trillianstales

Arbonne vs. Erik

2012-02-02T22:30:00.005-05:00

My neighbor sells Arbonne products. When Matthew was born she gave me some diaper rash cream that I love! It works really well and doesn't smell like diaper rash cream (bonus!).

Since I loved it so much, I bought some more Arbonne diaper rash cream.

$14 for 5 oz

Seriously?? For diaper rash cream?

I have a friend who has made her own laundry detergent and other cleaners. Could we make diaper rash cream?

Erik took on this challenge since it is healthier and cheaper than storebought products. Diaper rash cream is not nearly as exciting as Heather's homemade products but is less than $14 and works well (picture above)!

Diaper Rash Cream
5 oz olive oil
1 oz grated beeswax
1/2 oz zinc oxide powder

Thanks Erik! Although we hopefully only have a year and a half of diapers left.

In other news:

I registered for an indoor triathlon. I won't be competitive but it will still be fun! I'm doing the triathlon with one of my friends. Hopefully I can jump in the hot tub after it's over. Swimming, running, and biking all in one day!

Our Coo* book club has finished reading Catching Fire and are moving onto MockingJay. This is a good series and I'm looking forward to the movie.

This semester I have two onsite classes and two online classes. The demographic in my onsite classes is rather uniform. In fact, in my two onsite classes there is only one female student. I have been trying to come up with interesting examples and decided to use football (since I think guys know about football). And I've decided that I love Tim Tebow. Yep. Really do. So my class jokes a lot about Tim Tebow and he is in pretty much every example we use. I even had to cheer for the Broncos when they played the Patriots even though Erik is a serious Patriots fan! Too bad he's not in the superbowl.

61 points on quiddler today

My friend

2012-02-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

Comfort. That is the word I am holding onto right now for my good friend. She is 31 years old and has two children (7 and 4) and was just diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. Last week was the worst week of her life as she said. Her 7 year old is Jenna's best friend at school.

What is strange is that she has no risk factors. No family history, she does not drink, smoke or consume any caffeine. She exercises regularly (goes to spinning class with me!), and she does not have diabetes. Those are the risk factors. So this was a complete shock.

It's strange how cancer works like this. It is indiscriminate.

So I'm praying for comfort for her now.

Her website is: http://thelittlelump.blogspot.com/

Hello, Mr. Dillinger. Thanks for coming back early

2012-01-28T22:40:00.001-05:00

Tron debuted in 1982 as an animated sci-fi movie about a programmer who was sucked into a computer and had to battle the Master Control Program (MCP) in order to come back. They may or may not have intended the movie to be funny.

It was funny.

And classic.

We had a Tron party this weekend complete with Tron food. Jon and Michelle Cook, Amanda, and Erik and I got our nerd on and watched both Tron and Tron Legacy. We stayed up until 2am but it was worth it!

Here are some pictures of our awesome nerdy tron food.

Tron cookies - yes those are circuits (good and plenty circuits!). Made by the Cooks

Tron cake with edible silver fondant and glowsticks on top! Made by the Cooks

Motherboard wheat crackers made by Erik

Motherboard brownies (notice the tootsie roll capacitors). Made by me! Note: those graham crackers got nice and stale very quickly - yum!

Prior to our Tron party everyone (minus me) in our family got really sick. Jenna and Sarah both missed school, Matthew was sick, and Erik was lying on the couch for a day moaning.

It was bad. There was a lot of sickness. Luckily I did not get sick. We think Erik got so sick because the steroids he was on due to the poison ivy weakened his immune system.

Sarah, home from school sick, lying by the fire taking a nap.

This week (in the midst of the sickness) we got a cord of wood. Here it is in our driveway. Now we have a lot of wood to burn over the winter to stay warm.

cord of wood

65 points on quiddler today!

Maybe I'm the talkative one

2012-01-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

Our little Lady bug is now 7 years old. She had a fabulous birthday party with 11 talkative 7 year old girls in attendance. So talkative that Erik had to hide in the computer room for awhile.

At Jenna's birthday party the girls did a lady bug craft from Oriental Trading Company. The craft was fun but required a lot of gluing. Thus it was a little messy.

Now I am one of three people in charge of the nursery/toddler ministry at church. When I went to Oriental Trading I went a little wacko and bought a ton of crafts for the nursery/toddler ministry. They really have tons of cheap, cute crafts for little kids.

Hard at work on the crafts

The girls loved the craft

Jenna's Birthday cake - red velvet cake with chocolate frosting (so it had lady bug colors!)

In other news:

Our Coo* book club finished the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and we are now currently reading Catching Fire. This series is really good and Erik and I have been discussing our theories about what we think will happen. This is a great read!
I am also reading Watcher of the Dead by J.V. Jones. This is book 4 of the Sword of Shadows series and I highly recommend this series.
Finally Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan came in from the library. When I reserved it initally I was number 700 something so it took a long time for me to get this book. Just like the first Percy Jackson series, I'm enjoying this series as well (this is book 2 in the Heros of Olympus series).
I'm also reading the Case for Christ as well. This is well-written and engaging.
So those are the books I'm currently reading. I'm also debating another series. Erik is reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson. He thinks I'll like it. I just don't know - the first book was so broad I'm not sure if I'll like it. I'm still deciding. Erik keeps saying "but Tim is reading it" since he thinks I'll read whatever Tim reads.
Matthew is now walking, however he is not talking. Help Me Grow is an organization that will give him free speech therapy starting February 1st. I hope he will start talking soon. Now he does the "more", "all done", and "shoes" signs but that's it. The girls were basically talking in full sentences at 19 months and he is not saying much at all. I hope they help him.
This semester has been tough and I'm barely keeping my head above water. I wasn't sure how I was doing since I am teaching 4 new classes! However one of the online deans called me today and said I was doing an awesome job and wants me to talk about my experience to all the online faculty in Engineering and IS on a conference call in a few weeks. Wow! That is pretty exciting. So I guess they like me :).
And I'm on the committee planning the faculty symposium in Chicago in April. I'm excited about this since I'll get to meet and work with faculty across the system.
Our church has changed their name to Gateway Community Church. I'm pretty excited about our name change. We even had a big party to celebrate. We changed the lighting during our worship (pretty colored lights!) and got fancy TV's and touch screen computers out in the main area. It is pretty awesome.
We are starting a 6 week series on the End times in our Tuesday night Bible study. We've had so much discussion from doing the Heaven series by Randy Alcorn that everyone wanted to study the End times.
This weekend we are going to have an awesome Tron party with friends. We are going to stay up late and watch both Tron movies and eat Tron food. It should be a blast!
I had a lot to say!
76 points on Quiddler and I got to make the word "teasing"

Chopped Basket 1

2012-01-16T00:27:00.001-05:00

Chopped is a TV show on the Food Network in which 4 chefs compete for $10,000. They get a basket with all kinds of crazy foods in it and have to make a coherent dish out of it.

I thought this would be fun to do. So I got a Chopped Basket for Erik. It contained:

Tilapia
A pomegranate
Crunchy potato topping
An onion
Mike & Ike candy

Now you may look at that list and say "HUH?" But that is exactly the kind of crazy things in chopped baskets on the show (well maybe not exactly - they might have squid and chocolate covered raisins but believe me the combinations are weird).

Erik's chopped basket

Erik transformed this odd assortment of food into a really good dish. He encrusted the tilapia with a mixture of onion, potato topping, and crushed up gold fish crackers (yes this is Erik remember). Then he made a sauce out of pomegranate seeds and Mike&Ikes. He put this mixture in refrigerated crescent roll dough to make a side dish. Then garnished the plate with more of the sauce.

The sauce was surprisingly good. The whole dish was actually delicious. The tilapia needed a little more salt but other than that I thought it was great! I am looking forward to doing more chopped baskets - this was fun!

Erik's dish plated for us!

On Friday Erik's poison ivy had gotten so bad that his right eye was swollen shut. It was all over his face and hands and he had trouble doing simple tasks with his hands. This was not good.

So on Saturday I pulled the car out of the driveway to go to church and the tire blew. Bummer. I drove it back into the garage slowly and carefully. Erik really couldn't change the tire because of his horrible poison ivy. And I can't budge those lug nuts to save my life (Gina != strong)

So Erik took the other car to the emergency room and got a steroid injection in his butt. Yes his butt. His poison ivy was so bad they couldn't put it in his arm because the dose was too strong. Wow! Now he is on steroid pills for 15 days. He looks and feels so much better. His hands hurt but today we were able to put the spare tire on the car. It required some fancy maneuvering for both of us since his hands still hurt but he was able to loosen the lug nuts enough for me to get them off. Hopefully they are tight enough to drive the spare to the tire place!

Note: we did the chopped basket last weekend before the poison ivy attack

93 points on quiddler today!

The FIRE!

2012-01-12T15:28:00.001-05:00

Last Friday I came home from Zumba with Sarah and Matthew in the car. I pulled in the driveway as Sandy my mail lady was delivering a package. She said "I hope you get something good!". I said "it's probably for my husband since he is always ordering things."

Little did I know.

Erik looked at the package and said "you're going to like this". It was from J.Cooper. Huh? Erik said it was an early birthday present. Apparently waaaay early since my birthday is in July.

I opened it.

Oh my!

It was a brand new Kindle Fire. Awww yea!

We have been addicted to our new device. Actually Sarah has been addicted to it. Fortunately she hasn't installed any apps yet . The girls call it an ipad because they are used to Uncle Dave and Aunt Becca's ipad.

Thank you Joel!

What should I get Joel for his birthday? A trip to Europe? A bugatti veyron? Head reduction surgery? Lifetime supply of reeces peanut butter cups? The sky's the limit!

I got some pictures from Becca from our time at the in-laws for Christmas I thought I'd post. David has made a cross stitch for every one of his nieces and nephews. He finished this really cute one for Sarah. I didn't get a good picture though. If I was awesome at photoshop I'd fix it up.

Cross stitch created by David for Sarah

Uncle David and Sarah making Christmas ornaments

Me and Jenna making Christmas ornaments

Grandpa's 3 level train set. The girls love it!

Uncle David reading a Weird Al children's book to the girls

My favorite picture. Grandma's reaction when she saw the ultrasound of Dave and Becca's baby!

Since Erik has been crazily chopping wood for our new fireplace, he's been outside a lot. Touching lots of vines and things. And now he looks like a monster. His face and arms are completely covered with poison ivy. Every night he wakes up in the middle of the night unable to sleep because he's so itchy. So he takes a bath in baking soda. I feel so bad for him.

I haven't been sleeping either but that's because my classes are killing me this session. I have 4 classes with 2 new preps. Three of them are an obscene amount of grading. Just trying to stay on top of them I'm up until after 1am every night. Yikes!

Please note: Jenna starts selling girl scout cookies on the 14th Please order soon :)

39 points on quiddler today. Not good :(

Grapefruit and Brioche

2012-01-05T23:33:00.000-05:00

For Christmas Joel and Megan got me the Bread Bible. David had previously got me The Bread Machine Cookbook by the same author and I loved it so much I wanted the other book. From the Bread Machine cookbook I've made many recipes (usually I just use the dough cycle and bake them in the oven so I can control it better and prevent the funky hole in the bottom of the bread). Anyway, I've made brioche several times from my bread machine book. In the Bread Bible, the recipe for brioche rolls requires the dough to rest 16 hours. Wow! I was curious as to why the dough would need to rest so long and what difference it would make.

Oh my!

These were the best rolls I've ever made! Restaurant quality for sure. They melted in your mouth. While you can't really taste them from the picture - they were truly divine.

Also in the picture you will notice the MASSIVE bag of grapefruit.

Brioche = Yum, Grapefruit !=Yum

Erik found this bag of grapefruit at Meijer for only $5. He is not on the grapefruit diet. However he has been eating 1-2 grapefruits every day. He's a little obsessed.

I don't like grapefruit.

In fact, I actively dislike grapefruit. This is how I feel about grapefruit (I wouldn't use the bad word though).

Every year we decorate a Gingerbread house for Christmas. We decorated this one after Christmas but it was still fun. Jenna and I love to decorate the house but Sarah spends the whole time asking if she can eat the candy....

Our Gingerbread house

Matthew has reached 18 months now and is not talking. We had him evaluated by the Delaware County Help Me Grow and he qualified for speech and physical therapy. So we will have therapists to our house once a week helping Matthew talk. I wonder if they could get our girls to talk less....

If you are wondering if he's walking, check this out :).

Daddy reading to all the kids

93 points on Quiddler today

3 ways to reuse and recycle in your home (assuming you have a wood stove)

2012-01-04T13:51:00.000-05:00

1. Make your own fire starter. To easily start fires for our wood stove, we bought a box of fire starter. Seems like a good idea right?
Can we make it ourselves though? Turns out we can.

Erik researched fire starter and realized you can make your own fire starter by putting dryer lint in a dixie cup then melting wax on top. He melted some broken crayons (surprisingly with 3 kids we have broken crayons!) on dryer lint to make a fire starter.

We used it this morning to get our fire started and it worked perfectly! Even for someone as fire-creating challenged as me. I tend to forget about the fire and let it go out :(. We've only had the wood stove a few weeks so I'm sure I'll get used to it.

2. Use wood ash to make soap. Our fire everyday makes a lot of ash. While we could just throw it away we wanted to find a good use for it. You can use wood ash to make lye, then mix it with tallow (or fat) to make soap. To gather fat, I *had* to make some bacon and we saved the fat in a tupperware. When we have enough ash we are going to attempt to make lye. I'll let you know how this goes. I'd like to wait until it's warmer. Bacon soap - nothing better :).

3. Composting (you don't need a wood stove for this). We bought compost for our garden last year. This seems a little redundant since you can make your own compost. So we got a compost bin and are now composting.

It seems wasteful to throw away dryer lint when we can reuse it for fire starter or throw away old lettuce and veggies when we could compost them. It is especially wasteful since we turn around and buy those items!

We are looking around for more ways to reuse and recycle and reduce our trash! Hopefully we are more environmentally friendly now.

101 points on quiddler today. I made the word "watering" and the word "hm". I didn't realize hm was a word but now I know!

New Gifts

2012-01-01T22:54:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas! We had a fabulous Christmas and New Years. We spent a week in West Virginia with Erik's parents and visited with Joel and Megan and David and Becca. I forgot my camera so no pictures will be forthcoming. Bummer.

We found out really exciting news over Christmas though. We will have a new niece or nephew next July! Yipee!

Dave and Becca are expecting a new little one next year. They were very sly about telling everyone too. We had no idea until we were unwrapping gifts. Becca casually (I could never pull this off by the way) handed a gift to my Mother-in-law and when she opened it, there was an ultrasound picture inside.

How cool is that?

For our next baby I'll use that tactic. Of course, there needs to be another baby for that to happen :).

Instead of a new baby, for Christmas this year we spent a lot of money on a flat screen TV we mounted on the wall and a wood stove. Here I have before and after pictures (although you can't really see the TV in the after picture).

Before

After

Our wood stove is so amazing! It is warm and cozy to have a beautiful fire in your living room. Now we actually have a hearth! Erik gets to be manly by chopping wood in the backyard. Bonus! Now he is always on the lookout for dead trees to cut down for our stove. Hide your trees!

Since I can not stop modifying recipes. I've decided to modify the brown butter sea salt cookie recipe I've been using. I added cocoa powder, sugar and cut the flour and salt to make dark chocolate brown butter sea salt cookies. They tasted fantastic but Erik thought they were too puffy. I'll be cutting the cake flour in the next batch and see how that works. When I get it right I'll post the recipe.

Dark Chocolate Brown Butter Sea Salt Cookies

On Dec. 23 we celebrated Sarah's 4th birthday. We had a bumblebee themed party complete with bumblebee suckers, coloring pages, and crafts. Everyone had a blast and Sarah received tons of polly pockets as gifts. Now we can ~~suck up polly pocket items in the vacuum~~ play with polly pockets to our heart's content!

Happy Birthday Sarah!

An action shot

Bumble Bee craft we did at Sarah's Birthday party

94 points on Quiddler today!

Happy Multicultural Day!

2011-12-20T00:20:00.000-05:00

Happy Multicultural Day! What? You celebrate Christmas not multicultural day? That's odd.

Jenna's school does not celebrate Christmas or have a holiday party of any kind. They celebrate multicultural day.

Really?

Multicultural day can be celebrated any day of the year, Christmas falls on Dec. 25th and a holiday party would just be nice.

