The Pie-Master Strikes Again

John is seriously the best pie-maker that I know. I have started calling him the pie-master in my head (only when he's making pies though). He pulled off another incredible Thanksgiving. Today he made chocolate pudding pie with whipped cream and chocolate chips (so good it was all gone by the time I got out the camera,

banana cream pie (2nd most popular),

apple pie,

triple berry pie,

and an apple crisp.

My mom added the traditional pumpkin pie to cover the traditional bases. It was a delicious Thanksgiving and that's not even mentioning all the stuff he made for the actual dinner. I love that boy. And if anyone wants any pie, we have plenty of leftovers, but not for long.

Jour 6, 7, 8: Vendredi, Samedi, and Dimanche en France

Thursday I saw the biggest hole in the ground I've ever seen, and my first castle. On our way back from Egletons, we went to the Padirac Gouffre (The Chasm Of Padirac). It was seriously amazing. There is a hole that goes 100 m into the ground and at the bottom there is a huge cave. It is so big that you can take a gondola down the underground river. Incroyable!! (One of my favorite French words.) It was a lot of stairs but well worth the climb. And I was really glad that I had Stephanie and Ron to translate for us because the guides tried to give an English version of the tour but it was very abreviated. There was also a couple from New Zealand on our tour, so we weren't the only English-speakers, but this tour really proved to me that my French, while functional, is not all that good. So, if you're ever in South central France, you definitely should go out of your way to see this. It reminded me of Timpanogos Caves, but a hundred times bigger and more unbelievable. We had a gondolier who thought he was really funny too. He kept rocking the boat trying to scare us and using the oar to dump water on our heads. It was scary but also a little funny, but I really didn't want to fall in the water.

Afterwards we drove to a town called Rocamadour that had a medieval castle built into a canyon wall. It was very impressive. It was the first time I've seen a real, live castle. I'm not going to lie. It was a significant milestone in my life. We couldn't go inside but we got to walk along the top of the ramparts. You had to have Euro coins to get in and Stephanie only had a couple, so she sacrificed and let John and I go in by ourselves. It was awesome.

Saturday we slept in but then went to see Montesquieu's castle in the afternoon. The castle was pretty incredible. A lot of the inside has been restored or preserved and it was really interesting. Outside it was surrounded by a beautiful park with lots of grass, a herd of cattle, and lots of huge trees. The castle was also surrounded by a mote with fish in the water. It was pretty cool. When we got home, we watched some football games and Amazing Race episodes.

Sunday, I think I was still pretty tired. I didn't wake up until about noon. I guess I better enjoy it while I can. Later we had lunch with Stephanie's sister Christine and then Ron took us on a walk in his neighborhood. We went and saw the hospital near Carmen's house and the Bordeaux Soccer Stadium. It was a pretty low-key day.

Jour 4 et 5: Mardi et Mercredi en France

Last Tuesday John and I went to work with Ronnie. Ronnie teaches English to 6th and 9th graders and he brought us as show and tell. He had the kids practice their English by asking us questions about ourselves. They were amazed that I had 7 kids. I thought it was kind of funny. John had brought a slide show about his middle school that he teaches at in Oklahoma. They were surprised that his school has a resident police officer. Some small towns in France don't even have police officers (they have a branch of the military called the gendarmery that takes care of those places). Anyway, it was interesting.

In between classes we walked down into the town that his school is in, called Tulle. We found a hot deal on Doc Martins so we were happy. The town was beautiful and interesting. We also ate at his school cafeteria and it was delicious.

Afterwards, we went to the lake in Egletons and walked around it on this nice little path. It was beautiful too. And we got a good workout.

Wednesday we were worn out so we just slept in and hung around the house all day. Believe it or not, I saw The Wedding Singer for the first time and thought it was hilarious. We also started watching an old season of The Amazing Race that I haven't seen. I love that show. It was good to have a day just to rest. France continues to be all I hoped for.

