Wow! They just grow up so fast.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Squeaky Bean
Welcome to our new niece: Squeaky Bean
We had a scare that she was coming 11 weeks early, but she and her birthMom were able to hold on for another 7 weeks! Amazing. She was clearly worth the wait.
Welcome home, Squeaky Bean!
She's just in time for Curly Fry's baby blessing (with the curly hair) Yes, those brethren will work their biceps holding this big boy in the blessing circle, but it took forever to get his adoption paperwork finalized. We were able to attend his sealing at the end of January. And Curly Fry accommodated Squeaky Bean by getting all his paperwork finalized in time for their family to qualify to adopt Squeaky Bean. Sometimes it feels like it takes forever to get your family. Isn't it nice to know the family can last forever, too?! Especially one as happy as the Loomi! Congratulations!!!
Backyard Adventure
Fun isn't always safe. We'll be smarting from our sledding sunburns for the next few days. Have fun in your backyard!
Brownie Intervention
If you value your health, don't read this post. I'm not even kidding. I was just hanging out with my sister, Plainbellied, and she whipped up these amazing brownies. If you want to try this at home, invite some friends or keep their numbers handy so you can call for intervention in case you're tempted to eat the entire pan yourself. Make sure I'm on your brownie intervention list. Seriously, I'm there for you.
Foster’s Brownies
2 cups flour
1 1/3 cups cocoa powder
1 tsp. Salt
8 large eggs
4 cups sugar
1 lb. Butter melted
1⅔ tbsp. Vanilla
2 cups chopped walnuts
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 325F
1. Lightly grease and flour a 17”X12” pan
2. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, and salt into a bowl
3. Cream together the eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla
4. Add the flour mixture into the butter mixture and mix just until all the dry ingredients are moist and blended. Do not overmix
5. Fold in the walnuts and chocolate chips and stir to blend. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
6. Bake 35 to 40 min, until brownies are firm to the touch; remove from oven and cool 30 to 40 min. before cutting.
7. Instead of chocolate chips you can add white chocolate chips or peanut butter chips. Pecans can be substituted for the walnuts.
Foster’s Brownies
2 cups flour
1 1/3 cups cocoa powder
1 tsp. Salt
8 large eggs
4 cups sugar
1 lb. Butter melted
1⅔ tbsp. Vanilla
2 cups chopped walnuts
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 325F
1. Lightly grease and flour a 17”X12” pan
2. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, and salt into a bowl
3. Cream together the eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla
4. Add the flour mixture into the butter mixture and mix just until all the dry ingredients are moist and blended. Do not overmix
5. Fold in the walnuts and chocolate chips and stir to blend. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
6. Bake 35 to 40 min, until brownies are firm to the touch; remove from oven and cool 30 to 40 min. before cutting.
7. Instead of chocolate chips you can add white chocolate chips or peanut butter chips. Pecans can be substituted for the walnuts.
Sunday
Sunday seems to come earlier than the other days of the week. Thanks to technology My Hero carried on with his bishop duties via phone and internet. We even tried a little webcasting with Skype. If you're on Skype let us know so we can webcast with you!!
Sunday night, my family made the reverse trip up the canyon to us for dinner. My Hero was under the influence of Sparkle's raging cold, but I enjoyed a leisurely visit with my family and plenty of good food. It was one of those nights that makes you grateful for a dishwasher. ;) And we finally got to meet Aunt Katie. She was such a hit that even Torpedo was standing in the snowy driveway waving "Goodbye Katie...oh, and you too, uncle...? what's your name again?"
Sunday night, my family made the reverse trip up the canyon to us for dinner. My Hero was under the influence of Sparkle's raging cold, but I enjoyed a leisurely visit with my family and plenty of good food. It was one of those nights that makes you grateful for a dishwasher. ;) And we finally got to meet Aunt Katie. She was such a hit that even Torpedo was standing in the snowy driveway waving "Goodbye Katie...oh, and you too, uncle...? what's your name again?"
