What with my beached whale status, and the fact that for $7.99 a month I can watch Netflix episodes without even needing a disc...means that I have been in an Apache Avenue Time Warp the past couple of weeks. The Cosby Show People! It was the sitcom of my childhood, and according to some, the sitcom of the century.

But mostly, it's a sitcom about my dad. I have been watching episodes while folding laundry, while doing dishes, and I laugh at Dr. Huxtable and think of my dad. Although I would say my dad is more of a cowboy version of ole Bill, there's the undeniable similarities: the dry sense of humor, the deflection of tension through silliness, the athletic prowess relived through the offspring. There's the interest in your kids lives, the interest in your kids friends, the waiting for the kids friends to get the dad's weird sense of humor.

The loving to hang out on a Friday night in High School with your best friend while your dad lounges out hours of riddles which he will only answer with a yes or no question. What dad is ever cool enough to get their high school offspring (and buddy) to want to hang out with him on a weekend night?

Ummmm, that would be my dad.



This is a picture in the 80's at my Grandparent's 50th Wedding Anniversary. Apparently I'm not the only one who compared my dad to Bill Cosby, because it was at this somewhat formal family event my dad was invited to be the Master of Ceremonies. He was funny. All the grown-ups were comparing him to everyone's favorite funnyman, Bill Cosby, and I heard it often growing up.

So now watching The Cosby Show, I'm not obsessing over what amazing outfit Denise is going to be wearing next. I'm a mother now, and I think of what kind of parent I want to be. The parent I intend to be. And yes, the parent I wish I could be but decide not to be sometimes.

That folks, is talent!

Like American Television searching for "Who's Got Talent", I get caught up and even rightly impressed with busy mothers composing hymns, and people with vocal pipes to light up a stadium, but I'm trying to not forget the network of quiet talents that, like their showy counterparts, require work, discipline, patience, and perseverance. The talents of:
* listening
* forgiving
* laughing
* playing ball
* and filling your punk kid's gas tank every other month just to be nice

These are the talents of my favorite funnyman, my own little Hoser....my dad! (P.S. The gal on the right ain't so bad either)



Here's some awesome memories of my dad that have spawned from the depths of my brain while watching The Cosby Show:

- He taught all of us kids our address and phone number with a little chant we would sing. He also taught us a chant to know what to get when it was our turn to set the table: "Bread-n-butter, Salt-n-pepper, Knives-and-Forks-and Spoons!"

- When I was in Jr. High, the little Siepert kid up the street ended up at our house one day looking for his older brother. My dad joked around with him, probably teased him. The next day, this kid knocked on the door and asked me if my dad could play. No kidding! So cute.

- When my nephew was a baby, he was put down for a nap. My dad stood above the crib and grabbed a children's book and started singing the pages (cool cowboy voice mind you). Pretty soon the kid settled down and all was quiet, but Hoser was gone a long time. When he finally came out, he was asked what took so long? Your grandkid stopped crying a long time ago? My dad simply replied that he had to finish the story (I'm pretty sure he kept singing it too).

- When new friends would come over to my house, they all seemed to be intimidated by my dad. He was a coach, and his humor was dry. Inevitably (especially this happened with friends that were boys) he would sullenly walk up behind them, grab each ear in his hands, and then tilt their head from side to side while making airplane sounds. After 3 rotations, he would start shaking their head (by their ears) and make machine gun sounds. Duh. He was a fighter plane people!

- Speaking of chants. As a coach as a church-owned school, he helped during the summer with boys basketball camps. It was b-ball morning, noon, and night. After meal-time all the boys would fill the gym and get ready for a group stretch. Then Hoser would state they were to stretch while chanting an old Indian saying..."Repeat After Me!"
{Stretch to the right} Oh-wah!
OH-WAH
{Stretch to the left} Tuh-nah!
TUH-NAH
{Reach for the sky} Siam!
SIAM

Repeat 5 times..getting faster each time. Little boys at a church college chanting this over and over? Now that's funny!

