Frosty doesn't have to worry about melting here!

Anybody else in the NW feel like they are living in an ice box right now? This week has brought an arctic blast of snow and ice, and the weatherman says there is only more to come! Currently it's 18 degrees outside, and I don't care to challenge that metric as I am cuddled with a blanky in front of the wood stove.

Tonight Sam and I went to Winco to get a few groceries. Oh my word, was it crowded. The lines were enormously long, most baskets heaping with food. Since there was such madness, we decided to make the trip worth our while and get a few more groceries to get us through the next few snowy days. Jenni's reserves = cheese, milk, eggs, rice, almonds, bananas, bread, and meat. Sam's reserves = beer and water. Shared reserves = lots o' canned soup.

It's interesting what kind of events brings new learning opportunities. While I like things that smell fresh, we've discovered there is a limit to the amount of freshness we can handle. Let's just say that we're going to try sprinkling the walkway with salt next time rather than kitty litter. Meow.

Have yourself a "Fluffy" Merry Christmas

Can you believe it's almost Christmas!?! Even more amazing, this week will officially mark the 7th month of my pregnancy finished!!!

Baby Nora is definately becoming bigger as her movements are now becoming noticeable on the outside. One of the latest ammusements of our family is to sit and watch my dancing belly. I have yet to see an actual hand or foot print yet, but I keep waiting!

Since so many of you have been wanting to see "fluffy Jenni", I included a picture of my happy belly. I had to have this picture taken next to our wood stove which Sam and I have grown to love this past month. While we do have heating in the house, we've decided to opt for the price of free wood (thanks Mom and Dad!). In addition, it provides an amazingly cozy atmosphere for our house. Not to mention, I think Sam likes the compliments on his manly fires - I'm expecting a second man-hair to appear on his chest any day now.

Today I spent some time putting up Christmas decorations. I was rocking out to Christmas music, drinking apple cider, had the fire going while making the house festive - does it get better than that?

This is our Christmas tree this year. A bit easier than a 6 foot tree, and one I can carry by myself! The other cool thing about this tree is it's a live tree that we can plant outside afterwards. I did discover, however, that our ornament are truly meant for a much larger tree. Next year...

Pushing Buttons

My baby is a genius even inside of my womb - she has already figured out how to turn the oven on.

I was making dinner the other night and was busy stirring my brew of delectable delight (ok, so I don't really remember what I was making, but it sounded good) on the stove when I heard this "beep!" Sure enough, I looked down, and the oven had just been turned on from the panel of buttons that was conspicuously located near my stomach. I eyed my tummy in accusation, and then of course laughed because I often forget that it's sticking out a bit farther than what I'm used to.

The Usefulness of Vegetables

If you get to know Sam well enough, one thing you'll discover is his loath of celery. Our first two years of marriage I kept trying to sneak celery into food - salads, casseroles, the works. I even tried on several occasions to just put celery seed into potpie crust and got quite the wrinkly nose in return. I've finally given up and decided I rather have him eat than worry about getting enough celery in his diet.

The other night we got to talking about celery. I was explaining to him that I didn't necessarily like celery, it was just that I sometimes liked to add it to my food to give a little extra taste or crunch.

Sam's response in return was his usual "Bleck", and then followed by the very insightful comment - "It's not even a useful vegetable - you can't shoot it out of a potato gun." Well there you go folks, that's the new official definition of a useful vegetable (according to Mr. Haines).

Pink or Blue?

Yesterday marked the halfway point in my pregnancy - 20 weeks down! On Friday I had my ultrasound appointment, so of course the proud mom has to share some pictures of our beautiful baby.

The technician asked us if we had any premonitions of what the baby is. Sam was quick to explain that his guess was a boy since I have been plentiful of burps for the past 4 months. The technician's response was, "Well your daughter is going to be quite the burper!"

She is quite the busy little thing. About every single doctors appointment I've had, someone makes a comment about how she won't stop squirming! At my checkup yesterday, the doctor kept having to chase the baby around just to hold a heartbeat long enough to get a proper count. Sam and I are convinced she's already hosting tea parties inside there.

We went to Prineville this last weekend to visit family. Oh my goodness - if the family isn't excited! We were showered in gifts of pink. This child is already spoiled and she is only half baked.

Discovering cleavage at the age of 25

Being pregnant has certainly been an experience of discoveries, and thus far very different from what I had expected. For example, I just knew deep down that my first sign of being pregnant would be kneeling in front of the WC. I still have yet to bow to the porcelain god in this pregnancy. I also figured I'd be able to continue running throughout my pregnancy. Yeah, tried that one the other day (only 3 miles!) - I spent the majority of the next day sleeping, and the waking hours lying around drooling on myself. But even with all my preconceived notions about pregnancy, nothing prepared me for this...


There I was at work the other day taking one of my frequent trips to the bathroom, and as I was leaning over the sink washing my hands I looked up and saw something I had never seen before. Yes, there it was in all it's glory - cleavage. And it was on MY body.


...And since then they have just kept growing.


This has caused a bit of a wardrobe dilemma. No, it's not my stomach thus far that has kept me out of my usual clothes, it's my amazing boobs. I never realized just how well my clothes were fitted to my body until about 1 month ago - yes, all of them. I've gained about 8 pounds thus far - I swear a third of that weight is dedicated to my chest.


