Check out my other blog

If you are a follower of this blog, I would like to invite you to check out my other blog, "Bettison Adventures". There is where I journal some of the fun things our family has been able to experience over the past several years living in Africa. You can view it at www.bettisonfamily.blogspot.com.

The Art of Cooking

I think too many times today's generation has been short changed. They are so often growing up on fast food and pre-packaged food items, and running from one activity to another, that they never learn the skill of cooking, especially young girls. I was blessed somehow in my childhood to learn some of the basics from my mom in cooking, like making a white sauce, and making many of our family's favorites, but over the years much of what I learned was from trying out many recipes. After moving to rural Africa, where I could not get a lot of ingredients for recipes that called for "canned this" or "1 package of that", I found some wonderful cookbooks that taught how to make many things from scratch. 20 years later I rarely use anything packaged and most of these recipes are ingrained in my mind, I rarely use a recipe. These are the things I want to pass on to my children. I believe passing on life skills is one of the most important roles of a parent.

My oldest daughter, Katie, will soon be 13 and has shown an increasing desire and aptitude for all things cooking. I have thoroughly enjoyed spending time with her in the kitchen showing her the ropes, and letting her put a recipe together herself, or plan a whole meal. Among her recent culinary adventures have been making cheese sauces, chili, deviled eggs, fruit tarts and various baked goods. She has also demonstrated an artistic flare in things like organizing vegetable trays.

Valentine's Weekend with 10

This past weekend we had the chance to play parents to 8 kids, while we hosted the 4 kids of fellow missionaries as they went out to do a medical clinic, making a total of 10 in our house. We've done this before, and it was great - I know a lot of people think I'm nuts, but I actually find it easier sometimes with more kids, because they all have someone to play with, and I never have anyone come up to me saying they are "bored". We tend to do things in a more organized way just to get everything done in an orderly fashion. Maybe some would call it the "assembly-line" mentality - call it what you want, but it works. I am a creature of routine and order. This weekend we decorated Valentine cookies (around 150 altogether) and they disappeared by the end of the weekend. We also had other friends drop in, the more the merrier! I think there is something in me sometimes that craves the crowd of kids, as if I was made for a large family. I love the special closeness everyone feels, and the sense of belonging to something special that only exists in a big family. I love seeing the older kids pull together to help the little kids along, and everyone sharing a little piece of the bigger task, getting it done faster. It's the same special feeling we get when our whole extended family gathers for the holidays. It is a feeling of community and togetherness, sharing the knoweldge that together we are something more than merely the sum of each individual part.

35 funny things my kids have said

Over the years we have had the habit of writing down the funny or things that have come out of our children's mouths. Here are some of them:

Katie:

1) age 1 ½ “See, I can book!” (See, I can read a book!)

2) age 2 – “ook boys, I’m pretty!” (to some boys as she pulled her dress over her head)

3) age 2 - “Sometimes it takes two” (when asking for mom’s help)

4) age 2 -“Koombah-yah, N’ord” (Koombah-yah, my Lord)

5) age 2 1/2 - “it’s de’icious!”

6) age 2 1/2 - “the cookie-bread man” (the ginger-bread man)

7) age 2 1/2 - “it’s the princess plane!” (when she heard us talking about the president’s plane flying over head)

8) age 2 1/2 - “you have to drink your memomade to make your toe feel better” (said to Mommy after Mommy hurt her toe)

9) age 2 1/2 - “you have to ask nicely” (said to Daddy who asked for more tea in a make-believe tea party)

10) age 2 3/4 - “Are you guys making pie for the Katie-nator and the two guys-nators?” (after we called her younger brother Joshua the “Josh-inator”)

11) age 3 - (anxious to finally start eating breakfast) “Let’s pray...Mommy, will you do the honors?”

12) age 3 - After Mommy came into the room to see why Joshua was crying, I asked Katie, "What happened? Did Joshua fall down?" and Katie replied, "Yeah, and I broke his crown."

13) age 3 – “My shoulders are too high, right here and right here” (pointing to her two shoulders)

14) age 3 -“it’s not a big hot, it’s only a little hot”

15) age 3- Said “busketti” for Spaghetti, “buzzert” for dessert, and “buzzanya” for Lasagna.

16) age 3 - "There are a lot of bees in the forest, and they are very very nice and they can very very sting ya.”

17) age 6 – “When you’re grown up, then you’re getting old.”

18) age 6 - “Can you photocopy me doing it?” (playing the piano)

19) age 6 - Daddy asks Katie, “Don’t you feel good when your room is clean? Doesn’t it look clean?”, to which Katie replied “Yeah, like a leaf.”

20 ) age 8 - “Grandma is a saint because she lives in St. Louis.”

Joshua:

21) age 1 ½ - called chocolate milk “goppit”, somebody “buh-ee”

22) age 2 - called oatmeal "uckmeal", strawberries "strawbabies"

23) age 3 - called a certain person's hairy armpits "a beard"

24) "There’s fire in the hole!” (after sticking a hair pin into an electric socket)

25) age 4 – “Grandma’s name is Grandma Cathi, because she has curly hair; that’s why she’s called Grandma Cathi.”

26) age 5 – “I’m true!” (I’m telling the truth)

27) age 5 - "It’s in the saloon” (It’s in the salon/living room

28) “Let’s go fly a kite and send it snoring!” (from Mary Poppins)

29) age 6 – “The garden is a very hide-iful place.”

30) age 6 - (before bed one night, after having nightmares) “Lord God, help me only have dreams about diamonds sparkling all over the place" and "help me not bleed when I fall down on my bike."

31) age 7 - (Joshua was asked to choose a Bible verse to write out and share with someone to encourage them. After awhile he brought me a paper with Proverbs 5:3 "For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil." Trying not to show too much alarm at the verse he had chosen for me, I asked him, "Joshua, do you know what an adulteress is?" He then looked up quite matter-of-factly at me and said, "Yes, you are; you are an adult, and everything you say is so sweet."

32) age 10 - "reverse physiology" (was supposed to say "reverse psychology", in a story he wrote)

Aisha:

33) age 6 – “Gabriel is not cropolating” (cooperating)

34) “OK, Daddy I scluded Gabriel” (excluded)

Gabriel:

35) age 4 – (sitting on the slowly deflating air mattress he is about to sleep on for the second night in a row while guests were staying with us) “Mommy, my bed is going downer and downer and downer!”

My Daughter the Negotiator

Our youngest daughter, Aisha, who is 6 years old, is a negotiator. She likes to be in charge and dictate to others the way things are going to be. She has an uncanny knack for cunningly orchestrating things to go her way.

Today Aisha wanted to play a computer game, which Gabriel wanted to watch, but the older kids had the video camera out on the tripod near the computer (as they were editing their most recent stop-motion movie), and so we couldn’t permit Gabriel to be there because he is too prone to messing with things and breaking them.

So Jim told Aisha that she either needed to play something else with Gabriel in a different room, or she would have to exclude him from the computer game.

She looked at Jim and said with a questioning look, “Exclude?” to which Jim replied, “Yes, exclude, meaning he will have to play something else while you play the computer game.”

So right away she said, “Okay!”, and then hopped down, ran out, showed Gabriel her Barbie dolls, and said, “Here Gabriel, play with my Barbies.”

Gabriel, overjoyed at this prospect (since they are usually off limits to him), easily complied, “Okay!”

Then Aisha ran back into the room, sat in front of the computer game and said, “Ok Daddy, I sclooded Gabriel.”