Jenna's ballet recital was this past Sunday. She was a snowgirl in the Columbus Dance Arts three fairies and a tale recital. The recital was 3 1/2 hours long but it was a good show. Jenna did a great job dancing too!  It was fun watching the older girls dance - they are really good and maybe Jenna will be dancing like that someday.

Jenna: my little snowgirl

Jenna right before the performance!

 Sarah wanted to bake some bread (obviously - what else would a 4 year old want to do?). And she wanted to make berry bread. So I helped her make berry bread and she wrote out all the ingredients on a piece of paper to write out her "repice". The bread turned out pretty good too!  Sarah had her preschool graduation so now she is officially in pre-kindergarten. She has started reading a few words which is pretty exciting.

Sarah baked berry bread - yum!

 Last year I posted this picture of the three kids swinging on our swingset. Now look at them - in one year they've gotten so much bigger. Jenna can push herself on the swing and Sarah is actually sitting on it correctly. Good times.

Swinging in the backyard

Our Coo* book club is now reading Mistborn. Just about everyone in the book club has already read the book but we're reading it again anyway because we like it. I'm looking forward to this summer. We should have a blast!

86 points on Quiddler today!

I don't even know who my husband is anymore...

That's right. Who are you Erik?

My formerly vegetable-adverse husband wanted to plant spinach in one whole garden out of our 8 gardens.  I talked him out of it so I could plant zucchini instead. He is zucchini-adverse but has found a love of spinach. Erik = popeye!

Our 8 gardens

 This year we also planted strawberries on the side of our house. It sounds like strawberries take a few years to grow so in 3 years we will have a good crop. The waiting is the hardest part.

Strawberries on the side of the house

 Summer is almost here which means lots of swimming! All three kids have swimming lessons every week and it is going well except for Matthew. He is not a fan. These are his first swimming lessons so it is to be expected, but Jenna and Sarah are doing well.

Matthew going up the slide at swimming lessons

 In other news:

1. I finished an Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson. As I was reading this book I was struck by how many different genres he managed to put in one book. It has fantasy, western and steampunk elements to it. Yet it works. This reminds me of Iron chef when they mix banana, lobster, and goat cheese together and the judges say "I didn't know how it would go together but it works." Hmmmm... banana, lobster, and goat cheese. Maybe that will be my next iron chef dish!
2. Every Sunday evening the girls stay up and watch Cupcake Wars with me. They really love this show (obviously I do too). I have been begging Erik to get me some secret ingredients to make cupcakes out of. Stay tuned!
3. The cherry berry chiller at McDonalds is AMAZING. Just sayin.
4. Yesterday I swam (for the first time since March!) and timed myself at 42 seconds a lap.  The internet said it should take me 15 seconds. I will probably be dead last at the triathlon :(.  Searching online for "swimming faster" really didn't give me any ideas.
5. I love my new schedule at work but am really feeling like working in industry. Maybe when the kids get in school. Erik said I should just give it up - we will see what happens.  Who knows?
6. 73 points on Quiddler today.

Brownies and Lasagna

Sarah's Mothers day song

Last week Sarah's preschool had a Mother's Day program. The kids each filled out a questionnaire about their mother. Some of the answers were hilarious. Sarah said I was 76 years old (I think I look pretty good for 76) and my favorite food was mashed cauliflower (I've only made this once - yes I liked it but wouldn't call it my favorite food). Then they all sang a song about their moms. It was so sweet!

Jenna's Bridge to Brownies ceremony

Jenna went through the bridge ceremony from Daisys to Brownies. So if we keep her in girl scouts next year she will be a brownie. To celebrate I made her a pan of brownies which we devoured quickly.

Tuesday night our small group served dinner at Faith Mission - a homeless shelter in Columbus. We brought 8 pans of lasagna and 3 large pans of spaghetti and meatballs.

And we ran out.

