Listening Hearts: Day 2

Our family has been working on a new daily practice: listening. Active, reflective, engaged listening that says to the other person. My desire is to understand you as you are, not to correct you or improve you or educate you.

To that end, we’ve been writing questions to help us get to know each other better. Some of these questions are serious; many are silly. Sometimes we laugh at things that are meant to be serious, and sometimes our silliness leads us into serious places. Our goal is to publish one each day on our blog. We hope you find them useful, either as prompts to think about yourself or as questions you bring to the car ride or the dinner table. They’re written by all of us, and you’ll see the diversity of our thoughts and interest in them, so in the questions themselves, you’ll get to know us a little better too.

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Today’s question is:

What is one thing from your own childhood that you want your own children to be able to experience?

Bananas: Playing Pokemon!

Lamb: Swimming together.

Mr. Prickles: Watching great TV shows, like Phineas and Ferb

Image result for wiffle ball"

Honey’s answer: wiffle ball

Listening Hearts: Day 1

Our family has been working on a new daily practice: listening. Active, reflective, engaged listening that says to the other person. My desire is to understand you as you are, not to correct you or improve you or educate you.

To that end, we’ve been writing questions to help us get to know each other better. Some of these questions are serious; many are silly. Sometimes we laugh at things that are meant to be serious, and sometimes our silliness leads us into serious places. Our goal is to publish one each day on our blog. We hope you find them useful, either as prompts to think about yourself or as questions you bring to the car ride or the dinner table. They’re written by all of us, and you’ll see the diversity of our thoughts and interest in them, so in the questions themselves, you’ll get to know us a little better too.

Subscribe to our blog (or follow our Twitter account @familyfoxhole) to have them appear in your inbox or Twitter feed daily.

Today’s question:

What is your happiest memory of the most recent holiday season?

Below, our Christmas tree, 2019

Image may contain: christmas tree and indoor

Updated: Multiple friends have asked us to share our own answers. We might not to do every day (and some days we’ll answer with an image rather than writing), but we’ll do it sometimes–like today:

Bananas: Getting EXACTLY what I asked for as a Christmas present!

Lamb: Decorating our house with new decorations.

Mr. Prickles: Making crabs for Christmas dinner, then making seafood stock, then making crab alfredo with the leftovers.

Honey: On Christmas morning, my children on their own decided that they wanted to take turns unwrapping gifts so they could see what each of them received. It started with Bananas, who found our Christmas pickle on our tree and so was the one who got to open the first present–which, in the past, has been followed by a free-for-all. This time, they really enjoyed the joy of their siblings, without any prompting. It was the best gift I could have received!

Our 2019 Favorites: Favorite Meals

The members of this family have an uncanny ability to remember every meal they ever ate. We have a US atlas of ice cream shops and BBQ joints embedded in our brains. So it’s hard for us to choose our favorite meals of the year, but we’re trying.

Bananas: Baskin Robbins Birthday Cake

Lion: Any salad I have made myself.

Mr. Prickles: a medium rare New York steak from Ruby River Steakhouse in Riverdale, Utah.

Honey: Halal Golden Raisin Chicken Tagine at Marrakech Café in Wichita.

A Perfectly Peeled Egg

Regular readers of this blog know that we love eggs in this family. One thing that has made them a much bigger part of our life is our InstantPot. In fact, I use it for relatively little else but still consider it worth the money just for its efficiency in making perfect hard boiled eggs.

Here’s your how-to:

  1. Place rack in bottom of InstantPot. Add 1 c. water and 15 eggs (or however many you want) in an even layer; do not stack eggs.
  2. Program to “Pressure cook” for 5 minutes. 3 minutes after timer ends, release pressure.
  3. Use togs to transfer eggs to a bowl of ice and chill for 5 minutes.
  4. Peel using the jar method: place 1-2 eggs in a small glass jar, then screw on lid. Turn on side and swirl the jar a few times. Open, remove egg, and slip the shell off.

 

Our 2019 Favorites: Games

In this last week of 2019, we’re sharing our favorites from the year. Today, it’s our favorite games (of any kind) that we first played this year.

Bananas: Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

Lamb: Breath of the Wild

Mr. Prickles: Call of Cthulhu, a RPG set in the mythos developed by HP Lovecraft

Honey: Telestrations, which is like telephone but with drawings. You don’t have to be a talented artist to play, and there are no winners or losers–just a lot of laughter. Thanks to our friends the K family for introducing it to us! It’s a great choice for parties (The party pack is for 12 people) and minimal reading is required.

Our 2019 Favorites: Our favorite movies

For the last week of the year, we’re reflecting on our favorite things this year. Today: movies.

Bananas: Jumanji: The Next Level

Lamb: Charlie’s Angels

Mr. Prickles: Clue, but that’s my favorite movie every year that I watch it, and I watch it every year.

Honey: I am a mother, and watching a film means sitting down, which means I fall asleep. Thus, I only watched a few new movies this year–The Lovers with Tracy Letts and Deborah Winger and Mary, Queen of Scots because I was on an airplane and Aladdin because it was a child’s birthday choice. None of them really deserve a mention here, so I’ll go with an old favorite: The Muppet Christmas Carol, which is not the best Muppet movie (that is Muppets from Space) but is the best version of A Christmas Carol.

Advent of Kindness: Day 20

This Advent, we’re committed to doing acts of kindness each day. Today’s suggestion comes from Honey:

“With their permission, give everyone in your family the hug they want and that you want to give them. Maybe it will be a shoulder-to-shoulder squeeze. Maybe it will be a bear hug. Maybe it will be a long, heart-to-heart embrace. Whatever the two of you choose, let them know you love them.”

Madame Vigée-Lebrun et sa fille, by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1789