Cream of Wild Rice Soup

I haven't posted anything Table Talk related in a while.  Here is one of my very favorite soups.  I always think of it as Turkey and Wild Rice Soup, because I put my leftover turkey in it after Thanksgiving.  Imagine my surprise when I was reading the recipe today and realized Turkey and Wild Rice Soup is the name of the recipe above it in the cookbook.  The recipe actually calls for chicken!  Nonetheless, Sport asked for turkey this week in our menu planning and I decided to make this soup with the leftovers.  It always reminds me of fall.....I LOVE the fall! :-)

1 large onion, chopped

1 large carrot, grated

1 celery rib, chopped 

(I always double the carrots and celery)

1/4 C. Butter or margarine

1/2 C. flour

8 C. chicken broth (I use 6)

3 C. cooked wild rice (mine is the mix, with wheat berries, wild rice, and brown rice)

1 C cubed chicken (I usually use turkey)

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 C. evaporated milk (I use soy milk)

1/4 C. snipped chives (I use parsley, 1/8 C)

In a large saucepan, saute the onion, carrot, and celery in butter until tender.  Stir in flour until blended.  Gradually add broth.  Stir in  rice, chicken, salt, pepper.  Bring to a boil over medium heat or until thickened.  Stir in milk; cook 3-5 minutes longer.  Garnish with chives.
Serves 10.

Serve with a loaf of warm bread and a salad (my kids liked grilled cheese too :-)
Enjoy!

Instagram Great Gran Day!!

I'm participating in the Celebration of the Proclamation of the Family.  Today we are posting photos of our ancestors.  I uploaded all the photos my mother brought me about a year ago.  I was so excited to have some of my ancestors!  Unfortunately, they were all ME!  A few of the photos have others in them, so I will include those, but they are still just my parents and one grandparent.  However, after the photos, stay tuned for a great story that happened to me this week in the family history world! :-)

This is my mother:

Forty ish years ago.  (And that cute little person is me.)  Here she is 20 ish years ago:

And this is her today:

She is an amazing woman!  She has such persevere and determination.  I love you Mom!!

Here is a photo of her father:

His name is OB Biggs.  I think that naked baby is me too.  I wish I had a photo of my grandmother or of them together.  I actually do have one of her, but I didn't find it to get it scanned.  My mother mostly grew up in Texas.  We lived there when I was a little girl.

Here is my amazing family history story (on the other side of the family):
This week I opened a newsletter from New Family Search (Here's the letter.) announcing a new feature of their website, search records.  I thought, I'm going to try that.  I had a particular line in my family tree where the information just kind of died after my great-great grandparents.  So I pulled up my information and the ancestor I was looking for and hit the button.  In just seconds, I was able to view all the historical records family search had on file that might match my ancestor.

I found my ancestor and some of his family on the 1880 census records!!  I also found another child that I was unaware of.  Plus, with the information on the census, I was able to pinpoint his birthday within a year and to know that his wife's death date was before the census because he was listed as a widower, all information I did not have. I put that information into my family tree files.  That information allowed me to then request their names be cleared for temple ordinances, which they were.

Here is the coolest part of the story.  In looking over the records and trying to discern if these were indeed my ancestors, I recognized the name of the family above them.  Wait!  I think that family is also in my line!  I went back to my family tree and sure enough there they were!!  It would appear that two families in my line were at one time neighbors, as the census was not listed alphabetically.  Their children grew up in the same neighborhood.  Now their children did not eventually marry but their grandchildren did and happen to be my great-grandparents!!!  How cool is that??  I went looking for the records of one family and on the same record found two!

I do not have photos of these ancestors, but I will keep looking!  Another amazing feature in the newfamilytree program, I can attach that record to my ancestor!  (See how in the letter linked above!)

I LOVE this work!  I still have to figure out how to link them here (My Family Search) but maybe I'll do that later today.

Family First Friday #4

Yesterday, I had a massive headache.  I could not think.  I sat down to do some brain work and I just came up blank.  But I realized that I could still do things that didn't take any brain power.  Yesterday was a great day for getting housework done. 

today.com

Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until about 2:00 in the afternoon.  So after I picked the little guys up from school, I set out to do yard work, another mindless task.  As I gathered the clippers and rakes up to get started, Shorty asked what I was doing and indicated a desire to join in.  He had been fairly grumpified since we brought him home from school.

As we chopped the bushes, he started talking.  Here a little, there a little.  Pretty soon he said, "I think I wanted to come out and help because I was grouchy."  (Really?  I had kind of noticed.)  "I'm feeling better now."

news.harvard.edu

Sometimes our children just need our time.  They may not even realize that is what they need.  We can still accomplish things and spend time with our children. 