This shelter is for only men and we were surprised at how many men were there and how much food they ate :). We also brought salad, cookies, pop, and rolls. It was a successful trip but I felt bad for the two people who didn't get any lasagna.

70 points on quiddler today

My first chopped basket!

While I have done several Iron Chef competitions (is it a competition if I'm not competing?) I have never done a Chopped basket. Erik surprised me with the following ingredients:

1. Corn bitz cereal (generic corn chex)
2. Dried beef
3. Black beans
4. Cherry craisins
5. Pizza crust

My Chopped Basket Ingredients

At first I thought there was no way these ingredients could go together to make a coherent dish. I tried the dried beef with the craisins and black beans and the combination was terrible. I didn't know how this would turn out.

I made pasta dough and then cut out little raviolis. I filled the raviolis with the dried beef, black beans, and added a little pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese. Then I crushed the chex cereal and cut the pizza up into little bite size portions. I rolled the pizza bites in the crushed chex and baked them to make croutons. Next I made a sauce out of sherry wine, heavy cream, butter, and the cherries. I poured this sauce on top.

My chopped creation

This dish may sound terrible but it wasn't. In fact, it was pretty amazing. Erik couldn't believe it! He said he never would have thought these ingredients would work so well together. I was so excited! Actually what really made it was the sauce on top. The sauce was fantastic and Erik wants me to make it again.

So this was a really successful chopped basket!
In other news:

1. I went to the IEEE spring banquet and saw my friend Jack and his wife Angie. He got his PhD which was very exciting. I'm hoping to be more involved with IEEE this year.
2. Since Matthew is developmentally delayed, he qualifies to attend this Family Music time class for free. The music is really catchy and we listen to the CD in the car. The girls love it. I have no idea if Matthew cares or not. He just walks around during the class and doesn't pay attention.
3. All three kids are taking swimming lessons now. Jenna and Sarah LOVE swimming lessons but Matthew squirms the whole time and doesn't seem to like it. I think he doesn't like listening to the teacher - he wants to do his own thing.
4. 82 points on quiddler today

Matthew knows his nose

While it may seem trivial to know where your nose is, for Matthew it is a big accomplishment. I've been working with him for quite awhile to learn his body parts but he has never shown that he actually knows where anything is except his head and belly. Yesterday he knew where his nose was! Yippee!

Tim and Jen gave us their train table (maybe I should say their kids gave us the train table - I'm not sure how much Tim and Jen played with it).  We love the train table and have been playing on it a lot. Sarah especially loves the train table. She also has been crazy about legos and fiercely guards her legos from Matthew. I see some potential conflict between Sarah and Matthew.

Matthew and his new train table

 I have written Limericks about Jenna and Sarah. So I thought I'd try my hand at writing one for Matthew.

A Limerick I wrote about Matthew:
There once was a busy little boy
Whose running feet are his favorite toy
He points and he smiles
And runs for miles
And his giggles are his family's joy


Originally the last line was "And his dimples are his family's joy". But Erik told me that he doesn't care at all about dimples and they brought him no joy.  I changed the poem to say "giggles". 

Matthew and Daddy

Our band

In other news:

1. Our coo* book club has started An Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson. I had trouble stopping at the 4th chapter. The 4th chapter!! You know if you're hooked by the 4th chapter it has to be good.
2. I'm reading Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig. It's a great book about Rhett Butler and his family. I'm really enjoying it.
3. I've also picked up Wings of Wrath by C.S. Friedman. Her writing is fantastic.
4. My semester started with 2 online classes and 2 onsite classes. It has been great! I love the classes I'm teaching and the material is exactly what I want to teach. This semester is so wonderful. While I thought I wouldn't like Friday nights and Saturday morning - it's actually really nice. All week long I am with my family and we don't do much on Saturday mornings anyway. Bummer we can't go camping this semester though.  We might try to go during the week.
5. One of my students emailed me and asked me to pray for her friend. She said she heard I was a prayer warrior. Wow! That is so amazing - that's what I want to be known as.
6. Erik and I have been playing some old school Starcraft lately. We are both rusty but it is fun.
7. I got -56 points on Quiddler today because there were no vowels. Seriously? No vowels!!