Even so, Jenna had a writer's workshop in which she had two speaking parts. She was very excited to have two speaking parts. She read some of the things she wrote this school year and even gave an introduction to the workshop. She read very quickly. It is something she enjoys doing - surprising me by reading like a 15 year old :).

Jenna's first speaking part: the introduction to the workshop

Jenna reading her individual story

At Sarah's preschool she did have a Christmas program and she sang "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and "Jingle Bells". She had been practicing at home so she would deliver the song with proper tonation. Sarah is on the end in the white dress. They all wore cute reindeer headbands.

She looks so serious!

On Saturday Joel and Megan came to visit. We had so much fun! We played a lot of games, ate lots of food, went to Starbucks, ate Jenis and Graeters ice cream and went to see the Fantasy of Lights. All in just 1 1/2 days. We had a blast! Jenna also decided to make Joel beautiful (really, is there any hope for this?). You can see from the picture.

Joel with a beautiful headband

Before Joel and Megan came to visit, my friend Jen came by to give me a Christmas present. This Christmas present was the most AWESOME thing ever! Check out this clock below. It has really improved my time keeping.

Awesome clock of awesomeness!

77 points on Quiddler today!

Cookies and Flour - yum

2011-12-15T14:32:00.000-05:00

Every year we bake lots of Christmas cookies and this year is no exception. My favorite Christmas tradition is making and decorating cutout cookies. The girls were very helpful this year with the cutouts. And for some reason they started eating flour and really love it?

They may have eaten more than they actually "cutout"

Decorating cookies with the help of Jenna's friend Paige and our neighbor Anna

Every year our church has a Christmas smorgasboard with a kids program. Last year they all dressed up and Sarah danced while dressed as a sheep. This year they didn't dress up as sheep or angels, but they did sing (or somewhat sing as Sarah shows us here).

Kids Christmas program

Scruffles and Matthew like to hide beneath the tree. I see you! Often Matthew is chasing Scruffles around. That poor cat. He can't ever catch a break.

Hiding beneath the tree

I like to give cookies as gifts to teachers so yesterday I made snickerdoodles, peanut butter cups and brown butter sea salt cookies. Yum! It was a delicious day.

More Christmas baking!

In other news:

Love Wins by Rob Bell is an intriguing book. I hope what he says in the book is right. Since we really don't know what happens after we die he could be right. Of course he could be wrong too. I'm hoping Erik will read it so I can talk to him about it.
The Hunger Games is a book you really can't put down. I'm glad we are reading it for our book club.
Last Saturday I took a First Aid class through the Red Cross. I learned CPR and got to practice on plastic dummies. While the class was interesting, I really wanted to learn more. Basically it was a class telling you to call 911 in almost every circumstance. I already knew to call 911. I want to know how to do something real (broken bones, emergency surgery, tourniquets, etc).
On Tuesday we had our small group Christmas party. We will break for Christmas and then pick up again in January. We are still studying Heaven by Randy Alcorn. I really love this study however it is making me want to study more eschatology. Unfortunately I'll be teaching on Tuesday nights next session so I won't be there for the rest of the study.
Check out this video of Matthew jamming to Led Zeppelin - he is so adorable!
Today was a horrible Quiddler day. I got stuck with a j,u,u. That was a lot of points I lost!

Santa and the new TV

2011-12-07T11:28:00.001-05:00

You can probably read the word written here below. This was not written by Jenna. It was written by Sarah - yes she is only 3 (she'll be 4 soon) but I was pretty impressed!

Can't tell if that's a picture of a unicorn above the word or not?

On Black Friday while everyone was storming the malls, Erik and I bought a TV for our living room (online of course - who wants to actually go shopping?). Our projection TV was 14 years old and was getting fuzzy. Erik couldn't read the scores on the football games (so sad...). This new TV will be wall mounted and will open up some space in our living room. (maybe so I can buy more things to fill it??)

Matthew and Jenna helping Daddy wall mount the TV.

Last Saturday I took the girls to see Santa Claus at a church near our house. He read them a story and they got to sit on his lap. They also did a lot of Christmasy crafts (the girls LOVE crafts) so they had a fabulous time!

Santa reading to the kids

Jenna and Sarah on Santa's lap

Erik finished mounting the new TV on the wall which you can see in the picture below (he had a lot of help from everyone).

If you look closely you can see an orange fluffy cat under the tree - he is not a present. Matthew is sitting in our wood rack too. I think Erik has told him not to sit in it approximately 10,000,000 times but Matthew loves it. And he doesn't listen to us AT ALL. He will be a handful when he hits the terrible twos.

This is the "before" picture of our TV. We are excited to have the new one!

In other news:

Our Coo* book club is reading the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I really wanted to read it since I've heard so many good things about it. There will also be a movie coming out soon, and I want to see it. I was number 220 on the list at the library to get the book but I suggested to/hoped for/coerced our book club to read it next :).
I am reading the Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. This book has been on my list for awhile and so far I'm really enjoying it.
I just picked up Love Wins by Rob Bell from the library. This book has a lot of controversy surrounding it. I wanted to read it for myself to see what it's all about.
I am also still reading the Sword of Shadows series from J.V.Jones. I'm in the third book and love this series!
Since we bought the TV, Erik and I decided we wouldn't spend much money on each other. He bought me two books for Christmas and I got him only two things as well (a game and a new pair of shorts). However I'm going to sneak to Half Price books when he is not looking and get him a surprise book (I don't know what yet but it will be a surprise!)
75 points on Quiddler today

Mushroom Delight!

2011-11-30T14:34:00.000-05:00

Today we checked our box of mushrooms to water them and WOW! Sarah is holding one of the mushrooms. It was huge and delicious! I sauteed the mushroom in butter and we ate it for lunch. Sarah was so excited to eat the mushroom we grew.

Sarah with her prized mushroom

This mushroom is getting big! This is a picture in its intermediate stage.

Besides growing mushrooms, my session off has been really good and gone by really fast. Next session (starting in January) I'll have 2 new classes and 4 classes total. This will be tough for me especially since I'll be gone Tuesday nights which is the night we have Bible study at our house. It's difficult for Erik to lead the study and set up the dinner when I'm not there. I always make the dinner ahead of time, but he still has to set everything out (and keep the kids from destroying the house).

Last night I made tropical fruity chicken. I wasn't sure how it would turn out since it had maraschino cherries, raisins, and madarin oranges in a sweet sauce mixed with chicken. However it was really good. I'll have to remember this one.

Tropical fruity chicken (I served it over rice)

In other news:

I finished reading the Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. It is a good book, very well written showing the problems with both capitalism and communism. While it is a good book, it wasn't one that I couldn't put down.
I also finished reading Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees for our Coo* book club. This book was interesting but I didn't really get into it. In fact, I didn't care about the characters at all. You really need to empathize or at least somewhat care about the characters to get into a story.
We had a fabulous Thanksgiving with my parents. We left the kids (all 3!) Thursday night and picked them up on Saturday morning. On Friday we slept in until 10:30. Yipee!! Then we went on a date to Tumbleweed and then to Panera to drink a mocha and sit by the fire. That was so nice.
My friend Lynn made me her secret recipe chocolate chip cookies. They even won the Medina County Fair! They were really delicious and warm right out of the oven. I think I need to do another chocolate chip cookie test.
54 points on Quiddler today. I made the word "tolling" but lost a "j" with 13 points at the end so it wasn't a good Quiddler day for me.

20 Life Skills I wish I had

2011-11-16T23:19:00.000-05:00

I wish I had skills. And not just nunchucks skills, real life skills.

I've compiled a list of 20 skills I wish I had and maybe someday I'll develop these skills.

20. Wear makeup. Never really learned how to apply it properly but I know I would look prettier if I wore it.
19. Pick a lock. My friend was locked out of her house and had to kick the door in, then she threw her back out. All because she didn't know how to pick a lock.
18. Scuba diving. Would love to see the undersea world close up.
17. Hot wire a car. This seems like a good thing to know in an emergency or if I wanted to be a car thief on the side.
16. Program an Arduino. There are so many cool things you can do with an Arduino and from what I've read, it doesn't sound like it's that hard to program.
15. Shoot a bow/archery. I'd love to be able to hit a target with a bow and arrow. Then I could be like Legolas!
14. Fencing and swordplay. To go along with number 15, it would be awesome to know how to use a sword properly.
13. Sew. It involves a needle and thread...beyond that I'm lost. Sewing is a useful skill though. Someday I'll learn how to sew! Maybe I'll make some clothes for our family.
12. Have a poker face. For some reason my emotions are always written on my face so plainly. I wish I could have a poker face so no one would know what I'm thinking. And so I could win at poker!
11. Add an electrical outlet. Erik has added many electrical outlets in our basement. I watched him but never did one myself. I'd like to learn how to do it without electrocuting myself.
10. Canning. I'd love to can the vegetables we grow in the garden. This year the extra tomatoes we had ended up going bad and we had to throw them away. I knew we couldn't eat them all in time but I didn't have a way to can them.
9. Whistle. I was so embarrassed in 5th grade when I was the only kid in class who couldn't whistle. I still can't whistle.
8. Fishing and then clean, gut and filet the fish. How rewarding it would be to fish for your own food and then cook that food yourself. I would love to do this.
7. Play guitar. Much to Scruffles dismay, I would love to learn to play the guitar. Scruffles hates the sound of my playing so much he runs away at the sight of my guitar case.
6. Speak Spanish. I would love to know another language. Knowing and thinking in only English is limiting. Of course, I'd need to find someone to speak Spanish with.
5. Write a useful Android App. I've gotten so far as to install the Android development kit on my computer to use with Eclipse. The next step is Hello World.
4. Get the kids to go to bed on time. Seriously, tonight it was 10pm. GO TO BED!
3. Know directions. I'd like to be able to know which direction I'm facing, how to use a compass and map properly and generally know how to get anywhere. I'm terrible with directions in real life and in MMOs. I always need help getting around.
2. Grow food. We have 3 gardens and while they did well, they could have produced more. We have a lot of ideas for next year (tying the vining plants to a stake so they vine up rather than out) that will hopefully help us grow more food.
1. First aid. I wish I had some first aid skills. Especially since I have three kids, two of which are crazy climbers (Sarah and Matthew). I'm actually taking the Red Cross First Aid course in a few weeks so hopefully this will give me some knowledge.

That was my list. What skills would you like to have?

Mom and Dad: 40 years

2011-11-14T08:10:00.000-05:00

Surprise Mom and Dad!

For months my sisters and I have been planning a surprise 40th Wedding Anniversary party for my parents. I was sure they knew about it - turns out they didn't! It really was a surprise.

We planned it for the same weekend as Missy's birthday so they wouldn't suspect. Then we sent invitations to their friends and planned the party all on the sly. I'm so glad they didn't suspect :).

Friends at the party (wearing red was the theme since 40 years is ruby)

The wedding party (Dad, Aunt Elaine - Maid of Honor, Mom, and Denny - Best Man)

Mom and Dad 40 years ago!

It was a fantastic weekend; however now we have to top this for their 50th anniversary! The pressure is on.

Why does this stool have shoes? Oh... we have 3 kids.

Matthew after eating a cupcake with red frosting

93 points on Quiddler today

36 hours of cookies

2011-11-10T16:10:00.000-05:00

I have found it! The best chocolate chip cookies in the world. I've seen many blogs referring to the 36 hour chocolate chip cookies printed in the New York Times. I've never made these cookies (because really, who wants to wait 36 hours for cookies?) but decided to finally try them. The dough must chill for 36 hours before you can bake them (this just meant Erik ate dough out of the refrigerator for 36 hours).

These cookies were fantastic! Really fantastic! My friends Tricia and Andria tried them and thought they looked like cookies you'd buy at Starbucks or some other coffee shop (although mine were yummier!).

Wait! One is missing! Where could it be?

Aha! Here is the missing cookie :). Erik ate the cookies as well as the dough.

This summer we went swimming at the Lifetime pool every Wednesday. Due to the fact that Sarah would indiscriminately jump in the water whether she could touch or not, I thought she should have swimming lessons for safety reasons. The girl has no fear!

So both girls are in swimming lessons and are loving it.

Jenna is wiping her face with her hands

Sarah practicing kicking (she is in the blue)

Erik was gone last weekend to a church conference in Minnesota. He learned a lot and loved the conference but was exhausted when he came back. To celebrate his return I made a nice dinner served on our china and made salted caramel espresso brownies for dessert. Below is a picture. They tasted so delicious, but my salted caramel sauce was too runny. It had only half a cup of heavy cream and half a cup of water in it so it didn't have too much liquid. I think I'll have to keep experimenting with this recipe though.

Bummer.

Salted caramel dark chocolate espresso brownies:: Taste Perfection

Matthew trying to steal candy from the candy bowl.

The little rascal!

59 points on Quiddler today

Matthew and Scruff: Prison Escapees!

2011-11-03T14:47:00.000-04:00

Erik took the girls trick-or-treating and we left Matthew at home. We thought "he is too little and won't enjoy it anyway."

That was a mistake.

Every time the doorbell rang he escaped. He cried for 2 hours straight because he couldn't go with the other kids. If Matthew wasn't escaping then Scruffles was escaping. My night was spent chasing kids and cats back in the house.

Jenna and Lauren at her school Harvest party

The kids after Trick-Or-Treat (Jenna is a Spanish girl, Sarah is Giselle, and Matthew wants to leave)

Matthew eating a hershey kiss. He loves 3 musketeers and m&ms too

Matthew dressed as a dog chewing on Daddy's shirt

The girls and I made little witches out of Marshmallows. I snapped the picture before they made a huge mess.

In other news:

Our Coo* book club just finished Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians. This book was so much fun to read. I laughed so much - it was such a fun read. I'm looking forward to the next book in this series.
Now our Coo* book club is reading Lud-in-the-Mist. This book is funny too but I don't think it was meant to be funny. Erik and I laugh sometimes at the odd language the author uses.
I also finished A Fortress of Grey Ice by J.V. Jones. I love this series! I can't wait to read the next one.
Speaking of reading, Jenna is reading so well. I'm amazed at how far she has come. She is reading her children's Bible all by herself - she even knew the word Bethlehem!
Jenna is also doing well with Math. Yipee!! They are studying money and her teacher said she was at a second grade level with knowing and writing the different denominations of coins. Maybe she will be a banker or an accountant (we are still hoping for engineer!)
Sarah is also flourishing with school. Sarah can write her name now (although she gets the S backwards a lot) and is doing well with her letters and numbers.
Matthew is still not walking.
Now that Sarah has preschool at 12:30 I can not go to my hip hop class anymore since it starts at 11am. There is not enough time to get Sarah lunch and to school after the class is over. Bummer! I have been doing spinning classes though and that is fun!
I got on the scale and am 3 pounds away from my preferred weight of 123. (for no health reason - I just like the numbers 123). It has taken a long time to lose this weight after Matthew. While I weighed in the 110s in my 20s I would have to eat no chocolate to see that again. And that is NOT going to happen. In fact...
Leftover Halloween candy is good but really not peanut buttery enough. Erik thinks I have a problem. I get a spoonful of peanut butter and dip the candy in it. Reeces cups, snickers, twix (I ate all those by the way), any chocolate covered goodness! Yum!
89 points on Quiddler today

Iron Chef: Corn

2011-10-30T21:25:00.000-04:00

Today was a corny day. Corn was my secret ingredient in Iron chef today and it was a successful iron chef.

I made:

Chicken corn tamales and corn cake. I put chicken, cheese, corn, and tomatoes in corn tortillas and fried them in oil. The tamales were pretty good but a little dry. The corn cakes were yummy and sweet.
Spicy corn dip. This dip was delicious. The corn flavor really shined and I mixed taco sauce and cream cheese and put it in the food processor until it was smooth. I dipped peppers and chips in this yummy dip! Even the girls loved it.
Corn, shrimp, and black bean quesadillas. These were delicious! I put a spicy sauce in the quesadillas as well. Yum!
Carmelized onion, chicken, and corn pizzas. The carmelized onions made this pizza awesome. This pizza was the best thing I made - so many flavors that all worked well together.
Corn and raspberry cheesecake. I almost didn't serve this. I made it but wasn't sure if it would be good. Wow - this was really good. The corn and raspberry worked well together. I was suprised but it was really good and even Erik liked it.

Erik rated me as 15.2 and I rated myself 14.9. The girls even helped. Jenna poured the corn muffins in the tin and Sarah chopped nuts for the dip. They were my little sous chefs.

Last night we went to a Halloween party at the house of one of the kids in Jenna's class. I put on my Princess Leia costume but couldn't get my hair to do the cool bun thing. So I was Princess Leia on a bad hair day.

