31.  The world isn’t all there is.  Rely on God more than you rely on anything else, including yourself.

Get it? Make space. Get rid of clutter. And he got the kids on board. Because if they want 2012 to be as awesome as 2011 was, they need to have space for it! So we spent the morning cleaning out Little Man’s room. And the afternoon was spent cleaning out Bean’s room. Of the two, Bean’s was much harder. While on first glance it seemed like the cleaner of the two rooms, Bean has a knack for turning other people’s trash into her treasure. And hiding it.

One conversation with her went like this:

Hubbs: “How about this Burger King crown. Why don’t you wear it more often?”

Bean: “Because, um, it’s cardboard. And it’s not pretty.”

Hubbs: “So, maybe you can throw it away now?”

Bean (as she puts the cardboard not pretty crown on): “NO!!!”

The crown eventually did make it to the trash today, along with a very great deal of the rest of her “treasures”. The good news is that Bruiser is only attached to a few things, so tomorrow will likely be an easier day.

Loving our brand new tradition! I think it’ll be back every year.

Little Man is truly a gift – he lights up a room by walking into it. He can befriend anybody in no time flat. He knows everything there is to know about dinosaurs, planets, Lego Ninjago, and Star Wars. He’s an awesome brother. He’ll earn his green belt in Tae Kwan Do this week. He wears his heart on his sleeve – he’s not afraid to tell you how much he likes you, how pretty you are, or how glad he is to be spending time with you (watch out, ladies!). When we’re sitting at bedtime reading a story, he likes to run his little fingers through my hair.  And the things that come out of his mouth are priceless. Just today:

“My 3 favorite things are God, Jesus, and Legos.” (That’s the trinity, right? Father, Son, and Holy Bricks?)

He came home today wearing a paper “Happy Birthday” crown that his teacher made for him, and all the kids in his kindergarten class signed. Love that. Instead of a birthday party with friends, the whole family went out to see The Muppets at the Studio Movie Grill – it’s a restaurant-movie theater, where every seat is at a table facing the screen, and waiters come to take your order. There’s a full menu, complete with strawberry lemonade, chicken nachos, milkshakes… Between the movie and the experience of dinner at the ‘theatre’ it was an awesome day.

Little Man went to bed tonight with only a little regret. “Tomorrow it won’t be my birthday anymore.” But he sure did have a great day today.

Let’s just say it was the perfect way to try out my brand spankin new stand mixer. The best birth-mas gift ever (that means, birthday/Christmas combined gift, in case you were wondering)! (Thanks, mom and dad!)

They’re super simple and a huge hit with kids and grown-ups.

Snow Peaks recipe

4 large egg whites

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

5 oz Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips

3+ candy canes

Preheat oven to 225 and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (or silicone baking sheet). After separating the eggs beat the egg whites on medium low speed till foamy (1-2 minutes). Add cream of tartar and beat at medium till the egg whites are fluffy. Add sugar slowly and increase speed to medium high, then add vanilla. Keep it going for 5-7 minutes, until the egg whites are stiff, glossy, and look like this:

Spoon it into a ziplock bag, squeeze as much air out as possible, and snip the corner off. Pipe it into bite-size peaks and bake for an hour.

Turn the oven off and let them sit there to dry out overnight, or for 6-8 hours. Then melt chocolate in a double boiler (or bowl stacked on top of a pot). Keep in mind, the bottom part needs a couple inches of water in the bottom, but the bowl on top can’t touch the water, or your chocolate will scald and get all clumpy, dry, and gross.While the chocolate is melting, put candy canes in a thick ziplock baggie, and use a rolling pin to crush them. Spread the candy cane crumbs and chunks in a thin layer on a cookie sheet.

Dip the peaks into the chocolate and then set them on the candy-caned cookie sheet.

The chocolate will harden and dry at room temp in an hour or two, or you can pop them into the fridge to speed it up. Store in an air-tight container – they don’t need to be refrigerated. They taste a lot like peppermint bark, but with the extra light crunch of meringue.

I’m thinking next time I’ll add red food coloring – the paste kind that doesn’t turn pink – and use white chocolate to dip them in. Then they’ll be Santa Hats! I was also thinking about substituting orange extract for the vanilla and skipping the candy cane, for chocolate-dipped orange peaks. Keep in mind, a lot of the flavor comes from the chocolate, so don’t skimp on that. Use the good stuff!