Over the River
...and down Provo canyon to Grandmother's house. Hooray! By Saturday we were all well enough to rejoin civilization. I took the kids to Grandma's and my brother was there as a bonus. We hadn't seen Uncle J since well before his mission to Sweden. He got home at Thanksgiving and surprised us all January 3 with 24 hours notice of his impending marriage! So, he got to meet Torpedo and Mermaid for the first time. Our new aunt/sister-in-law wasn't around so we'd have to wait one more day to meet her.
We raced back up the canyon for dinner with the amazing Brown family (you may know Jared and Linda.... same super family). With 13 happy children (12 I can personally identify now), they are definitely a family we admire. While we were there I garnered one of their secrets to happy living: Have fun! That's just what we did. The girls did some serious sledding and then played games with their three youngest while My Hero and I talked ourselves hoarse. We'll catch up with them again before we head home.
We raced back up the canyon for dinner with the amazing Brown family (you may know Jared and Linda.... same super family). With 13 happy children (12 I can personally identify now), they are definitely a family we admire. While we were there I garnered one of their secrets to happy living: Have fun! That's just what we did. The girls did some serious sledding and then played games with their three youngest while My Hero and I talked ourselves hoarse. We'll catch up with them again before we head home.
Crater
While I may not recommend a mid-winter road trip for families, I do recommend a winter trip to the crater. We had snow melt dripping from above and scuba diver bubbles coming up from beneath and the water was 92 perfect degrees. This underwater natural hot springs was the perfect steam dome. That worked for Sparkle and I since a raging cold was the chaser for our stomach virus. No coughs or sneezes in the crater. My Hero and I took turns chasing Torpedo because children under 5 are not allowed. He managed to get soaking wet from head to toe even though he wasn't never actually in the water. 7 thumbs up!
Settlers
Although the stomach virus hit Sparkle our first day in Heber, the rest of us were recovering and went to work unloading the minivan and setting up house. Actually, the house was pretty set before we got here. So, we spent the time doing laundry and getting into a "dibs" debate over the bedrooms. This is not a democracy, so once we picked the room with the king sized bed, everything else fell into place. There were some droopy faces at first, but after the 'cozy' New York experience nobody could stay too sad about getting their own room with a bathroom regardless of color scheme or location. Here's a peak at our current digs. Our NYC friends will understand why I've included a picture of the washer/dryer!!!
Day 4
Sorry everybody. Day 4 is just more of the sickening same.
We woke up in time for a complimentary breakfast and My Hero packed up the room while I took the kids swimming. Hot tubbing once a day definitely makes the daily grind of road tripping more bearable. With our destination only 6 hours away, we didn't want to hang out in Cheyenne all day, so we hit the road. By Rock Springs, Angelfish, Star and My Hero had all joined the toss-your-breakfast-club. This was definitely a road trip stomach virus. Fortunately, Torpedo was feeling better so we knew it would be an intense, but brief period of illness. We tried to drive with the windows open, but let's remember it's winter. We had to decide whether we wanted to die by freezing or by smell. We finally stumbled into the house in Heber City. Angelfish fell asleep on the couch, My Hero slept on the bathroom floor and the rest of us had a little soup and went to bed. Road trip over!!!!
We woke up in time for a complimentary breakfast and My Hero packed up the room while I took the kids swimming. Hot tubbing once a day definitely makes the daily grind of road tripping more bearable. With our destination only 6 hours away, we didn't want to hang out in Cheyenne all day, so we hit the road. By Rock Springs, Angelfish, Star and My Hero had all joined the toss-your-breakfast-club. This was definitely a road trip stomach virus. Fortunately, Torpedo was feeling better so we knew it would be an intense, but brief period of illness. We tried to drive with the windows open, but let's remember it's winter. We had to decide whether we wanted to die by freezing or by smell. We finally stumbled into the house in Heber City. Angelfish fell asleep on the couch, My Hero slept on the bathroom floor and the rest of us had a little soup and went to bed. Road trip over!!!!