82 points on Quiddler today

Halloween Parties

2011-10-29T10:13:00.001-04:00

This week has been filled with Halloween/Harvest parties at school. Sarah's party was on Thursday where she trick or treated all around the preschool.

She is my little duck.

Jenna's party was on Friday and I was the party coordinator for her room. In half an hour the kids ate donuts, did a craft, and played a game. We jammed a lot into their party but they had fun.

Jenna is the Spanish girl and Mrs. Rucker is a blue crayon. I don't know who those older people in the back right of the picture are. If I was super talented I would photoshop them out.

But I'm not.

And I'm lazy.

My Mom knows about Sarah's love of mushrooms so she sent Sarah this mushroom growing kit. Every day Sarah looks at it and asks if we can eat mushrooms.

Not yet Sarah!

Sarah's favorite song is Your Hands by J.J.Heller. Here is Sarah's rendition of it. Not quite a perfect rendition but still pretty good I think.

When I do projection at church I often come extra early and practice along with the band. Matthew LOVES music and here is a video of him dancing during the worship songs. The band loves him too.

Of course Matthew is not limited to dancing with worship songs. Here he and Jenna are dancing to Bon Jovi :)

I loved my first week off. It was glorious!

Basically I'm spending all my previous time grading watching Battlestar Galactica.

Here is a top ten list of my favorite characters in Battlestar Galactica

1. Starbuck

2. Everyone else

I love Starbuck's character. She is awesome!

This break from work should be wonderful (reading, eating, baking, and watching TV). Of course I'm taking 2 classes towards another masters degree but I'll still have a lot more free time than usual. Still haven't figured out what my focus area of this masters degree will be yet. I just can't stop doing school :).

62 points on Quiddler

My Rant on peanuts

2011-10-24T14:05:00.001-04:00

Sarah and I had fun making candy corn fudge for her school snack. Sarah carried the fudge into her classroom all excited to share and her teacher looked at it and said "we can't serve this" and gave it back to me.

Huh?

Apparently some candy corn is made in a facility that has nuts (bag didn't say anything). Her preschool is a nut free facility. Seriously people - this is going a little too far. I'm not serving nutty peanut butter nut-bars, I'm serving candy corn on vanilla fudge. Candy corn is pure SUGAR (and some food coloring).

I understand that peanut allergies can be dangerous. Sarah started crying because we couldn't serve the candy corn fudge. I felt so bad. Jenna's first grade class can not have any food for birthday celebrations either.

In addition, they discourage homemade treats at Sarah's preschool. Yes - makes perfect sense to me. Preservative-laden storebought food is much better than homemade!

Nuts! Nuts! Beware!

Evil Mr. Peanut touching Candy Corn! Muhahahahaha

Switching off my rant now to something much more exciting. I have discovered a chocolate chip cookie recipe yummier than my previous recipe - I'm always up for new recipes. Brown butter and sea salt chocolate chip cookies. Oh wow! These are soooooooooooo good. Even the dough was spectacular. I'll be making these more often. Not for preschool but just to eat.

Yum-O

Only 30 points on Quiddler today because I got stuck with no vowels at the end. However I made the word "equaling" probably my best word ever!

The Halloween Spirit

2011-10-20T23:27:00.000-04:00

As promised I'm posting some pictures from our Halloween camping trip. We went camping at Cross Creek Camping Resort which is nice and close. It was our last camping trip of the year and we had an awesome time!

Matthew eating (what else does he do?) at the picnic table. You can see the 4 trash cans full of kindling behind Matthew. Our neighbor cut down their tree and gave us these trash cans full of sticks. I thought it would last all weekend.

Nope.

It lasted 3 hours! 4 trash cans of wood! So we had to get some bigger pieces of wood. We needed fire.

We stuffed ourselves with smores, pizza pies, brats cooked on the fire, not to mention candy! The kids trick or treated all around the campground. We brought a huge bag of 120 pieces of candy from Sams and ran out halfway through trick or treat! The kids got good candy too (aka chocolate, not sweet tarts, tootsie rolls, or dumdums).

Several of the campers decorated their campsites for Halloween - some went all out!

Like these people.

And these people.

We put orange lights around this tree. Go us!

The campground had a picture frame Halloween craft for the kids. The girls loved it.

There was also a costume contest. Matthew was a little unhappy.

Matthew and Daddy enjoying the fire.

This was a great camping year for us. We had so many good trips - hopefully next year will be even better!

67 points on Quiddler today!

October: a pretty cool month

2011-10-17T16:18:00.000-04:00

I like October. It's not too hot, not too cold, the leaves are beautiful and there are an abundance of fall activities. I like fall activities. It is also the beginning of holiday eating (something I truly enjoy!). Note: October is not my favorite month hmmmm.... sounds like another list!

In the past two weeks we went to a Devry fall party, Leeds Farm, Miller's Country Gardens, and a Halloween Camping trip (more on this later). I'd also really like to do Hocking Hills Zip Line in the fall but maybe next year when Matthew is older and not so crazy (I hope next year he's not so crazy). Check out his bear crawl - at some point he will actually walk - then I'll be in trouble!

The girls at the Devry Fall party with their faces painted. Jenna got a flower and Sarah got a star. Her current favorite shirt has a star on it (pictured)

I caught Matthew at the table eating an apple after one of the girls left without finishing it.

The girls on the banana ride at Leeds Farm.

Our family picture at Leeds.

MUD! Matthew, Sarah, and I went to Miller's Country Gardens for Sarah's preschool field trip. It was raining and muddy. We still went on the hayride (in the mud!) and got out and picked two pumpkins (in the mud!). I had to take her shoes off and my shoes off and drive home barefoot!

In other news:

This week is finals week for me. After this week I'm off for November and December - yipee!
We are covering the Jewish Feasts for small group. Each week I've tried to make a traditional Jewish dish. Last week I made cholent which is basically beef, barley, and potato stew. It was so delicious! However I threw most of it away since I'm the only one in the family who liked it. Bummer. So this week for our Jewish study I'm making chicken tortilla bake. Hopefully I won't have to ditch the leftovers!
I've been selected to coordinate the Devry faculty symposium. This is for all faculty across the system and only 12 people are on the committee. I'm so excited I was chosen!
I have also been giving workshops on Saturdays for students and faculty. I'm giving one workshop on Friday titled Microsoft Office tips and tricks and one on Saturday about Microsoft Access. There has been great turnout and I think they have gone well. Hopefully these next two go well too.
90 points on Quiddler today

I need more than spellcheck

2011-10-11T22:37:00.000-04:00

Embarrassment. I think that's my middle name.

Tonight I was teaching Java Graphics and Event Handlers. To illustrate Java graphics I used a timer that would create the illusion of moving a ball across a frame by incrementing the x and y coordinates of the ball by 3 pixels every 25 milliseconds. The event handler would just repaint the screen.

Here is a snippet of my code:
.....
public class MovingBall extends JPanel
{
   //Code here to create variables
   MovingBall()
{
      //Constructor
     }
     //Create inner class for event handler
    private class BallHandler implements ActionListener
    {
    .....

Oh my.

Beautiful Flowers

2011-10-10T14:11:00.000-04:00

Fall is such a beautiful time of year. The leaves are changing color and everywhere you look is so picturesque.

I was going to post my top ten list of favorite trees but realized I never posted my favorite flowers.

Are you kidding?

I know - how could I not post my favorite flowers? This is such an obvious list that I was shocked I didn't have it on my blog! Now you can rest assured knowing my list of favorite flowers.

I have put the pictures in this collage left to right :

Rose (fire and ice rose pictured - beautiful!)
Tulip
Lilac (LOVE the smell, my favorite route to run at OSU went by some beautiful lilac bushes, the smell was so intoxicating - like McDonalds french fries only better and less greasy)
Lily
Pansy
Lily of the valley
Columbine
Geranium
Floxglove
Gladiolus
Orchid
Daisy
Iris
Dahlia
Chrysanthemum

I like more flowers than are on this list (obviously), these are just my top 15 favorite flowers.

On a different note:
I prayed with a student a few weeks ago after class because she was in the hospital. The following week she told me that she was going to have a baby. Wow! She is very young and seemed scared. I gave her some websites and resources, told her I was praying for her and that God had a plan for her and her baby. She sent me an email that said "Hi Gina, thank you so much for your email the other night it really meant the world to me. I had my doubts about continuing my pregnancy but I really feel like with your prayers and support it helped me to come to the right decision to keep my baby. "

Praise God! It's times like these that I know God has me at my job for a reason.

In other news:

I'm reading A Fortress of Grey Ice by J.V.Jones. This is the second book in this series and I love it! When my semester is over I will finish the series.
I recently finished reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. If you have not read this book put it on your reading list. The book challenged me; it's one I could read over and over.
Our Coo* book club is now reading Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson. This book is a young adult book, light reading, and funny. I'm glad we are reading this one - it's a break from The Anubis Gates (which I didn't actually read).
Here is a video of Sarah describing her opinion of OSU and Michigan. She's so adorable.
There are only 2 more weeks left in this difficult semester. Finals week will be crazy for me. I may not sleep the entire week, however next session I'm off completely. What will I do?
68 points on Quiddler today

Blue Princesses

2011-10-05T00:03:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty sure I have a husband. I haven't seen him for awhile but I'm sure he still exists. Someone has to be eating all the chocolate chip cookies (oh that could be me too). Erik has been so busy lately. Last week he didn't get home from a client site until after 7pm and I leave for work at 4pm so the kids were juggled around to a few different places.

It's just going to be crazy for him for the next month or two until the code freezes are in place. This is just how retailers roll.

For me on the other hand, I'm teaching such a wonderful class with wonderful students that I'm on cloud 9! This semester has gone so well. I'm so happy with my class and the students.

To top it off I won tickets to a Blue Jackets game. I never win things. Wow! So Erik can work, work, work but I'm happy as a clam :)

I had to post this picture of Sarah eating melted ham and cheese. I just love the look on her face.

I've reached new heights of crazy mom-dom. I took a picture of Matthew's first ride in the car cart at the grocery store.

I took a picture of Matthew's first ride in the car cart at the grocery store?

What is wrong with me?

Sarah and Jenna went to a princess birthday party. All the little girls were dressed up in cute princess dresses. Blue moon ice cream was served.

Ummmm......

Hoping that oxyclean works wonders.

71 points on Quiddler today

Top 10 Jokes

2011-09-29T13:39:00.000-04:00

I haven't compiled a list of top 10 favorites in awhile so I thought I would give you my list of favorite jokes. The jokes I like are short and silly so don't expect complex riddles or thought provoking puns. These are just short and silly (and possibly one is raunchy). I picked my favorite joke in middle school just like I picked my favorite number (4) when I was 4. I don't change often! deltaGina = null.

When you shower with your clothes on it shows you're crazy, when you shower with your clothes off it shows your nuts.
When is a door not a door? When it's a jar!
An SQL statement walks into a bar and sees two tables. It approaches and asks "may I join you?"
Two snare drums and a cymbal fall of a cliff. Badum ching (you kind of have to say this one out loud).
Why couldn't they play cards on the Ark? Because Noah was standing on the deck!
What is the integral of 1/cabin with respect to cabin? A log cabin!
What did one eye say to the other? Between you and me something smells.
Why did the donut go to the dentist? It needed a chocolate filling!
What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter? Pumpkin pi.
Two peanuts were walking down the street; one was asalted.

Hope that made you smile today!
I'd like to hear your favorite joke :) assuming it is not dumb (ie. two baby seals walk into a club).

83 points on quiddler today.

Camping with Big Marshmallows

2011-09-27T12:41:00.000-04:00

As promised I have some pictures from our camping trip to show. We went camping at Cross Creek Camping resort with the Masts. The weather was wonderful - 70 and sunny with cool temperatures at night (perfect for sitting by the fire!). Erik bought these giant marshmallows for making smores (they were seriously 2-3 times the size of a regular marshmallow) but they were sticky and messy so we opted for regular marshmallows. That was a failed experiment in smore technology.

Sarah and Maddie playing at the campground playground

Jenna and Sarah with Sarah holding her most prized possession: a mushroom!

Jenna and Nicholas at Alum Creek Marina

Tim and the kids "playing" shuffleboard (notice Sarah playing in the stones instead)

Matthew eating his plate at the Chinese restaurant. We went out to a Chinese buffet instead of eating dinner at the campground. Yum!

The cure for all our marital problems: Erik loves caramel and not peanut butter. I love peanut butter and caramel (really I love everything!). So with those huge marshmallows which were useless for smores, I made rice krispie treats with half peanut butter and half caramel topping (and then chocolate on all of it - of course!). Now there will never be an argument over what treat I should make!

Jenna and Sarah licking the beaters for the chocolate caramel cake I made.

Tonight we are starting our Bible study - unfortunately I'm teaching Tuesday nights for the next 4 weeks so I won't be able to attend. I'm still making dinner for everyone though. In fact, I'm so excited for this Bible study!! We are studying the Jewish feasts so I'll be making the food associated with each feast. I bought matzo balls and am making challah tonight. It should be a lot of fun!

Erik has been crazy busy at work though. In fact, I've probably only said 5 words to him in the past week (I'm gone Tues - Thurs). He is always busy Sept. - Oct and then usually retail companies have code freezes for the holidays. So I"m looking forward to November. It should be better for him!

87 points on Quiddler today! And I got to make the word "robing" which was somewhat cool.

News!

2011-09-21T14:19:00.000-04:00

Last week Sarah had her first full week of preschool and it seems she enjoyed it. Each child made a self portrait and the teacher brought Sarah's out to show the rest of the parents how good her self portrait was. I know she is good at drawing (and pretty much everything else except obeying Mommy). It was just nice to hear the teacher praise her!

We also had a great camping trip and I'll post pictures later when I can locate my camera :). I hope I didn't lose this one too. We have gone through 5 cameras in the past 7 years. Dropping them, kids playing with them, and I think I threw one camera away.... and now this one is lost too. Oops.

Matthew and Daddy sitting at the computer together

Erik taking the girls for a bike ride in the wagon (yes they both are in there!)

Now that Jenna can read, she wanted to bake something since she can read recipes! This is her first attempt at making banana muffins. They were really good! The other day we were talking and I mentioned adding flour to a bread recipe and she said "no Mom, most bread recipes have 3 cups of flour." Whoa. How many 6 year olds know the amount of flour in a bread recipe. Yep. She cooks a lot with me.

Sarah ~~making a mess~~ cooking too.

Paige, Jenna, and Sarah all wearing the same dress to church!

Sarah decided to give herself a haircut. I don't know what she was thinking

50 points on Quiddler today. I didn't get credit for the word "grazy". I think that sounds like a word! I feel a little grazy today right?

Ye olde game night

2011-09-12T14:11:00.002-04:00

Last weekend we hosted a board gaming night at our house on Friday and then went to the Ohio Renaissance Festival on Saturday. It was a wonderful weekend. Especially since I won every game I played :).

We had four gaming tables going and around 14 people which was an excellent turnout! I had a great time and even got to play (and win!) agricola, which is a game I really like.

Stacy, Todd, and Joe seriously studying the game board.

Matt play the same game as above and another gaming table in the background

My 3 brownie recipes I had people rate. Hershey's, King Arthur Flour, and Prepared Pantry were the three brownie mixes I used. Hershey's (the cheapest) won!

On Saturday we all packed up and went to the RenFest! Erik and Matthew did not dress up (we didn't have a costume for him) but the girls and I dressed up. We went with Jon and Michelle and their friend Emily, Aaron and Michele and little Vina, and Matt (Bogg from D&D) and Allison.

It was HOT but we had a wonderful time seeing the Mudd show, watching the full armor joust, and riding rides (well... the kids rode rides, not Erik or I). All in all - it was a wonderful weekend!

Aaron, Michele, and Vina Hager. Yes she is a Viking baby girl

Matthew getting frisky??

Matthew playing on the steps at the Ren Fest

Sarah riding a pony

Jenna riding a pony

Jon and Michelle at the RenFest

An instrument composed of bells. We got to hear him play - that was very different and clangorous as Jon mentioned.

84 points on quiddler today

Mushrooms and school

2011-09-08T13:30:00.003-04:00

On Tuesday we celebrated our 14 year anniversary! Rather than show some pictures of what we look like now :), here are some oldies but goodies!

I have a picture from my shower when I lived at my apartment with Julie when we were at OSU.

I wish I knew who most of those people were. I don't remember and I didn't write anyone's name down. I'm sad about that.