My cool/loser bike

After my fun trip to Chicago, the weather here has been so nice we've gone bike riding every day! Check out my fancy new bike. I bought this bike at Performance Bike for $300. I was so excited about my new bike - especially since I *thought* I spent a lot on it and it was a good bike.

Me riding my new bike

Then I went to a triathlon training camp for newbies. Everyone but me and one other woman had really expensive road bikes. They also had clip on shoes to clip their shoes to the pedals. These people were serious. I looked at my bike and felt like a loser.  Even so - I'm not going to drop a thousand dollars on a road bike now. 

How I felt about my bike

Static hair at the playground

For our anniversary we are planning on going to the Hocking Hills zip line. I also found a 38 mile bike path we might ride too. It will be scenic and a lot of fun. I'm excited for our anniversary trip.

In other news:

1. Our book club finished the Windup Girl. The book was innovative and well-written. However just like the Dispossessed (also innovative and well-written) I didn't love it.
2. The book club is now starting The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson. Yep. I read 4 chapters and I'm hooked. Love him.
3. I'm working my way through the Bible on a 365 day plan. I've done really well and managed to catch up on days I've missed. It has been a fun and good experience!
4. Now that I'm teaching only Fridays and Saturdays I have my whole week to spend with the family. I eat dinner with them every night and I'm loving it!
5. 76 points on quiddler today

My fun week!

Sarah had her conference last week. The teachers said they have never had a child in this age group who knew all her upper and lower case letters and could write her first and last name, count up to 30, cut with scissors so well, and do math and science with good skills. They said she is really smart and wanted to know if we were going to put her in Pre-K next year or second grade :). Sure I guess we could put her in second grade with Jenna.  That was pretty exciting.

 This week I attended the Faculty Symposium and had a wonderful time! I met faculty from all across the country and got some good ideas to implement in the classroom. I went to several presentations and discussions and loved getting to know everyone. I was on the planning committee and I really enjoyed it.  

Sandy, Cyndi, Me, John, and Joe from Columbus at the Faculty Symposium. Ryan is not pictured - apparently he didn't eat breakfast this day. John is from Columbus but actually now works for corporate Devry

 On the final day of the symposium we made/stuffed bears through Build-a-bear and donated them to St. Jude's Children's Hospital. It was a heartfelt team building exercise that everyone enjoyed. I got to know Joe from my campus better and found out he has read many of the same books I have read, including the Windup Girl and pretty much all of the fantasy and sci fi books I have read. He has also read an Alloy of Law the next book for our book club!

The team for the build-a-bear competition at the symposium - I was on the committee so I couldn't be on the team

All the Columbus faculty together

I'm so glad I attended - it was a wonderful experience! Another Columbus faculty could not attend at the last minute and we missed him.

I was gone this week and missed my kids quite a bit. Today I took Sarah and Matthew to a park for "fun" and Matthew went a little crazy. He needs a leash. We went with Tricia and her kids Addie and Tyson. It was fun to get out!

An example of Matthew running away from me at the park at an alarming speed

Jenna at the First Grade Girl Scout Hoedown

Sarah see-sawing with Tricia's kids Tyson and Addie

 67 points on Quiddler today

Ikea and Easter

For Easter we all went to Missy's house and her church for Easter Sunday (well - minus Matthew, he stayed with my parents). We also got to know Dave her fiance better. It was a blast! There is a park near Missy's house we went to with a huge hill that lots of kids were rolling down. Some adults may have rolled down the hill too but I won't mention that part.  It was a fun time. We also went to Dairy Queen - yum! Missy's church was so much fun. Especially since Dave was playing guitar and Missy was singing in the band. They sounded great.