- And lastly: A woman turns off the lights to her house. A couple hours later she turns on the news. What she sees on the news makes her kill herself.

What happened and why did she kill herself?

(p.s. in riddles, every detail is significant. Only yes or no questions allowed!)

Because we chose to hire a Certified Nurse Midwife with a Birthing Center over 100 miles from my little valley, I have taken lots of little day trips to The Great Salt Lake. One of the bonuses of these trips, and because I rarely leave home otherwise, has been reconnecting with old friends.



Here's Paula with her latest offspring {insert longing female sigh here}. When I called my old high school buddy Paula and said I'd be in the neighborhood, she offered to make me lunch. "Oh, you're doing your salad thing! My husband made some awesome smoked salmon...does that sound good on a salad?"


"YES" I said truthfully. Though excited, I felt a little guilty.

I hate salad right now. Wait, let me rephrase that...

I ate an entire package of Girl Scout Cookies yesterday, and the thought of rinsing, draining, chopping, & layering fresh greens seems like an undue chore most days.

What with my blogg-y pronouncements of keeping up with the greens until the end of this pregnancy; with my holiday sugar buzz leaving me resolute to walk (not even jog, skip, or run) the 3-mile-loop three times a week during my last trimester; my intent to infuse this child with a love of vegetables in the womb and because I was already on a roll...I'm not sure why I have turned into my own worst enemy. Perhaps I'm finding a reliable scapegoat in these hormones. The truth is, I stuck my middle finger to my green leaf resolution and I feel awesome/horrible about it.

And yet, fix me a salad, especially like the delicious one Paula gave me (with a golden fork no less!) and I'm in heaven. It tastes delicious to me, and deep down I know that I still crave it.



What is up?!

Not only did Paula's visit give me a guilt trip about not keeping my word, it gave me clarity that salad is still a huge part of my future. More importantly, the visit gave me some cute, clean, non-stained hand-me-down baby stuff for the little mutt growing in my gutt. Check it.

Paula is super creative. I had no idea she could sew in high school, but she seriously makes the cutest stuff! Check out her craft blog here.



The outfit and bib she embellished with fabrics from the awesome custom car-seat blanket. The reversible car-seat blanket is in place and waiting for my baby son.

As a bonus of going through bins of baby stuff, I found the doll that was crocheted by my Grandma Anderson. I'm pretty sure every granddaughter received one. I remember her invitation to come and pick a doll, where there was an array of color combinations you could choose from. I used to love to wrap this doll up in her never-to-be-lost blanket.

For now, this little doll, a labor of love, is a place-holder inside the soft, clean, and longing to snuggle my son blanket from Paula.

A little over 3 weeks to go!

There's something to be said about using your childhood years, even into college, to developing your talents. There's no other time to be quite so focused, and even a little selfish. My ma and pa paid for me to take lessons in piano, clogging, gymnastics, and skiing. Later when I played athletics, they paid for volleyball and basketball camps, which weren't cheap. They also watched every single boring game I ever played in (I think my high scoring game in basketball was 6 points. Woo!)



The lessons and hard work during those years helped me play the piano for congregations throughout The South during my missionary service. The tinkering of a few guitar cords from my buddy Kristi helped me woo The Mister of the House with a simple song. The dad as a wise coach, plus the cost of volleyball camps helped me to play with a State Championship Winning Volleyball Team in High School.

So I remember having the very clear thought when I became a wife and mother, that it was now the time to be the beneficiary of those lessons and that season of "developing talents", and that my progression had ceased. Yet I was to be grateful at the same time. Why would I spend $50 a month on guitar lessons when I could use that money for diapers?

I had a good season of talent building, but the transition to mother would mean all resources would now be poured into my offspring.

This was my take on it for many years. But then my little sissy, a mother of three kids and the wife of an overworked medical student, composed a hymn!

