Easter Finery

 Well, we didn't make it to a mall Easter Bunny or any egg hunts this year. However, we did make it to Arkansas to see family. Chris had a four day weekend, so we left Friday after work, drove all night (12 hours door to door), hung out for a few days then drove home yesterday. It was a much longer drive coming home with A being up. She is getting a new tooth as well, the top right that is one off of middle, yeah, it showed up yesterday. Kind of out of the blue, but it makes sense why she seemed a bit extra cranky. She is starting to sleep better at night, so hopefully we can work on that a bit more.

The first two pictures are of us at church. We got to see our old church family and it was a lot of fun. It was the first time we managed to make it back for a church service since we moved to Chicago all those years ago. It was nice to see everyone. The coolest surprise was the music minister got married and had a son a few months older than A. They played a bit during the service.

These are family pictures taken outside of my mother-in-law's house. 

Since you can't really have Easter without eggs, we did manage to dye some eggs and get them together for an Easter basket of sorts. A really thought the paper needed to be out of the basket and didn't want to get in the basket. She also wanted to share all of her eggs. 

Quick Video

I mentioned in the giveaway post about A feeding herself. This is a bit longer than I typically get of her, but I think it is funny if you finish it out. Here she is working with Cheerios. She also likes to share with Chris. It is really hard when she wants to share with me. I need to learn a trick on making food I can't have disappear when she puts it in my mouth, only I can't actually have it go in my mouth, or eat it...

Randomness, and a giveaway

Well, I normally don't do this, but I'm tempted to so here goes nothing. I currently have a quilt that needs quilting and a good home. Since I really really can't decide which one of my friends and family would put the quilt to the best use, I'll do a quick giveaway. :) The person who gives me the best idea for the quilting will win the quilt. (The quilting is the pattern that holds the parts of the quilt together for those who don't know.) It needs to be something simple -- stars, rainbows, crosses, etc. Be as specific as possible. I will take suggestions/entries until April 10, provided someone doesn't provide me with a really good idea before then. :) With your entry make sure to leave a way for me to contact you. Please "follow" the blog as well if you are going to enter, and you can even suggest something if you want to give the quilt to someone you know is expecting.

Here is the quilt top that needs quilting:

The back is an alphabet pattern that has letters and words that start with those words, for example, A and apple with a picture of an apple. In my mind I've titled the quilt, "Remembering God's Promises" because of the rainbow theme and the promise God made to Noah with the rainbows. Also, since it is a baby quilt and babies are blessings, it is a reminder of the promises God has made for us and our children.

You can pretty much see what I've been up to lately. I've also made a nice sun hat for A and am working on a summer dress since I can't seem to have any quilting ideas. I'm working on running a 5k again. I'm also trying to decide if I want to do the "High Country Triple Crown" series of races this summer/fall. I'm highly tempted, not sure if I can actually commit to it though since A is still nursing.

A is incredibly close to walking. As in, if she decides to stand up and walk across a room it won't surprise me. I think she is working on perfecting walking before really taking those first steps alone. She is babbling like no one's business and regularly talks to us from her carseat for trips, before she falls asleep. She is starting to feed herself finger foods and sometimes will not eat something unless she can put it in her own mouth. She regularly forgets to leave it in her mouth, so I'm learning to deal with the messes.

Chris is liking his job. On Friday he had a big day with an emergency preparedness drill. It basically shut down the building because of an "explosion" (something he rigged to look like an explosion that wasn't) and some random spills and chemical problems. They had actors in with fake blood and all sorts of other gooey stuff. They even had helicopters flying overhead. We live close enough that it bothered us a bit until I remembered what was going on.

We've decided that we get more hail here than anything. We've gotten pea sized hail consistently for the past few weeks. We are very thankful for our carport. A now knows all about hail as well since we talk about it and have broken a few open for her.

Peek-A-Boo

Our favorite game. She will do this with just about anything -- a blanket, the shower curtain, the door, etc. However, you must entirely be hidden from her line of sight for it to work. If even a toe sticks out of the blanket she won't be game. She will come up and grab the toe.

Things are going well here for the most part. We're getting out more and really enjoying the park. Tuesday we got to meet a local author at our library. He came to read us a story and it was pretty neat. A variation on a local legend. This gives us something to go explore soon.

Climbing 101

A has started climbing with a vengence. She is constantly trying to scale things. At the park she would rather go up the slide than down the slide. Her favorite jungle gyms are Chris and me, and normally we are okay with that. She still does not like to get her hands dirty so she will not crawl in the wood chips at the park. We are hoping it is an aversion she outgrows by the time she gets to biology and has to analyze different surfaces for germs. With her climbing she also occasionally falls down, but she likes to fall on her padded butt so she sticks that in the direction she anticipates falling or going down. I think we are starting to work on more teeth as stuff is being gnawed on again. She still has several to come in though, so not a complete surprise.

St. Patrick's Day Trip

Since last week was Spring Break for Chris, we headed to Arlington. We have a friend there (he's on loan to Arlington from the refinery in Joliet) who will only be there until the end of April, so we figured we wouldn't be getting a better chance to see Arlington, or him and his fiance, for a while. We drove up Thursday after Chris got off of work and then drove back to Boone yesterday.