I also have a picture of Erik at the Ren Fest the first time we went wearing chain mail. Yes that's Erik. Doesn't he look SOOOOO young! And so good too!

In addition to our anniversary, this week was also exciting since Sarah had her first day of preschool on Wednesday. Since she is Sarah she did not want to pose for any pictures but I snapped a few pictures of her anyway. After school I made her a cake in the shape of a mushroom (it's what she asked for). And Erik made shrimp for dinner since that's her favorite food. Mushrooms and shrimp and melted cheese. She could live on those foods alone!

This week has been my second week of teaching my engineering class. In the 12 years I have taught here I have never had so much fun as I have had in these past two weeks. I might see if I can move departments (yes after two weeks!). I'm just absolutely loving this class.

73 points on Quiddler today!

Which model is my husband?

2011-09-01T23:29:00.005-04:00

This week was my first week teaching my new class. And I LOVED IT!

Thanks to my Mom coming to watch the kids a few days I was able to get all the labs done and the syllabus. I still have to do the lectures but I can do that as I go.

Next week I get to teach regex to the engineering students.

I might weep. Tears of joy!

Jenna's first full week at school went really well. She likes gym more this year which is a positive. She also has HOMEWORK! With me being gone nights it is harder to help her with homework but I'm sure Daddy will remember .

Since the weather has been so nice, we've ridden our bikes to Handels often. In fact, we rode to Handels 3 times in one week. And all three times I got a hot fudge brownie sundae with chocoholic chunk ice cream. Ohhhh yea! Which really gives me a net benefit of -2 miles ridden due to all the calories.

We have also started watching Battlestar Galactica. From watching this show, I have realized something that 14 years of marriage has not taught me....

My husband is a cylon.

I'm almost positive of this. I'll be working on proof soon.

We snapped a family picture and even though 2/3 of the kids are not looking I like the picture.

48 points on Quiddler today

Nerxitement!

2011-08-24T20:16:00.001-04:00

Nerxitement. I've coined the word. That's how I feel right now.

I've just been assigned a new course starting next semester (ummm.... Tuesday) and it is a high level Java class. I'm SOOOO excited and nervous. That's nerxitement. Not only is it Java but I'll be teaching the engineering students. I've always wanted to teach higher level courses to the engineering students. Now - I get to. Now I am excited and nervous. Nervous enough to eat almost a whole bag of peanut M&Ms. Yikes!

Jenna was also nervous since today was her first day of First Grade.

Jenna's first day at school with her teacher Mrs. Rucker.

It was not a good morning. While pushing the double stroller to school (we are walkers), it collapsed. With Matthew and Sarah in it. And I fell on top of it. SCARY! I was so worried about them but they were okay. Sarah's hand was caught but other than that they seemed okay. Praise God.

Then halfway through the walk to school Jenna's feet hurt. So I had to go back and get her tennis shoes.

When we finally got home, Matthew got into the Jello in our pantry and spread it all over the kitchen floor and crawled on the carpet with red cherry sticky jello.

I shampooed the carpet but you can still see little red spots. It was a rough day. Jenna had a good time at school though. Another Praise God!

I hope the rest of the school year goes better.

Jenna and Sarah after playing Pretty, Pretty Princess. Yes..this is a game.

Matthew playing Pretty, Pretty Princess too. We might need some trucks.

Matthew eating Jello. Erik said it wasn't a good idea.

Matthew sleeps with his rear end in the air. I caught a picture of him hugging his teddy bear too.

65 points on Quiddler today.

ABBA and Books

2011-08-19T15:18:00.006-04:00

Matthew loves dancing to music. Especially to ABBA but don't tell Erik. We often turn on Dancing Queen and bust a move (I wonder if that sentence has ever been written before...). He would be happy with music and blueberries. He's a pretty happy guy.

I like music and reading. On to some books I've recently finished:

We finished our COO* book club book Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. This book was good but not as good as the Name of the Wind, and certainly not as good as the Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Thus I was surprised to see NPR's rating of the top Sci-Fi & Fantasy books and the Kingkiller Chronicles was number 8: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books above many of my favorites. The writing is superb in Rothfuss's books, bordering on poetry rather than prose.

Here is a little excerpt from The Name of the Wind "

On the edge of the water were a pair of waystones, their surfaces silver against the black of the sky, the black of the water. One stood upright, a finger pointing to the sky. The other lay flat, extending into the water like a short stone pier.

No breath of wind disturbed the surface of the water. So as we climbed out onto the fallen stone the stars reflected themselves in double fashion; as above, so below. It was as if we were sitting amid a sea of stars.

We spoke for hours, late into the night. Neither of us mentioned our pasts. I sensed that there were things she would rather not talk about, and by the way she avoided questioning me, I think she guessed the same. We spoke of ourselves instead, of fond imaginings and impossible things. I pointed to the skies and told her the names of stars and constellations. She told me stories about them I had never heard before.

My eyes were always returning to Denna. She sat beside me, arms hugging her knees. Her skin was more luminous than the moon, her eyes wider than the sky, deeper than the water, darker than the night."

Isn't that beautiful? The writing is witty, descriptive but not overly so, and engaging. Even so, the story is not one that I just can't put down like the Way of Kings.

I also finished A Dance With Dragons by GRRM. He did not fail to deliver! This book was excellent and stretched wide geographically. We had several POV chapters from Jon, Dany, Bran, Arya, and Tyrion which were excellent. And of course, there were cliffhangers and plot twists. I'm anxious for the next book! And who are Jon Snow's parents??? Lots of theories about his lineage that is sounding very interesting....

74 points on Quiddler today

R&R

2011-08-16T10:54:00.000-04:00

Last weekend Erik took the kids to his parents house and left me all alone.

all alone.

On Saturday, I woke up at 9am, taught my class (the reason I had to stay here), went to Starbucks and read my book and drank a mocha, went to Lifetime and swam a mile then sat in the hot tub, ate lobster bisque from costco for dinner, ate an enormous amount of chocolate for dessert, watched Big Bang Theory reruns, read my book, and had a glorious day.

A glorious, relaxing day!

I love my kids so much. But this day was fabulous. I woke up whenever I wanted, ate whatever I wanted, and did whatever I wanted.

Back to reality!

79 points on Quiddler today

Chocolate weekend!

2011-08-12T17:03:00.000-04:00

Chocolate + camping = awesomeness!

Last weekend was chocolate weekend at Buckeye Lake KOA and we took the family and some friends camping there. It was an awesome time! Really awesome! We ate smores, chocolate at the chocolate fountain, and chocolate chip pancakes. Then they had a chocolate slip and slide too - but I did not take part in that :).

This is all of us! The Stoutenburgs: Lynn, Joe, Lauren (6), and Jacob (3 1/2), the Prices: Tricia, Nick, Addie (2 1/2) and Tyson (11 months), and Us!

The kids on the seesaws. They actually had fun!

Lynn and Jacob on the jumping pillow.

The girls playing in the sand.

Sarah riding the bike. I can see her on a Harley someday, can't you? Hopefully she will weigh more than 28lbs.

Lauren in the chocolate slip and slide! My girls did not want to do it :)

And this mess....After we got home, I was sick on the couch for two days. I don't know how I got it but somehow I got the flu. I left the kids alone to make all the mess they want and when I looked- the playroom looked like this.... like this!! Now I'm feeling better - time to start cleaning!

75 points on Quiddler today.

Iron Chef: Cilantro

2011-07-31T13:52:00.000-04:00

Erik took all three kids to the store to buy my secret ingredient. I was a little concerned since he said Matthew screamed the entire time at the store that he would just pick something at random for my secret ingredient (dirt, motor oil, brussel sprouts....), but he picked something awesome: cilantro!

Of course Erik loves Mexican food so what do you expect?

This iron chef was very successful for me. I made:

Avodoco skins. You may have seen potato skins at a restaurant as an appetizer. Well I put a twist on that and hollowed out an avocodo, put bacon, tomatoes, avocodo, and onion to fill it. Then covered it with cheddar cheese and baked it to melt the cheese. This was delicious and Erik said he could see it at a Mexican restaurant as an appetizer!
Crab cilantro nachos. I loved this dish (I love all things crab!). I combined crab, cilantro, cream cheese, and cheddar and heated it. Then provided a fresh salsa to mix with the hot crab dip. This mixture topped the chips and was fancy yet yummy.
Cilantro pork quesadillas with black bean salsa. This was a very pretty dish (Erik gave me 5 points for plating!). I cooked pork with a cilantro, paprika, cayenne powder rub. Then used the pork in quesadillas with cheddar cheese and additional cilantro. Then I made a black bean salsa to pair it with. The salsa was fantastic and so fresh. I mixed black beans, corn, tomatoes, green pepper, red pepper, onion, lime juice, and (of course) cilantro. This dish was delicious - Jenna's favorite.
Cilantro pesto. Erik and I love pesto. Traditional pesto with basil, olive oil, garlic, pecorino romano, and pine nuts. We love to just throw it in the food processor and you have a nice topping for pasta or sandwiches. Well instead of using basil, I wanted to try this with cilantro. At first I just substituted cilantro for basil and kept the same ingredients. That wasn't happening. I mixed a few other things (white wine vinegar, avocodo) anything to make it taste good but it just didn't. Then I had to resort to asking ~~Erik~~ my sous chef for help. He suggested lime juice. Well I didn't want to use lime juice since I had already used it with the pork quesadillas but I added lime juice.That's what it needed. How interesting - no wonder lime is often paired with cilantro. It complemented the flavor enough to make the dish edible :). It wasn't nearly as good as traditional pesto but we still liked it.

This was one of Erik's favorite Iron chef competitions. My favorite was blueberries :). So our last two iron chef competitions have been really successful. Hopefully the next one will be just as successful!

Usually when we do iron chef we have tons of leftovers. This was no exception but I also had another idea. I had seen a recipe for avocodo chocolate mousse and wanted to try it (since we had an abundance of avocodos). I used 1 avocodo, 1 cup cocoa powder, 2/3 cup honey, and 1 tblsp vanilla extract. It was good but needed a little milk to thin it out. Wow was this dark! It was yummy with a good texture and interesting flavor. It was also much healthier using avocodas as a base than heavy cream. I'd like to try this again and experiment a little more to see if I can get it right. I might experiment on my friends Tim and Jen which is what I did last weekend.

Last week I tried to perfect my chocolate caramel bars. It is a recipe I created from bringing together a few different recipes in my cookbooks.

I made this chocolate caramel bar recipe 5 times. In one week. 5 times. Yep - I think I'll be heading to the gym this week. Anyway, I think I've come upon a recipe I like and am planning on submitting it to a contest.
I've submitted my mounds bar chocolate bread recipe and my snowtopped brownie recipes to contests before but didn't win. Both of those I made several iterations of until I perfected it. Erik likes it when I try to perfect recipes but then if it is something he really likes, I usually don't make it all that often after I perfect it. Of course, I did perfect my chocolate chip cookie recipe and I make those every other week.

The best thing is that I got to make the word "baking" today on Quiddler! 56 points!

My winnings in Vegas!

2011-07-26T23:11:00.000-04:00

I did not win tons of money in Las Vegas. In fact, I won no money since I did not gamble at all.

It's not really my thing.

Food is.

And Vegas has SOOOO much good food. Erik and I stuffed ourselves silly for just about every meal. We had to lay down after some of them. Now that's a good meal.

Most of the time we went to the Monte Carlo buffet (since that is where we were staying and who wants to walk a lot in the 102°F weather) and the MGM Grand because that one is close too.

Here is how we would rate the buffets we had in Vegas:

Cosmopolitan Wicked Spoon buffet $35 per person (yikes!). But ohhhhh so good!
Paris $25 per person. Amazing food from all over not just France. Still had lots and lots of heavy cream
MGM Grand $18 per person. I ate a lot of sushi, pasta, desserts and pretty much everything else
Monte Carlo $18 per person. Love the cheese blintzes!

Oh and my presentation went well too. The conference was great and I learned so much. It made me long for an opportunity to do bioinformatics research....

We even got to see our old friend Nick

He looks exactly the same as he did 14 years ago when we got married. Of course he just ran a marathon and I guess that will keep you young. Check it out:

Then we came home to this.

We missed the kids so much. It was so hard for us me to leave them for so long. I was so grateful to my parents for watching them the entire time. It was a nice getaway for us.

42 points on quiddler today. Very poor showing!

Our Adventures

2011-07-16T22:10:00.000-04:00

The women from our home group had a girls camping trip at Alum Creek State park. We had a beautiful site that looked out on the water (see picture). We stayed up until 1am talking, sitting by the fire, and eating smores (that's pretty much an awesome existence).

We got up in the morning and went out on my friend Jen's parent's boat. She had an inflatable lazy boy chair that was tied to a rope on the back of the boat called "Big Mabel". I LOVED Big Mabel! We sat in Big Mabel and jumped and bumped and got splashed. It was like a rollercoaster on the water. We had a blast!

Now we are looking for more adventure!

Since we had Matthew we have not been able to take a family bike ride. Erik can put the girls in the bike trailer but what do we do with Matthew? So we got a baby seat for the back of my bike. Today we rode a 4 mile round trip to Handels (obviously we need ice cream to cancel out the exercise) and it was a blast! Matthew did really well in the baby seat although he spent the entire time (the ENTIRE time) trying to get his helmet off. I hope we can have more bike rides because this was a lot of fun!

Another fun thing our family has been doing is the Summer Letterbox program through the Delaware County Preservation Parks. These consist of a scavenger hunt through the park to find specific items (a particular tree, a type of prairie grass, bird calls, etc) and at the end we find a box with a stamp in it. We stamp our little book to show we finished that park. There are 6 parks and we have done 4 of them. Every Saturday we've been going to a new park. This has been a fun family adventure.

89 points on Quiddler today and I got to make the word "Riven". Like Knights of the Riven Moon - our EQ2 guild - I miss you all!!

Dancing

2011-07-14T11:43:00.000-04:00

Last week I started back to work and am teaching 4 classes and taking 1 class for my MBA (no, I don't have enough school yet!)

On Saturday we took the ~~girls~~ kids (why can't I ever remember we have a boy) to a nature preserve and went on a 2 mile hike.

I got back from a Girls camping trip yesterday at Alum Creek and we had an incredible time boating on the water. I got burnt to a crisp but had the time of my life.

Details and pictures of all this later!

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin came in the mail today. It is calling to me, beckoning me..... can't you hear it too?

I'll be dancing for the next few days :)

Iron Chef: Blueberries!

2011-07-06T21:52:00.000-04:00

Blueberries are quite possibly the most perfect fruit. I love them. Matthew could eat his weight in blueberries (that's a lot of weight by the way). And that was my secret ingredient for Iron Chef this weekend.

Blueberries.

Could it get any better?

This was a very successful iron chef for me. In fact, I was very pleased with all my dishes - they were yummy (ummmm....blueberries are awesome!).

I made:

Blueberry basil smoothie. This is an odd flavor combination that you don't see often yet it worked. The basil complemented the blueberry and it was very refreshing. I used yogurt but I think it would have been better with ice cream. I just didn't have any on hand. If I was in kitchen stadium I would have had ice cream but Gina's Kitchen is not as well stocked.
Apple Blueberry Chutney with crackers. I love mango chutney and thought I would put a twist on traditional mango chutney but using an apple blueberry combination with apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, onions, and cinnamon. It was pretty good but Erik didn't like it that much. He thought the flavors clashed.
Blueberry cinnamon pork chops with blueberry orzo. Blueberry pork chops?? Ohhh yea! These were SO good. I made a blueberry sauce with lemon juice, jam, cinnamon and butter. Then I coated the pork chops with bread crumbs mixed with cinnamon. The sweetness of the breading and the sauce went well with the pork chops. I also made orzo and mixed the blueberry sauce with the orzo too. It was a really good dish - even Erik loved it!
Blueberry nectarine crepes. I made traditional crepes then topped them with blueberry nectarine cheese mixture. This was delicious, light, and pretty easy. I put blue sugar on top as a decoration but the blue sugar kind of melted and made the crepes look a little green. Next time - no blue sugar.
Red, White, and Blueberry shortcake. So this dessert was just plain fabulous. I made yellow cake and put in a little lemon extract to give it a nice lemon flavor. Then I cut the cake in half and filled it with pudding, red raspberries, blueberries, and white raspberries (Erik found these at the store - totally cool). To top it off, I made blueberry whip cream with blueberry gelatin. This was such a hit and a fun dessert. The blueberry whip cream was surprisingly good too.

