Yes, We Still Live On

Things That Happened In July

We went Up North for The Fourth of July:

 We forced Mr F to express his latent heritage at The Cedar Polka Fest:

 Kid sported this amazing unicorn towel turban:

Baby blew the minds of everyone on Face Book with this drawing:

 Baby made me take a picture of this crazy pumpkin shaped grape:

 Big Boy tried to get used to his new blog reader (he is unimpressed):

We met up with Kid's boyfriend and his family:

 Kid let me cut 5.5" off of her glorious locks:

 And loved it:

 We went back Up North:

We found a bat on our bedroom ceiling at 2 AM:

 (I also got bit by bedbugs... not pictured... you are welcome)

We played at this park on the beach in Traverse City 

and couldn't think of one single reason not to move there:

 My hysterical niece with her beloved Biscoff Spread:

And admittedly superior rotisserie s'more technique:

 Kid decided she's playing the flute this year in the 5th grade band:

 Baby broke-ish her arm (still waiting final x-rays tomorrow):

We went to visit my 100 year old Nana:

She schooled us in Hopscotch: 

This one finally lost her crazy hillbilly tooth:

This dick took a shit INSIDE of our washing machine:

 Kid accused Baby of being a hoarder:

(It takes one to know one)

 And last, but certainly NOT least, a skunk sprayed the side of our house last night at 2 AM.  

Our windows were open.  

There is no way to adequately describe how horrific the smell of a direct skunk hit is.

It is not that weirdly sweet smell of a skunk at a distance.

Or those old school scratch & sniff stickers.

It is so strong it makes you nauseous.

Like unbelievably strong burnt garlic.

And there is seemingly no way to get the smell out of the house.

Are There Words...

This is the BEFORE:

 

(I feel compelled to say:  You don't understand how awkward the space is! The vast majority of those shelves are 8" high and 8" deep...what can you fit?!  Yet, there is a ridiculous amount of space... because the other shelves are over 2' deep, so everything got unpacked into it when we moved (things like Christmas tins and random small appliances that should have been relegated to the basement)... and we laid it out ALL wrong, and then, well, you just aren't ever going to take the time to empty it all out and start over... especially when you and your spouse disagree about what is wrong with it.  Okay.  The need to dump stuff on the deeper shelves meant that things got lost and forgotten about, knocked over tupperware had pretty much taken over and YES we had like 4 boxes of 1/4 eaten stale Count Chocula from the last 3 years... and Halloween candy (and Easter FROM LAST YEAR) and every other random junk food treat we ever bought, and then forgot about, cluttering EVERY surface.)

This is the Middle:
So we emptied it ALL out:

YOWZA... yes, all that was in the pantry!  And there was plenty of stuff we trashed.

And Mr F painted it:

Since the shelves had to cure for about a week... and our pantry shit had to reside somewhere... our kitchen was pretty much unusable. We hadn't counted on that when we we got the courage to tackle this... it's just one of those one thing leads to another and you might as well take it all the way situation. We ate a lot of take out.

This is the mostly AFTER:

 

Those containers still need to be washed and labeled and filled with my baking things (flours, sugars, rices, etc).  I'm 100% in love with them, they are made by Sistema and come with an included measuring cup... so easy for baking staples!!  I found some at TJ Maxx & HomeGoods and got the rest on sale at Macy's (by Martha Stewart).

 And there is another lidded bin to come on that shelf next to the existing one for all our water bottles. 

My FAVORITE PART:

These awesome rolling laundry baskets under the big deep shelf 

(from the children's section at Target!):

One for lunch boxes and the other for lunch containers!

So easy to dump and grab to pack school lunches! 

My other super awesome non-food container storage find were these small stacking bins from Staples:

 I have absolutely no idea what there intended purpose really is... but... DUDE they fit granola bars and

fruit leathers PERFECTLY!!!!!  They were $1.99 each and I found them in the desk organizer section. 

The hardest part of this project was trying to figure out why the pantry wasn't working and how we could over come that.  Setting up a system that allowed non stackable things to be contained was obviously key for us.  Also I learned that we just cannot have food that is 2 rows deep (the exception is with replacement jars of the same item).  Things just got lost and knocked over in frustration.  Surprisingly almost everything is back in there.  Getting rid of stale/expired food was about 1/4-1/2 of it.  The Christmas tins are also gone and down with our Christmas stuff in the basement.  

