Bread recipe and glance at my literally poopy day :)

I walked up to the back patio, the sweat from my short work-out with Piper stuck to my hair. I noticed the garbage that I had failed to take out the day before, crowned with the poopy diaper that I had found stinking up my kitchen in the bottom of the inside garbage sack.  Yuck!  Then I had to laugh as I took them to final 10 feet stretch to the actual garbage can.  It was only 9 am and it already felt like I had been up for hours. Oh, wait. I had :D.

Starting with waking up before my alarm can be good or bad: either a sign of being well-rested or a sigh of stress.  This morning I think was a good one because my mind didn't start going for a minute or two and I could just lay there and enjoy the comfort of having a real bed again. Even after four months of having a bed, the novelty and comfort of having a bed is still a blessing.

Having a jump start on my day of 15 minutes, I used them to preview the upcoming days of seminary.  I am incorporating the Old Testament with the Book of Mormon and just kind of winging it, so I do a lot of improvisation.  I like to think some of it comes from inspiration but time will tell :D.

Getting ready as quietly as I can, I check the time. 5:15 am.  Time to get those crazy kids out of bed who want to go to dance at the Y.  Drew set up a daily time to go and dance and they love it!  At least love it enough to get out of bed in the wee small dark hours of the morning.  Lily drives them over (yay for teenage drivers!) and I get some quiet time to finish prepping for Seminary and for a little personal study.

Around 6 I throw in a batch of bread.  After failing again and again for about 20 years, I think I finally am getting the hang of it and I don't have anxiety about how it is going to turn out.  I have given up for huge stretches of time but think I finally have a recipe that works for us:

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For 2 loaves:
1/4 cup warm water sprinkled with a heaping T. yeast and 1/2 tsp sugar--set aside
Place the following in a mixer with a bread hook and turn on while you add ingredients:
2 1/2 cups hot water
a dollop of molasses
2-4 T flax
1/3-ish cup of wheat germ
1 T salt
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
4 cups whole wheat flour

Here's the awesome part...because you use the flax and wheat germ, you can do this 100% whole wheat!
Once ingredients are all mixed together, add 2-3 more cups flour and the water/yeast mixture. Once it has mixed for a minute or two, add more flour if it still seems really runny.

Turn on the mixer for 5 minutes and let the mixer do the kneading while you:
-turn the oven on to 200 F
-clean off the counter top from the accumulation of yesterday's spills
-put 2-3 T of oil on it for kneading when it is done
-grease the 2 pans.

If that goes quickly you might actually get around to putting away the ingredients you have used so far.  5 minutes can be magic!

Once the 5 minutes is done you touch the dough. If it is only slightly sticky, you are good!  One thing I look for is if the dough is staying on the hook and pulling all the dough to it.  Many times it doesn't.  If it doesn't and still looks like a big lump of dough and feels a little sticky.  Regardless, unless it is super gooey, smear the oil around with your hand and then use that deliciously slippery hand to get the dough out and plop it onto the oiled counter top. At this point, it has probably already been kneaded enough. If not, add more flour, etc and you won't kill it.

Divide the dough into two masses and then place in greased pans. Put the in the preheated oven and turn the oven off. This is a speed-raise method my friend taught me.  10-15 minutes and your bread should be rising nicely.  After the 10-15 minutes, turn the oven on to 350 F and cook for 50-60 minutes. (Tap on top, should sound hollow.)

Yummm!

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While bread is not the easiest thing to do for breakfast, it is nice on the pocket book and we are trying to live within our means. It is crazy how fast money can be spent!

I finished some seminary prep and we're off!  Seminary happened with a great group of people.  We ended and got everything together for breakfast, devotional, discussion and CNN10.  Harassing Eli to brush his teeth is the next challenge.  Piper is technically in charge of helping him, but he is not much of a listener and it is a battle every morning.  Someday the ferocious 4 stage will be past and these battles is not something I will miss.  Everything else, though....sigh.

Piper and I headed to the gym a little late.  I always get caught up in things at home. I love it here.

