Tales of a Shoebox Princess

First off, I'm baking tonight. SOMEbody decided to have his 50th birthday tomorrow. I still don't really have any great ideas for decorating his cake (no over the hill stuff--it's passe. Plus all that black frosting stains everything, especially my tongue) so if you have any brilliant ideas I would love for you to share them with me. I realized this afternoon that Jim is lucky because he got to wait an extra day to turn 50. Normally his birthday is the day after Feb 28th but not this year. Someone squeezed a Leap day in here just so Jim could enjoy an extra day of being in his 40s. In other news, Paul invented a new sandwich, which I had to share with you. In my opinion it is nasty, but he seemed to like it. I like the ingredients individually, but when he put them all together I felt a little queasy. Picture: The official recipe is as follows: one slice of bread, spread with Nutella, evenly space peanut butter m&ms on the Nutella. Nother slice of bread, spread...

I know Valentine's day has come and gone ages ago, but I have to post something or my posting skills get rusty after a week of no use. I spend so much time waiting for letters and emails from the missionary that I don't get my blogging done like I used to. Around Feb 1st every year, I start wondering why I put myself through this stupid Valentine tradition. But then the morning of the 14th, as Hayley and I headed out to seminary, she said, "treasure hunt?" and I thought, "OK, I'm glad I did it."  When the kids came home from school, they found this: Three of the balloons had little pieces of paper with letters on them. Matt tried this method of determining the letters in his balloon.  Hayley and Paul both popped their balloons. Unfortunately, that tended to send the little pieces of paper in all directions. Here is Hayley unscrambling her letters so they read "Fork knife spoon." Matt's unpopped balloon led him to t...

We'll be singing the Blues this summer--Cougar Blues. Paul was accepted to BYU Provo for summer semester. He broke the news in typical Paul fashion: He came home from work, walked into the basement while texting, grunted hello. Said work was sporadically busy and sporadically not busy, logged onto the computer, checked something out (I didn't know what at the time because I was engrossed in "Downton Abbey"), and then he mumbled, "oh, I got accepted to BYU for summer." He was so low-key about it that I didn't know what he meant at first. And he didn't specify which BYU either, although I guessed Provo because I already knew that BYU I had accepted him. We've just sent EJ away a week and a half ago, and now we are sending Paul away in 4 months. I kind of feel like there's a brick wall somewhere, waiting to come smack me in the face. These kids and their growing up! How did they manage to do it so fast?

I dislike big school projects even more now that I'm not the one doing them. I'm usually asked to help at the precise moment when I can least spare the time and there are usually tears involved (although miraculously, not usually mine) Matt had a project for math class due last week. It was called the Paul Bunyan project. They had to make a model of something and scale it to Paul Bunyan proportions (which I don't know the exact ratio). Hayley had to do the same thing two years ago, and she chose to do a dental floss container.  Matt originally chose to do a CD, but the final size of the project would have been nearly 7 feet tall and wide. He finally settled on doing a mayonnaise packet--the kind you find in restaurants.  I'm happy to report that Matt didn't leave the actual making of the project until the last minute. He worked on a little bit each day for over a week, so the last night before the project was due, all he had to do was fill the packet with news...

Before I talk about Frank, I will give a quick update on life after EJ. We're doing fine. Of course we can't wait for the first letter, which probably won't arrive for another week yet. Our church pew seems very empty without EJ sitting on the end of it. But we're fine. And I've only teared up once, and that was during the opening prayer in church this morning when the person giving it (Elder W, one of the missionaries serving in our ward who EJ spent a lot of time with) said, "Bless Elder Evans in the MTC." I really wished I had a kleenex in my purse (they always disappear) so I could wipe away the stray droplets. So to Frank. I got to know Frank in high school during my sophomore year. I don't remember where we met (possibly in marching band.  He played the baritone) but I think we decided to be friends early on that year. He was sarcastic, which appealed to me. He also knew a lot about baseball and hockey, two new interests I had discovered....

EJ's first name is now Elder. Some people EJ invited over for dinner his last night here. The guy on the left is a former missionary who served in our ward for 14 months. He was the first missionary that EJ really got to be good friends with. K is from Tonga and after his mission, he moved back here to our ward. He loves it here and we love him. He came to our house for dinner his first night in MN as a missionary, and I served pork loin and K said it made him feel happy. Pork is a celebratory food where he was from and it made him feel like he was celebrating. Former missionary K, EJ, Elder McD, Elder W, and Bishop J (Travis, you ought to recognize this guy)     no crying yet from any of us Just after EJ was set apart. Hayley and Matt didn't come because they had mucho homework. These next two pictures are from nearly twelve years ago.  I put those here because I just can't believe that those two boys are now these two boys: They probab...

I'll post something non-EJ or church related. How about crafts? Or food? Or both? Yesterday was a refreshing day of few commitments. I made dinner but few people were at home to eat it. Dave (not that you read this), I used some of the IQF* beef you are "storing" in my freezer for my chili last night. I learned that 20 lbs of IQF ground beef in a box does not come in smaller quantities when you open the box. Nope, I had to scoop out what I estimated I needed (2 lbs) out of this: Yes, it looks like worms. It weirds me out every time I look at it. But we ate the chili anyway, those of us who were at home. And now for my craft. I haven't crafted in ages. I have been meaning to do a craft for ages because I'm so often at home these days and I have lots of craft supplies. For the craft that I wanted to do, however, I needed vinyl letters and wooden blocks, neither of which I had. But I do have acquaintances who do. So I turned to them in my time of need a...

A couple days ago, I got a hankering for really good bread. Not plain old sandwich bread that I buy at the store for $1.39, but stuff that I have to go to a bakery for and pay a few dollars more. I could just bake some myself, but with getting EJ ready for next Wednesday, work, and seminary prep, I frequently make excuses not to bake, let alone cook dinner. I thought to myself, "I really want to go to a bakery to get some fancy bread. But I never leave my house anymore, except for seminary and that doesn't really count because...I don't know why it doesn't count, but it doesn't." So I've been traipsing around the house for a few days thinking about bread and how and when to get some. Then on my way to seminary this morning, I realized that there's a Great Harvest Bread Company within a mile of the church. And I was pretty sure that since it's a bakery, they'd be open at 7 a.m.!  After seminary ended today, I cruised over to the GHB, and...

Jim came in from moving the truck out of the driveway so I could drive to seminary, and he said, "It's foggy out." I thought, yeah yeah. Fog. Whatever. So I got in my van and started down the road to the church. I drove along and drove along (no that's not a typo, it's my love of fairy tales peeking through. As in whenever we told stories to each other, there was always and phrase, "she went along and went along" meaning she walked for a time) I did note that the fog was more foggy than usual. But I was seeing other cars and I could see stoplights so I was fine. I drove for a bit more and saw a stoplight ahead. I thought to myself because no one else was in the car and I don't have to vocalize to talk to myself, "Ah. Here is the stoplight at county road 5. I will turn right here." As I pulled up to the stoplight to turn, I looked around and I almost screamed. I was not at county road 5, I was a mile farther up the road. I saw the ba...