Same great taste!

I made something new for dinner tonight. I call it Cheeseburger Casserole. I didn't have any ground beef, only turkey and I haven't really liked the way the turkey burgers come out so I thought I'd try something creative. I started by taking enough hamburger buns (tops separate from bottoms) to cover the bottom of a casserole dish. I thinly spread some mayo on the buns then broiled them in the oven until they were toasted. Meanwhile I browned the ground turkey then added cut up potatoes (in place of fries) and chopped onions. I added some all purpose seasoning to it all and when the veggies were cooked, added a can of tomato sauce, about 3/4 cup of ketchup, a couple squirts of mustard and stirred it all together. It was thicker than I wanted so I just added a little water. Then I topped the buns with the meat and sauce and topped all that with cheese. I baked it for 15 min. at 375 degrees and served it with a big green salad. The kids loved it and said, "Hey, this tastes like hamburgers." I liked it because it was actually healthier than hamburgers and fries, used less buns, and tasted better than turkey burgers. I call that another culinary success!

Selu Farm Fieldtrip

On Friday our History Book Club group went on a fieldtrip to a reconstructed 1930's farmhouse. The house is located on the original foundation and some of the original outbuildings are still there. It is only a few miles outside of the city of Radford and is run by Radford University. We went through each room of the house and in each area learned about different things from the 1930's. Station 1: The Living Room. In the Living Room the volunteer talked about how much of the cloth that was used for things like bedding and clothing came from left over feed sacks. She showed some old dresses and patterns as well as an old sewing machine. She talked about the straw tick mattress on the bed and the quilt. The little kids enjoyed the rocking chairs, the older girls liked feeling the different textures of the quilt fabrics (Clarissa is wearing the purple hat), and the boys...they were like, "When do we get to learn about boy stuff?" Just in time, we were informed that it was time to go to the corn patch and see the machinery.

Krystal and Amber holding hands on their walk to the corn patch.

Station 2: Corn Patch. This was great. Not only did the guide keep asking the kids applicable math questions, he let them really get their hands dirty, so to speak. We learned many interesting things about corn that we didn't know before and even got to plant some corn. When the kids noticed that there wasn't a horse to pull the planting machine, Jared and his friend Connor promptly volunteered to be the horses. I think this station helped Jared be even more excited about his corn plants at home that are already starting to break ground.

Station 3: The Beekeeper. On the front porch the beekeeper taught us many exciting new things about bees and the how's and why's of keeping them. We learned that the females do all the work outside the hive and that the drones do not have stingers and get killed when they are done mating. We learned about why they use smokers on bees and how to find a bee tree in the wild. The kids especially enjoyed seeing a queen bee up close. It was fascinating and we could have listened for much longer than 20 minutes.

Station 4: The Parlor. A 1930's parlor was used mainly for guests and entertaining. It was closed off from the rest of the house and kept neat and clean. This parlor had many musical instruments including an old pump organ. Jared entertained us all by playing "Yankee Doodle" with his hands and pumping with his feet. We were also lucky enough to have two of the volunteers play a piece on the guitar and banjo that was original to this area and performed by the Carter family band. Speaking of the banjo, we learned that it originated from African Americans, a fact that none of us knew before. Finally they turned on an old Victrola. I must say, we've come a long way in sound quality since then.

Station 5: Upstairs. Next we went upstairs to the girls room and saw more quilts. In the boys room we looked at the construction of the siding for the house.

Station 6: Corn Shelling on the Back Porch. This was a big hit with the kids. They each got their own cob of dried feed corn to shell. They discovered it was much easier to use the machine than to do it by hand.

Then they ground the corn in the grinder.

Clarissa decided to take a break and try out the swing while everyone else was grinding corn. I couldn't resist the photo op.

After everyone else was done with the corn, Amber was still going strong.

Station 7: Botany Walk. In the front yard, the kids enjoyed looking into the deep hole that was the old cistern. Then we learned about some of the native plants in the area. Jared was brave enough to eat a ramp, a really strong bulb that is smellier than garlic or onions. The favorite by far was the American Black Walnut. It was well past lunch time by the time we got to this station and the kids just kept asking the guy to crack open more and more walnuts.