Jour 3: Lundi en France

We've done a lot of fun things in the past few days. I have to say that if you are going to visit France, the best way would be to stay with your brother and his family that has lived there for 20 years. John (my brother) and I have had a lot of fun spending time with family that we haven't seen in a long time. They've been treating us to some great French food (and there's a reason the French are known for their food--everything we've eaten has been awesome). I especially like their milk that doesn't have to be refrigerated before you open it, and the tradition of having a round of yogurt, cheese or chocolate at the end of every meal. I love it and think my kids would too. I've tried something they call white cheese (similar to plain yogurt) that you add sugar to and it is delicious. I'll have to take some pictures of some of their food later.

Monday we visited Sarah's school, which reminds me of either Hogwarts or the Provo Library. Stephanie also gave us a walking tour of Egletons. It was beautiful. Egletons is a little village up in the mountains of South Central France. I was especially impressed by the cathedral, I think the first that I've been in. It had beautiful statues and stained glass windows. Here are a few pictures of Sarah's school and downtown Egletons:

Jour 1 et 2 en France

France has been wonderful so far. The funny thing is that I'm realizing that people are basically the same wherever you go, except here they speak mostly French with some English. My flights were pretty good, if a little long. The Charles de Gaul airport is interesting, very modern art looking. And our customs check consisted of walking through a glass framed doorway and showing an officer our passports. It was great!

Ron, Stephanie and Sarah met us at the Bordeaux airport. Sarah is much bigger than the last time I saw her, about Kate's size, which makes sense since she is about Kate's age. Everyone looks great. They took us to Stephanie's mom's house where we will be staying for the most part. It is a beautiful older house with a couple of rooms in the garage.

France is a little different but mostly the same. The cars are definitely smaller, probably because the roads are tiny and narrow. I'm not sure our car would even fit down some of their roads. But on the drive from the airport to Carmen's, we saw a KFC and Office Depot so I felt right at home.
We went to sacrament this morning with Carmen and a kind man behind us translated for us. It was great and felt like I was in church, because I was, but much smaller. Ron's sister-in-law was one of the speakers and she did a great job. It was also fun to hear the sacrament prayers in French. I could almost understand it. It was kind of a struggle to decide whether to listen to our translator or focus on the French speaker because it was hard to do both. I enjoyed it though.

After church Stephanie, Carmen, Sarah, and Christine made Ronnie a big birthday dinner that was delicious. It was an olive, tomato, iceberg and vinaigrette salad, baked crusted turkey breast, and carrots and peas in some kind of sauce, with a baguette with pate on the side. It was all delicious, seriously good food. And afterwards we had a pear pie which was really good too--the first time that I've had pears in a pie, but it was beautiful and super yummy. Before, during and after dinner we reminisced about the good old days. Somehow we got on funny stories about my John Payne. My brother Ron described him to Stephanie's family as a calm crazy. He said that just looking at him you'd never know how hilarious he really is. That was the best description of John that I'd heard in a long time. We laughed and laughed. John my brother said that I was even crazier for marrying the crazy guy and I agreed. But I'm so glad I did, because who else would let me go to France and watch my 7 kids for me? I love that boy. Also, Carmen showed me a picture of some missionary's wife who had said that she knew my John from BYU after seeing a picture of him in Carmen's book. I guess it really is a small world or John's influence is world-wide, one of the two.

Then we sat down and watched the Rangers/Tigers baseball game from the night before (which I mostly slept through) and "Corpse Bride" which I had only seen the first 15 minutes of before. It was a cute show in a creepy corpse kind of way.

Lastly, we piled in the car and drove 2 1/2 hour to Egletons where Ron lives and teaches English in a boarding school to 6th and 9th graders. He has a really cute little apartment and we'll be staying here for a few days. Life is good and I love France so far. Sorry that there are no pictures. I'm horrible about things like that.

Noel Carolyn Payne

Born 2:03AM - 4 July 2011

8 pounds 8 ounces

20 inches

The baby seemed determined to be born on the 4th. She did everything she could to delay, then got down to business after midnight. Things seem to be going fine at this point...