My workout this morning focused on not pushing myself too much so that maybe I can start actually enjoying my exercise. Time will tell.  

I found Lily and Hyrum working on the sign language for a song we are performing next week.  Hava was playing the piano and Maia had the three littlest upstairs playing a horsie game.  With carrots.  Hmmmm...there is a no food rule but carrots.  Sigh.  (Don't tell Daddy.)  They were being car....eful. :D

I had a great morning. I love that Lily likes to sit at the table and do math with me in the morning.  After she was done, the other kids were still in horsie-mode with Hyrum doing his daily "tickle" rampage.  I had a few moments to work on tomorrow's seminary. Lily did some driving for Quinn, taking Ticklemonster with her.  Xai yelled out, "I want to dance to some songs!" Cue Mom, whose heart is full of gratitude to her mother for making her take piano lessons.  We sang songs about the wind, butterflies, monkeys, the seal and the walrus and even a new sad one about being eaten by lions.  (The kids loved it.)  I love the Brady's songs for Nature and for People.

Xai then helped me cut potatoes for dinner, which was so fun for him until he sliced his finger a little halfway through.  Then he moved to the safer occupation of opening chicken bullion cubes from their wrapping while Eli took over at the cutting board...cutting butter into slices :D.

Maia did a blissful stint in the mud outside with Liesl and Eli while Havala made hootenannies for lunch.  

Lunchtime now and I have my "study" time.  I pay Hava $1/lesson to teach Xai grade 2 math from The Good and the Beautiful (great curriculum!).  They are doing it right now in the other room. Hyrum and Lily are back enjoying lunch. Maia is upstairs reading to Liesl.  Eli is lying next to me for his quiet time.  Constant supervision is the only way he can do a decent rest time.  It works.  he is super cute as he plays with his dinosaur.

I could list all the things I didn't do, the subjects I didn't cover, the people I didn't reach out to and the laundry that I didn't do. I could focus on the poop, the stink of my day :D.  But I am kind of past focusing on that. I like what God has to tell me about my day at the end of each day and have come to realize that what I do do is just fine. I have a sincere heart and good intentions.  I like to look at the beautiful.  It makes for a good day.

Busy Saturday

It all started with that shoe on the wall...

Or that pile of laundry.

It was about 8 am and we sat on the couch and worked out the schedule:
-exercise
-the Goob driving to Batavia to pick up batting for his Eagle project and buttons for his vest for the multi-stake prom that night
-kids running to the MAAC (our thrift store from heaven here in Medina)
-minimal jobs for healthiness*--including that 6 foot high pile of laundry...only a slight exaggeration.
-running to market for food
-Mom being available for dance prep by 2 pm
-start the sewing of quilt tops
-Q-dawg getting in enough work so that he could not drown when Monday rolls around
-visit to a neighbor to fix a screen door (didn't happen that I know of...crazy!)
-Q-dawg trying to fix his broken windshield wipers, since wipers are so essential in our never-ending winter
-specialized cleaning for certain areas that really couldn't be left.
-eating?
-piano lesson for youth in neighborhood
-making dinner for friends and the missionaries.

Well, the war room prep was just enough to keep up on our toes, despite the unforeseen infiltration of the one-baby demolition crew. (See older post about Zulie.)   The Goob, Liliputian and Chugger-dude made it off to the dance with a delightful group of friends on time with me madly sewing on the buttons and doing make-up moments before departure. (See pictures on Instagram.**)  The little ones got to go on a whirlwind trip to the store, with money-bags Papaya in heaven after doing allowance with me before she went (because why not add something else, right??).

Q-dawg was able to finish up his work to give him that head start, although he did finish after 10 pm because he came up to save dinner instead of working.  Lek jumped in too, both with cooking and helping bring in groceries with Piper, Hava and Maia.  The piano lesson was brief, the conversation delightful and full of laughs and the food oh so good!!
Tex Mex Chicken Skillet

And we had Happiness Cookies to top it all off, followed by a game of Categories with a "spoon full of water" and a message with the missionaries

Whew!
Q-dawg and I had a great skype talk with Avot, who is away at college in Idaho figuring out her life, (squeeze in there 5 books read aloud to the littles,) finished up the dishes that Lek had done more than half of despite my insistence on splitting it down the middle, and then settled in front of "The Fugitive" to finish it up with Lek and Q-dawg.  My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it!

