Ballet recitals and camel rides - the joys of summer

Since school ended last Friday this was officially the first week of summer break. We spent the week swimming, going to the zoo, going to parks, eating ice cream, and reading at the library. Jenna has already read 6 hours of the 12 she needed to read for the summer reading program. 

Jenna and I also had our own little book club together. We read Ever by Gail Carson Levine. We enjoyed the book and had a good discussion about it. I'd really like to have more book club discussions with Jenna. She reads faster than my Coo* book club ;). We both read the book in a day.

Jenna had her ballet recital at the Capital theater downtown. It was a 3 hour show and her character was Hercules. She was happy since she knew Hercules from the Percy Jackson books. Even though she was Hercules she had a beautiful dress and her dance was graceful.

Sarah as a music box

 Sarah's ballet performance is tomorrow and she is a music box. Her costume is beautiful and the music is fun for her performance. This is her last year in the mini-show. Next year both girls will be in the big show. Hopefully they will be in the same big show - I don't want to be downtown all day!

Jenna (second from the right - wearing glasses)

Jenna at her ballet recital

 Sarah was drawing on her whiteboard when I walked by and saw this. I'm proud of her for spelling annoyed correctly, although I'm not sure why she is annoyed at Matthew.

Sarah's message to Matthew

 The Zoo opened its Africa exhibit and it is fantastic! I took Jenna, Sarah, Matthew and 3 of Jenna's friends (Abigail, Grace and Saatvika) to the zoo. We all rode the camel rides, saw the giraffes, cheetahs, and lions. Then we rode the boat ride. This is the ride in which Sarah screamed the entire ride. It is a dinosaur boat ride and the dinosaurs scared her. No more dinosaur rides!

Sarah, Grace and Abigail on the camel ride

Jenna and Saatvika on the camel ride

Matthew and Me on the camel

In other news:

• I'm reading Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. I've read Steelheart, the Emperor's soul, Shadows for silence (short story), The Rithmatist and Warbreaker is the last book in my list to read of his novels.He has several Alcatraz novels and while I like them - they are juvenile fiction and I don't love them.
• I'm in the middle of Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. This is an interesting historical fiction book set in Scotland. I'm enjoying it. 
• Next in my list is Divergent. I *finally* got it from the library. I was on the list for months!
• Dark chocolate almond milk is delicious. It's my new favorite thing. 
• 70 points on Quiddler today

Pioneer day

Every year the entire third grade takes a field trip back in time for Pioneer Day. All the kids dress up as pioneers. Girls in bonnets and aprons and boys in suspenders and straw hats. They all look adorable. I bought Jenna's dress on etsy and Erik's mom made my dress for Pioneer day. We had a blast. 

Jenna and me

 The kids rotated to several different stations like: candle making, pioneer chores (washing clothes with a washboard/shucking corn/cleaning up fake horse doodoo....), square dancing, tin punching, grave rubbing, scavenger hunts, general store, biscuit making, butter making, making lemonade, games (tug of war, etc), watermelon spitting, and all kinds of pioneer activities.

In the morning I was doing square dancing. I danced all the way up until lunch time (and learned how to do-si-do!). Then I helped make butter in the afternoon. Jenna's favorite activity was candle making. She was so excited to burn the candle she made too!

Jenna's class

 Some of the kids were able to spit their watermelon seeds pretty far. As far back as I took this picture I was almost in the line of fire...

Watermelon seed spitting

 I loved Pioneer day. I'm so glad Jenna got to experience this and the weather was perfect.

Making lemonade

In addition to today being Pioneer day it was also Sarah's last day of school. Matthew finished school on Wed, Sarah today and Jenna will finish school tomorrow. They are bouncing off the wall with excitement for summer. I brought in the snack for Sarah's party. I made yellow cupcakes with white buttercream frosting. Then I put graham cracker crumbs on the cupcakes and a drink umbrella to look like the beach. It was so cute! I didn't get a picture though - the kids ate them up so quickly. 

Sarah and Mrs. Lukach

We are all ready for summer here!

Tough Mudder 2014: The Cold never bothered me anyway...

Nope. The cold does bother me. On Saturday our team of 5 people ran the Tough Mudder in arctic temperatures. One might assume that we looked like this:

Sarah and Matthew playing with the neighbor kids 

 or this:

More Sarah and Matthew playing with the neighbor kids

In fact, we were muddier!

