Abstract Art

The girls and I were playing games the other day and Jenna made a flower in the rain out of dominoes. I thought it was very creative so I took a picture of it. Then I said to Jenna, "great abstract art Jenna!" Her response, "it's not abstract Mommy because it is a picture of something." Right. Apparently the 5 year old knows more about art than me.

Next we started to play a game that I and I alone like. No one else seems to like this game so I tried to teach it to my girls. It's called Set. It's lots of fun if it doesn't give you a headache. The girls had more fun sorting the cards than playing set. Maybe someday I'll actually get to play....

We gave Matthew oatmeal to eat on Monday. He screamed. Sometime I'll snap a picture when he actually enjoys eating solid food. For the most part - he's the smiliest baby ever (unless you are giving him oatmeal).

If I wasn't teaching 5 classes and had free time, I would be reading A LOT. Towers of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson/Robert Jordan just came out. I also have the Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, the Blood Knight by Greg Keyes, Conquerors Legacy by Timothy Zahn, and Percy Jackson the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan that I'm reading now. I'm excited about all of the books since they are all good.

89 points on Quiddler today and I made the word "nothing"!

The Healthy Team

One of my kids didn't want to eat any candy because she wants to be on the "healthy team." The other one didn't want to eat dinner, just candy. Can you guess which one is which? Yes - Sarah is a girl after my own heart. Mmmm....candy.

I took the girls trick-or-treating tonight and left Matthew and Daddy at home so Erik could watch football pass out candy to the kids.

I started teaching last week. I have 5 classes this semester and it is rough. I've been up until 1am every night and I think it will be like that this entire 8 weeks. I'm not sure why my first semester back had to be so rough. I hope I survive!

Fortunately I have a wonderful husband who supports my job and helps me as much as possible. He has let me sleep in Friday and Saturday while he got all three kids breakfast and dressed. Something as small as that makes me happy.

Which brings me to an idea. I would like to buy him a Google Tablet for Christmas. I've been thinking about it for awhile and since he has been so awesome I thought for sure it would be a great present. But then, he never goes anywhere (literally...nowhere) so would it be useful for him? Would he really benefit from it or would I use it more? He sits in front of his computer all day. I'm not sure if I should get it or not. What do you think my vast readership?

78 points on quiddler today!

Hi Ho Hi Ho It's Off to Work I go!

Today was my first day back to work. It was bittersweet. While I taught two online classes last semester, this semester I am teaching two online and three onsite classes. It's really a lot for me and I hope I survive.

The first thing I noticed about going back to work is that my shoes don't fit anymore. My feet must have swollen big time when I was pregnant with Matthew.

Now that my feet are more normal size my shoes are falling off of them. Bummer. I'm not into shopping, especially for shoes. I may have to turn in my girl card because I will probably just have Erik pick up a pair of black flats at Meijer.

Probably the saddest part of going back to work is that Erik and I will not be able to play Agricola every night. We play so often that our 2 year old asks us at random times who is starting player. Back to regular hobbies I guess.

The girls dressed up for ballet today. These pictures I took with my fancy new droid phone. Sarah is in the yellow duck costume and Jenna is Cinderella in the pictures. The pictures didn't come out that great but you can see some of the other kids in the class too. Both of them absolutely LOVE ballet! If I could - I would enroll in the hip hop class they offer :).

We just finished week 5 of our 6 week Go Fish Bible study by Andy Stanley. I think he's a great speaker and his studies always spark good discussion. After the new year we will start another study. Erik and I discussed doing one of these two: Seven Pillars of Healthy Living or Christianity, Cults, and Religion. The first study sounds like it will make me feel guilty for eating chocolate and not exercising enough and the second sounds like I'll learn about all different religions of the world. They both sound good - so we'll see what the rest of the small group wants to do.

75 points on Quiddler today!

Beauty and the Beast

Our friends Aaron and Michele had their little girl 5 days ago. Her name is Vina and Matthew and I wanted to visit her (well mostly I wanted to visit her - Matthew just goes where I go). As you can see from the picture of Matthew and Vina he is about 20 times her size! Yesterday he turned 4 months old and I snapped his picture with the horse.

He's so big that I missed his feet in the picture. I might have to get Erik to help with the pictures.

Matthew has been smiling and laughing ALL the time. Here is a video of Sarah and Matthew smiling. The girls absolutely adore him!


Yesterday Erik and I played squash, came home and put the kids to bed. Then we played agricola (I lost), next we read and discussed Gardens of the Moon. What a cool husband! We both like the same things and have so much fun together!

I did terrible on quiddler today: 60 pts, but they let me use pern. How cool is that?

