Is it Spring yet?!

Isaac today said "It's been MORE than six weeks of winter!" and I agree! He of course was talking about the whole groundhogs day thing, but I am READY for spring to come. It's just a rainy, yucky day today. We spent the morning at the library and now I'm being lazy on my computer instead of mopping my sticky kitchen floor.

I've found a powdered milk solution for our family. I've been trying to use our powdered milk, so we can rotate it and actually use the milk. I honestly can't stand the taste though, so I've been using it in my Slimfast breakfast shake and occasionally for baking. Some nice lady at church gave the suggestion of adding non-fat dairy creamer to it to make it more rich, so I tried it and it worked! I make the milk in 2 qt. batches and add 1/4 c. creamer (the dry kind) and it is good. Definitly cheaper than "real" milk, and in a pinch we could drink powdered milk with minimal moans at house. Jesse would probably still complain, but he's spoiled :).

My "house" plants are dying. We bring the outside potted plants inside every winter, and by spring they are a miserable mess. They always make a comeback once they put back in their natural habitat though. I like living in a humid environment that rains frequently. I don't have to think about taking care of the plants.

I'm starting to think about our garden this year. I say "our garden", but really it's Jesse's. We have a five foot square patch of dirt we plant a few tomatoes and few other veggies every spring and Jesse takes care of it all summer. I have a gardening friend at church that has volunteered to give us a shoot from her blackberry bush. She says it grows like a weed and it's domesticated so it doesn't have thorns. I love blackberries, so I'm really excited to see how it does in our back yard.

We still don't really know what we're doing come August. Jesse's contract is up with Lilly then, but his research hasn't been going as well as he expected, so it's kind of "wait and see" for us. I'm hoping he'll either get offered a permanent position or get his contract extended for another year. There are a few finishing touches on the house to have it be ready to sell and another year would be awesome. BUT, if he ends up finding a job somewhere (hopefully closer to family) we'll take it and hopefully sell the house.

We've started seeing another fertility specialist! We aren't in a rush mode to get pregnant again (although we've been trying for the last two years), but we'd like to have some answers if there are any. I really like this doctor we're seeing, he's on the same page as us with getting a diagnosis if we can find one and tweeking the hormones as necessary. He agrees that it's probably my pituitary tumor messing around with my hormones a little. In fact, this doctor's sister has a pituitary tumor, so he's familiar with these tumors and feels comfortable being my endocrinologist for the remaineder of the time that spend here in Indy. I'm really excited to see what's up, even if the diagnosis is that we're done having kids. It's the not knowing that's hard part. The economical side of me is wanting to hold onto the baby stuff "just in case", but if we're done I'm ready to get rid of things. I'd definitly like to purge our house of a lot of "stuff"!

It's a Jungle Out There!

Last Thursday the Young Women in our ward has their annual New Beginnings/Young Women in Excellence night. The theme was "It's a Jungle Out There", a hodge podge of ideas my presidency got off the internet. It was FABULOUS, we got tons of great feedback and there were tears shed by many (always a good sign)!

To start, the girls had been working on learning the YW Theme in sign language, and it was a little rough around the edges, but they did it and it was really cute. The Mutual Theme is "'Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity' (1 Timothy 4:12)" - and we talked about how each girl's example is like their own light. Then each of the parents stood up with their daughter and told what kind of a light their daughters reminded them of. One was a lava lamp (bright, cheerful, full of energy and bouncing around), another was the light of the moon (gets her light from 'The Son', reflection of Christ), we had a sunflower (light like the sun), a beautiful candle painted by her grandmother, an energy saver bulb (she saves her light, and even after being switched off still has a little 'glow' about her), and many more. This was the time the most tears were shed.

Then the parents were taken on a "jungle tour" where they went around the church and the YW talked about the value experiences and projects they have been working on throughout the year. Then back to the "watering hole" for refreshments.

It was a very nice night and honestly the stress of planning, preparing, a fretting was very much worth the effort. Everyone had a great night!

Bread Dough Update

Just an FYI, you CAN freeze bread dough! I just let it rise once, punch it down, wrap in saran wrap and put in a bread pan and freeze until hard. Then wrap it again in tin foil and put in a freezer bag until later. When I notice I'm running low on bread I take the dough out of the freezer, leave it wrapped up and put in a bread pan to thaw in the fridge. I usually do this the night before, so the next morning I put the thawed dough into a greased bread pan and let it rise covered lightly with saran wrap. This is really good to do on Saturday evening, so when we head to church on Sunday morning, it's all ready to cook when we get home. Then we can have a warm loaf of bread with our "Sunday Meal", which is usually some good comfort food.

My kids are the cutest!

I think my kids are the funniest people on the planet. Isaac has preschool at the local YMCA, and often after I'm done working out, Keltsy and I will go play in the "Prime Time Center", which is a fancy indoor play place. The superivsor of that room is a good friend of ours. She is always authoritative in her bright red shirt, but super fun and knows all the kids names. The other day Kelsty and I were in the Center, and the supervisor came in with her kids. It was her day off, she just came to play, and Keltsy ran up to her and asked, "How come you're wearing clothes?" The little munchkin had noticed that she wasn't wearing the official red shirt...it actually took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. She often says random things like that. Like the time she announced to the missionaries, "I HAVE SKIN!"

Isaac is equally hilarious. He likes to play tricks and tell jokes. His favorite is one he got from a TV show "What do you call a cow that cuts the grass?" "A lawn moooo-er!" Whenever he tells a joke, he asks, "Does that make sense?" He knows that the joke has to 'make sense', but isn't quite sure what makes sense and what doesn't.