Day 3
Day 3
The morning of day 3 began very early with Eli puking in his sleep. It was a good night to have a suite, so I could take him in the other room to take care of him. He threw up a couple of times that morning. Since I was up anyway, I got a workout in. At breakfast Eli puked again, but this time in front of the entire hotel population...which is always good. We didn't manage to make any new friends that morning. ;) Erik and the girls hit the pool and the gym while Eli took a long nap to sleep off his escapades that morning. When he puked again in the car, Erik created a puke-poncho for him out of one of our big white garbage bags. Eli hated it, but forgot to notice it while watching CARS. Did I mention Eli has PADD? Pixar Attention Deficit Disorder. He can't pay attention to anything else when a Pixar movie is playing. And if he goes into Pixar deficiency the volume and duration of his tantrums increase. It's an illness.
Speaking of illness, by that evening I was nauseous. Cheyenne seemed a million miles away, but we were grateful for good driving conditions all the way. By the time we arrived, we exploded out of the car. Eli's diaper was so pungent and everyone needed to use the bathroom. We parked next to the back entrance and ended up on a wild goose chase up and down sets of stairs trying to find our room. When we finally got in, we all said, "Where's Lily?!" Ooops! We had left her strapped into the car. Fortunately, she was wearing her snowsuit and we were in Cheyenne...which is a big city in Wyoming, but a pretty sleepy town all things considered. Erik raced out to retrieve the baby and we were all together again.
I started a bath for Eli who needed a full body scrub down. It wasn't a great chore for someone who was nauseous anyway, but maybe that's what helped push me over the vomit edge and on the way to feeling better. We decided we weren't all that hungry and skipped dinner all together. After a little tussle over the t.v. remote we wore ourselves out and went to sleep.
The morning of day 3 began very early with Eli puking in his sleep. It was a good night to have a suite, so I could take him in the other room to take care of him. He threw up a couple of times that morning. Since I was up anyway, I got a workout in. At breakfast Eli puked again, but this time in front of the entire hotel population...which is always good. We didn't manage to make any new friends that morning. ;) Erik and the girls hit the pool and the gym while Eli took a long nap to sleep off his escapades that morning. When he puked again in the car, Erik created a puke-poncho for him out of one of our big white garbage bags. Eli hated it, but forgot to notice it while watching CARS. Did I mention Eli has PADD? Pixar Attention Deficit Disorder. He can't pay attention to anything else when a Pixar movie is playing. And if he goes into Pixar deficiency the volume and duration of his tantrums increase. It's an illness.
Speaking of illness, by that evening I was nauseous. Cheyenne seemed a million miles away, but we were grateful for good driving conditions all the way. By the time we arrived, we exploded out of the car. Eli's diaper was so pungent and everyone needed to use the bathroom. We parked next to the back entrance and ended up on a wild goose chase up and down sets of stairs trying to find our room. When we finally got in, we all said, "Where's Lily?!" Ooops! We had left her strapped into the car. Fortunately, she was wearing her snowsuit and we were in Cheyenne...which is a big city in Wyoming, but a pretty sleepy town all things considered. Erik raced out to retrieve the baby and we were all together again.
I started a bath for Eli who needed a full body scrub down. It wasn't a great chore for someone who was nauseous anyway, but maybe that's what helped push me over the vomit edge and on the way to feeling better. We decided we weren't all that hungry and skipped dinner all together. After a little tussle over the t.v. remote we wore ourselves out and went to sleep.
Monday, February 25, 2008
From NYC to Des Moines
First of all I should tell you why we went. We went because BYU is doing a production/film of a show my dad wrote about the Berlin Airlift. So anyway... We started driving from our apartment at about 10:00 AM on Feb. 16th. We drove for about 4-5 hours and then stopped for lunch. The first day was pretty uneventful; no one threw up and we only watched one movie.
