Some Random Thoughts...

YOU'RE WELCOME...

So you all are going to owe me one after today's post. Why? Because I'm going to give you the recipe for Taco Soup! This is the easiest dinner you've ever made, and yet it tastes like you put quite a bit of time into a delicious meal. This dinner is so easy, I can make it!!!

1 can of corn
1 can of beans (kidney or white northern)
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 large can of chicken
1 packet of taco seasoning
Put all of the ingredients into a large pot. (This includes the liquid from each can of food--do not drain them). Add one can full of water. Stir and heat until hot. Serve with grated cheese and tortilla chips.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Enjoy!!!

RECYCLING...

As I was making the taco soup for dinner tonight, I put all of the can lids into the empty cans, squeezed the cans closed (so the lids can't come out and so the cans take up less space in the garbage). I asked Christi, "Do you ever feel guilty for not cleaning out the cans, taking of the paper labels, flattening them and putting them in the recycling bin?" "No," she answered, "but I do think of your dad every time I put them in the garbage." I had to laugh, because I, too, think of my dad every time I do not recycle something that could be recycled. My dad is perhaps the world's best recycler. He meticulously prepares items for the recycling bin with more love and effort than anyone else I know. In the days when you had to separate your cardboard from your plastic from you metal, no one had a more organized system for doing so than Allen Green. Thanks for your great example, Dad. Someday I may follow it. For now, Christi and I just feel good that the kids were fed tonight:)

JESSICA...

Queen of the pouters. The Guilt Trip princess. It's not fair! Wow does our little blondie love to speak her mind. This afternoon, Christi and I took a LONG Sunday nap. It felt great. At about 5:45, four of the kids came in and: showered us with their love/attacked us with knees and elbows digging in to various body parts. (Sometimes we wonder how we're going to survive all of the love we receive from EIGHT children:) After enjoying a quarter of an hour of love from our kids, we asked them to go out for a few minutes and let us finish a conversation we were having. Graci, Parker and Xander obediently left the room. Little Miss Independent gave us her, "I'm very upset with you" look. She folded her arms, put on her pouty face, and said "It's not very fair! You and Daddy have a lot of alone time! It makes me feel like you don't love me!" Then she put her arms down at her sides and gave us her mad face. I wish I had a picture or, better yet, video of her mad face. In fact, one of these days, I may purposely aggravate her and have Christi standing by with the camcorder:) Anyway, she has the most hilarious "mad face" of all time. And she threatens you with it, as in, "If you don't do it my way, I'll show you my mad face!" We try to help her preserve her dignity by not cracking up in hysterics when she puts it on display:)

THANKS, T...

Taylor: "Dad, do you have a widow's peak?"
Me: "No, Tay, I don't think I do."
Taylor: "Oh. I just thought maybe you did."

ORPHANS

We are almost finished with Anne of Green Gables. We have one more chapter to read. The last portion of the book has made me feel particularly endeared to our sweet little Graci, who, despite her jet-black hair, has much in common with that little Anne girl. One passage in particular encapsulated very well my own feelings about our oldest daughter:

"As Marilla watched Anne's bright, animated face and graceful motions her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had arrived at Green Gables, and memory recalled a vivid picture of the odd, frightened child in her preposterous yellowish-brown wincey dress, the heartbreak looking out of her tearful eyes. Something in the memory brought tears to Marilla's eyes.
"I declare, my recitation has made you cry, Marilla," said Anne gaily, stooping over Marilla's chair to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady's cheek. "Now, I call that a positive triumph."
"No, I wasn't crying over your piece," said Marilla, who would have scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any"poetry stuff." "I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways. You've grown up now and you're going away; and you look so tall and stylish and so--so--different altogether in that dress--as if you didn't belong in Avonlea at all--and I just got lonesome thinking it all over."


My how our Graci has changed and grown up in three short years! How I love her. How she has grown to be such an important and irreplaceable part of our family. Tonight she said something that made my heart sing. After we read, I hugged her close and talked to her alone for a few minutes. I started out by telling her how sorry I was that she had endured such painful trials in her life. I told her I was sorry that she had lost her parents at such a young age. Then she said these sweetest of words: "Oh. I forgot I was adopted until you said that." What a neat thing for her and for us. She feels completely a part of our family. Of course she knows she was adopted, but it isn't an overriding fact of her life at this point. She knows she has a family that loves her and she feels comfortable as an integral part of that family. What a joy!

Jer

PS. Tonight was the first time I have ever made taco soup. As I was making a double batch for our dinner tonight, I seriously thought, "This stuff is so easy, even I can't mess it up." As we started to eat, Parker mentioned that it tasted a bit stronger than usual. Suddenly I remembered that I had failed to add the called for cans of water...

PPS. This is Christi-- I have to give credit to my friend Heather for the taco soup. She made it for us years ago for a Halloween party and we've been eating it often ever since!