A new Game!

Samanatha announced that she had a new girl in her class the other day. Her name is “Lizzy” then she went on to say that she actually was in her kindergarten class and had moved away, but back then her name was "Erin". We are not sure why she has changed her name but we came to the conclusion that maybe she had switched to a middle name. This lead to a funny conversation where for the rest of the afternoon we tried to call everyone in our family by their middle names. It was weird and nothing fit; I guess we don’t have good middle names. Which isn’t surprising because Scott and I really have a hard enough time finding names we like, so that would be a feat if we could come up with two great names for our kids.

For a little bit of history; my mom hated her middle name, never used it and dropped it altogether when she got married. She decided to not curse her girls with the same fate and none of my sisters have middle names. I have a really long first name, but no middle name, which does sometimes cause confusion. Kimberly is a nickname; my real name is KimberlyAnn (no space. Kimberleanne was the original spelling on my birth certificate but was legally changed when I was five.

When Scott and I were dating he gave me 4 different middle names and proceeded to give middle names to all my sisters too. I have many love letters addressed to Gertrude, and one of my sisters will still answer to Bertha. My only brother has followed my mom’s tradition and has not given middle name to his girls. Obviously with the naming spree that Scott went on when we were dating, when our first girl was born she did get a middle name.

Samantha Dawn. I love the sound of her name when you put the two together. Dawn was one of Scott’s sister’s middle name and we said that Samantha was the dawn or the beginning of our family. She likes her middle name too, but when I tried just calling her the other day for our game she got really mad. Together we decided it was kind of short and ugly by itself, but really goes well with her first name.

As our first born son, Jacobwas given Scott as his middle name. Once again the two sound nice together, and it really rolls of my tongue when he is in trouble. There are a lot of Jacob’s in his school and I told him if he ever wanted a different name he could go for Scott. But we decided that having two Scott’s in the house was more confusing that have 2-3 Jacob’s in his class. Besides, he really doesn't look like a "Scott," he would have to start growing red hair.

Then there are the twins. These poor boy’s didn’t even have names when they came into the world and it wasn’t because they weren’t born early (they stated in so long the doctor finally induced). The first day they were Twin A and Twin B, no joke. That night we took a list of a hundred names and played a matching game. We came up with Joshua Kent and Matthew Kyle . Kent was Scott’s father’s middle name; and I regretted that we didn’t use my Dad’s middle name for Matthew. (It has been five years but if you go back to their birth announcement page there is still a warning stating, “Names subject to change without notice.) So watch out! I wasn’t happy with our choice but since we were not doing the cute twin naming thing with the first names I thought we should do it with the middle names. Kyle is a random name that got picked just because it started with a "K".


As a complete side note I will tell you that when they were tiny everyone wanted to know what their names were. Many strangers were disappointed to hear "Joshua and Matthew". What kind of twin names are those? So I went through a phase where I would respond “Kent and Kyle” It seemed to be a better crowd pleaser, but I really always did cringe when I said it.

Once again when we played our middle name game the other day didn’t seem to fit. Maybe I just have a hard time with change but we got some laughs. I don’t think they will ever go by their middle names. Especially now that no one cares what their names are, we will never get much use of those names. Not even when they are in trouble. Since they are together when they get into trouble “Joshua and Matthew” is already a mouth full. I was five when my mom had my name legally changed. Maybe it is time to visit the records office and give Matthew a nice family name; Matthew Ernest doesn’t sound as bad as I thought. I does take away from the one syllable pattern that we created in all our middle names, but at least it will have meaning. This is a well used name in my Dad’s family and my mom broke the tradition when she didn’t name my brother Ernest—not even as middle. Five years ago when we were deciding I figured if they didn’t use it for my brother then my dad couldn’t fell bad when I didn’t use it for one of my boys; but I do feel bad.

Lastly we have Alexander James; another beautiful name that I love and use often even when he is not in trouble. James is a strong family name on my mom’s side, but I liked it even before I knew that. I even have proof these names go well together because there is a boy in our ward close to Alexander’s age who has the same first and middle name.

Alex is a cute nick name but the kids have shorted it to “Alli” which we all know is a girls name--however, even Alex can say that. So we have played with his name over the last few weeks. Other nick names that I have tried calling him are Andy, Lex, or A.J. -which I really like, but none of those are any easier. We just don’t want Alli to stick. So on with the game... the other day we tried James or Jimmy for this little guy and decided it was another middle name dud. We had a fun afternoon, but we probably should have been doing something more important like homework.

My new recipe

A few weeks ago I made these great new muffins. Normally corn muffins are really dry, crumbly and they always make a mess. But this one night I noticed that I had made moist muffins and the kids didn’t make that much of a mess either. I also noticed that the batch hadn’t made as many as it normally does, but the kids didn’t eat them up like they normally do either, so it evened out. As I was cleaning up the kitchen I realized that I had attempted to double the recipe but I had only doubled the eggs and milk, the rest was normal. I would love to elude you into thinking that I had made these from scratch, but alas they were just the boxed variety, and my clue was the other unopened box sitting on the counter.

Unfortunately this is a common occurrence at our house. After years of marriage Scott has learned that if he wants a good Sunday dinner or if we have company he is going to have to do things himself. I am not ashamed to admit that he is a better cook than me. Especially after years of trying I just know it is a gift that I just don’t have. In addition to being forgetful or distracted I swear there is just a “kitchen common sense” area in my brain that never developed.

For all my guests a month ago at book club I truly apologized. I sabotaged the best rice crispy recipe, twice. I made the yummy treats a few hours before, but when I went to cut them moments before the everyone was about to arrive, they were as hard as rock. I had enough ingredients, so then as people were coming I was in the kitchen trying to make them again. Immediately I could tell they were going to harden too. Instead of waiting until the end of book club, I served them gooey and hot. The leftovers were bricks an hour later. I followed the recipe exactly; I guess this is one that I will have to leave to Scott.

Maybe I am giving too much information, but here is a lovely sample from last week. Do you really want to know the history of this beef? First I defrosted this roast and another roast at the same time and thought I could put them both in the crock pot. Cook once with lots of leftovers. Of course it didn’t fit, so I put the extra roast in the fridge for anther day, a few days went by and every morning I forgot to start the second roast. Finally at 2 pm a one day, I decided I couldn’t leave it in the fridge another day and put it in knowing it wouldn’t be done by dinner time. Scott joked that I would have to get up at 2 am to get it, but I just planned to put it away before I went to bed. I am sure you can guess where this is going. I found it still in the crock pot the next morning, a little dry but very well done. Next I shredded it up for barbequed beef, added the sauce and thought I had redeemed this poor roast. As a quick dinner later in the week, I pulled it out and thought I just had to warm it up. With my impatience with cooking I sometimes turn the burner up high to get it going and then turn it down. One of the kids had a question in the other room and I went to help and forgot about our yummy dinner. Scott wasn’t home that night to be a good advocate for the kids, anything not stuck to the bottom I deemed as good and still fed to my family. I have scrubbed and soaked that pan but there still seems to be a few charred remains that may never come off.

Mind you I don’t ruin everything, but it is those random times that blow my confidence. Today I made sugar cookies, and after a little coaching from Scott’s mom I think I cooked them just right. They are just barely brown on the bottom, and as soft as can be. I have yet to finish the frosting, so we won’t call it a success yet. Samantha’s birthday cake turned out alright but she did notice that the frosting looked a little melted; I will try to add more sugar for the cookies. Wish me luck!