Sparkly October

Happy 4th of July...or October? We had some sparklers left over from the 4th of July so the girls played with them in October. The house is still standing and no one suffered any burns so it was successful. Even Matthew enjoyed it. I snapped a picture of him smiling at Jenna.




Our garden hasn't produced very many veggies for us this year. It has been rather disappointing. One of the problems is that we see deer almost every day eating our garden. Erik took a picture of the deer but usually they run away before we can get a picture of them eating our garden. They must have amazing hearing since they can hear us get the camera inside our house!


In other news:

1. I am reading the Blood Knight, book 3 of Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone by Greg Keyes. This is an excellent series. I love the story, the writing, and the characters. He ends his chapters like Martin - always tantalizing you for more.
2. Erik and I are still trudging through Gardens of the Moon. It is starting to get pretty good but since we read it together, it's been hard to find time for both of us to read without kids.
3. I start back to work next week.
4. It looks like I'll be teaching 3 onsite classes and 2 online classes. This to me is a lot even if I wasn't just coming back from maternity leave. It will be a tough semester but hopefully I will survive.
5. To help myself get organized I've started listing what I will accomplish everyday in three areas: cooking, cleaning, and work. It has helped me somewhat organize myself. I need all the help I can get.
6. 65 on quiddler today - no bonuses!

10-10-10

Today is 10-10-10! How cool is this? We should celebrate - I'm not sure how. But definitely celebrate (there is always a reason to celebrate!!). Maybe we can go out for ice cream or something. That is definitely a celebration!

Even though I got a new camera, the two pictures I'm posting don't look that great. The girls were outside playing in the leaves. The backyard is resplendent with fall colors. Yet my camera did not capture it well. The girls had great fun though.

I also posted a picture of the green beans and peppers I made. The dish doesn't look great but I promise it was colorful and yummyful! I adapted a recipe from taste of home to make pepper butter. I used:

Half a red pepper, half an orange pepper and half a yellow pepper diced. I sauteed them in butter until tender. Then in a food processor I put two softened sticks of butter, 3 tblsp of lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste, 1/4 cup pine nuts, and the sauteed peppers. It made a delicious pepper butter.

Then I cooked up some green beans and sliced red, yellow, and orange peppers and tossed them with the pepper butter. It was fantastic! It actually was very pretty even though you can't tell from the picture.
I served this dish at Bible study last Tuesday night along with cheesy mashed potatoes and brats. Delicious!

The other day I was singing "what if his people prayed" by Casting Crowns. Erik mentioned to me that the song is inaccurate and should actually be "what if his people prayed 10% more" since his people do pray, but not enough. Fortunately though, the majority of the people listening to the song are not my husband and can actually understand the message :).

Erik and I are still playing Agricola every night. It hasn't gotten old. In fact, we are always trying to do better. Last night we scored 103 points between us (53-50) which is a pretty high scoring Agricola game!

40 points on Quiddler today!

My princess' thrones

The girls decided they wanted thrones. Since they are princesses - obviously! At first I suggested the toilet (thinking...throne, haha).

Erik quickly helped me see the error of my ways. So I left the room. When I came back to the playroom, they had constructed their own thrones on the couch. OSHA would not be pleased.

They are definitely princesses.

And they are also great Mommies to Matthew. He LOVES them! He is so alert now and smiling all the time. Check out this awesome video of him smiling:

He however seems to prefer Mommy. Today I was at Walmart and Erik frantically called because Matthew would not drink his bottle. He calmed down when I got there and picked him up.

I also posted a picture of the salted dark chocolate chip cookies I made. Yum! I made my regular nestle toll house cookie recipe (on the back of the bag + 1/4 cup flour) and added 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 tsp of vanilla. Then I sprinkled sea salt over the cookies before baking. They were delicious but could have used more sea salt. I will need to experiment (and eat the results!).

88 points on Quiddler today. The last word I made was "ending". What a perfect ending!!

My child has no fear.

Sarah is now in swimming lessons at the Worthington Rec Center. She loves it but Mommy is a little stressed out.


Let's just say Sarah had to be rescued from the deep end by a life guard. The girl has NO FEAR!

She loves it though and that's the most important thing.

