Bread rises again

The bread comes out like this every single time.  It's like having a new baby every day.  Pure joy to look at.

As soon as I start making bread, I know my life is back to normal.  I got a new dutch oven for Christmas and along with my older and larger one, I have been making delicious, crusty on the outside and squishy on the inside, bread pretty much every day.  I am basically obsessed.  I also got a bread book that has many more recipes for breads that I would love to try, so I'm going to be experimenting with those if I have enough time during the day.  The great thing about this bread is that it takes almost no time at all.  The night before you want bread, you mix 3 Cups flour, 1 tsp yeast, 1 heaping tsp salt and 2 C warm water in a bowl, cover and let stand for at least 12 hours and not more than 24 hours, preferably less than 18 hours. An hour before you want to bake your bread, warm your dutch oven up in your oven for a half hour at 475.  Let it sit in there for a half hour to get it nice and hot.  While it's warming, pour your bubbling bread mixture out on a well floured countertop and cover with flour for easy handling.  When your dutch oven is hot, carefully take it out of the oven, open the lid and plop in your ball of dough.  Replace the lid and put back into the oven for a half hour with the lid on and then 15 minutes with the lid off at the end.  Every time I take the lid off to see what lie inside, I am astounded at how beautiful it is and it seems like a miracle that it's so delicious and easy at the same time.  This bread is definitely easier than regular bread and doesn't take up a huge chunk of time all at once.  I make this bread every morning and sometimes twice every day because if I'm just home cooking dinner, why not throw in another batch of bread and take it over to neighbors and friends? It's that easy. 

Here's me in my marathon shirt, holding a delicious loaf of bread.  How ironic.  haha.

As well as bread rising again, I have gotten back into my exercise kick since I was knocked down by horrible allergies that I can't believe I've developed after all these years of being allergy free.  I'm almost considering moving to Antarctica just to live allergy free because I almost killed myself this summer because my body was interfering with my big plans!  So, now I'm finally training for the Moab half marathon in March.  I am not a distance runner and I should lose like 10 lbs if I want to be lighter on my feet and actually run this race well, but I'm just not built for it.  My dad and step mother are running it with me as well as a couple friends from my neighborhood and all I can hope is that I keep up with or beat my 57 year old step mother.  I may not even realize that goal.  She's pretty awesome.  Well, I've weighed in around 138 lately and if I can get down to 130 I think running will be easier for me.  Eating all this delicious bread is probably doing nothing for my weight loss goals, but I'm sure I'll get sick of eating it all day long soon and I won't be tempted. 

One of the other reasons I want to get in shape is that Justin and I are going on a sailing trip to the BVI's for our 10 year anniversary the end of February.  I really don't want to take a bunch of fat photos for our trip.  The ones of me in Italy look like I'm overweight, even though I'm really not.  So, fat, please melt away so I can not cringe at my anniversary trip photos!

Happy Happy Happy Happy...Thanksgiving, Christmas, 10th Anniversary, New Year

Singing Jingle Bells around our Christmas tree in their Sunday outfits.

Wow, now that the time intensive holidays are over I thought I would feel glad, but I feel like Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went too quickly.  I was really enjoying all the parties and the sharing and now it's over:(.

First of all, I have to say that I did kill and prepare our 20 lbs Thanksgiving turkey this year and it was a pretty traumatic experience for me, even though I acted like I was ok with it while I was doing it.  For a few days afterward I couldn't think of anything else but slitting the turkey's neck and that I had killed a living creature.  I am going to have to buck up if I'm going to get some meat chickens this spring! After pulling out all the organs and feathers(which took hours and hours) I injected the bird with a delicious maranade of Meyer lemons, roasted garlic and tons of other spices and it turned out wonderful! I almost cried because of all the time it took to raise, feed, kill and prepare that bird.  I was so worried it wouldn't be good and it would all have been wasted energy.  Even though there was like an inch of breast meat on that skinny bird, it was cooked to perfection.  I guess that's what a free range turkey is like.  His gizzard was full of grass so he was eatin' lean and not the fattening food I had bought for him.  We had Thanksgiving dinner at Tracie's house and it was delicious!

I have to say that I have such a wonderful neighborhood and received so many delicious treats from people I just met at our neighborhood party.  I spent time crafting some really fun stuff, including candy trees, Christmas tree boxes filled with different kinds of fudge, cinnamon ornaments and my favorite, candy canes.  I threw a party with a bunch of new friends and family where I taught everyone how to make the candy canes and fudge.  It was so fun and I finally did the party right and set out a food table for everyone with snacks, drinks, and delicious breads, desserts AND food for all the 20 kids who were running around my house.  I didn't have one kid come up to me and ask me for anything all day long.  It was miraculously relaxing and enjoyable! Clementine was so darling and stuck with us the whole time, rolling out cinnamon dough and trying to stamp them out with cookie cutters.

