Moving on.

Just when I thought there might not be anymore improving on THE chocolate chip cookie recipe, I got a call from my cousin.  Not only did she explain to me that there need not be any reason for a dessert, you can just have it, but she also informed me that there was another chocolate chip cookie recipe worth trying.  And this one was designed to carry inside of it two scoops of your favorite ice cream! 

And, she promised I could just make it on any random day of the week, for no reason!  It was liberating.  But, she did fail to mention that when children eat such a ginormous cookie ice cream sandwhich, that it's best to have that ice cream be vanilla, not chocolate, unless you want to do lots of stain removing.  So, let me add that advice on to her advice about this dessert.  Go ahead, Lisa says it's okay, just make them, and eat them, you know you want to.  Here's her recipe:

Ginormous Chocolate Chip Cookies 

Alternately named, "Lisa's Cookies":

2 c. + 2 TBS flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt


1 1/2 sticks of butter melted, and then cooled for a few minutes
1 c. dark or light brown sugare
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 egg yoke
2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. chocolate chips, or chocolate chunks

The method is basically the same as mixing your standard batch of cookies.  But these cook bake in an oven set at 325 degrees.  This recipe makes 18- 1/4 cup size cookies.  Measure out 1/4 scoops of dough onto two cookies sheets.  Put both cookie sheets into your preheated oven, at the same time, on two different racks.  Cook for 15-18 minutes.  But halfway through, rotate your cookie sheets, and switch them from one oven rack to the other.  Make sense?!

Let them cool for a bit.  Then fill with scoops of ice cream and serve.   Your family will love you forever for them.  Just like I'll love my cousin forever.

George asked me if this was a top secret, family recipe?

I don't believe too many things should be top secret, but I would guess the Major disagrees with me on that topic.

Ruby told me that when she grows up and has her own little kids, she's going to bake them these cookies for dessert too, that's how good they are.

 

But really, I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?  Our blog is stuck back on February 20th which was Ruby and Jane's 5th birthday.  Their actual birthday, not their birthday party.  

Our morning was filled with our typical early morning birthday party, full of surprises and presents from each of us.  Pink two wheeled scooters were obviously at the top of the list of exciting surprises!  These cute matching aprons came from Grandma Lark in Oregon.  The girls were thrilled to get them!  Darin does such a good job of photographing the birthday morning party.  The kids are going to treasure his photography and the moments that he captures.  Too many to post here.

Their party was followed up by our Ward's Primary talent show.  Of course the girls had to wear their birthday outfits again, and what talent might they be demonstrating?  Well, that would be ribbon dancing, of course.  They had learned it the day before, so it had indeed become a talent in those shorts 24 hours.  Lovely!

The boys worked long and hard on their Lego Star Wars stop motion movie.  They were a huge hit with the male 10-and under crowd.  All the other boys wanted to know how they did it.  I wish I knew how to post it here!

The talent show was followed up by dinner at Chili's, where Ruby mostly sat like this, convinced that the Chili's waitressing staff had forgotten that it was her birthday.  What a diva.

In the end, it wasn't really about the singing, it was mostly about the chocolate shake.  That makes a bit more sense, right?

The next day it was Dear Old Dad's birthday.  He turned 35.  What a guy.  Too bad I'm the photographer on this day, we have like three photos to show for it all.  He wanted a Kindle, so we got him a Kindle.  He wanted a traditional eggs, bacon, toast, hash browns and orange juice breakfast, so I made it for him.  He selected Chilaquiles Verdes for dinner.  So I made it for him!  And he honored his yearly tradition of the decadent Red Velvet cake, split down the middle with one half pecans, one half no pecans.  

George wanted to get him a scooter so that the whole family could scooter in the halls together.  And as if there wasn't anything the Major would rather do on his birthday, he scootered in the hallway with the children, until the neighbors asked them to please not scooter in the hallway anymore.

I love him so!  And the Chilaquiles Verdes recipe that he found, was seriously one of the most delicious meals ever to come out of our Korean kitchen.  Right down to the homemade corn tortilla chips that we fried ourselves.  Wileys, they tasted just like we were sitting together on your picnic blanket at the So. Pasadena Farmers market...if only we were.  Sigh.

Oh boy, now I think I can finally accept the fact that it is March 5th. 

P.S.  To my sisters, and my cousin, who is also my hair dresser, what the *&!@#$ has happened to my hair?!




It's like I can barely recognize myself.  I feel the need to introduce myself, "Hi, my name is Annee, I used to be blond, until I moved to Korea."

Oh, whatever, I'm over it.  Just had to vent for a moment.  Brunette is kind of cool too.

The night before.

I hope I get an "A" on my book report that is due in the morning.  I always get nervous the night before a big assignment is due. 

P.S.  And I feel sad, because I'm not sure that this picture even does justice to the work that went into this "book box".  

P.P.S Who comes up with this stuff for elementary school children??  Don't they know they can't make miniature furniture and books on their own?! 

