Christmas photos

At the Enchanted Village

We went to a Polar Express Story Time at the library and made trains out of food. Just what we needed - more junk food.

We had an abundance of red frosting, so the ginger people became Santa and Mrs. Clauses. I think they turned out quite well.

Andrew's cookie decorating. My patience ran out about 20 minutes and whole cup of sprinkles in and I sent him into the other room to watch TV.

That carit sure was tasty.

Every present Andrew picked up he said he thought was a "choo choo train."

When he finally did open a choo choo train he said "Me happy now."

How to eat a gingerbread house.

Sicko

Lauren likes to illustrate daily life around here. The past couple of days have consisted of Andrew being sick and vomiting multiple times, soooo......

...here's Andrew throwing up in a cup. Notice the bug in his stomach. That would make me sick, too.

"Funny" Story

We got a new car!

Not really. Our car just has a lot of new parts. And it feels like we've paid for a whole new car.

This was us last Sunday. We had just gotten our car back from the shop literally 24 hours earlier with a new transmission, new fuel sensor and new thermostat. We were attempting to go to Stake Conference and were talking about how nice the car sounded when we heard a whistling, then a clink, then a clunking, then we stopped. Luckily, there is a Dunkin Donuts on every corner, so we were able to barely pull in the drive. Also luckily, another member drove by right after we stopped and took the kids to Stake Conference with them. We called a tow truck and waited and bemoaned our fate. The tow truck came, and we realized we couldn't even drive the car onto it because one wheel was basically hanging on by a thread, so they had to lift the front end and tow it back to the shop on the back wheels. Everyone we knew was 30 miles away at Stake Conference, so Preston and I called a cab to take us home.

The next day, we finally got some "good" news. The dealership admitted that they had failed to replace a bolt in the wheel and fixed it at no charge and gave us two free oil changes. We got the car back that night and so far (knock on wood), we haven't had any more issues.

Now if we could only get a break from the large unexpected expenses for a few months, we might be able to save some money and actually get a new car someday.  Someday.

Austen

I just finished reading Mansfield Park and can finally say that I have read my way through the Jane Austen anthology. Some I haven't read since high school, but I have read them all, including Lady Susan. And now, for your reading pleasure I will rank the Jane Austen novels in order of most to least favorite.


1. Persuasion
2. Sense and Sensibility
3. Pride and Prejudice
4. Mansfield Park (I saw the movie of this before reading the book, and I can't decide if that made me like it 
more or less. I think less because I knew what was coming and I kept visualizing the characters as their actors in the film.)
5. Northanger Abbey
6. Emma


If we were talking movies, my rankings would be quite different. I know there are multiple versions of many of these, but I'm talking the most famous version, probably the one you have seen or think of first.


1. Pride and Prejudice (A&E/BBC version)
2. Mansfield Park
3. Emma
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. Persuasion (loved the book, but the movie was boring and hard to follow)
6. Northanger Abbey (I haven't seen a movie version of this. There probably is one, but I can't imagine it being very good.)

How would your list differ from mine?

October Things

This post is supposed to be about all the fun, festive things I did during October with cute pictures accompanying. It is actually going to be me rambling with a few bad cell phone pictures thrown in. Fair warning.

Oh well.

Lauren started asking me right at the beginning of October if she could paint a pumpkin. I don't know where she got the idea, but she wasn't giving it up, so I eventually found a pumpkin patch nearby that did pumpkin painting and Lauren and Andrew both got to paint one. It was only five dollars for the two pumpkins, so maybe next year, I'll do one too.

Lauren's (top step) is a witch. In case you couldn't tell.

Lauren said right after Halloween last year that she wanted to be Minnie again this year and I held her to it, even when she started talking about a certain ice queen. She ended up very happy about it, although she has already decided to be Elsa next year. (Can we borrow your costume, Tracy?)

                                 

Andrew's "fire truck man" costume was the laziest and cheapest costume ever. I got the fireman raincoat and boots at Savers more than a year ago and he wears them every rainy day. Throw on a hat from a touch a truck event at the library and a costume is made.  He also wore the veterinarian (aka doggie doctor) costume Mom gave him last year to the ward party. It was totally adorable, but I didn't get any pictures.

My attempts at being a "fun mom" on Halloween consisted of pumpkin shaped pumpkin pancakes and apple-peanut butter-marshmallow "smiles." I thought about doing mummy dogs, but we had hot dogs on the fire the week before and I didn't want to buy hot dogs again; plus, I've gotten kind of picky about hot dogs and really prefer all beef nitrate-free ones, which are obviously way more pricey than Bar-S franks.

The other thing that happened this month was that Lauren learned to ride a bike with "only two wheels!"  Preston planned a whole afternoon to teach her. It took about two minutes.

He still hasn't figured out how to actually turn the pedals and go.

