Hosanna!

"Hosanna" is one of my favorite words in the scriptures.  It means "save now," and I love that the people cry this when Jesus enters Jerusalem the week of his death and when he comes to visit the Nephites after his death.  To me, it carries with it a kind of rawness and desperation--to cry "save me" requires that you be in dire straits, needing more than just help. I have felt a little of that desperation myself at key moments in my life. So it fits the prelude and postlude of the Atonement perfectly. "Save us now!" the people cried, and He did. I know this, and I rejoice this Easter Sunday because of this.

Now for some very non-true-meaning-of-Easter pictures. We had a busy week! We took our neighbors to the Easter pageant at the temple on Thursday (along with 1000+ other people!), colored eggs and decorated cookies with friends Friday morning, barbecued and had a movie night with the neighbors Friday evening, colored more eggs with neighbors Saturday morning, egg hunted with ward friends on Saturday night, and stuffed ourselves with family today (and hunted more eggs, of course).

 Easter Pageant

 

 Egg coloring and ice cream with neighbors

  Flashlight hunt with the ward:

  

Easter baskets

  

Everybody had to have a turn holding the lady of the hour:  

Dinner and Egg hunting with family:

  

TWO

Somewhere in the last few weeks of not blogging, Lil' Miss or little Zelly hit her 2 month mark.  And for her 2-month birthdate, she got . . . . 2 infected ears.  Poor girl had a nasty cold and cough for 2 weeks, so I finally took her in and both ears were infected, which led to over a week of antibiotic-induced stomach cramps and lots and lots of diapers.  

She also got a trip to Vegas for her 2-month mark.  She attended the Conference on College Composition and Communication with me and was a dream baby, sleeping through 5 sessions and sitting nicely through the Religion and Christian Traditions SIG (special interest group).  She did end both days with a blowout in the last session, but we're used to those things, so no big deal.  I thought I'd get a lot of stares, being the woman with the baby, and I was not looking forward to it, especially to break the news to people that, no, this is not my first child, but my fourth.  But I found that everybody oohed and aahed over her (and only 1 person asked if I was having more children because my religion dictated it), and I found that I am getting more comfortable with merging my "home" identity (for lack of a better way to describe it) and my "academic/professional" identity. It's been a long road for me in this regard--I've always worried too much about what people think about me. 

We like it when she smiles with her tongue out.

Enjoying her swing now that my mom sewed a new cover for it--I couldn't find the old one.

At the doctor, waiting to get all those rotten immunizations :)

At the conference

This is what she looked like most of the conference, sleeping all snuggled in her sling. I got mighty tired of hauling all 11 lbs of her around like this all day for 3 days, though

Happy Palm Sunday!

Today starts one of my favorite weeks of the year--the week before Easter. While I love Christmas, the focus on the Atonement and the Resurrection make Easter more spiritually significant to me.  We ended the day with some unpleasant moments, yes, (thanks to H and thanks to my inability to deal with anything child-related after 8pm), but, more importantly, we also ended with a little devotional. We read about Christ's Triumphant Entry, watched the Bible video about it, and made edible tombs.

Most of Palm Sunday we spent in un-spiritual things, but fun family togetherness anyway. We worked diligently on our entries for The Frost Family and Friends Peep Diorama Contest.  Sweetie won it 2 years ago with her "Peeps Just Dance 2".  This year, H and I decided to do "The Tale of Peepter Rabbit" while Mister and Sweetie combined their efforts into "The Wizard of Peep."  It was fun to see them work together on it. Sweetie is quite confident that they will win.  We will see, as last year, the winner used real fire (in the Hunger Peeps entry).

 And we ate well, today, almost managing to finish off 2 racks of ribs all by ourselves.  I'm trying to do at least one meatless meal a week.  This week it was my friend Suzanne's Parmesan Quinoa:
1 T. olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup quinoa ( I usually add in Harvest Blend (from Trader Joes) combination of quinoa, couscous, chickpeas...I love the texture)
2 1/4 cups veggie stock or broth (I use my chicken broth if I don't have veggie on hand)
2 cups zucchini, chopped
2 or 3 carrots, peeled and shredded
1/2 cup mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
(Sometimes I chop up fresh spinach and throw that in too)

In large saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until soft, about 4 min. Add the garlic and quinoa and cook for about 1 min, stirring occasionally.

Add in the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the quinoa is almost tender, about 12 min. The mixture will be brothy. Stir in the the veggies and simmer about 2 minutes longer. Stir in the parmesan and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

I liked it, J thought it was "pretty good,"  H (our resident vegetarian) hated it, and the other 2 just tolerated it.  Yet they devour the ribs. Clearly, I am not making much headway in the trying to "eat meat sparingly" (or more sparingly) thing. And, I couldn't decide whether to laugh or be totally disgusted when I came downstairs from nursing Hazel to find Sweetie at the table shirtless because not getting bbq sauce on your shirt is clearly more important than wearing a shirt.

 Little Zelly (as her grandpa calls her) was not impressed with the carnivores at the table:

 And speaking of Little Zelly, she's now crying when she should be sleeping, so this is the end of the blog post. I'm very much behind on blogging lately. I will try to catch up this week.

Blessed

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am 
to be blessed.” 
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

Hazel was blessed 2 weeks ago. It was a fun weekend with family and a humbling opportunity to count our blessings and realize that God is aware of our little family. 

Poor Sweetie had a terrible stomach bug. She could barely stand to take a pic with us.