100 Things

I keep reading these things, and decided it would be fun to start one. So here goes...

1. I love to sing in the car. In fact that is half the enjoyment of traveling anywhere.
2. Spring is my favorite season. Not at the begining when it is still cold, but when it gets to close to 80 degrees.
3. I love daylight savings.
4. I think out loud.
5. I often think I must look like an idiot when I'm walking by myself outside and talking out loud to myself.
6. I, unlike many of you, (from what I've read), LOVE food.
7. I just decided that I am going to morph this list with that couple one that has been going around.
8. I sleep on the side of the bed that is closest to the door. (I thought that question was interesting.)
9. I think I like to sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door because I want an easy escape route if criminals come to my house or if I need to help one of my kids durring the night.
10. I like to watch lightning storms off of my parent's deck in the summer.
11. I'm not good at hiding my emotions.
12. I wish that I was good at hiding my emotions.
13. I love to read!!!
14. When I read a book, I become obsessed with it, and cannot put it down. I literally read it for hours and hours and hours.
15. When this happens, my poor children fend for themselves.
16. I admit that I mostly love romance, fantasy novels.
17. As long as it has a good clean romance in it though, I am there.
18. Why is it so hard to find those??
19. Because of this I am writing a novel.
20. It's probably dumb.
21. I wish it wasn't. ;)
22. I love fairytales turned into novels.
23. Okay enough about my reading habits.
24. I love to scrapbook.
25. I am messy by nature.
26. I sometimes use my being "creative" as an excuse for it.
27. When I am sick, I proclaim over and over, "I'm sick."
28. Just as I think out loud, I deal with emotions outloud to trusted individuals.
29. I can be opinionated, but hate contention, so I may not always share my opinion.
30. I have strong opinions, but on the otherhand (depending on what it is)my opinion can be somewhat easily changed.
31. When I feel empassioned about a subject I go on rants to trusted people, for long periods of time. Poor them.
32. When on a rant, I am compulsed to anaylize all of the options and points of view there are.
33. It is really good that I don't rant to everyone, because later I often find out that I was wrong and my emotions were unfounded.
34. I am a worrier and therefore make plans for future problems that worry me. The sad part is that .01% of these problems ever occur.
35. I often like to cheat on quizes and questionaires that don't matter. (Such as this one :) But then I have to say "But I cheated." to make it all okay. (I DO NOT cheat when I am playing games or in school. Just wanted to make sure I said that.)
36. I cheated on the questionaire by breaking up one big thing into small things. There I said it. I cheated.
37. I love a lot of different songs, from different people, and in different styles. If I don't really love it, I don't listen to it or turn it on.
38. I like to take pictures of my kids.
39. I don't really like pictures of me.
40. I love Nathan.
41. Nate says that that should have been higher on the list.
42. I agree.
43. Actually, while we're splitting hairs, I should have put that I love God, the gospel, and Jesus Christ as number one.
44. I like dry climates.
45. I love it when it rains in the desert, and then it smells good, but I don't like to get wet, so I stay inside while it raining.
46. I am not a great swimmer, but I do LOVE to swim.
47. Going back to that rant thing, on a similar note, when I am anaylizing everything, I often wish my brain would shut up and stop thinking.
48. I have a very strong adversion to Gumby and other puppet toon type shows. (Sorry to disappoint you Dad.)
49. I am serious. Gumby effects my inner state of peace. He gives me the hibbie jibbies. Probably because the characters are weird and look weird, the music is weird, and their adventures are weird.
50. I love my kids. (again should have been higher.)
51. I like to sleep.
52. I do not like to fold laundry.
53. When I actually do the laundry I do it in a couple of large loads to survive on for a week. Don't worry, we DO wear clean clothes.
54. I would like to think that I am funny.
56. I love amusement parks.
57. I love tourist traps, but not when they are too crowded.
58. I love nature, but on my terms.
59. I don't like to brush my teeth. Don't worry, I do it anyway.
60. I hate sneezing. Nothing is so agrivating as having your nose force you to sneeze when you are in the middle of a thought, or doing something important.
61. I am not a great speller, and I don't think that I will fix my spelling mistakes on this post. Sorry.
62. I am learning to sew.
63. Someday soon I will finally get to trying out my bread machine.
64. I always want to be at peace with everyone.
65. I want to go to Hawaii. I wish that Nate did.
66. We are planning to go to Guatemala again. And to England. Someday.
67. I can't wait until Nate is done with school.
68. I am a poor salesman.
69. I am the boss of Nathan, but Ellie is the boss of both of us.
70. I have a hard time saying no.
71. The colors I wear have to be matching. It even bugs me if my pajamas aren't matching.
72. My kids clothes have to match too.
73. I've learned to mostly overlook Nathan's clothes when they mismatch.
74. I love lappy. (Lappy is our laptop.)
75. I still like to watch cartoons every once in a while.
76. I love clean romantic movies. Why are those so hard to find too?
77. I would say that for this reason I am staring in my own clean romance, but I am a horrible actress.
78. I love blogging
79. I love looking at other people's blogs
80. I like to clean with wet wipes. I wish everything could be cleaned with wetwipes.
81. If in time of crisis and water not available, I am not wasting my water on bathing. I am going to survive longer by drinking it. I am going to mostly use wet-wipes to wash. (I own that I will have to use water to wash at one point or another.) Wetwipes are easier to store than water.
82. I think that this plan is brilliant. No one else seems to think it is. (And don't worry in real life I shower very often.)
83. I have a small flower garden on my deck that is mostly living. (actually now, after writing this, it is dying. I'm going to get a couple of new flowers tomorrow. I highly recomend Miracle Grow's Organic potting soil. The flowers that got that soil are acutally hanging on....by a thread.)
84. I have become more friendly and open since moving away to law school. When I go back home for visits, I revert to my shy and seemingly aloof self. This has been driving me nuts.
85. I am very indecisive. It goes back to over anaylizing things.
86. I like to call my mom and sister. They are really the only people I chat with on the phone. Everyone else I mostly, msn, email, or talk with in person.
87. I pay the bills.
88. Nate had to propose to me twice. I loved him, I just wasn't as ready to answer the question as I thought I was the first time.
89. My being indecisive is the only thing about me that drives Nate nuts. It drives him nuts. Especially when I ask his opinion, and he tells me, and then I say, well what about this option, or that option, or that one.
90. Nate is really kind to like me so much.
91. I am VERY ticklish.
92. I hunt and gather rye chips from those snack pretel mixes.
93. Milk and water are my favorite beverages (we go through 4 or 5 gallons a week with only 3 milk drinkers)
94. I am excellent at air hockey (I scored points with Nate when we were dating by beating him).
95. Rap is not music.
96. I have 96 pairs of flip-flops (not Quite that many).
97. I love shopping. Getting a great deal gives me a shopper's high. I learned this from Cheryl.
98. I love home decor. I have intrest in interior design.
99. I don't love to be in close contact with animals. I like animals, I just don't want to have any.
100. I like to go on walks.
101. I quote at least one of my favorite movies every day. It doesn't happen on purpose, it is just something I tend to do. (I figure that I can add on a few extra to the end, because "as I said before, you may recall," I cheated.)--that quote was from Emperor's New Groove.
102. I thought Nate was a famer the first time I saw him. Cut me some slack, he was wearing a plaid, flannel shirt to school. Who does that? I was half right. He is from Hurricane. A place I love very much.
103. Some day I want to live in Toqerville, Utah.

