Tweets for Today

• 13:39 Headache. Not enough sleep. #
• 13:42 One more pound down. #
• 19:30 Seven-thirty and boys are in bed. Snuggling in for the night. #

Tweets for Today

• 07:42 Santa Came! Now, for the cleanup, and breakfast. #
• 16:02 Family project to get us out of the house. Putting up the new swing set in the cold sleety rain. Haven't had this much fun in a long time. #

Tweets for Today

• 10:42 Getting on the treadmill. Two kids taking naps. Aaaah, good morning! #
• 13:46 Just ate, like, ten cookies. But I'm swearing off dinner....yeah, right. #
• 23:25 Setting up an elaborate train set and village with Aaron. Can't wait until morning. #

Tweets for Today

• 09:59 Contemplating how to WOW the girls at Aaron's office. #
• 22:22 Merry Christmas Adam! #

Tweets for Today

• 09:18 Cleaning up an entire bag of rice that was spilled on the floor. "I'll make a better choice next time, Mommy." -HY #
• 14:40 Baking soft gingersnaps with the guys. Nothin' like ginger and cloves to get you in the mood. Next project: doughnuts? #

Tweets for Today

• 10:39 Crying for Elizabeth right now. What else can we do? #
• 13:33 One of THOSE days. EZ nap, ASH up, ASH nap, EZ up. No lunch, no exercise. Cookie dough is all I can think about. HELP! #

Tweets for Today

• 14:39 Baking bread with the boys. One batch of cinnamon rolls and two garlicky buttery loaves. Dirty, messy, ooey, gooey fun. #
• 17:22 Dinner tonight: Homemade mac 'n cheese. Well, make that cellentani and cheese. #

Tweets for Today

• 13:06 No snow here, but down one more pound. That is Christmas enough for me. #
• 17:20 Just found EZ up to the sink eating day-old cottage cheese from dirty dishes. (Hey EZ, does that taste a little like Feta?) #
• 17:22 Dinner tonight: Rotini with creamy pesto, summer squash, and baked chicken. YUM! #

Tweets for Today

• 10:01 Cleaning up play dough. Play dough always sounds like a good idea..but isn't. #
• 10:02 Down two more pounds. Skinny-land here I come! #

Tweets for Today

• 13:41 I am having sciatic nerve pain all the way down my leg. Ouch. #

Tweets for Today

• 13:38 Just came into the room to find HY and EZ covered the carpet with toothepaste, then doused it all with a good portion of baby oil. #
• 13:39 Seriously rethinking my "no spanking" parenting philosophy. #

Tweets for Today

• 21:08 Trying to fix the printer. Just finished boiling pacifiers. I need a life. #
• 21:09 This weeks food fetish: toasted wheat germ. Surprisingly yummy! #

Tweets for Today

• 11:54 Wasting time, should be getting ready for church. #

Tweets for Today

• 13:33 Just got music from JMC for my ward Christmas needs. Connections!!! #
• 21:00 Talking Christmas with Aaron. Yeah, I sleep with Santa. #

Here's to Seven

I love you, Honey.

Tweets for Today

• 07:13 Just washed off crusties from the boys eyes. Gotta love motherhood! #
• 15:04 @fuchsiasushi Still good for one week after sell by date! Cultures, yum! #
• 15:05 Just ate three cookies...ok five. Starting that diet in five, four, three, two, one, GO! #

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Me 'n Ez-Dawg, Yo

The best part about being on vacation is that I don't have to worry about laundry and dishes and bills. I can just play with my sweet little guys. Life couldn't get much sweeter.

Aint it Grand?

I don't think I've ever been happier in my life than now. We are really living the dream.

The Pep-Me-Up

I am on a diet. And the children are throwing up. It's been a bad week thus far.

I keep thinking to myself "where is the cookie dough...if I could just eat some cookie dough I know that I would feel better." But NO! I will trudge on through the temptation to over-eat this diet!!! I will. I will. I can do this.

