(For the people who are wondering…a “search engine” is how you search for things online, i.e. Google. A “toolbar” is just a little bar at the top of your online window.)

Once-a-Month Cooking by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg. They have month-long meal plans and two-week meal plans with directions on how to cook them all in one day. I’ve done the month plan a couple times and felt frantic and overwhelmed by the time it was done! So, I mainly use this book to gather recipe ideas, without doing the entire plan. (But for super-organized people, the month plan is the way to go!)

Don’t Panic Dinner’s in the Freezer by Susie Martinez, Vanda Howell and Bonnie Garcia and Don’t Panic, More Dinner’s in the Freezer. Great, gooooood meals in these books. REAL food – not just rice and beans! Ideas for soups, dips, main courses, and desserts. One thing I especially like about these books is that they give you the ingredient list for freezing one batch, but then also multiply by 3, 6 and 9. In other words – if you use the amount in the x9 column – you’ll end up with 9 meals. This is good for when you are maybe sharing frozen meals with friends (one friend makes one x9 meal, the others make a different x9 meal, and you all end up with a variety!).

Or you could hire him to come do amazing pictures of your family in your own home, or in a tree or in a park or in downtown Chicago on a dirty bus bench. Jim doesn’t judge. He just captures the moment and makes you and your loved ones look amazing. Contact him through his photography site to get more details!(He’s known as James Jordan on that site. Because when you are in official photographer mode, you have to be all high-falutin’ with your fancy name.) But, don’t you worry, Jim as James is not high-falutin’. Jim/James is one of the nicest people I know.

And when you visit his blog, don’t miss the photo of the blue ice in Door County. Beautiful.

Or,if you just really can’t bring yourself to read a book, please consider sponsoring a child through Compassion International. The charge is $38 a month to sponsor a child. We have tried to explain to our kids a little about ways they can help and we have them contribute to the sponsorship and help write letters or draw pictures to our sponsored children. I searched until I found a girl born on the same day as our middle child, in the year our oldest was born. And our second sponsored child through World Vision has a birthday quite close to our oldest. (Finding children with similar birthdates makes it even more interesting to our kids.) I’m still searching for a little birthday buddy for SuperBoy!

So, consider sponsoring a child, please?

In the winter – January and February – the eagles fly like the eagle down to the Illinois River from way far up north where even the eagles know it’s just too cold and it ain’t right. So they come down here to get some food and sit in trees and pose for people who take tons of pictures of them looking like little polka dots off in the distance.

We didn’t spend much time at Starved Rock because the trail was very icy – but we spent time roaming around and went to the Starved Rock Lock and Dam across the river. Here the kids spent an inordinate amount of time playing in a ship’s bow? cabin? steering the boat and pulling levers to their heart’s content.

I’m considering having one installed in our living room it kept them so happy.

This was my favorite part of the ship, can you see why?:

We even saw a barge go through the lock (here’s the gate closing behind it):

We spent more time roaming, ate at two different good restaurants and arrived home happy birthdayed out.

‘Til next year! See ya, February!

For instance: Kids’ birthdays can be very stressful for the mom. But we had an great, easy birthday. SuperBoy just wanted the attention and love. The other details didn’t matter as much to him as I – as the mother – would have thought. Easy!

I found Pirates of the Caribbean party decorations for a majorly good clearance, Mr MIP asked SuperBoy if Pirates were okay for his party…SuperBoy’s response? Sure, that’s fine. She can do whatever she wants for my party.

So, pirates it was. And the girls in attendance were just fine with it.

SuperBoy was INTENSE with excitement while playing memory game with his friend, Mr C. I wish we had video of him playing this game – because INTENSE is an understatement. But playing a game with his idol? A great memory for him!

When I asked him what he wanted for his cake, he didn’t really know. So I took him to Jewel and he loved being able to pick out his own cake…a multi-layered mint green cake! Who woulda guessed? So much easier than the do-it-yourself pirate cake I woulda done if he had asked (sorry about blurriness – seriously, INTENSE joy in that boy!)