And if you need inspiration... I highly recommend watching Alejandra's videos on YouTube.  I find her endearing (maybe you won't), and she has a lot of great ideas.  It had really never occurred to me that we needed to find a way to store non stacking items before she mentioned it.  

Things That Happened In June

Baby graduated from Kindergarten:

(Best teacher in the world!)

This made everyone cry:

(Yes, she elected to wear last year's dance recital dress to her graduation... what of it?)

Baby had her ballet recital:

(Baby is 3rd in from the Right... sorry... 

it's as good as I could do covertly)

My mother turned into her mother:

 Godzilla's suspected cross-dressing was finally revealed:

 Father's Day happened (Mr F is laughing at Baby's fake smile):

 A make-over went terribly awry:

 Baby worried about trying what she dubbed
"The World's First Meat Flavored Ice Cream"...

Culver's "Turtle Dove":

 (Which disappointingly wasn't really made from turtle and dove meat)

Big Boy gave us the cold shoulder:

 The village ripped up our driveway to install sidewalks:

 Which has made groceries more of a pain then ever:

(for them... bwahahahaha)

 Kid discovered Pinterest: 

(I've already had to give her a 15 minute daily limit)

On to July!

(And a major organizational project reveal!)

The Response (this is a long time coming)

So, I fear at this point this will be a bit anticlimactic. Obviously, we have decided to stay on at the school for another year, which probably infers that things worked out with the principal.

Here it goes anyway... I sent the letter to Kid's teacher and the principal over a weekend about a month before school got out. I honestly can't even remember what the tipping point on that was... because there had been so freaking many! I think it was most likely another test question marked wrong (incorrectly). I had tried to just sit there and live with it and thought we'd take them out at the end of the year... but it really ate me up to watch the utter incompetency keep coming home. I mean, let's not forget, we are actually paying for this!

This is a woman who pronounced infamous... "IN-famous" and gave as an example "My husband is an in-famous farmer"... Kid had to actually correct her in the middle of the spelling lesson with the correct pronunciation and definition. Her teacher actually thought infamous meant not famous.  I am 100% for real on that front.  Now, I'm not sure how to make my points super clear on all of this, but at the end of the day NOT learning something is one thing... learning something INCORRECTLY is another. And, to me, it is a far greater failure.

 That is basically what we were up against all fucking year. There were things that were marked (incorrectly) wrong every single day that were in fact correct. It was exhausting to try and keep on it, reference the correct answers and send them back in. It was flat out infuriating to have her, with concrete evidence from the text book, continue to deny the correct answer. There were obviously weird personality things going on with this teacher. Kid had great grades, even with this mis-graded nightmare going on, and the teacher felt that Kid's grades were good enough and didn't need to be changed. She didn't understand that our goal was not to have Kid walk out with a 100%, our goal was that she be accurately and fairly graded. This teacher actually said to the class one day "I feel sorry for all of the kids that get A pluses because it means that they never had to learn to study, and when they get to high school and college they won't know what to do." What the ding-dang?! Instead of feeling good about your academic performance, she actually found a way to insult the kids for doing well. Kid was irate, considering she studied 3 hours a fucking night for her grades.  I guess, in retrospect, I should be glad that that was her response, other kids just became depressed and apathetic and stopped trying.

So, obviously, she had a bias against top performing students. She also made it known that if kids got an A plus on a test, she felt she had not made it hard enough. She routinely (and I mean every single time) would try and find a point she could take off to bring the grade down. Outside of spelling and memory (where it is what it is) she would mark things wrong even if they were right. I'm completely serious. This was not a fun classroom to be in. Not for anyone. It was a depressed classroom. Most kids suffered a huge grade drop in the 4th grade, but even the top performing kids were made to feel badly about that. My biggest beef with all of this, is that every single kid had correct work marked incorrectly wrong... and without parents committed to checking and standing up for them... their take away was that they had misunderstood the information and that they were wrong... which is a big deal!... because now they have been misinformed and believe the wrong answer is correct. (fuming over here) Kid's academic success had nothing to do with her teacher's teaching, but was due to the very high quality curriculum, my hours and hours of teaching it to her AT HOME, and her conviction to show this teacher up!