Our Family Haiku

Paynes: John, Tara, Kate

Mary, Emma, Ruth, Lily,

Adam, Hope, Noel

Mother's Day Highlights

I think I probably had one of the best mother's days ever. Since my memory is really bad, I'm really not sure what has happened in all the previous mother's days, but today was a very nice day. Here are some highlights (Sorry, no pictures. I seem to have forgotten about my camera in my life.):

• I did not sleep well last night and, when I did fall asleep, John says I konked him in the head without even noticing. So I definitely wasn't looking forward to getting up and getting everyone ready for church. John had meetings before church so he wasn't around. I slept until the last moment and, just when I'd decided that I had to get up, the girls brought me breakfast in bed. They made me microwave oatmeal, and told me they were sorry that they didn't make me pancakes, but they couldn't find the pancake mix. I told them a little known secret: From a great cook like John, pancakes are always good, but, in general, I prefer oatmeal to pancakes any day. Kate then apologized for putting in too much milk, but, again, that is exactly the way I like it, lots of milk. It couldn't have been a better breakfast. And it really fortified me to get out of bed and get ready for church.


• The girls gave me their presents and cards that they had made at school for me. There were some really great and funny things. Mary gave me a pair of earrings that she made at Activity Days (kudos to her leaders). They are beautiful. Lily made a cute card and a recipe book. Her recipe reads: "Hot Dogs--Get a hot dog. Put it in a pan and then put it in a hot dog bun." My favorite was her friend Tanners': "Pancakes--Mix something up, pour in a pan and flip them." Hilarious!! (Also a great idea from her preschool teacher.) Emma's card was in chinese and I have no idea what it says, but she claims it says, I love you. (I'm only doubtful because there are about 20 characters and some commas thrown in.) Maybe some day I'll get the whole story. And last, I learned from Ruthie that she loves when I take her to school and that I wear pretty clothes. I guess it really is the little things that count.


• Not only did they make me breakfast, but they had gotten themselves and each other all ready to go, hair and everything. They had even gotten Adam ready. They looked great too. I wish every Sunday was mother's day because this was awesome!!!! I simply got up and got myself ready. It was so nice.


• I got chocolate at church.


• The kids were well behaved in sacrament meeting and Ruth got a shout-out from one of the speakers for being so loving and friendly. And that was even better than hearing my own name mentioned, because I didn't feel embarassed at all and could just be proud that Ruth is such a good kid.


• My primary kids were really well-behaved and I got to go do "Mom in a bag" (or behind a sheet) which is always fun to do and always involves some fun chatting with all the other moms in the ward. One of the kids' questions was, "Are you awesome?" Of course, I said yes. And later, when they guessed me and I walked into the room to give my girls some quick hugs, the same little boy said, "Yea, she's totally awesome!" It made me smile.


• I came home from church a little early because I still wasn't feeling that great and John was available to bring me home which was super nice. I got about 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep and felt much better afterwards.


• John got me exactly what I wanted: Season 2 of Scarecrow and Mrs. King (silly, I know, but seriously my favorite show).


• John made me an amazing dinner of all my favorite things: Pork chops and applesauce, potato salad, green salad, green beans, rolls. It was awesome.

So I love my kids and my sweet husband and am glad that today is mother's day. Most of the time I really like being a mom and today I loved it.

St. Patrick's Day Questions

My mom works at a predominantly latino elementary school. She said that in the past week the kids kept coming up and asking her what St. Patrick's Day is. They would say things like, "My teacher says I have to wear green. Why?" My mom would try to explain but she said the more she talked, the more confused they looked. Because the lunch ladies wear mostly white for their uniforms, her boss gave her a "Kiss me, I'm Irish!" pin to wear. This was even more confusing for the kids. They asked, "What's Irish? Is it bad or good?" My mom laughingly said, "It doesn't matter. I'm not Irish, I'm English."