Strangitude (new and improved for your viewing pleasure)

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

We are still trying to get the timing right. This one is better than before. If "toes" doesn't line up (you'll know what we mean when you see it), click the 'play again' option. We might try rework it again, so we'll keep you 'posted.'

Random Ramblings and Tirades

So I am sure that you are all wondering why I changed the blog background. I am sure that you sit up at night wondering about it. The truth is, that it was making me feel sick. Why, you ask? Because for five days I was feeling incredibly ill. I was very indisposed. And to keep myself from wallowing in self misery I would try to do things that I would normally find enjoyable on the computer. I even acquired the new hobby of digital scrapbooking. Unfortunately, it now reminds me of a very dark time in my very recent past. Durring my illness, I would often look at my blog page in between viewing all of your blogs. After I recovered, when I would look at the blog and think about posting, the dark memories would return. So I decided to start fresh, and Springy.

On related topic. I have noticed recently that the General Authorities often comment on how their beloved wives don't complain during illnesses (they are very sweet to speak so kindly of their wives). And I thought to myself, "Well I sure do!" Sorry, Nate. Your wife is holding you back! I really hope that I am not a whining irritating complainer when indisposed. I just need to state repetitively, "I'm sick!!!" Not because I want sympathy. Okay, I want a little sympathy. But honestly it is mostly just to get the feelings off of my back. "I'm in torturous pain and suffering! Go about your business. Just wanted to let you in on my life. Oh and by the way can I have a drink of water?"