This iron chef was so much fun.

Now I have to think of a good secret ingredient for Erik....

59 points on Quiddler today!

100100

2011-07-03T15:47:00.000-04:00

My friend Lynn from Dale Lynn Photography took fabulous pictures of the kids at Innis Woods Gardens. It is a beautiful place and the pictures turned out great. Innis Woods is going on our list of frequently visited places - I had no idea something so beautiful was this close to me.

My birthday is coming up soon and Erik made a scavenger hunt with post-it notes so that I could find all my gifts. He put riddles like "I make little waves" to give me a clue that the next clue was in the microwave. It was AWESOME! And I got cake pans, a cake carrier, and a new frying pan. This was so much fun.

Then we had ice cream cake for lunch (yes that's all I ate for lunch). We didn't have 36 candles so Erik wrote 36 on the cake in binary.

Yes in binary.

100100

In even more exciting news, we got a fish tank and two fish. Sarah named her fish "mushroom" and Jenna named her fish "Jenna". Now we have to remember to feed the fish everyday.

79 points on Quiddler today!

Matthew is 1!

2011-06-25T23:53:00.000-04:00

While we celebrated Matthew's birthday this weekend camping, his actual birthday was Monday. I snapped the obligatory picture of him with his designated animal: a horse. I took a picture of Sarah and Jenna in the same dresses when they turned 1. I did not put him in the dress. It was hard enough to get him to stay still long enough for the picture (and get all the other kids/cat out of the picture!).

Several times this summer we have driven by lemonade stands.

I always stop.

I'm a sucker for mildly warm watered down lemonade that kids are selling by the side of the road. Jenna said she wanted to have a stand selling something like cookies. I thought that was a great idea and showed some entrepreneurial spirit.

So we made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies (Jenna read all the ingredients and did a great job figuring out how to double - except for fractions of course). Then we set up the cookie stand for about 2 hours. 50cents for 1 or 3 for a dollar. Jenna made $5.50. The neighbor girl came by and bought a dollars worth of cookies so I let her be in the picture :).

Star Wars is a pretty big deal at our house. So Matthew's shirt, which reads "Judge me by my size do you? Size matters not". Is practically the most wonderful shirt ever made. He may not think so as you can tell from his grumpy expression in this picture.

I also realized I never got a picture of the 3rd seat Erik installed in the Explorer. He is an amazing handyman as you can tell from this picture! Really - how cool is it to install a third seat! We had discussed buying an Expedition when our Taurus dies for extra room but now we have it. Thanks honey!

We happened to be at the zoo when they were doing a puppet show and the kids loved it.

This week has been a good week. I've eaten ice cream every day this week. Summer = lots of ice cream. Yipee!

75 points today on Quiddler

Buggies, Beards, and Baked goods

2011-06-21T14:02:00.000-04:00

This weekend we had a fun-filled camping trip to Amish Country. We went a few years ago to Amish Country campsites with the Masts and we stayed at the same place this year. I love their free firewood - it's all bits and pieces of Amish furniture and some have really interesting shapes. Sarah found one that looked like a unicorn horn and she went around dolling out unicorn power to everyone.

On Friday we went to Rolling Ridge Ranch. Here we rode on a rickety wagon with a lively Amish driver who pointed out all the animals to us. We also each got a bucket of feed for the animals. Mine was gone within 10 minutes since one of the animals grabbed it out of my hands! The kids absolutely loved this trip. The animals came right up to the wagon and Sarah especially loved to feed them out of her hand. Sarah has always had a love of animals though. The kids even got to drive the wagon! See the picture of Jenna steering the horses.

We also went to Lehman's and Heini's and Amanda came too! We spent a lot of money at both places and stuffed ourselves with cheese. Erik bought 7 different kinds of cheese. We have a lot of cheese-eating in our future.

We love the atmosphere of Amish country too. There are so many buggies, beards, and baked goods. You just can't go wrong.

On this camping trip we also celebrated Matthew's first birthday. I made a caterpillar cake out of cupcakes for all the kids. There are 6 kids between us and the Masts so we needed a lot of cupcakes. Luckily I had just enough with 1 to spare.

On Saturday we went to my parents house to celebrate Matthew's birthday with them. I made a "1" cake for him to eat. He dug right in! I remember when Jenna turned 1 she was so tentative and didn't want to make a mess. Matthew had no such qualms. I had to give him a bath afterwards. Yuck!

Of course we got to sit by the campfire and make smores. Yum! Jen brought coconut marshmallows. Roasting coconut marshmallows and putting dark chocolate and graham crackers on them was divine!

The only downside of our trip was that I forgot my prayer journal. Too bad because I need it.

66 points on Quiddler and I made the word "nth"!

Hubby is back!

2011-06-12T22:22:00.000-04:00

Erik came home tonight from his yearly Man Trip. He went kayaking in Michigan, something he has never done before. Unfortunately he didn't put sunblock on his legs and now half of his legs are red. You can see a nice line where his shorts ended!

The guys traditionally do something adventurous and exciting - we sit in the hot tub on the Girls trip. Erik always has such a fun time and I like to plan a special dinner for him when he comes back.

I made bleu cheese and bacon hamburgers with garlic grape tomatoes and a side of baked potatoes. Then for dessert I tried something complex. I wanted to make this:

It is a layered chocolate mousse with alternating layers of chocolate and caramel mousse. This required 5 pans/bowls because the number of steps required. Rather than getting that beautiful layered look. This is what I got:

That is obviously not the look I was going for. It was tasty but not at all a beautiful layered dessert.

I also thought I would upload some more Disney photos. I love this picture of the girls with Belle. They are looking at her with rapt attention. I wish they paid attention to Mommy that way.

Here is also a picture of Erik taking Matthew behind the waterfall. In 2009 we played several water games. We had a blast this year playing water games too. I used to force Missy to play games with me in the water when all the time I just needed Erik. Too bad I didn't know him back when we were 12.

This year the water was a little warm too. It was 98 degrees and just too hot to be refereshing. So I thought we should just go get a few bags of ice and dump them in the water. Erik wasn't sure so he did some calculations and determined it would take 3100 pounds of ice to cool the pool down 10 degrees.

This is why I love him.

He is a nerd and so good looking.

Not sure why he married me! Maybe it is my love of water competition too.

Only 29 points on Quiddler today :(

It's a hot world

2011-06-09T11:37:00.000-04:00

Monday at 10pm we got home from Florida. We left our beautiful tropical paradise to come to Ohio. Even though I love Ohio, the house we stayed at in Florida was gorgeous. And we went to.... Disney World!

It was Sarah and Erik's first time at Disney world and we all had a blast. We got autographs from Lady Tremaine (Cindrella's Stepmother), Princess Tiana, Princess Jasmine, Ariel, Cinderella, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty. The actresses playing those characters really did a great job. The Cinderella actress told the girls they acted like great sisters and that they could give her sisters some lessons on manners. How cute :).

We rode several rides including It's a Small World. Erik has never been to Disney and had always heard about It's a Small World. He was excited to ride it but after a few minutes looking at all the little dolls with their painted faces singing the same song over and over, we looked at each other and both thought it was a little creepy. As a child I thought it was awesome though.

Our Disney trip was fun but it was 95 degrees outside and Sarah dropped her ice cream on the ground which resulted in screaming. Missy labeled it "icecream gate 2011." We all got a little sunburned too.

Not only did we go to Disney World, but we went to a waterpark with a lazy river, slides, and a big pool. Everyone had fun at the waterpark. We also ate mozzarella sticks as a snack which the girls thought was fantastic. We didn't buy any toys at Disney, rather we bought toys at Downtown Disney and ate at the Rainforst cafe. Again, Sarah was scared at the Rainforest Cafe when there was an indoor "thunderstorm". Matthew didn't seem to mind.

Since I'm obsessed with cupcake earrings (yes I know I have a problem), I bought 3 pairs of cupcake earrings at Disney! Now I can wear tons of cupcake earrings :).

Jenna had her last Daisy Scout meeting of the year at a place called the Glass Slipper. It is a quaint little house that hosts birthday and bridal shower teas. Jenna wants her birthday party there but I don't really want to pay that much. Maybe if we win in Vegas.....

97 points today in Quiddler and I got to make the word "quoting"

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

2011-06-08T20:39:00.001-04:00

We visited Grandma and Grandpa Cooper over Memorial Day weekend and had a great time. Grandpa Cooper has a huge train set that the girls love - especially Sarah. Matthew also got so excited my camera couldn't capture the shot. Check out the picture of him flailing - how cute :).

Of course if I was a real photoshop expert I would photoshop his hands in but I'm not that good. Or really any good at all.

I also snapped a really cute picture of Erik and Matthew playing. That is just too sweet.

Tuesday (yesterday) was Jenna's last day of Kindergarten. She is now officially a first grader. Kindergarten is okay. First grade just sounds old. I can't believe she is so grown up now. I also don't think I was reading as well as she is now when I finished kindergarten. Of course it's hard to remember since that was just a few years ago (just a FEW!).

She made a Turtle book and a turtle ceramic in art class. The turtle book was a result of research. The teacher gave them books to read about turtles. They took facts they learned from the books and made their own books. I was impressed she was doing research already.

Next she'll be attending conferences with me giving presentations about education or bioinformatics or something like that.

Matthew's First Birthday is coming up and I am having difficulty deciding the kind of cake to make for him (this is obviously very important). I made a lady bug cake for Jenna and a bumblebee cake for Sarah. Those were easy because we had given them those nicknames. We don't really have a suitable nickname for Matthew. So I'm having trouble deciding on a good cake to make.

Please take my very important poll to determine the cake to make:

http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/LTk1NjY4MDczNQ/web

Or if you want to text (because who doesn't want to text to vote for my awesome poll!) text a number to 37607

Make a live audience poll at Poll Everywhere

72 points on Quiddler today.

Little bo peep has lost her pattycake

2011-05-30T22:41:00.000-04:00

The culmination of one year of rigorous ballet lessons for the girls occurred last weekend with the annual recital. No it wasn't rigorous. In fact, most every week Sarah just stood there rather than doing her pattycake routine.

Will Sarah do ballet next year? Maybe or maybe not.

Jenna however absolutely loves ballet and the recital best of all. Jenna was Little bo peep and had fun dancing at the recital. Nana, Papa, Aunt Missy, and Aunt Amanda all came to the recital. It was perfect except when Matthew spit up all over Papa!

In other news:

Erik installed the third seat in the explorer. I'll have to take a picture sometime. The girls love riding backwards. Remember this? YAAAAA BABY!
Today Erik rode his bike and took the girls in the trailer to Handels and I drove my car. I haven't ridden a bike since I was 32 weeks pregnant with Matthew. That's a long time plus I don't have a seat for him to ride, plus I didn't want to because it's hot.
Today also Matthew ate his poop. Yes. He. Did. Nasty! It required an emergency bath.
87 points on quiddler today and I got to make the word "gander"!

11 months - let's go to the zoo!

2011-05-25T22:25:00.000-04:00

Matthew is 11 months old now. Really. 11 months old! He will be a year on June 20. How exciting! To celebrate we went to the zoo. I got pictures of all three kids at the habitat house at the zoo.

It was a beautiful day and we've been enjoying the weather. Of course it is also raining, thunderstorming and tornadoeing (if that is a word). Tonight I had to tuck in the girls multiple times because they were scared. Erik was off playing racquetball or he would have taken some of the tucking in duties. I told them before bed that there might be a tornado so I'd have to wake them up and take them downstairs.

Well that was not my brightest moment.

They couldn't sleep. They wanted me to sing songs, pray with them, and sleep with them because they were scared. Next time, I'll just wait and see if there is a tornado.

Today I did another "not bright" thing. Maybe this time off of work is reducing my brain cells. Anyway, I put Matthew in his high chair and got lunch ready for the girls. As I was fixing lunch I look over at him and he is standing up facing the other direction leaning out of the high chair.

I didn't get there in time.

He fell out of the high chair and landed on the linoleum head first. Poor guy. We need to strap him in all the time now. He is too agile! He will make a good ranger in EQ2.

In other news:

I took Sarah to the metropark Wildlife Exploration program. It is her third program and if she attends 5 programs she gets a nifty badge. I went with my friend Jen and my friend Candi and their kids. We had a great time!
My two MBA classes are going well. I had a midterm this week in accounting which was fun. It's much easier than teaching classes. I might just be a perpetual student.
Speaking of my session off - why am I so behind on everything? I had this great idea that I would clean and do laundry and be all caught up on everything, run 5ks every day, redesign my website, yada, yada, yada. I haven't done any of it. This vacation is going by tooooo fast.
I am currently reading a few books -
Wise Mans Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. This is for our COO* book club. I like this story and am excited to hear what happens to the main character. He is a good storyteller.
A Cavern of Black Ice by J.V. Jones. I waited 2 months for this book at the library since they only have 1 copy. When I finally got it I didn't read it right away then had to take it back since I had a *few* fines. Now I finally got it again. Yipee! I'm excited for this book.
The Dispossessed by Ursual K. LeGuin. I picked this book up again and it is very political. Still a good story though - I want to see who wins, the capitalists or the anarchists.
Books I just finished -
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan. This is a new series after the Percy Jackson series. I really enjoyed this book. It was fun and quick.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark. This was such a neat book set in England in the 1800s. It really was Pride and Prejudice meets a fantasy world. I liked the book but I know it is not for everyone.
The Judgement by Beverly Lewis. This was a great book and the start of a new series by Beverly Lewis. She draws you into the Amish world and I always wish I was part of it! Of course Erik says I couldn't have internet access or my droid. Bummer.

67 points on quiddler today!

Why Dinner is late

2011-05-19T12:04:00.000-04:00

I'm making pasta for dinner but need a pan so I'll empty the dishwasher. Emptying the dishwasher. No Matthew put the plate back in, stop playing in the water. PUT DOWN THE KNIFE!

Finally get a pan and the water started boiling.

Sarah walks in. "Mommy can I have a snack?" No we are eating dinner soon. "AAAH".

Jenna walks in. Must don my Armor of Constant Questions.
Mommy have you tried laffy taffy? Yes
How old were you when you tried laffy taffy? I have no idea
Were you 7 years old when you tried laffy taffy? Possibly.
Why does Aunt Missy have great teeth? She probably flosses and brushes a lot
What did people do before toothpaste and floss were invented? Maybe had bad teeth?
Can I pray for good teeth? Sure
What is a number that rhymes with 8 but is not 8? 38
Can I paint? No we are going to eat soon.

*sigh*

Water is not boiling yet.

I hear screaming in the background. "MOMMY Change my diaper!". Sarah you are potty trained....oh no.... Did you have an accident?

Clean up Sarah's accident. Water is boiling over. Add pasta to the pan.

"Mommy Matthew is up the stairs!" I run up the stairs and there is dirt everywhere. Matthew is smiling his most mischevious smile as he plays in the dirt from the plant. Pick up Matthew and remember to close the gate.

Get dustbuster and clean up the dirt that is now all over the carpet and stairs.

Jenna walks in again
Mommy did you know that Daddy had a mane coon cat? Yes we think Rocky was a mane coon cat too.
Was his fur waterproof? I don't know do mane coon cats have waterproof fur?
Sarah chimes in: "My fur is waterproof" Sarah you don't have fur.
"Yes my clothes are fur"
Jenna: When she takes off her clothes she is an ugly cat. Sarah is not an ugly cat. Ugly cats have no fur and some people are allergic to cat fur so these cats make nice pets for those people.
Are some people not allergic to anything? Yes. I think the pasta is done - let's go see.

Pasta is all stuck together because I didn't stir it enough.

Sarah: "I don't like pasta. I don't want pasta for dinner" You like pasta.

Who wants red sauce and who wants butter on their noodles?

"Butter!!" *sigh*

I remember I have 3 kids. Where is Matthew? Sarah: "No Matthew NO! Matthew is eating my polly pockets".

Is it in his mouth? Did he swallow it? No - fine. Let's get dinner on the table.

Who is going to put the napkins on the table and who is going to put the forks?

Jenna: I want to put napkins on the table. Sarah: "I want to put napkins on the table".

An argument ensues. We must divide the duties so that Jenna puts two forks and two napkins on the table and Sarah puts two forks and two napkins on the table.

Finally the pasta is done and the sauce/butter is on it and we are ready to eat. Girls go call Daddy to dinner! Sticky pasta that is late - yum yum!