I am still a babe, it is just that the curves are a tad, well, "filled-out" you could say. The time has come to trim them down to Phenomenal Woman proportions. Phenomenal woman, that's me!

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Maya Angelou

Just When You Think You've Got it All Figured Out

Every birth story is memorable. But I don't think we will ever outdo the surprise we got at the end of this one.


Aaron performing the "push it out, squeeze it out, waaaaay out" pre-birth dance.


Deborah all prepped for vomiting, yet still smiling!


Welcome....baby boy #3, a more masculine arrival than expected, but cute nonetheless.


Welcome to the house of testosterone. I am really outnumbered now.

Woops!

Last night I was so bored that I actually sat down to watch "Mr. Magorium's Magic Emporium" It is a strange film. About one hour into it I was completely asleep. This seems to be my pattern lately--boredom to sleep. What I need is a good, gripping book. But whenever I go to the library it is constant work to keep EZ from pulling down every book at his eye level, while the cranky teen-aged librarian mutters annoyances left and right. "Mess..." "Takes forever to clean up...."

Generally boredom leads, for me, to creative cooking. However, I have lately (and, hopefully, temporarily) lost the drive to make late-night goodies. Plus, I have had some interesting cooking mishaps over the last little while.

One morning, several weeks ago, Aaron called me and told me that he forgot that he was supposed to provide the "birthday treat" for a coworker that day. "No problemo," I thought. HY and I will whip up something gorgeous to showcase our excessive domestic talents and WOW the girls in the office. (Oh yeah, and EZ can help too.)

I decided to make individual chocolate tarts. But I didn't want to just fill some pie dough with chocolate pudding and call it good. Yuck. So I spent the morning tweaking a brownie/cookie recipe to fit in as tart dough. Then the boys and I scoured the local grocery haunt for decent chocolate that we could temper in heavy cream. The idea was to come up with something between ganache and chocolate whipped cream (a very light mousse, if you will) that we could pipe into our tart shells.

Well, like every single time that I cook to impress and act all "I'm such an oustanding gourmet," something went very very wrong. We had to have the tarts at Aaron's office by 3:00 p.m. At 2:35 I had the cooled chocolate cream whipping away in the mixer while I grated fine chocolate into beautiful velvety shreds. The next thing I know, HY walks out naked from the bathroom requesting some help with the Charmin portion of his toilette..and I hear EZ splashing away in the soiled toilet water. Ugh.

It turns out that while Mom was busy tempering chocolate, HY went to the bathroom then popped off the toilet to sit on the edge of the bathtub to play with a toy (effectively soiling the shower curtain that was in the way, and allowing EZ ample opportunity to splash away to his little heart's content.)

A round of disinfectant later, I returned to the kitchen to find chocolate butter in the mixer. Yes, I had over-beaten the cream, which had separated into unappealing little balls of chocolate flavored butter. I COULD HAVE DIED. It was now about 2:50 p.m. and I was supposed to be filling little tart shells, but, instead, I was staring at chocolate butter wondering what in the world I was going to do with it.

In the end, I melted some of the chocolate butter and tried to pour some of it over solid chocolate pieces in the tart shells, then cover them in whipped cream and cocoa powder.

I was so embarassed about the whole thing that I made Aaron come out into the parking lot to get them instead of bringing them in myself.

On Love

To my Dear and Loving Husband

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye woman, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the east doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor aught but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so perservere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Ann Bradstreet

----

In an attempt to de-clutter the garage as of late, I have been thumbing through notebooks of correspondence between Aaron and me before we got married. There are literal reams. I keep thinking that one day all of these letters and notes will be a treasure to future generations in testimony of a great love story. But to me, reading it leaves me with a wealth of conflicting emotions.

One is almost akin to embarassment--like reading entries from your junior high diary, where you felt much but understood little. Another is a surge of nostalgia for the heady days of love unrequited, few serious responsibilities, and, let's be honest, the bloom of physical youth. (Did I mention there are several pictures accompanying these letters--I was a babe!) Not that I'm not still "youthful" as far as age goes, but the bloom does seem slightly tarnished. (And being seven months pregnant probably adds to my woebegone feeling.)