 You are probably wondering why we would EVER consider going back there, right? Yes, after I revisit all that I wonder the same. The truth is that this was a terrible experience for Kid academically (well no... not academically... it was a terrible teaching experience), but it was a pretty good experience socially for her. It also was a wonderful school experience for Baby. We still loved all of the specials teachers, and their long lunch, and double recesses. They have gym EVERY single day. They have band with free instruments!  They have science.  They still have art & music & library & spanish & computer. Their curriculum is extremely high quality and is an average of two years ahead of the Ann Arbor public school curriculum, which is not great for every student but is great for our girls.  We also love the diversity of this school and the girls have been greatly enriched by their South Korean friendships.  The school is doing a lot right, but they are doing a terrible job of getting rid of a problem teacher. (which I now know a lot more about) Also, we have two other huge issues... #1 We don't know if we have to move again in this next year, so I didn't want the girls to have two school transitions in one school year. & #2 The whole point of this school was to commit to one place and let our girls grow with it socially... and I didn't want to give that up without a lot of thought.

 So, back to the letter... The night after I sent it, her teacher responded. It was cordial, but in no way acknowledged my real issues. Her summary was basically that she thought Kid "was doing well academically after a hard transition from homeschooling." Ha! She loves to throw homeschooling in to every single conversation we have about HER performance as a TEACHER. (not to mention that Kid had been doing well academically from the start... ahem)  I don't actually think this woman is malicious, I do think she is well intentioned... but...I think she is CLUELESS... poorly trained, not all that smart, operating from an outdated teaching model, and lacks self awareness. She really doesn't experience herself the way that we (or other families... or the actual students) experience her teaching. She also does not know the material well enough to teach it properly. Even in the letter I wrote, which I think was both very clear and heartfelt, her take away was that Kid's grades weren't high enough for us. She just doesn't get what we are saying. In light of that, I chose not to respond to her response. There really was no point at all in continuing to communicate with someone that is not speaking the same language, it was just frustrating for everyone involved. At this point, we had decided our goal was to meet with the principal to express our dissatisfaction with this teacher and to have that documented. We felt strongly that if we didn't speak up, we were part of the problem and couldn't hold the school accountable if they kept her as a teacher.

 The Monday morning after we sent the letter, the principal stopped Mr F and asked to schedule a meeting. He was friendly but also clearly taking the letter seriously. I had worried, because he can come off as a pretty passive guy, that he might not acknowledge the letter at all... at which point we'd have withdrawn the girls from school. So, we were pleasantly surprised by his immediate action. The meeting was supportive and validating but in some ways anticlimactic as well.

 The long and short of it is that these kinds of allegations regarding this teacher are not new or unexpected. He was visibly disappointed and discouraged, and said that they had worked on these issues and had thought things were going better in her room. Ours was the first complaint of "this type" this year. We brought in a couple examples of Kid's tests with incorrectly graded answers and he was shocked when he saw those and said "I can understand why you are so frustrated." He thanked me for bringing those in, because he had had a different understanding of the issue from the teacher's perspective. I'm not sure that the meeting was satisfying in terms of what we might have ultimately wanted (to have her pushed into retirement) but it was incredibly validating. He acknowledged our frustrations and understood our position. We made it clear that we would not ever have another child of ours attend her classroom. We asked if we could expect our experience to be vastly improved in the 5th grade and he said he understood our concern and that he has to support his whole staff... but... "People have complained there isn't enough homework" in a wink wink sort of way. He also acknowledged that he and his wife, both teachers at the school, had had teachers in the school whose styles they had not agreed with when their children were in their classrooms. He basically said for some teachers, whose expectations were too high, they modified those expectations at home (i.e. did their children's work). I don't know... it is kind of a laughable situation... the principal advocating that you do your kid's homework... and yet it was so refreshingly honest that we kind of loved him for it.

 We left the meeting not really knowing what we should do. I went into serious polling mode to try and figure out how parents had found the 1st and 5th grade teachers. The results were solid for both, the 1st grade teacher is one of the best in the school and the 5th grade teacher is new, very nice, laid back and the kids have a lot of fun in the classroom... he prefers group projects to tests and the kids have little homework. We decided to give the school one more year, the year that will probably be the smoothest/easiest for both girls and then see how we feel during/after that. If next year doesn't go well, with two of the so called best experiences to be had at the school, we will pull them out feeling pretty confident in our decision. But right now, it feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to walk away after this year. I mean, we made it through, it feels like we should reward that with getting to experience an easier year.