1. WiFi Analyzer: Locate the strongest network connections around you, then you can go into your Settings panel to connect to an open network.
2. HootSuite: Update Twitter and Facebook from the same place (even multiple profiles if you have em), and you can set it up to give you notifications of mentions!
3. Wikidroid: Wikipedia, formatted perfectly for mobile. Help kids answer those tricky homework questions, like when was the First Sino-Japanese War, What was the Soyuz TMA-22, and why Demi Moore leave Ashton Kucher?
4. SketchBook: Release your inner artist!
5. Angry Birds: Need I say more?
6. iStoryBooks: Full color picture books, with a rotating selection in both fiction and non-fiction, and it will read them to your kids. Out loud.
7. Grocery iQ: Create and save grocery lists for different stores, it sorts your lists by section (produce, dry goods, dairy). Check things off as you find them so you can easily see what you missed. Email lists to hubbs, create lists online… It’s awesome.
8. Evernote: I’ve been told that once I get used to it I won’t be able to live without it. Maybe I’m just not that sophisticated. It is handy for keeping track of notes, lists, and such. And you can sync it with an online account.
9. ES File Explorer: Want to be able to see your files (documents, pictures, other downloads) in a PC-like folder format instead of the Fire’s bookshelf? Use this.
10. Hulu+: You’ll need the subscription from Hulu+ to be able to use it, but the app itself is free. And it works. Watch streaming video of your favorite shows. They say you can watch movies on it too, but I double dare you to find a decent movie on the system.
11. Netflix: Again, if you have the subscription, you’ll be able to use the free app. Now this does have good movies, but only the ones that are available to Watch Instantly (very limited selection). And you’ll need to be on a strong network, since the content is streaming.
12. The Weather Channel: I think this comes already loaded. But, click on the hourly forecast and you’ll know exactly when the rains are coming.
13. AllReciples.com Dinner Spinner: Tell it some basic info, and it’ll find suggestions for what to cook based on your input. Don’t be fooled – it isn’t just dinner. We’re talking beverages, desserts, breads – the whole shabang.
14. ESV Bible: Who needs to lug around a giant Bible when you can have it instantly on your phone? For free. The app lets you highlight, bookmark, and make notes. If you’re looking for a different language, or different version than ESV, try YouVersion – most of the same functionality, and with tons of options. I’ve tried their Romanian, Russian, and English Bibles.
15. Pulse: It’s one of the apps that comes on your Fire pre-loaded. But make sure you customize it. Get rid of the stuff you don’t use and add the things you’ll read. Great place to find all your news in one spot.

I discovered today that you can make your own (way better) cranberry sauce in all of 15 minutes. Total. Start to finish. The key is to make it early – it needs to cool completely to fully thicken, and you don’t want to rush the process Thanksgiving morning. Besides, if you make it early, that’s one thing to tick off on your list.

Ingredients:

1 c. water

1 c. sugar

12-oz bag of fresh or frozen cranberries

Process:

Combine the water & sugar in a sauce pan over med-high heat. While it heats up throw your cranberries into a colander, wash them, and throw out any mushy ones. Stir your water as you bring it to a boil, and encourage that sugar to dissolve. When you’ve got it to a good boil add your cranberries. Listen as they start to pop – it’s pretty cool. Reduce your heat to medium low and let them cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently to keep the ones at the bottom from burning to your pan. Remove it from the heat, and it’ll gel and thicken as it cools.

Don’t forget to lick the spoon… it’ll have you pining for turkey day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I spent much of the evening playing with it, and it distracted me a little today from other things, so I’ll tell you what I found!

Size: It’s perfect. It fits nicely in my purse, which something like an iPad wouldn’t. It’s big enough to read and type comfortably, but not so big that it’s inconvenient. However it does not fit in my pocket, and I was quite sad that I had to leave it at home today when I walked down to the kids’ bus stop. Didn’t have enough hands for coffee, Kindle, and helping little hands with heavy bags. Maybe I could engineer myself a pocket big enough…

Screen: I have to admit, I really like the regular Kindle’s paper-like screen. That makes reading on an e-reader really comfortable, but the Fire has a regular smart-phone type (LCD) screen, complete with glare. Can’t really expect anything else to get the quality color display though. It attracts fingerprints like a magnet, just like any smart phone (or tablet) screen would. It doesn’t really impede reading, unless you were going to try to read Anna Karenina in one sitting or with funky lighting. Setting the screen to sepia helps.

Reading: The touch screen controls are easy to use, but maybe too easy. I found myself accidentally tapping the screen while holding it, and then it would turn the page for me – when I wasn’t ready to turn. I suppose that will just take some getting used to. And from people with other e-readers, I’ve heard that many people really like the audible page turns. The Fire doesn’t seem to have that (unless it’s a setting I haven’t found yet). I love that when I’m reading I can double-click a word and it references the dictionary for me. Super handy. We already know that Amazon Kindles don’t let you use non-Kindle ebooks, and the Fire is no different. All in all, it’s comfortable, but if my primary goal was purely to read, I’d rather have a regular e-reader. But since I needed something for all the apps, the Fire is perfect for me.