Erik, me, Tricia, Nate, and Tim

 The course was 10 1/2 miles with 21 obstacles. I loved the cooperative element especially since everyone helped me :).

Everyone helping Erik up the Berlin Walls

Me leaving the barbed wire trenches

 When I think about what the hardest obstacle of the event was, it was definitely the weather. None of the obstacles were as difficult as the cold temperatures. The temperature varied from 40° - 50° and overcast (sometimes raining). The cold sapped all my strength. I'm hard core though, obstacles, hypothermia, mud in my hair....no biggie.

I skipped 3 obstacles - the arctic enema, walk the plank and funky monkey. All of these required you to swim through really cold water. I was geared up to do all of the obstacles but at the time, I was way too cold. Last year Erik said he ran a lot more. This year we sludged through the mud almost the entire 10 1/2 miles.

Today every part of my body is sore. I'm glad my parents watched the kids yesterday. Although today it was hard to take care of them when we were both sore!

Would I do this again? Yes if it is warmer and only if it is warmer!

Toothetina made a visit

Every day, to every person, in every location Sarah has been showing her wiggly tooth. To anyone who will listen Sarah has wiggled her tooth for them. She has been anxiously waiting for her bottom tooth to fall out. In fact, we could see the tooth behind it peeking through so we knew it would be soon. At school last Friday 5/2 Jenna lost her tooth. Poor Sarah - she had been so excited to lose a tooth and Jenna lost one. 

However the long awaited event occurred. Sarah lost her first tooth on Friday 5/9 and was ecstatic! The tooth fairy left her laffy taffy (her favorite candy today) and some hard earned cash.

Sarah lost her first tooth!

 Our church hosted a conference for the Evangelical Covenant churches in our region. Pastors from New York, Michigan, etc were all at our church and I was hired to make 8 dozen cupcakes for them. I made:

1. Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting - yummy, this is really the best combination
2. Lemon cupcakes with lemon frosting - Three lemons worth of zest and juice!
3. Vanilla cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream - yummy/slightly boring
4. Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting - I always make these and the reason they asked me. They like these cupcakes so much.
5. Peppermint mocha cupcakes with peppermint buttercream - AMAZING! These were the best cupcakes I've ever made. 

Actually all my cupcakes use buttercream. I generally use the same base recipe and just add a few things to modify it. The peppermint buttercream recipe on the site linked above uses twice the amount of butter I use in my buttercream. The flavor was noticeably less sweet and richer. I think I'll have to modify my base buttercream recipe. This was delicious!

Chocolate/chocolate

Peppermint mocha and cinnamon vanilla

Lemon drop

 We like to go camping on Mothers Day weekend since it is a good weekend to kick off camping season and the kids love it. Matthew talked so much about camping that his teachers were impressed. The campground had a Mothers Day craft involving lots of messy paint and decorating a Styrofoam cup as a flower pot. Jenna was so artistic with her flower pot that the volunteers were impressed. She wouldn't let me get a picture though (I will have to sneak a pic). The kids really had fun camping. Jenna said camping is her favorite part of summer. I read Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson on the trip, since at night we just sat by the fire and read books. I loved it! Sooo relaxing.

Decorating the flower pots

Sidewalk chalk by the camper

The Tough Mudder is next weekend and hopefully we are tough enough. I had fun doing the Warrior Dash - it is not a competition but a cooperative event. The Tough Mudder should be like this as well. I enjoy triathlons but I like the cooperative aspect of these events even more. It should be fun!

Summer Bucket List 2014

We have about 3 weeks left of school. The kids are crazy with anticipation for the end of the year. I am too.



On our family summer bucket list is the following:

1. Horseback riding
2. Roscoe Village
3. Going to the pool 
4. Going to the zoo
5. Camping
6. Renfest
7. Westerville Bike trail family ride
8. Anthony Thomas Candy tour
9. Swimming lessons
10. Watching Disney movies
11. Letterbox hunt at the library
12. Summer reading program
13. Go to the Worthington farmers market
14. Canning veggies and jam
15. Lots of scavenger hunts
16. Learn Geocaching (this is something I've always wanted to try)

In other news:

• My next session starts on Sunday. The easy session was wonderful while it lasted - back to the real world with difficult classes.
• This year in our garden we are going to try and plant peanuts. I've heard they are difficult to grow but I think it will be fun!
• I went from disliking Girl Scouts to now being the troop leader for both girls. AAAH! I am not sure how I have been roped into this. The leaders for Jenna's troop are quitting an no one else wants to step up. Since I'm already doing Sarah's I might as well do the other one. I've had all the leader training. Jenna is excited! At some point it will no longer be cool to have her mom be the troop leader.
• We are going camping in a week. It's our first camping trip of the year. We love to camp over Mothers Day since campgrounds usually have crafts and free breakfast for Mom (hey, that's me!)
• Erik has lost 15lbs using his bulletproof coffee recipe for breakfast (he doesn't eat anything - just drinks coffee). He is looking svelte! I have lost 1 lb. I'm losing this race.
• I ran 6 miles once. Just once. After that I had to ice my knee for 2 days since it hurt so bad. From my research I determined that I have runner's knee. This happens often in "mature females." What do they mean "mature"?

Happy Easter

Jenna made an epic rainbow loom bracelet. It was about 10 feet long and I had to get a picture. She used it as a jumprope for awhile. She has so much fun creating these!

Jenna's long rainbow loom string?

As we were walking home from school one day Jenna asked me what house I would be in Hogwarts. I immediately said Gryffindor since I am brave and that's where all the brave people are (obviously!). She said she would be in Ravenclaw since they are the smartest (touche). Then she went on to tell me she wouldn't be in Slytherin since her parents are muggles. Umm.... you are a muggle too Jenna. Maybe she is too into Harry Potter ;). When we go to Universal this fall and see the Harry Potter world she will have a blast! 

For Easter this year we went to the Saturday night service at our church. After the Saturday night service they have Gateway Cafe. This is coffee and desserts and finger food. It was fabulous! We will have to start going to church on Saturday and Sunday!

Grandma made pink taffeta dresses for Jenna and Sarah and matching blue vest and pants for Matthew for Easter. They looked so cute and wore their outfits to church.

Easter clothes courtesy of Grandma

 We also went to an Easter Egg hunt at New Hope church by the zoo. The kids found a lot of Easter Eggs until I lost sight of Matthew for a few minutes. All of a sudden I heard someone yelling "come back!" I looked and Matthew was halfway to the zoo. He was running across a field away from me. 3 year olds can be tiring at times.

Speaking of tiring, I ran 6 miles today in one hour and one minute. This was pretty good for me since I normally run slower than a 10 minute mile. After the run my knee started bothering me. This is how I can tell I'm getting old. I never used to have joint pain!!

Cakes and Meat

Joann's has several classes for kids (8yrs old and up) and Jenna took a cake decorating class there. She had fun creating a duck cake with blue eyes and a beak. The cake really turned out great and she had fun. She didn't make a chocolate cake since she gave up chocolate for lent. She has more spiritual discipline than most adults I know!

Jenna decorating her cake

The finished product

In the spirit of April Fools pranks, I made a pan of brownies for my family for dessert. When Erik saw the pan covered in aluminum foil, his first response was "oh no." Am I that predictable? He amused me and opened the pan to reveal Brown E's. Cheesy yet fun.

Brown E's for April Fools day

This semester has been so glorious for me. I only have one class and two developments. It's been such a break from these difficult sessions with so many students. I'm redeveloping a course that I currently teach with VB to C#. This is not difficult. So basically I've had a fabulous session.

I've had time to come up with my favorite meats. Seafood for the win!

1. Crab
2. Lobster
3. Steak
4. Salmon
5. Chicken
6. Tuna
7. Sausage
8. Ham
9. Scallops
10. Pepperoni

This list was difficult to compile since there is a variety of ways to cook the meat. Do I want tough, dry chicken over tuna steaks perfectly cooked? Well no, but this is the list of meats I like on average. No - bacon is not on the list. It is a good meat to add to other foods but not one I would eat by itself. Pepperoni also falls in this category but I like pepperoni better than bacon. Enough explanation. I love seafood in general.

66 points on Quiddler today

Iron Chef: Fresh Mozzarella

It's been too long since we did Iron chef. So on Saturday Erik bought me a secret ingredient: Fresh Mozzarella. At first I thought this would be an easy ingredient. But the more I thought about it and tested it with different flavors, I realized that it was a more difficult ingredient. Either that or I've lost my creativity! I didn't want to do the usual - tomato, mozzarella, basil, and garlic mixture too much. So I tried to mix it up...somewhat.