The Definitive Guide to Proper Nutrition

You should not be consuming dairy. Milk is for baby cows, not grown humans. You should be consuming dairy, but only organic. And raw.  And full fat. Make that low fat. I guess the jury's still out.

But grains. You should definitely not be consuming grains. Actually, you can consume grains, just not wheat. Gluten was invented by Satan himself. Grains are good, as long as they're whole. And the weirder the name, the better. Quinoa, millet, amaranth, and teff are way better than rice, wheat, and corn. And of course, they must be organic. And non-GMO. You absolutely, positively cannot consume genetically modified food. You will become a mutant. But you'll probably be a naturally pest-resistant mutant, so hey.

Meat. Meat is good because cavemen ate it. Meat is bad because it's cruel to eat animals and it makes us sick. If you're going to eat meat, make sure it's lean. Actually fattier meats are good. Just make sure it's grass fed and pastured. If you're not paying at least 4 times as much for your meat, it will kill you. And never eat anything that was raised more than 50 miles away from you.

Fruit. Fruits are good, except for all that sugar. Sugar makes you fat and sick, so don't eat too much fruit. And if you do, organic and in season. I shouldn't have to tell you that.

Nuts are good, except that they have too many omega-6's and not enough omega-3's. Plus, they have phytic acid, which is bad, bad, bad. Also, they're too cheap and too tasty to be healthy (I'm serious). And they can make you fat. But they can also keep you slim, so keep that in mind.

Overall, just make sure you're consuming a mostly low fat diet with plenty of healthy carbs.

Actually, you want to eat a high fat diet with very few carbs. That will make you skinny and healthy.


Wasn't that a fun exercise?

I have always been interested in nutrition and I like to try new recipes and foods and find new ideas about serving the same foods. In that process, I have come across various blogs and websites that claim all of the above. Obviously, all of the above can't be true. So, what gives?  Is good health just a matter of what sounds most appetizing to you?  Or is what sounds most unappetizing what will make us healthiest? (Anything fermented does not sound the least bit appetizing to me.)  Do we have to try all the different diets to find what works?  It is all very confusing and if you think too much about it, can really get you down, not to mention, really drain your bank account.  I have vaguely wondered over the past year or so if I should try a paleo diet, an acid-alkaline diet, a ketogenic diet, or a whole foods organic diet.  I have even had the thought, "It would be nice if the church came out with a diet and told us what was healthy."

Duh.  They have!  Sure, it's coming up on 200 years old, but the 10 commandments are a lot older than that, and we still follow them. I was pleased to see several articles in the Ensign earlier this year about health, nutrition, and the Word of Wisdom. They reaffirmed the principles in the Word of Wisdom and frankly, they just made sense.

• "In societies where excesses are the norm, we need to apply wise judgment and moderation. Moderation means restraint within reasonable limits and refraining from excess (see D&C 59:20). We can exercise moderation when deciding how much and how often we need to eat and by resisting media messages that encourage unwise eating habits that can bring unwanted health risks."  -Beverly Hyatt Neville

• "Although the confirming evidence provided by modern science may give us additional reasons to keep the Word of Wisdom, it is ultimately our faith in the Lord’s word and our consistent obedience to this revelation that will qualify us for the promised blessings:" - G. Craig Kiser

Something I really like about the Word of Wisdom is that it is practical, both in what it tells us to avoid and in what it encourages us to eat. Everyone can follow the principles in the Word of Wisdom and still live within their means. Not everyone can buy grass fed beef, coconut oil, medjool dates and a blendtec blender to make organic smoothies with. The Word of Wisdom encourages simplicity. Simplicity is good. Making eating complicated and stressful is not good. 

So, here is my definitive guide to proper nutrition:  Follow the principles in the Word of Wisdom. Obviously, if something like wheat or dairy makes you sick, don't eat it. Eat healthy foods in healthy amounts and then stop thinking about food. Find something else to do. Read a book to your child, go for a walk, do a craft, or visit somebody.

If I die a few years earlier because I ate non-organic produce, oh well.  I know where I'm going, and hopefully, I will have spent my time and money while I was alive helping somebody else instead of obsessing over my omega-3/omega-6 balance. 

That's what I think.

Oh, baby

This is a test to see how many people read our blog.

Franzen baby #3 should be joining us in April. I haven't been too eager to tell people because I've had...some issues, including a miscarriage earlier this year, some early bleeding this time around, and a high a1c (3-month glucose) test. After that test, they sent me to the Diabetes Center, where I found out that by high, my test was 5.7 when they want it to be 5.6 or less, and the nurse told me right away that many factors can influence the test, including stress, which I have experienced a bit of over the past several months. Normally, a 5.7 would mean I would be in the very bottom of the pre-diabetes range and they would tell me to watch my diet and exercise more often, but I wasn't getting off that easy.  I was presented with a glucose meter and instructed to test my blood sugar four times a day, test my urine for ketones every morning, count carbs, write down everything I eat, and come back once a month. I also had to meet with a nutritionist, which was a pointless waste of time. She gave me some ridiculous sounding advice, like encouraging me to  eat unlimited amounts of cheese and to buy Nature Valley protein bars for snacks. I've been testing my blood sugar for almost three weeks now and every single reading has been well within the normal range.