On our way we drove through so incredibly curvy roads. One road the speed limit was 55, but Chris wasn't able to get it above 45 because of all the twists and turns that were happening. I was actually quite green, so I was getting dressed for the holiday.

While in Arlington, we took the metro into DC on both Friday and Saturday. On Friday we managed to do the American History Museum, walk around the Mall and see the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Monument and a TON of cherry blossoms. We also went to the Air and Space Museum. In the American History Museum I really liked the original flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner. I also really liked seeing the different First Lady dresses and china. I still don't like the dress Michelle Obama wore for the Inauguration a few years ago, so here's hoping we don't get another awful dress this time. We also got to see the Jefferson Bible, and that was interesting. It makes sense that he would have a Bible in Greek, Latin, French and English. Also the parts he kept and what he felt wasn't important were interesting to see. We had lunch at the foot of the Washington Monument. We weren't able to go up it because of the damage done in the earthquake last August. We walked around the mall from that point. We walked to see the Jefferson Monument and got to see a ton of the cherry blossoms. The festival technically starts tomorrow, so they were part way in bloom, but not yucky on the ground yet.

This was as close as we got to the Lincoln, but it made for a good picture.

Blooming cherry blossom

In the Wright exhibit at the Air and Space Museum. This was Chris's favorite thing from the trip. 

A with the original Wright flyer.

On Saturday we hiked to the National Cathedral and the National Zoo. While the National Cathedral was really cool, the zoo we could have done without. The National Cathedral sustained a fair amount of damage in the earthquake last fall as well. There was fencing everywhere and they put up a net to catch anything that fell inside from the ceilings. It was impressive that the building was still structurally sound, and so we were able to take a tour. A really liked the children's chapel and I really liked the "space" stained glass window. A also really liked the echos. We went downstairs and it was essentially just our group so she kept clicking her tongue and listening for the echos.

At the National Zoo we got to see the Red Panda, which I didn't even know existed, and the Lions. We sort of got to see the gorillas, but there were too many monkeys on this side of the glass to see the gorillas or the orangutans up close. We also got to see a lot of lion cubs. The cubs were probably just over a year as some of them still had a fair amount of spots. They were very playful while we were there, so it was nice. A also had a blast riding around on shoulders and playing in the prairie dog town. She made a great impersonation of a road block in the tube she was managing to crawl inside.

 

Sunday before we left we managed to see Arlington National Cemetery. We walked up the the tomb of the unknown soldier in time for 2 wreath laying ceremonies. Then after we saw the different plaques inside we got to see a guard changing ceremony. As we walked to the Pentagon burial stone for 2001, we saw the new 2001 Memorial there. We don't know why it is the three things pointing to space, but it was visible from all around the cemetery.

Well, that was quite a trip in a very short amount of time. We also got to play games with our friends and just catch up with them. We are working on making friends here, but no one shares our game love so far.

The weather here is definitely warming up as everything is starting to bud. This also means we are taking a ton of meds for that. Hopefully it won't go on forever. I need to finish getting dinner around, but this should be a good wrap up for the past week. Hope all is well by you.

Bailey's Fudge

Since it is St. Pat's soon, I figured something a bit festive. It didn't turn green quite like I wanted, but it is tasty and seasonal. It is dark and rich beyond measure though. I'm tempted to try it with different flavors of Bailey's now, so we'll see.

12 oz Baker's Unsweetened chocolate
24 oz Hershey's Special Dark Chips
2 TBS Vanilla
3/4 C Bailey's
3.5 C granulated white sugar
12 oz (1 can) evaporated milk
1 C Butter

1. Line a 9x13 pan with foil.
2. Chop the chocolate into small pieces.
3. Mix the chocolates, vanilla and Bailey's in a large bowl and set aside.
4. Bring sugar, milk & butter to around 230. (Most recipes call for soft ball and this is just below that stage. It still sets and it helps keep it from getting too grainy after a few days, so I go with the lower temp.)
5. Pour boiling potion onto chocolate mixture. Stir seven times clockwise and then once counter clockwise to help melt the chocolate and make it extra smooth. Continue with this stirring method until all the chocolate is melted.
6. Pour in lined pan and chill.

What you do after that is up to you. You can cut it for people or just eat it as it is.

I've made this before and it turned out really well. Like I said, it took me over 2 weeks to get rid of the fudge and it never granulated. :) Since I was wanting to make it for St. Pat's, I hadn't gotten around to buying the evaporated milk. I didn't want to go to the store this weekend, so I looked up ways to make your own. Chris got upset with me, "Why mess with something that is awesome and isn't broken?" he kept asking me. I eventually caved to him and made it to the store to buy a can of milk today. However, if I wanted to use heavy cream in a 1:1 replacement I could. I could also take 2 1/4 C of milk and boil it down to 1 C (or that ratio) to make the evaporated milk as well. We may see how it goes next time I try something devilish.

Next up: Peppermint Patties I just need to get the peppermint extract.