Matched!

Sister and brother-in-law are moving back to Wisconsin!!!!!!!!!! Holy smokes, am I excited!
I taped Pete's Match Day announcement.
(Pardon my extremely loud exclamation of happiness.)
We love you guys and can't wait to have you closer! xoxoxoxo

Funny Onesies

Funny onesies for babies crack me up. I'm not brave enough to have bought some of these below, but I think they're hilarious on other people's kids. :) Enjoy.

Nerds

This is a weird one. I love it when Ryan and I kiss and our glasses hit together. It makes us both smile because we feel like huge nerds, like we're at risk of our braces getting caught. :) That's all.

This Picture

It's an Easter morning tradition in the Duwell house to eat "egg mush" for breakfast. It's a simple mixture of hard-boiled eggs and cider vinegar. We only eat it once a year. Now that Sophie is eating table food, we gave her a bite.

As you can see... she DID NOT like it. This face-making went on for probably 3 minutes straight. I felt bad for her, but we just couldn't stop laughing. Poor thing. This picture captured her misery perfectly -- misery you might expect from trying the taste of cider vinegar for the first time. Luckily, she's a tough cookie and will still take food from a spoon. For a while, I wasn't sure she ever would again. :)

Psych

Have you seen this show? It is awesome. It's on USA, in its sixth season, I believe. It's a light-hearted comedy about a very observant guy named Shawn who pretends to be psychic to help the Santa Barbara Police Department solve crimes. He's never without his trusty sidekick and best friend since childhood, Gus. (You might recognize Dule Hill from The West Wing.)

That actually sounds kind of dumb when I read it back. But it's our newest favorite show, and we've recommended it to others who have really liked it too. We began season one a few weeks after Sophie was born, and it was the perfect show to get us through the throes of early parenthood. And it's not violent or scary, so we don't feel bad watching it with Sophie around (unlike Criminal Minds, CSI, Law & Order and all of those other good but sometimes yucky shows).

Anyway, just another servicey recommendation from your favorite blogger. :) Hope you're all doing well!

My Crock Pot

It's common knowledge that the best-tasting meals are the ones that sit on the stove or in the oven for hours so the flavors really come out. But another facet of "the best meals" for generally busy people, are easy ones that turn out great. Enter... the crockpot. One of the best inventions ever. Right up there with electricity and the printing press. I am 100% not joking.

I have made so many great meals in my crockpot that have taken so little time to prepare and make. Yes, you have to start a meal early so it can cook for up to 8 hours. And yes, you have to ...have one. But other than that, it's the best way to cook and I could not recommend it more highly. If you've never done it before, it can seem a little daunting, but once you've used it a few times, you'll be on the crockpot band wagon (which, incidentally, would be a great name for a band!).

http://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/
http://www.crock-pot.com/Recipes.aspx

These are my go-to sites for recipes. However, my absolute favorite crockpot recipe, given to me by some of our very good friends, is chicken chili. It's below. Make it! It'll become a staple, I promise.

INGREDIENTS:
1 can stewed or diced tomatoes
1 can black beans
1 can chili beans
1 can corn
1 can diced green chilis
1 can diced jalapenos (or just cut some up to taste)
1 packet taco seasoning
1 packet ranch seasoning
1 onion, sliced
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (raw or even frozen)

Put all ingredients in crock pot without draining cans. Cook on high for 3 hrs, then pull/shred chicken apart. Cook on low another 3 hours. Served best with sour cream and Fritos. Enjoy!

My husband

I suppose this one is long overdue. Of course my husband makes me happy -- that's why I married him. But after almost six years of marriage, it's the little things he does that make me happiest.

• He knows I hate taking out the garbage, so he almost always does it.
• He's a highly motivated and busy guy, but he knows I love my "coffee time" on weekend mornings, so he obliges and sits to chat with me for like an hour. :)
• Bath time with Sophie is his job, and both he and she love it. Sometimes I just sit on the bathroom counter to watch them play. He's such a good dad. I knew he would be, but seeing it is sometimes just breathtaking.
• We have an "I cook, you clean" rule in our house. Since I'm home during the day, I almost always cook, which means he's stuck cleaning the kitchen a lot. It would be a bummer, but he is the WORLD'S FASTEST CLEANER, so it's always done in the blink of an eye. (He also happens to be the world's messiest cleaner, if that makes sense; when he's done, his mid-section is soaked from the sink. It's incredibly endearing.)
• He's got this great math-and-science-type brain that complements my more creative word-oriented brain.
• He's sometimes completely silly, like when, just for a laugh, he shocked himself on his parents' electric fence for their horses (he swore his heart stopped for a moment). Or when he wears Sophie's little backpack just to make me laugh:

• He always treats me with respect, even when I'm just being a total B. :)

Marriage can be hard, but we're a great team. I sometimes feel really undeserving of such a wonderful partner. I only hope I make him as happy as he makes me.