On a completely unrelated topic. Why is it that you can only skip around if you have the DVD remote!??!?! We constantly lose ours. Ellie wants to watch a specific part in the special features section. On a VCR you can (at least on ours) do anything that you want or need just by pressing the buttons on the VCR itself. Why can't they just put some arrow and enter buttons on the DVD player itself? Can't be that hard. It would make our live significantly easier. Maybe Nate and I will send them a midnight email message to make our sentiments known. Those are fun. Emails are much more entertaining at midnight when you are hysterically laughing over something that isn't really funny. You should want to be a recipient of one of those.

Back to being sick. So Nate was such a sweetheart and watch the kids for me. This was a difficult and grueling task for him. (Thanks Nate!) It showed me very clearly the difference between parenting styles of men and women in general. Women seem to be more aware of what their kids are doing. I love those jokes where the line is something like this:

The mom goes out and comes back.
"Where are the kids honey?"
And the father's response is, "I don't know."
And then the kids proceed to be doing something outrageous.

So here is our own little anectdote:
Nate was taking the kids outside for me while I was trying to get some well needed rest. Nate and William were sitting playing, and Ellie ran off for just a second. Nate thought that she would come right back, because she usually does. When it become apparent that Ellie was not going to return in the near future, Nate ran William back into the house, and went after Ellie. He looked all around for her. When he finally found her, he asked, "Ellie, where did you go?" Ellie's expression was thoughtful, and her response was priceless, "I was in the garbage eating Cheetos I think."

Do you ever wonder why you bathe your kids? I do. Baths are a very long process at our house because the kids like to play in the tub for so long. The other day, right after giving Ellie and Will a bath, Ellie asked for some buttered toast. I made her toast and let her eat it with out paying much attention. A couple hours later I noticed that William's head was greasy and smelt like butter. Yuck. I just used some of my trusty wet wipes on his head to hold out until I could stand to go through the process of bathing my children again. It worked really well. Go wet wipes!

In on the action

Meridy showed me how to make one of these things. It is easy and really fun. I just had to get in on the action and post one....if I can figure out how to post it....hmm. Wow. It's even easy to post it to a blog. Cool. Oh, by the way, you might not want to have your volume up too loud for this one. ;)

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

More Smilebox Fun!! (Don't forget to see Nate's post below.)

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

"Here's a little song I wrote, you might want to sing it note for note"

Inspired by a movie we recently watched, I decided it was about time I recorded a song for y'all.

I had heard about August Rush before, but I was always skeptical about it. When it came to Redbox and we were desperate for a movie, I decided that we should give it a try. I am ever so glad we did.

There are a lot of things about the movie that you will have to overlook and just move on:
1) The movie is VERY mystical (in some ways this adds to the effect, but sometimes it is just weird)
2) When two mystical people think they love each other very much, they have very mystical 5 minute romances. In the end you root for them, but in the beginning they are pretty dumb. Marriage is cool. Sleeping together on a rooftop on a first mystical date is not cool. Luckily there are no bad scenes. And I suppose the movie wouldn't make much sense without this beginning to the son's life
3) Her father manages to give her baby up for adoption by forging her signature. It is strange behavior, and it seems unlikely that he could have gotten away with it in the 90's.
4) There are a lot of gal derns. I kind of overlooked this thinking that if we watched it a couple times we would know where the swears were and could mute them out. I don't know.
5) The deleted scenes were deleted for a reason. They don't make a lot of sense, they don't add anything to the movie, and they swear pretty violently.

OK, on to the goody. The music is GREAT. The show is about the lovechild of two musicians who looks for his long lost parents by playing music he mystically believes came from them. He thinks they will mystically hear and follow. It's all true, the kid is right. He is a prodigy, like a modern day Mozart. It just shows how music is different from other things. The movie has a lot of philosophizing about what music is. I think that's interesting.
The guitar stuff was especially cool to me because I listen to instrumental guitar like ALL the time. I love listening to people who play the style the kid uses. Michael Hedges, Billy McLaughlin, Preston Reid, Tommy Emmanuel, are some of my favorites from that general style. I think Kali King was the hand double for the movie, so I'll have to check out her stuff too.

All things considered, it was a pretty good flick. It had the added bonus of Robin Williams as a bad guy. I like him as a bad guy.
I'm sure this post is long enough by now.
The End.