Sarah loves hyacinths

Last week my Mom asked us if we would be interested in buying their Taurus. Yipee! Their car has 89,000 miles on it whereas our Taurus had 145,000 miles on it. And most importantly it was clean. I mean no ground in goldfish crackers, hard as rock raisins, or wheels from some unknown McDonalds toy on the floor. This is exciting. Of course Erik said we are keeping this car clean! Yea right :).

Last weekend Jen, Nicole and I went to Cincinnati on our annual girls trip. We went to the Jefferson Outlet malls, Ikea, and Jungle Jims Grocery store. It was an awesome trip! I had never been to Ikea and really loved it. I also loved Jungle Jims and spent lots of money on specialty cheese and dark chocolate - yum!

I also spent lots of money on clothes for the kids and fancy skechers shoes for Jenna at the outlet malls. On Saturday evening we met my friend Julie at Panera. It was wonderful to see her and catch up. We'll definitely have to plan a camping trip to Cincinnati to see Julie and Randy and go back to Ikea this summer :)

Me and Julie B

Nicole, Me and Jen on the girls trip

The girls at Missy's church on Easter Sunday

I have gotten pretty nervous lately about this triathlon. I'm not sure I can do it and I really don't know what I was thinking. How can I swim 1/4 mile, bike 10 miles, and run 3.1 miles when I haven't done these things yet. And do them all together? I'm not sure about this. I run about once or twice a week and bike once or twice a week but I never swim.

When I bike I drag Sarah and Matthew in the bike trailer. My bike is also pretty heavy (and old). The bike trailer weighs 23.8 lbs. Sarah and Matthew weigh about 64 lbs together. 23.8 +64 = 87.8lbs that I pull behind me. I weigh 122 lbs. So I am pulling 87.8/122 = 72% of my body weight when I ride. This means when I buy my fancy new road bike and ride by myself I'll probably break the sound barrier since I'll ride so fast :).

81 points on Quiddler today

A childlike faith

I took Jenna and Sarah to Stations of the Cross at St. Joan of Arc on Good Friday. In the sea of people going through the motions reading the words, there is Jenna. She is reading too. But she is not distracted; her mind is not wandering. She was reading the words and absorbing them.

After the 10th station I look at her and she is crying.

She is crying.

Hearing about Jesus beaten and bruised was difficult for her. Her heart is so open, so genuine, so pure.

What is my faith compared to hers?

I can learn so much from one so small...

All the months of the year

April = awesome.  How awesome you might wonder? Well I'm glad you asked that. It is 5/12 awesome. I can actually say that because I ordered all the months by my favorites. Obviously.
Here's my list of months from least favorite to favorite (sorry January)
12. January - too cold
11. Februray - ditto
10. March - still cold
9. November - Yea! Thanksgiving!
8. August - summer is winding down but still a great time of year
7. May - transition month just to get to June, but the weather is wonderful!
6. October - pumpkins and trick-or-treat. Yea!
5. April - waking up after the cold, I love the beautiful flowers and blossoms
4. December - Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year (at least I heard that somewhere...)
3. September - The leaves are turning color, the weather is mild, it is nice outside
2. June - what's not to love? seriously? June is a fantastic month
1. July - my birthday and a full month of summer. Love summertime!

Sidewalk chalk fun

Yes they dumped out the bubble container on the steps and started rubbing the bubble wands in the liquid

Two weeks ago we had board gaming night at our house. It was an awesome time and I think everyone had fun. I made two types of dip and had vanilla wafers and graham crackers to dip in them. They were scrumptuous:  Cookie dough dip and red velvet dip.  It was a really fun time and I appointed Missy as the photographer.

Yummy dips for game night

Ticket to Ride! Notice Dave really studying that blue train!

Railroad Tycoon. Erik dominated this game - surprise! surprise!