In other news:

1. I got my new Droid. It's so wonderful. I've had it for a week and I can't go back. A data plan is just too awesome. I can search the internet from anywhere. Because it is too much work to walk to my computer sometimes.
2. I just finished the Thorn by Beverly Lewis and am reading the Charnel Prince by Greg Keyes and Gardens of the Moon (still...this book does not move fast) by Stephen Erikson and the third book of the Conquerors trilogy by Timothy Zahn. I stopped reading Searoad by Ursula K. Leguin. It was good but I needed to take it back to the library.
3. Our Bible study started up again on Tuesday nights. We are doing the Go Fish study by Andy Stanley and the first week talked about the verse where Jesus says he will make us "fishers of men". Thinking about it now, I wonder why they just dropped everything to follow him. It's pretty cool - I wish I did that.
4. I went to the Pregnancy Decision Health Center fundraiser on Thursday night. Carol Everett spoke and she was incredible. She was a former abortionist who God called out of the industry. She also had an abortion several years ago and talked about the effects it had on her whole family. Everyone missed that child. It's very hard to hear stories like that. I'm still not sure why our country allows the torture and murder of unborn children.
5. I was left with i,z,j,c,u,i,u in Quiddler. Now how am I supposed to make any words out of that? I made the word "cuz" and that was it. I only got 61 points today.
   

Rainbow Cake!

Matthew is 3 months old! These three months were a blur for all of us except Matthew. He is huge; at 3 months he is in size 3 diapers, the same diapers Sarah can wear at 2 1/2 years old. He is smiling now and there's nothing better than his toothless smiles.

On Tuesday our small group started up again. To celebrate the new Bible study year I made a rainbow cake (pictured). I used two white cake mixes and added some food coloring for the rainbow colors. Then I frosted it with cream cheese frosting. Yum. It was cute and fun. I've also included a picture of Sarah "helping" by making a huge mess with the cake.

Since we are still playing Agricola every night, we've decided to purchase our own copy so we don't bend up Tim and Jen's cards and all that. It's something we look forward to like fall or Christmas or pumpkin muffins from Starbucks.

56 points on Quiddler today - terrible!

Carrots and Renovation

I have not posted in a few weeks. One may assume it is because I have started teaching online again, or because I am busy with three kids, or because I am diligently cleaning my house, or that I am looking for additions to my rock collection.

None of these assumptions are correct.

Every night, sometimes twice a night, Erik and I are playing Agricola. We are addicted to this game. We try new strategies every time we play and haven't gotten bored with it yet. Tonight I beat Erik 52-48 (although the one pictured was a different game that I won). I highly recommend this for any gamers!


Last weekend Erik took the girls to the renaissance festival. For some reason, Jon has a carrot in his nose. Fortunately the girls are not following the nose - carrot tradition. They had a great time riding ponies, riding rides, and general renaissance merriment.

I took a video of Matthew squealing and it is posted here. He has an interesting cry. It sounds more like a squeak or squeal. What do you think?

97 points on Quiddler today!

Shake your money maker!

My sisters are dancing queens. Missy and Amanda both do country line dancing. Missy even writes her own dances and Amanda has done belly dancing!

Considering I come from a family of movers and shakers, what kind of dancing should I aspire to? Obviously hip hop!

I went to a hip hop class on Tuesday and LOVED it!
This is how I imagine myself dancing hip hop:


This is how I actually hip hop:

I'm not really shaking my pompom just yet.

In more important news. I beat Erik at Agricola tonight. Agricola is a strategy game we both like quite a bit but do not own. Erik wins a high percentage of the time at this game, just like Railroad Tycoon. We have played it every night since we borrowed it and I finally won. That doesn't mean we'll stop playing, It just means we are going to the Cheesecake Factory the next time we have a chance to go on a date! Yipee!

81 points on Quiddler today!

Football Season Begins!

Erik has been talking constantly about the beginning of football season. It is his favorite time of year. Fall brings cooler weather, beautiful colors, and football. Obviously we had to get a picture of the kids in their scarlet and gray.

Yes - the big chunk in the middle is Matthew. Yes he is only 2 1/2 months old. No I'm not feeding him fried chicken and potatoes.

The other day Sarah said "I am ugly." I said "no Sarah you are beautiful. Why do you think you are ugly?" She said "because I'm sinny" (translation: skinny). I'm not sure where she got this idea. Yes she is a little skinny (in the 5th percentile for weight) but we have always told her she is beautiful. Hopefully she believes it!

Tomorrow is our 13 year anniversary. Yea Us! Since it is actually more work to pack up all the kids, diaper bags, bibs, milk, etc and go out to eat than it is to just make some pb&j sandwiches we won't be going out to dinner. Hiring a babysitter around dinner time is scary too. Dinner time is fussy time for Matthew and usually someone has an opinion about what we are eating and wants toast instead. (sometimes I just want toast).

I just finished The Briar King by Greg Keyes and can't wait to get the next book in the series from the library. I also reserved the next Beverly Lewis book called The Thorn. I'm 36 on the list for that book. Since I'm not allowed to read The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson until we finish Gardens of the Moon, I had to find some other books to occupy my time (I only read Gardens of the Moon with Erik).