Camping 2011

2011-05-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we went on our first camping trip of the season and Matthew's first camping trip ever! We camped at Buckeye Lake KOA, which is a fun place to camp. The sites have large, mature trees, there is a huge jumping pillow for the kids as well as a pool and playground, and they have many activities - hello ice cream social!

We had a fabulous time. Matthew crawled around in the mud all weekend and the girls ate smores and got all sticky (see picture). This was a really great camping trip. Erik took a nice long nap and I got to read some of my book (which is way overdue at the library!).

Here is a picture of Matthew in our camper as well as a picture of all 3 kids piled in the back of the Explorer. This is something we won't have to do much longer since we just got our third seat for the Explorer! Yipee! Erik will have to install it and once he does, we won't have to squish anymore.

After the fun filled weekend we were a little tired and I may have forgotten to close the gate to our stairs. This oversight led to Matthew climbing up the stairs and playing in the plant's dirt. He made a tremendous mess and the girls were quick to correct him (I think correcting Matthew is Sarah's favorite thing to do).

Since I've had this session off from working, one would assume I would have the house spotless and the laundry all caught up. Ummm.... no. I'm still behind on everything. EVERYTHING! Although I have been going to bed around 11 or 11:30 something I normally didn't do (if I go to bed before 12:34 it's an early night). So I'm more rested but other than that - I'm still behind on cleaning!

97 points on Quiddler today and I got to make the word "aching".

I couldn't pick one thing!

2011-05-08T19:43:00.001-04:00

Every night at dinner we all share our favorite things of the day. Erik usually shares something about a process or program he got working for his job, Jenna often says "seeing Daddy" (yes she is a daddy's girl!), Sarah's favorite thing is nonsense 96% of the time, and I usually pick a favorite thing from the day. Today I couldn't pick. Yes, that's right. There were too many good things today that I couldn't just pick one!

This morning I woke up to Erik making pancakes. He made pancakes for me that spelled "MOM". What an awesome guy. Who doesn't love pancakes?

Then we went to church where I got to do projection. I really like doing projection (projecting the words to the songs on the screen) so that made me happy.

Next we came home to Erik making pasta for lunch. Yum! I love pasta! I also ate leftover cookies from the wedding we went to last night. My cousin Angie got married yesterday, and instead of a useless wedding favor, we all got empty boxes (sounds useless, but wait....). There was a cookie buffet and everyone filled their boxes with an assortment of cookies. I stuffed mine full (I mean full!) of cookies. This was the best wedding favor ever! Of course her parents own a bakery so a cookie buffet is not too outlandish.

Next the girls and I went on a wildflower walk at one of the metroparks. We were led by a park guide who showed us the different wildflowers and told us which ones to stay away from and which ones were edible (I will probably them up). The girls loved it!

When we got home, Erik had put all of the dirt in our gardens and was assembling the boards to lay across the gardens. After he finished, we planted the plants in our square foot gardens.

Erik followed the Square Foot Garden technique from a book he got for Christmas. He used a mixture of 1/3 peat moss 1/3 vermiculite 1/3 composte. I hope our garden does better this year than it has in the past.

So as you can see, my day was fabulous. I couldn't pick just one favorite thing as we were eating dinner. Plus I had leftovers of peanut butter cheesecake for dessert which was also incredible!

I have also included a picture of the girls sleeping on a mattress on the floor of their room. I'm so glad we spent $500 on bunk beds for them when they sleep on the floor.

80 points on quiddler today!

Girls trip!

2011-05-01T21:55:00.000-04:00

This weekend we went on the 6th annual girls trip to Hocking Hills. We sat in the hot tub, laughed, prayed, played games, and ate, ate, ate! Amanda and I had a peanut butter brownie throwdown and I hope to have more throwdowns with her. That was so awesome!

The cabin was beautiful and nestled in the woods in such a peaceful setting. There was even a hummingbird feeder as well as many other bird feeders so I got my bird fix.

Jill also braided my hair in two pigtails. It looked awesome. I just needed a plaid skirt to complete the ensemble. When I came home the girls wanted me to braid their hair too - which I did. I also snapped a picture of Jill braiding Jenny's hair. Jill is an expert beautician!

I came home to Matthew climbing the stairs and playing in the plant's dirt. Here he is standing at the table in the playroom eating crayons. Yum. Yum. I'm glad he recognized me when I got home. You never know at 10 months if they really know who you are!

53 points on Quiddler today!

I'm off

2011-04-25T22:15:00.000-04:00

I am finally done with this difficult semester. Yipee!

Today was my first day of my semester off and it was glorious. I went to hip hop for the first time in 8 weeks, mopped the kitchen floor (which needed it let me tell you), went shopping, and made homemade pizza (pictures later). It was a wonderful day!

Now I am off for 8 weeks!

We also had a wonderful Easter. I took the girls to an Easter Egg hunt which was absolute mayhem yet we had a great time. Of course Jenna didn't want to eat her candy since it is unhealthy.

We went to my parents house for Easter. While there we visited my Grandmother and took her for a walk in her wheelchair. She likes to watch the girls and was even humming.

Matthew also turned 10 months on the 20th. He is incredibly happy and easy going. When he gets excited he goes crazy. I just want to pick him up and squeeze him all the time. Maybe by the third one you figure it out I guess.

In the most exciting news of all - Sarah is potty trained! We only have one in diapers now. It only took 1 1/2 years but she is finally potty trained. Hopefully for good.

82 points on Quiddler today.

Church Hopping

2011-04-18T12:40:00.001-04:00

This weekend our best friends at church told us they would be leaving our church and going to a new one. They were the backup leaders of our small group and had been in our small group for the past 3 years. She even threw a welcome baby party for Matthew when he was born. I was sad to hear they were leaving our church.

Why?

When asked their reasons were trivial.

So why then? Why do people church hop?

1. A lack of long-term commitment. When we look at our culture there is a lack of long-term commitment. Any long-term commitment - in jobs, careers, marriages, relationships, houses, cars, and yes even churches. We are not immune either!

2, We are always looking for something new. Of course when you go to a new church it is new and exciting. Of course when you buy a new house it is new and exciting. The same old thing becomes boring and humdrum and we want NEW!

3. We have become too critical. The band is too loud (seriously...), I'm not getting fed (I'm a particular fan of this one - whose job is this anyway?), I don't trust the pastor's leadership anymore (huh?), the children's program was not what it once was (be the change you want to see in the world). I have actually heard all of these reasons.

I'm convinced that a pastor's job is the most difficult, most stressful job you can have. How can a pastor not take this personally when families come and go?

How do you build a network of relationships, strong believers, and accountability when we are so transient?

I don't know.

I wish I had the answer.

Vegas Baby

2011-04-14T22:34:00.000-04:00

I submitted a paper to an IEEE Education in CS and CE conference.
I was nervous.
The acceptance rate is very low (20%).

And I got in!

We are going to Vegas!

Yipee!

Fun outside in Spring!

2011-04-13T23:47:00.003-04:00

It was beautiful this weekend so we actually ventured outside. Luckily we have 3 swings on our swingset seeing as we have 3 kids. Matthew fits well in the baby swing now as opposed to last year when he was floppy in the swing. As you notice Sarah refuses to conform to the standard method of swinging.

You can see more of her refusal while in the sandbox:

Even though it was beautiful this weekend it was back to being cold again yesterday, so we spent the day coloring eggs and going through Resurrection Eggs. If you have never heard of Resurrection Eggs they are pretty cool. The girls really loved looking in the eggs and listening to the story of Jesus. Sarah even asked a lot of questions and seemed to understand. I was really impressed with the Resurrection Eggs.

As you can see from the picture of the girls coloring eggs, everyone is concentrating. Even Matthew in the background who is concentrating on some dirt he found on the floor. He pretty much eats whatever he finds on the floor: pretzels, old m&ms, dead ants....

Erik has fashioned 3 gardens for us out of fake wood (since the wood from our old garden was....old). You can see the gardens in this video where I've captured Matthew trying to get in one of them. We have a plan for our gardens this year and I'm so excited. Erik has even made a diagram. I love him!

Two of my books have come in the library. One I've waited for 2 months to get and the other I've waited a few weeks to get. As I opened one of them today Erik said "STOP! We might read one of them for our book club". Apparently I can not read any more books as they may be possibilities for the book club. Bummer.

No update on Quiddler today. I was left with h,w,x,n,cl,s,qu,b. How can I possibly make a word out of those letters?

Baptism and Dedication!

2011-04-08T23:04:00.000-04:00

On Sunday Jenna was baptized and Matthew was dedicated. It was an incredible ceremony. Much to Erik's dismay I did get a cake with a picture of the kids on it. Yes we did eat it too.

I have a picture of Jenna saying her Bible verse prior to being immersed. She did great!

Matthew was also dedicated the same day. He was happy and Amanda snapped a picture of John, the pastor gnawing on Matthew's fingers in jest. (obviously in jest, he is not actually a cannibal). Matthew was happy the entire time which was a blessing.

My Mom, Missy, Amanda, and Erik's parents all came to the dedication and baptism. It was so nice to have family here to witness the ceremony.

While Missy was here she was talking about filling out a form with her favorite song. I was trying to think of my favorite song and realized that it is hard to have a favorite song. It really depends on your mood.
Here are my favorite songs for different moods

When I'm scared, nervous, anxious and crying out to God: Oh God you are my God
Worship song: Arms of love
Song to lift my spirits: Raindrops on roses
Classic rock: The Joker
Song to annoy my husband with: Pina colada song

72 points on Quiddler today.

Beautiful Birds!

2011-03-31T21:01:00.000-04:00

Since we have put a birdfeeder in our backyard a plethora of birds have come for snacks. I've also discovered some beautiful birds in my backyard that I didn't even know existed. In this picture of our birdfeeder, a bluebird is waiting on the deck patiently as a northern flicker is eating. The northern flicker is SO beautiful. I have made a bird collage (because really, what else do I have to do) to show you some of these birds. The mallard duck does not come to our bird feeder but is at the pond close to our house so I think that counts.

My pictures don't do them justice. The birds are striking in their beauty. Okay....enough about the birds already.

Jenna will be baptized on Sunday and Matthew will be dedicated. I don't know what Sarah will get?
It should be a wonderful Sunday! We believe Jenna is ready and we are excited for her to take this step. Our pastor met with her today and asked her what sin she has committed (to see if she understood the concept of sin). She said "not being nice to her sister". Then he asked her questions of repentence which she understood. I'm amazed at what she understands at 6!

I ordered a cake with a picture of all the kids on it. Erik is not excited to eat a cake with the kids on it. He would rather I made a yummy chocolate cake but such is life.

Tonight for dinner I made pancakes and put vanilla pudding mix in the batter. Those pancakes were awesome! Jenna and I both ate 4 pancakes!! That is a record!

61 points on Quiddler today and I got to make the word "blimey".

My lazy week

2011-03-26T16:57:00.001-04:00

The girls went to my parents house for a few days. They had a fabulous time seeing movies, going to a museum, and going out to eat.

I, of course, thought this would be a great time to get caught up on cleaning, laundry, and go to the gym for exercise.

Nope.

I sat on the couch and read with a cup of hot chocolate.

And it was glorious!

Some books I have read/am reading:

The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers. This was a fantastic book and a quick read. The main character was raped and the book followed her struggle on whether or not to have the baby. She ends up having the baby and I cried! I loved it!
Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan. Yes, I admit it. I love young adult fiction! These books are 2 and 3 of the Percy Jackson series. I'm on book 4 and loving it!
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. This is a fabulous book we are reading with our CO* book club. We are about halfway through and I really like his writing. The story is interesting and I'm excited to see what happens - he is a good storyteller!
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark. This book is very English and I love English things! I like having insight into the way English think about things. I'm not sure if this is still true but in the book I get the feeling they hate the French and view Wales as we view West Virginia (eg. backwards).
What the Bible is all About by Henrietta Mears. I'm still in this book and enjoying it very much. I'm reading about proverbs now. I recommend this book highly!

In other news, Matthew said Mama. The more exciting thing is that I got it on video. It is at the very end while he is rolling around. I really think he said Mama (maybe I want it to be true!).

I am also contemplating doing Bible Study Fellowship next year. Each year there is a different study (for a total of 8 years). They are very in-depth and I've heard it is life changing. I want a life-changing Bible study. Sign me up! They also have Bible study for kids so Sarah and Matthew would be learning the same books of the Bible the adults would study just at their level. I think it sounds wonderful.

67 points on Quiddler today and no bonuses!

Woo is Cute

2011-03-24T20:20:00.000-04:00

My little man is 9 months old! He is sitting up really well and crawling backwards. He has also acquired the nickname of "woo". I'm not sure how or why but he really is a "woo". I need to brainstorm better nicknames or my limericks about him will have the word "poo" in them and that's just no good.

Matthew also loves Scruffles. I mean LOVES Scruffles. He laughs whenever he sees Scruff and squeals in delight when Scruff looks at him. Matthew will be an animal lover just like the girls. Jenna's new profession of choice is zookeeper.

Last night Erik and I went on a date to Cantina Laredo. It was expensive yummy Mexican food. They made guacamole right at our table - which was delicious and very cool. We gave Matthew some and he tolerated it. We also got dessert. It was a 6 layer chocolate cake. It was so incredibly delicious that I felt like I was floating as I was eating it (yea...it was that good).

Erik and I have gotten the chocolate cake from Max and Ermas. It is a 8 layer chocolate cake but the cake from Cantina Laredo was better. They both are decadent.

This has brought me to a very important decision:

I have decided to make it my mission to try layered chocolate cake at restaurants.

I owe it to everyone.

I will make this sacrifice.

I will determine the best layered chocolate cake in Columbus and of course, make a top ten list!

I have also included a picture of my 3 kids. Seriously. Can anyone have kids this cute? I think not.

74 points on Quiddler today!

Sarah and Star Wars

2011-03-17T00:40:00.000-04:00

Sarah has been obsessed with Star Wars since we went to a Star Wars party at the library. We watched Star Wars tonight and Sarah ran away several times when Darth Vader showed up on the screen. But at other times she was glued to the TV loving the movie! Yes... a 3 year old watched Star Wars :). It was fun. And scary.

Jenna asked too many questions and talked constantly. At one point in the movie she said she didn't really know what was going on. To which I replied "if you would pay attention instead of talking you might know!".

Anyway - this is a video of Sarah discussing how she would beat Darth Vader (because she is so menacing...).

Unfortunately Erik was gone playing racquetball during the movie so I had three kids on me wanting to cuddle. I love cuddling but there is only so much room in my lap.

Erik has been playing racquetball every week with Nick. I've been amazed at how muscular his legs have gotten. Tonight he burned 950 calories playing racquetball. Wow! I could eat 10 cheesecakes if I burned that many calories (maybe not).

I just got Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan from the library. Yea!! The second Percy Jackson book. I can't wait to read it.

I made the word "toker" on Quiddler today. One of my favorite songs is The Joker by Steve Miller band so I was SO happy Toker was an actual word :). 86 points!

Iron Chef Battle: Nacho Cheese!

2011-03-13T22:21:00.002-04:00

Erik and I tried something new with iron chef. We did a dual iron chef with the same secret ingredient. We discussed the secret ingredient together and then bought it and had an hour to make our dishes. Our secret ingredient was:

Nacho Cheese

Erik's favorite type of food is Mexican so this secret ingredient made him very happy. I like cheese too so we're all good. We approached this secret ingredient in two totally opposite ways. He used a lot of fresh vegetables, cilantro, tomatillos, etc whereas I made more comfort foods (that actually featured the nacho cheese better but we won't get into that).

He made:

Mexican pancakes. Ummmm.... yes he did. He put taco seasoning in pancake mix and made taco pancakes. Then put nacho cheese, fresh salsa, and whipped cream on top of that with freshly grated lime zest. Mexican pancakes. Weird. That's Erik. I love him!
Cilantro lime nacho cheese dip. This dip had cream cheese, nacho cheese, cilantro, tomatoes, and lime juice. Erik loved this dip the best - it was creamy and flavorful.
Shrimp tacos. Erik mixed shrimp and some fresh veggies and put them on corn tortillas. Then topped it with nacho cheese. The shrimp and fresh veggie combination was fabulous (it was my favorite!). However the nacho cheese actually hurt the dish. So I think this one would have been better with a different secret ingredient.