Throughout the year, SuperBoy always gets so excited when the UPS driver drops off a package. Then gets all sad when the package isn’t for him. So for his birthday, I ordered four separate little gifts from Amazon.com (I get free shipping from them, so no cost) and had them delivered. We hid them and throughout the day, we put a package on the porch, rang the doorbell and hid. SuperBoy exploded with excitement each time the package arrived. Easy! And I didn’t have to wrap a thing!

And one of the highlights of the day was a possum in our yard. So much cheaper than renting a magician.

2. The Informant; Eichenwald, Kurt; 567; 1/3
SASR: Wow. What a crazy, crazy story! I really enjoyed this book – definitely the best book I’ve read this year. (Little joke there for ya.) Although the names can be hard to keep straight at times, this is a book about the price fixing schemes of a large corporation located close to us (ADM in Decatur). A man is used as cooperating witness with the FBI – but is he really helping? Or just confusing the matter with his lies? Made into a movie starring Matt Damon (which we haven’t seen yet – but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing it.). Additionally, here’s a Link to article in World Magazine. Rating: 8

3. Storm Surge; Gutteridge, Rene; 348; 1/5
SASR: Third book in a trilogy of mysteries written by a Christian author. Good, light entertainment. Creepy and suspenseful. A little too much focus on the romance stuff. No man I know would notice whether a girl was wearing mascara or not – and this guy kept noticing it… which, instead of being “sweet”, I found rather creepy.
Rating: 7

4. Juliet, Naked; Hornby, Nick; 390; 1/12
SASR: Book by author of High Fidelity and About a Boy – if you liked either of those books or movies, you’d like this. The title is in reference to an acoustic CD released by a musician who hasn’t done anything in about twenty years. A man and woman who are living together review the CD with two totally different views on it and….then the story happens!

5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; Larsson, Steig; 590; 1/14
SASR: I read this because I kept seeing it everywhere. Heavy on the R rated torture scenes, it was also a good mystery and definitely a page-turner. It centers on a journalist who is hired to write a history of a large family and to attempt to solve the mystery of a girl’s disappearance many years before.

6. Chateau of Echoes; Mitchell, Siri; 384; 1/15
SASR: I always enjoy Siri Mitchell’s books. They’re light, escape reading, but better written than most Christian lit. This one focuses on a recently widowed lady who lives in a chateau in France. Journals were found on the property written by a girl in the 1500’s. How do the two women’s lives intertwine?

7. The Other Queen; Gregory, Philippa; 438; 1/24
SASR: I have read most of Gregory’s books and have previously enjoyed them, but this one was scattered and not that interesting and  - if you know even a little English history – you know what’s going to happen, so there’s no suspense. However, I don’t want to disparage Gregory’s writing! She usually is much more interesting, so if you want a good English monarchy book to read, try her “The Other Boleyn Girl” (or rent the movie).

(following books read in February – unfortunately, I lost track of dates due to the Olympic Fever which overtook me)

8. Parenting with Love and Logic: Cline, Foster and Fay, Jim; 272
SASR: Basically the point of the book is to let kid’s experience the consequence of their choices and stop making every decision for them. Starting with toddlers, all the way up until they’re ready to leave the house. I.E. Kid complains about the dinner being disgusting? Take the plate, dump it and they can see if they’re hungry at breakfast. Unfortunately for my daughter, I read this right before she wanted to buy a membership on an online club for kids. She’s currently raising money to buy that membership, since her mom won’t buy it for her. Donations may be sent ATTN: 10yo MIP Daughter. Rating: 7

9. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?; Godin, Seth; 256
SASR: Godin’s a marketing genius and his point here is that the only way to make yourself indispensable  is by being emotionally invested in your work. Frankly, as a mother, I don’t really worry about whether I’m indispensable or not. Until people learn how to replace the toilet paper roll, I’m good. Rating: 7

10. Dancing on My Ashes; Gillion, Heather and Snell, Holly; 2/23
SASR: Written by two sisters who were widowed when their husbands drowned in a canoeing accident, the book describe their grieving process and how their faith in the Lord grew through this difficult experience. Since I know Holly and Scott from school, I appreciated knowing how Holly’s faith held her through her grief.

