Mmm... hot dogs, cookies, and paint

Well, to start out - bummer news - the doctor tried really hard to figure out the gender of the baby for me today. But that darn umbilical cord was draped carefully over the area in question and he was unable to tell. Sigh. My actual ultrasound appt isn't for 2 more weeks, so patience will have to be required as I anxiously wait FOREVER to find out.

We had a little Halloween gathering yesterday - one of many, it seems. Emma has her preschool Halloween party on Friday. I'm really excited for that one because I volunteered myself to go and help. It should be fun! Anyway, Emma's favorite part of the party yesterday was painting her pumpkin. She worked diligently painting hers purple for a good 30 minutes. She hardly wanted to leave it to go decorate her sugar cookie. Becca's favorite part was her mummy dog (hot dog wrapped cleverly in bread like a mummy - very cute Liora!). She ate the whole thing - I don't know where it all goes, but she eats a lot - She even tried eating the paint for her pumpkin but quickly realized that it was gross and started crying. Poor silly thing.

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Pumpkins and Candy

Well, I'm super bummed because we went to a corn maze last Saturday, but when I went to get out my camera and take a picture, my battery was dead - bummer! I was so sad because I had got the kids dressed in Halloween attire with orange ribbons in their hair just so I could get some good fall pictures with them in the pumpkin patch and such. Phooey! Nevertheless, it was a good morning - hot, but fun (a healthy 95 degrees... not exactly fall weather). They had lots of fun stuff to do other than the corn maze, like a bounce house, train, petting zoo, corn box and such. Ben wanted to do the tomato cannon, but we only had enough cash to do either that or the train. We figured Emma would like the train more. :) We topped off the outing by getting some kettle corn, apple cinnamon syrup, and jalapeno strawberry jam (Ben's choice - not mine). Afterwords we had lunch at Fuddruckers. It seems tradition that when I get around 15 weeks along in my pregnancy I have to go out for a celebratory hamburger. I hate hamburgers while I'm morning sick, but around this time I start to feel better and my appetite for a huge hamburger returns. Yummy!

Yesterday I tried to compensate for the fact that I was pictureless the weekend before. Since I didn't get pictures in the pumpkin patch, I figured I could take some outside the grocery store, since we were picking some out to take home. :) By zooming in you don't even realize that we were outside of the Fry's. :) In the afternoon we carved our first pumpkins of the Halloween season. We just did one big one and then a little one for Emma. Emma drew the face on and Ben carved it out exactly how she had drawn it - she was very proud! Becca joined in the fun by trying to eat the pumpkin goo - that's my Becca for you! She eats everything! She quickly discovered, however, that it wasn't so tasty. We used our newly carved jack-o-lanterns to help in decorating our trunk for Halloween. We're usually lame and don't put much effort into decorating our trunk for these events, but we decided to be cool and decorate with spiderwebs, pumpkins, a strobe light and sound effects. I feel like we don't really mean business though until we have a van to do trunk or treat out of. ;) But we did our best with our Altima trunk.

The kids absolutely loved the trick or treating. This was Becca's first time being old enough to really trick or treat and she was thrilled about it! She really took it seriously and insisted on carrying her pumpkin full of candy, even as it began to drag along the ground. She even did her own little version of saying "trick-or-treat", with the correct intonation, but not really saying the words - it was funny. Anyway, Emma was dressed as a beautiful princess and Becca as a jester (I craftily made her costume out of felt and hot glue - it probably won't last long, but I think she looks cute!). Ben and I have been enjoying eating their candy after they go to bed, but I'm already getting ill from it. I fear there is only more candy to come with several more parties this week and actual trick or treating on Halloween night. Bring on the goodies!