It seems unfair that I should be the one who has to deal with this. I'm the healthy one. I've been eating brown rice and steel cut oats for years. I get made fun of for eating scrambled eggs and sauteed kale for breakfast. I pin recipes like this while my sisters are busy pinning recipes like this and this and this. I'm the one who doesn't buy fruit snacks or juice for her poor, deprived children. And yet, here I am, having just pricked my finger for the third time today. The pharmacist and I are on a first name basis.

I've been trying to see the positive, and so far I have found one positive in all this:  when I had to show up for jury duty this morning, I told the judge I was pregnant and had periods of nausea and faintness and that I had to eat every 2-3 hours and test my blood sugar an hour after every meal. He kindly excused me from the two-week murder trial they were preparing for. Thank you, plum-sized fetus.

Hopefully all this fuss really is over nothing and leads to the safe arrival of Lauren's long anticipated little sister (I'm 95% sure it's a girl). She keeps patting my stomach and telling me she can't believe there's really a baby in there. Sometimes I can't believe it either, but the frequent headaches, aversion to vegetables, and waves of dizziness make it more real. Anyway, it's been three hours since lunch, and I must go have a protein rich snack to appease the masses who are watching over me.

Lauren's Big Birthday Bash

                                              

This girl turned 5 last month, and we knew we couldn't put off having a big birthday party for her any longer.  She repeatedly requested a Frozen party, but my sanity was at sake, so I vetoed that and told her she was having a rainbow theme. It turned out well.

 Party activities included a treasure hunt for party favors,  pin the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and decorating your own cupcake.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     For food, we served pulled pork sandwiches, rainbow fruit skewers, colorful veggies and colored goldfish.                                  

I made this rainbow cake, which I thought turned out quite lovely. Lauren loved all of it, as you might imagine.

We had just gotten back from Wisconsin a week before, so I spent all week doing laundry, cleaning the house, getting Lauren ready for school, and prepping for her party, so I was wiped out when it was done.  I think I'm through with birthday parties for another five years.

Summer Things

Call me Judy Moody, but this has been a bummer summer. School got out mid-June, then we spent all of July going to various doctors offices and hospitals for all our issues, and of course the insurance company had to go and deny several of the claims, then we were gone for most of August and it wasn't a fun trip, especially the week when we were in Kronenwetter by ourselves and the one day it didn't rain, the car wouldn't start. By the time we got home, school was starting in a few days and that week, we had an emergency water heater replacement. And now, our car is making a funny sound and our "emergency fund" is drained. Needless to say, I am happy to put this summer behind me.

                                     

Dad's not the only person who got Lyme disease this summer.

Andrew slept like this several times on the way to South Dakota.        

Lauren thinks Meghan is her cutest cousin.

                                   

We did, however, manage a few fun/interesting things this summer despite all the madness.

I started doing "school" with the kids. We would focus on one letter each day, we'd talk about words that start with or contain that letter, Lauren would practice writing it in uppercase and lowercase, and I printed off these letter pictures for them to color. I thought I would do it a couple times a week, but they demanded it everyday, so I sucked it up and did it every day.  We displayed the pictures on the wall, but now that we're through with the alphabet I think we'll make them into a book.

I also started reading chapter books to Lauren at night (Andrew listens too). We started with Mr. Popper's Penguins, then went through Little House in the Big Woods, Stuart Little, and are now on Ramona the Pest. Lauren very much enjoys it and I also enjoy revisiting some old favorites.

We went blueberry picking. It was fun and the blueberries were only $3 a pound.

                                     

                                     

Very few blueberries made it into Andrew's pail. Do his teeth look blue?

                                     
I was the only one who didn't sample the blueberries before we paid for them.

                                      
We enjoyed participating in  BYU50, even though we didn't win. The box was actually pretty close to where we were, but it was inconvenient to get to it (typical Boston).

                                      
We had a long layover in Minneapolis on our way to Wausau, so we took the shuttle over to the Mall of America for a bit.

I miss the free entertainment.

                                   

We planted our garden in an existing bed on the south side of the house. We didn't really know what we were doing, but it did quite well, especially considering that I was away for the most productive part. We had a good number of cucumbers, zucchini/summer squash, peppers that nobody would eat, and a lot of roma and cherry tomatoes. Next year, we will plant fewer and a different variety of tomatoes; the same amount of cucurbits, but I will be more vigilant about taking care of them and protecting them from powdery mildew; peppers that we will actually eat, like bell peppers; maybe some winter squash, and I would like to try my hand at broccoli and cauliflower. We'll probably add a couple of raised beds in the one sunny patch in the back yard.