P.P.P.S.  Please tell me you think the printed out head was a brilliant solution to the complaint, "But I don't know how to draw the main character, MOM!"  (and I hope you read that quote in your whiniest voice ever!)

Good night. 

The Party

The Outfits:

The lanterns!







The castle:



The cake:




The favors:



The stations:



Crown making.

Cookie decorating.  (Not pictured, princess coloring.)

Ending with ribbon dancing and music.

Blowing out the candles.

Now they are 5.

Sigh.

Too late to help.

We are in various stages of party prep all over the house, it seems. Somewhere along the line when we were discussing options regarding a "princess party", a vision of a box castle was mentioned. Sometimes I wonder why I mention my visions. My girls now think that a princess party won't even be fun without a giant box castle, even if it is just for decoration, as I've explained.

And because I can't seem to fall asleep amidst so much to do, I decided last night that one solid night of sleep would be important, so I took a sleeping pill. I think it took affect around 7am this morning. Which reminded me of the awesome time I tried to get an epidural, only it was too late, and didn't take affect until AFTER George was born.

Back to castle building, and giant cupcake cake making, and rose barrette finishing, etc., all with the courteous assistance of a sleeping pill.

This, that and the other.

Look who came to Osan this week?! That's Elder Dallin Oaks, of the Quorum of the Twelve and his sweet wife. They were also accompanied by Elder Hallstrom and Elder Choi of the Quorum of the Seventy, and their wives. After speaking at a conference in Seoul on Sunday, the group traveled to Osan on Monday for a tour of the base. Darin gave them a briefing about North Korea, and we were invited to attend lunch afterward. It was wonderful to be in the company of such great people.




And I was proud that when I mentioned my dad to Elder Oaks, he instantly knew him, and connected him to the work being done on the Rome temple. Pretty impressive.

Lately, Jane has been practicing doing her own hair. Here was her effort from the other day....


George's basketball season came to an end. He did a super job fully participating. It was at times hard to decide if that was because of his love of the game, or if it had to do with the $1-per-rebound offer made by his father. I'll let you be the judge. But I think George is pretty rich right now.

And finally, a little before and after of my latest organization project. I wish I were better at this sort of thing. Sadly, things usually have to get as bad as the "before" picture in order for me to realize that it needs to be turned into an "after" picture. I've got more to say about that, and I'm talking about my latest throw pillow over at Made on Maple. So if that's your sort of thing, you'll want to check it out.


Before:

After!

Winter lasts forever...

...but if you try hard enough, there are still a few moments of domestic bliss.


When I saw this scene through the lens of my camera today, that's when I thought I was having a pure moment of domestic bliss. My girls needed lunch. There was some arguing and crying involved. So many options were not acceptable. I was loosing patience, and simultaneously praying for just the right answer that was going to make everything okay, when "Crepes" popped into my mind. When I announced it out loud, all the tears stopped and hot chocolate was added to the menu. Perfect, I thought. I handled that perfectly. I sat them down to a plate full of hot crepes, a bottle of chantilly to do with as they pleased, and admired my piles of beautifully folded laundry. 12:23pm was looking good, chez Les Earnests!

Winter is entirely too long. It just is. I am a girl who loves all four season indiscriminately. I need them all to have complete happiness. But as it turns out, I need only a small dose of winter. Not a very large dose. In February, I need a few days that feel like spring. Even if it disappears and winter comes back, I just need a little something.

Korea can't deliver. The 10-day forecast has nothing above 32 degrees. But there was sunshine today. And the snow has melted, and it hasn't rained for a few days, so the puddles were even dry. That meant at about 3:45pm I could declare it time to go to the play ground.



Henry took his coat off, because it was getting in the way of his game. He's crazy and cool like that, and apparently takes his game really seriously. He asked me to donate my hat because his ears were cold. I told him no, mostly as a joke, but then I wasn't joking, because then my ears would get cold. And then I sat in silence for a bit thinking about how if I were a real mom, I would totally give my cold son the hat right off of my head. Why didn't I give it to him?!




It's weird, we were the only ones there. 23 degrees isn't too cold to be outside. Seriously, just try it. The kids lasted an entire hour. As long as I stood in the direct rays of the sun, I could keep smiling (my face was kind of frozen that way anyway).



Then, when all else fails, go to the flower market. I took the girls on Thursday. There was no other option. Before leaving, again I found myself praying, "let there be tulips, please, please, please".








So now I'm trying that trick again..."let it be spring, please,please, please, please".

TO BE CONTINUED...

I did it!

I cut their hair! It was LONG over due. They didn't even complain. They themselves had grown tired of the tangles and the tears. And I don't think they could look any cuter.

I also created a new dress. More details on that over at MOM.

Other than that, inspired by our cousin Sam, the boys and their dad have been trying to figure out how to make stop-motion-movies. They tell me they'll have one ready to share as soon as I get the tripod exchanged for one that's not broken (tomorrow, I promise!!). It was surprising how quickly they figured it out, and pretty fun to watch.

