Quiet times with ice cream

Quiet. Our house is too quiet. My girls have been in Florida with my parents and sisters for the past week and our house just seems so empty. While Erik has been sleeping in until 10am every day, I've been missing them terribly. Usually when they spend time with Grandparents it is because I have meetings or one of us is traveling - not because we are just at home while they are having fun. It's been hard!

Even so, we've managed to get a lot of things together before the baby comes. Erik stained the deck, I've done some cleaning and organizing, and we got some things fixed (like our Taurus which was a $1113 bill!!!). Unfortunately, our air conditioner broke but Erik fixed it himself by putting a new circuit breaker in. And our external hard drive we use to back up our data overheated but Erik was able to pull the data off of it. I love having a mechanically handy husband as well as a computer genius husband! He truly is a renaissance man!

In addition to getting things ready for baby, we have eaten ice cream every day. In fact, we have made a mind-blowing discovery of tremendous proportions. I found a new favorite ice cream place! Jenis ice cream in Dublin. They have flavors like rhubarb rose, lemon blueberry, salty caramel, etc. The dark chocolate ice cream paired with the salty caramel ice cream is one of the greatest treasures on earth. At least it is to my pregnant craving body :).

Speaking of pregnant body. I have taken pictures of me wearing the same shirt at different points in my pregnancy all three times. I'm considerably bigger this time but at least I can fit in the same shirt!

It looks like we've decided on a girls name for this baby:

Rachel Marie

However we have not decided on the boys middle name. We like both:

Matthew Joseph

and

Matthew Nathan

I like Joseph because it is a family name on my side. However our girls have middle names that start with N and have 6 letters. So Nathan would add some continuity. So I need to decide on family name or weird pattern (I'm a little crazy about patterns). Actually our girls names both have 5 letters in them and if I could convince Erik then I would pick a boys name with 5 letters too. I actually suggested Mateo to Erik because it is a form of Matthew but then I had to pick him up off of the floor because he was laughing so much. Also our girls both have an "a" sound at the end of their name (like the name Laura) but Erik likes Rachel better. I'm just a little weird about continuity.

56 points today on Quiddler!

Princess Giselle

May is coming to a close and with it, the excitement of summer. This spring has been so beautiful and filled with fun activities.

Jenna finished preschool last Thursday, and next year starts kindergarten. Real school - I can't believe it! On Sunday she had her ballet recital. Each class was a different princess. Jenna's class (4/5 year old ballet) was princess Giselle from Enchanted. The song they danced to was Happy Working Song from the movie. Jenna did so well and we ordered the DVD of the show so we can watch it over and over again. Jenna is excited to do ballet next year and I'm contemplating putting Sarah in the 2/3 year old class.

I've also included a picture of Jenna and Nicholas doing magic tricks. When Nicholas came over for a sleepover, he showed Jenna how to do "magic tricks". These basically involved putting a card behind your back and then taking it out again. It was still cute. This picture is when they put on a magic show for me and Sarah.

In other news:

1. We planted our garden on Saturday. Hopefully we will remember to water it after the baby comes!
2. We planted a blueberry bush I bought at Sams. I'm hoping we will actually get some blueberries!
3. I finished reading Beowulf's children and loved it! Now I'm reading The Madness Season by C.S. Friedman. Here is a picture of the cover of the book. Yesterday I went to the beauty salon to get my haircut and eyebrows waxed (necessity before the baby comes). Anyway, the beautician looked at the book with an odd expression and said "oh." No - I'm really not weird, it's a good book I promise, I just like sci-fi!
4. We signed up Jenna for Safety Town the last week of June. It will teach her to be safe in a variety of circumstances. She will learn about crossing the street, what to do if she gets lost, etc. It should be a fun week!
5. 79 on quiddler today and goul is not a word. I must need the "h". Really - if a letter is silent, why do you really need it anyway?
   
   
   

Scruffles

Would anyone be interested in a wonderful, fluffy, lovable, orange cat? He has been in our family for 13 1/2 years and we do not want to part with him but it looks like we will have to.

Since we have gotten our new carpet, Scruffles has pooped on it just about every day.

We have tried locking him up at night, changing the litter box frequently, putting all sorts of stuff on the carpet to get him to stop, and buying this expensive $60 pheremone stuff to get him to stop. He thinks this carpet is a giant litter box. Most likely because it is so soft.

We love Scruff. This is so hard - now Erik wishes we hadn't gotten the new carpet; he was fine before that.

So we lock him in the basement forever or try to find someone who would be willing to take him and give us visitation rights. He is a part of our family. However we will have a new baby in a month and we do not want poop on the carpet. That is not going to work.

Now you might ask yourself, why would I want a cat who poops on the carpet? Great question. I believe it is our new carpet that is causing this behavior, not that he has forgotten how to go in the litter box. So if anyone in the world reading this blog would like Scruffles and he poops on your carpet, we will take him back.

Just throwing this out there - who wouldn't want a lovable, fluffy, orange cat?

Buckeye Lake

Last weekend we went camping at Buckeye Lake with the Masts. The weather was perfect and we had a fabulous time. Since we won't be doing much camping this summer (due to new baby), we rented a cabin instead of getting our camper out of storage.

On Saturday we went to Buckeye Lake and walked around the lake. We saw baby geese and lots of litter. To Jenna and Nicholas, the litter was the most exciting part of the trip. Buckeye Lake KOA has a jumping pillow and the kids had a great time jumping on it. Unfortunately I was unable to jump since pregnant women can not go on the jumping pillow - bummer.