This plant popped up in a bare patch in the front yard and did better than any of our other squash plants. I just noticed another one coming on, then it will probably die.

It has been nice to just walk outside for a side dish, or the main dish itself.

Lauren started school and we are all happy about it, although I'm not sure about Andrew. He spends most of the time she is gone asking if it's time to go pick up Sissy from the too buh.

Spiritual Thought

I'm deviating from my normal tone to share a thought I had last week as I was reading through Job. I wanted to share it in Sunday School last week, but I didn't have a chance, so I am sharing it here.

One of the verses we tend to read in Job is chapter 5, verse 17. "Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore, despite not thou the chastening of the Almighty:"

That is a pretty depressing thought. We have to have Job-like trials and still be happy on top of them?  But that verse in and of itself is not a complete thought. It ends in a colon, meaning that the rest of the thought is still to come. Verse 17 really must be read with verse 18, which tells us why we can be happy despite hard things happening.

Job 5: 17-18

"Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For he maketh sore and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole."

I don't think this is saying that for every trial there is an equal and opposite blessing. It doesn't work that way and it wouldn't be a trial of faith if it did. It is saying that Christ is able to lift us out of any grief or sorrow and that his grace is sufficient for our needs at any time. Sometimes we like to keep a tally of all our trials (I've been doing it all year), so we can make sure we're getting enough blessings to cancel out the trials. But really, the fact that we have access to the Atonement and a chance at salvation is greater than the sum of any trials we could experience and the reason why we can still have hope even when things are hard. It doesn't necessarily mean that we have to walk through trials with smiles plastered on our faces saying, "Gosh, I really love this trial," but that despite our grief, there is that underlying hope and happiness because we have a larger perspective and can see the end from the beginning.

Likes and Dislikes: July Edition

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Preston:

Likes:  Band of Brothers;  watching old BYU football games; planning his strategy for #BYU50
Dislikes: the Amazon Prime price increase;

Emily:

Likes:  $10 off $10 coupons from JCPenney; checking on my garden; Hasfit workouts; sauteed kale
Dislikes:  heat; being poor

Lauren:

Likes:  nightgowns (she can wear a dress all day and all night!); painted fingernails; showers; bows

Dislikes:  see this post

Andrew:

Likes: tunnels; Jeeps; pink tradu; Dylan's head (Dylan is a baby at church. Whenever Andrew sees him, he has to run over and rub his head)

Dislikes: the x-ray machine; a 10-day ban from fwimming

Dictionary of Andrew

Baby brother's language development has really taken off the past few months, but if you plan on having a conversation with him, you should be familiar with the following terms.

tradu = cereal.  First thing he asks for every morning.
moo = milk. Goes on the tradu.
treat = drink
boo boo = blueberry or strawberry. Can't get enough. Also, an owie, depending on circumstances.
nahnee = snack
nuhnee = nursery. They have a nahnee in nuhnee. It is often tradu.
tutu = thank you.

buh = bus
truh = truck
vroomy = airplane
choo choo = train. Obviously.

Sissy = Lauren
Root = Ruth. An elderly lady in the ward whom we have chauffeured to the hospital several times. Also a different elderly lady whom I visit teach.  Also, any old lady with gray hair.
Peepee = people
Mihmee Melmo = his stuffed sleeping buddies

Uh dat Mom? = What's that, Mom?  The phrase I hear approximately 146 times every day.

Now you are fluent in Andrew. 

My boy turns two

 Andrew, aka Mr. Franzen, had a birthday recently. It involved a lot of trucks, which made him very happy. I made the easiest looking truck cake on Pinterest. It was a pain to get the frosting out of the tires, but we eventually did. I made a cake mix cake and this frosting, which Preston really liked but I did not. I thought it basically tasted like butter. I prefer the fudge frosting from the Allred cookbook.

These are some random pictures of Andrew. He has rejected napping except in the car, and was all tuckered out after his cousins came for a busy week.

 Andrew makes big messes and has been downgraded back to sippy cups because he has taken to putting all the food on his plate into his cup with the milk, then pouring it all back out onto the plate.

 He is cute. So cute.

 One of the highlights of Andrew's week is joining in on the parade at Lauren's dance class. The other is watching the garbage truck come. He stands at the window as soon as he hears it coming and doesn't move until it's out of sight. Nursery is still not a highlight. Apart from trucks, he also likes choo choos, driving, and backpacks. Oh, and ice cream. If you want to see something funny, put some ice cream on the table and don't give him any.

Andrew's newest thing is, when you ask him a question, he holds his hands out to the sides and says, "I don't know" (all one word). 

The cutest boy around.