Iron Chef Fresh Mozarella

Erik's mousse

The dishes I made were:

1. Sauteed tomato with garlic, basil, and mozzarella. I wanted to stay away from the usual pairings of fresh mozzarella but couldn't stay away entirely. This was yummy but I put too much garlic on.
2. Roasted red pepper and mozzarella ravioli. This was an excellent dish. I roasted red peppers then made a butter/wine/garlic sauce and added the red peppers to it. Mozzarella was the finishing touch on this sauce that covered cheese ravioli. 
3. Mozzarella Mac and Cheese. I thought it would be a great idea to make my usual Velveeta mac and cheese but use mozzarella instead. Sounds great right? Wrong. It became a clumpy cheesy mess. So we had to research this and found that adding wine helps mozzarella melt better. This makes sense since wine is usually added to cheese fondue. So I learned something from my mistake with mozzarella mac and cheese. This dish was okay but it needed more flavor.
4. Buffalo chicken and mozzarella enchilada with corn salsa. This was amazing. Erik especially loved it. The corn salsa actually decreased the heat of the dish. Whereas in most dishes the salsa adds heat. I'll be making this again!
5. Chocolate dipped mozzarella and bacon. I wanted to try something different as dessert. I knew that plain mozzarella dipped in chocolate would not be flavorful and knew it needed some salt. So I thought the perfect thing to add salt would be bacon. I mixed mozzarella, bacon, sugar, and cream (I know - sounds weird) and dipped it in chocolate. Erik said it was strangely good. 

Erik's concoction

After learning about wine and how it helped the melting of mozzarella, Erik took the rest of my melted chocolate, added some wine, mozzarella, cocoa powder, heavy cream, cool whip, and vanilla to make chocolate mousse. This was rich and yummy. A perfect ending to our iron chef!

Bulletproof coffee

Erik and his coffee

Erik is seriously on a diet. In fact the only thing he "eats" for breakfast now is bulletproof coffee. It keeps him full all morning and gives him energy. He really likes it. Since I gave up coffee for lent, I had to wait until Sunday to try it. I drank the coffee before church and was only slightly hungry for lunch after church. It really does work. I'm not going to do it because I like eating ;). See recipe below.

 Erik's bulletproof coffee:
1 cup of hot coffee
2 tblsp coconut oil
1 tblsp butter (optional)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cocoa powder

dog shirt and bob pants - Matthew's favorite outfit

 I also had to include some cute pictures of Matthew. This is his favorite outfit - dog shirt with spongebob pants. He has never seen spongebob but he really likes these pants. Matthew is now going to an integrated class at preschool. Here he is riding scooters with some of the other kids. He loves it.

Scooters at preschool

 So Erik made me a beautiful spice rack several years ago and I really loved it. However I bake a lot and cook a lot. A LOT. And the spices just didn't fit. Every time we walked by the spice rack we would knock something down. We found someone on etsy to make an epic spice rack for us. This epic spice rack now has all our spices on it and even our vinegars and cooking wines. I love it!! Now Erik's spice rack has been moved to hold knick knacks and other unimportant items.

Epic spice rack

58 points on Quiddler today

Green Pi

Every March 14 we celebrate Pi day. Next year will be really exciting since it will be 3/14/15!! At 9:26am we will have a party!

                                                                                                 

To celebrate pi day I made a key lime pie, Tricia made pizza pie and blueberry pie and Andria made french silk pie. We all ate a piece of each pie. I made a delicious peanut butter pie for the kids too. This pie had a crushed nutter butter crust and was divine!

Pi day party!

 Our Monday morning women's Bible study takes turns making breakfast. On St. Patrick's day the person making breakfast (Jaye) brought green eggs and ham. How fun! She also brought green yogurt and shamrock muffins. I loved it.

Green eggs and ham for St. Patricks day

 Sarah made white board sentences describing me and Erik. It is so cute - she just sounded out the words. She has impressed me with how quickly she has picked up writing and reading.

My Daddy by Sarah

My Mommy by Sarah (Jenna wanted to be in the pic)

Tomorrow is the first day of spring. I'm so excited for warmer weather. We have several camping trips and vacations planned this summer. I can't wait!
67 points on Quiddler today

Who wants a shardblade anyway?

