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. :)

These Pictures

Our baby was a puker. A "happy puker," as our doctor put it, so no acid reflux scariness or anything, but a big-time puker nonetheless. These pictures, as you might suspect, were taken only a few seconds apart. I love that her face is nearly identical in both pictures... except for the Vesuvius-like spew of spit-up that is just starting to flow from her mouth. 

This was my every day for, oh, the first 5 or 6 months of Sophie's life. I wouldn't change one thing about our little angel... except maybe the all the spit-up. That I could have done without.

Hyperbole and a Half

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

This is a fantastic blog written by a girl named Allie. From what I can tell, she is nuts and fragile and sharply funny. She's a great writer and a ...great? ...artist in MS Paint. (Can you be a great artist in MS Paint? If you can, she is.) Her drawings are strangely perfect paired with her stories and mirror her style.

Careful, you can get lost in this blog. (And careful, she's got a dirty mouth.) To get to the heart of things, read "The God of Cake," "How a Fish Almost Destroyed My Childhood," "This is Why I'll Never Be an Adult," and "The Alot is Better Than You at Everything." It might not appeal to everyone, but when I read her posts, I am usually also laughing. Enjoy.
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Aah! Just kidding! One more you have to read: "The Four Levels of Social Entrapment!" Because we've all been there.

The Ricky Gervais Show

I just love this show. It's on HBO, which we actually no longer get, but I have a bunch of them DVRed and will never, ever delete them because they are hilarious. They originated from a series of podcasts by Ricky Gervais, Steven Merchant -- his co-writer of the Office -- and their friend Karl Pilkington. They animated the podcast talks and made it into a TV show.

There's no plot or anything, it's just random conversations with funny cartoon graphics of really funny but sometimes profane chatter. Ricky and Steven basically just make fun of Karl and his crazy ideas about the world, like that all of the inventions that are worth inventing have already been invented. And that Dyson, the vacuum guy, is right up there with Einstein and Newton on the list of history's great minds. And that ants don't really do anything, they just carry things around. There also use great British-type words like "telly" and "advert" and "glacier" but pronounced like "glass-i-er." Like a funny, cartoon Bear Grylls. :) Anyway, consider the podcasts and TV show endorsed. They make me laugh like nothing else.

Sushi

Oh, goodness, how I love sushi. I just had some for lunch, and mmmmmm! (Note: My last blog post felt a little deep, so this one is delightfully shallow. :) It makes you feel fancy, it's relatively inexpensive, and you get to eat it with chopsticks. It's equally good eaten in the restaurant or as take-out. Also, it's pretty healthy and full of protein to get you through your afternoon. The biggest question is -- two rolls or three??

Family Photo

This photo was taken, I think, two Christmases ago. (Note: We DID NOT match our clothes' color palette intentionally. It just worked out that way.) It makes me happy, of course, to see us all so happy together on Christmas morning. But this picture also makes me a little sad. I know! This blog is about happy things. So we'll not say sad... but melancholy. Because this year, my sister Meg can't come home for Christmas.

Meg is a professional distance runner for Adidas. She lives in Arizona. Due to her racing schedule, she couldn't have been home for more than a few days, and that coupled with the flight's length and extreme expense meant it just wasn't in the cards this year.

I saw Meg for Thanksgiving for a day or so, and that was nice. And I think she might try to squeeze in a visit between races sometime after Christmas, so I'll see her then, too. But this is the first Christmas where all three of us sisters won't be together on Christmas morning. We have so many quirky traditions -- waiting at the top of the stairs until our parents have everything in place, Kate wearing ridiculous and sometime inappropriate old pajamas, always opening our stockings first, always saving our sister presents to each other for last, the obligatory post-present-opening fashion show, Grandma's egg dish, having Jim Henson and the Muppets Christmas tape (yes, cassette tape!) on in the background... I could go on and on. Most of that will probably still happen, but it just won't be the same without Meg home.

Granted, things were bound to change this year with Sophie in the picture. That might make up for Meg's absence a little bit. But we'll miss Meg a lot, and we'll all be a little sad (wait, not sad - melancholy!) on Christmas morning when we make one fewer pile of presents.

However, thinking back, we've had SO MANY great Christmas mornings together. Times change, things change, traditions come and go. We're not kids anymore (even though we sometime act like it). We'll see each other as often as we can. And when we do, we'll reminisce and laugh about the good times gone by. Because some things won't change: the memories we have of holidays past, and the promise of new traditions to come.

ADELE

I LOVE all of her songs, especially Someone Like You. We've all heard it on the radio. I found this live version I had to share. It's slow, close, and indulgent. You can tell she's more comfortable higher in her range, when she's really belting, but the whole thing is just great.

This cover of Someone Like You is just so amazing. I already posted it to Facebook, but I'm still kind of obsessed with it (can you be "kind of" obsessed with something?) so I thought I'd post it here for safe-keeping. They also do a pretty inventive cover of Need You Now by Lady Antebellum. You can download both on iTunes.