I thought that was hilarious. But what I find even funnier is that I'm not sure I could explain St. Patrick's Day either. I just like wearing green. Here's another couple of funny conversations about St. Patrick's Day:

Ruth: We have to wear ALL green for St. Patrick's Day.
Me: You don't have to wear all green, just something green.
Ruth (turning to Lily a little down the hall and repeated): Mom said we just have to wear SOME green.
Lily: My teacher said we have to wear ALL green and I think she knows better than mom!"
(I thought the funniest part was that she was standing right in front of me. I guess I know where I rate.)

John chose his allegiance to the BYU basketball team over St. Patrick's Day. He wore all Blue.
Ruth and Lily: Daddy, you're not wearing any green. Now we get to pinch you.
John: My pincher is a lot bigger than yours. . .
(That scared Ruth off, but Lily persisted. She pinched him and got pinched in turn. She stopped.)

All About Me Revelations

About a week ago I was shopping at Walmart and picked up two clearance craft kits: one has 30 kits to make family trees, and one has 30 kits to make "All About Me" books. They are supposed to be for classroom projects. But Lily, Ruth, and Adam all love doing little craft things and I thought they would make for fun for a long time.

So, today after church, I pulled them out and gave one to each of the girls and Adam. We decided to try the "All About Me" books. It was just a little book with a little sheet of stickers included, but we pulled out the markers, glitter glue, foam shape stickers, and crayons to augment. It was a real success. The kids spent about 2 hours working on them. And the best part is that afterwards I got to read them. Here are just a few things I learned:

• Adam's favorite things are Dora, Lily, himself, Kate, Emma, Mary, and Ruthie. (What would he do without his sisters and Dora).
• Jesus Christ is the first person in Adam's family.
• Adam's favorite place is going to Anson's house.
• Adam's favorite person is Emma
• One of Adam's favorite animals is "Daddy's scarf"
• One of Adam's favorite foods is trees
• Mary's favorite food is Tic-Tacs
• Mary's quote on friends, "I have a lot of friends. I have so many I can't list them all. I can find friends in almost every grade."
• One of Lily's favorite things is "Butterfly the blanket." (I had no idea she had named her small baby blanket that Mary made her for Christmas last year.)
• What Lily did last summer was going sledding at Anson's and Lorin's when it snowed
• One of Lily's hobbies is Emma doing her hair
• One of Lily's favorite foods is chocolate animal crackers.
• Lily's favorite people are her grandmas
• Ruth's favorite things are presents
• What Ruth did last summer was watch flowers
• Ruth's hobby is hopping on one foot
• Ruth's favorite person is Kate
• Kate wished she went to the beach last summer, but she went to the movies instead
• Kate drew a picture of her family that included Mom, Dad, herself and "etc." after those 3 figures. (It made me laugh that she drew all the important people.)
• One of Kate's hobbies is babysitting (fortunately for us).
• Kate's favorite person is her cousin Jennifer.
• Emma's comment about friends was, "My friends like me."
• Emma's hobbies are football, basketball, soccer and baseball.
• Emma's favorite place is mini-golf (see the pass has paid off already).

Needless to say, I learned a lot. They all seem happy though so that's good. I think I'll wait a few months and have them do it again, just to see what they say. It was definitely a fun experience.

The Pass of All Passes

This year, because of the baby, we won't really be able to take a family vacation. Instead we decided to buy everyone in our family "The Pass of All Passes". It's a year pass for our local water park, 2 local mini-golf places (that also have batting cages, laser tag, go-carts, and small rides), season tickets to our local pioneer league baseball team, and our local D-league NBA team. For all that, it was fairly reasonable, only $40 for a year. It actually was much cheaper than a trip to Buffalo usually costs us (though we don't get the bonus of seeing all the family we love!!).

So, already, we have gone and played mini-golf twice, once with John and I, and once with the whole family. The girls had never been to play miniature golf and they really liked it. And they are surprisingly good at it. While playing, I learned that Adam is not content to just try, he must succeed. No matter how many times he had to hit the ball, he wouldn't leave a hole until he had gotten the ball in the hole. And for Ruth, as long as she got the ball in the whole, she was a winner. After every hole she would shout, "I won 5 times!!" (on the fifth hole, for example). The older girls all had a lot of fun too. In the future we might have to split up into teams, but other than that, it went really well. And no one got hit in the head with the metal clubs, which was the real bonus. So the summer should be pretty fun. I'm very excited for lots of reasons.

