Why I Share My Beliefs

 Sometimes I wonder if my friends who occasionally look at this blog or if my friends on facebook ever think, "Sheesh, Marisa is always preachin' Jesus." Well, once someone said something like this to me, "I never feel eager to share my beliefs, because I think whatever you believe is what you believe." Kind of like "live and let live" only "think and let think." And I agree, of course.  Part of Mormon theology is the idea of free agency--a God-given right to freedom of choice. We believe God is not a god of coercion. God does not force us into anything. But I also believe truth is truth. And also truth is truth whether it is believed or not. And if you believed that there were a universal Truth, and consequently for everyone, and it would heal the world by living it, then, I'm sure, you would feel a desire to share it too.
 

To my fellow members of the church, I found this to be very comforting and reassuring:

 http://mormon.org/

Toothbrushing, Fish Tacos, and Miss Goof

Does it ever take cajoling to get your children into the bathroom to brush teeth? Well, it does around here. So the other night, I turned the bathroom into my "Very Fine Toothbrushing Shoppe." I spoke in a very silly British aristocratic way maybe Victorian era...or not. I don't know really. Then I said to Liesel, "Step right this way, my lady! Here is thy lovely and very fine toothbrush with butterflies upon it..." She ate it up, thank you very much. And of course Ivy followed suit. Most of the time, that toddler will do whatever. She's just happy to be here. And then I did the same to Cameron. He just looked at me and sorta smiled in a oh-geez-c'mon-Mom sort of way, and said, "Can you just stop talking like that?" And I laughed and said, "okay. why?" And he says, "Well...I don't even know what you're saying!"

Oh, this girl. She is FULL OF IT. 

 She tries on everyone's shoes. Everyday.

So these...yes. These are coconut fish tacos and they are our new favorite dinner. So far, Brian the Chef has made them every time. If tilapia isn't your favorite (doesn't it taste like soil to anyone else?), try swai or some other white fish.

 Ingredients:

Love

Deliciousness

Fish

Crust:

1 cup sweetened coconut

1 cup Panko

2 Tbs. Flour

dash of salt

dash of pepper

Egg Wash:

2 eggs 

2 Tbs water

Dip the fish in the egg wash.  Dip in crust mix, it helps to press it on there good and firm.  Put it on an oven safe cooling rack on top of a sheet pan to allow air to get under the fish so it won't be soggy on the bottom.  Lightly spray the fish with cooking spray so it gets extra crispy.

Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes until the fish is cooked through.

Sauce:

3 Tbs Mayo

3 Tbs sour cream

1 clove garlic minced super fine

2 tsp. lime juice

mix it all together, add more or less lime juice to get the consistency you want. You want it a little runny.

Serve with:

finely sliced cabbage

avocado

diced tomato

anything else you like on tacos

Oh boy, oh boy. 

Christmastime is Here...Happiness and Cheer

We are pretty close to the DC Temple and they have great events and exhibits at the Visitor's Center. 

This night we went and checked out the crèche displays from all over the world. 

The Dutch display!

I liked this one from Germany.

Ivy said, "sing this!" 

Over 600,000 lights!

Christmas Eve dinner!

My lovely friend gave us a luminary kit which we tried to do on Christmas Eve. It would've been really beautiful but it was terribly windy that night. So we pretty much lit them and then blew them out to get out of the windy cold. Wa wa.

Christmas morning! We sleep with the door open and the first sound I woke up to that morning was Ivy's little voice that said, "Oh! That my bear?" She had a teddy bear in her stocking. 

She got a drum! And surprisingly, it's not been super annoying. 

So check out what I had to work with for Christmas Eve Christmas tree light pictures of these children:

Alright, except Cam is talking and Liesel is talking and mad. (?) Oh, and it's grainy.  

Oh. Cam. 

After this I kinda lost it. "Alright, forget it!" 

 ...yep. 

We got lots of games and played them a ton during the break. And what a nice Christmas break it was! Brian stayed home for pretty much all of it. On New Year's Day we got together with some friends for board games and had a blast.

Our First Live Christmas Tree

Especially since we weren't joining family this year for Christmas, Brian and I decided we had to make it extra special. We thought cutting our own Christmas tree would be a fun way to start the season. 

Into the tree field...

You can't tell from this picture, but Ivy woke up this day with a bit of a cold. Therefore, ruther grumpy. And it was windy. Toddlers and cold wind don't mix, my friends.  

A word of advice when going to cut your own: bring your own saw! These saws couldn't cut butter.

Cameron having a go.

There's a good shot of our toothy first-grader! :)
The girls look so happy, don't they? 

And do you know what was extra cool? The tree we chose had a nest in its branches! 

About those kids...

A happy variety of thoughts and pictures about those kids of ours...