 I've also, since all this went down, found out a lot more about the school and other people's experiences. Our experience is not only not unique, but fairly common and many families leave the summer after 4th grade. I think if the community had been more open about these issues, and we had felt more supported and validated during the year, it might have been more bearable. Those that stay usually have more of a commitment to the school/church or have multiple kids and see 4th grade as one bad year that you just get through. I also now know that the teachers are called by the church to their positions, and pending some kind of actual illegal activity, the school board doesn't have the power to fire them... which while I find wrong, would have been good to know. It would have, at least, explained why despite hearing from SO MANY parents, teachers, etc., that they too had had a frustrating year with this teacher when their children were students, that this teacher was still teaching. And with that in mind, I accepted a position on the school PTL.

 I figure if we are going to stay, I need to know everything I can about this school as we go forward. If after this next school year, and a year on the PTL, we still aren't comfortable with the school then we can leave feeling confident knowing we've done our due diligence in making that decision. After one school board/PTL meeting I already know more about the history and working of the school (and acknowledged problems) than I could have ever found out as a parent. So, that's where we are at. Ultimately, since she suffered the most, Kid had the choice to decide if she wanted to stay and try 5th grade or not. She said she did, so we are. We are just moving forward, knowing that every school has it's share of bad or mismatched teachers... we were just unlucky enough to start with one here.


Also, and this is huge, In an unexpected twist this teacher's incompetency and unjust grading actually fueled Kid to outperform any expectation we would have ever placed on her.  Which, in the end, was a gift.  Kid fought through a tremendous amount of test anxiety to prove this woman wrong and not only graduated the year with a 3.97, and scored in the 10th grade on national standardized tests, but was her grade's top reader scoring 10x the 4th grade AR point requirement for the year which placed her 4th in the school behind three 8th graders.  So thank you terrible teacher... you showed us that Kid is in it to win it.  And while I am very disgruntled about how this year went, in terms of actual teaching and homework overload, etc, Kid has proven herself to be an excellent student.  And do you know what is the highest scoring school in our ridiculously high scoring county?  This one.  It is also the most affordable private school in the county.  Of course.  And, so, walking away from what is the most challenging academic program, for a student who has proven they can actually achieve in this setting, isn't something I want to have to do... yet.


But also this:  Baby will not ever sit in that teacher's class.

Ongoings

#1  I've been hesitant to say this (don't want to jinx it) but Baby's energy issue is seemingly gone.  It went away in one fell swoop.  As if she woke up 100% better.  And let me tell you, I had actually forgotten how active, danger-prone, and talkative she is... the illness just slowly sucked that out of her.... and had we had a good normal energy day right next to her low energy end days I would have been freaking out even more than I was.  She hadn't had the energy to walk through the grocery store in months.  One night we were all driving home from somewhere and Baby was chattering away and singing (a different song then was on the radio) at top volume and a wave of relief washed over me and I knew she was better.  She hadn't been like that in so long, that I actually forgot she ever was.  The doctors just assume that she did have mono and she finally got over it.  As a special side treat, which appears to be unrelated, she has had hives for 12 straight days, which have no known cause, presumably brought on by that stomach virus she had two weeks ago (did you miss that?... really the health stuff with her has been non-stop)... so she is now on Zyrtec since her hands were swelling up and painful.  After everything else, I'll happily take the hives.


#2  Last night, to prove the point, Baby fell off of a brick retaining wall and scraped the flesh off of the back of her leg (one night before her dance recital dress rehearsal - wherein video & pictures can be taken).  Bloody, bloody, screaming mess.  Thankfully, it wasn't deep enough to need a trip to the ER (although, we've been so much this year that all our medical bills from now on are pretty much free) and we could bandage her up.  Inwardly (and maybe a bit outwardly) I fumed about what a nightmare trying to put that leg in tights was going to be today.  But, again, I am so happy that she's back to normal.  Even if normal means 2 hours of wound triage.  And, with Baby, it does.


