Eat Dessert First

Now as you notice, my blog is titled "Eat Dessert First," and Thanksgiving epitomizes this in our family. Several years ago, I read in a magazine about a family that has pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving Day. I implemented the tradition, and I wouldn't dare ever change it now, nor would I want to. It just makes so much sense. Thanksgiving dinner alone is enough calories for an entire day. Who needs the extra calories from breakfast? And if you are anything like me, I've never really enjoyed my pie after dinner anyway. I am always way way too full. Some people probably think -- all that sugar for breakfast? But as far as I can tell, it's no different than donuts and hot chocolate or pancakes smothered in syrup. We have been "eating dessert first" for several years now, and it is wonderful. The children look forward to pie for breakfast almost as much as I do :-)!!!! We actually even have pie for breakfast for two or three days in a row depending upon how long they last. Tonight, I was helping Joelle pray before bed. I say a phrase and she repeats the phrase. So I said,"We are thankful that today was Thanksgiving," and she repeated, "We are thankful that pie is for Thanksgiving........." Enough said :-). We had nine pies-- two pumpkin (for tradition's sake), two sour cream apple (Kamri's favorite), two pecan (with pecans all the way through it-- not pecans floating on top of a bunch of sugary goop), and three of our family favorite, chocolate macadamia nut. Yummy!!! I can't wait for breakfast tomorrow.

It was difficult to cook a huge Thanksgiving meal in our little kitchen. Boy do we miss three sinks, two dishwashers, two huge ovens and lots of counter space, but Rob managed to put together a delicious feast. Every year I (Mardi) complain about Thanksgiving dinner. Who wants to eat boring old turkey and stuffing when there are so many fabulous foods on this earth? Since we weren't having dinner with any other family members who might be disappointed not to have the old traditional stuff, Rob humored me and "kicked it up a notch" by googling (when did "googling actually become a word, anyway?) some wonderful new recipes. We still had turkey, but it was breaded Emeril style after being soaked in buttermilk and then fried in peanut oil. Yum!! We had mashed potatoes, but they were roasted garlic mashed potatoes. We had sweet potatoes, but it was a sweet potato souffle with coconut. We had cranberries, but it was a delicious cranberry salad with fresh cranberries, cream, sour cream, marshmallows, pineapple and toasted pecans. We also had stuffing, but it was sausage stuffing with crasins and apples. It was all very delicious, and I was very happy not to have the same old boring stuff. We even broke down and Rob made turkey carcass soup (which we usually refuse to do cause the carcass is gross), but it was turkey minestrone with parmesan reggiano cheese on top. We had that for dinner last night.

Rob is the main chef for big meals like Thanksgiving. He is a great cook. I think he should be the star of a new Food Network show called the "Singing Chef." We have a nice little arrangement (at least I think it is nice). He cooks, and I watch children and wash dishes. He does a few dishes, and I make a few things, but overall, he is the chief chef, and I am the chief bottle-washer. It's a fair trade, I think.

We had a nice day together--we even played outside together in our beautiful 74 degree weather. The little girls have colds, but that didn't stop them from playing. Well, we've entered the season so here goes my seasonal greeting to everyone.

Boo, Gobble Gobble, HO HO HO, Happy New Year!!!!!

Hawaiian Halloween

Halloween began with a trunk-or-treat ward party at the church. Doesn't look very cold and Halloweeny does it?

First we have swashbuckling Adam, I mean Jack Sparrow.

Next we have Kamri, the Ruby Princess, (a princess from the Jewel Kingdom series by Jahnna N. Malcolm for those of you who would like to read them :-).

Jairin says he's just a random pirate-- how about we call him Schmee (from Peter Pan). Ooops! Jairin says he's definitely not Schmee, but we'll call him that anyway.

Miri is Princess Aranelle from the book The Keepers by Jackie French Koller.

Caroline was happy happy happy thanks to a dose of hydrocodone. She even performed her "Amazing Pretzel Act" for us :-)!

Aria and Joelle were Disney fairies. They love the new Disney movie Tinkerbell. (We actually really enjoyed it too, and rather thought it should have been on the big screen.
Aria was Prilla.....

.......and Joelle was Rosetta.

Joelle forgot her wings for the church party, so here she is again Halloween night.

Ellanne was a wee bride who would not keep her veil or her shoes on.

We took the children trick-or-treating Halloween night, but our neighborhood is not a good area for trick-or-treating since we are on a highway and houses are very far apart. A few days before, Rob had driven through a neighborhood which he thought would be good for trick-or-treating, so we all (except for Adam who stayed home with Caroline) smashed into one car and went looking for the neighborhood which was not as easy to find in the dark. It turned out to be a GREAT trick-or-treating neighborhood for us and the hundred or so other children who beat us there. I guess everyone else had the same problem as us, trying to find a decent place to turn their children loose. I have never seen so many trick-or-treaters on the same street at the same time! I imagine the people in those houses get bombarded every year, but they don't look like they are hurting for money. One house even handed out giant-size candy bars. Here are some pictures of Halloween night. It was so nice to be out trick-or-treating without freezing our fingers, toes and noses. Here are some pictures on Halloween itself.

