Michigan awaits...

Jenna and Lidoli (Nicholas) love to read. I've uploaded a picture of me reading a story to Jenna, Nicholas and Scruff. They all seem very interested in it :). Jenna has been less interested in reading lately and more interested in playing and pushing things around the house (the push toy, her shopping cart, mommy and cat). See the video here.

The Buckeyes are on their way to becoming National Champions again! Yea! Go Bucks!! Jenna gets in the spirit too. Every Saturday she wears her Buckeye cheerleader outfit and so does Rachel. Jenna and Rachel are in the same class at church. I took a picture of the two last year in their cheerleader outfits as well. I can't wait for the Michigan game. It should be exciting and somewhat scary. I plan on making buckeyes and I don't think we'll go to church that Saturday night. Church may in fact, be cancelled *smile*.

My sister's birthday is the 11th and we plan on going to visit her and have lunch. We will wine and dine her. Well maybe not wine, and I guess not dine either as dining implies some sort of fancy restaurant. She isn't 30 yet....










In other news:

1. Tonight is Trick or Treat!!! I'll be sure to upload pictures of Jenna with her bucket of goodies. It's raining :(. But nothing is going to stop us!!
2. We are so excited since we sold our other house! Yea!! It had been rented the past 4 years and it is nice to have it sold now. Now we only have 1 mortgage :).
3. I am a glutton for punishment and am taking VB.NET through Keller. Yes - I know I haven't finished my PhD yet....
4. Guys gaming night is Friday. Erik is going to have his friends over to shoot each other in a virtual environment. I'll be teaching or they would get shot by me!
5. Today I got 83 points on Quiddler. There were about 30 N's though. NU apparently counts as a word :).

select * from class where mood = fun

My students - I love them! In BIS240 this session, one group decided to make t-shirts with SQL sayings on them.

Here is a picture of me (and my SQL shirt) with them. Don't we look great in our geeky shirts? We had a fun class!!

This is finals week for me and I'm swamped with work. Not only grading finals from this week (and projects and assignments) but getting ready for next semester which starts on Monday! And my online course!

Halloween is Tuesday and we are looking forward to taking bug trick or treating. We took her to Boo at the Zoo last Friday and had a good time. We went with the Jen and Jeff Wahl who have a daughter close to bug's age named Rachel. Rachel is dressed as a duck and Jenna is dressed as snow white. Here are some pictures:

Boo at the Zoo was fun even though the candy was lame (tootsie rolls, gum, etc). Hopefully she'll get better candy on Tuesday when we take her out trick or treating. It should be a fun time :).

Today was a profitable quiddler day. 62 points and I got to make the word "sty". Who doesn't like the word sty?

Pizzie

Yesterday for dinner we ate pizza from Donatos. Erik surprised me by bringing home the new Donatos Ciabatta pizza. It was good. The funnier thing was Jenna's response. She loves pizzie. Watch the video here. Pizzie was num num.

Erik bought another computer. This brings the number of computers in our house up to 8. Seems like a reasonable number of computers! Now Jenna can watch slideshow pictures of herself on any computer.

On Saturday the three of us went to Kael's birthday party. He turned three and although the birthday party was during the OSU game, Erik tagged along. The party was at a jungle gym so the kids were running all around and bouncing on trampolines. I have uploaded some pictures of Jenna enjoying the trampoline and some of the other jungle gym toys.

Saturday morning Erik went to Chainsaws and Chili at the church. He did manly things like chop down trees while eating chili. Sounds scary to me. He was chopping down trees for a retreat center they plan on using in the future on currently undeveloped land. Jenna and I stayed home and baked bread. Much less scary. We have been passing around Amish bread at work and it is delicious when you put tons of chocolate chips in :).

The buckeyes are doing well this year. We are excited that they might win the National Championship. I'll have to get more pictures of Jenna in her OSU gear. She knows the word "buckeyes"! A true Ohioan :).

Today I got a pitiful score on Quiddler: 49 but who knew that feu was a word??

Gotcha and Tuck

Jenna has created games that she plays with both Erik and me. With Erik she plays "tuck". It's a game she made up where she leans over the couch, he tucks her head under then she somersaults off of the couch. With me, she has a game she coined "gotcha". She stands on a chair or the couch and jumps into my arms. The first time she did this I said "I gotcha!". So now, she says "gotcha" when she wants to play that game. And she'll play both for a LONG time!

Today Jenna finally let me put pigtails in her hair. She took them out after about half an hour but I quickly took a picture just to prove that she did let me put pigtails in her hair. This is a good shot of those dimples too!

I finally finished Wizard and Glass - the 4th book in SK's Dark Tower Series. I can't wait to read the next one. Now I know why he is such a popular author! What great character development and imagery - he is a master storyteller!

At Devry some of the faculty and staff have been passing around Amish bread starters. I made my first batch of Amish friendship bread and put chocolate chips in it. Yum!! However since it is cinnamon sugar chocolate chip, I dont' think it counts as bread. It probably counts more as dessert. So next time I will add raisins. That is somewhat healthy.

My friend Joy asked if I had compiled a list of favorite cheeses. I realized I had not. So here is my preliminary list of favorite cheeses:

1. Baby swiss
2. Parmesan and romano
3. Stilton with candied lemon peel
4. Smoked gouda
5. Guyere (I like the name too!)

This is a very preliminary list. Joy has prompted me to try different cheeses and rate them. Maybe after I do this, I can come up with a more complete list.

I also only got 70 points on Quiddler and made me realize I don't like C's. Not many words use them!