A very strange phenomenon

A while back, I blogged about my test results from my naturopathic doctor. I don't know how interested you guys all are on the way the human body works, but I've discovered something in the last few weeks that I've found very interesting and I thought I'd pass it along. Both because it's interesting and because it might be helpful to someone.

So, to give you some background, soon after I had found out the test results from my doctor, I happened to find and read an article in my Fitness magazine about different hormones in our body and how they could be contributing to our weight. It caught my attention because the first hormone that they talked about was cortisol. Which, if you remember, was determined that I had high levels of. The article basically said that when you have high levels of cortisol in your body, it makes you crave sugar/carbs and then when you eat them, it turns them in to fat around your midsection specifically. I think I already blogged about that...but I guess this is just review. Cortisol is the 'stress hormone'. I never before really thought I was a stressed out person...but perhaps I was...maybe physically, but not emotionally. At any rate, the article said that the best way to control cortisol is with exercise. Exercise releases the endorphins that tell your body that things are okay and is able to control the cortisol levels.

So the second part of this discovery that I've made is this. Beginning oh, around the end of October I'd say, I was finally convinced to start an exercise program that my brother in law had told me about some weeks before called P90X. It's basically a pretty intense workout system that is 6 days a week and every day is something different. Before I started doing this, I would have said that I exercised infrequently and sporadically. But I started this program, with every intention that I would hate it, by the way, and it turns out that I love it. So I've been doing this pretty regularly for the past 2-3 months.

A couple weeks ago, I had a lot going on...it was a stressful week and I had a lot to do. So I decided to take the week off of working out because it was just one more thing to think about. It was actually really incredible what this did to me. If I hadn't been to the doctor, or read the article, I wouldn't have probably thought twice about it. But that entire week, I was short tempered with the kids, my patience was thin, I was highly stressed out and emotionally taxed by about the middle of each day.

My assumption is this: Before I was working out regularly, my body was probably used to all the hormone in my system and dealt with it. But since working out regularly, my body probably wasn't producing as much and so it got used to that. And then for that week I took off, I probably got overloaded with cortisol (or maybe as much as I was used to before I started working out) but I wasn't used to it any more and my body didn't know what to do with it. So it resulted in me being the way that I was. Isn't that interesting? I think so.

So the good news is that I know what my issues are and how to deal with them. The bad news is that this means for the health of myself and the safety of my family...I need to consistently be working out. Until the day that I die...or something like that.

Probably one of the cutest things ever

For the majority of today, I was out of the house with my mom and Josh was at home with the kids. Around 1:30 pm or so, Josh called me and asked how it was going and was wondering when I was going to be home, etc. I told him I was going to be home sooner than I originally thought. He told me on the phone that he had planned to surprise me by making me dinner. [But I ruined the surprise by saying I was coming home early...] At any rate, when I got home, Jayden came out and told me from the door that there was a surprise for me in the house. And when I came back inside, I saw this:

The boys had on their own decorated the table for me (us) for our romantic dinner date together. Let me just walk through this photo for you. The red candles in the center are from our fireplace mantle, the red candle on the white candlestick are from the bookshelf, the two orange candles are leftover from Thanksgiving and the blue candle is from the bathroom. In addition to the wide variety of candles, you can also see a random assortment of Christmas tree ornaments, including, but not limited to icicle ornaments circling the tall red candles and painted silver pine cone ornaments. It's very endearing and at the same time makes me laugh.

Josh had taken a trip to the store on his own with all the kids in order to get the ingredients to make me a special dinner. We had salmon patties (like crab cakes with salmon), garlic green beans, sparkling apple cider and peach cobbler for dessert. It was yummy. Bryce made his own dinner for himself and the kids (french toast) to eat in the girls' room while Josh and I dined alone. On his way into the girls' room, Bryce called out, "Happy romantic day!"

A good night all the way around!