Apps: And speaking of apps, let’s get to those. It’s built on the Android platform, but Amazon directs you to their app store instead of the full Google Andoid app store – Amazon currently allows about 10,000 of the 200,000 android apps. My hope is that they’ll increase their offerings or open up regular Google apps to the Fire. Some of the apps I’ve downloaded and used are: HootSuite, Evernote, GroceryIQ, Angry Birds (essential, don’t you know?), Hulu plus, ESV Bible, and Netflix. There’s no geo-location so location based apps like FourSquare aren’t really an option. And there’s no camera, so forget about QR code readers, barcode scanners, or Instagram. That said, the only app I’ve looked for and not found is Pinterest. And how can a girl survive without Pinterest? Oh, yeah. They have a website I can access on the Safari browser. I suppose I’ll live (but Amazon peeps, hint hint: we want pinterest!) The touch screen is really responsive and makes everything work like ‘butta’. Hubbs synced my email, so I can pretty much do all my work on the Kindle (as long as I have Wi-Fi).

Kid stuff: As I mentioned, the touch screen is really easy to use, and there are plenty of game and learning apps available. My kids can’t wait to get their grimy fingers on Angry Birds. That said, the purpose of the Fire is for my work, and I don’t anticipate putting it in their hands. Call me scrooge, but that’s just the way it is. Now, were things different and I needed them to be entertained, I actually think this machine is way better than an iPad. It’s smaller for their little hands and little laps – easier for them to manage. The investment is smaller (i.e., it’s less painful when they scratch or otherwise maim it). They can watch movies or videos on it, and it has plenty of fun apps. Fewer buttons and moving parts than other tablets also means fewer things to break.

Other techie stuff: Hubbs tells me that the battery is “only” 8 hours. So far, I’ve had no issues with battery power, and I can’t imagine that I’d need it for 8 hours straight without a power outlet. As far as speed, downloads and operating speed have been mostly great. Every now and then there’s a little lag, but I don’t know if that’s my wireless network or the Fire. The seamless integration between the device and the cloud really is super-quick.  Speakers. It has them – two, to be exact. They work just fine, and you can get audio up to a decent level, but this machine wasn’t built for top of the line stereo listen-like-you’re-there sound. Finally, there’s one big drawback – only one, but it’s relatively big. There’s no 3G. That means I need to have WiFi to use most of the apps – at least the ones I use for work. Some tablets have a workaround where you can set up your phone as a WiFi hotspot, and the Fire doesn’t do that. So there’s really no 3G. Now, most of the places I would want to use it will have WiFi. But it looks like in the places that don’t I’ll have to pull out my teeny-tiny smartphone. Oh, what a rough life I live…

Summary: The controls are intuitive, it’s easy to use, and very comfortable. There’s no camera, geo-location, or 3G – so if that’s important look elsewhere. But if you’re looking for a cross between an e-reader and a tablet minus the extras, this is a great little machine.  I’d have to say that it’s more tablet than e-reader, and probably for that reason exactly it suits my needs perfectly.

Update: Check out this post of my 15 favorite Kindle Fire apps.

When I get to heaven, I’m gonna ask God if I can be C3-P0.

–Little Man (nearly 6)

Right after that, he made this Lego sculpture of C3-P0:

Note: If you came in search of actual Star Wars theology, I’m sorry to disappoint. But please check out this article that does discuss Star Wars Theology.

So I threw a few things together and created (drum roll please!) soft pretzels with chocolate peanut butter for dipping. Alas, it was eaten so quickly I only got 1 blurry shot.

Here’s the ‘recipe’ (if you want to call it that)

Soft Pretzels

Break apart sections from 1 can of pillsbury refrigerated breadsticks. Roll each one between your hands to create a ‘rope’ and then twist it into a pretzel shape. The way I did it was to create a circle where the ends overlapped into a tail, twist the tail once and then fold it over the circle. Actually, Bean (age 7) did most of that. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar (I think next time I’d brush with an egg wash to get that crispy pretzel outside). Bake at 375 for 13 minutes – the instructions on the can say 10-13 minutes, but since the pretzels are bulky when folded they need the full 13 minutes. Voila!

Cocoa peanut butter

Throw 3-4 TBS hot cocoa mix into a bowl with a splash of whipping cream and 2-3 TBS peanut butter. Microwave 20 seconds, or until it’s soft enough to be mixable. Mix till well combined. As it sits it’ll firm up again into a spreadable, less goopy mess – perfect for dipping.

Sorry, no pictures of this one. Tummies were quicker than lenses.