Days like that are fortunately few and far between these days.  Normally I have minimal accounting to anyone's schedule but our own and, boy, can I tell you how ready I am for this Sabbath day??

And the laundry was folded and put away.


*our new motto at our house is to make cleaning not the most important priority to leave space for creating, or in other words "see how dirty we can be and still be healthy."
**if I post pictures on Instagram they automatically fill up "Chatbooks" that are printed for my scrapbooks for family history.  Cha-ching!  Feel free to tell them I recommended you.  I love 'em!

"Stop, Drop and Goal": a letter to Lek.

My dear Elder,

You seem one for great subject lines...how about this one!

At first it was going to be something about "Drop" and "Goals" (since that is two of the things you talked about in your email) and then...like inspiration...with angels singing...and lights swirling all around me...it came. The subject line of awesomeness.  J/K.  I am in kind of a silly mood right now :)  (I just re-read this letter.  Remember Grammar Boot Camp and those examples about how not to write?  Well, I think I need to take the class again.  This letter is full of random thoughts interjected...at random :D.  Good luck!)

LOVE YA!

I think it is because I actually got almost 8 hours and woke up on my own.  Weird. And no one else is around.  My introvert side is having a party.  So I thought I would have you join :D!

Okay, that is just super cool how your investigator that lied up until his baptism date "happened" to confess when the member was there so the member could communicate more directly to him in Hungarian!!!! (although I believe if it was just you and your comp there, the Spirit would have made it happen; see note*)  It is doubly cool because the member could see how his presence was beneficial and instrumental in God's work so he wants to come out more!!!! You rock, Mr. Missionary :D.  Yes, very crazy week for you!   

It is a very real fear to invite people along to do things. I feel that way whenever I set up a group or go visiting teaching with new companions or have new people to visit.  I am glad that you are feelings support and love there in Pápa!  (And still feeling a twinge of jealousy about your keyboard that has the Hungarian strokes as I cut and paste "Pápa" over from your email so it has the accents :P.)  

So what does the keyboard look like?  Wait. I'll google it. (Not bad for an old lady, eh?)  Hey.  That is pretty cool.  So do you just type like "Alt" or control, push the number with the right accent...before or after?  A little jealous.  Actually just super happy that you are over there in the coolest mission in the world (sorry, Avot :D!).  J/K  I don't believe one mission is cooler than another just like I don't believe one person is.  However, I do have a soft and tender spot in my heart for those grumpy and stand-offish Hungarian people with hearts like gold inside if they ever let you in :).  You just need a bunch of cute little kids to tract with you, right?  That is what one elder said.  "If I could take Binks tracting with me, I bet we could get into every house!"

So, couple things that you might like to hear about.  Poor Binks got his first series of immunizations :(.  Super sad.  We also found out their levels of lead in their blood (Spooner's and Binks') are elevated.  It may be the water we are drinking.  Kind of scary.  You can't really get rid of it unless you do intense treatment.  The only thing we can do to try and help is over-load them with Iron and Calcium which will compete with Lead for the same site in your body.  There are some possible behavioral indicators associated with high lead levels that we can see in Spooner--whose is the highest by far of the two--but we are hopeful.  Fortunately, they are not in the extremely dangerous level, but it will be important to keep it monitored to make sure it is not going up.  Do you know what that means?  Intravenous blood tests.  Yep.  Suckin' the blood out of their poor little veins.  Little Binks has a huge bruise from yesterday.  Super sad.  I feel peaceful that we will know the way to help.  We all must experience trials for many reasons.  This one is totally do-able. We will pray and hope and do our part.  Maybe I will have Daddy give them a blessing.  