She sent it to me to look at and play through. I was blown away! How dare she progress in the piano department when I had become a martyr to my own kids development!

Yet this hymn was the first of many songs she has composed. I love that she is disciplined enough to sit down and do this. I love the creativity she channels, and I love the message of her music.

Recently, her oh-so-proud mother entered her hymn into a showcase event at BYU-Idaho. Though little sis was thousands of miles away, an auditorium of people sang along to the hymn she composed. It's based on Helaman's Stripling Warriors, and is called "Warrior Families".

So apart from having occasional neighbors that hardly know you think you're a freak for posting your life on the interweb, there is a draw to blogging that keeps you coming back (amidst possible scorn?). It is this: you learn so much about family and friends that you thought you already knew.

In the case of little brother of The Mister of the House, all I knew was that he and his lovely wife were moving far away to teach for a couple of years before settling into Law School. Back in them old 90's, we would have said goodbye, let us know when you're pregnant, and we'll see you at Christmas!



But now thanks to the interweb, and blogs, it's amusing to realize how kids can be clones of their parents when you didn't see it coming (as is the case with little bro-in-law). Or really watching someone come into adulthood since little bro was 14 when I married into the family.

And then there's the realization that as a former student, and English Major, I secretly longed for the teacher that would think I was special, mentor me to greatness, and think I had something to offer the world (although you are never quite sure what that is or was). If you grew up in the 90's, and absorbed the ever-loved movie Dead Poets Societ , you wanted O Captain, My Captain!



And it appears that Jackson & Celeste are El Capitan's to many students in one of the lowest performing public schools in the nation. As part of the Teach for America Program, they have been sent into schools with high drop-out and poverty rates, and from what I can tell, they are making a huge difference.

That is why I couldn't help sharing Jackson's (little bro) recent take on the Gettysburg Address. I'm pretty sure my mom has already shared it with all of her friends. It's inspiring to all levels of learners and teachers.

Enjoy!

With February nearly to a close, I had to document a couple things I actually accomplished, instead of just talked about or thought about.

Remember my kissing pictures series? Basically I am horrible at printing and framing pictures on my wall. I didn't have hardly any pictures of family, and wanted my kids to know who was who. So I decided I would take a picture of every auntie and uncle in our family to frame.
Catch one: they had to be kissing
Catch two: Black and white to try to look pretty

I decided I needed to do this back in 2007! This is why this is not a crafting blog people. It's now 2011 and I just finished my collages for family A (my side) and family O (his side)



Ta-da! Nothing major but a big accomplishment for me. Now I just need to finish the collage for our family (me, Mister, kiddos). Hopefully it won't take me another 4 years but anything is possible.

And lastly: I think Vanilla Wafer has asked if we could make a snowman for a solid 5 months. Sometimes it's too easy to put kids off...especially when you say "Okay buddy, there's a big storm coming in 2 days and then we'll build one" and said storm brings rain not snow. So this time we pounced on our recent snowstorm like a puma! A puma I tell you! And we built this guy after church last Sunday.



Too bad some punk teenage kids (I think) whacked his head off the same night we built him.

Grrrrrr!

This week I am 35 weeks prego. This new kid is coming up, and I have the energy level of a sloth. Which brings me to this: women are the fabric of communities. They reach out, connect, remember, and cook 10 pans of food when you are a sloth.

If you are a true woman, when you stop being a sloth and become a honeybee, you return the favor with a smile. Here's a honeybee from high school, Tonya.

The bottom pictures are with Stephanie during our spring break when we got snowed in at Jackson Hole. I wish these pictures could detail how fun that trip was "back in the day".

This past week she stung me in the bummy with her stinger and actually forced me to get to the higher branch I've been thinking about for the past 2 months.