When I was in college, I took a class on work and the family.  It mostly talked about how family life has changed over time, specifically with industrialization.  Before industrialization, families worked at home.  Fathers were farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, etc....  Most fathers worked at home, so when there were family issues, fathers were there and available to help, counsel, etc....  Fathers, mothers, children all at home working for the economy of the family and community.  With industrialization, fathers were taken out of the home and had to go to work at the factory, bank, grocery store, etc...  Fathers in the workplace, mothers and children at home.  Then with the World Wars, some women moved into the work force.  With the sexual revolution of the sixties and women's rights movements, more and more mothers moved from their work in the home and joined the fathers in the factories, leaving the children at home alone (latch-key kids), or to be tended by others. 

Today, most parents work outside of the home and their time in the home is extremely limited because our society tells us our time should be filled with activities and leisure, computer time and entertainment.  Very few activities are geared toward the entire family participating in the same activity at the same time.  And when some families are home, now they are plugged into headphones so even if they are in the same room, they aren't interacting with one another.  What a lonely world we live in.  We have more social interaction than any other people in history, yet we are completely isolated even in our homes. 

Those are some of the reasons we limit our television viewing to entire family options; we have one television and whatever is on it has to be appropriate for the littlest person in the room.  We do not have MP3 players, Ipods, cell phones, even laptops (college students, excepted, and they live away from home).  We spend time doing things as a group, whether it is watching TV, playing a game, having family home evening, yard work, housework, cooking, eating, whatever!!

Yesterday, doing our mindless work, my little Shorty was able to just talk to his mother about things that were on his mind.  He just needed my time.  And because my brain was unoccupied somewhere else, he had it, even while we chopped bushes.  The next time you sense one of your children needs to talk, or maybe they just haven't shared their life with you recently, invite them to participate in some mindless task with you.  I guarantee you they will start talking to fill the silence.  You can ask them questions to get them going.  Don't make it personal, at first, if you are struggling in your relationship.  Just ask them what they think about a particular topic.  Make it an open-ended question.  (Read this article for help.)  {Yes, it is talking about teaching the gospel, but it will work with people in general.}  Really get to know those children who are yours to love.

Sunday's adventures

You already know that my little Spike, Spike has a temper and attitude.  He is like many of my children in that respect.  But he is also highly, emotionally volatile.  He is doing a fabulous job at communicating with words but he often changes his mind in the middle of something and then gets upset if you continue doing what you thought he wanted. 

Look at this cute face!  Does he really look

 like he can cause THAT much drama?

Sundays have been a particular challenge because he has decided that he doesn't like church clothes.  Some Sundays it is the texture of the clothes, others it is the color of the clothes and other days, I don't really know what the issue is.  I could tell this last Sunday was going to be particularly difficult because half an hour before the meetings started, he was still running around the house in a diaper and refusing to put clothes on. 

After working with him for about 10 minutes, I left him in the care of his sister to see if she could make more headway than I had been able to.  Ten minutes before the meetings started, she still hadn't been successful.  I decided that we needed to put his clothes on, now and I chose clothes for him and stuffed him into them.  Of course, he kicked and screamed the entire time.  I put his shoes and socks on, he ripped them off.  I sent Sun to church while I decided what to do with this very upset little man.

I thought maybe if we got out of the house, he would do better.  I put his shoes back on and walked out of the front door and sat down on the step, placing him on the ground in front of me.  More kicking, whaling, flailing, and screaming, pulling on his shirt yelling, "Not this!!!  Not this!!"  I just watched him roll around in the front yard while many ward members were driving by on their way to church.

The debate, of course, was should I take him to church like this or just stay home with his attitude.  I finally decided that we needed to go to church, shoes or no shoes.  He calmed down enough to sit in my lap and I took the shoes off of him.  He asked me to take off his shirt, and I told him only if he would choose different ones.  I knew it wasn't about the clothes because I chose something comfortable, all cotton and the thing he  usually chooses for himself.  I hugged him for just a moment, then said, "We need to go to church."

"No Mom!!! No church!!"

I stood up, grabbed his socks and shoes and while he yelled and wriggled and pushed on me, we began the walk to church.  He started pulling my hair and yelling, "Help! Help!"  Really, I thought?  I am your mother.  You need help because I am carrying you to church without shoes or socks?  Is this really worth the drama??  Good grief!

As we walked into the building, the opening hymn was playing and the Spirit distilled upon my little one. I felt 'the fight' leave his little body.  I still traveled straight into the Relief Society room because I wasn't going to manage his attitude in the chapel.  We sat there until they began playing the sacrament hymn, at which point, I asked him if he would like to sit in the foyer so we could take the bread and water.  "Yes," was his response.  I picked up his shoes and we went into the foyer.

There we sat until they had finished administering the sacrament.  "Milk?" 

"Yes, you can have your milk.  But it is in the chapel.  You will need to put your shoes on before we can go into the chapel and get your milk."

"Milk?"

"Will you put your shoes on now?"

"Yes."

