Lab Rats

I read a talk on Sunday from the Priesthood Session of General Conference entitled "Continue in Patience" by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. He opened by talking about an experiment done in the 1960's at Stanford University with 4 year olds and marshmallows.

The Professor placed marshmallows in front of a group of four year olds and told them they could have 1 now or wait 15 minutes and have 2, then he walked away and watched them behind a 2 way mirror.

Spence and I decided to try this for Family Home Evening. We gave Auri, Max and Warren a marshmallow on a plate, I took a picture of them, we set the timer, we told them they could eat it or wait 15 minutes and have more, then we left. The only rule we had was that if they left the room they had to take the marshmallow with them.

We walked outside around the house and watched them from the back window from behind the fence where they couldn't see us, surprisingly, Max and Warren didn't eat them. Auri ate hers when we set it on her plate, but in her defence, she is only 2, so we'll do the experiment in 2 more years. What also surprised me was that Warren was really watching out for Max, he kept telling him, "Max, DON'T DO IT!, IF YOU DON'T YOU'LL GT WAY MORE LATER!" That made me happy.

They can wait 15 minutes for a marshmallow, however, they cannot wait for 4 hours otter pops to freeze or jello to set, the perfect consistency of these sweet concoctions is irrelevant to them.

Incidentally, in the Stanford study, only 30% of the 4 year olds were able to wait the full 15 minutes and upon following the children over the years they found that the children with more patience tended to be more positive, better motivated, had higher grades, better incomes, and had healthier relationships. Maybe that's my problem, maybe I better re-think my motto of "in a sentence or less please"

This is the link the the full talk.

LDS.org - Liahona Article - Continue in Patience

Forever 21-33

I spend entirely too much of my time and money at both Target and Walmart. I am sad to say that much of the top half of my wardrobe comes from Target, so I am delighted to say that on Saturday I got to the mall and I got some new tops from Forever 21. I can tell I am too old to shop there by the simple fact that the whole time I am in there all I can think about is how loud the music is, how short the shorts are and how white the pants are, seriously, who can pull off white skinny jeans, they shouldn't even make them in larger than a size 2. But anyways, the prices are delightfully similar to Walmart and Target tops. So I got 2 new ones for $8.00 each. Yea me.

The quality of my photos is diminishing because my good camera is broken. My Nikon lens won't auto-focus, so if anyone knows a good place to take it, please let me know.

I have to be honest for the first time, I actually saw a need or use for

gladiator shoes with this outfit.

Kind of boring, but still, it's not Target again.

Warren is branching out.

This morning Warren shocked me when he asked me for a pancake! He is 7 years old and he has not eaten a pancake since he was about 2 and he had not tried a new food in YEARS! In fact, I can't even remember the last time he asked me to get him breakfast. Warren is my independent child. He wakes up before anyone else, comes downstairs by himself, gets himself a glass of chocolate milk and a couple pieces of white bread or crackers and that's it. He pretty much hates food. He never eats the snack at school, he has panic attacks about having to eat the school's hot lunch, (he says they make you if you forget your lunch), he won't eat pizza or chicken if it is too crunchy, he won't drink chocolate milk if it is the wrong brand, there are many more little quirks like this. The good news though, is that he will eat apples and cheese and whole grain noodles (but that's about it) and he usually likes to get his own food. So this morning when he asked me for a pancake, I had to run and get my camera.

I just find it so much easier to cut pancakes with a pizza cutter.

I'm in another food phase

My Mom's birthday is coming up and every year I make her a fresh peach pie. That means the peaches in the pie are not cooked. So this year I am auditioning new recipes because I am bored with my old ones. I found these ones that I am going to try this week, they looked interesting to me, wish me luck!

With this one, I'll just add fresh peaches instead of the berries, this recipe

calls for won-ton wrappers.

This is the one I am most excited to try. I will be shocked if mine turn out as pretty as this, which is why I need to start trying this recipe 3 weeks in advance.

This is what I made last year. Fresh peach tarts.