Finally, at around 8:30 we got to the hotel which was very nice. We got settled in and then we went swimming for approximately 75 min. Then we ordered our food which took over an hour to get to us. Finally the cold food got to the hotel and My Hero paid the delivery boy a smaller tip because he was so late. Then we went to bed.
To the surprise of us kids, my parents announced that we were going to attend a sacrament meeting 5 min. away. We weren't planning on going to church therefore we didn't have any Sunday clothes that weren't packed on the top of our car in plastic bags. I tried to convince them that we shouldn't go as it would be so humiliating to be mistaken as a convert in blue jeans. But we went anyway. I enjoyed the meeting but was still slightly embarrassed at our apparel. Eventually we got on the road and had a pretty boring drive until we were about 100 miles left for the day.
We had hit a terrible storm, it took us like 3 hours longer to get to the hotel than we had planned. And on that 100 mile stretch we counted 130 cars off road, which included 6 or 7 tractor trailers. It was so scary. We were going about 40 mile's an hour and were scared out of our wits. At number 70 of our counting cars deal, My Hero, who was driving, said something like, "Look, counting these cars isn't helping me. You can count them in your head but I don't want to know." At the next road stop, we said a prayer asking if we should continue on or just stay at a close cheap hotel. We decided to keep going but come off at the closest exit with an hotel if it started snowing. We all agreed to the terms and continued on. After we got back on the road, the road conditions improved immensely. Finally, we got to the hotel and went pretty much straight to bed. We were exhausted.
posted by Star
Mom says: We learned about the Delaware Indians and why most barns are painted red.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Best Parts
Maybe I should just skip to the Now. That would be so Zen of me. And Zen is very hip right now. But I just can't!! So here are some of the best parts of our very slow and mellow Christmas-New Year holiday.
We forewent dozens of photos of the girls unwrapping presents and opted for one group shot. That way we actually got to experience Christmas with them rather than merely capturing it to relive together later. I have to include the iconic, chocolate-faced boy and his first train set. Classic.
Grandma O. and the Drake family were stopping by NYC anyway, so we got to see them for a few hours. (That's our baby, Mermaid.) Hooray for living in a tourist town! The Loomi were in DE visiting Grandma Loomis and gamely spent an extra 4 hours on the road with two small children to visit us. Hooray for living just close enough to other relatives!
This year we brought in the new year with percussion. Despite the new baby, Dick Clark's brief and somewhat sad appearance on T.V. and Sparkle's extended tears over not seeing Hannah Montana live despite her being mere blocks (150) away, nothing says party like bongo drums and tamborines!! Happy New Year everybody!
We forewent dozens of photos of the girls unwrapping presents and opted for one group shot. That way we actually got to experience Christmas with them rather than merely capturing it to relive together later. I have to include the iconic, chocolate-faced boy and his first train set. Classic.
Grandma O. and the Drake family were stopping by NYC anyway, so we got to see them for a few hours. (That's our baby, Mermaid.) Hooray for living in a tourist town! The Loomi were in DE visiting Grandma Loomis and gamely spent an extra 4 hours on the road with two small children to visit us. Hooray for living just close enough to other relatives!
This year we brought in the new year with percussion. Despite the new baby, Dick Clark's brief and somewhat sad appearance on T.V. and Sparkle's extended tears over not seeing Hannah Montana live despite her being mere blocks (150) away, nothing says party like bongo drums and tamborines!! Happy New Year everybody!
Welcome Home!
December 17, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Mermaid joined our family weighing in at 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long. She's a blue-eyed redhead just like her Mama!
After 6 hours of labor, Mermaid was born at home in the soothing warm waters of our very own bath. Mermaid and I were attended by two very competent and caring midwives; the now famous Cara Muhlhahn and our longtime friend, Lynn Fisher. As labors go, it was the most gentle for me and has afforded me the quickest recovery. Mermaid is absolutely delicious and we can't get enough of her (especially Torpedo!!).
A special thanks to our upstairs neighbor who cared for our four other children while we were making our miracle happen. It was an encouraging joy to hear them laughing in the hallway or outside my window.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)