Hot glue guns are my friend

Along with the girls' new kitchen, I also wanted to add a little table that I've had in storage for them to be able to play with. It's the perfect size for them to stand at or sit at and do activities or put their dishes, etc. This however created 2 problems. The first being a space issue...there's not a whole lot of room for a table, so it needed to stay in one place. The other problem was that they girls could push the table around the room to get into all sorts of mischief. So the problem basically was that the table needed to stay in one place. So my solution? Hot glue! I decided on the best placement of the table and then I glued it to the floor! I figure that it will be strong enough to hold the table in place so the girls can't move it, but it will eventually just scrape up off the floor when we need to take it out. Genius! I even glued Adelynn's bed to the floor as well...it's really light-weight and the girls push the bed around to turn on the light etc...we'll see how it holds. Oh yeah, I also glued a lamp to a dresser so they can't pull it down on themselves. Pretty soon I'm going to go on a gluing rampage around the house. I think hot glue is my new best friend!

Christmas Morning

Last night after a long and difficult day with the kids, Josh offered for me to "take the rest of the night off" and go upstairs and blog, watch tv, etc. So I tried to blog, but picasa wasn't working and my pictures weren't loading right...so rather than add another stress to my stressful day, I gave up. But since these pictures were there, I figured I might as well post them...even though they're out of order of what I intended to happen. Oh well...that's life sometimes, isn't it?

Anyway, enjoy some pics of the girls and their gift on Christmas Morning...I will post more later.

Adelynn in her new Christmas pajamas.

Ellyanna excited about her cookies that were in her stocking.

Kynden who is thrilled with her cookies and knows how pretty she is while sporting her new candy necklace.

Now, I must explain this...this is the kitchen that I built for the girls for Christmas. The right side I found at Salvation Army for $12. The left side with the sink/oven is actually a cabinet frame from an old cabinet turned on it's side. I took the doors from the cabinet, cut them down and made the door and the shelves, etc. The sink is an old mixing bowl, the 'oven' is an old toaster oven (both of which I had). I used knobs that I had kept from other projects and the shelf is one that I used to have in the kitchen before my new cabinets. The only thing that I bought other than the right side of it was the mirrors, the faucet and the burners which are painted coaters. I'm very proud of my "creation"...it took a lot of creativity and a lot of work...but it was fun work. And the girls love it!

Test Results

I just finished my first coat of paint on the girls' Christmas gift...so I have a bit of free time (picture me laughing hysterically in my head) and I wanted to update you all on my recent doctor's visit. Because I know you're all just dying to know. Well, you might find it interesting anyway.

Bryce and I went in to the doctor today...me for a 'results' appointment and Bryce for a new appointment wanting some help with his asthma. So here's the long and short of my test results...I'm perfectly, medically healthy. There's NOTHING WRONG WITH ME! It's weird to be frustrated over there being nothing wrong! Although there is still hope for me...here's her conclusion. Although my thyroid is fine, she knows that the triplet pregnancy in particular was very stressful to my body. Therefore, her conclusion is that my adrenal glands are working overtime due to the stress on my thyroid and other things. (Your adrenal glands are sort of what keeps everything running smoothly if I understand correctly) Adrenal glands secrete a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol makes you crave sugar because it's the "fight or flight" hormone and your body thinks that it needs the quick energy in order to fight or flight...does that make any sense? AND when you have high cortisol levels and you eat sugar, it turns into fat right in your midsection. Voila...there is my problem!

So the solution is some hormone regulating supplements, some adrenal gland supportive supplements and get this, a supplement that 'cures' your sugar craving! I'm all about that! I'm also supposed to work on changing my diet significantly. More greens, more protein, no bread, less carbs and cut down dairy. Did you know that even if you don't have problems digesting dairy, it's just a really hard thing for adults to digest? And it can cause acne...? Who knew? At any rate, I'm hoping the supplements will really help so it's not so hard to cut out all that stuff. Sugar, carbs...definitely my downfall.

We'll see how it goes....

Update and Desserts

First of all I wanted to let you all know that we decided to postpone Kynden's surgery that was scheduled for today. Mostly for money reasons. But also because of timing issues as well as that the doctor said that it wasn't at all urgent. So thank you for your thoughts and prayers. If you'd like to continue to pray towards something, you can pray that we can quickly and easily get a different insurance so that it won't cost us so much! I'm working to that end.