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

"Let's hear it for the boy!"

I feel that I have been neglectful of my postings of William, so this is a post dedicated to his praise. What a handsome boy! He is cute and squishy. He has started waving when some one says either "hi" or "goodbye" (he waves like the little bunny who gets sucked into the bunny-vac and sees his friends floating around with him on Wallace and Grommit's The Curse of the Wererabbit). He walks more on his own now, but only short distances. He loves to hold on to both of mommy's hands and walk around the house numerous times. He likes to play around outside and pull the rocks out of the landscaping. When he is hungry, he comes up to me and tries to eat my legs. He loves key lime shake (see post below). He loves to try to feed you things. He is sweet and smiley and still likes to make use of his happy shriek. He is very determinded to get objects he can't have. He loves his big sister and tries to play with her. He crawls after her all around the house. I love it when they make each other laugh. He loves Daddy. Whenever Daddy comes home, he must be held. And then there's Mommy, well what's not to love? :D We're so glad that you came to live with us William!

I found this romper at Costco. It was too cute and I thought it described William perfectly. (Thanks Cheryl!)

The first picture is from the annual take pictures with Grandpa Reeve's tulips and roadster day.

Key Lime Pie Shake

Okay, by now you are probably thinking, "Meridy, what is up with all of these lime recipes??" The truth is that I bought a bag of about 50 key limes from the dollar store and I am trying to figure out how to use them all. We do like limes around here.

This shake was yummy. William was begging for more. (Don't tell his doctor that. :) )

It has lots of key limes, vanilla icecream, a scoop of frozen cool whip, a spoonful of sugar, and half of a graham cracker crust.

My Spinach Puffs!!

"Ah, there so easy to make! I'll get you the recipe."

Here are some spinach puffs I made. They were pretty easy to make, but the cresent rolls taste like the I-got-them-out-of-the-can-that-pops kind.....which they are. :) They are still really good for what they are. Although, next time I might see how hard it would be to make some home made dough.

Here is the recipe:

SPINACH AND SWISS CHEESE PUFFS
1 tube of Pillsbury Crescent rolls

2 cups fresh chopped spinach

1 container of "laughing cow" light semi-soft Swiss cheese (contains 8 pieces)

garlic powder

basil

oregano

ground pepper

Mix Swiss Cheese in a bowl with chopped spinach, garlic, basil, oregano, and pepper. Unroll Crescent rolls. Place a 1/2 tablespoon of cheese mixture in the middle of each Crescent triangle. Fold dough over cheese mixture. Make sure mixture is firmly in middle of dough with no opening.
Place on baking sheet. Sprinkle garlic powder and basil over each piece and bake according to instructions for Crescent rolls.
Serves 8

I used about a half of a 8oz cream cheese + one tablespoon of parmesan cheese instead of Swiss. I used about half of a 9oz bag of spinach from out of my freezer. Note: do not freeze spinach unless you don't mind it coming out mushy when thawed. But it worked for this. :) Another note: use basil sparingly. A little basil goes a loooong way. I also did not sprinkle garlic powder and basil over the tops of the rolls.

Book Tag

Here are the rules to the tag:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next five sentences.
5. Tag five people

My good friend Deborah tagged anyone who read her blog. So I decided for fun to pick up the nearest book just to see what the quote would be. It happened to be Crime and Punishment. Let me assure you that I am NOT the one reading this book, Nate is. (Not that it isn't valuable to society, but I cannot recommend it because I am not reading it.) The quote was a good one. At least I thought so, so here it is:

" '.....They came into his hand precisely as he has told us-he stepped on the box and picked it up.'

'The holy truth! But didn't he own himself that he told a lie at first?'

'Listen to me, listen attentively. The porter and Koch and Pestryakov and the other porter and the wife of the first porter and the woman who was sitting in the porter's lodge and the man Kryukov, who had just got out of a cab at that minute and the went in at the entry with a lady on his arm, that is eight or ten witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dimtri on the ground, was lying on him and beating him, while Dimitri hung on to his hair, beating him, too.'"

Did you follow that? Were you listening attentively? (Just as a side note, apparently, if you read a few sentences more, these two brawlers where having somewhat of a good time because they were laughing and chasing each other like children.)

Please consider yourself tagged if you would like to be!

I like Wal-mart

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourHome/RealKatrinaHeroWalMartStudySays.aspx

Name that Tune

If you can guess what song Ellie is singing at the beginning of this video, Nate will give you a nickle. Just mail us a self addressed envelope, and be sure to write "A Song for a Nickle Contest" above our address. Void were prohibited. Restrictions Apply. All rights reserved.