I also hosted three other Christmas parties all in one week.  The Thursday night before Christmas I had my dad, step-mom and step sister over for a Christmas Eve type party where we all opened our presents to each other.  We had such a fun time eating and letting the kids play.  My dad randomly came up to visit because he had to have a revision on his deviated septum surgery he had a few months ago so it all worked out to get together that Thursday.

Then the next day on Friday I hosted Justin's siblings Christmas party where I roasted the entire giant Costco pork loin in the most delicious Meyer lemon/caper/roasted garlic maranade that it was soaking in for days.  It was so delicious.  I have also been making crusty bread in my dutch oven and made two perfectly crusty loaves for the evening's festivities.  We had so much delicious food to eat and the kids had so much fun.  After trading presents we were supposed to do the Nativity recreation, but the promised costumes hadn't actually been delivered yet because the company shipped them out a day late(even though on their website they guarantee everything) and I almost cried when I announced that the costumes didn't arrive. I went upstairs to get the standard towels and belts we always use for the Nativity and started wrapping all the kids like burritos when the doorbell rang and the UPS delivery truck delivered our costumes not a moment too soon!! It was truly a Christmas miracle! We had wings and a halo for Henry, a Mary and Joseph costume.  Three shepherds crooks for Joseph and the two shepherds, three crowns for the wise men and two fluffy lamb costumes.  It couldn't have been more adorable!  Aunt Courtney was the donkey and Bea got to ride on her back while Colton led her into the room by the fire.  Clementine and Eli were shepherds trying to herd Lincoln and Violette in the field while Henry came in as the angel and had his lines almost memorized.  He was so cute!  Then they came to see Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, played by our very own new baby boy cousin, Grant.  It was great to finally have a boy for the baby Jesus and not one of my girls.  haha.  The wise men were played by my Justin, Uncle Caleb and Uncle Kirk.  They had sheets and my furs on over their shoulders and looked more like gangsters than wise men.  I laughed so hard! They came and presented their gifts to the baby Jesus and we were done!  My camera was out of battery and I was the narrator so I have to collect some photos from my family.  It was really sweet.  Bea was such a sweet little mother Mary and sat there so quietly and pet the little baby's head so softly.  She had a sweet little smile on her face as she rode the donkey into where she lay the baby.  She just might be an actress some day.

You can see all my home made ornaments on my tree.  I really love my tree. 

Finally, I hosted the actual Christmas eve party with my mom, step dad, and my cousins, Ben, Kate and Margie and my aunt and uncle, Kris and Tim.  We had the most delicious 7 fish dinner.  I was in charge of the lobster so I got 5 lobster tails and cooked them a la French Laundry(5 star Michelin rated restaurant) and poached them, cracked them out of their shells and finished cooking them off in a vat of butter and then poured a Meyer lemon(can you tell I love Meyer lemons?) and shallot burre blanc sauce over the top.  It was spectacular! We had steamed crab legs, oysters Rockefeller, creamed and pickled herring, shrimp, anchovies, and clam chowder.  Could I love a meal more?  No, I could not.  I LOVE FISH! The fishier the better. We also did a recreation of the Nativity but didn't have a baby young enough to play the baby Jesus so we had Bea put a baby doll in her shirt and Henry ripped it out of her shirt, held it up in the air like a prize trophy and slammed it down into the cradle.  Everyone had a good laugh at that and Henry loved the attention.  I think we got that one on film so maybe I'll post some of that when I get that back.  Well, it was a lovely night.

Sunday was pretty crazy.  I had to sing a solo, play in a mandolin quartet and sing in the choir for Sacrament meeting and then tell a story and sing a song in Relief Society.  I ended up not singing in Relief Society because of time constraints but I was glad.  My voice was shot by that point.  I told the story of how I was mugged on the way to see the Messiah sing in they do every year in the Stake Center in Manhattan and how it was just so powerful to me to feel to low and then have such a spiritual high right after that.  It was such a testimony to me how the atonement of Christ really works and how real the power of faith and forgiveness is.  The spirit was so strong that day.  

Angelina Ballerinas!