On a different note, I had a request from Susan to share my dessert recipes from Thanksgiving. So here I go!

Snickers Cheesecake Preheat oven to 300

Crust:
8oz chocolate graham crackers (about 1.5 wrapped packages inside box)
1/2 stick melted butter

Grind crackers up in food processor until fine. Add butter and pulse til well combined. Press into a springform pan (bottom and sides) and chill until filling is complete.

Filling:
32 oz of cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1/4 c flour

Beat this in mixer for about 4 minutes.

Add, while continuing to mix:
4 eggs (one at a time)
1 TB vanilla

Continue beating while you melt:
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate

Once chocolate is melted, add slowly to the mixer until it's well incorporated. Now you can turn off mixer!

Remove crust from fridge. In bottom of crust, sprinkle roasted peanuts until the bottom is covered, but they're not overlapping. On top of this, pour caramel ice cream topping until nuts are covered. (the original recipe calls for actual melted caramel..but that hardened so much that the cheesecake was impossible to cut!...so I think this will be better) Over the top of this, pour the cream cheese filling. Put the cheesecake in the oven WITH a separate pan of water. You can place the cheesecake in the pan of water, but make sure you wrap tin foil around the outside of the pan to avoid getting water inside the cheese cake. Bake cake for approx 50 min. The outsides of the cake should be set, but the inside 3 inches should still be jiggly. At this point you may either turn off oven and keep the door open while it cools (not practical for me w/3 two year olds) or remove it from oven...you just don't want there to be a huge temp difference. But either way, immediately take a plastic knife and run it between the pan and the crust to loosen the sides...do this again after about 15 minutes. This is supposed to help it not crack. Cool for about 1 hour. Refrigerate cake at least 4 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, top it with hot fudge topping. Can you say, yum?


Lemon Tarts preheat oven to 325

Crust:
6 oz cream cheese
3/4 cup butter
2 cup flour

Beat in mixer until combined. Press into a tart pan or cupcake pans for individuals. Bake 15 min. If you're making a large tart, you probably want to use pie weights or parchment paper and dry beans to keep the crust from bubbling.

Filling:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch

Mix together in sauce pan.

Add:
1 1/4 cup milk
3 egg yolks
1tsp grated lemon peel
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup butter

Bring to a boil. (slowly!) stirring constantly. Boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and pour it into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. (touch the plastic wrap directly on the filling so that it won't get a skin) Chill.

Mix in:
1 cup sour cream

Fill the crusts with the lemon filling. I topped mine with whipped cream and grated lemon peel to make them pretty.

Everything else...

So here I am blogging and avoiding my housework in order to feel a bit caught up. Although in my defense, it's only a quarter after 8 am and I have already done 2 loads of laundry and almost finished cleaning the laundry room. So I have done some...it's just that on Monday's in particular there is so much to be done! At any rate, I'm now going to highlight some of the things that are currently or recently been happening in our house. Then I can get this out of my head and into the world of cyber-land and hopefully continue on with the rest of my day.

In no particular order...

*Financially things are really tight right now due to a few things: Our fridge that we bought at such a great deal on craigslist was not so much of a great deal. The freezer stopped working..we had a repair guy out twice to fix it...he didn't fix it. So last night Josh bought me a "new" refrigerator from craigslist. So to sum up, New Refrigerator + repairman + repairman + Second New Refrigerator = Merry Christmas to me. They didn't teach that kind of math in school. Not to mention that one of our cars needs a new battery as well as that there's some issue in the coolant system which who knows how much that will cost. Ugh. And then there's Christmas...I won't even go there.

*Last week I visited for my first time ever a naturopathic doctor. I figured out that my insurance covers it and I've always wanted to go. I really, really liked her. We sat and talked for over an hour and she was asking all sorts of questions about my medical history and a lot about my pregnancy with the girls. I won't go into all the details, but my main complaint was that it has been SO HARD to get this weight off...especially around my middle. She actually said that it might be because of some of the medications I was on during pregnancy as well as the effect that the pregnancy had on my body. She is guessing that my thyroid is low from some of the symptoms I talked about and because pregnancy normally is really stressful on a thyroid and especially a triplet pregnancy is very stressful. I'm looking forward to hearing the results of my labs and going back in sometime (hopefully) this week.