This video not only features Ellie's musical skills but William's walking skills. Unfortunately, Ellie pushes William at the end of the video. We are still learning to share and "be soft".

An Engagement

Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Reeve are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter,

Eleanor

to

Jeffery

They will be married sometime.

Ellie goes to joy school with Adam, Grant, and Meika. Adam's brother, Jeffery, is in love with Ellie. When I went to pick her up a couple months ago at Adam and Jeffery's house, Jeffery wanted Ellie to stay, and invited her to come play on another day too. Well apparently absence makes the heart grow fonder because this week on Tuesday when all the kids were together (if I got my story straight, I wasn't there at the time), Jeffery ran out of his car to ask Ellie to marry him. I don't think that he got a response from Ellie. Today when I was there, Jeffery said to Ellie, "Marry me sometime okay?" Ellie looked at him for a minute and then smiled and said, "Okay." I asked her later today if she was going to marry Jeffery and she replied in the affirmative.

Thai Noodle Bowl

Okay, so it's not in a bowl, but it tasted yummy! Nate loved it. I got it out of what I think is the current Women's Day magazine. I'm am going to give you the real recipe first. And then I am going to tell you what I did. I think the real recipe sounds good, I just had to improvise because I didn't end up buying all of the ingredients.

Thai Noodle Bowl

4 Scallions

1/2 red bell pepper

1lb chicken tenders

1 can (14 oz) light coconut milk (yeah right! We used the very fattening NON-light coconut milk)

1 tbsp EACH green curry paste and fish sauce (or nam pla) Look in the Asian section

1/2 a 16 oz box of rice noodles

2tps oil

2 cups shredded carrots

1/3 cup of mint leaves

lime wedges

Start water boiling to cook rice noodles (cook according to pkg directions). While water is boiling, slice scallions and red pepper. Cut chicken. Wisk coconut milk, green curry, and fish sauce in a bowl until blended. Saute chicken, red pepper, and carrots in oil for five min. Add milk mixture. Saute two min more. Add scallions and mint leaves. Serve with lime wedges over rice noodles.

Here is what I did:

I sauted two chicken breasts, some onion (We don't like raw onion.), and a whole red pepper. I couldn't find rice noodles so I substituted chicken ramen. I wisked the green curry paste and full-fat coconut milk in a bowl. I couldn't find the fish sauce. I added the coconut milk mixture after the chicken was done. I added a few shakes of basil instead of mint leaves. I couldn't find mint leaves either and basil is sorta minty. I tried to use cornstarch in cold water to help it thicken. It worked a little bit, but I bet it would have worked better if I had just stirred in a tsp of corn starch by itself. We served it with lime wedges, but I personally think that with this dish a little lime goes a long way. It tasted really good like that! Next time I want to try it with the mint, rice noodles, and scallions. (We still might skip the fish sauce. :) )

Chicken Posole Verde

I got this recipe out of 29 Minutes to Dinner from our friends at Pampered Chef. Leslie gave it to me for Christmas, and it is awesome! (thanks Leslie!) This soup is quick, easy, delicious, and can be easily modified to a food storage meal. It is good for a cold winter's day, but fresh enough to eat in the summer. Here is how I make it:

Chicken Posole Verde

garlic salt (maybe a couple of teaspoons?) (They use real garlic 2 cloves, heated through at the beginning)

1 can (29 oz) white hominy

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup water

1 can (10 oz) mild green enchilada sauce (use medium or hot if you like it spicy)

1 tsp oregano (They say to use Mexican oregano but I never have any)

2 cups of diced cooked chicken (you could use rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Haven't tried that; bet it would be yummy though!)

1 cup thinly sliced green cabbage

chopped fresh cilantro

limes

I usually start by taking some frozen chicken breasts and boiling them in water to cook. When it is done cooking, I drain it to about 3 cups of water. I add in bullion to make the broth. Then I add in all the ingredients except for the cabbage and cilantro and lime. (I don't add in the cup of water either.) I let it simmer for like 20 min. When you are ready to serve, pour out soup into bowls and garnish with fresh cabbage, cilantro, and lime juice (as much as you want).

If you are willing to used canned chicken, and bottled lime juice, and forgo fresh cabbage and cilantro, then it would be a yummy dinner entirely from food storage.

See below for Gautamalian Chicken recipe.