Christmas was probably the best we've had in years.  Henry woke us up at 7:15 telling him that Santa brought him a giant table with "bumps" all over it for putting Legos on.  I groggily said, "Henry, don't you remember I told you I was building something for you all these weeks? I made you that table, silly!".  He stood back for a second and said breathily, "Oooohhh, yeaaaa..." Then he leaned over and gave me a sweet hug saying, "Thank you mom".  What a way to start Christmas.  My mom and step father stayed overnight so they could see the morning festivities.  My mom sewed the girls the most adorable Angelina Ballerina skirts for ballet play complete with home made ears and three different tutus.  She also made the cutest robes for all the girls with giant bows kind of like the old fashioned kinds.  I can't believe she went to all that trouble!  The girls loved their present and spent the entire morning dancing around in their costumes.  Most everything else was just little toys that I need because all the toys we have, have lost parts and they don't work properly, so now they have some fun ball toys and my little pony stuff.  Henry got mostly books and one Lego set to go with his table.  The kids loved their stocking stuff.  I love buying things for stockings:)  I love being Santa.  The kids were so good and happy the whole morning.  We didn't have any bratty complaining or selfish behavior.  To top it all off, we had a huge snowfall on Christmas eve and we all went skiing all afternoon!  After the most delicious pancake, bacon, sausage, egg, juice and fruit breakfast made by my step father, the breakfast master, we took the three older kids up and were amazed that Bea could go down the green circle run all by herself and Clemmie could ski down the bunny hill unassisted!  She laughed the whole way down and hardly fell.  We met our friends, the Stensons up there and went on a few runs together.  I have to say that I am actually having more fun watching the girls ski on the bunny hill than I thought I would.  I don't even mind staying there and running up and down.  We came home to my favorite home made rolls made by my mom, (who can't even eat them anymore.  Darn gluten) and ham and finished off the day with a relaxing evening amidst all the giant mess of my house.  I didn't even care though.  lol.  What a perfect ending to a busy Christmas season.  At the end of the day, I finally sat down and just relaxed for the first time since Thanksgiving. That felt so wonderful.

On the 26th I recorded a secret recording for Justin's family that's soon to be revealed.  It took all day in Provo and I can't wait to hear how it turned out.  

This is one of the first Christmas' that I haven't been pregnant or have had a newborn since Henry was born and I can't even believe how much I loved being so capable to do so many things.  I really enjoyed myself and loved participating in everyone's parties, actually giving something to neighbors for once, singing in church, going skiing with my darling family, and being hormone fluctuation free!

On the Lover's Walk in Cinque Terre this summer. 

The most important thing about today is probably that it's my 10th anniversary! I have been married for 10 years.  Those years seemed long at times, but I can't believe I'm this old.  I still feel like I'm 21 and that those years went by really fast.  It's strange that when you want to grow up, time goes by so slowly, but when you want to stay young, time flies by!  I think time has flown by mostly because I have been having such a fulfilling life and that's all thanks to my hard working, darling husband who I love very much.  He is finally back from living at the hospital and I and the kids have someone else to lean on!  I am so much happier being married to him now.  haha!  I admit it was a struggle for these past 9 years, but it was all worth it baby!  I love you. Here's to 10 years and four darling children.

Happy 2013 everyone! Next year is going to be a grand adventure for sure!

Photography lessons meets slot canyons

Had to get down low for this shot

So, I took a photography class about a week ago and then went down to Southern Utah with the family to camp and explore slot canyons.  I tried to use my newly learned skills and try to not use the auto function, which took a long time to adjust every time in those dark slot canyons.  I felt like I missed some really cool shots, but it's fun to know how to finally use my camera.  I don't really have an eye for what's a great shot or not, but I feel like I got some cool ones, but I'm not even sure what I took would have been better than the camera being on auto.  Here are some of the ones I thought were the most interesting...not necessarily good photos...because I'm really not sure.  Tell me what you think...

Trying to get some light and shade on Henry's face.  I think it was too bright.  How do you change that?

I like getting his character on film.  He's so cute!

This one is overexposed, but I like her eyes her expression is because she bobbled a little bit and she got scared of tipping over. 

I got this one of the fire crackle.  I tried a million times to get another one somehow, but this was the best shot of the fire.  The kids wouldn't hold still enough to get them un-blurry. 

For some reason I like this photo a lot.  I like the sky and trees in the background with Clementine standing there, the glow of the fire and the movement of Henry's face.  It tells a story. 

Ok, here are the canyon shots.  The entrance to the slot canyon was really amazing.  Tons of arches. 

I could see the light streaming in through these rocks and finally got it captured on film a little bit. 

I loved this bright stripe of light coming through.  It was really tough to get the light just right in this shot. 

I didn't have time to get this shot better, but I thought the bumpy rock flow was interesting.  Had to document it. 