Station 8: The Kitchen. I guess they saved the best for last. It was so neat to see the old stove and cabinet that they had in there. Unfortunately, it was Amber's nap time and she fell asleep on me so I wasn't able to get any pictures. Again, there were more math questions as they figured out that to haul enough water that a family of today uses, Jared would have had to bring in 100 buckets of water from the cistern around to the kitchen. That put things into perspective. I think I could've stayed in that kitchen forever, it was so simple and quaint, if I just could've found a spot for my Kitchenaid. But alas, the time came to leave and return to the modern world. At least the volunteers offered that we could come back anytime to get a dose of the 1930's if ever life got too hectic.

Lest anyone think that Chris got out of all this old-fashioned fun, he spent his Saturday morning slaughtering a cow. We went in with a friend and bought half a cow for the beef and part of the deal was that they do the killing, skinning, gutting etc. before they take it to the meat processor.

The Tale of Despereaux

So, our cat Cherry is not your typical cat. She was abandoned by her mother, hand-raised by humans, and has some psychological disorder that causes her to lick all the fur off of her underside; but that's not all. She also is not a good mouser. Not that she can't catch mice, she can, she just doesn't know what to do with them after she catches them. The first instance of mice-catching happened when we lived in El Paso. It was on a Saturday morning, Chris and I were still in bed and the kids went into the backyard. All of a sudden they came running upstairs saying, "Cherry and the mouse are in love!" We laughed and explained that the mouse probably did not see it that way. I went downstairs expecting to find Cherry with a dead mouse, but sure enough, she was just hugging the poor creature.

Yesterday while we were all outside working in the yard, I noticed that Cherry had ventured outside and was prowling in the tall grass. I commented that she would probably find a mouse, bring it inside, lose it, and then I would have to catch it (this has already happened twice before). Later, as I was cooking dinner, Jared informed me that there was a mouse under the couch in the basement. The girls and I all joined Jared downstairs to try to catch the mouse. When I lifted the couch it ran to our food storage area, which unfortunately has many bags of bulk goods not yet canned. We knew that we did not want the mouse to spend even one night near our food so we had to come up with a plan to catch it. The first thing Jared did was get some cheese so we could lure the mouse out with it, needless to say - it didn't work. Then, we put Cherry under the cabinet where the mouse was. She just looked at it, waiting for it to move, but it just cowered in the corner and she lost interest in a toy that didn't scurry. Next we decided to employ Chris in helping to move the cabinets. This meant unloading all the canned goods that were on the shelves. Unfortunately as soon as we moved the cabinet, the sneaky creature was gone and we couldn't figure out where it went. We decided that we'd have to buy a mouse trap, but in the meantime Chris and the kids wanted to finish watching the movie they'd started the night before. It is a pretty funny coincidence that the movie was "The Tale of Despereaux," which is not only about a mouse, but also has a couple great chase scenes when the humans are trying to capture the rat. So, while they were watching the movie, they noticed that Cherry was playing with something and realized that it was the mouse! The chase was on. The details get a little fuzzy from here, but suffice it to say that aside from throwing carving knives, the scene was very close to the chase scene in the movie, complete with the classic "I have it" and then opening your hands to find that the elusive critter has escaped once more.

In the end, the mouse was caught and returned to his home in the tall grass. And what have we learned from this adventure? Not to let the cat outside and...we need to make an appointment with the cannery to get our bulk foods canned. The good thing is that I'd been wanting to reorganize the food storage, now with empty shelves and the canned food all over the basement floor, it's the perfect opportunity.

What's in a name?