#3  Still loving my Up by Jawbone bracelet.  I find sleeping with it a bit uncomfortable, which sometimes has woken me up... which kind of defeats the purpose... but I am extremely sensitive to things on me like that.  I love the food journalling, the graphs, the App, the activity tracker... I'm a fan!  It has been totally motivating me and keeping me moving (literally) in the right direction.  Yay!


#4  I cleaned out the fridge, and Kid cleaned her room.  That's about it on organization for week 1. Baby's big dance recital (remember last year and the hooker make-up?!) is tonight and tomorrow... so that is enough stress to manage for now (especially with the leg wound!), so we'll pick back up next week.


#5  The kids' summer studying has been going GREAT.  I think I failed to mention the biggest component of all of that... to get them established in the playroom.  Typically the girls will bring all of whatever they are doing and cram it into our living room (which is more of a sitting room style room right off the front door)... which makes me crazy and keeps our house looking like we are in the midst of a burglary at all times.  So, part of this whole plan was to have them do their school work in the actual giant playroom/family room at the back of the house (which no one ever uses).  It's worked, people!  Once they are in there, they just stay there.  All the toys, games, art supplies are there anyway... what a novel idea... to actually play in the well stocked playroom.


#6  Just discovered Longmire on Netflix and I'm kind of loving it.

School's Out For Summer!

Oh, people, the things that have happened to the interior of our home in the last two weeks... are... frightening.  The amount of stuff brought home from school, with no home... because... its home was AT SCHOOL... that is now piled on every conceivable surface is mind boggling.  It's paralyzing.  So much for easing into a relaxing summer break, this shit has to get taken care of ASAP or I'll lose my mind.  Hopefully by the end of the week it won't look like burglars just ransacked our house.  Right now it kind of looks like the hotel room at the end of The Hangover... I wouldn't be surprised at all to find a chicken roaming around.

Also, we may be the only parents in the history of the universe that had to lay down the law:  "You may not read all summer!"  Girlfriend has read 4 books since Friday.  Unfortunately, books are to Kid what handheld game devices are to other kids.  She cannot stop reading, she can't hear what you say, she becomes obsessed with finishing a chapter and is rude and dismissive to those around her while she does it.  So, she can read as much as she wants before 9:30 AM and after 6:30 PM.  In between she has to actually engage in life.

I have been desperately looking forward to the summer so I can finally carve out a consistent workout time (which I will be able to keep us this coming year, with Baby going full time).  To that end, I got an UP by Jawbone for my birthday (oh, yeah, I got older... so did Mr F... you didn't miss much), and I LOVE it.  People, this might be the greatest thing to happen to me in a long while.  I'm sure it's magical-ness will wear off eventually but I am mesmerized by it now.  It is totally motivating.  And as an chronic insomniac I'm super into the sleep tracker.  Oh, and being able to take pictures of your food's barcodes and have it import into a food diary?!  Magic!!

So combining many daily goals... working out, getting Kid to stop reading and engage with the family, and having the girls do a little school review every weekday... I have masterminded the ultimate solution:  Kid gets them dressed and ready and then runs a school for Baby every morning during my workout. She helps her practice her reading and math, and does a small math assignment herself.  Boom!  Done.  They are super pumped.  Kid gets to act out her older sibling need to boss, while Baby is just happy to play along if it means she's getting attention.  Their work gets done without me having to nag them, and once they are engaged with each other they usually keep playing non-stop until bedtime.

My other major goal for the summer is doing all of the organizing tasks I never have time for:  bathroom closet, pantry, refrigerator, craft closet, girl's rooms, paperwork, etc.  I also intend to get SERIOUS about batch cooking for next school year.  Trying to deal with the homework load, after our commute, while making dinner was just hell on Earth.  Especially if I had a migraine.  Which is, well, 30% of the fucking time.  So I might be getting a deep freezer for the garage.  But first we need to figure out if we'll even be living here next year... (seriously).

Because of My Motto: Why Achieve When You Can Unnecessarily Stress Yourself Out By Overachieving At The Last Minute?

I busted 30 of these out of my ass (no, not literally lindalou) for the girls to take to school tomorrow:

And bought these ceramic pie plates for their teachers (and filled them with pie no less):

Good News Update

Just a quick note to say that cardiology cleared her of having any heart related reason for her symptoms.  We did get an echocardiogram, so they feel pretty definitive that she is no more likely to drop dead than any other 6 year old.  So that is GOOD NEWS.  She does have a slight defect, but not one that would effect her health and it is not necessarily more or less than anyone else might have.  She does still have her double heart murmurs which they are confident are both innocent and said that her very thin chest can amplify (to us and residents at ER and such who are often alarmed) her heart beat and draw attention to her murmurs when they might otherwise go unnoticed.  So when her heart feels like it is beating out of her chest it is mostly because it is just so close to the surface.