*Speaking of doctors and medical things, Kynden is scheduled this Thursday for a surgery to fix her hernia. I first noticed a lump on her right above her pubic bone where the leg connects to her body, earlier this summer. But it would just come and go. But it has seemed to get bigger and 'out' more often lately and seems to be causing her pain. So our doctor sent us over for a consultation with a pediatric surgeon. It seems to be a fairly easy surgery...only tylenol for pain meds and they said that usually the kids are up and running around by the end of the day...so I'm not too worried. Yet.

*Over the weekend, we got our Christmas tree. But it was a big adventure! We left kind of late Saturday morning all piled in our van. We had a couple of errands to do before we got the tree. So we headed out. Wal-Mart was one of our destinations. We go in to wal-mart, get our things and then head out to the car, pile in, get buckled, unload groceries, etc and then the car won't start. Crap. (Remember, the battery issue?) So we thought that maybe the nice people at the wal-mart automotive might be able to help us. To make a long story short (sort of) we all trekked across the parking lot (I had the scene and music from the end scene in Sound of Music in my head...you know, when they're climbing the mountain to get away from the Nazi's?) and the kids and I headed to Burger King for lunch while Josh headed to the automotive part. Turns out that they were unable to change our battery for us, but they did come give us a jump start free of charge. Meanwhile I sat in burger king all alone with 5 kids, but it wasn't too bad.

So then, we get in the car, head back home to change cars and head out again to get a tree when we realize that we don't have any cash. We forgot to get some while we were in Gresham...so we head back to Gresham so we can buy a few things at Albertsons and get cash back. While I was running in to Albertsons, I decided to pick up a candy bar for Josh (his favorite) to cheer him up (yes, you were grumpy) and when I get back to the car, I give Josh the candy bar and Bryce starts crying (I didn't get him anything) and flings a nasty accusation at me; "It seems like you only are so worried about taking care of your husband and not your kids." I can't help it, I laughed. It seems I am doing my job. Yea, me. Finally we get to the Christmas tree place and the girls totally loved being outside running free among the trees. They had a blast. We finally get out tree and head home.

Well, that's it for now..the laundry needs changed and I need to get on with the rest of my day.

*Oh, one more thing I wanted to mention. Josh and I are in the beginning of going through a sermon series I recently heard of. It's a series that goes through the Song of Solomon given by Mark Driscoll (not sure if I'm spelling his name right) from Mars Hill church. It's called "The Peasant Princess" So far we've watched 3-although the last one hardly counts because we were tired and watched it late snuggled in bed with the lights off and fell asleep. But so far, it is very powerful and I highly recommend this for everyone. It's of course geared for those who are married, but has some very valuable information for people who are single as well and what to look for in a mate and how to find them. It is about sex...(although we haven't hit the 'hardcore' stuff yet, for lack of a better word) but mostly so far it's really about men and women and what makes them Godly and the roles that we were created for, etc, etc. I don't know...I just think that if as Christians, we were taught PROactively what a healthy, Biblical and Godly attitude towards sex was, we would have to be less REactive about all the unhealthy sexual behaviors/addictions that have infiltrated our society and our church. But that's just me. Anyway, very powerful stuff so far. So go watch it! You can thank me later. http://www.peasantprincess.com/

Here it comes: Thanksgiving week Part 3

I have seriously so much stuff going on in my head right now that I really just need to sit and finish this. And then I can get on with blogging about current issues...=)

It happened right about November 22nd or so. It was a day and a moment that changed my world and it might never go back...

I've mentioned before that I am running the cafe that is a new addition to my church. What this looked like before was that I was able to make most of the decisions about which products to order, which supplies to buy, make the drink menus and recipes, and basically get the cafe up an running from the ground up. Schedule wise, we had another commercial company (Silk Espresso) that was coming in and leasing the space from us on Sunday mornings. Which basically meant that scheduling wise, I was only in charge of Wednesday nights, which is a new event that our church is doing called the Journey. And every week we worked Wednesday nights.