And, the Major and I busy trying to forget that he applied to University of Virginia (UVA) over a month ago, and it's possible that we'll be hearing back from them in the coming weeks.

We're trying to forget that, and act as if we're just busy with life as usual. But who can pretend to not care about where they are possibly moving to in about four months?! (Or in 131 days in case you are counting down?).

Dear Charlotteville, VA-

Am I going to be calling you home? I'd love to. Let me know.

Thanks.

Annee

Why deviate?!

The one thing Korea could give me that Colorado never could, is the perfect batch of cookies, right out of the oven, EVERY TIME. To all my sisters, or would-be-sisters who live "at altitude", here's a picture of what cookies look like when you live at sea level:


This batch was devoured about 3 seconds out of the oven, by four children who were with me, every step of the way. And it did make me wonder why I would ever deviate from this type of perfection?!

Dear Jane-

This was the funniest thing I saw all day long.

I love you.

Mom

Cookies weren't the only thing I was making.... Big news here today, from now on I'll be posting all my sewing creations on a new blog:

Made on Maple

It's my new creative space that I'm sharing with best friend Liz. It used to be that almost nightly I would send Liz an email with an attachment of either my finished project or my latest work in progress. And in return, she would show me what she was making. Those were the most delightful emails, but we decided we should just be posting those pictures to a blog. Surely there is no shortage of sewing blogs on the internet, but it feels exciting to have one of our very own. If you want to know what I'm making...come on over.

A little bit of everything.

My mother always taught me, if I didn't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all.

I hope that explains my silence over the past week or so.

But we did just enjoy a long, four day weekend. And our Monday ended up being really fun, so that's worth remembering.

We gathered with a bunch of families from church, we drove about an hour to a city where a Hyundai car factory was located. We had our "tour guide" arrange for us to have a guided tour of the Hyundai factory. Happily, there was another deluxe sledding hill only about fifteen minutes from the factory, so we sledded first, and then went on the tour. It was a lovely sort of day.











Korea cracks us up with it's controlled sledding hills. But now, I almost forget how to sled any other way. And maybe they are right? Maybe it's best to all line up at the top of a hill, sit down on your sled in your designated "go slot", and wait until the worker blows his whistle to let you know it's safe to go. I mean, what's wrong with that? Somehow I can't really picture it in America. But maybe it's just because no one has introduced it yet. Maybe it's my next great venture in life...

After a bit of sledding, we let the kids go crazy and partake in the few little "rides" that were there.



In case you can't tell, that would be George who picked this bungee jumping type activity, as his "I'm taking a break from sledding for a minute" carnival ride. What a guy! P.S. Henry kept his feet firmly planted on the ground during his "break from sledding".

After re-applying our lip gloss...

...and having a bit of our picnic lunch...


...it was time to move our party over to the Hyundai factory. I am SO glad this stop was put on our tour schedule. Who knew that watching the entire car assembly line from the stamping shop, to the welding shop, to the car parts assembly shop, could be so much fun? Honestly it was exhilarating. To see a car at the very end of the assembly line, actually drive off the assembly line and get parked against the wall with the other finished cars, nearly had me announced that we would be stopping off to buy a new Hyundai on our way home. I'm not sure who was most excited about the car tour, the children or me?! Thanks to our own sweet Jihyun Knudsen for being our girl on-the-scene in Korea, who gets us access to such fantastic opportunities. We're going to miss her, and all the fun excursions she leads us on!

So that's about it, my friends. The rest of my January days are filled with my ladies finding me at various points in the day, to ask where the camera is. In secret hope that it will break (and then I can get a new one!), I give it to them, and they go and take pictures of whatever it is that is entertaining them right at the moment...

(Grandpa, the cat is what Ruby spent her $5 from you on. She loves it.)

When George isn't busy talking to me, or someone else in this house, and he momentarily doesn't know what he should do, I tell him to read. Then he tells me he doesn't like to read. And then five seconds later, I'll find him, READING. In case you haven't heard about it, "audible.com" might change your life. It's changing George's, and it surely has changed mine. For George he can now "read" the books that he thought were too difficult. He follows along as the book is read to him. For me, it means multi-tasking while "reading"! It's the most amazing thing. I thought books and reading were gone for me for this period of time. But now I read while sewing and that's nearly a miracle.


And to wrap it all up, I give you Beauty and the Bee. I recently ordered these little yellow shoes, and yellow striped shirt, because I LOVE this shade of yellow right now. I would dress the whole family in it, if everyone would let me dress them. As soon as the box arrived, Ruby volunteered to try everything on for me. About five seconds later she was running down the hall to her room to look for her wings. Once those were found, she was running to the craft paper and rummaging for scissors. When I asked her what she was doing, she told me she was going to be a bee. The shoes and the shirt combined together had her buzzing around our house all afternoon long, asking me 2004 times, "What do bees eat?"








It was a buzzing good time! And that's the way we're rolling this January.