Our friends Erin and Steve were married on Saturday. The wedding was beautiful and we were excited to be a part of the wedding. The reception was fun too but the toast was epic. Steve and Erin play table top role playing games and are quite the nerds (we love them!). Steve just finished his Industrial Engineering degree at OSU and Erin is a PhD student in English at Ohio State. Steve is one of the funniest people I know - just like Jon Cook. Erin is one of the smartest people I know and the only one I've heard use the word "draconian" in a sentence.

The groomsman giving the toast gave part of the toast in engineering language ("may no shearing force separate you", "the tensile strength of your love", etc) and part of the toast in Old Norse which is a language that Erin has been studying. When he finished the room erupted in applause. I had tears from laughing so hard.

Erin and Steve

On Sunday I went to my cousin's baby shower. It was exciting since we didn't know the gender of the baby until she cut the cake. This is a fun way to reveal the gender of a baby. She cut the cake and it was pink!

Angie cutting her cake

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson was released on March 4. It is 1087 pages of
AWESOMENESS!
He really knows how to write, especially endings. I laughed (seriously laughed) and had my heart broken while reading this book. I loved it.

In high school I decided to read all of Ray Bradbury's books. I loved his writing and wanted to read all of it. I tried this with Isaac Asimov but he had too many books.  I want to read all of Brandon Sanderson's books. He is such a good writer.

I copied this list below from wikipedia:
Firstborn (short story) (2008)
Defending Elysium (short story) (2008)
Infinity Blade: Awakening (novella) (2011)
Infinity Blade: Redemption (novella) (2013)
The Emperor's Soul (novella) (2012)
Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell (short story) (2013)
Elantris (2005)
Warbreaker (2009)
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians (2007)
Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones (2008)
Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia (2009)
Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens (2010)
Legion (2012)
Mistborn: The Final Empire (2006)
Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (2007)
Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (2008)
Mistborn: The Alloy of Law (2011)
Steelheart (2013)
Mitosis (short story, 2013)
Firefight (Fall 2014)
The Rithmatist (2013)
The Way of Kings (2010)
Words of Radiance (2014)
The Gathering Storm (2009)
Towers of Midnight (2010)
A Memory of Light (2013)


Out of the 26 I have only read 11. So now this is my new task. Then obviously I will make a list of my favorite books!

Not hot chocolate

For the third year in a row Tricia and I did the indoor triathlon at lifetime. I was curious to see if I would be in shape to complete it considering I hadn't run, swam, or biked since the summer. However it turns out that just doing the Shaun T 25 workout videos is enough. I swam 15 laps in 10 minutes which is a personal best for me. I biked for half an hour and ran 2.06 miles in 20 minutes. I know I need to run faster but I'm not there yet. 

At some point in my life I will beat Tricia at something. She is always faster than me at everything.

After the tri

 There is another triathlon in June we may do together and Tricia and I will be doing the tough mudder in May as well. So we have quite a few events coming up this year. .

Matthew wanted me to take a picture of him on the horsey at Meijer

Lent started yesterday and this year I am giving up hot chocolate and coffee. I LOVE hot chocolate. Just about every night I make a cup of hot cocoa and sit by the fire. I put whip cream, marshmallow fluff, caramel and hershey's syrup on it. I missed my calling as a barista.

So this will be difficult "nobody knows the truffles I've seen...." but I love the lenten season as a chance to sacrifice.

Jenna is giving up chocolate and Sarah is giving up Marshmallows and M&Ms. Chocolate will be difficult but Jenna can do it. Both girls will do a great job. I don't know what Matthew will give up. Maybe whining.....now that would be wonderful!

66 points on quiddler today

Mexican Birthday

Erik's birthday is Thursday. Since he is on a diet I am not making him a big yummy cake or fancy dessert I've decided to make his favorite type of food (Mexican) every day of the week. Here is the menu:

Monday: beef enchiladas (these are from my Cook's country cookbook). These enchiladas are made with steak that simmers in a homemade taco sauce for 2 hours. It is unbelievable
Tuesday: Chicken enchiladas and homemade guacamole
Wednesday: Taco chicken (just chicken breasts with taco seasoning) and spanish rice
Thursday: Mexican beef pizza (I make pizza dough and put taco meat, peppers, cheese on top and bake it)
Friday: Cheese quesadillas and fresh salsa

Hopefully Erik will like this gift rather than a cake. I want a cake but I guess it isn't my birthday.