HOWEVER...on November 22 (or thereabouts) I got a forwarded email from my pastor from the owner of Silk Espresso saying that she needed to back out of the contract and they could no long work on Sunday mornings. She simply wasn't making money being there. So with that, my world changed. I am now solely in charge of the cafe. I will be managing it for Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights. There were a LOT of decisions that needed to be made in the last couple weeks and a lot of work that's needed to be done. But I can say that my work is done and I'm eagerly anticipating our Grand Re-Opening this Sunday, where our prices have been lowered and our weekly special is any drink and any pastry for $2.00. Pretty good deal, right?

So the last and final layer of our Thanksgiving week? Let me preface it...for quite some time, Josh and I have been battling a huge sense of 'entitlement' in our oldest two children. We've been in a lot of discussion as to what to do about this. At any rate, the weekend before Thanksgiving, I can't remember now what spurred this on, but I made the decision that for the next few days there would be no video games, no TV and no computer (for the boys). In addition to that, I thought how fun (and potentially valuable) it would be to do some research on the true Thanksgiving story, and what life was like for the first settlers that came to America. I think I will continue this tradition every year, because it was such a huge success...and next time I will have a bit more time to prepare for it.

So beginning on Monday of that week, there was none of the aforementioned items allowed in our house so the boys had to find something else to do when they got home from school. (God, forbid!) That night for our activity, we turned off the power (because they didn't have electricity back then, of course) and by candlelight, we read aloud a story about the pilgrims and why it was so important for them to come to America and what the trip was like for them and what they found when they first arrived her and how hard those first years were.

On Tuesday, all I could think of (and really all I had time for) was that after dinner, the four of us washed, dried and put away all the dishes by hand. Because of course the pilgrims didn't have dishwashers.

By Wednesday, an astounding thing happened. The boys weren't fighting. They got out Twister and played it together, quietly and they were laughing together. There was peace in our house. Not the sound of video games or arguing. Ahhh. Bryce asked me excitedly that afternoon what our activity was going to be. Before I could answer he said, "can we wash the dishes again? Please? That was really fun!" I'm pretty sure my mouth fell open. At any rate, what we did on Wednesday, I really didn't have time for, but we did it anyway. We made an "authentic" pilgrim meal. I found recipes online for actual recipes used back then that had been altered to make them work in modern kitchens. I'm not familiar with cooking over open flames, so that was appreciated. We made succotash, (which Josh and I really actually liked and so did the girls), cornbread the way that they did it back then (different than now) and Indian Corn Pudding for dessert. The boys got to help me with everything and it was pretty fun. Different, but fun.

So although it was a crazy and busy couple weeks, I really am so glad that we took the time to do these different activities. In fact, maybe we should implement that rule into our house 1 day a week. Hmmm...I'll have to think about that.

Thanksgiving week part 2

Okay, so I am sitting here at the computer feeling a bit guilty because Josh is getting the girls ready for bed all by himself and they are NOT happy about it. And since I'm sitting here, he is doing it all by himself. I'm sure I'll be able to get over my guilt at some point or another. He's a big boy and he didn't ask for my help after all...

So here goes part two of my Thanksgiving week. If you didn't read the first part, scroll down and read that first and this one will make a whole lot more sense. Or don't. Whatever.