They are also mystified and concerned about her weird exhaustion.  They suggest we get a Peak Flow monitor and see what is going on with her breathing... some kids have asthma without prominent wheezing.  They also suggest we get her tested for mono.

So, still some stuff to go before we have an answer, but right now we have ruled out the deadly possibilities so I'm good with that.

It's Sunday

#1 This is the last weekend I have to spend washing school uniforms... for 11 weeks!

#2  Tomorrow Baby heads to the hospital .  I haven't mentioned it, although FB friends will maybe have noticed, but Baby's health has been strangely declining over the past year.  It's been stressful and weird... the kind of thing you can't quite figure out and makes you hopeful it will just go away... but it hasn't.  Something is not right.  But you know that weird guilty feeling (is it just me?) where you worry people will think you are overreacting... so.... you don't want to say... "I don't have anything very concrete but I know something is very wrong here"?  Well, finally I did and the doctor said... "something is wrong here".  And then they did a full blood panel... and we all hoped for anemia and not leukemia (and I wish that wasn't what they thought)... but it all came back clear.  Which was a short lived relief when they rushed our referral to cardiology (which has been my suspicion all along).  So, tomorrow morning we should hopefully (hopefully) be able to rule out a congenital heart problem.  Then I don't know what will be next.  She's exhausted all the time (and this is Baby we are talking about), she falls asleep nearly everyday (she stopped napping at 11 mo and only goes to 1/2day K), can't run without taking a break... doesn't even like to be active anymore, her heart races with exertion, and complains of headaches, stomach aches, and chest pain.  She's been to the ER or doctor 7 times in the last couple of months.  We had met our high insurance deductible (we're talking THOUSANDS of dollars) by February.  A kid who never went to the doctor (except when she bit through her lip!) for anything but well visits the first 4 years of her life.  She was even lying down during her gymnastics class last week between her turns.  She had to stop playing hide and seek after 5 minutes the other night.  I find her lying in her bed all the time.  It has been alarming.  Anyway, so that's been going on.  It's been a scary few months and I can't sleep very well.  Hopefully we're on the way to an answer that is less scary that what haunts me on a regular basis.  (She's also had a full allergy work up... nothing)

#3  So... that's fun... right?  No end to the strange stressors that befall us.

#4  The other day, Kid got into the car and announced "Breaking News!  Noah S. has a crush on me!" And, so, it begins.  We all know that Kid came out of the womb boy crazy... so this is just about the best thing that has ever happened.  He lives in our little town and I was able to rig up, courtesy of our early morning cardiology appt tomorrow, a ride to school with him.  His mother laughed and said Noah would be waiting by the door!  So, at least there will be one bright spot tomorrow.  You should have seen this boy's face when he found out she'd be going to school with him... he was beaming.   He is so cute... it is hard not to want to encourage it.  (He wasn't her front runner, but I told her... "You know what is really attractive? Someone who recognizes how great you are." I'm hoping she can learn that early and save herself a lot of future heartache.)  Plus he's one of the shortest boys in class and she's one of the tallest girls... so... its the Wonder Years all over again.

#5  We had our first real Tornado of the year. (hopefully last) It ended up tracking north of us, but we still got to enjoy the panic of the sirens and all.  The girls went into full hysteria mode.  I got a bit anxious but I said to Mr F "I'm handling this surprisingly well" and he agreed.  We even got in the car and went to our concert as soon as we knew it was clear.  So that is saying something!  Go get yourself the Tornado app from the Red Cross.  This is the first time the app's siren has come on my phone and it worked and it blared each time the weather service reissued the warning (unlike the outdoor sirens which just sounded once).  I highly recommend it, especially if you can't reliably hear your area's sirens or worry you might sleep through it.  You will not sleep through this app!

I'll be back for a quick cardiology update tomorrow.  I don't know what we hope for anymore... something minor and easily resolved.