Here's the thing about Tonya that I really admire, and think you should love too. She's dealing with a lot but never complains and is always out helping other people. Mother of FIVE BOYS, and has nerve damage from her last pregnancy. I call her granny cause she limps around while still helping out neighbors, family, and friends. There's lots of medical issues in her family, but she's always looking forward.

That's something I need to work on and I love her example!

So she calls me up and states: "We need to get you some freezer meals for when the baby comes!"

Me: "That's a good idea" (inside: I need a nap)

Tonya: "Okay, I'm emailing you a shopping list and then we'll pick a day and put everything together".

Me: "Okay"

And the thing is, like so many things...I thought it was a great idea but had no energy for execution. She emailed me the list, I looked at it and admired it, and then took a nap.

A week later she called me back and forced me to schedule a day. So I got off my butt, took the list to the store and spent a day cooking some of our homegrown meat stacked in the freezer. Ready for the cookoff!


I seriously needed to take a picture of everything we hauled out to my chest freezer.

-3 pans of shepherds pie (with goat meat...more on that later)
-3 pans of chicken enchiladas
-2 chicken pot pies
-1 honkin' fat lasagne pan
-7 batches of beef/veggie tikka masala

I'm sorry let me do the math for you: that would be 16 pre-cooked meals! that I won't have to dirty dishes to make and can throw in the oven when my bambino arrives.

Yipee!

Believe it or not, my December soup series is still ongoing. I have actually made LOTS of soup. I've also taken LOTS of naps. We had a taste of spring, and to be honest, I wasn't ready for it. The dirty gray yard begged to be worked on, but I've lost my moxie. I just prayed that my apricots wouldn't start blooming only to be denied their delicious fruit with a late storm. But then it happened...

...winter came back and cleaned everything up then took away my yard guilt. So to celebrate, let's make some Mexican Winter Chili!



This recipe was torn out of BH&G and was a "prize-tested recipe" from some genius named Debi Carnott. I ripped it out several years ago, because honestly, who doesn't want to try a soup with cocoa powder, cinnamon, AND pumpkin in it. Here's the ingredient list:

MEXICAN WINTER CHILI

1 lb. pork stew meat
2 TBL olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium fresh poblano pepper, finely chopped
(I could NOT find this pepper. I used 1 jalapeno peppers instead, and made sure to de-seed it.)
1 large red sweet pepper, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
DASH cayenne pepper
1 14-oz can chicken broth
1 15-oz can pumpkin
1/4 cup whipping cream
GARNISH (optional) Fresh cilantro



1) Use a big saucepan or stove-top friendly dutch oven. Heat up oil over medium high
heat and cook pork for 5 minutes (or until browned). Here you see other chopped stuff with it..peppers and onion (cook for another 5 minutes, stirring often, until veggies are tender). Now you see all of this goodness coated with our fun spices: cocoa, cumin, garlic powder, cinnamon, and cayenne.

2) This picture shows the added broth PLUS 1/2 cup water. Notice how dark and delicious it looks? Bring this to a boil, then reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes or until pork is tender.

The last thing you do is add the pumpkin, cream, as well as salt and pepper to taste. Return to a boil, then reduce heat. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Now here's the end result in The Mister's bowl. The pumpkin makes it thick, but do not fear.



The cilantro garnish was denied, but I think it would have made for a much prettier picture with a dash of bright green. I was excited and nervous to try it.

As for me? I thought it was great. It packed some heat with the cayenne and jalapeno, more than I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, it was GOOD, but the heat left me apologizing when I served it to friends. So if you like more mild dishes, then try it minus the cayenne and with half a jalapeno (de-seeded).

By the way, everyone who tried it (with apologies for heat) actually loved it. So go boldly forth I say!

The Mister of the House? Let's just say he LOVED IT and had a happy face after eating it.



For a key to reading The Mister's emotions, click here.
p.s. it really is his happy face by the way.

That's all for now. Riva Derci!

Wait...that's not right. Buenos comer el soupe! Adios!