Maybe it is time to move to the farm.

So, the house is feeling super homey. I wish you could have experienced it before you left.  It feels like somewhere you want to sit and laugh and read and play and sing and love.  True, we are not finished, but there is something that happened.  Maybe it was me accepting the timeline of our lives and being content in God's will and my capacity.  Maybe it was me accepting the leadership of Dad and following his timeline.  Maybe it was putting up the bookshelves and no longer having any boxes we were living out of :D.  Maybe it was me finally going up into the attic.  Did you know that until about November of last year I had never been up in the attic?  Crazy, eh?   Then we had to put presents up there so I had to make sure that there was room :).  Hmmm...maybe I went up before then, but I know it couldn't have been much before it. Silly me :).

The Goob is benching his own weight now.  He is pretty stoked about that.  Chugger-dude is actually getting up every morning and running!  He used to just walk slowly.  I remember how I tortured you (and particularly Avot) with always pointing out how you could do this or that to help you speed up or make yourselves faster.  The Spirit has shown me that that is not the way :D. (Sorry, my beloved guinea pig.)  I find that if I just walk beside and do what I feel I need to do for myself, support and love the other...the Spirit and their natural desire to improve does more than I can ever do.

Actually, that lesson has been more deeply applied to me in many ways beyond exercising: missionary work, fellowshipping, visiting teaching, parenting.  I have not deeply believed in an individual's ability to be moved by the Spirit and by an individuals drive towards godhood. I believe we all sense the spark of potential within us...we just don't know how to act on it.

And having someone push or direct forcefully just gets in the way of their listening within.

Super funny about your companion's goal!  I like him.  It sounds like the two of you are the breath of fresh air that Pápa needs!  (And Heavenly Father apparently knows what you two need as all your "hot girls" are actually...well, as you said, scary.)  That reminds me of something an elder said last night.  He said, "People here in western New York seem to really get into routines and we are here to shake things up!"  Our missionaries really are. Our missionaries are super cool.  And I think Hungary is very similar to western New York. We talked a bit with the missionaries about how when things are hard or seem out of our control, we can take great comfort in routines.  It can be hard to get out of them.  But you missionaries are truly a breath of fresh air!

Speaking of missionaries, yesterday we had dinner with the missionaries scheduled and then last minute we found out about the baptism of a gentleman who has three adorable kids. (Super cool!)  Anyway, I asked the missionaries (and the recent convert, Daniel Zimmerman, who was coming to eat also) if we could move dinner earlier and then head to the baptism, all in our big white van.  I really feel the Lord gave us the van to do his work and fill it in bringing people to Christ...and it is working!  They all agreed (Daniel is super low-key and rolls with anything...and eats anything...sweet guy).  So we had an amazing dinner (see next note**), I grabbed the melt-y brownies (same recipe with white chocolate chips and butter for part of the oil...amazing) and then we were off!  In our big white van, driving to support our most recent brother!

The font wasn't full enough, so they had to baptize him three time to get it right but it was so cool!  You could feel the confirmation that the third time was right.  During the baptism talks, I was able to help take care of Dante's kids (isn't that the coolest name ever??) so he could listen and they were super sweet.  He has a cool experience with gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon (see other note***) and the baptism felt so joyous. We have another one tomorrow for twin kids that recently moved into our ward. Their family has two sets of twins!!  We have had two families move into our ward in the last month, good strong families with abiding testimonies of the Gospel. One even moved here "because they felt prompted to." Isn't that super cool?  I mean, who does that :D?  It was a great evening.

I fell asleep last night putting the monster...oops! I mean Binks.... to sleep the only way that doesn't take hours: in bed snuggling with me.  Super spoiled cute little fat guy.  He is getting bigger but that doesn't keep him from taking advantage of us with all his cuteness in being the youngest :).