In reading over it all, you can practically feel the drama. Each page literally drips with tension, kindness, hopefulness, anticipation, admiration, and humor. It leaves me wondering if the very ardent expressions of affection belied in these notes really capture the essence of genuine love, and, if so, do I still feel it to the same degree. (Or am I exploring the inevitable surge of irrational emotions that accompany the last trimester of pregnancy a tad too much...)

When I think about it...I almost think that, though it's not captured on paper for posterity, there is more genuine love in our relationship now--captured in small moments like the satisfaction of working together on the yard on Saturday and falling asleep, exhausted, but holding hands.

The Lionhearted

Alright folks, I've gained 12 pounds in 4 weeks. Oh yeah, baby!

Baby girl is now being called "Sissy" or "little sissy" by HY and Aaron. During HY's nightly prayer, I often hear him say "bless sissy, that she will get bigger and bigger." Well, let's just say that his prayers must be earnest 'cause Mommy is feeling like she is getting bigger and bigger. Sweet HY. There is so much faith in him.

Of course, I forget his innocence throughout the day and get after him. It is sometimes only after he is asleep and calm, that I remember how sweet and genuine and good he is. The fun thing (and hard thing) about HY is that he is 1. smart, 2. fiercely independent and 3. sneaky. Basically HY always does exactly what he would like to do. All I can do, as Mom, is distract (for awhile), persuade (if possible), or supervise. Supervision, I have found is the best measure with HY. Because as far as distraction and persuasion go...well it's only a matter of time. Mom will eventually be in the bathroom or be busy putting EZ to bed, then it's HY Time!

"Pour me a drink my head is spinning. I gotta celebrate...a girl"

So I have been singing Shenandoah since last Friday when we found out that we are having a baby girl. Funny thing is, though, after being positive through every previous pregnancy that we were having a girl, with this one I am not sure... The technician at one point said "Oh, wait, maybe there is something more there...well... buy girl clothes, but don't take off the tags." That didn't leave me overly confident in pink purchasing. HY, however, has been telling us about his "baby sister" from the first day. We are so excited.

This One is for Jamie

There are truly few people that I will respond to in this world. Especially when it comes to "pass it on emails" and "blog tagging." But I truly love Jamie (read: wish to be like her one day) so I will make an exception. Here it goes.

A-Z Tag

A - Attached or Single: I've been attached to this boy from the first day I saw him (September 11, 1998). He's just as cute now as then. Married almost 6 years.

B - Best Friends: Aaron, Mom and Mom-in-law, Sisters and Sisters-in-law, Jamie W. AND, though I don't see or talk to them much, Sarah and Happiness will forever be my best girls.


C - Cake or Pie: Oh honey, either. Let's get serious, though. Lemon cake layered with mascarpone cheese then soaked in cream and chilled. Wipe yourself off the floor after that one. Raspberry pie doesn't hurt either. Let's have a little of both, shall we?

D - Day of choice: (Warning: This is a cheesy answer. If you gag easily, move to question E.) I love any day when I get to spend it with Aaron,... especially if we were spending it at a theme park for the day!!!

E - Essential Item: Mascara, jet black, Clinique, any kind. Oh yeah, and a good bra.

F - Favorite Color: yellow, purple, and (this is a real shocker to all who know me) that blueey greyee color that has hints at times of turquoise.

G - Gummy Bears or Worms: neither (It's so liberating to have candy that I don't like for once.)

H - Hometown: Orem, Utah

I - Indulgence(s): Perfume, makeup, Banana Republic jeans (which I haven't worn in years...*tear), and food at really really really expensive restaurants.

J - January or July: July. No contest.

K - Kids: HY, EZ, Baby #3 due in September. 3 down 10 to go!


L - Life is incomplete without: Family, and laughing. And laughing at, I mean with, family.