More railroad tycoon

More Ticket to Ride. I won this game. The hosts swept this game night

In other news:

1. I saw the Hunger Games movie. It was an excellent book adaptation movie. They did a great job keeping the spirit of the book in the movie.
2. I finished Queen of Men by Joel Cooper. This book is a good fantasy fiction book and the writing is improved over his first book (which seemed more young adult to me).
3. I also finished Feast of Souls by C.S. Friedman. This is the first book in the Magister trilogy and I'll wait on the second one until I finish some other books I'm reading now.
4. Our Coo* book club is reading the Windup Girl. There are many interesting concepts in the book, however I'm not sure I care about the characters all that much.
5. I just started reading Rhett Butler's People. I love Gone With the Wind and this story is from Rhett Butler's point of view - he's such a scoundrel!
6. My friend Brian is a celebrity. He works at Ford and makes a cameo in this video at about 53 seconds into it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-us8xt-3PNw I didn't realize Ford was so exciting!
7. 66 points on Quiddler today



Shocking Puffins!

I found a recipe online for Pancake Muffins (aka puffins). Each one is dipped in pancake syrup before eating. They were so delicious! The girls devoured them quickly. Speaking of quickly - I've been making fruit leather lately and the girls eat it so quickly I can't even snap a picture. I'm not kidding!
I make fruit leather using this recipe:

2 lbs strawberries
2 pears
splash of lemon juice
a little water
Cook until soft. Puree in food processor. Pour into two cookie sheets. Bake in 170 oven for 6-8 hours. It's really good, healthy, and soooooo yummy.

Pancake muffins = puffins!

Every Tuesday I make dinner for my small group. The past few dinners have been less exciting. I made chili wagon wheel casserole which had basically no taste, and tortellini carbonara which was good but not great.  However the coq au vin I made was fabulous! The picture doesn't look great but it was really good. It had bacon, chicken, garlic, carrots, mushrooms, pearl onions, spices, etc, and 2 cups of red wine. I served it with rice a roni and everyone loved it!

coq au vin. lots of yumminess

Daddy and Matthew working at the computer

Yesterday I went to HerWorld for high school junior and senior girls. We built a motion detector using snap circuits and I got to talk a little about electricity. The girls loved it! However I was the one who was shocked. The girls filled out forms listing their information and the senior sitting next to me was born June 1994.
I graduated high school in 1993. Hmmm.... it seems like just yesterday. Where did the time go?

Snap circuit motion detector

I've registered for another triathlon. This one will be at Alum Creek so I'll be swimming with the fishies! It 1/4 mile swimming, 10 miles biking, and 3.1 miles running. I do need a new bike though. I don't want to be laughed at by the other triathletes because of my free non-speed bike with the babyseat on the back.

79 points on Quiddler today

Summer bike riding

Jenna on the trail bike

This weather is FANTASTIC! Yesterday was the first day of spring but it felt like summer! We love long family bike rides however Jenna is too big to fit in the bike trailer, so we had to find a way to bring all the kids with us. We probably can't leave some of them at home.

The trail bike is our answer! Jenna pedals along behind Erik and absolutely loves it! I pull Sarah and Matthew in a trailer behind me. So we've been able to bike to Handels and Jenis ice cream in the past week (I'm sure we will go other places besides ice cream shops, but really? why bother??) When we rode to Jenis the other day I got a black and tan sundae. Yum-O! Salty caramel ice cream with hot fudge & caramel topped with roasted almonds, whip cream, and chocolate stout bundt cake. Yea!

On the top of the mountain!

The other day we had a tornado warning. We all went to the basement to huddle against the elements. Rather than huddling, the girls found some old boxes to play with. All three of them had a great time jumping and playing in the big boxes. Yes Matthew is in there too.

I think Matthew is in there somewhere....