53 points on Quiddler today. Couldn't find a word to make with C,O,A,I. Bummer!

New Beginnings

Last Wednesday Jenna and Sarah started their ballet classes and on Thursday Jenna started kindergarten.
It was a week of new beginnings! Jenna was anxious to start school, mostly she was nervous to eat lunch there. However she loved it and even bought milk for lunch!

Jenna has started writing more and wrote her first sentence on Friday "I do love God". What an awesome first sentence!! She has also started reading more. Check out this video of Jenna reading to Matthew. He is smiling and almost laughing - he loves it!

Jenna and Sarah love their ballet classes however I couldn't get Sarah to stay still long enough to get a picture. All week long Sarah talked about her ballet class. I have two little ballerinas at home.

School is all day for Jenna and we are walkers. It is .8 of a mile to school so I'm walking approximately 3 miles a day taking her to and from school. It's a nice walk! Even at 92 deg when I'm sweating like a pig. I'm sure it counts as exercise.

For an after school treat I made smores granola bars. They are an oat granola bar on the bottom covered in chocolate chips and marshmallows. I told Erik they have no sugar in them and he laughed. I forgot that marshmallows are puffed sugar. Doh! So I guess they're not as healthy as I originally intended.

68 points on Quiddler - a terrible showing.

Chunky Monkey

Matthew reached his 2 month milestone on the 20th. Today we went to the Pediatrician and our chunky monkey weighs 14lbs exactly. Sarah and Jenna weighed 14lbs at 6 months. Matthew is only 2 months. He is such a chunk! We are in for a ride with him.

In case you have not heard, there is a silly bandz craze sweeping the world (or at least our part of the world). Our girls have silly bandz, and I even have given them as prizes for Sarah's success with the potty. The girls also absolutely love Matthew and have taken to putting silly bandz on him too (actually Sarah is the one who mostly does this). They want to hold him all the time and really love him.

Matthew's Godparents, Tim and Jen, have chosen the following life verse for him:

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." ~Isaiah 41:10. Erik says this Bible verse is "manly" although I'm not sure what that means.

The girls start ballet today and Jenna starts kindergarten tomorrow. I'm so nervous for her and I have no idea why!

57 points on Quiddler today.

(lots of children)!=sleep

Psalm 127:2 states "For so He gives his beloved sleep." Yet directly after that verse in Psalm 127:3-5 we have the following words "children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them."

This is an apparent Biblical contradiction, almost as blatant as the geneaology of Jesus contradiction in Matthew and Luke. How can one with many children get sleep? Last night Matthew slept a blessed 6 hours. While everything I've read says that a child weighing at least 11 lbs can sleep 8 hours, my massive chunky monkey can't seem to go that long without food. More on his weight in a later post. Anyway, even though Matthew slept well last night, Sarah woke up three times screaming prompting me to actually sleep in bed with her last night to calm her down. Not sure about the "beloved sleep" thing with 3 kids.

In other news:

1. I will be going back to work on Monday (the 30th) teaching an online class. It is online so I don't have to leave the house, but I'll actually have to check my email and respond with phrases other than "I'm on maternity leave now, please direct your question to....".
2. I reactivated my Lifetime membership. While I can not workout during the day since Matthew must be 3 months old to go to the childcare center, I did go to a Pilates class in the evening. It was amazing, and I felt so good afterwards. The teacher is as flexible as gumby and maybe someday I will be too!
3. I finished book 2 of the Conquerors trilogy by Timothy Zahn. This is a fun series but I am waiting to read book 3 until I finish a library book. The library tends to get mad and charge me lots of fines when I don't return books. Again I've maxed out my library card and had to use Jenna's card to check out books. Apparently this is "ghetto" according to one of my students. Anyway, the library book is called the Briar King by Greg Keyes and is very good. Terry Brooks liked it (according to the back cover) so I was less hesitant to read it than Gardens of the Moon.
4. Erik and I are working our way through Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. The author uses big words like trireme, however he has not used the word "inchoate." This is one of the words authors seem to prefer using when they want to sound smart. It's on my mind since I recently read it in Searoad by Ursula K. LeGuin. Yes - I'm reading that one too!
5. 97 points on Quiddler today. I got 20 points for an 8 letter word!! "clanking". That just made my day - who needs sleep when I can get 8 letter words!

Chocolate milk cartons

Kindergarten starts in 1 week. 1 week!! My baby is going to kindergarten. When I toured her school - I was pelted by the sounds, smells, and visuals of elementary school. It transported me back to sharpened pencils, chalk, stickers, and chocolate milk cartons. OOOH how I love chocolate milk cartons! Now they have these plastic twist top milk bottles that are far inferior to their cardboard counterparts. What has this world come to?

