Caught this little guy basking on my deck the other day. So cute. We have lots of squirrels in our yard, thanks for a couple of very large pine trees on the back corner.

"Hey Soren, are you plier man or something?" "No Mom, I'm just a robot with lots of gadgets." "Can I take your picture?" "OK. Like this!" He did a lot of funny poses, most with a fierce face and curled arms.

belated Thanksgiving post

I have so much to be grateful for.

It sometimes amazes me that after losing my mother and my brother I can feel so blessed, so grateful, and so happy.

Life is good. Life is hard, but it is good, too. With each new challenge we face we have the opportunity to become stronger. I believe that many of our trials in life are to help us become more like the Savior. My testimony of Him has only grown as I have faced difficulties and felt His loving arms around me. He lives! I know this with all my heart.

I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful to know that families can be together forever. I am so thankful for the sealing power of the temple that binds us together. Brandon and my mom are waiting for me on the other side. I will see them again.

Soren said

"If you have a tasty kiss, you should lick your lips!" (This after asking if he tasted like chocolate.)

"Mom, if I saw Jesus, I would run up and give him a hug!"

Dino-powered

Today I was running some errands with the kids. We stopped for gas somewhere in the middle. Out of nowhere Soren asks, "What exactly is gas?" Sounds like something Owen would ask, but no, it was Soren who prompted the conversation. I explained that gas comes from fossil fuels, so the next obvious question, from Owen this time, "What are fossil fuels?" You've got to remember here that my degree is in English, whereas my smarty-pants husband has graduate degrees in both math and physics. Anyway, I delved into an explanation of how things that lived millions of years ago, like dinosaurs, died and then decayed and became covered up with land (or whatever) and eventually became oil, which was mined and refined into gas, which powers our car. Owen's eyes went wide, his eyebrows raised, and after a minute he said, "So, gas is made from dinosaur skin?" At which point I called Austin to make sure I wasn't feeding my kids a load of crap. "Hi. I need to verify something..." He reminded me that it's mostly plants, but yes, dinosaurs are included in fossil fuels. Science lesson for the day: check.

On a completely different note, Soren had his follow-up today and the ENT said that Soren is "unbelieveable!" He's at a higher risk for bleeding now that he's feeling a little better but not all the way healed, so he wants Soren to be as sedentary as possible. Good luck with that one, mom! I'm finding that if we give Soren medicine for pain, he becomes a little ball of energy and bounces all over the place (bad), but if we don't give him pain medicine, he's cranky and cries and wants to be held all day (also bad). So we're doing a mix, and he's still watching way too many movies and eating popsicles. But he was well enough to run a couple of errands after the doctor's today and eat an entire Costco-sized piece of pizza.

We're hosting Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'm excited for the friends and the feast.

Dear Soren

This came home in Owen's folder last week. I have to admit that seeing the way my boys love each other is one of the best parts of parenting. There are plenty of times when they don't get along; I treasure the times that they do.

Sunday Evening Meal

I usually cook something on Sunday and this is how it all happens. See the thing is, I like to eat. And I like to eat well. And I don't like to spend a lot of time in the morning making lunches for work. So on Sunday I like to make a big dinner with enough left over for lunch on Monday ( and sometimes Tuesday ).

Tonight I wanted tuna but with a tomato base. It sounded good, but I wasn't sure if I was breaking some fundamental culinary law, "Don't mix tuna with tomatoes." So I looked for a precedent. I found a tasty looking recipe in a book called, Desperation Dinners but of course I didn't have all the ingredients it called for. It basically looked like a chicken cacciatore but with tuna. So I improvised my own hunter's tuna.

I put some olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. (I dunno, 1/4 cup or less??)

I added a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes (I used Del Monte brand from Costco--we have a ton of these). I've found that you can let these simmer for a while and you've got yourself a very fine marinara--this was my base. I would have used two cans but I knew that we had some open pasta sauce in the fridge that wasn't getting any fresher so later I added about an equal amount of said sauce.

We had a small onion that was partially used up so I chopped up the remnant and added it to the pan. (The thing was very small, I'd say you could use a medium onion down to none it all if you hate onions.)

We have some already-chopped-up garlic in a big container, I love using that stuff (Costco). So easy. I stuck my knife in and pulled out somewhere between two and five cloves worth. I like garlic.

I added two cans of tuna. Specifically I used Solid White ALBACORE tuna (packed in water) 7oz cans, drained of course (Costco). Probably would taste fine with regular tuna packed in oil. Who knows.

This is when I added the aforementioned pasta sauce (Yeah it was from Costco too).

If one is making marinara you want to let the stuff cook until the tomatoes break up into, well sauce. So I let the whole thing cook for a while, broke up the tuna into small bits and added my big cheat: three cubes of chicken bouillon. since bouillon sizes vary, I'll state for the record that this was supposed to be equivalent to three cups of chicken broth (dehydrated of course).

Oh yeah, I also added a generous amount of pepper about now.

While the sauce was cooking and the flavors mingling, I put a large pot of water on to boil.

When the water was at a full boil I added some elbows. For a thickish sauce like this you want to use elbows or bowties but not spaghetti, spaghetti is better with thinner sauce. I used one pound of Barilla elbows (Costco again). Cooked them for 7 minutes until just edible. I like pasta al dente, I find that most recommended cooking times are about two minutes too long. Macaroni and cheese (the boxed kind), for example, usually instructs you to cook the darn stuff for 7.5 minutes but I can't bear to eat the stuff if it goes a second longer that 3 minutes (I think this is an extreme case though).

When the Pasta was ready I added some lemon juice, around three or four splashes, to the sauce.

Serve with mixed vegetables and some kind of fruit. I put out some canned sliced peaches and chilled applesauce--mostly because I had opened a new jar of applesauce a few days earlier without realizing that there was another older one open already.

On a scale of one to ten Chantel said this was an eleven hundred.
So I'm writing it here for posterity and for anyone else who gets a craving for tuna in a tomato base.
Best of luck in the kitchen and in life.