Thicker Than Water

I told you one of the reasons I hadn't posted in a while. Morning sickness. Well I didn't tell you the other, much more dreaded, reason: "Spring" Break. That's right. I said "Spring". I put those quotation marks there because I meant them. This is NOT Spring. This is a gross, second-verse-same-as-the-first repeat of winter. Only with more days of snow. Like today for example. The thick wet stuff has taken the last shreds of patience not consumed by my children and frozen it. Maybe someone will find it in like 50 billion years.

"Spring" Break was not the much anticipated end to our cabin fever, but 4 and a half days of mother nature mocking my pain. With all six kids. We had wonderful plans. We were going to go up the canyon and have a fire and roast hot dogs for lunch one day. We were going on a picnic to a really cool park another day. We were going to get donuts and go walk around ThatUniversityThatISometimesGoTo another day. It was going to be great. Instead, we stayed home. Inside. And tried to stay warm. How do you stay warm during a snowy spring break, you ask? Watch movies, of course.

We watched a lot of movies. I didn't even hold my kids to the normal rules about television usage. Normally, we have a very efficient system where the kids have to budget their media time. This is how it works: At the beginning of the week, usually during Family Home Evening, we give each of the kids 6 blue tickets with the date written on them. Each of these tickets represents 20 minutes of t.v./wii/computer/internet time. They may use them when their chores and homework are finished and can use them all at once or spread them out over the week. If more than one kid is watching a movie, the one who chooses the movie pays the tickets. At the end of the week the tickets expire. They can't be used the next week. That means if they didn't do their chores/homework, they might not get any t.v. time that week. They also have the opportunity to be awarded white tickets at any time. White tickets are given for any good/kind behavior that Husband or I observe. The kindness has to be done for the sake of being kind, not trying to "earn" a ticket. These tickets never expire. That means they can stockpile them and have a 6 hour wii fest if they want to. The white tickets have the kids names on them and we put all the spent white tickets into a jar. When the jar gets filled up we are going to do something really special as a family (trip, amusement park, etc.) and whichever child has the most tickets in the jar will also receive a treat (dinner and a movie, tea party, horseback riding, etc.) It all sounds very complicated but it's really quite simple. What it boils down to is that my kids don't spend a whole lot of their time on brain-rotting, and occasionally they feel slightly more inclined to do their chores and homework.

This is not our only system. We also have allowances and Saturday Fun. Allowances are simple: they are paid on a daily basis for completing their chores. Each day they get everything done, they get paid. Saturday Fun is an incentive program. Every Saturday, everybody who got all their work/homework done by dinnertime every day of that week gets to go to a super activity: Saturday Fun. This can be anything from a picnic/slumber party in the living room floor to Disney on Ice to Monster Trucks. It sort of depends on the budget. The vague idea behind it is "the family that works together plays together". All the family members who did their part in the overall work get to play. We have had some really good times, especially on those weeks when everybody gets Saturday fun. The thing I like about these two systems is that if you have a day when you don't do what you're supposed to and you have to miss Saturday Fun, you still get paid for all those other days.

So anyway, during "Spring" Break, I didn't require the kids to pay tickets for their t.v. usage.
After their normal after-school chores there was not much else to do for the rest of the day and I was feeling too sick to try to mediate art supplies or cookie ingredients for that many people. We watched A LOT of movies. Over and over. And over. One of the movies we watched several times is Herbie Fully Loaded with Lindsay Lohan. It's about Maggie Peyton, a girl who has just graduated from college and is on the verge of starting a new life outside of the stockcar racing world, much to the happiness of her father. Her family is a racing dynasty and more than anything, Maggie wants to be the next great Peyton. "Racing is in [her] blood." I think watching "Kirby" (as MonsterTruck(2) calls it) sleeping, and riding my kids to get their chores done were the only things I did the entire week. Oh, and a book report for MyOwnPersonalDharma (see my very brief review here).

Well, as it turned out, ThePinkiest(5) did not get her chores done. At all. The entire week. Because she didn't want to. And because kids- like wolves- can smell weakness and know when their mother is not going to fight too hard or too long. (My first trimester is always a disaster.) I'm pretty sure ThePinkiest(5) was sneaking in to watch "Kirby" every single time I dozed off. Well, the kids know exactly what to expect when Saturday rolls around if their chores aren't done and because of this, ThePinkiest(5) knew she had less chance of Saturday Fun that week than we had of a warm, sunny afternoon.