Jenna's kindergarten orientation was tonight and she is not looking forward to going. She talks so much about not wanting to go to kindergarten that Sarah has started saying "I don't want to go to ballet." Not because she doesn't want to go, but because she wants to be like big sister and have something that she "doesn't want" to go to. (Jenna and Sarah will both be in ballet this year). Anyway, we are trying to encourage Jenna but she is very anxious about kindergarten. We are praying for her to have a good experience.

On a different topic, one of Erik's favorite desserts is chocolate truffle tart. It consists of 1/2 lb butter, 1 lb bittersweet chocolate and 6 eggs. It's low fat yummy. Anyway, Erik and I have become obsessed with sea salt lately. So I wanted to modify my chocolate truffle tart recipe to include sea salt. (the girls helped stir the batter - see picture). I added 3/4tsp of sea salt to the batter and then sprinkled some on top. Awww Yea. To quote the compositional masterpiece of Yo Gabba Gabba "there's a party in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy."

I also got some hi-gluten flour from Yutzy's. Normally I add 1 tsp of gluten per cup of flour to my bread dough, but I wanted to see how the hi-gluten flour would compare in my honey wheat bread in place of the gluten. It worked great! I was excited to see the results, however Erik was less than thrilled. I currently have the following types of flours in my pantry: all purpose, self-rising, whole wheat, bread, and hi-gluten flour. Erik is not thrilled with the numerous types of flours we are storing (yes I threw away the cake flour before he noticed). He is already annoyed that I want another waffle maker (ours died the other day) since it is a unitasker.

When Nicholas and Emmerich were over the other day, all 4 kids were playing in/on/around our play car. Surprisingly they all got along well. I also snapped a picture of Sarah wearing her tigger outfit. She has been wearing it a lot lately and she looks adorable!

71 on Quiddler today and I made the word "winner"!

Tooney

Thank you to everyone who voted in my very important poll on who Matthew resembles. Erik is winning but surprisingly, many people think Matthew looks like me too! No one thinks Matthew looks like Sarah though. That's okay - she is a wisp of a girl and we don't want Matthew to be a wisp (maybe a night elf but certainly not a wisp).

I've included pictures of the girls getting their haircut. While this may seem mundane, it is actually Sarah's first haircut at a salon (Cookie Cutters). Sarah, who hates when I brush her hair in the morning, loved getting her hair cut. Now Jenna will be ready for school and Sarah will be ready for... something.

When Erik's Mom and Grandma were visiting, we took a picture of all 4 generations together. It came out really nice and is good to have everyone together like this. Now if the kids would just look at the camera!

The Cooper book club picked our next book to read. It is Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. I was so excited to read this book until I learned that Steven Donaldson gave it a good review (he is the author of Thomas Covenant). So I am a little worried. However, I am looking forward to reading this book and discussing it in our book club.

I was informed by the book club that I am not allowed to read the next Brandon Sanderson book until everyone else does. I find this to be highly unfair and will probably sneak read it. Is that actually something? Sneak reading??

58 points on Quiddler today. Apparently "tooney" is not a word. It sounds like a word to me!

Who does Matthew resemble? Please vote!

Who does Matthew resemble?
	Daddy
	Mommy
	Jenna
	Sarah

The swingset

I'm so glad we have three swings on our swingset. Daddy was pushing all three kids on the swingset the other day. Here's a video - Matthew was sort of sitting in the swing.

Erik and I are making our way through Wizard's First Rule and he really likes it. I'm so glad that we are reading together and discussing books. We sat at Starbucks and spent the whole time discussing what we liked/disliked about the book. We were so trendy!

I started reading one of the books he read called The Death Ship of Dartmouth by Michael Jecks. This book is historical fiction set in 1324. It is not fantasy but still is interesting, although not my favorite (no wizards, aliens, or Amish people in the book).

In contrast to the Amish and the technology of 1324, Erik mentioned that our cell phone contract would be up September 20. He also said I could get a new phone. Naturally I said droid???? He said yes! Yipee!!! So my life will change on Sept. 20 - I can get my droid and be really, really, really cool.

Another thing that happens September 20 is that Matthew will be 3 months old. This means I can take him to the childcare center at my gym and I can start working out. I even bought new shoes and am so excited to try them out. I'm sure I could work out prior to September 20 but I don't really want to start running with a hole in my boob. I haven't gone running in over a year. Hopefully I will remember how to run and what is happening in my audiobook.

95 on Quiddler today!