One of my favorite blogs, the butcher block is giving away a meat thermometer. We already have one (it really is a staple in my book.) If you don’t you should enter here!
*Please note that I have been working on this post for over a week. No, it’s not a finely honed jewel. I just can’t find time for-well-anything that doesn’t cry or pat my hips saying “Mommomomomom” to get attention.*
It seems like every twelve hours I find my self saying What? How can it possibly be 11:00 already??? Which inevitably leads to the sick stomach feeling of Well, now it’s 12:00. Great. Now I am in bed late (or for the am:) Now the morning is over and what did I accomplish? Oh well. I will keep on hating 11:00 until I am either asleep or have actually accomplished something at that time. So, for the next 20 years or so.
Enough complaining. Allow me to share a bit of what I’ve been doing instead of blogging. Amanda is growing REALLY quickly. I don’t remember this going quite so fast with Meg or Emily. She wants to sit up and watch the action. (Which she thinks is all directed at her. With reason, I admit we are all quick to try and entertain her.) I love that she will light up and smile and squeal at me when I am talking on the phone or to one of the other girls. This usually leads to me finishing the conversation in a syrupy baby voice. My apologies if this has happened while I’m talking to you.
After a massive (and painful) cleanup effort, Michael got out his old Star Wars toys. The girls have played Star Wars nonstop. It cracks us both up to listen to the excellent dialogue. Just imagine if George Lucas had also been an avid Fancy Nancy fan. They wanted me to assemble the Death Star yesterday. I told them that I didn’t know how it went together. (This is my first time playing with them too.) Emily looked at me and said in her little exasperated tone “Mom, you’ve seen the movie.” Ha! She also insists that Han be called Captain Solo. At least she knows who the real man in Star Wars is.
Here’s my good excuse for being such a bad blogger:
We are all smitten with this cute little puddin’.
Our girl is already a week old–how is that possible? We are home and trying to figure out our new routine. (Ha!) Actually, things are going well. The girls love her and Megan is a great helper. She is a pretty content baby who loves to eat. At her one week appointment, we learned that she has gained 10oz. already. When the doc asked, I told him that she is solely nursed and he circled her weight and put a big exclamation point next to it. 
Here we are after the birth…so happy to finally have her here!
stats: 7lbs. 7oz. and 21 inches long
Megan can’t get enough of her. I love how sweet and attentive she is.
Emily is happy with her (sigh of relief) but not super interested.
If you know Emily, she kind of tends to do her own thing in general.
The other thing that got an exclamation point at her check up was how many infants their office has sent to the hospital with pneumonia. He said that cold and flu turn into it very easily for little ones. So, we are loving having healthy visitors, but asking that your cute kids stay away for a few more weeks. I am looking forward to joining the living soon (although probably not too soon, based on my paranoia of taking her into crowds); as well as possibly keeping my house clean for more than 30 minutes. Okay, I guess that was just wishful thinking before she was born too…we’ll see. Someday maybe.
I am going in tomorrow morning to have this crazy little girl. Can’t wait to see her. 
I’ll have pictures soon.
This year Halloween was for the birds. (Yes, I know that was bad.) Both of the girls ended up being birdies and Michael and I enjoyed a little less princess in our lives for a minute. Okay, I guess it isn’t exactly out of the the realm of princess, but at least they weren’t both Disney characters this year. Megan absolutely reveled in the attention she got with her fancy flamingo costume and Emily was so excited when Grandma Banana brought over this peacock dress. We had a great time trick or treating and eating chili with Grandma Lu and the cousins on Saturday evening.
It was also Michael’s birthday this week. We took the girls bowling for the first time. Megan loved it, I think Emily is still a little young. It didn’t take too long before she was ready to move on to something else. We also celebrated with some really excellent steaks and pumpkin pie. Mmmmm. Happy Birthday, honey!
I have been having some fun lately. I recently got a sewing machine and have made the girls aprons. (I’ll add get a picture of that tomorrow when they are up.) I also did this window for our bedroom. Andrea, I thought you’d appreciate the subject. : )
I call them my gossip birds.
Last week I went to a presentation by Liz Edmunds (aka the Food Nanny); which really inspired me–about dinner! She advocates making a 2 week plan (Ali, I thought you’d like that with your 2 week shopping trips.) To make making that plan easier, Liz suggests setting a theme for each night of the week. I love this idea, I think it will help with my dinner problem–falling into a rut and rotating a handful of recipes. Here is my little meal plan to fill out. I bought her cookbook because I am always interested in easy recipes. I have done weekly menus for a while and one little trick I’ve learned is to just save those menus in a file to look back through when I get stumped. I’ll let you know how it goes next week. I plan on doing some tweeking as I go; but I figured I’d share–anything to make dinner easier, right?
We were always excited to head over to Woodburn, OR for Oktoberfest when I lived at home. Although beer certainly is the centerpiece of the festival, there is a lot to see and eat at these carnivals. Oktoberfest is arguably the largest festival in the world, hosting well over 6 million people in the actual fair in Munich last year. It was first held to honor the newly married Crown Prince Ludwig I and Therese of Bavaria in 1810. Celebrations run from late September to the first Sunday of October and chances are there is a festival being held in a city or town near you. However, if you’d like to celebrate at home, I suggest having a german inspired dinner, possibly trying out a traditional game of skittles, and making these Edelweiss hats to wear for the party.
large piece of felt or construction paper; trimmed to 12×18-inches (traditionally green)
white and yellow felt or construction paper for flower
*For paper, use a hole punch to make 6 circles or do one larger circle. You can also use 6 yellow pompoms or beads for the center.
feather
glue (glue stick for paper, craft or hot glue for felt)
1. Fold the sheet of felt or paper in half. (It should now measure 9×12.)
2. Fold both top corners in towards the middle evenly, leaving 2-3 inch border along the bottom. If you are using felt, you will need to tack the corners down with a bead of glue.
3. Fold the bottom up on both sides each to their own side. This forms the brim.
4. Cut out an edelwiess flower. (Here’s the pattern I used:) If you are using paper, use a hole punch to make 5 yellow circles and glue all together.
5. Make a small puddle of glue on one side of the hat and lay the bigger flower down to make the base, then put the smaller on top. Next add a puddle in the center of the flower and arrange the circles to form a center.
6. Then tuck (and glue if necessary) the feather behind the flower and feiern!
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