11. Going Rogue: Palin, Sarah; 432
SASR: I hadn’t formed much of an opinion of Palin in the presidential race. I wasn’t ready to jump on the bandwagon and worship her. However, after reading her autobiography, I did come away with a respect for her and learned a lot about the campaign process. Well-written and informative. Rating: 8

11. Caddie Woodlawn; Brink, Carol Ryrie; 288
SASR: I read this out loud to the girls for school, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It gives Laura Ingalls a run for her money! Caddie is a tomboy whose father wants to let her run free and whose mother wants her to learn to quilt. She experiences life on the prairie in Wisconsin and her successes and failures are enjoyable to read. Highly recommended.

12. CandyLand: Spelling, Candy; 248
SASR: A life unlike mine, that’s for sure. I don’t even think I’m envious. Even if I don’t have three gift wrapping rooms.

13. Burnt Toast; Hatcher, Teri; 207; 2/24
SASR: Let’s just say these last two books came from the biography aisle at the library. That’s my only excuse for having read them.

14. Too Small To Ignore: Why The Least of These Matters Most; Stafford, Wess and Merrill, Dean;
SASR: Story of the life of Wess Stafford – from missionary kid to president of Compassion International. He helps explain poverty to those who may never have the chance to travel and visit to see firsthand the needs of children everywhere. Definitely a book that spoke to my heart. And, trust me, I’m not one to use the phrase “spoke to my heart” lightly!

A couple of my favorite SuperBoy stories from the blog are:

When he was three and ordered a book from Amazon.com all by himself.

When he fed the dog and himself an entire angel food cake.

When I had a migraine and the girls changed him and he was running around in a diaper with cereal all over the kitchen floor.

There’s more.

And there’s more to come, I’m sure.

One from the 30 Things to Do in Chicagoland created by Roger: Get your picture taken by the Monument to Standing Beast.

It’s a rather strange looking monument, but here’s to Standing Beast! I even made sure to walk around inside the monument to get the full effect. The full effect included obvious signs of someone relieving himself in the monument, which just goes to show you, there’s more than one standing beast.

We also stopped in for coffee at Intelligentsia – a shop I’ve passed many times and always wanted to stop, but for one reason or another, we never did. This time? This time we walked about 400 miles out of our way to get there. But it was worth it when I ordered my medium mocha and the angst-ridden barista looked at me out of his horn-rimmed glasses and said, “Sarah?” (Not my real name. But I don’t give my real name at places where they yell out your name. It, for some reason, creeps me out that random people would know my name.) “Sarah? Here’s your mocha.” And, with a final flourish, he handed me one of the best mochas I’ve had. (Besides mine. Which I’m sipping right now. Which is perfect. But doesn’t have that extra dollop of angst-y intellect, so I’ve got to give it to Intelligentsia on that one!) If you want to visit – there’s one east of the train station on Jackson. And there’s one about a block west of the exit from the South Shore Line on Randolph.

And when Mr MIP asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I immediately asked him if we could go downtown and hang out. My wonderful in-laws took the peeps and my wonderful mom took the animal peep and we had a whole 24 hour vacation!

We took the South Shore Line into Chicago  -ate at the  Cheesecake Factory (without getting cheesecake!) at the bottom of the John Hancock Building. Stayed overnight at a nice Doubletree off of Michigan Avenue. I even….get this…spent an hour by myself at the Borders on Michigan Ave. BY MYSELF. It was dreamy.

But! The main reason I wanted to go downtown was to eat at my celebrichef crush’s restaurant. His name is Rick Bayless and he won the Top Chef Masters and I (and others) were impressed by his great leadership and his great character that came through even on the show. He owns three restaurants downtown: Topolobampo, Frontera Grill and XOCO. We ate at Topolobampo and loved it. Seriously one of the top ten meals of my life. Mr MIP even liked it! If you want more info on the restaurants, visit their site. Frontera Grill is in the same building as Topolobampo and would be just as great (Topo is a little bit quieter and “fancier” in decor and atmosphere.) The outside isn’t very pretty – but, trust me, the atmosphere inside is great. I had the Pollito “Ahogada”:  pan-roasted Gunthorp heritage-breed rock hen with tomato arbol chile broth. Toasted Labriola artisanal bolillo, organic black beans, oregano-scented pickled white onion, arugula salad. Yum. Really. Yum! And the guacamole and chips were the best we’ve ever had.