What are my strawberries

Recently a friend of mine asked me and several of our other friends to help out with a graduation party that she was involved in. It was on a Sunday night and we all came to help with the dessert that was supposed to feed 250 people, there were 5 of us. What happened that night has had me thinking about my life and personality ever since. The person in charge, we'll call her "Jane", has always been a laid back, free flowing, funny, party girl, kind of a gal, but what I saw in that kitchen that night was her alter ego, we'll call "Sasha Fierce".

For starters, she had planned out 250 chocolate mouse desserts perfectly. There was an Oreo crumb crust layered with chocolate mouse then with fresh strawberries, then a chocolate ganache. My friends and I were cutting the strawberries so she could pour the final ganache on them and this is where Sasha really came out to play. She started re-doing our work, she came over several times to watch us cut, she told us when to run, when to walk, she even re-did many of our little tarts. She made a joke about herself, something like, "you guys can talk bad about me when I leave", but to be honest, not once did I think anything bad, I was in complete awe of her and wondering why don't I care about anything that much. I was completely jealous of Jane/Sasha Fierce because she cared about the placement of strawberries so much and I honestly couldn't think about anything in my life that mattered that much to me. And I have been thinking about it ever since, what are my strawberries.....what do I care that much about........

I couldn't care less about the placement of strawberries on a chocolate tart, especially for a church activity, which is sad, because I was the activities committee director or a year. And it's not just that, I don't really care about things like- if my paint job isn't perfect, if the rooms aren't cleaned perfectly, if the kids aren't matched and combed perfectly, the word "perfect" just isn't used a lot in this house. And I could easily say, well it's because I have 3 little kids, but I have to be honest, I have always been this way. Which leads me to my next point. What are my strawberries......

Well, on Monday morning, I figured it out!!! I was getting Warren ready for school and writing in his school journal and I was going to write a quick little note, and thought, "no, that is not how I roll, I am going to do this right", then it hit me, I KEEP GREAT JOURNALS!! AND LOVE IT!!! I LOVE IT AS MUCH AS JANE LOVES THE STRAWBERRIES.
I love the details, I love the memories, I love the light in my kids eyes when they read what I wrote about them 3 years ago. I keep meticulous journals, all dated. When I read them I remember everything that happened on that day as though it were yesterday. I remember how the food tasted, how the house smelled, what clothes I wore, what the weather was like I love keeping records. So below, I have scanned just a few pages of the kids baby books and some from Warrens' journal.

This is from Auri's baby book, it is the menu from her baby blessing dinner. It has all the recipe's including Becky L's tomato soup and the chocolate caramel brownies that I served at all of the kids baby blessings.

Here is her dress that her Grandma Hansen bought her and the matching bracelet, I hope to save them and some how attach them to her wedding dress.

Here is just another page with the meaning of her name, we played with Paxton for a while, but ended up with Auriel, it means Lion of God and Gold.

This is from Max's book, here is his announcement.

There was a page in his book for pictures of his first home, so here are all the pictures.

Max would wake up happy everyday with that green blanket, I had to record that.

These are my journal entries to Warren. This one is about the Smithsonian.

This one is about Baptism.

There were many more, but they don't scan well.

Anyways, I am glad I got to see the Sasha Fierce side to my friend, I wish I had a little more of it in me.

Memorial Day Weekend

We started off Memorial Day weekend by roasting marshmallows in our back yard. I didn't have any graham crackers and Hershey's chocolate so I used my favorite cookie instead, gingersnaps with Dove chocolates.

Sunday after church we drove down to Lincoln City to stay at a hotel. It was the first time we have ever stayed in a hotel with the kids. They had a great time, they were so excited, they loved the room, the loved the pool, the cookies at the front desk, and the vending machines. They loved every thing about it.

I loved the outlets. The NIKE outlet inparticular. We got the kids each a big sucker to keep them occupied while I tried stuff on. It worked pretty well, they were pretty good for about an hour.

I would definitely do it again, but not for about 6 months.