Sorry this is super long.  I guess you will read it if  you have time or as much as you need as led by the Spirit. It was nice to feel like you were on the other side of the screen, me imagining you hunching over and reading, smiling and maybe laughing a little :).  Love you, son.  Thanks for your example and enduring faith in continuing on when you don't see measurable progress in those around you.  You are truly a hunter as Jeremiah saw, finding those amidst the rocks and the hills. And sometimes they need to be found more than once to finally recognize what it is they are looking for.  Sometimes you are the fifth or the first to extend that invitation...and they need twenty invites!  Keep laughing...especially when you see those eyelashes.  

That reminds me of the Elder who came over when I had hair in the food and then I licked someone else's spoon and completely grossed him out.  Maybe that lady was just having a bad day and happen to use the wrong dish for that left-over.  I think that is crazy that your comp ate it, though!!  Well, Joey Shetka licked the grocery store floors as a toddler and is the healthiest of Heidi's children.  Maybe there is something to it :S?  I am not going to count on it, however  :).

LOVE YOU!  Have a wonderful week.  Let us know if there is anything I can write, do or send to make your life any more awesome than it already is.  Maybe a music cd of mission approved music?

:) Anyuci

p.s. (before all the end notes)  I almost walked away from learning Hungarian the other day. I was crying, I was so frustrated, trying to understand word order and emphasis. So hard! It gave me great sympathy and admiration for your determination to learn it well.  And I kept trying.  I guess it will just take me, well, forever, but I am already recognizing many words more readily, can hear the accents better, and am having a few correct word orders come more naturally. Slowly but steadily, right?  When I go visit, I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited to be able to communicate more with those dear, dear people in that land of Hungary.  God bless you, son, for consecrating your time and energy and love to serve them.  They don't realize how lucky they are to have you.

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*About the Spirit making communication happen, remember that phone call that Dad had with that lady when we were in Hungary?  How he was trying so hard to listen to her and she was speaking slowly, quickly and non-distinctly?  She was sharing all these problems in her life, very personal questions and issues about God and her life and Dad was praying like crazy to be able to both understand and be able to communicate with her.  When she finally paused after a long, long time of her talking, waiting for Dad to say something, with the Spirit in his heart (and a lot of insecurities about his ability to both understand her Hungarian and communicate back to her in Hungarian)  he began to speak.  After he finished, there was  a pause on the other end. "Oh no!" Dad thought, "I have blown it now."  Her soft reply came: "You have seen into my heart."  Super cool.  The Spirit totally helps transcend barriers.

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**okay, imagine this: first you cut up yams/sweet potatoes into little squares along with chicken...wait.  Here is the recipe:

Chicken and Veggie Quinoa Bowl   400 degrees

For the bowl:

1/2 large sweet potato, peeled and diced

1 head broccoli, cut into florets (or one bag of frozen broccoli)

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided (any oil will do and we added a little butter for part of the oil measurement)

Salt and pepper

2 ounces precooked grilled chicken breast, sliced thin (we actually just cut raw chicken in cubes, and cooked it at the same time as the sweet potatoes below)

1/4 cup quinoa, cooked (this is actually SUPER healthy for you and with all the textures in this recipe, you don't notice it.

For the dressing:

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 tablespoon tahini

1/2 garlic clove, minced

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more for garnish)

(I didn't actually have tahini, so I just added onions, garlic and crushed red pepper--you could use spicy paprika--when I added the quinoa and broccoli)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Place your cubed sweet potatoes on a baking sheet, and toss with 1/2

tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil plus salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes.

2. After 20 minutes, add your broccoli florets to the same baking sheet, and toss them in the additional 1/2

tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.  Season again with salt and pepper and roast for an additional 20 minutes.

^^3. While your vegetables are cooking, whisk together all your dressing ingredients. Set aside.

4. In a serving bowl, add the precooked quinoa and roasted vegetables, then top with your precooked chicken.

 Drizzle with your tangy tahini dressing, sprinkle the extra red pepper flakes (if you wish) and enjoy!!!

^^I just put everything else in here, seasonings and all, and didn't serve it up separate.  Much easier.