I left off saying that my dad bought me the cabinets and the counter top....So, my dad and I get home from Ikea and unload all the goodies. Before we can start, we have to do some electrical work. You see, the blank wall where we were adding the cabinets didn't have any outlets. There was only one outlet on that side and in order to use it I had to have extension cords to reach it. So while we're doing the construction, we might as well add some outlets, right? Easy enough. Well, we figured out for one, why that particular wall was blank before. Basically it was a sheet of drywall covering the back of the fireplace. So we had to drill straight into brick in order to hang the cabinet. And in order to put in outlets, we had to build the wall out a bit to make room. So we re-framed out the wall and my dad hooks up the wires and gets it all ready to thread the wires down through the floor and connect them to the power under the house. He drilled 2 holes in my floor (which of course is going to be covered up by the cabinets, but still...it was hard to watch) and hit solid concrete. Oh dear. Dad and Josh went under the house and realized that the fireplace is sitting on a solid foundation of concrete. So plan A didn't work. Because the outlets were important to me, we re-routed the wires to go up instead of down and it ended up working out. Crisis averted. That's about as far as we got the first night. Oh yeah, we hung the upper cabinet too during half time of the Blazer game which dad and Josh were watching.

Saturday. My dad came over early and started work. We worked all day and by the end of the day it was time to do some demo on our old counter top. That was my favorite part. Have I mentioned that I HATE the tile counter top that is in my kitchen. I smashed it with a hammer with glee. We got the base cabinet finished and installed and put on the counter top. (it's still not glued on yet, but I can at least use it).

Sunday. We didn't go to church because the girls were all snotty (what else is new?) so we stayed home and worked on getting more of the kitchen done. I started painting. I painted the bottom cabinet to match my bottom cabinets and the top to match the top. And I filled holes and painted the new drywall to match my walls. On Sunday night my in laws stopped by and John offered to come the next day and fix the corner for me. (Josh and I have really good dad's)

Monday. John came over and fixed my corner and a couple other flaws in the drywall and as a bonus, he fixed an area that has been sitting there exposed for a year that has made me crazy! Yea!

Somewhere along the lines of these days we realized something unfortunate...The microwave that we've had sitting in storage for a year waiting to be used, the microwave that started this whole project, was too big to fit inside the microwave cabinet that we bought. B.u.m.m.e.r. Currently I'm in the process of trying to sell the microwave on craigslist so that I can buy one that will fit...so I still after all this don't have a new microwave. Does anyone need a really nice over the range black microwave? I'll sell it cheap...

Tuesday. I had to wait overnight for the drywall mud that John used to dry. I then was able to sand and re-paint. This was also the day that I missed the trip to Ikea with Leah, Heidi and Christine. I opted out of the trip because I was stressed that in 2 days my family was coming over to have Thanksgiving and my kitchen was under construction. Not to mention that I'd been so busy and pre-occupied with kitchen projects that the entire rest of the house was being neglected. It's astounding what happens in my house when things are neglected...even for a day or two. So, even though I didn't get as much done as I wanted to, by Tuesday night at least I could say that there was nothing more I could do on the kitchen. Except clean.

Wednesday. I don't really remember Wednesday. I think I probably just cleaned all day. Oh yeah, and I made a blackberry pie and a carrot cake.

Thursday. The Big Day. Thankfully Josh had this day completely off and he was able to help me a lot in getting everything company clean. By the time people showed up, I felt ready and not stressed. Yea for that. I was in charge of cooking the turkey and it turned out well, I think. I added some cayenne pepper to the other seasonings that I usually use and it had a little kick. So dinner went well. Very laid back and nice.

Friday. (What? You thought I was going to stop at Thursday? There's way more) Even though I didn't have plans when I went to bed Thursday night, I ended up waking up and going early for the sale at Fred Meyer. I know. It's an addiction. An addiction to 50% off socks and buy one get one free games. I'm in therapy for it right now.

Saturday. Most of my day was spent cleaning and baking. What was I baking? Why snickers cheesecake and lemon tarts of course for our Thanksgiving #2 with the McKenney's. Can I just say...yum.

Sunday. Church in the morning, then back home to clean and get ready for Thanksgiving #2. The McKenney's came late afternoon and didn't stay nearly long enough for my taste! It seems so wrong that we all live within 10 minutes of each other and hardly ever get together. There's something very wrong with that picture. But it was a good time. For your viewing enjoyment, here's a picture of my Thanksgiving dining table.

Feast your eyes if you will on the lovely centerpiece filled with a stunning array of fall florals and foliage and the china that I bought on clearance at Macy's last year that I got for $20/box and only bring out on special occassions. Oh, and do you see how I classed it up with the plastic silverware? Yes, the yellow plastic silverware MAKE the table.