From the first time I saw the LDS Christmas movie, "Mr. Krueger's Christmas," I knew that I wanted to name one of my daughters Clarissa. In the movie, Clarissa is the sweet little girl who leaves her mitten at Mr. Krueger's apartment and insists on going back to get it. She is so sweet and innocent that I just knew if I named my daughter after her, she would be the same. As for Chris, he was just glad that it wasn't Priscilla (from the book Johnny Tremain), or Evangeline (from the book Uncle Tom's Cabin), which were the other girls names I wanted. So we named our first daughter Clarissa without a thought as to how difficult of a name it is to pronounce for young children. Jared was 2 and a half when Clarissa was born and it took him a while to come up with a name for her. When he did, it was "Sissa." Of course, everyone thought he was saying sister, but in fact it was his version of Clarissa. Clarissa has had a difficult time pronouncing her name until just recently. It used to be that when people would ask her her name, she would just look at me to answer for her. Up until this year, she still said Curlissa. Krystal never had a hard time with Clarissa's name. As far as we can remember she was born talking with perfect elocution, but she is the exception in the family. Now that Amber is talking, we realize once again that Clarissa is not an easy name to say for the beginner. Amber's version is the funniest yet, she says something like "Ashla." This we have only recently discovered means Clarissa because it is so closely related to "shla" which means dress, or clothes. Who knows, maybe she considers her sister the fashion guru of the family and has devised this system of language to express that. Whatever the reason, we think it's cute and worth remembering.

A Trip to Northern Virginia

This weekend Chris and I wanted to go to the Washington D.C. temple, so we called up our friends who live in Northern Virginia to see if we could stay with them. We left Thursday after Chris got off work and got to Culpeper late, but that didn't stop us from staying up late to catch up with John and Charlissa. They watched the kids for us Friday while we went to the temple and Friday evening we got babysitters for all the kids while we went out on a double date. We really had a good time and stayed up late again talking into the night. The kids really enjoyed playing with Abigail.

And Thomas.

Saturday, we decided to go visit Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. Before our tour of the house, we stopped by the discovery room for some hands on fun for the kids.

Monticello, which means "little mountain" in Italian, is a beautiful example of American Neoclassical architecture, designed entirely by Thomas Jefferson himself. This block set as well as a computer game encourages the children to try their hand at architectural design, Krystal was proud of her design.

There were several different station where the kids could try out period activities like weaving, joinery, and nailery. It was enslaved boys Jared's age who worked in the nailery, but Jared decided that this bucket of nails was a little heavy for him.

There were activities from Thomas Jefferson's pasttimes, like chess, letter writing, reading, code deciphering, etc., but the girls were much more interested in the activities that took place on Mulberry Row (where the slaves worked). They enjoyed dressing in the clothing, playing with the doll, sleeping in the beds, and cooking at the open fire.

After the discovery room, we headed up the trail towards Monticello. First stop, a statue of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States of America.

It was a beautiful spring day. We enjoyed the little hike and all the plants and flowers on the way. The Eastern Redbud and Dogwood trees were in bloom and just gorgeous.

We stopped at the gravesite of Thomas Jefferson and the kids tossed nickels onto the tomb. We were going to throw pennies, but decided that nickels were more appropriate.

Despite Jefferson's astounding range of accomplishments, the epitaph he wrote for his tombstone included only: "Author of the Declaration of American Indepedence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia." Another interesting detail of his death is that he died on the day of the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the same day as John Adams, second President and signer of the Declaration.

We took a self-guided tour of the "dependencies" of Monticello which are under ground in long corridors. These included the kitchen, ice house, stables, laundry facility, privies, cellars, smokehouse, dairy, carriage bays and some of the workers housing as well.

One of my favorite parts by far was the 1000 foot long vegetable garden that functioned as Jefferson's laboratory where he planted and experimented with 330 varieties of vegetables. "No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden." Thomas Jefferson, 1811.

The house tour was amazing (photography is not allowed). Everything from his impressive art collection, his Indian artifacts, his scientific inventions, and all the custom designed elements of the house speaks of the genius of this man. My favorite part of the tour was the book room and adjoining greenhouse where the walls were lined with volumes of books and beautiful plants respectively.

Thomas Jefferson said in 1787, "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe." In a time when our government is struggling, maybe we should look back on how this country was founded and remember the great men who are our Founding Fathers. Although not free from faults, Thomas Jefferson who was a lawyer, scholar, scientist, botanist, farmer, politician, architect, artist and musician is a man that we are proud to call one of the Fathers of our country.