Since we're on the subject of Adele covers, here's John Legend doing Rolling in the Deep -- he has such a good voice and makes this song feel almost like a spiritual. (I still like Adele's better, though. :)

Anyway, she's amazing, and she's inspiring others to create amazing stuff as well.

Shutterfly

I've started thinking  about Christmas presents in full force. Shutterfly (and other similar web sites), especially for those of you with kids, is an AMAZING present resource. For those tough-to-buy-for parents and grandparents? How about a personalized mug with an excellent picture on it? Or a deck of cards? Or a tote bag? Or a photo book? I could go on and on. There are big-time sales from now until Christmas, and it's pretty fun to use, at least for me. (For those family members reading this blog... yes, it's possible you'll be getting something with Sophie's picture on it. :)

Because who wouldn't want this on a mug???

Baking

Baking makes me happy for the following reasons:
a.) It is typically a non-strenuous and inexpensive task.
b.) It allows me to create something I can be proud of.
c.) If I'm sharing, it makes others happy (provided things turn out as planned).
d.) It almost always ends up as a yummy treat for me to enjoy.

Today I made gingersnaps. Here's the recipe (courtesy of my Aunt Becky) if you're in the mood for an easy, Winter-ish baking project to accompany the first snow of the year.

Ingredients
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
4 tbsp molasses
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups flour
pinch of salt

Directions

Mix all ingredients. Roll dough into small balls. Dip into sugar and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes at 350. Enjoy!

The First Snow of the Year

Winter in Wisconsin can be brutal. By February, I'm SO ready for Spring. But the first snow of the year -- which happened to fall today -- is always a magical sort of day. I took this picture from my front door. As you can see, the first snow of the year is typically not too significant; it's more of a teaser of what's to come. Since the temperature is on its way down, the ground and everything is too warm to really let the snow accumulate. But it stays for at least a few hours, reminding us that Winter is on its way. It always makes me do Winter-y things like bake and drink cocoa and buy Christmas presents online (all of which I actually did today). :) So long, Fall! See you next year!

A Quick Trip to Santa Barbara

In September, my mom and dad went to Santa Barbara on a trip for my dad's work (a pleasure trip, not business). In July, I received a call from my dad's assistant, Nel. She told me that during the trip in September, there was going to be a surprise retirement presentation for my dad. (He's retiring in March of 2012.) She asked if my sisters and I would fly to Santa Barbara in secret and surprise my parents during the celebration. (It was expenses-paid, which took the biggest obstacle -- price -- off my sisters and me, none of whom could have afforded it otherwise.) My sisters and I talked, and we told Nel we could go. The planning began, and soon the trip was upon us.

We were lucky enough not to have significant flight delays, and one of dad's friends picked us up at the airport and drove us to the Four Seasons resort in Santa Barbara. (AMAZING place!) We hid in a room and caught up with each other until it was time for the big surprise. Dad's company had put together a funny video presentation, so we waited backstage while that played. (Remember, neither mom nor dad knew about even the retirement presentation.) Then, they had us give a short speech on a microphone backstage. Since mom and dad obviously had no idea we were there (and why would they?), they thought it was taped. After we spoke, the host said, "All right, girls, come on out!" Holding hands, the three of us walked out on stage. My mom's hands flew to her face, and both she and my dad cried. I think we all cried a little, actually. We all hugged and stood together, arms around each other, on stage for the brief remainder of the presentation.

Afterward, of course all the guests wanted to come up and congratulate my dad. Also, it seemed that everyone wanted to meet my sisters and me. So while what we really wanted to do was huddle together in some back room and explain what was going on -- why we were there, how long we'd known about this, where Sophie was, how long we were staying, etc. --  we instead made pleasantries with all of the friendly guests, including the Marilyn Monroe  and Jack Nicholson impersonators they'd hired to mingle. Finally, at about midnight (2AM Madison time), we made our way back to our adjoining suites and talked as a little family about the events that led up to the wonderful surprise for my parents.

That evening was really the high point. Kate, Meg, and I were able to stay the next day, and we had a nice brunch, a walk on the beach, bloody marys on the bar terrace overlooking the ocean, and a bike ride to the lovely city of Santa Barbara and its huge boardwalk. Unfortunately, Meg had to leave early to fly to a race in Missouri, so she missed our great dinner at a local steakhouse, but we had a great day together.

We wondered aloud if we would ever again spend significant time together as "The Original Five." All three of us daughters are married, we have Sophie now, and we're literally spread out across the country. We spent most of our time together just enjoying each other's company. Because it's amazing -- we actually do enjoy each other's company. I feel so lucky to be able to say that. Sure, we have our differences and our occasional spats, but when we're together, it's always joyous, and it's always hard to say goodbye when it's over. That happy trip to the coast was brief, but I'll remember it forever, and I know the rest of my family will too. :)