Now, I realized when I was almost finished with this post that there are two additional (important, may I add?) layers to my Thanksgiving week. But this post is awfully long. So I will continue on with Thanksgiving week part 3 at a later time...Stay tuned.

Thanksgiving week Part 1

Well, I figured this morning that I'd better get a move on with this post....otherwise the entire memory of it was going to get pushed from my head to make room for the other things in there that are rapidly accumulating...

In order for me to blog about Thanksgiving week, I have to go back a ways...back to the Thursday before...one week before Thanksgiving. I had asked my dad a while ago if it was a difficult process to install an over the range microwave in place of our fan. [when we first moved in to our house, I found a screaming good deal on craigslist for a stove, dishwasher and microwave that matched...we've just had the microwave sitting in storage for a year and I really wanted to put it in] At any rate, dad said no, it would be 'easy'. My dad says everything is easy and he's rarely right. Just tuck that knowledge away for later. He said that he could come over and help me do it when his vacation time from work started. Fast forward to a week before Thanksgiving...dad's first day of vacation. Him and Jan come over in the afternoon to talk about the project. Josh and I had done some measuring and realized that in order to have the proper space for the microwave over the stove we would have to replace the cabinet and get a smaller one. I really didn't want to lose cabinet space. I need all I can get and am always feeling like I don't have enough. So that option was out. What we decided was to hang the microwave on an empty wall in the kitchen, and put some shelves above it. Well, I'll spare you the details because it was a long process. The end result was that the next day, dad and I took a trip to Ikea and he bought for me (early Christmas) a microwave wall cabinet, a base cabinet and a new counter top so that I could extend my kitchen out like I've been wanting to do for a long time. Yea, dad! I was totally over the moon excited....but since my time is running out and I need my coffee, I'll continue this story later...maybe tomorrow. Stay tuned for chapter 2 of Thanksgiving week....

Copy Cat

While perusing through blogs this morning, I read this on Allison's blog. Since it was a quick and easy way to post a new blog, I thought I'd copy it. Enjoy!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both
2. Real tree or Artificial? REAL
3. When do you put up the tree? As soon as possible after Thanksgiving!
4. When do you take the tree down? New Years unless we're afraid of spontaneous combustion due to lack of water.
5. Do you like eggnog? I think store bought is gross..but I have a recipe from an old Betty Crocker kids cookbook that I LOVE...it has real raw eggs in it. =)
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Books...I loved to read. In particular babysitters club and Little House on the Prairie series.
7. Hardest person to buy for? Brother in law(s)
8. Easiest person to buy for? My sister Kendra..we like exactly the same things!
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, finally! I've wanted one forever and last year I found/bought one that was like 90% off after Christmas and I can't wait to put it up!
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Uh..*cough*choke* I don't send Christmas cards...last year I wrote an email letter...but never sent it.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? The only thing I can think of wasn't really my worst..Last year I knew my mom was getting me something I wanted, I just knew it..and when I opened the gift from her it was a big box of folding chairs! She had gotten me a set of folding chairs and a folding table in addition to what I really wanted, but I opened the chairs first...boy was I disappointed there for a minute!
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A toss up between A Christmas Story and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation...yes, this is my sense of humor and I laugh every time.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually after Thanksgiving mostly due to not knowing *who* I'm buying for since we always do something different with the McKenney's and we always draw names on my side.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Peanut Butter fudge..but it's not specific to Christmas
16. Lights on the tree? Uh...yeah!
17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home and let people come to us! =)
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Roudolf
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Yes!
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Feels so busy that I don't always get to enjoy it slowly enough.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Most of my decorations are silver and green.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? We have a special Christmas breakfast/brunch..I always look forward to that the most I think.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? I have asked for some things such as books, a cordless drill, a garbage disposal...but what I REALLY want is a gift certificate for a new procedure I just learned about called LipoLift....Oh yeah, and world peace.
26. Who is most likely to respond to this? I'm not tagging anyone so whoever wants and easy way to post a blog!