We also celebrated Maddie's first birthday and Emmerich's 3rd birthday. Jen made a poke cake with red and blue jello. The girls loved it. Both nights they were up very late but they had so much fun, it was worth it!

On Sunday Jenna had her rehearsal for her ballet recital this Sunday. I can't wait (I might be more excited than she is). We are ordering the DVD so we can watch her recital over and over again! Sarah keeps talking about doing "bayyet" so we will most likely put her in ballet next year too.

In other news:

1. I've started reading Act of War by Dale Brown. This is an author recommended by Tim, and I'm enjoying the book. Although I wonder if he gets mixed up with Dan Brown.
2. I'm reading Beowulf's Children by Niven, Pournelle, and Barnes. It is the sequel to Legacy of Heorot and is also a great book. I've liked everything I've read by Niven and Pournelle.
3. I'm already packed for the hospital. I'm so excited to meet this little one!
4. Erik's picture is in the Catholic Times newspaper. While I was in Chicago for work, Erik went to the PDHC volunteer banquet for me and he happened to be featured in the newspaper. I thought that was pretty cool!
5. 73 on Quiddler today - not that great.
6. I made baked beans from scratch for our Bible study and they were the most flavorless baked beans ever. I reheated them with an entire bottle of barbecue sauce and it made them much better!
   
   
   

Iron Chef Erik: Key Limes

My idea of a perfect Mothers day is Iron Chef (obviously!). Jenna picked out the secret ingredient for Erik (he was iron chef). It was key limes! This was by far, Erik's best iron chef performance.

He made:

• Lime pepper chicken with fresh citrus salad. This appetizer had a lemon, lime, and orange salad served with chicken strips coated in fresh lime peel and fresh ground pepper. The chicken was actually really good but the salad was too sour for my taste.
• Lime linguine with citrus alfredo. This was amazing! Erik made fresh pasta and instead of using water, he used freshly squeezed lime juice. The pasta had a really good lime flavor - better than other flavored pastas. But that's not the beauty of this dish. Erik made an alfredo sauce with heavy cream, lime juice, and sugar. The combination sounds weird but WOW! This was so good we ate it the next day (I made him make it again). The citrus alfredo sauce was so unique and delicious he got an excellent score.
• Raspberry lime milkshake with lime whipped cream and salted lime chocolate. So one would think he couldn't top that last dish. Au contraire. The salted lime chocolate was incredible. I love salty chocolate and this was amazing! It was Erik's idea but I actually made it as his sous chef. I melted chocolate chips and put in quite a bit of grated lime peel. Then I smoothed it out on a pan and put sea salt on it. Then stuck it in the freezer to cool. WOW! This was SO good. He could market it - I know salt and lime go together in some alcoholic drink (margarita maybe?) so it could be a big seller. The milkshake was delicious too with a nice raspberry lime flavor. He also made whipped cream and put lime juice in the whipped cream. This was an amazing dish!

Erik rated himself as a 16.33 and I rated him as a 17.33. This is the highest rating we've ever had in iron chef (even better than apples which was my previous best).

So it was a pretty exciting day at our house.

65 points on quiddler today. Not a good showing

Touch a Pink Truck

On Friday, the girls and I went to Touch-a-Truck at Adventure Park. I thought we would waltz right in and see a few trucks then be out for lunch. Wow. This place was packed! There were lines for the trucks and we had to park far away just to get there.

Even so, the girls had a wonderful time! I posted a picture of their favorite "truck". It is a pink limosine whose workers gave the girls star stamps on their faces. They loved this! They also got to see a bookmobile, school bus, ambulance, ER response truck, Nationwide RV, and police cars. It was a really great experience.

For Mothers Day, I decided to take both girls out to breakfast. We went to Scramblers and got a big breakfast that all three of us split. Then we went to the zoo so the girls could get their faces painted. However the face painting was not open so we just headed home. It was a nice Mothers day present.

Tomorrow (Mothers day for real) Erik will be doing Iron chef so you can anxiously await his creations!

92 on Quiddler today and I got to make the word "math"!

Eating dinner with the giraffes.

So obviously the first picture I should post after my 3 day faculty symposium in Chicago is one of the food :). I flew out to Chicago April 22 and got back on Sat. April 24. I went with 5 other faculty and had a wonderful time! On Friday night we had dinner at the Chicago zoo. I've included a picture of me and John, one of the math faculty who went to the symposium too and a great friend of mine (people who read Tolkien, Jordan, Eddings, etc = cool).
At the zoo we had a great dinner (shown) with bananas foster for dessert. The chef actually lit it on fire - that was pretty awesome!

I came home to see my family and Erik had prepared an awesome dinner of homemade tortellini with pesto, tomatoes and scallops. Yum!

On Wednesday, my friend Nicole dropped off a huge bag of play dresses. This has been loved! Very much so! The girls love putting the dresses on and dancing around. Although I'm a little concerned about this love of fashion (I am not a fashionista!). I hope I can be a good Mom - certainly not a fashion role model!

Before Nicholas came over the other day, Jenna held up two play dresses and asked which one she should wear. Is this supposed to happen this early?

My diabetes has been under control all week. I have not had a reading above 116 all week long. I think that I've been a lot less stressed lately - and I've been eating a lot of ice cream and yummies like that. I took another 4 mile bike ride too. I'm feeling great now!

72 points on Quiddler today.