Boy or Girl?

That would now be the argument for the next 7 months around here. We will be awaiting the arrival of Baby #3! Of course, Elena votes "girl" and Kai votes "boy" although they both say that one of each as twins would be the best----aaaahhhhhh!

I'm just past 12 weeks give or take a couple days and just had my first doctor's appointment yesterday. We brought the kids into the room to hear the heartbeat and asked them to guess why there would be a heart beating in Mommy's tummy. They had no clue until Daddy gave them the hint. Kai promptly told the doctor that God makes hearts and is IN our hearts and He makes babies too! Elena just grinned really big.

This summer I've been hibernating in the air conditioning and sleeping away most of the afternoons. Add to that the lovely gift of 6 weeks of constant nausea and no one has seen much of me for awhile. Now I hope to slowly come back to the land of the living until they flop me on bed rest (pray that doesn't actually happen this time!).

If you are a good friend of mine thinking, why didn't she call me?...don't worry as I didn't call much of anyone past our parents and siblings! A post on facebook and now this & I'll let good ol' word of mouth work its magic!

Oh the joy of cooking!

I LOVE homemade chicken noodle soup! I cannot seem to make it like Mom. Believe it or not, this is one dish that she has a knack for cooking up...it's even usual fare along with more traditional Thanksgiving or Christmas goodies.

Also, I HATE chopping veggies, cooking & deboning chicken, making noodles (ya, right)...all that stuff. So years ago I started using Reames frozen noodles....mmmmmm. Today I hit the jackpot as I was craving chicken noodle soup so bad I was planning on doing all the above mentioned hated tasks...and then, there it was, calling out to me from the HyVee freezer...Reames Chicken Noodle Soup Kit!!!!! (That's it in the box below)

Oh, I am soooo excited! It is simmering on the stove right now...it took a whole 45 seconds to add the three packages (noodles, chicken & veggies, seasonings) to the boiling water (I CAN do that!). Oh, and there goes the buzzer. I may have to add a can of cream of chicken soup to ATTEMPT the creaminess of Mom's...but I have a feeling this is gonna be good.

UPDATE: Weelll, not as good as I had hoped, but certainly comforting. If you go for trying it, #1 DON'T ADD ANY SALT (I didn't and was sure glad) #2 maybe skip the cream of chicken addition too. It was a souper salty...when I checked the sodium levels on the labels...the chicken noodle kit had over 1000mgs and the cream of chicken, 800+mgs PER SERVING. Holy Cow, or Holy Salt Mine...whatever.

The Beauty of Friendship I

friend n. 1. a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard 2. a person whom one knows, likes, and trusts

I've been mulling around the idea of doing a series of posts about friendship and the beauty it has brought to my life. So today seemed like a good day to get started. (My apologies up front for my literary goof ups as I write...I change tense mid-sentence often and who knows what else!--does that really matter in the blog-o-sphere anyway?)

First, I looked up "friendship" in my dictionary...yes, the dusty thick book that spends years untouched thanks to dictionary.com & spell check...ya know I was a Kansas Honor Scholar so I really have a very nice one. But guess what? "Friendship" is not in my dictionary. Not on its own, not as a form of the word "friend", nothing, notta, zilch. Between Friedmanite and frier all that can be found is "friend" and "friendly". Go figure.

I like to think of myself as a living legacy of the lives of my friends. Legacy...let's see if it's in there...oh good!

legacy n. something handed down from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past

Well, that's close enough (if you're a walking vocab machine let me know a better word). A legacy of the lives of my friends. Bits and pieces of so many people are seeped into my being that it continually makes me grateful for each person, each memory, each glimpse of "them" that is a part of me.



Off and on over the years I have experienced feelings of guilt, sadness (even mourning), pride, joy, empathy, exasperation, and helplessness with regard to friends. Lately, however, my heart as turned mainly to a feeling of blessedness and thankfulness for ALL my friends (old, current, new). I am finally learning that even through separations of time, distance or even just of intimacy, the friends in my life have been beautifully orchestrated...the perfect timing, the right intensity...for just the right season in my own life (and hopefully I for theirs).

So, first, my praises to God for blessing me with a life RICH with friends...from my siblings to fellow childhood adventurers to the women (and men) who continue to speak life and truth to my soul...I am grateful for every moment. to be continued...

To can or not to can...

That is the question. I have a pile of vine ripened tomatoes from my garden patiently waiting on my counter...for something. I really want to make salsa and have even looked up a few recipes. But I'm chicken. Even the "easy" recipes seem labor-intensive and what if I spend all that time for something that turns out like ooky-gooky yuckiness? I know, I know, you'll never know unless you try.

Not to mention that my tomato plants now have something wrong with them so I don't want to waste the harvest I managed to snag. Cheri thinks they probably have a fungus or something. Ugh. I'm committed to keeping everything edible organic so I either need to do some research or just let them go. I'm leaning towards option two.

Okay so this vegetable gardening thing just isn't as enjoyable as flower gardening! With my flowers I can just stand back and admire their beauty. This photo is one of my favorite daylilies...Radiant Ruffles is her name and she is one of the beautimus gifts from my Aunt Cle.


Ahhh...well, I guess I should stop hem-hawing around and go do something...whether it be some flower maintenance or salsa prep.....hmmmmm....