So this recipe would be SUPER yummy and healthy for you.  You could make a big batch on p-day and eat it for a few days later that week heated up or even cold. I would recommend 6 times it:

Shopping list:

3 sweet potatoes

3 breast chicken (if you can afford it, less is fine)

1 bag frozen broccoli

onions and garlic if you don't have them)

1 cup quinoa (dried measurement. You will need to cook it. You can make more and freeze it in smaller baggies to use later. I just put on enough that you could see it, but it wasn't the dominant ingredient.)

Oil and seasonings if you don't have them.

I 12 times-ed it and have plenty of leftovers after feeding five adults and then all the kids, to give you an idea.

 Did I say it was yummy??  I added soy sauce, but you could add Worcestershire sauce or anything yummy to the chicken and sweet potatoes. I think you have all the ingredients. although quinoa might be hard to get. You could add a small pasta. It only took 40 minutes start to finish in the cooking time and about 10 minutes of prep (for serving 14 people). And you would have nutritious yummy meals for one week, if you made enough.  Your companions would love you :D. I served it with some Hungarian-ish type bread from Aldi's, which complemented it perfectly.  

I am going to try and be better at sending you recipes, my son!  This one really wasn't too hard and the 40 minutes of cooking didn't require me to be there while it was cooking or prepping.  

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***Dante's cool experience with reading the Book of Mormon. One of the hardest things, the missionaries say, is to get people to read the Book of Mormon.  Dante wouldn't, but then one day picked it up and his answer from it was to not go to Texas (as he planned) and not join the Baptist church there (again, as he had planned) but to stay here with his kids.  He showed the missionaries the verse and it didn't make sense to them why that verse told him that but it was evident that God was talking to him through the scriptures as we know is true: we ask our questions through prayer and God answers us through the scriptures, right? (among other things, but moving on...) 

One day his power and heat was turned off.  He turned to the Book of Mormon and read in it.  10 minutes later he received a call telling him that someone had paid his bills until the end of the month!  Crazy answer, eh?  He was baptized and I know he felt the light and warmth that came with it.  Super cool.

Pond fun, school, basketball and babies!

Our days are always full.  Sometimes I look at the computer screen as I pass, muse about what to write and then pass on.  Sometimes, I just have to sit and write.  Today is one of those days.

Chugger-dude and Pipalicious decided to act on Q-dawg's spontaneous suggestion of boogie boarding in "our" hockey-rink turned lake in the park next door.  This was last Saturday.  This was the first Saturday in February.  In other words, even if it isn't frozen, it is still darn cold.  Not to be deterred, they grabbed their towels, changed into better "wet" clothing and headed out, me trailing with a video camera.

You can see the footage of facebook of their venture.  How they got in the water not once, but twice.  Crazy.  After watching the footage on the video, Hava and Papaya decided they wanted to join in the fun.  So yesterday, they, too grabbed a hand towel (they are tiny, but not that tiny!) and I dutifully followed two excited girls and their Daddy out to the rink-pond.

After the two of them went, Papaya deigning to do it only once and Pipalicious joining in the fun for a couple more pulls, they turned their pleading eyes on me: "Oh come on, Mommy!!!"  Unfortunately, I do not have a history of declining.  In fact, I like to see my kids do new and spontaneous things (especially when their Daddy suggests it) so I have forced myself to do a great many things over the years.  And usually, I am glad I did it.

Looking into their sweet and tender expressions as they pleaded so adorably (it really was absolutely adorable...I wish I had that on video), I logically went down a check-list of why I shouldn't (weather, temp, no one in their right mind would do it, differences in weight between girls and me, weather, temp, did I really want to get wet?!, water/ground questionability, LACK OF REAL-SIZED TOWEL,  possible video footage of large woman being dragged through the water) and reasons I should (adorable girls, example of willingness, love shown when I can give in when not spoiling them...I had to shower that afternoon anyway after our basketball work out that morning...adorable girls).  The adorable girls won out.