I really like Vivi in this shot.  She was the only one who easily fit through the canyon....very slowly.

Family Halloween Pic

Here is the whole crew this Halloween.  I didn't spend a penny on the girls' costumes since they were all just some version of ballerina, but I actually sewed Henry's costume this year, which I have never done.  The kids at school were laughing at him, which I think was just because his costume was funny, but he thought they were being mean.  Personally, I like it that he wanted to be the Lorax and not a zombie or super hero.  He's such an innocent little boy still and we're going to try to keep it that way. 

Day 26 Home Again

We woke up super early to take a cab to the airport and said goodbye to our beautiful Italia.  I don't remember much of the plane ride home.  Everyone just slept and cried and watched movies.  Lucy and I got on an earlier flight home from Atlanta so she could make it back early to be ready for her first semester back from her mission at BYU.  Justin and Henry and Bea took the later flight and ended up pulling up to our house around 2am.  As we ran around the yard looking at the chickens, gathering eggs and checking out our garden, our neighbor said he was surprised to hear little kids voices over here so late at night.  Yes, that would be rather strange. Henry and Bea stayed up all night long until Bea fell asleep at 6am and I made Henry take a one hour nap before I took him to his first day of Chinese school! The babies and I were over the jet lag in about two days, while it took Justin, Henry and Bea over a week to adjust.  Now we are settled back to normal farm life and lovin' it.  I do miss speaking Italian or French every day and I really miss the kids trying to speak in Italian.  We're trying to speak Italian in the house for a couple hours a day.  I hope they continue to pick it up.  If any of you are considering a similar trip.....do it!

Day 25: Tour of Rome

Today we actually made it to church for the first time on our trip! Luckily both Justin and I lived in Rome so we were confident we could make it to church.  We still had to leave an hour early to catch the bus and every person that got on the bus was put through my rigorous test of whether or not they were LDS or not.  There ended up being only one lady who was a member of the church on the bus and I suspected that she was because she was dressed way modestly for August in Italy and she was Peruvian! She was kind enough to show us the way there from the bus stop and learned that she was seduced by an Italian man who wanted to marry her and bring her back to Italy.  She ended up convincing him that he should just help her get to Italy and didn't end up having to marry him.  Phew!  Well, when we got to church Justin and I saw a guy who Justin and I knew as a young kid from another city we served our missions in at the church with his wife and a baby.  We couldn't believe it.  I didn't serve in that branch(now a ward) so I didn't see anyone I knew except for him.  Church was really wonderful and it was so nice to hear the gospel in Italian again.  The talks were great, the lessons were really insightful and the spirit was strong.  It's so nice to see that the church isn't in it's infantile state in Italy.  The people are really understanding the doctrine.  We said our goodbyes and walked back to our bus stop.  We were like 5 minutes late to get to the grocery store to get some fruit and bread, so we had to stop with our starving children at this place called Pizza Planet.  It was run by a man and his wife from Morocco and had probably the worst pizza we have ever tasted.  The kids wouldn't even touch it.  Only Violette ate some.  After tasting the pizza we asked them owner what the best thing there was and he brought us out these delicious gyro wraps that we devoured and had to get another for Henry and Bea because they even loved them.  This man was so generous.  He brought out some special tea for us to drink, washed our grapes for us and even gave the kids some macaroons for free just to be nice.  He was so excited that we came all the way from the US and were in his little shop in the middle of suburban Rome.  After eating, we waited for the bus in the blazing hot heat back to our apartment.

Once at the apartment, Justin decided to stay behind and pack while Lucy and I took Henry and Bea to see the Colosseum.  Since the kids didn't get much sleep the night before they were cranky the whole time.  We got a video tour of the Colosseum and Lucy and the kids learned about all the fights and deaths that happened there.  It was pretty incredible to think about what went on in that place.  One thing I learned is that the women were probably not allowed in the main area, but were separated from the men up in the highest section inside the walls and could barely peak out at what was going on.  Reminds me of how the Pittsburgh Steelers won't let women with newborns in to see their games because they're trying to protect the enjoyment of their fat, drunken male fans.  Looks like things haven't changed much since then.  Henry and Bea took a million photos with Lucy's camera and threw an hour long fit because we wouldn't him keep taking photos of every single artifact even though we were a half hour late to meet Justin.