The End is Near

Adam will always be our only boy, but his days as our baby are limited. We are expecting a baby sister in July. The girls are excited but I don't think Adam really understands. He will though and I think he will enjoy having someone littler than him. Everything seems to be going well so far, so we hope that it continues.

Conversation with the boy

Me: Come on, sweet cakes. Let's get out of the car.
Adam: Mom, I not sweet cake!
Me: You're not a sweet cake. What are you then?
Adam: I Adam, THE BOY.

Later, when Adam handed me his hat and gloves to put away.
Me: Thank you, sir.
Adam: Mom, I not sir! I Adam the boy!

At least he knows who he is.

New Year's Resolutions: Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New

I like new year's resolutions. For that matter, I really like making goals. They give me something to work for, to look forward to. So I've been thinking this month about what I want to do. I've also been thinking about what I accomplished last year. So here goes:

• Last year my goal was to read 105 books, and I made it to 86 (maybe a few more, but 86 that I recorded). I'm going to stick with this goal. I think I can do it and it keeps me reading which I really enjoy.
• Last year my goal was to index 10,000 names and I did it. It was hard because for a long time I couldn't bring myself to index. But after I got back into it, I really enjoyed it. I think I could do more. So this year I'm going to index 20,000 names. This sounds like a lot but it is actually only about 50 names a day, which is about 15 minutes. Not bad. Usually when I get going indexing I do a lot more so I think I have a pretty good chance. And indexing is very satisfying. I really feel like I am accomplishing something and contributing to the work
• Last year my goal was to finish my 200 projects by Sept. 1. I have no idea how many projects I finished and honestly, I totally lost my motivation because John bought me a really nice, new sewing machine. It is awesome and I love it. I do know that I finally finished Lily's baby quilt for her 4th birthday. That in itself was a big accomplishment. And I helped the girls make things for Christmas, which took some work. This year I think my goal will be to finish 50 projects, and in each project, I want to use at least one thing I already have.
• My goal last year was to complete the $200 DMBA health challenge and I did. I have yet to decide what I want to spend my money on. We'll see. This year I want to continue this goal. Doing the challenge keeps me doing things to be reasonably fit. It makes me feel good and I like it. Plus BYU gives you great little gifts for finishing the mini-challenges. I just got an awesome BYU sackpack. I can't wait to use it when I go walking. Free money and free gifts, I just can't pass it up.
• Last year my goal was to post on my blog once a week. I definitely didn't accomplish that, but I came close. I ended up with 42 entries, just 10 short of my one-a-week goal. I'm going to keep this goal too. I really need to start writing again, if only to keep a record of the silly and great things my kids do. Plus, writing is a good outlet that I could use more of. It keeps me excited about life.
• My goal last year was to write in my journal at least 5 days a week and I think I did a pretty good job. My journal is more a scripture journal and gratitude journal. It is short and sweet, but it keeps me being positive. I'm keeping this goal because I think it's important and it makes me happy to be able to look back on what has gone on in my life.
• Last year my goal was to read the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament reading for the year. I'm still working on it. I've gone really slow but I'm getting a lot out of it. I'm working through the Old Testament seminary manual in my own way, and it is fun. So my goal for this year is to finish both the Old Testament manual and the Book of Mormon. But the most important thing is to do some individual scripture study every day. That's what I really need.
• My final goal last year was to try to be nice to my kids and have fun with them and I think we had a good year. We had a great summer where we did lots of fun things. We also went sledding over Christmas break. And we do a lot of reading together which we all like. I could probably be more exciting and more nice. But I'm not sure what specific goals with my kids I want to work on this year. I'm going to think about it.

I'm sure there are lots of other goals I could make, but I think I'll start with these and go from there.