First time after I gingerly plodded (you don't see those two words in combination very often) out to the center of the pond, laid myself in the freezing foot deep water and doubted my decision, I set my teeth while Q-dawg said, "Go!" and started tugging.  Lurch.  Snap.  I was still sitting in the water with a broken boogie-board cord in front of me.  I struggled up, grabbed the board, and trudged back to shore.

"Oh, no worries!" Q-dawg assured me.  "I can fix it!" and sure enough, he wrapped the strap of rope he had been using around the board (using one of this no-fail, fancy-dancy knots) and it looked good to go.  The pleading, beautiful eyes returned, along with Q-dawg's comment, "Why not? You are already wet."  Good point.  My feet were absolutely frozen by this point though and that was a definite reason "why not."  Sigh. Little hearts win out.  Love those girls.  Kids can sure make us do things we never thought we would do, eh?

Remember, "gingerly plodding"?  Did it again.  Out to the middle of the pond, Pipalicious ready on the camera, lay myself down on the board in the freezing cold water and....GO!

The rest is facebook history.

****************
We started the day getting ready for basketball.  Liliputian and I had thrown together some delicious "roll-ups"* (see recipe below!) to have hot and ready to go so that they would play happier.  (They always do with food in their tummy!)  It was a great game that day.  The Goob made a bunch of lay-ups and is a tenacious rebounder.  Lek started the game off with some solid three-pointers.  The Lek-Goob-Chuggerdude-Avot team did some amazing passing around to score many shots between them.  At one point, Q-dawg had just received a pass from me after I recovered it from some tussle, turned to dribble, and like Dash in "The Incredibles," Chugger-dude swooped through to snag the basketball away from him mid-dribble. (Chugger-dude does that a lot.)  Avot keeps everything happy, with her quick wit, great shot and incredible sportsmanship.  I also love to see her race off court to soothe little boys in the midst of a game.  She will make a great mommy someday :).

Liliputian was the high-scorer for our team, shooting with incredible accuracy from about 20 feet out to the side.  Q-dawg is always amazing :), dribbling around and racing his boys down court.  Pipalicious is quite the avid defender and was right on defending Chugger-dude, keeping directly between him and the basket with tenacity.  That girl is a fire ball!  How she can launch that ball up into the air despite her small size is amazing to me!  I was covering the Goob, which can be laughable with his speed.  Even when I tip the ball away from him, somehow he sticks with it and still has it in had the next moment to shoot up a lay-up.  Not sure how he does that :).

The Goob made the winning basket with our classical ending of "next basket wins."  We headed out of the "Y," gathering little barefooted, pajama'd little ones as we went.  They had entertained themselves and the babies in the neighboring area with all the hockey equipment the Y could provide.  Hava joins us occasionally and makes a shot or two in her time with us, although is not quite ready for a steady game for the entire time.  "I'm on your team, Mommy!" she does in her little Hava-baby voice.  So sweet :).
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Duolingo, Seminary, Khan Academy, devotional...the computers keep pretty busy through-out the day. Yesterday, Chugger-dude used part of the computer time to finish prepping his awesome slide show on Hawaii, with a lot of focus on the state fish...one of our favorite songs :).

It's one of mine because of the delight I see it creating in my little ones.  Chugger-dude is so fun to watch as he sings along.  So fun!

We made interesting smoothies to go along with it. I insisted on kale and spinach, but probably put in a little too much :S.  Oh well. The two cans of pineapple and orange juice, with a touch of Greek yogurt made it tolerable, if a bit interesting in consistency.  We sang our weekly "Fifty-Nifty U.States" song to go along with our "State Report Moment," seeing if we could identify each state as we sang it.  The Goob was pretty amazing as he used Zsa-man's feet to find them.
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After our State Focus we shifted gears.  The younger ones ran off to play while the older ones gathered and we shifted table maps out, replacing our US one with a World one.  Time for "World Summit"!  Each of us bring a news article of focus from a selected continent and we do it on that continent each week for a month.  It is a great time to "catch up" a little with what is happening in the world and after a month of researching through articles about a particular continent we get a pretty good idea of what is current.

