Mom's Brag Book

On Friday the school held a student of the month assembly. A few days prior to this, I received a phone call from Ella's teacher informing me that Ella would be receiving an award. She also told me that Ella did not know, so to keep it a secret. A fairly easy task, I thought. However, Friday morning Ella woke up and said, "hey mom, there is a student of the month assembly today, can you come?" What! I had to act like there was absolutely no chance of me coming. "Why on earth would I want to come to that?" Anyways, I'm not usually a super early person, but I really wanted to make sure I wasn't walking in late, so I wound up being early enough that I made it there before the kids all started filing in. Ella's class comes in first and sure enough she sees me sitting there. She comes over to ask if she or Mason are winning an award. "No, I'm just here because you asked me to come!" Despite all my stories, she truly was surprised when they called her name. She won an award for "stepping up" in math. It makes me happy to see she is working hard and trying to better herself! She also is working very hard at practicing piano. She just started lessons this month and I can hardly believe how well she plays. I had been so worried that we were starting way too late and maybe it just wouldn't be her skill, but I'm sure if she keeps practicing as faithfully as she is now she will sound as great as the person we are going to go see together tomorrow night! (I will post more about that later as it is a secret reward Ella is receiving from Chad and I for not missing any practices this month!)

Mason just had an interview with the bishop today. I can't believe he will be turning 8 this Saturday. I am so proud of him for his decision to be baptized. He is so excited and can't wait. I'm so thankful for Ella and his older cousins that have been such good examples to him!

Tyson's primary teacher also told me today that he listened really well to her. He has a couple rowdy boys in his class and she wanted to keep them separated. She asked Tyson to sit at the end of the row and although he really wanted to sit by his best friend, he listened and sat at the end!

Another person I need to brag about for a moment is Deacon. His official nursery start date was December 19. I had been staying with him the whole time (except when I packed him up to go conduct in primary or do sharing time). I really didn't want to traumatize him and just drop him off--he is my most clingiest child. Well today I walked to the nursery room door with him, led him into the room, waved goodbye and he stayed the whole time--no problems. The youth even came in for the last block and he was fine! Yahoo! Hopefully I haven't jinxed anything--watch, he won't stay next week!

In conclusion, I think I deserve an award too. Not because of all these wonderful things my children have been doing, but because I discovered yesterday that a mini ziploc bag full of almonds, m&m's, marshmallows, chocolate chips, yogurt covered raisins and dried cranberries can keep your kids from fighting for a whole afternoon!



- H

Mongolian Hot Pot

So, first off Chemtd owes all of its loyal fans an apology. It has been far too long since we posted. Last Thursday I went to an Enrichment put on by our ward. It was fantastic. So much fun. Basically it was a night to get us excited about making goals. I have to admit that as of that night, (the middle of January) I still had not made any New Year's resolutions. I had been thinking of a couple of things I needed to do, but as someone said that night, they are not goals if they are not written down, they are just wishes. So, I am so excited. It had felt like my life was so busy that I didn't have time to do all these things, but as I've tried to incorporate some of these things into my routine the last week, I have been surprised. One of the goals I decided to do was to try to blog. This one has been a bit harder for me, but hopefully, once I get going it will become easier!

We had a great Christmas. One of the best ever, I think. We have a tradition to have nachos and banana slush every Christmas Eve. I went a little overboard this year and added a few more items to our menu, but that's what we're about. We love to party with lots of great food! On New Year's Eve we had a cheese fondue party. (We decided to save the chocolate fondue for the night we took the tree down in hopes that it would alleviate the sadness of the season ending. It did!) All this fun got me to thinking that I would like to try a broth/oil fondue sometime. We took a look at our little old pot and decided a new and improved electric pot was in order! It arrived in the mail yesterday! As we were waiting for its arrival though, Chad started thinking about having "Hot Pot" while he was in Thailand. We watched some videos and discovered you can improvise and just use an electric skillet, which is what we did. We went into the Asian Market yesterday and picked up all the necessary ingredients! Mason had watched some videos with Chad and was totally excited.






Cuttlefish balls, shrimp and fish tofu.



Rice noodles, chicken and Chinese sausage.



Steak with an egg cracked on top.


Broccoli, watercress, bok choy and enoki mushrooms.



Also, some baby corns. We first made a broth and added it to a warm skillet. Then we just threw in what we wanted to eat, let it cook for a bit--the meat really doesn't take long at all if it is cut thinly enough. The kids loved it. They tried everything and liked it, well Ella was a little apprehensive about the cuttlefish and fish tofu as was I, but the boys loved it. In fact Tyson ate two fish tofu and said he didn't like the chicken! It will definitely be making a regular appearance at our table!


Just had to throw this picture in to show off how cute Deacon is. We got these little yogurt drinks at the Market too and Deacon could not be left out!

- H