We got home and geared up for our last night in Italy.  We started our magical night at the Piazza Venezia(the wedding cake) which houses the tomb of the unknown soldier.  I ate the hardest sandwich in my life and we went on a stroll to all the closest interesting Piazzas.  After that we hit the Pantheon and the largest gelateria with over 150 flavors to choose from.  It, of course, took forever for everyone to choose what they wanted, especially since it was the last gelato we were going to eat in Italy.  Then we wandered back to the piazza and let the kids run around.  We played tag, and hide and seek in the columns of the Pantheon.  Of course, everyone in the piazza thought it was really entertaining.  The cutest was when I was running around holding Violette out, chasing Clementine and Bea and they were all laughing their heads off.  They found a fountain and got all wet trying to get drinks from it and I ended up falling down while I was holding the baby and hit my knee really bad that ended up as a giant bruise.  Ouch! The stairs were so slippery!  The worst part is that tons of other people slipped while I was recovering on the steps and it seemed like it was just entertainment for the people sitting around there.  They were just waiting for the next person to slip and fall and keep the night lively. 


After that we debated about going home because it was like 11pm already, but we were really close to the Trevi fountain and we just could leave without seeing that.  We were so close! We walked there and spent a few beautiful moments looking at the newly cleaned fountain with super clear water.  I remember it being really dirty, so it was awesome to see it so sparkling clean.  We debated about going to the Spanish Steps, but we were not close at all so we abandoned that idea and waited for a bus to take us home.  I think we got home around 1am and crashed hard.  We and the kids were exhausted!

Day 24: Adieu Positano,

As we were leaving our beloved Positano I thought up a poem...

Adieu Positano, ci vediamo il prossimo anno. This means, Farewell Positano, we'll see you next year.  I said it with a glimmer and a wink to Justin.  I doubt we'll be there next year, but I won't give up hope. 

We left our dear Praiano and Positano and took a cab ride(thank you Justin) instead of the bus and the train to Napoli to take the train up to Rome.  As we were situating our stuff at the Napoli train station I saw an old Italian man look down at Bea and shake his head and hands at her and then I looked down to behold one of the most horrible sights I have ever seen…Bea in the gutter with her hand inside a giant, purple, Italian sized used condom.  We immediately ripped it off of her and wiped her hands off.  Lucy and I were so disgusted that we couldn’t contain our laughter and finally Justin chimed in and finally had a good laugh. I've never been so disgusted in my life.  

We loaded all our stuff on the wrong train, which I was suspicious of because it left at the wrong time and said Milano on it.  I ended up having to sit in the hot vestibule in between cars and we had to pay 8 Euro per person extra because we were on the wrong train.  The guy had no mercy on us.  Justin bought some pizza and food that ended up getting all over the floor and Justin's pants and our kids were all disgusting.  We basically looked like gypsies and were acting like them too.  I wasn't very happy.  I don't like travel days and after four weeks of carrying the baby on my shoulders and in my arms, I was exhausted.  I just wanted to sit in a regular seat.  Anyway, it was really embarrassing.  We tried to save money on expensive hotels by finding a one star hotel.  We had two rooms, one without air conditioning.  For the two nights we spent in Rome, it was cheaper than one room for one night in most other hotels.  Plus,we got free breakfast delivered to our door every morning.  They even went out and bought another pack-n-play because they told us they had two, but one ended up being broken.  I don't think they made any money from our stay. haha. 

When we got to Rome it was still pretty early so we decided to head right out to St. Peter's Cathedral to show Lucy the amazing building.  After checking out the inside, which is enormous and filled with so much art, as well as my favorite sculpture, Michelangelo's "the Pieta'" We bought tickets to go up to the top of the dome and hoped that the kids would be up for climbing up 500 steps up to the top.  They loved it and even Clementine climbed the entire way up.  At one point we were in the walls of the dome and they were so slanted that it was hard not to bonk your head.  Every time Clemmie hit her head against the wall, she said softly, "ow, ow" without another word of complaint.  haha.  We stopped at the bottom of the dome to see the paintings and mosaics around the inside of the dome where we decided we wanted to do mosaics of our kids instead of photo portraits.  Clementine's hair bow also got stolen by a very obese little Mexican girl who Bea saw take it.  I told the mother and when she asked her daughter about it, she had been sucking on it and then gave it back to me.  Yuk.  We climbed up to the top and looked out at the highest point of Rome at all the gardens and buildings.  It was windy and cool up there compared to inside the passageway.  We took some photos and then headed back down.  We stopped at a half way point to let the kids run around since it was way safer than any place down on the ground.  I spoke to a family from Iran who were truck drivers in Canada.  They were so nice.  The kids started to freak out so we tried to find a place to eat.  All the good places were closed for the holiday so we ended up eating at a place where giant tour buses of tourists eat and it was surprisingly pretty good.  They even had french fries which the kids were excited about.  We got gelato next door and then took the bus back to our one star hotel.