Rob made his famous spudnuts which we enjoyed hot and crispy-- better than Krispy Kreme, we think! We couldn't find real pumpkins to carve, so although we heard that some Hawaiians carve pineapples, we opted for miniature squash. They were cute.

HAPPY HAWAIIAN HALLOWEEN!

Sin and Sorrow in the Air- People Dying . .

Miri celebrated her 9th birthday in Maui. We went to the acquarium in the afternoon. It is a big beautiful acquarium with many colorful fish. The three highlights for me were 1) talking whale (as does Dory in Finding Nemo) into a recording machine which played it back to me afterwards --and I must say, I gave a very fine imitation of a whale, only I don't know what I said, and 2) seeing all the jellyfish which reminded me of "Squishy" in Finding Nemo -- there were great big foot-in -diameter jellyfish down to very teeny weeny jellyfish about a fourth of an inch small that were so cute, and 3) walking/sitting in the all-around-you acquarium which made us feel like we were in the middle of the ocean -- Kamri kept jumping because a big shark seemed to be following her around. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera. Bummer. Baby Lana loved the fish.

We had a party later in the evening. Here are a few pictures.


This is Miri as we sang to her twice: first everyone sang at their own speed and in their own key as we have heard the Priddis clan sing to us on the phone in the past. Second, we sang the traditional dirge taught to us by Grandpa Bob many years ago. It goes like this:

Haaaappyyyy Birrrrrthdaaaaaay.

Haaaaapppy Birrrrthdaaaaay.

Sin and sorrow in the air.....

People dying everywhere....

Haaaapppyyyy Biirrrthdaaaaay.

Now, why Miri is still smiling after those two lovely renditions of "Happy Birthday," I do not know.

Don't let Jairin fool you...... he may look like a little angel, but...........

This is the REAL Jairin.................and his sidekick, Adam.......

Miri and Kamri both love to "do" hair. A couple years ago, Kamri received a mannequin head for her birthday which Rob named "Headna." Now Miri has her own head so she won't have to plead with Kamri to borrow hers any longer.

Welcome to the family "Harriet" (get it.... "Hairy" "it" -- I know... ha ha!) -- (Rob wants you to know that he gets credit for that name too.)

Spooky!!

Wait... what did Miri pick for her treat instead of a birthday cake?

Ahhhh yes....... a candied pineapple upside-down lava cake smoothered in butterscotch caramel and raspberry sauces. Decadent!!

One more of Miri with more of her loot.....

Happy Birthday, Miri!!!

Paradise!!

I started a blog in January, wrote one entry and then had no more time to figure it out how to blog. Now, ten months later, we are here in Paradise, aka Maui. Rob and I have dreamed of some day moving to Maui, ever since we first discovered its beauties 14 years ago on our honeymoon. We planned to move here some day, maybe after all the children were raised and on their own. But Rob received a job offer, and we could not turn it down (nor did we want to :-) ). Who knows if we'll even be alive in twenty years. We are trying to live our dreams now. This is us at the Honolulu airport waiting for our last flight. We've been traveling for about 24 hrs. and look it!

Aria (5) and Joelle (3) who can't decide if she is excited or not.

Is Miri (8) happy to be in Hawaii or happy because Daddy bought her a beautiful lei?

Adam (13) is wearing his half smile-smirk. You'll have to guess if that means he likes Hawaii or not.

Caroline (7) is just plain tired!

Mardi and Rob are happy to be here, but even more happy that the long long trip is almost over since they haven't slept at all for over 48 hours.

Will Joelle's smiles rub off on Kamri (11)?

Jairin (10) spent three weeks with Rob in Maui already, so he's cool!! Whazup brudda?

Ellanne(1) is a little confused about everything-- where am I ? Where am I going? and why do I have flowers around my neck?

Here are some of Maui-- not just the airport.

Here is Jairin up in the avocado tree in ou backyard. Climbing this tree is one of his favorite pastimes.

We had a picnic here on Wed. Oct. 15th. The children had a blast climbing the banyan tree.

This is similar to the view from our deck. You can see the ocean on both the right and left sides.

We drove around the north shore on Tues., Oct. 14th. Beautiful coastal scenes!

Here we are in front of the banana bush in our yard. There is a cubby inside which the children like to play in --except when the girls see spiders. Luckily, there are no poisonous spiders in Hawaii.

This is a sunset such as we see every night from our deck :-)

and another........

This is just a picture of baby Lana since she's cute. This is right before we left for Hawaii.