Husband was getting the kids together who were leaving to go have dinner and ice cream sundaes at a restaurant when it started. The drama. Screaming/Whining/Crying/Begging, "Daddy, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaase let me have Saturday Fun! Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaase!!!!!!"

Husband: I'm sorry, but you didn't get your chores done. That was a decision you made. Maybe next time.
ThePinkiest(5): But Daddy!!!!! Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaase! I NEED Saturday Fun.
Husband: No, sorry. Come on guys, let's get ready to go.
ThePinkiest(5) throwing herself at his feet: Yes I do!!! I NEEEEED IT!
Husband removing his feet from under her: Not this time.
Me: No one NEEEEEDS Saturday Fun.
ThePinkiest(5): I. Need. to have. Saturday. Fun. "It's in my blood."
Me: Is she quoting "Herbie"?
Husband snickers: Yeah.
ThePinkiest(5) as Husband and some kids go out the door: Saturday. Fun. is in. my. blood.!!!

One Day Cure For My Cabin Fever: Flour Girls and Dough Boys

One day was all I got. Sigh. Snow, snow, and more snow. I am so over it. Now for the cure: Anyone want to have a girls' night? Chocolate, chick flicks, chocolate. More chocolate.

OOOO!!! Speaking of chocolate- I just remembered! I found the most divine place ever! On a recent trip to a place called American Fork I found a bakery that I INSTANTLY fell in love with. (Kelly- SO MUCH BETTER than our bakery on Main Street.) Anyway, it's called Flour Girls and Dough Boys Artisan Bakery and it's located about half a block off of Main Street American Fork near the Towne Cinemas. 35 N. Barratt Ave. (150 West)

I walked in and was hit by the overwhelminly delicious smells of fresh baked Artisan rustic breads including Sourdough, Asiago Cheese (20% cheese!), Homemade Foccacia, Baguettes, and more! I looked up to their menu to discover some of the other wonderful smells surrounding me were coming from their made-from-scratch-every-day soups and paninis. Yes indeedy! It's a bakery AND A CAFE! I turned to look at the seating and discovered a quaint little setting with around half a dozen small tables in front of a hugh window. The paint on the walls was reminiscent of a Tiffany's Co. jewellry box. Over the table were hung antique crystal chandeliers and the whole place was shiny and said come here every day for the rest of your life! Sadly, I discovered the bakery the same weekend I realized I am close to my first goal of losing 10% of my body weight [GO Weight Watchers!] but hey- what can you do? I guess the name "Dough Boys" should have tipped me off but now that I know about that place I must return. Many, many times.) The place was immaculately clean, which I appreciated, having worked in a bakery once upon a time. It seems like a lot of good hole-in-the-wall bakeries are filthy and constantly covered in a thin layer of flour dust. Not Flour Girls and Dough Boys. The brass was shiny, the glass was fingerprint-free, and there was no dust anywhere. Next time one of us passes through that region, we'll be sure to take pictures of it for you.

Now, the food. Oh, YUM! They had every sort of pastry you could think of (except donuts and really, I think donuts are far beneath them. Donuts are not even in their league). Everything is made with real butter (no margerine) and unbleached, unbromated flour. I tried a few bites of a huge gooey cinnamon roll purchased for Husband, sampled the soups (I've been craving the house specialty- Tuscan Sausage and Bean- ever since), and bought a loaf of the sourdough which I thought surpassed anything I have ever gotten in San Francisco. My favorite thing I had that day was the Coconut Oatmeal Raisin cookies. THERE. ARE. NO. WORDS. And I'm not even a raisin person! They have three kinds of brownies, chocolate-filled homemade croissants, and every other good thing you can imagine.

The new snowstorm could have totally ruined my day, but thanks to this place and their delightful name which captured my attention the first time I saw it, I didn't even miss the sun.If you pass through Utah, as I do on occasion, FIND THIS PLACE AND GO EAT THERE!
35 N. Barratt Ave. (150 West), American Fork
763-9232
Monday to Friday 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. (<- Note that, it'll save you some disappointment when you get there on a Saturday evening.)