I made:

Mexican lettuce wraps. I love lettuce wraps - yum! We had them when I went to P.F.Changs with my friends Leslie, Kimberly, and Erica. So I wanted a twist on traditional lettuce wraps. I made chicken with taco seasoning then put that along with some fresh veggies and nacho cheese in a lettuce leaf. This was so yummy. Erik loved it too!
Mexican lasagna. Lasagna and peanut butter are my favorite foods. Before you get scared that I put peanut butter in lasagna, that was just fyi. Anyway, I made a Mexican lasagna by layering corn tortillas, refried beans, nacho cheese, and fire roasted tomatoes. This was yummy but Erik said it was a little too one-dimensional. I'm not sure what else I should have added though.
Chipotle mac-n-cheese. Oh my! This was HOT HOT HOT! I made mac-n-cheese with nacho cheese and velveeta cheese. Then added chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. Wow was this hot. It was very good but a little too hot. The girls wouldn't even eat it.
Nacho cheesecake. Yes - I did it. I also love cheesecake (along with lasagna and pb). I crushed tortillas and added butter and used that as the crust. Then mixed nacho cheese, cream cheese, sour cream and egg for the cheesecake. It was actually good. Really :).

This was a success! The girls also made dishes as well. I gave them pie crusts, strawberries and bananas. They made their own dishes and had fun with that. Matthew napped.

We are going to do dual iron chefs again. It was fun to see how we both interpreted the same secret ingredient.

Also, I made a brownie chocolate pie. Tomorrow is pi day 3/14 and I had to make a pie. Obviously! Erik and I already dug in :). You'd think after all that nacho cheese we couldn't eat anymore but we managed. Since I haven't exercised in 3 weeks my pants are tight. I'll be able to exercise again next semester. This semester with 5 classes is too much (obviously exercise was the first thing to go!).

Recipe for brownie chocolate pie:

pie crust

5 squares unsweetened chocolate

1 1/2 sticks butter

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup heavy cream

I melted the chocolate and butter in the microwave. Then added the rest of the ingredients. Pour in the pie crust. Cooked it for 30 minutes at 350°F. Yum-O!

In more serious news - the tsunami in Japan looks devastating. I saw this video and thought it was very scary

66 points on Quiddler today.

There are teeth, really!

2011-03-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

I have tried unsuccessfully to get a picture of Matthew's two teeth. He really does not like it when we try and get a picture (obviously). He does have two teeth though. I promise. However I don't see much more solid food than baby food in his future. He really doesn't like anything with texture - not even yogurt. At some point I hope he eats - I can't have three kids who don't eat. I love to eat - what's the deal?

He is rocking back and forth like he's going to crawl any day. He can actually crawl backwards just not forwards. Here is a video of him rocking back and forth a little bit. I'm just loving this stage. I love 8 months - they are too cute. Of course 6 and 3 yrs are also cute. Check out my super cute girls at ballet.

I'm very excited for their ballet recital. This will be the last year they will be in the same recital. After this year, Jenna will be in the main show (since she will be in first grade). Sarah will be in the mini-show if she still wants to do ballet next year. They do have all boys tap classes so if Matthew wants to tap he can! You get a discount for the more kids you have enrolled - not a bad idea.

On a different topic, I'm very excited that a paper I have written was accepted through the first round of peer reviews for a conference I want to attend in October. I will find out in May if my paper is accepted for publication which will be very exciting! The conference should be good too. I'm also thinking of working on some research and writing a paper for the Las Vegas conference I attended in 2009. I learned so much and had such a good time! Hubby came too for that conference and worked in the hotel room while I conferenced (if that is a verb).

Today is the first day of Lent. I wish the Pentacostal church would get on the ball and observe Lent as well. It's such a great time of Spiritual spring cleaning. I love Lent! Today I went to the Ash Wednesday service at St. Joan of Arc near my house. I love the Ash Wednesday service and St. Joan of Arc is such a wonderful church. I think Jenna is old enough to go to Stations of the Cross this year. I'm excited to take her.

This year I am giving up coffee for Lent. I tried to think of something that Matthew really didn't need (as I am still pumping) and he really doesn't need the caffeine in coffee (I guess I don't need it either). I love hot tea though so I'll be drinking lots of tea!

82 on Quiddler today and I got to make the word "plaid". "Plaid" is just such a cool word. I like it as much as I don't like "yolk". Really, who likes the word "yolk"?

Divine chocolate cake

2011-02-28T22:26:00.000-05:00

Matthew turned 8 months Feb. 20. While I did get a picture of him with the horse, he was sick that day so he looks a little grumpy. He was a good sport though.

We also celebrated Erik's birthday as well. I made him chicken enchiladas using a recipe but added 1 tblsp of lime juice and 1 cup (yes 1 cup) of fresh cilantro. With those two additions (plus the recipe was pretty yummy) the dish turned out great. Erik said it was the best Mexican dish I'd ever made - and we make a lot of Mexican food since it is Erik's favorite.

But that was not the show stopper. Erik said he wanted a super dark yet moist chocolate cake. So I researched some recipes online and found That Chocolate Cake which is a recipe that won the Scharffen Berger chocolate recipe contest....ummm....yea - I'll take that. It was divine. I mean divine. Oh. My. Divine!

I probably gained about 20 lbs just by being around it but it was so yummy.

The girls also made a menu for Daddy's birthday (you can see their menus in the picture). The only things on the menu were chicken enchiladas and chocolate cake but they had menus so that's the most important thing!

In other news:

We have purchased a third seat for the Explorer. Erik is going to install it himself (because he is AWESOME!). He bought the seat from Little Passenger Seats and we are excited to have a 3rd seat in our Explorer now (squishing all 3 kids in the back of the car works, but we can't ever take anyone else with us).
We are planning on having Jenna baptized. The baptism may be sometime in March but we are unsure of the exact date yet. Jenna is such a prayer warrior and I do believe she is a follower of Christ. Since I think she believes, and she has been asking to be baptized for a year, I don't see a reason to deny her because of her age. We are very excited about this and I warned Jenna that I would most likely (will!) cry.
I'm teaching 5 classes this semester. I'm not sure why I've decided to undertake 5 classes again. It was crazy last time I did it and I'm sure it will be crazy again.
I usually go to hip hop on Monday mornings. Unfortunately I will be teaching during that time and can not go to hip hop for 8 weeks. This is very sad. I love my hip hop class more than other exercise I've done. It looks like I won't be able to shake it for 8 weeks. I hope I can still shake it when I go back.
Recently two people told me my skin looked good. I don't think much about my skin (it's skin??) but then two people said something so I thought back. Erik got me this "Youth as We Know It" moisture cream (don't look at the price!). Maybe it worked?
So Matthew is too cute. He is always shaking his head "no" but I can't seem to get a good video of him. I did get a video of him looking pretty happy though.
I also posted a picture of him stretching around to look at me when he was in his jumperoo. He loves it but loves to watch us so much more!
99 points on Quiddler today. Who knew "raxing" was a word?

Photography

2011-02-25T11:58:00.001-05:00

I usually get pictures done at Target for the kids however the copyright always bothers us. We pay them to take pictures of us but yet we don't get to keep the pictures. So we went to DaleLynn Photography to get pictures taken of the kids. Here are some of the pics that she took - it was an awesome experience. And we got the copyright so we can make as many prints as we want - yipee!

Right now I'm on a little hiatus since it is finals week and I've been spending all my free time grading and working on next session. I'll have a Friday night class next session - bummer. I'll also be teaching 5 classes (2 online) which is quite a lot for me. Hopefully I'll survive. The good thing is that this is my last session before my break.

Yea....that's right....

8 weeks off!! No work!

Books I'm reading:

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. This book is for our Coo* book club and I love it. The writing is good and I'm drawn in by the story.
The Born Queen by Greg Keyes. This is the last book in a 4 book series. I have about 75 pages to go and the main character was just killed. I'm not sure if this is a red wedding kind of thing like Martin or if she is not really dead. Either way - this book is great and I can't wait to finish it.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark. This book combines two things I love: magic and Jane Austen's England. The tone of the writing and much about the writing is exactly like Pride and Prejudice (I daresay!). I love it! Plus it has magic. Lots of neat magic. There is also something in the undertone of Jane Austen and Susanna Clark's writing that is whimsical I daresay. There are many places I laugh although in our day it wouldn't seem like a joke!
Made to Crave by Lysa Terkeurst (I think). This book started out great but I'm not enjoying it so much. The book is about replacing a food addiction with an addiction to God. However the author doesn't eat sugar, bread, pasta, etc. To me that sounds like she still has a food addiction. Unless you are turly free to eat whatever you want and worship God - then you are still a food addict (imo).
I'm probably reading 10 other books but can't remember them now. Isn't that sad :)

78 points on Quiddler today!

You love me

2011-02-15T00:16:00.001-05:00

Happy Valentines Day!
For Valentines Day I wrote a poem to my love, my God. I am not a poet and writer like my brother-in-law and friend so don't be too critical of me.

You Love Me

You created me, fashioning me in your image

You spoke to me, filling my heart with your beauty

You corrected me, guiding me when I failed you

You answered me, teaching me your ways are not mine

You rescued me, pulling me up from the sea of my depression

You caught me, dragging me down from my lofty pride

You died for me, cleansing me from sin's stain

You saved me, returning from the grave with new life

You changed me, purifying me with your fire

You love me, pursuing me with your unceasing love

void bringer()

2011-02-12T23:15:00.002-05:00

I was inspired from reading Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings to write a little C++ program. If you have a C++ compiler handy (doesn't everyone??) feel free to run the code. No it is not spectacular but I wanted to do something fun! By the way - my code does have spoilers!

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

void bringer(void);

void main (void ){

//The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson - loved it!
//Reading about the void bringers I just had to create a function void bringer().

cout << "What are the void bringers? "<<endl;
bringer();
cout << "\n\nThank you for playing!"<<endl;

}

void bringer(){
char option = 'x'; //x is my default
//keep looping until the user chooses a valid option
do {
cout<< "\n(K)aladin"
<< "\n(S)hallan"
<< "\n(D)alinar"
<< "\n(P)arshendi\n"
<< "Choose one:";
cin >> option;

switch (option) {
case 'K': case 'k':
cout<< "\nI will protect those who cannot protect themselves. Not a voidbringer. Try again";
//I loved this part in the book. Chapter 67. Oh my. It might be my
//favorite chapter in any book.
break;

case 'S': case 's':
cout<<"\nI'm a murderer. I killed my father. Not a voidbringer. Try again";
//We thought she might have killed him and took his shardblade
break;

case 'D': case 'd':
cout<< "\nWhat is a man's life worth? Not a voidbringer. Try again";
//Wow this chapter made me love Dalinar!
break;

case 'P': case 'p':
cout<< "\nRight on!";
//I didn't see this one coming
break;

default: cout << "\nPlease try again :)\n";

}
} while ((option != 'p')&&(option !='P'));

}

Bathtime for my Ducklings

2011-02-11T23:44:00.007-05:00

I have stopped chewing ice. I knew it had to come to this. I got my crown on Tuesday the result of endless ice chewing and now I am giving up ice entirely.

Yes.

I am just drinking mildly cold water sans ice to prevent another broken tooth incident. We'll see how long I last.

Matthew is now taking baths in the big bathtub. Sometimes his sisters want to join him. He loves them. Just loves them! He is happy as long as he can watch whatever they are doing. He also loves bathtime.

Valentines day is Monday and my exciting idea for Valentines was not met with excitement by my husband. I wanted to do two iron chefs. He would go get a secret ingredient for me and I would get one for him. I thought it would be fun. Of course I'm teaching Monday night so it would have to be a different day. He didn't sound really excited about it though.

Erik gets me roses every Valentines Day. In fact, he has gotten me roses every Valentines day since 1994. So I'm looking forward to roses and chocolate (can't forget the chocolate).

I also posted a picture of the four batches of peanut butter cup cookies I made. These are a chocolate peanut butter lovers dream. I made them for our ladies spa night at church and for the guys board gaming night Erik is having. And I ate so much dough that I only ate cottage cheese for dinner because I wasn't hungry. Not good.

84 points on Quiddler today.

Matthew's friends

2011-02-03T21:26:00.003-05:00

Matthew has friends, lots of friends. Here is a picture of Matthew and Tyson. Tyson is 2 1/2 months younger and someday they will be friends (as long as Matthew doesn't squish him!).

Matthew also has a lot of lady friends. Here he is in a playpen with three little girls. You can see what he's thinking....

On a different topic - I have been learning so much since reading What the Bible is All About by Henrietta Mears. I know I've talked about this before, but I'm really enjoying this. While I've read through the Bible a few times, I have not connected the Bible as one big story before. Mears describes the central theme of the Bible as redemption.

She also ties in all the books together to illustrate Jesus our Savior throughout the entire Bible.
Just a few examples: Exodus shows Jesus as the Passover Lamb, Judges shows Jesus as our deliverer judge, Ruth shows Jesus as our kinsman redeemer, Esther shows Jesus as our advocate, 1&2Kings show Jesus as our king...

The list goes on.

While all of this may be obvious to everyone else but me - I like it spelled out (I might be slow). I'm enjoying seeing Jesus in the entire Bible. Now I need to translate that and share Jesus with everyone else.

On another absolutely different topic. Really this is absolutely different.

I confessed to Erik a hobby that I would love to take up. He thinks I'm crazy. Yes crazy! I would love to be a bird watcher. I even picked up a book at the library about it. There are so many beautiful birds in our backyard and I'd love to learn their songs. I'd also like to catalog some of the different birds I see when we go camping. Someday we will go camping all around the US but we have small children so that isn't happening now. Then my glorious dreams of seeing birds can come true.

By the way- if you were wondering how my body wrap went, it was not a success. One of the women lost 3" in her waist and another lost 6". Sometimes it happens that after a body wrap you will gain inches. Yes - that was me. I gained an inch. Erik didn't understand why I paid them $20 to make me fatter. Such is life...

60 points on Quiddler today.

Kids!

2011-02-03T18:53:00.007-05:00

It seems like birthdays have been going on for 2 months. Jenna had her birthday party with friends at Chuck E Cheese. The kids had a great time, but....

Kids....

Kids....

Kids!!!

Chuck E Cheese was wall-to-wall kids. There were 6 birthday parties going on at the same time Jenna's was. It was mass chaos, confusion, clutter, and craziness. Sarah wants her party at Chuck E Cheese next but I don't know. That was a lot of kids!

In other news:

We have been home bound for 3 days. The huge ice storm that hit (while I was driving home from work at 11pm) lasted for several days. Jenna's school was called off as well as my evening class. So we stayed home. I made homemade pad thai (something I've been wanting to try), chocolate mousse, challah bread, pork chops in a vidalia onion wine sauce, and pork roast. Yes - over 3 days. If the weather does not get better soon I will gain weight.
Speaking of gaining weight, my neighbor is hosting a body wrap party. I am getting my body wrapped on Saturday which is supposed to help me lose inches from my waist. Sounds like a ~~scam~~ temporary fix to me but I will support my neighbor. Can't take off years of chocolate with some saran wrap honey!
We are on chapter 67 in the Way of Kings. I can not wait. I CAN NOT wait to finish this book. This is pure torture waiting. I will survive though.
I just started reading Made to Crave by Lysa Terkeurst. It is a book about replacing food in our lives with God. Then I won't need to wrap myself in saran wrap.
I'm reading lots of other books now too. I can't seem to read just one book at a time.
I asked Erik to make me a chocolate lava cake and he did - what an awesome husband!
73 points on Quiddler today

Princess on Ice

2011-01-28T22:53:00.003-05:00

The girls had a fabulous time at Disney Princess on Ice! The tickets were expensive ($30 apiece!) and I wasn't expecting a great show but I was surprised. The show was really good and almost 2 hours! My camera didn't do it justice but you can somewhat see the stage with the huge castle and Cinderella and her prince ice skating. The show was great! The girls dressed up too. In the picture is Sarah, Jenna, Kate, and Paige. They had a wonderful time!

We will certainly want to go next year.

Maybe Matthew will come too. He is getting so big! At his last appointment he weighed in at 21lbs 6oz. Sarah weighs 28 lbs. She's 3. He is 7 months old and a porker! Here is a video of him enjoying the jumperoo (listen closely you can hear it groan under his massive girth).

My attempt to potty train Sarah by just putting her in underwear and "seeing what happened" failed miserably. For a few days I tried this. I think we are back to square one. Potty training is pretty terrible. Jenna maintains that Sarah isn't ready and I should stop forcing her to potty train. Why does my 6 year old have more wisdom than I do?

72 points on Quiddler today and I got to make the word "raiding".

Birthdays!

2011-01-23T21:23:00.003-05:00

On Thursday Jenna celebrated her 6 year birthday while Matthew celebrated his 7 month birthday. It was a big day at our house!