I Meant It

I really am going to give you the promised recipes and tell you about our meeting with the principal and how I went from withdrawing the girls to sitting on the PTL.  I will.  I have 8.5 days of school left and then I'm all yours.  Well, in between kindergarten graduation, dance recital, swimming lessons, road trips, braces, and the inevitability of another eye surgery looming (unfortunately) in the not too distant future.

The least I can do is give you a sneak peak at the recipes I've been cooking (I was kind of hoping I'd have a chance to photograph more of these...or write them up in a way that makes any sense... but it just hasn't happened):

Go to this site:  Alexandra Cooks  Add it to your soon to be defunct Google Reader (and if you have a substitute please tell me ASAP... I depend on my reader!!) or subscribe.  Her recipes are what you want to cook if you have the time... and they are beautiful... and every so often I realize that I really can pull off some of them on a school night.

Like THIS AMAZING CHICKEN.  Holy crap it is so good and everyone in the house eats it up (even Baby).  Do what she says and it will be great.  I use all bone in chicken thighs and because they give off a fair amount of fat, I find I can halve the butter in the recipe.  I also only use about half the marinade and save the rest to use on all sorts of stuff... put a dab on salmon and broil it... delicious!  FYI, I've tried this recipe with chicken breasts and it was meh... don't bother... thighs are so much better and really take on the flavors better.  Also, go crazy and make a lot, if you don't eat it all it makes fantastic curried chicken salad.  The sauce comes together really quickly and the chicken cooks pretty much hands off for an hour.  I can actually do this on a school night and it is pretty low stress.

I also made both THIS HONEY SOY CHICKEN (nearly identical method to the one above) and THESE PEANUT NOODLES for a dinner party the other weekend.  There were lots of kids and there was barely a piece of chicken left for the adults (I made two huge pans of drumsticks and thighs).  Both of these dishes were winners... the chicken is great hot or at room temp... so it made a great low key dinner party fare.  Mr F and Kid love the noodles (weirdly Baby does not...) but I've made some taste adjustments to the original recipe.  I halve the cider vinegar and up the lime juice and peanut butter.

Now, I also promised to write out our Tortellini Bake recipe.  It is another one of those recipes that is so easy it's embarrassing.  We had it for so many weeks in a row over the fall and winter and now that I want a picture... it's kind of too hot for me to want to make.  Ah well, I'll do a real write up with pictures whenever I make it again (think October!).  This is easy and obviously easily changed per your tastes.  We've changed it a bit over time.  Basically you need ground meat, onions & peppers, approx 1 lb good cheese tortellini (I prefer frozen for this since you'll be cooking it twice & I find they hold up better, my kind is 19 oz), 1 jar pasta sauce, and mozzarella & parmesan cheese.  See?  I'm already embarrassed just writing that out.  Mr F cannot eat red meat anymore (we're not sure why) so I make this with either ground turkey or Italian sausage.  If you go the turkey route and live in the US, for the love of God, get yourself the Italian seasoned Jennie-O turkey... it's VERY close to Italian sausage.  At this point I use that for almost everything.  If you aren't using that, you'll want to season your meat with minced garlic & onion, salt, pepper, & Italian seasoning.  

Here's the play by play:  Preheat your oven to 350 F.  Boil your water.  In a large saute pan brown up your meat (3/4 pound) and season if needed, once cooked through remove to a separate bowl.  Add 1 T olive oil to the pan and add a 1/2 sliced onion and 1 sliced bell pepper (or again use frozen, we always have this on hand).  Season with salt, pepper, and italian seasoning.  Add your tortellini to your pasta water and cook per package directions.  In a greased casserole dish spoon in about 1/2 C of good pasta sauce and spread over the bottom of the dish.  When your peppers and onions are looking awesome, turn off the heat but leave them in the pan.  Your tortellini should be finished, so drain and add to the peppers & onions.  Add the browned seasoned meat to the pan and add enough pasta sauce to thoroughly coat everything.  Dump the mixture into the casserole dish.  Top with grated mozzarella and parmesan cheese (I use about 1.5 C mozzarella & 1/4 C parm... it will depend on the size of your casserole dish).  Pop the casserole in the oven for about 20 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbly.  This takes about 10-15 minutes of active cooking and then bakes for another 20. This can be changed to meet your tastes, omit the peppers & onions, add spinach, whatever... it all works.