Back in August, Liesel gave a talk in Primary (church). She did really well. I was telling...someone (?) about it and she was listening to me say, "...and she wasn't even scared!" She piped up, "Yes, I was. But I didn't make the face." (translation: I didn't show it.)

We'll keep her.

How do you eat your pancakes?

Miss Happy. She gets many, many comments about her cheerfulness. Even, "does she ever get mad?" 

Um, yep. Watch out for those just-woke-up times. ;)

But we still love her and her most-of-the-time happy nature.

Cam spontaneously decided to make his puppy a vest/jacket and Liesel's cat a skirt. I about died for the cuteness. I love that he added that edging on the skirt.

So there's this cat. He's not our cat. But I think he wants to be. He comes around quite frequently. He is super friendly and playful. He comes galloping by you at full speed. Ivy hates that. I think it's hilarious. He often follows us around the neighborhood--to school, on our way to the library, etc. His name is Jack. Ivy used to call him "Jack-a-cat" (=Jack the cat), then it went to "Jack-cat," to "Jackie." We have a lot of fun with him when he comes around.

Thanksgiving 2013

Family, click here to come to the actual blog: http://www.neyenhuisfamily.blogspot.com

 

We missed being with family this year, but we had a great Thanksgiving together. We invited some friends from church and cooked up a storm. 

Cameron's Mayflower and pilgrim

The spread! The turkey took a little long to cook in our oven, but it was delicious! 

The awesome company! These are our friends the Ocanseys and our local Elders came too. Always gotta have the missionaries over. The Ocanseys came to the US from Ghana 3 years ago. This was their first official Thanksgiving, and Shirley (my friend with her arms around her son) was SO EXCITED. She took pictures of the turkey and all the food and sent them to her friends and family in Ghana. It was fun to have them over! 

Solos & Conversations in the car

Family, click here to go to the actual blog: http://neyenhuisfamily.blogspot.com

I can't figure out how to rotate this. Can you just turn your head or your phone/ipad/tablet this once?

She had opened my mini-hymnal and was singing.

This afternoon in the car:

Liesel (4 yrs.) in robot voice: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Cameron (6 yrs.): I love you all the way to the moon and back. [Quote from a children's book.]
Liesel: I love you allll the way to Europe and back!
Cameron: Um, Europe's on the earth.
Liesel: Oh. I love you all the way to Pluto.     ....is what I meant.
Brian [to me]: I get those two mixed up all the time.

Halloween

Family, click here to come to the blog:  http://neyenhuisfamily.blogspot.com/

Halloween was

fun!

and exhausting!

...I gotta stop signing myself up for so many things.

Cameron was a robot. It was a homemade thing and I thought it did look cool, but I was a little surprised at how COOL everybody else thought it was. Brian was on the production and I was on design. Most of the parts were from Brian's lab. And he found LED lights for the eyes... so yep, they really lit up. Those homemade costumes= extra points.

Liesel was a black cat and Ivy was a mouse. That Ivy...she loves her candy. She was getting mad at me because the ward Halloween party couldn't come soon enough and then trick-or-treating couldn't come soon enough. I believe the words were, "I want trick-or-treating NOW!!" There were some tears.

Brian told me that Cameron thanked Heavenly Father the other night that "mom signed me up for the switch witch."  Glad (and relieved) he approves. In case you don't know, the "Switch Witch" is a lovely idea where kids give away all but a certain number of pieces of candy (our kids keep 10 pieces) to the switch witch and she comes and trades the candy for toys. Ivy received toy boats for the tub, Liesel got a dancing ribbon, and Cameron got a Lego Creator set.

At Liesel's preschool Halloween parade and party. Cam and Ivy were invited too.

Tonight at dinner she said the prayer by herself and said, "Thank you for mouse costume and... trick-or-treating! ...Yes." If you could only have been there to hear it. She has such a little voice and she is always speaking with such enthusiasm. It makes me giggle all day.

One thing I love about having little children is how excited and delighted they are with holidays. So it was fun to have them dress up, go to fun parties, and trick-or-treat. I've been wondering this year, though, is it strange to anyone else that we have this holiday with underlying themes of violence and fear? I've never been able to stomach horror stories or movies, but then I don't really understand why it's "entertainment" in the first place.

Speaking of fear...the other night, we woke up to screaming at 2:30 in the morning. It wasn't the kids; it was coming from outside. It sounded like someone was being murdered or their arm was being cut off! Scared me to death. But then I remembered a similar incident in Boulder. We woke up to a similar bark/yell there in the University Family Housing and I looked out the window and saw a little dachshund dog (wearing a sweater!) trotting along through the courtyard and a fox following behind also at a walk-trot barking/yelling at the dog. Most bizarre thing ever.

Have you ever heard a fox call/bark/scream? I think it is the ugliest animal sound.

The "vixen scream" was what we were hearing.