Birthday/Easter Weekend

We had a great Easter weekend. It began on Good Friday with Chris having work off. The weather was threatening rain, but Chris got to work on building the last garden box first thing in the morning to try to get it done before the rain set in. Jared had wanted to have a picnic at the park, but with the weather, we decided that a picnic in the Living Room would probably be safer. Jared promptly built a fort in the Living Room and we had hamburgers and tater tots in the fort. Once the rain hit, we halted the work outside and went shopping for fruit trees. We bought an apple, a peach, and two cherries, which seemed appropriate since Chris loves cherries and his birthday was on Saturday. Speaking of cherries. I made this yummy birthday cake with cherries and cream cheese frosting for his birthday which we had Friday night because he and I were going to be gone on Saturday night.

We kept the fort up all day as the kids wanted to sleep in it. Here's all four of them in the fort, but Amber didn't last long before she headed to her own bed.

Saturday morning wasn't raining, but it was cold. That didn't stop us from showing up at our friend's house for a hayride and egg hunt.

Chris stayed with the kids on the hayride while the Easter Bunny hid the eggs.

Jared and his friend Charlie.

The egg hunt was divided into three sections by age. I had to run around to each section trying to get pictures of the kids. Amber did really well finding eggs this year. I think she got the idea right away.

Krystal was a little timid at first, but she eventually found some eggs.

Clarissa and Jared were in the back yard which covered a large area. Apparently Clarissa was worn out from running all over to find eggs.

The rest of the day was spent with the kids helping Dad do yard work while I cooked sweet n' sour chicken and the best ever coconut shrimp (Chris' birthday dinner). Then we left dinner, hard boiled eggs to decorate, and a babysitter with the kids and we headed out to chaperone the youth dance in Bluefield, West Virginia.

Sunday after church the kids were looking forward to hunting for the eggs they had decorated the night before.

Jared just found the one in the apple tree.

The girls were still wearing their Easter dresses while they hunted for eggs.

Clarissa gave Krystal an egg so they would have an even amount. How sweet.

Here's Amber with her chocolate bunny. I think that's what she ate for lunch! But we did enjoy ham and sweet potatoes for dinner and ended the day with a visit to our neighbor, Mrs. Mundy. We sure do miss our extended family at the holidays, but we are blessed with many great friends to share our lives with.

Horsing around

Saturday and Sunday, April 4 & 5 was General Conference weekend. We've made listening to the conference a tradition in our home. The tradition starts with Mom's cinnamon rolls in the morning on Saturday. Then we listen to conference on the computer while we all hang out together in the computer room. Mom always works on scrapbooking pages, the kids color or play with their toys, and Dad usually surfs the internet. Of course there's always a little time before conference begins and in between the two sessions where we try to do something fun. This year, the farm where Clarissa takes her riding lessons was having an Open House that day, so Mom took the kids over there while Dad worked on building more garden boxes.

Here's Amber with her friend Alyson. It was a little chilly that day, so Amber and Aly were happy to just sit on hay and have the barn block the wind. The other kids jumped on the trampoline or played in the sandbox while they waited for their turns on the horse.

This is Jared riding Babydoll. Grace is leading her. Grace is Clarissa's riding teacher. She is the sweetest, most mature 15 year old and does a really good job working with the kids. Babydoll is a gentle horse who also works well with the children.

Clarissa is advancing in her lessons quite well. She has started to learn how to post while Babydoll is trotting. She loves when Babydoll trots because it's so bumpy.

Krystal waited patiently for her turn and did great. She's been on ponies before, but Babydoll is much taller. She didn't seem scared at all. My first thought was, "Looks like we'll have two girls taking lessons soon."

They had several different activities set up for the kids to do. One of them was trying to lasso the bull. Our girls decided that riding the bull was more fun; then Amber felt like she got her ride in too.

It was a great weekend. Chris got a lot done outside and Jen completed 14 scrapbook pages. We really enjoyed hearing from our prophet, Thomas S. Monson and the other leaders of the church as well.

