The Day before Christmas

I had a few humorous thoughts this week before Christmas:

Don’t let a miser to do your Christmas shopping.
The neighbors are grateful for not getting treats from you if everyone at your house has the flu.
While everyone has the flu, there is no need for rich creamy holiday meals and treats. Run to the store and buy ingredients for homemade chicken noodle soup instead.

Kids from big families tend to have issues with Christmas gluttony: eating something just because it’s a treat even though you’ve already had some, don’t really want any, ... until your stomach hurts.

Life with 4

I forgot how much work a newborn is. Oh well, she's cute enough to make up for it. I am grateful when she sleeps 3-4 hour stretches at night instead of 1-2. I'm getting better at doing housework one-handed while holding the baby. I lost my hour for finishing the dishes after the kids go to bed, because now I spend it feeding and rocking her to sleep, and then sleeping myself.

I like four kids. Nice even numbers. When I'm tired of holding baby, I can snuggle my toddler, who is quite hungry for mommy attention. The two of us are working out a new dynamic: I can't carry him around but I can hold his hand; he won't let me take his picture with a red scarf, but he will sit next to baby. When they can all walk we will have fun going for family hikes, and in four more years the oldest can babysit for me.

The two oldest are playing together so well this month that I forgive them for not picking up anything. Christmas decorations double as sets for new games. They play with the stockings, mice, ornaments, tree, etc. Another new game is "bad baby". One child is the parent and the other is a toddler that goes around making messes and getting in trouble.

I have yet to figure out how I'll ever get groceries without help. Probably no homemade Christmas gifts this year. But it will be fun watching all these little people play on Christmas morning!

New Baby

 

Castle Birthday Cake

We celebrated the Princess' birthday with a pink castle cake. It was fun to make. I used two 9" square pans for the base and a piece cut from a loaf size pan for the top.

Speaking of Princesses, we found out that we are going to have a GIRL in November!

Pantry Shelf Oatmeal

We love oatmeal for breakfast. But bridging the gap between food storage items and palatability sometimes presents a real challenge. After practicing for awhile, here's our oatmeal recipe. All the ingredients are shelf stable.

Oatmeal

4 cups water
2/3 cup powdered milk
2 1/4 cups oatmeal
dash salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup brown sugar

Bring water to boil, whisk in powdered milk. When dissolved, add oats and return to a gentle boil. Add salt, vanilla, cinnamon. Boil 5 minutes. Stir in brown sugar and serve.

Other Mix Ins

Add to boiling water and allow to hydrate while oats cook
Dried apples
Raisins
Craisins

Fresh fruit
Maple syrup
Imitation maple flavoring

Other Insights

The powdered milk really improves the flavor. If you were using regular milk, use half water half milk for the 4 cups water. You can adjust the water and sugar depending on how runny or sweet you like it. Leftover oatmeal can be added to pancake batter, muffins, etc.

Washington DC Temple

I got to walk around outside with my brother and sister-in-law. Enjoyed the peaceful setting.

Also, you may notice I'm expecting... about 3 months along, due in November. We're excited!

One year old today

Showing those teeth

Eying the cake

Touching the cake

Splatting the cake

Eying the gift

Cuddling the gift

The day doesn't get much better than this.

Backpacking in the Superstition Wilderness

Last weekend Karl and I went backpacking in the Superstition mountains here in AZ. It was fun! We hiked a total of 20 miles over 3 days, enjoyed scenery, Indian ruins, and camping in pine trees.

Originally, we were only going to hike 7 miles each day, but our friends couldn't leave in the morning the first day, so we ended up hiking 12 miles on day 2. (Of course, Karl had picked the hardest trail in that part of the wilderness.) My favorite part was remembering all of the fun backpacking and camping adventures we've been on. Remember the snow caves by Lake Blanche? Remember trying to mountain bike up King's Peak?

Karl left his thermarest pad behind to "save weight", but then wished he had brought it when the ground was damp the first night. We enjoyed seeing Reevis Ranch. The scouts we ran into there thought our friends' german shepherd was a wolf when they first saw him jogging up the trail.

Core Surgical web site

I have very little experience programming in html, but because I love Karl so much and wanted to improve his web site's interface, I made him one.

You can look at it here http://www.coresurg.com/

When your done give me lots of feedback on how to improve it. And refer all of your rich uncles to us for sharpening.

By the way, if you like our logo, it was designed by Blue Desert Digital. I think they are awesome. Even if you don't need a logo, you should still commission them to design you one.

Baby Blue Skies Quilt

I finished baby's quilt in time for Christmas. Piecing the top was super easy using strips. The flying geese were moderately challenging, but that is why I only did a few. I purposely made this quilt monochromatic, and the geese are the only solid white so they stand out. I quilted freehand clouds and airplanes using my friend's sewing machine. Hope baby enjoys it!