It's vacation time!!!

We are going on vacation!! For the first time since last August. It's hard to believe that it has been 11 months since we have gotten away from town but with all that has been going on it kind of just happened. I am so excited to be going away just as a family this time, I don't remember when that last happened either. We will get to decide what works for us and not worry about disturbing anyone else or accommodating someone else's not-so-early/hectic schedule.e get up early, we (the girls) go to bed early, and we can take up as much of the room as needed so that everyone is comfortable (and sleeping). I have been trying to get us gone for three months now but something always came up and now with the baby coming in probably 6 weeks, it's do or die, and we are DOING!!!!

The garden that was (not) to be

Last December when I was thinking of what I wanted for my birthday I was so excited to put in a garden this summer, all I wanted was seeds. I went through a couple catalogs and founds some fun looking varieties of melons and lettuces etc. Joe and I had decided that we weren't going to talk about getting pregnant until summer so I was really pumped to have an awesome garden. Well, the seeds came in the mail the week after Christmas, just in time to find out we were surprise pregnant. That kind of put a little damper on the garden, but when the first trimester fun hit, we were sunk. Seeds did get started, a lot late and fairly neglected. Then we spent a few weeks preparing the garden area (last summer the garden didn't happen due to construction so we had a lot of work to do, and the weeds...). But it just wasn't going to happen this year. I started a second flat of seeds about April (?) and they are still in the flat waiting to be planted. I can tell that those new varieties haven't survived, darn.
The weird part is that in May or so we noticed little plants coming up in our large garden bed. They have steadily grown since then and we have since discovered what they are, cherry and yellow plum tomatoes and butternut squash and pumpkins. So thanks to our compost pile that never got hot enough to kill the seeds, we now have a plethora of squash and tomatoes, just not the most desired varieties. Those not so little plants are the only thing keeping me interested in even trying to get our little starts in the ground, but that won't happen till next week because....

It's a zoo...day

This summer I wanted to be able to get us out of the house on a regular basis and take the girls to do something interesting. My dad had brought up a number of times the idea to go to the zoo, it's only two exits up the freeway from his house. So I looked into the cost, expensive to do a one day trip, like $50 with parking, but not bad to buy a season pass, $125 for three adults and up to four children and parking, plus ride coupons and a free one-day pass for two adults and two kids. I thought that would work for us and my dad could also be named so that the girls and I could go with Grandpa D during the day when Joe works.
We have gone three times now, twice with my dad and last week I actually ventured to the zoo with the three girls all by my six-and-a-half month pregnant self. We have really enjoyed seeing the various animals. I was right in thinking that the zoo is something even our 15 month old could get into, Julia enjoys seeing the animals as much as the other two. In fact on our first visit we stopped at the first animal area and were greeted by a monkey that swung through the trees right in front of us and proceeded to hang there with his legs folded, it was quite cute. And then he did as a monkey does, peed and pooped, right in front of us. The girls giggled and I tried to move us on a little. Oh well. That is nature, right?
As we left the zoo after our second visit, we saw a hill side of goats. There must have been a thousand of them, grazing the hillside as living lawn mowers for fire prevention I am sure. Cassidy really liked them.

Here are some cute pictures of them from our first two trips.

Never a dry moment

Back in December I started potty training Molly but when Joe and the girls all got sick for weeks on end I was too tired to really put in the effort needed so I gave up. I had been putting it off even since then. About a month and a half ago Molly woke in the morning completely dry so I figured she was physically ready to try again. It has gone so much better than I had hoped, even back in December. There have been accident but not too horrible. But it seems that both girls tend to have accidents more at Joe’s parents’ home than anywhere else, for whatever reason. A week or so ago we were over there for the afternoon and Molly had an accident right on the corner of their area rug, she created the 6^th great lake. So we cleaned it up and cleaned her up. After swimming and showering off we were back inside and playing with dominoes and Molly comes and sits in my lap. … And has an accident, while in my lap. I was more than stunned, I didn’t want to move too much because it was kind of staying in my lap and not seeping down on the same aforementioned area rug. As my mother-in-law was getting rags to clean me and the rug up we failed to keep an eye on Julia who saw the can of soda my mother-in-law had been drinking, grabbed it, and tried to drink it herself. Most of it ended up on the same area rug and on her dress. So we had the 7^th and 8^th great lakes to clean up, at least it was diet soda, right? Oh the fun.

I am so grateful that we are now down to just diapers at night for Cassidy and Molly, and half the mornings Molly wakes up dry. Three in diapers isn’t so bad in that light. Maybe we will be down to one by the time the new baby comes. Either way, we are way ahead of where we were two months ago. 

Note: I originally wrote this about two weeks ago. We have regressed a little and aren't as dry as we once were. Oh well right? 

Cake Odyssey

In April Joe volunteered us to bring a dessert to the YM/YW chili dinner/auction. So I decided to make a carrot cake from a recipe my dad gave me. It’s a yummy yummy recipe using fresh ginger. I started it in the afternoon while the two youngest were napping. Cassidy is quite enough to try and allow help by herself.  So everything was going well until it was time to un-pan the cakes.  Both layers failed to completely detach from the pans and came out in two pieces. I knew right away that this was going to be quite a “fun” experience so I grabbed my camera and took a picture. After cooling and making the frosting I tried to stack the layers. Our wall oven is slightly tilted forward because the counter tiles get in the way of it fitting level. Of course I thought I had rotated them to account for this (even though I had tried to level them by shaving them flat) and of course I miscalculated and the high sides stacked on top of each other so the cake was a little less then perfectly level. Oh well. I put on a crumb coat, refridgerated it and then did the final coat. I even came up with a cute carrot design; nothing requiring too much creativity or skill, I have neither, but I was more than satisfied. So I took another photo. Well, prior to leaving to the auction, I was descending from upstairs when I heard the two older girls quickly getting out of the fridge and Cassidy making a comment about the cake. I came into the kitchen to find them having taken a chunk out of the side of the cake. Ohhhhh, I wasn’t happy, so I took another picture. Then I had the decision to make, blow off the auction (they had TOO many deserts as it was) or come up with a fix. I decided to make it a “diet cake” and only take half of it (half the calories of a whole cake).  After frosting the cut side I took another picture. I think it turned out rather cute. I figured that there might be a couple who would like the smaller portion. Bonus that we got to eat half of the cake, it was yummy.