Congrats David and Becca!

My brother-in-law David got engaged on Saturday to Becca. How exciting! I realized I didn't have any pictures of Becca so I included a picture of David with Jenna :). Anyway, David completely ignored all of my suggestions for proposals and asked her to marry him the old fashioned way! As long as she says yes - that's the most important thing! I still think he should have put the ring in an Easter Egg or a burrito!

We had a great Easter and the girls saw both sets of Grandparents as well as Aunt Missy and Aunt Amanda. Easter was also Sarah's 3 month birthday and here's a picture of her with the lamb. She's actually smiling in that picture if you can't tell. Once the girls get older I will get a set of Resurrection Eggs. They are supposed to share the story of Jesus's death and Resurrection in a way kids will understand.

In other news:

1. We picked up our camper on Friday. It is so awesome!! However, it took Erik (not me - we would still be there if I was doing it) 45 minutes to back it into the miniscule parking spot we were given at the storage facility. We are looking for a new storage facility.
2. I decided I wanted to make up my own recipe for Cranberry vanilla bread so I threw a bunch of ingredients together and baked two loaves (I want to submit the best to a quick bread contest). Unfortunately, after I took them out of the oven I left them on the stove top. Erik decided to make pasta and turned on the burner with the bread on it (even though there was a pot on a different burner). This loaf pan was one of those flexible loaf pans and apparently they do not like to be on burners. It caught fire and the whole house was filled with smoke. Oops!
3. I can't get the song "Sarah Smile" by Hall and Oats out of my head. It's almost as bad as "If you like pina coladas...." That song I can NEVER get out of my head!
4. I got a terrible score on Quiddler today. How can you make a good word with these letters: A, G, G, B, U, C, X, Q??? That is awful. So I only got 29 points :(.
   
   
   

Certified American Cookie Board Statistician

Today we had friends over to play Dungeons and Dragons. It was a blast! We even watched a movie called "The Gamers" about people who play D&D - and that was hilarious too.

While everyone was here, we had a chocolate chip cookie tasting event. Jon created a Standard Cookie rating sheet that rated cookies based on visual impact, texture, flavor, and after impression. Ratings varied from 1 to 10 with 10 representing the most desirable in a given criteria. Interestingly enough, the cookies I generally make won!! I made 10 different cookie recipes (see picture) and everyone rated them.
Below are the results.

Cookie Analysis 3/15/08
Cookie Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Cookie Recipe	Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies	Chocolate Chip Cookies Lite	Best Chocolate Chip Cookies	Absolutely the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies	Jen Wahl's cookie recipe	Urban Legend Chocolate Chip Cookies	Nestle toll house cookies modified	Best big, fat, chewy chocolate chip cookie	Alton Brown's The Chewy	60% Ghiradelli Cocoa Back of Bag
Aaron	35	10	34	23	27	23	32	23	33	28
Matt	28	14	21.5	29	26	15	26	17	25	17.5
Erik	31	8	30	19	22	26	32	14	30	29
Michelle H	32	11	27	25	28	17	34	24	32	18
Michelle C	26	17	35	28	31	28	35	30	33	27
John	30	19	25	26	23	29	29	26	28	26
Gina	32	13	28	24	32	27	33	29	29	27
Mike	33	6	21	22	30	15	29	12	24	9
Jen	22	7	26	19	22	12	36	12	27	5
Total	29.889	11.667	27.500	23.889	26.778	21.333	31.778	20.778	29.000	20.722

The changes I've made to Nestle toll house cookies are to only use real butter, add 1/4 cup flour extra, and cook them for 7 minutes and 20 seconds.
As you can see from this scientific study, Nestle toll house cookies are the best!! How awesome :). Of course, these are the cookies I always make so it made me happy to have confirmation that they are the best.

Sarah has started to smile and make cute noises! Here is a video of her smiling. What a doll baby!!

I got 62 on Quiddler today. I was doing so well until I lost the v :(. 11 points!!!

A Snow Big Sister??

Every family has a big sister according to Jenna. If there is a family of bears, spoons (don't ask), playdoh, books, etc (and a family is just composed of a few of these things) always one of them is a big sister. Jenna knows her place in our family. Today we got about a foot and a half of snow. Even church is cancelled tomorrow because of the snow. Anyway, we went out to play in the snow and we made a snow family. Of course, one of the snow family members was a big sister :).

In other news:

1. Sarah is smiling :). I've included a picture - she is adorable
2. We got Easter pictures taken on Thursday of the two girls together. They were adorable. After the pictures (taken by Squire Photography), Jenna got to pick some prizes from a big treasure chest. One of the treasure chests had butterfly wings. Jenna loved them!!
3. I'm in book 4 of the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. How can something be a trilogy if it has 4 books?
4. I just finished "Just Walk Across the Room" by Bill Hybels. Excellent book about evangelism through friendship.
5. We finally saw Ratatouille. Awesome movie!!! I highly recommend it. I especially loved it since it was about food - who doesn't love food? Once we get back into a routine, I'll start my iron chefs again!
6. I got 12 today on Quiddler. Lost the y, v, h, q, and n. It was a tough quiddler with few vowels.
7. I'm making about 10 different chocolate chip cookie recipes and we are going to have a cookie tasting to see which one is the best. I have 2 more recipes I want to make. After that - we'll see which recipe reigns supreme!! I'll include the results on my blog when we finish the contest :).