sidewalk?"