A walk down memory lane with Grandma and Grandpa

Thursday, March 26th, we picked up Grandma and Grandpa Mattson at the Roanoke airport and headed straight to Christiansburg for some good old-fashioned fun...rollerskating. Jared, Clarissa, and Krystal really enjoyed their first time at a skating rink. We were really surprised at how well they did. I guess all that time practicing with Mom and Dad's rollerblades in our basement really paid off. Chris joined the kids out on the rink and although I had not planned on skating, I couldn't resist a rehash of my disco skating days from college when "Dancing Queen" came over the speakers. Once I was out, I didn't stop until I had a blister on my right foot. Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed watching Amber and the tired older kids bounce on the moon bouncers.

Friday we went further back in history to prepare for our History Book Club. While we were helping Jared get ready for his presentation, Grandma read the whole book of "The Cabin Faced West" and helped Jared finish his diorama. She also joined in on the book discussion and cabin building. We built our own cabins out of pretzel sticks and frosting. Here's Krystal and her friend Delaney working on their cabins.
We took advantage of a break in the rainy weather on Sunday and took a drive up to the Blue Ridge Parkway to visit Mabry Mill, an old gristmill and sawmill.

Amber helps put into perspective how big the wagon wheels are.

The wagon wheels might be large, but the doors sure aren't. Jared was excited to see that the door was just his size. We also decided that this cabin was built much stronger than our pretzel cabins.

Grandpa couldn't help but admire the excellent dovetailing in the cabin timbers.

Mabry Mill is said to be the most photographed site in Virginia, I'm sure you can see why. It's not just that good looking family that makes this such a nice picture.

Grandma was also able to dig back into her yesteryears of elementary school as she helped the kids with their schoolwork (and did lots of laundry) so that I could work on our taxes.

Finally, we made Grandpa's day by taking them along for one of Clarissa's riding lessons. The kids really enjoyed all of Grandpa's stories of adventures with his horses and Grandpa enjoyed being able to see his Grandaughter follow in his footsteps of being a horselover.

We are grateful that Grandma and Grandpa made the long trip out to visit us so that we could make a little history of our own, family history.

Krystalisms

Here are two things that Krystal said recently that gave us a big laugh.

Krystal loves to write and has been learning to write all of our family members names. I find pieces of papers all over the house with everyone's names written on them. She's also been practicing how to spell them, so one day she says to Chris: "Hey Dad, I'm going to tell you how to spell Amber, okay?
A...
what comes next Dad?"

Apparently she's also been practicing the days of the week because as we were driving in the car she says to the both of us, "I'm going to tell you the days of the week.
Friday, Yesterday, Sunday, Tomorrow."
We started laughing at "Yesterday" and when she finished she said, "Hey, why are you laughing?" That just made us laugh more. And we just told her that we think she's so cute.

Whenever life starts to get dull, just look at it through the eyes of a four year old.

A polka dot party!

This year for her birthday, Clarissa wanted a polka dot party. Her inspiration for this theme was the cake. She and I sat down at the computer one day to look at birthday cakes to get ideas. She saw several that were polka dotted and that was it. She was very specific about how she wanted her cake and especially that the dots be pink and brown. She explained that she really thinks those two colors go well together. I'm not sure if the cake met up to her expectations, but I had fun using fondant for the first time. Clarissa's birthday was on Wednesday, March 18th, but we had her party on Saturday the 21st. The first activity at the party was to have the kids make their own pizzas. That was a big hit, both the making and the eating.

The next activity was to decorate their own foam visors with foam stickers and pom poms. It was fun to see the different creations they came up with.

In this picture Krystal, Dathyn, Clarissa, and Iris work on their visors.

Here's Clarissa with her friend, Cailin.

Next, the kids got their wiggles out with a double decker game of twister, followed by the opening of presents. (Dathyn, Sadie, Clarissa, Charlie, and Maggie).

Last of all was the cake and ice cream. Clarissa's friends Maggie and Sadie really wanted a piece of the edible pink bow.

This is one of Clarissa's gifts. A garden box that Chris and Jared designed and built for her to plant some flowers in.

Here's Clarissa at a friend's house wearing the birthday outfit that Grandma Mattson gave her and talking about her diary that she got for her birthday. She loves writing in it, she really is growing up.