On Saturday Jenna had a sleepover and had 3 friends over. One of the friends had her kindle and I gave her the password for our wireless internet. Jenna said they were up until 3am (3am???) playing with the kindle. Yikes?!?

This made me realize we are behind the times. While we don't allow our kids to play electronics in bed, other kids will bring electronics over and we don't want them getting on the internet unsupervised. We have no internet filtering.  We haven't needed it. So after some research we found OpenDNS. This is a really easy way to filter content and it works. Hopefully we can stay a step ahead and protect our kids.

Books I am/have read recently

1. The Once and Future King by T.H. White. Our book club finished the book. Dan summed it up nicely when he said it was just like college, I'm glad I did it but don't want to do it again. That is exactly how I feel. I liked the ending and thought it brought the whole book together.
2. The Mortal Instruments - City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. This book is teeny bopper like Twilight. There are more books in the series but I'm gearing up for the beginning of March when Words of Radiance (Brandon Sanderson) comes out so I won't be reading them.
3. Cinder by Marissa Meyer. This is a fun twist on the Cinderella story since Cinder is a cyborg. It is the first book in a 3 book series
4. The Gripping Hand by Pournelle and Niven. This book is getting really good too. It had a slow start but I'm really enjoying it now. 

No bullets

For President's day we celebrated by going to the very American La Quinta Inn with Missy, Dave, and Amanda. We swam in the pool, went to a Mexican restaurant (obviously) on Friday. Then on Saturday Missy and I took the kids to Skyzone. It was a blast! We jumped for an hour and I did a few somersaults in the air (38 yrs old? who cares?). Erik, Dave, and Amanda went shooting. Then we all met up at Fathead's Brewery for lunch.

On the way Erik texted me "I bought something, no bullets so its okay". WHAT? I really thought he bought a gun. Turns out he spent 35 cents on the targets. GAH!

This was a nice break for us since both Missy and I have had a busy time at work lately. In fact, I wrote this little ditty to describe how I feel as a full time online faculty:

This needs to be sung to Snoop Dogg’s Gin and Juice:

With so much drama in the DDV
It's kind of hard being Gina-d-o-double g
but I somehow, some way
keep comin up with funky good code like every single day

May I kick a little something for the G's (yeah)
and write a few posts as I breeze through
two in the morning and the partys still jumpin 
cause my grading ain't done....

I wear pajamas all day grading my threads
And students keep calling til six in the mornin (six in the mornin)
So what you want to do scripts?
I got a calendar full of calls and my homeboys do too
So turn off the lights and close the doors
But (but what) we still love our jobs yeah!

Red velvet heart cake Grandma made for our small group

 For Valentines day Erik bought me roses. He buys me roses every year and these were particularly beautiful. My mother-in-law made a heart shaped red velvet cake for our small group and it was delicious.

The BEAUTIFUL roses Erik got me for Valentines day

 You may have seen the goldiblox commercial getting girls interested in engineering. Sarah got one from our friend Tricia as a late birthday gift. Sarah loves it and has been playing with it quite a bit.

Sarah playing with GoldiBlox

This is finals week for me so maybe I will start rapping again next session...

We live north of the wall

It is cold. The kids have had a lot of snow days and this winter has been brutal. One good thing is that we have a wood stove. It really is the center of our family now. We always sit by the fire - every night. I actually enjoy sitting by the fire with a cup of hot cocoa. It almost makes me like winter....almost.

Napping by the fire

 Sarah had her Daisy Scout Tea Party with her troop. She is enjoying Girl scouts and so is Jenna. I like that they have made some friends in the troop. It's a lot of work from the leaders perspective though.

Sarah's Daisy Scout Tea Party

 I tried to get a few pictures of Matthew playing soccer. He is running around a lot though and the camera on my phone is not fantastic. He loves "locker" and is excited to go every week.

Soccer shot #1

Soccer shot #2

My job has become crazy busy. I'm in meetings all day and at night I grade and work with my students. I feel like I have 3 full time jobs: curriculum design, full time professor, and mom. I'm not sure I'm doing any of them well.

Tomorrow is Valentines Day but I did not buy Erik any chocolate like I usually do. His goal is to weigh less than 200 lbs and he has been doing a great job of not eating sweets. He is much slimmer too. I'm not ready to give up sweets yet. No such goals for me! I want candy for Valentines :)

78 on Quiddler today