Joanna's Birthday!

Dear Joanna,

Happy Birthday to my sweet wife!
You go through so much, and I just want you to know that I appreciate and love you so much!
You are a great mother and wife.
I don't know what I did to get so lucky to marry you.
I hope that this year brings you awesomeness and things that will make you happy!

Love,

BEN


PS: Russell and Meghan say Happy Birthday too!
PPS: Actually, Meghan just said pfststftftspfpst.

Hot meals without a stove and oven

When we moved into our home, the outlet for the stove had not been wired because it needed to be on it's own breaker and the air conditioning took up the last two breakers so we needed to put in a new sub-panel for our breaker box etc. etc. etc. Ben said it would be a quick fix (and it did end up being quick, but pricey) yet it ended up taking three weeks for Ben to get to fixing it. Holidays plus sickness plus finishing with the apartments plus going back to work plus getting a functional bathroom with bathing facilities put a halt on hooking the stove up. We managed to get by with our electric skillet, slow cooker, and rice cooker for most of our meals. Let me share some of our favorite ways to use them.

The Rice Cooker
We used this to cook rice for any meals that needed rice. I was also just thinking that we probably could have used it to steam potatoes (for mashed potatoes) and it would have worked grandly. Our rice cooker is also a steamer, so we steamed vegetables occasionally, but we usually get them in microwaveable bags.

The Slow Cooker
I cooked our turkey for Christmas dinner in the slow cooker. It was awesome (did you read Dad's review of it?) and moist and had great flavor. We also did bbq chicken, baked potatoes, turkey carcass soup (Ben's concoction). I tried out this yummy recipe from Emily's food blog. We also successfully baked pizza in it for what is becoming our traditional pizza night. We also had a yummy chicken hash brown meal when the elders came one night.

The Electric Skillet
I have been hesitant about our electric skillet that we got from Grandma when we got married, but now I love it. We used it for just about anything you would cook on a griddle or in a pan on the stove. We cooked eggs and sausages, pancakes, French toast for breakfasts. We made a myriad of skillet meals. I'm glad we had it because it allowed us to still have regular stove top meals.

Now we did have several nights where we ate out or had a pizza delivered, but for the most part had regular home cooked meals for the three weeks we were sans stove. If for some reason we end up without a stove again, I am ready it.

Our Little Skinny Minnie

Meghan turned six months old on New Year's Day. She had her check up the next day and it turns out she gained less than half a kilo and grew half a centimeter. She barely moved on her weight to length ratio chart they always generate. Oh well. She is just a little girl. I figured as much because she still fits comfortably in her 3-6 months clothes and 6 months clothes are a little big.

She must not be growing much because her development has skyrocketed over the past month.

 She loves solid foods! She is very happy to be joining in on the eating when we all are eating, too. I'm just as happy as she is.

 She loves blowing raspberries and it is her main form of communication. That is how she lets us know she doesn't like whatever we've just fed her.

 She loves Russell and wants to do whatever he is doing and playing with whatever he is playing with. She doesn't like how he plays like a boy.

 She is a champion crawler and it didn't take her long to master it. I am her goal in all her crawling and when she is on the opposite side of the room from me it makes her only want to crawl faster to get to me.

She is just too cute. What can I say?

Sewing projects for 2015

I have a lot of sewing/crafting projects that I have been wanting to make, and this is the year I am going to make them. I am hoping that this will also give me some direction on what to make when I am in the mood to do some creating.

1. Ties for Russell. This one will be a relatively easy project and one that I can do when I only have a few minutes here and there. There is also a girl in our ward who said she'd like to come make some with me for her own little boy.

2. A new diaper bag. I have been wanting a new diaper bag for a while because I am not in love with the design of our current one. I have been reluctant to buy one for various reasons ie. too big, too expensive (our current one is a savers find for like 3 bucks) too many strange compartments. I bought this pattern a couple months ago because I think it will be perfect and easy enough to sew.

3. A hooded scarf. Even though we had a pretty moderate December temperature wise, we have has some really frigid days, too. I have found that I am wearing my hair up a lot more often and so the back of my neck has been freezing. I saw several on pinterest and found this pattern that makes it look pretty easy.

4. A menu board. We have a great permanent place for one in our house, and after making one for Janet for Christmas, I was very encourage to make one for ourselves. Along with a menu board I think I will also make...

5. A Family Home Evening Board. We need one. The only thing is how do I know how many assignments do I put on the board?  Maybe I'll just make a simple one for now and if more people join our family then I'll just have to make another one.

6. These towels.

I got some kitchen towels and potholders on after Christmas clearance that will make great gifts for my visting teachees this next year.

7. A warm/thermal space-suit for Ben. He needs one for working outside during these cold-cold Minnesota winters! Plus, he is a wonderful husband, so he deserves only the best that I, and NASA, can offer. 

These are only a few of the things I have been itching to make. As I make other things I'll be sure to add them to Sew Scoresby for all to see.

Christmas 2014

Waiting to go downstairs

Our Christmas.

Oh, what's that you asked? That's not our apartment? Well, we managed to move into our new-to-us-house on December 20th and cleared away enough space for us to celebrate a wonderful Christmas day in our own home. Christmas Eve was not the most wonderful day since Ben got the 24 hour bug we were passing around (he and I) and Russell had the 5 hour bug (he must have such an awesome immune system that the 24 hour bug could only last 5 hours). I guess this means there is only room for improvement for next Christmas.

We'll give you all a tour of our new house soon.

I came across this while I was packing up. They gave it to me at one of my appointments about 2 months before Meghan was born.

 I quickly glanced through it and gave it to Ben so that as my birth companion he would know what to expect (because he had probably forgotten what it was like to be my birth companion 2 short years earlier with Russell, maybe?). He felt very educated especially after looking at the back page (below).

He told me that when my face starts looking like the last one he would know for sure that I was really in labor.

Firsts

First snowfall

Russell's first snowball. He would only make snowballs the whole time we were outside.

Meghan's first snow encounter

Meghan's first snow angel. It's a little hard to see.

Meghan and Russell's first illegal ride in our van. Russell couldn't have been happier.

First marshmallow. She loved it! She will be so happy when she can eat real food. So will I,