Sarah and Daddy love grapefruit



In other news:

1. Our book club is reading The Windup Girl by Paolo B. It is interesting that you can extrapolate the current state of our society to the one in which this book takes place. This author is one of those authors who immerses you into the world and characters with little backstory. I really like that. It's fun to deduce the world on your own rather than having the author spell it all out for you.
2. I'm almost finished with Feast of Souls by C.S. Friedman. Great, great book! Instead of reading the second book right away, I'm going to read Rhett Butler's People. This is the story of Gone with the Wind from Rhett Butler's point of view. I'm excited about this book since I really love Gone with the Wind!
3. To thank Erik for working so hard to pay off the house, I am going to surprise him by signing him up for a Bacon of the month club. I think he will really like this since he seems to have some sort of obsession with bacon.
4. 70 points on Quiddler today

Gender neutral cats

A few months ago Joel and Megan visited us and Megan was wearing the cutest shoes. I loved them but couldn't find any shoes like them. She said they were Clarks and were very comfortable. Apparently Clarks stopped making the shoes she had but I found some other Clarks I really liked.

Yes I just wrote a paragraph about shoes. If you know me, you know I have just a few pairs of shoes I wear because I'm an engineer and not a real woman.

However sometimes I see shoes and like them. Like the following - super cute shoes!

My super cute new shoes

 I've heard a lot lately about making mashed cauliflower rather than mashed potatoes. I thought it would be fun to try and make both for dinner and have a taste test! Erik, Sarah, and Matthew did not touch the cauliflower. Only Jenna and I ate it. Bummer - I thought it was fantastic!

Mashed potatoes and mashed cauliflower

 To get ready for spring planting, we will be starting several seeds indoors. We usually buy these little cups from Lowes to put our seeds in. This year Erik found a good idea on Pinterest a very manly website to create little cups to hold seeds out of newspaper. Sarah was very "helpful" filling the cups with dirt.

Sarah and Daddy making starter dirt cups for plants.

 Wednesday was a momentous occation in our household. It was Pi day 3/14! I made a double chocolate silk pie which was really incredible. This picture isn't great because the whip cream is overpowering it, but the pie was fantastic! We always have to celebrate Pi day!

Double chocolate silk pie for Pi day!

 I'm not sure if you can read the following picture. It says "I know dont like Matthew". This was written by Sarah. She is pretty good at writing for 4 and it's interesting she chose to write this particular sentence too. She gave this paper to Scruffles since she thinks Scruff does not like Matthew.

Tell us how you really feel Sarah...

Scruffles with his/her blue collar

Scruffles had a little growth on his side. We were a little worried about it so we took him to the vet. Rather than just watching it, they removed it and stitched him up. They also gave him a collar he was supposed to wear for 10 days. He wiggled out if it in 2 hours.

On the report listing Scruffles procedure it listed: female spayed. Huh?

David said he paid for Scruffles to get neutered many years ago. One of these doctors is wrong.

Poor Scruffles - no one actually knows his/her gender.

78 points on Quiddler today

My number: 36



Kate, Me, and Tricia post-triathlon

Yesterday I competed in my first triathlon and had a blast! My friends Kate and Tricia joined me and all three of us loved it.

However I need to add something to the list of "stupid things Gina says" (this is a REALLY long list). When I went up to the registration desk to sign in yesterday morning, the person working there wrote a number 36 on my arm. I asked him "are you writing everyone's age on their arm?" He looked at me like I was an idiot. No - that was my participant number. It also happens to be my age - oops.

Now Tricia wants to run a 10k. So we'll have to look around for a 10k - I'm sure there are several races but I haven't paid much attention.

Jenna and Sarah have recently been doing adventurous things! Jenna went to the police station with her Daisy Scout troop. She was fingerprinted and got to sit in a police car - she loved it!

Jenna getting fingerprinted when her Daisy Scout trip visited the Police Station

Sarah had a Daddy Night at her preschool where she made him a nice paper tie he could wear (it was snazzy!). She also saw and touched several animals. Erik said many of the other kids were scared to go touch an alligator but Sarah jumped right up and held it.

Sarah holding a baby alligator at preschool



I'm excited for Pi day coming up!  We will be having chocolate pie - yum!

51 points on Quiddler today