P.S. I hope to find out the gender of the baby on Wednesday. I have an appt with my doctor and I'm just hoping he'll take a sneak peak with the ultrasound for me. So, as is tradition, cast your votes on the side poll! Remember it seems to be boy season, however, we haven't had much luck getting boys in this family. :)

Home Sweet Kitchen

Since I've been feeling almost myself lately (other than the going to bed at 8pm thing), I've been getting back to my normal routines. It feels so good! I actually have missed running errands, cleaning my house, and cooking! Who would have thought? Well, the cooking in particular I've been glad to get back to. I've had some good luck lately with some new recipes. I feel like I'm kind of taking a chance when I try something new, because it's the worst when you spend time cooking something and it doesn't turn out great. My rule of thumb for recipes has been to not make a recipe card for something unless I've already made it and loved it. That way when I go back through my recipe box for meals for the week, I'm only choosing from stuff I know will turn out. However, once a week or so, I try making something new.. usually from an Everyday Food magazine. I've actually rarely made something from these magazines that we don't end up enjoying. So, I rarely post about recipes on my blog, but seeing as I've been so proud to be feeling well enough to be back in the kitchen, I think it's appropriate. Last week we tried out Chili Chicken Tacos. It's a slow cooker recipe that turned out great and is really made super yummy by adding the suggested toppers of sour cream, lime, cilantro, and cheese. Mmmmm. Last night we were also excited to find a great Thai meal - Spicy Coconut Chicken Casserole. I guess this is once again another chicken recipe, but way different. The curry and coconut flavors were really great. And squeezing on some lemon makes it extra tasty. I used boneless chicken breasts instead of legs (eww bone!). The recipe requires Thai red curry paste. They didn't have this at Fry's, so I later ran to AJ's and got it there. AJ's has everything exotic and yummy (but way too expensive to do all your grocery shopping there). Anyway, the recipe was worth the hassle, and I have lots of curry paste left for future cooking. :)

Hip hip hooray for Nursery!

I feel like I've really been Becca-focused in a lot of my recent posts, but she's been hitting many milestones in her growth and I have to document it! :) I really do love Emma too. ;) Anyway, Becca had her first day of nursery today. Hooray!! Having Ben and I both teaching most weeks in YM and YW, we have been most anxious for her to start nursery so we can cease the shuffling that always seems to happen each week during church. It was so lovely to sit in Gospel Doctrine and teach YW without worrying about little Becca. She screamed when I first left, but seems to have calmed down quickly and did well - she has her older sister Emma in nursery too right now (for a couple of months), so I'm sure that helped to have a familiar face to keep her happy. Emma said Becca had fun playing in nursery and liked eating crackers and marshmallows. :)

Lovely Conference Weekend

We had a pleasant General Conference weekend hanging out with Ben's family. On Saturday night while the boys were at Priesthood session, we took the kids to a play in Tempe, "Miss Nelson is Missing". The play, of course, is based on the children's picture book. We all really enjoyed it - even Becca, who I thought wouldn't be entertained longer than 10 minutes! Anyway, it was a fun evening. The picture above was taken after the play - they wanted to go outside and look at the lake. :) Sunday, we had a nice day of watching conference, eating, and going for a walk through the neighborhood. What pleasant weather we're finally having! It's cooling down just enough that I can finally go outside without melting!

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So, great news! Becca's paci-free! We had a little 'ceremony' on Sunday night and threw them all out. Becca waved good bye with the rest of us and clapped. She even threw one of them in the garbage for us. She may have seemed fine with it at the time, but when it was time for bed she had a little panic attack, signing for her pacifier and looking all over for one (on her end table, under the bed, in the garbage). She cried for a while before settling down to bed. Thankfully, though, she seems to be alright today - she took her nap without getting sad and seemed rather happy all day today, despite being pacifier-less. I just put her to bed and so far I haven't heard a peep. What a joy! I really hate pacifiers - they're gross and annoying to always feel like you have to have one on you in case they get fussy. But, despite how much she seemed to 'need' it, she seems to be getting over it pretty fast.

We've recently discovered an awesome show! I've heard great things about it for a while, but had never watched it - Planet Earth is amazing! They are playing it on Discovery Channel on Sunday evenings and now we want to buy the DVD's. Although, on our TV we can watch it in HD (which looks stunning!), but we can't play DVD's in HD (or BluRay for that matter), so for now maybe we'll just keep them saved to the DVR and watch them that way.