We have fun discussions, like last week's where we all came with ZIKA virus articles, since that was the bulk of the reporting done on South America last week.  Interesting way to do it, but not very time-consuming: both pluses for me.

While we did that, Liliputian worked with little ones in the kitchen making an epic stack of quartered tuna fish sandwiches for lunch.  I love it when she is on lunch!  She does such a great job :).  Papaya has been busily painting or playing with Zsa-man during this time, Spooner has been wandering in and out of the kitchen or been playing hot wheels with Chugger-dude.  Chugger-dude sets up a long set of track and they zoom them down the stairs. Unfortunately one night they kept zooming it directly into poor Lek's legs at the bottom of the stairs (or more specifically, his ankle :S...) so they had to move it the next day.    Chugger-dude is pretty creative so he rigged up a great track using the ladder.  Pipalicious and Hava have been playing a lot of "stuffed animal games" with Chugger-dude and Liliputian and Papaya joining on occasion.  Lately, it rotates between stuffed animals and cars, but it is fun to listen to them play together...which they do happily, for the most part.
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After lunch, Lek and the Goob headed out to the gym while I went upstairs for quiet time with the kids.  Liliputian did her usual amazing job of cleaning up lunch, which is such a blessing!  I made Chugger-dude rest for a while, just so he wasn't busy doing all day. I feel that it is just good to get a breather to think, rest, or read for a bit during the day.

I even got a bit of a nap, with its usual interruption about 15-20 minutes into it with "Mom...mom!...mom!!!" whispered by Papaya. "Is it done with quiet time?"  I love how they whisper loudly to wake me up, as if that makes it not at all like talking normally to interrupt my delicious nap.  Argh.  She got the "if you wake me up the answer is always 'NO!'" lecture so familiar to my older kids, and I settled back to fruitlessly try to go back to sleep :).

Oh well.  It was soon time for our "mommy reading time" of "Heidi," which is going so quickly after "Lonesome Gods." I am really enjoying it and I think the kids are as well,  After 30 minutes, they are usually still asking for more...well, most of them. It is fun and I love these books that are filled with good characters, morals and feelings.  Hopefully it can help them feel what good feels like, which can be no small feat in this day and age.

The afternoon involved a mini-history class covering our current time period of post-Civil War, a mixture of exciting inventions, expansion and tragic segregation of blacks, re-location of Native Americans and rampant political corruption.   Some of the kids colored traced images from that time period while we talked about what happened: images of Native Americans and buffalo.

We did our "time at the pond" after which I came into the kitchen to make cookies with Spooner, my little chef.  Spooner and I had some snuggle nap time together which makes him more pleasant, even if he isn't taking many naps any more.

Baby Zsa has spent most of this time in people's arms, sleeping or moving himself around.  He can even pull himself up on things, which is crazy to me.  When did this happen!  He has two adorable little teeth, loves solids and nursing, and bounces whenever he is excited, happy, or agitated...probably due to his extensive time in our awesome bouncer.  He has about out-grown it since he is getting more mobile.  He smiles that little drooling, baby-tooth smile and has us all around his little fingers.  He lowers his head a little, while directing an intense stare and slow smile at us and we call that his "tractor beam" gaze...we can't get away from it and are drawn into him for a kiss or to pick him up.

My darling husband was on hand all evening, recognizing I has sunk into one of my emotional funks, helping me get out the door for enrichment and getting the kids to bed later when we got home.

Wow.  Long post.  Time to start waking everyone up :)!
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*Easy-peasy recipe:  packaged crescent rolls (5 in our case wasn't quite enough), three packages of pudding and two cubes of melted butter.  We divided up the pudding flavors into 1 package lemon and 2 packages butterscotch (which is what the recipe actually called for) to get two different flavors of rolls.  You smear the pudding/butter paste in a thin layer on each roll and then roll them up and cook them.  The butterscotch ones are amazing with pecans, but we were out, to no one's disappointment but mine :).  We took the remainder of the pudding paste, put powdered sugar and a little milk in it and made it into a glaze to put on top afterwards.  Cook until golden and yummy!