Anyway, this note is really why I was compelled to blog about him. I found this on my pillow one night when he was away for the weekend. I almost always tuck a little note in his bag when he has to travel for work. It made me tear up that he thought to write me this before he left:

Seriously. I don't mean to go into cute overload, but how could I not tell the world how happy he makes me??? :)

Calling in to the radio

Whenever I'm listening to the radio and I hear the "touchtones" to be caller 14 (or whatever), I get SO excited and scramble for my phone. (Even if I'm driving... unless it's a snowstorm.) I love calling in to try and win stuff, pretty much regardless of what it is.

So far in my life, I've won a gift card to Texas Roadhouse and a pair of tickets to Great America. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome to win things. It makes you feel lucky and puts a smile on your face. Everybody likes free stuff. But my favorite part of calling in to the radio is the short pause after hitting Call. You wonder, "Am I going to hear a busy signal or an actual ring??" It's the same feeling I get when I hold a wrapped present that's just for me -- my expectations soar. Sometimes I just hold the present for a little while and savor the moment.

Anyway, that's why I didn't call this post "Winning things from the radio," because that's obviously awesome. Calling in is one of my favorite things... winning something is just a sweet bonus that happens one out of 100 times. I don't know what that makes me. An optimist, I suppose. But we already knew that. :)

Trying New Things

In transitioning from a busy careerperson to a busy stay-at-home mom, I've found that I need to purposefully expand my horizons. At work, I found new projects and was given new projects -- that's just how work works. Things change all the time. At home, if I wanted to, I could do literally almost exactly the same thing every day. Get up, change diapers, feed Soph, put her down for naps, clean up, watch Baby Einstein, go to Target, etc. So I need to find New Things to do, and I like to try to do something new every day.

For example, one day I decided to rent a movie from a Redbox for the first time. (We were exclusively Family Video patrons.) I know, that doesn't sound too exciting. Often my New Thing of the day isn't exciting. It couldn't be... it's Wisconsin in winter and I have a baby. It's not like I'm going to go skydiving or cliffjumping. But that's OK. I had to make new neural connections (or whatever happens in your brain) to figure the big Redbox thing out and try not to make a scene in the grocery store. And when I was successful, I felt a little triumphant inside. Even though it was just a Redbox movie. (Bonus: the next day's new thing -- returning a Redbox movie!)

Today's New Thing was perhaps my best yet -- I made bread. Not from a box, not with a machine, not even just quick bread. I made dough, with actual yeast and actual bread flour, let it rise, and baked it. The whole time, things really didn't seem to be going as they should. I actually almost tossed the dough at one point because it didn't seem like it was rising properly. But I stuck with it, and when I opened the oven at the end of the process, VOILA! It was beautiful, and my house smelled heavenly.

I guess my point is that trying new things is fun, and it makes you feel good about yourself. Even if my bread-making endeavor had completely failed, I probably would have had at least an inkling of I did wrong, and I could have tried again another day with more success. Also, bread is delicious. :) Here's the recipe if you feel like trying something new.

Ingredients

2 cups warm water (110 F)

2/3 cup white sugar

1 1/2 tbsp active dry yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

6 cups bread flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water, and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof 10 minutes or so until yeast resembles a creamy foam.
2. Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Place in a well-oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
3. Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes, and divide in half. Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

The finished product!

Drive-Through Windows

It is approximately one million times more convenient for a person with a baby to use an establishment's drive-through window rather than going in to do her business, whatever it might be. More places should understand that.

That's really all I've got on this one. Thank you, Walgreens. Thank you, McDonalds. Thank you, most banks. Thank you, Starbucks on McKee Road. I shall patronize you more in the future because you offer me the convenience of not getting my child out of her carseat for a <5 minute stop. :)