Now this is not to say I'm usually flat chested...it's just that out of my whole family, I think the only female who is shorter than me and has smaller breasts is my youngest cousin - and she hasn't even hit puberty yet! So in a sense, discovering cleavage for me was like becoming a part of the womanly/motherly club in my family.


For some woman their period marks the day they entering womanhood - but for me, may this blessed milestone forever be the day I discovered cleavage.

YouTube Anyone?

It's been about three months since I've written in my blog. Part of the reason I haven't written squat is because I have been so blasted busy. The other reason is because when I think about all the new things going on my life, even though they are all wonderful, the magnitude of them all makes the thought of writing it all down seem a bit daunting. So about the only way I could talk myself into writing in my blog was to write about something other than my life right now.


So instead, I thought I'd share some of my favorite YouTube videos.


At the top of my list right now is Sarah Palin's acceptance speech. Let's face it, the governor of Alaska rocks. If you liked this one, I would also recommend checking out Huckabee's speech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCDxXJSucF4&feature=bz303


For more inspiration, there is the Last Lecture of Randy Pausch. Randy was a CS professor at Carnegie Mellon who recently passed away from cancer. Knowing in advance what was going to happen, he was asked "if you had one last lecture to give, what would it be?" His choice was to speak about Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. It's 1 hour 16 minutes, so don't expect something short and sweet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo


I love old ladies and their hunk of purse they carry around with them. This one cracks me up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorHHNsl8oA


Now this guy can dance! I'm pretty sure my favorite is the dancing to Vanilla Ice, mostly because I can remember doing that and thinking I was the coolest. Gotta love the running man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg


For all of you Canon in D lovers, here's a little rant about Pachelbel's creation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM


The first place I saw this next clip, believe it or not, was in church. The pastor used this as an example of how preconceived notions can be very misleading. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA


Tired of those pesky squirrels? Here's your "high tech" solution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF1rdqjaiPk

Hatha Yoga

Due to an increase in working hours, a lot of stress, and lack of exercise; I have decided to enroll in another yoga class.

One of the things I enjoy the most about yoga is the focus on breathing. For someone who has trouble breathing during allergy season (which is just around the corner!), spending the time to focus and filling the body with full breaths is a very inviting activity.

The second best thing about yoga is Savasana, aka the corpse pose. While it might sound like something you'd want to avoid, I really have to disagree. It is so incredibly relaxing after a yoga session that I usually have to fight just to stay awake.

The third best thing about yoga is discovering what your body is truly capable (or sadly not capable) of. Tonight I did my first shoulder stand. Did you know it's hard to balance on your shoulders? The other day my friend Eileen was showing me the crane. I fell flat on my face in front of a small crowd trying out this new pose. When all else fails, I can always go back to the corpse pose!

And no, I can't do this yet...

Birthday Mania

April is a busy birthday month for our family. I can think of at least 11 birthdays in our family that land in April, 3 of which are immediate family. Personally, I think this is great -- many reasons to celebrate!!! It's also been a great opportunities to put my cake decorating classes to use.

For Sam's birthday we had a party at the house. It was great - the party lasted practically all day. We had people steadily trickling in since 9 in the morning, and the party went until around 9 that night. I'm pretty sure we spent the whole day eating. First it was the lunch snacks, then birthday cake, and we finished it all off with lasagna for dinner. Food, friends, and family - how can you go wrong?

. . .And here are some of the high honor guests who came from afar to be in attendance.































Here are a couple of the April birthday cakes a la Jenni.

Birthday Cake!

Several weeks before my birthday my mom called me up and told me they wanted to host a birthday party for me, but that I have to make my own cake. While she was only kidding, I took the offer seriously and started doing my research on cakes - more importantly, butterfly cakes. And now all can see the result! Ta da!

I made the butterfly by taking a round cake, cutting it in half, then set the cut edges away from each other. All it took from there were some subtle notches out of the side, and suddenly I had wings (or at least my cake did). To top it all of, my mom bought some twizzlers for antennas.

After I finished with the cake, there was plenty of frosting left over. So I started decorating my mom's kitchen counters. Needless to say, it wasn't long until I got into trouble. What is a girl to do? Decorate herself! P.S. You really can get away with a lot on your birthday...

Confection Creations

For Christmas my parents enrolled me into a cake decorating class. Here are some samples of my confection creations.

The first class was pretty basic. The instructor taught us how to frost a first layer, which she refers to as the "crumb" layer. Let that layer stand for a few minutes, and then put on another layer which will be smoother and crumb free. She also showed us how to add texture to the frosting by smoothing a paper towel over the surface. Check out the close-up to see the detail.

This second cake I made over a weekend. . .I'm not sure why. For the flowers, I drew them on with a tip, then flattened it out to make the petals smooth. I then outlined the petals to bring out a bit of a 3D affect.

The frog cake was my creation this week. Our instructor taught us how to use rice paper to draw the image you want to create, then you frost over the drawing. Within a day, the rice paper disolves into the frosting, and wah-lah, you suddenly look like a drawing super star.

Sam and the Secret Decoder Hat

Sam made me agree that if I put this picture up on the web, I at least have to explain it a bit.

We received this large yellow envelope in the mail from Scientific American earlier this week. On the front of the envelope it specifies, "Corvallis Postmaster: The enclosed documents are intended solely for the addressee listed and should be opened by the aforementioned only."

It's TOP SECRET! There's no other explanation, Sam concluded.

Out the top secret documents came, and on went the "secret decoder hat." Much to his disappointment he found himself decoding a bunch of advertisements.