"OK."  I put his socks and shoes on.  They opened the chapel doors and we went in.  As we approached our bench, he started to hesitate entering it.  He wanted to sit on a different bench.  I scooped him up, explained that his milk was in this bench and we needed to sit down.  He relented.

We only made it through one speaker before something else set him off and we spent the rest of the meeting in the foyer, him sitting quietly on my lap with my arms around his knees.  Needless to say, by the time nursery class rolled around, I think we were both ready for the break.

This was just another evidence to me of my growth in motherhood.  I would not have tolerated his behavior as a 'younger' mother.  Can you even imagine such craziness from a two-year-old.  I can see a teenager having that kind of a battle of the wills, but a two-year-old?  They are so easily distracted and dissuaded.  (Not Spike, Spike, obviously.)

Do I have that same kind of attitude with things I want or think I need and the Lord is telling me otherwise?  I know I am strong-willed and stubborn.  (Probably comes from my German ancestry!)  But geesh!

Also, it just reinforced to me the importance of taking our people to church.  It may be a fight to get them there.  It may not look pretty and we may not feel like going or seeing other people or being in a public place because of our attitude or the attitude of those we come with.  But it is still the right place to be and still where we should be.......all of us.  The way his little body melted with the Spirit of the music and the meeting, we all need that, especially when our attitude is screaming that it isn't what we want!!

Best of luck in the battles that you have raging at your house :-)  May the Spirit prevail and obedience win out!

Ship building, Anyone?

Recently I began reading the Book of Mormon again from the beginning.  I love the beginning.  I love reading Nephi's words!  I love his story and I love his faith!  One of my favorite sermons is after his brothers are complaining and murmuring and withholding their labor from him in his efforts to build a ship.  As Nephi sorrows over their obnoxiousness, his brothers begin to rejoice and say things like, "Ya....we knew you couldn't do it!!  You are just like Dad, thinking you can do these great things.  Right!"  Then he pretty much rails on them by bringing up the history of things they agree with, like Moses freeing the children of Israel from Egypt and the many, many miracles that happened as they traveled through the desert for 40 years and then eventually kick the people out of the land they used to live in (you know, before they were slaves in Egypt, so its been a while), and then inhabit that land. 

As I was reading that part of the story (1st Nephi 17) , these verses hit me like a ton of bricks:

49 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto them that they should murmur no more against their father; neither should they withhold their labor from me, for God had commanded me that I should ^abuild a ship.

 50 And I said unto them: ^aIf God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done.

 51 And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot ^ainstruct me, that I should build a ship?

 I had this thought, "Our Heavenly Father is all powerful and He knows everything.  Of course he could instruct Nephi how to build a ship."  I believe he did.  Nephi was not a ship maker.  He didn't come from some amazing ship building family.  I kind of think that maybe when the Lord told him, 'Hey, I want you to build a ship,' he might have said, 'What?!  You realize I have never done that before, right?'  Instead, the record says Nephi then asked where he needed to go to find ore, because he didn't even have tools.  OK so the prophet had to make his own tools so he could then build a ship??!!!  Yep!

lds.org

Then he did it, and they sailed across the Atlantic Ocean!  It was an impressive ship.

But how does this apply to me?  Luckily, the Lord has not asked me to build a ship.  He has, however, asked me to do some things I do not feel qualified for or capable of.  They are completely overwhelming to me and I feel like He asked me to build a ship---things I know nothing about, have no experience with and do not know how to start, let alone how to finish.  

But here's the deal.  The Lord does know how to do those things.  He has all power and all knowledge.  I believe that.  He knows how to do the things He has asked me to do.  (And He knows I can do them, or He wouldn't have asked me to do it!)  I know how to listen to Him.  I know how to follow His instructions.  I still have just been completely terrified to try because I am afraid to fail.  

Then, today, I came across this verse:

2nd Nephi 2:

 6 Wherefore, ^aredemption cometh in and through the ^bHoly ^cMessiah; for he is full of ^dgrace and truth.

Now, what does that have to do with our conversation?  I'll give you a hint:  for he is full of ^dgrace and truth.

Elder Bednar:
In my personal scripture study, I often insert the term “enabling power” whenever I encounter the word grace. Consider, for example, this verse with which we are all familiar: “We know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). I believe we can learn much about this vital aspect of the Atonement if we will insert “enabling and strengthening power” each time we find the word grace in the scriptures.

If I insert the words 'enabling power' into that scripture, it sounds like this, "Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of enabling power and truth."  That means, with the Savior's help, I can do all things that are asked of me, by the Lord.  I have the power to do it, even when I do not think I do, because He will help me through his grace, which he is 'full of' according to Lehi.  He can instruct me to do things I do not know how to, and things that are completely overwhelming to me, just like he instructed Nephi to build a ship.

What has the Lord asked you to do that seems overwhelming and impossible?  Have you asked for the enabling power of the Atonement to help you along?