M - Marriage Date: 2002

N - Number of Siblings: 3 brothers, 3 sisters, 5 brothers-in-law, 7 sisters-in-law--love them all.

O - Oranges or Apples: Oranges

P - Phobias or Fears: Everyone who knows, knows that I am a tad bit on the morbid side and am constantly positive that I am going to die, or Aaron is going to die, or whatever... I am notorious for leaving "last notes" that say "I will love you forever and ever" on a post-it-note on the fridge when I leave. Just in case.

Q - Quotes: "A waist is a terrible thing to mind."

S - Season: Fall. So romantic. Don't even get me started.

T - Tag Three Friends: Honestly it would be fun to have this info on some Sisters--Eliz, Suzanne, Aliesha, Mermer, Amber, etc (Not Susannah. I know way too much about her already. Chopped Spam!)

U- Unknown fact about me: I failed the AP English exam. Ok, I said it. It is out in the open. And everyone can know. But, who cares about high school anymore? Not me.

V - Very favorite store: Williams and Sonoma. Could you just die?

W - Worst habit: Overeating., and saying way more than I should. Discretion is a virtuous ideal. One day I will have it.


X - X-ray or Ultrasound: Ultrasounds. Only x-rays I've had are teeth ones. Joy.

Y - Your favorite food: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Let's talk about what I don't like (other than poorly prepared food): eggs, green beans, oreo cookies, some mushrooms, mussels...

Z - Zodiac: Cancer (compatibility match to the Taurus which I happen to be married to)

See! I always knew that I was a giver..

You Are An ENFJ

The Giver You strive to maintain harmony in relationships, and usually succeed. Articulate and enthusiastic, you are good at making personal connections. Sometimes you idealize relationships too much - and end up being let down. You find the most energy and comfort in social situations ... where you shine. In love, you are very protective and supporting. However, you do need to "feel special" - and it's quite easy for you to get jealous. At work, you are a natural leader. You can help people discover their greatest potential. You would make a good writer, human resources director, or psychologist. How you see yourself: Trusting, idealistic, and expressive When other people don't get you, they see you as: Bossy, inappropriate, and loud

What's Your Personality Type?

This is so true, it's scary. At least the "When Other People Don't Get You" part. Even I think that of myself sometimes! Hahahahahahahahahaha.

Highs and Lows

Well, this year has had many twists and turns already in our little lives. My blog title has become a misnomer as currently I am NOT enjoying food--the taste, texture, or smell...but that is another blog in itself. There is, however, enough information this week to compile a (drumroll) highs and lows list.

Highs then Lows for February

H: Our tax return will pay to finish the back yard of our children's dreams.
L: Our tax return will barely cover grass, sprinkler, and fence...that's it.

H: I am decidedly not hungry for "naughty" foods.
L: It won't last.

H: The boys have finally discovered each other as best buddies.
L: Best buddies in crime... Deborah: "How did EZ get in here to swish in the toilet (play in the garage, sit on the front porch, get in the shower, eat this... etc)?" HY: "I help him...!"

H: Aaron has committed himself to the care of the boys in the morning so that Deborah can go to the gym.
L: Deborah has gone once.

H: HY's ability to communicate gets better every day
L: HY's resistance to being corrected is reinforced by his blooming communication skills.

Deborah "HY, please don't hit EZ" HY (while still hitting EZ) "I'm not hitting him." Deborah "Well please don't bonk him on the head." HY (still hitting) "I'm not bonking him." Deborah "Please stop, HY" HY (under his breath) "...I'm bamming him..."

H: Aaron and I will be participating in a reenactment of the Mormon Pioneers pulling handcarts on a 5 day trek with the youth in our community.
L: One of the necessary skills to have as per our leader handbook is "kill and prepare live fowl"

H: Aaron and I have discovered the wonders of reading Harry Potter.
L: Aaron and I stay up until 2:30 a.m. discovering the the wonders of reading Harry Potter.

H: We're going on a Disney cruise this summer with the entire extended family.
L: Ain't nothin low about that.