Jenna requested a purple cake with purple frosting (shown in picture) and we celebrated with blueberry pancakes.

I took the obligatory picture of Matthew with his stuffed animal to show his growth (there is much growth!). He is soooo big and sooo happy. He is my joy.

The girls absolutely love him. Although he is not getting in their toys yet. Matthew loves to eat (shouldn't it be obvious?) and I snapped some videos of the girls helping to feed him. Here is Jenna and here is Sarah feeding Maffawu.

We met my parents, sisters, and Erik's parents at Ruby Tuesdays in Cambridge to celebrate Jenna's birthday and Dad Cooper's birthday. It was a great time and the kids did really well. Plus Ruby Tuesdays is yummy. That crab cake I had there was amazing! Crab cakes = yum!

39 points on Quiddler today!

My Ways, His Ways

2011-01-22T08:58:00.005-05:00

I will post soon about Jenna's birthday and Matthew's 7 month birthday on Thursday. However I wanted to write about how God spoke to me. I'm reading this book called What the Bible is About in tandem while I read the Bible. It is an excellent summary and helping me understand several parts of the Bible I was cloudy on before. In fact, I've fallen in love with Samuel! What an amazing prayer warrior.

Something that has always tripped me up are verses like this " ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” ~1Samuel 15:2-3.

Why?

Why put to death infants?

I know God cares about babies, especially very early in pregnancy. So why order the death of these babies. It has always been a sticky point with me and caused me problems.

While I was praying about this issue last night, the verse "my ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts" (paraphrased Isaiah 55:8) came to my mind. I believe God answered my prayer and spoke those words to me. I am not going to know the "why" in this life but God has his ways. They are far above my ways. Praise God for speaking to me about this!

Iron Chef: Sugar!

2011-01-18T22:46:00.006-05:00

Sugar and spice and everything nice! That's what this Iron Chef was.

It's been a long time but we finally did Iron Chef again. I was so happy and Erik was so happy that I finally stopped bugging him to do it. I just love iron chef!

Anyway - SUGAR! Wow - can it get ANY better??? That was my secret ingredient. YUM!

I made 5 dishes

Sweet Sushi - ever since we made sushi over New Years when everyone was here, I've been a little obsessed with sushi. In fact, Erik made taco sushi the other day (no joke). Anyway, I made sweet sushi with extra sugar, cream cheese, and chocolate ships all wrapped in seaweed. It actually worked.

Cinnamon baked alaska - I made a sugar cookie base and topped it with cinnamon meringue. Yum! This dish was good but it needed some caramel or something else. I've also been obsessed with baked alaska. I made it for Tim and Jen a few months ago with a brownie base, but it was not successful since the brownies were way too hard. Maybe a sugar cookie base would be better.

Sweet pasta salad - this was Erik's favorite dish. I made pasta with a browned butter sauce then mixed in berries and citrus (including grapefruit which I do not like, but I added it to balance the overwhelming sweetness). This dish worked very well.

French silk creme brulee - I've made creme brulee many times. I'm not sure why I decided that in a rushed hour I was going to make creme brulee. I know you have to let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 8 hrs to set up. We do not have a blast chiller (I should put it on my wish list!) so unfortunately my creme brulee did not set up. However the flavor in this was excellent! It was better than my recipe for chocolate creme brulee however since I heavily modified the recipe for this iron chef I'll probably never be able to duplicate it!
Blackberry lime tart - ooooh yea! This was great! I made a sugar cookie base topped with a lime flavored cream cheese layer with freshly grated lime peel and topped that with fresh blackberries. The blackberry lime combination was so good! I'll have to remember it. I gave this dish a 9 for taste!

Overall this was a really fun iron chef even though I did have trouble with a main dish (yes I did make pasta). Erik and I rated the dishes the same at 15.2. This is a pretty average rating (apples were the highest rated iron chef and prego sauce the lowest basically due to the prego salmon - yuck!).

81 points on Quiddler today!

On My Honor!

2011-01-15T21:52:00.004-05:00

Jenna is now a Daisy Scout. She had her Daisy scout investiture ceremony last Monday. Unfortunately I was teaching and unable to be there. However it went well and Jenna even remembered the girl scout promise and the make new friends song.

In addition, Jenna has lost her two front teeth. She is so adorable! It hasn't caused her problems when speaking. However the morning after she lost her other front tooth, the tooth fairy forgot to put money under her pillow. Luckily a potential disaster was diverted when the tooth fairy ran downstairs and pulled some candy out of the candy box as Jenna was eating breakfast. The tooth fairy was running a little late that day.

Right now I'm teaching C++ and loving it! I haven't taught programming in over a year. (I didn't teach for 3 months after having Matthew so I might be a little rusty). Normally I teach database programming or ASP.NET or VB.NET. C++ is very different yet so much fun to teach.

In other news, today as we were going to make pasta for lunch Erik noticed lots of white things in the pasta. OMG! Bugs!

I am not eating buggy pasta! We discovered 10 boxes of pasta (yes we have a lot of food stores) with little bugs in them. Apparently they are wheat weevils. That was nasty. Then the girls wouldn't even eat the non-buggy pasta. Maybe we should stick to pb&j.

I've already broken most of my New Years Resolutions and it isn't even February. I may have gone to bed only three or four times prior to 12:34am and we're already 15 days into January. I haven't been doing my Bible reading plan. I also have not exercised 3 times a week. This will greatly hinder my ultimate goal of losing my baby weight and getting back down to <=123 pounds. I'm just weird about numbers.

Anyway, maybe I should make New New years resolutions!

43 on Quiddler today!

The New Year!

2011-01-06T11:49:00.004-05:00

Christmas and New Years was spectacular! We had 8 adults and 3 children crammed in our house for 4 days and loved it. We did a whole lot of gaming (awesome), went shopping, went to Caribou coffee, got to see Jon and Michelle (also awesome), made sushi, and had a merry time together.

Te celebrate our love for Harry Potter, I got invisibility cloaks for the brothers and their wives(I've stopped thinking of them as Erik's brothers)

and have included a *video* of the cloaks working. You will be amazed! You will also notice that I've even left the cat and various papers, etc in place just to show the authenticity (and I didn't feel like photoshopping them out).

So I'm not done with lists. (oh no... not again!)Here are my New Years Resolutions:

Send birthday cards to my family on time. I'm really bad about this. Really bad.
Finish my 100 day Bible reading plan. It is not the whole Bible but it is a good plan (it skips a lot of the begets).
Go to bed <= 12:34am.
Exercise 3 times a week.

I couldn't do more resolutions since I would break them immediately. These are my goals for the whole year. Hopefully I will stick with them.

Books I've recently read/am reading:

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson. Wow! I love Mat in this book and so many good things happen. This book focuses more on the good characters rather than the forsaken (and I care more about the good characters). David had mentioned that he thought Mat had gotten stale - I agree about this, but Mat was hilarious in this book!
The Revival of Song by Jon C. Cook. This is an awesome book by my awesome friend. I can't give too much away but this will be a great series. I'm looking forward to the next book.
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. This book is the third in the Inheritance series. While I like this book, there are several parts that he could have left out that did not affect the plot(to make the story shorter). He writes like Robert Jordan in that he puts a lot of detail into everything. I don't mind that much though - just takes longer to read.
What the Bible is all About by Henrietta Mears. This book takes each section of the Bible and gives a summary. It also summarizes parts of the Bible in short little easily memorizable sections. For example, she says the Bible is about: Generation (creation of the world), Degeneration (sin enters the world), Regeneration (Jesus comes to restore God's kingdom). There are a lot of cute little things like that in the book.
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. This book is getting very good and I'm so glad to be reading this with our Cooper Book club!

58 points today - atrocious!

The Prodigal Son- Win!

2010-12-27T14:35:00.008-05:00

Christmas is magical for my girls. I love the anticipation, the excitement, and the joy they display when seeing the gifts Christmas morning. Of course opening gifts is also fun. They tend to love the cheap dollar store gifts as much as the expensive gifts. Matthew is just content looking at his hands.

I've included a picture of Erik's dad's train setup. It is multilevel and very cool. The girls get so excited they jump up and down when he runs the train. Sarah continually asks to see it, and Jenna likes to climb underneath the tables. Again, Matthew is more interested in eating his hands.

Because I love lists and this is the time we remember the birth of our Savior. I have composed a list of my top 10 favorite parables of Jesus.

The Prodigal Son. Luke 15:11-32. This is an amazing story. It really shows God's forgiveness. The song "When God Ran" by Benny Hester makes me cry every time I hear it.
The Persistent Widow. Luke 18:1-8. It tells me "keep praying." There are many things I've been praying for that I'm not sure will ever happen (ie, the end of abortion). But God says be persistent. So I will. Note: Erik empathizes with the judge in this one due to having a 3 and 6 year old (yes...you can have another snack just leave me alone).
The Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Luke 18:9-14. Pride can happen to anyone but a humble heart is what God desires. It is so easy to become prideful - we must constantly guard ourselves against it. (For those who read the Way of Kings - we need some humblespren).
The Good Samaritan. Luke 10:29-37. Not only is this a good story to show who is your neighbor, but it is a story telling us we should help those in need. Whether their car is broken on the side of the road or they are stranded somewhere. We can offer help.
The Lost Sheep. Matthew 18:10-14. This story is similar to the Prodigal Son in that it shows how much God cares for each of us. He is willing to go and find the lost sheep. He is the great shepherd.
The Sower. Matthew 13:1-23. Your heart must be open to hearing the Word when it is presented to you so that it can take root and flourish in your heart. Sometimes I think I need miracle grow.
Laborers in the Vineyard. Matthew 20:1-16. The laborers all receive the same salary even though some worked longer than others. This is good news for all of us - we are still valued by God even though we are not salting it up like Billy Graham.
Pearl of Great Price. Matthew 13:45-46. This parable is about the kingdom of Heaven. The pearl is worth far more than everything you own. Maybe you also need a bucket to carry the pearl. Hey I have one!
The Invited Guests. Luke 14:7-24. In this parable, Jesus tells his disciples to sit at a less honored spot when attending a dinner rather than taking the best place for themselves. Another parable about humility.
The Speck and the Log. Luke 6:37-42. This parable blasts all the hypocrites for their hypocrisy. I know I would be in that category too.

That's my list. Erik was dismayed to find that the parable of the Ten Talents was not on the list but I've never liked that one as much as other parables.

In a few days the brothers and their wives and Erik's parents will be here. I can't wait! Gaming and family and food! Mostly gaming!

45 points on Quiddler. I got stuck with the V and D!

McDonalds FTW!

2010-12-21T21:34:00.007-05:00

Matthew is 6 months old. We took the obligatory baby/horse picture so you could notice his growth. He is HUGE! The outfit he is wearing is a 12 month outfit. The arms and legs are a little long but it is tight when snapping his onesie.

I also took some pictures of the girls in ballet. I'm amazed at the disparity between the classes. Sarah's class is doing basic jumps whereas Jenna's class does all these French-named moves (obviously Mommy doesn't know all the ballet words).

Erik and I have gone on an adventure the past two weeks. It has been a tough adventure - taste testing caramel mochas. We have gone to several places and bought a medium caramel mocha and rated them. Then we calculated the quality/price ratio to see which medium caramel mocha was the best. You will be surprised by the results (assuming you actually care).

McDonalds has the best taste/price ratio in both Erik and my opinion. What we were most surprised about is how good Caribou coffee is and how not good Tim Hortons was.

So now we have proof that if a cup of coffee is what you want McDonalds has the best deal in town.

I had been in the mood to do a taste test but all my ideas were shot down by Erik (really, what is wrong with getting a bunch of different apples and trying them to see which one is the best??)

81 points on Quiddler today.

My sheep and my angel

2010-12-14T18:17:00.005-05:00

Unless you are ready for some SERIOUS cute do not click on this link: Christmas play featuring Sarah. Here is another one featuring Jenna. In this Christmas play Jenna was an angel and Sarah was a sheep. You will notice in the first video the only little kid dancing around and bouncing was Sarah. I laughed out loud! Jenna is way in the corner where it is a little dark. But you can see her singing in the second video.

Every year we make a gingerbread house together. This year we had a fun time and made a big mess which = fun time. See picture. Matthew should participate next year :).

With Christmas approaching I obviously was thinking of my favorite spices/herbs. I didn't include salt or pepper as a spice but looking back - maybe they should be.

Basil. Need I say more. I love all types of basil and think I should add it to every dish.... pasta, cheesecake, chocolate chip cookies - anything
Cinnamon. There's something about cinnamon and sugar together that brings you back home.
Garlic. I'm not sure if it counts as a spice but pair it with basil and some parmesan cheese and I'm in heaven
Rosemary. Rosemary foccacia bread - really is there anything better?
Cayenne pepper. I put this on my pasta. It add just the right amount of kick to relatively bland pasta.
Nutmeg. Nothing is the same without nutmeg and you only need a little for it to spice up any recipe.
Cilantro. I've made salsa with and without cilantro. Cilantro makes salsa yum!
Mint. Fresh mint really enhances about any dish - it's not just for dessert.
Dill. I just finished making shallot dill bread. It was so good.
Oregano. Pair this with basil and you've got a fabulous combination. Definitely a winner!

80 points on quiddler today!

Party on Sarah!

2010-12-11T10:03:00.006-05:00

Sarah's birthday party at Recreations Outlet was a success. Several kids came to the party (along with a surprising number of Daddies!) and the kids enjoyed playing on all the equipment. Sarah loves trampolines and here is an action shot of her jumping on one. She also had fun pushing Emmerich and Grant in the tire swing. Yes all 27 lbs of her - pushing the other two kids!

Matthew has been sick. Early November we took him to the ped for wheezing and he had a breathing treatment and was given amoxicillin. On Tuesday of this week I took him back because he was wheezing. He was given two breathing treatments. These take 20 minutes. So I was crammed in this little room with 3 kids for 2 hrs. AAAAAH!

I eventually had to leave before they gave him the third breathing treatment (had to teach) but I was sent home with a prescription for albuterol. Yesterday I went to the ped and he had two ear infections. The ped said if he comes back with wheezing he will be diagnosed with asthma. My poor little guy.

I'm worried about him although I'm not sure if Erik is worried. For example, I called Erik on the way home from teaching the other night. Erik said as he was holding Matthew and he got worried. I immediately thought, "oh no - he was breathing ragged, wheezing, coughing, what happened??!!??". Erik finished his sentence to say he heard rumbling down below and thought he'd have to change a really nasty diaper. Really?? The baby is wheezing and you care about diapers? Oh my!

In other news:

I finished the Conqueror's trilogy by Timothy Zahn. This was a fun sci-fi trilogy. The story is easy to read, not bloody or graphic and you began to care about the characters - even the aliens :).
I am in the fourth book of the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone by Greg Keyes. I love this series and can't wait to find out how it comes together.
I am also reading Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. This book is something I've picked up numerous times but haven't finished. It starts out very bloody and the main character (Eragon) is a little whiney. However I do want to read it.
Besides reading we are also baking. I love holiday eating! The girls and I have been baking. Although when they bake mostly they eat the ingredients - yes they eat plain butter!
Erik bought me a new computer for Christmas. It is a wonderful gift - much better than the bucket I got him. However I have not copied over my data yet. In fact, I was looking at my data. I never copied it over from my previous computer. I just set up a mapped drive. Wow - that's laziness to the max. So rather than copying over all my data this time, I set up a mapped drive to my computer with its other mapped drive. I wonder how many times I'll do this.
63 points on quiddler today - I lost the o and v.

Sock Money

2010-12-07T15:28:00.005-05:00

Often I berate myself over stupid things I've said or done in the past. In fact, I go over these situations in my mind quite frequently. I'm not sure why I torture myself this way - you'd think I could let it go.

For example, in high school I was a nerd. Plain and simple. Glasses + braces + marching band + top academic student + spent nights reading sci-fi = nerd. Even so, I still wanted to impress the seniors especially the senior trombone player in marching band.

Well he was collecting money to give a gift to our band director. As he was collecting money I realized the only money I had was the money in my sock.

Let me explain something. Marching band uniforms are not absolutely flattering nor do they have a lot of pockets. So the only place I was able to store extra emergency money was my sock.

Oh yea....sexy!

Well without thinking, I flagged down the senior trombone player to give him my money for the band director and reached into my sock to pull it out for him. I handed him my yucky sock money and watched in horror as he gingerly held it with a look of disgust and said "umm...thanks?".

Oops.

53 points - terrible!