Beautiful Blue Moon over Kodiak

Lime Coconut bars

After 3 tries today, I finally managed to whip up a batch of lime coconut bars. With the first two batches, my heat was too high and I ended up with eggy lime topping. But the third try was the 'charm'. And speaking of- or blogging of- baking, have you seen Cakewrecks? One of my new favorites. There's a link under our favorite sites (see right side of screen). Sophie was quite excited about my culinary success. -R

Weekend

Yesterday I went duck hunting for the first time on Kodiak. I thought the duck was delicious. Cece and Roxann were a little less enthusiastic; we'll have to try a few different recipes to convince them that duck is reasonable table fare.

Tonight we attended a holiday party, complete with 16 foot tall spruce tree. Cece spent much of her time playing in Rosie's Bait House, a playhouse made from a large heavy-duty cardboard box that previously held squid to be used for bait on a commercial fishing boat. -M

More Christmas Pics

Pics include Sophie and Mike with her beautiful blanket made by her Great Grandma McGowan, Great Aunt Patty and Grandma Elaine, Cece thrilled with a toy cash registers and play food, Cece mesmerized by a new puzzle from Grandma Joanie, and Cece again doing her 'touch-down' dance after scoring a cool Mickey Mouse computer from her Uncle Danny. -R

Feliz Navidad

Cece awoke this morning to find the cookies and carrots left for certain imaginary, seasonal figures gone and a huge pile of presents left in the family room. What a great way to start the day! With careful deliberation, Cece would select a present to open, examine it per it's interest value (clothes were given about 1-2 seconds and toys were given a few minutes each), clean up the wrapping paper, then repeat the process. Three hours after starting the process, we're surrounded by the gifts from each other and our families...feeling a little closer to them all despite being separated by too many miles. More pics to follow. Joyeux Noel to all our friends and family! -R

Mike and his girls

From a few nights ago. Smile, -R

Allergic to Cold

Weird, weird, weird. Last weekend, I squeezed into some pre-pregnancy, winter clothes and took our dogs for a walk. And while it was cold out, it felt great to be out with the dogs- despite a slight burning, itchy sensation. When we got home, I had hives on my neck and on my legs (pic #2). Ugggg. Since then I've had to be careful of touching or eating anything too cold- snow, ice cubes, cold water,... Saw my doctor this week for a regularly scheduled appt (my 6 wk post partum) and found out I have cold urticaria. Weird- had never heard of it before. Will begin taking Zyrtec which will hopefully help. Top pic was from having a cold jar touch my forearm. Hoping to stay warm, -R

Julia

Last night, Mike and I enjoyed the movie "Julie & Julia". It was a good movie- good, not great. (I read that Julia Child was not impresses by Julie Powell- the young woman in the film- because Julia didn't believe she was serious about cooking.) But 2 good things came out of watching the movie- I realized that I'd never really appreciated a gift I'd gotten years ago...Volumes I and II of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And as I started to read Volume I- recipe for garlic soup, I could 'hear' Julia Child's unique and passionate voice in the writing. The movie portrayed her as a boisterous, vibrant woman who had a wonderful humor and passion for life, food and herself. Today, I've been reading up on Julia and now I'm hooked...the second good thing from watching "Julie & Julia". What an amazing, FEARLESS woman! I'd love to know how she, at 6' 2", became a US spy in Sri Lanka during World War II. I admire her courage but wonder how the the US govt agency (Office of Strategic Services) ever thought to pass Julia off as a spy. For at 6'2", Julia would never be inconspicuous- not by her physical size or the vibrancy of her personality. Hmmm- just food for thought. Can't wait to learn more and to try making garlic soup. -R

Ramblings

Since I'm feeling a bit under the weather, chicken soup/stew is just what the 'health practicioner' prescribes. On Sunday, I made a terrific chicken stew in the crockpot and added green chilies for a nice kick. Mike enjoyed two bowls yesterday but it didn't seem to be able to ward off a winter cold...which Mike has come down with. Luckily it seems to just be a bad cold. (And as a side note, our thoughts and prayers with the family of the Kodiak man who recently passed from the H1N1 flu. Very scary.)
So far, Cece and Sophie are both okay with the exception of some baby acne for Sophie. Trying to quarantine Mike in the far bedroom for awhile in the hopes we can keep those germs away from the girls. Mike will have to read by himself, watch whatever he wants on TV, nap, and eat in bed for awhile. Poor guy. But he's in good hands as Cece is proving to be a regular Florence Nightingale...offering to fix him bowls of grapes, sandwiches and drinks as often as allowed.

Love to all our friends and families, -R (PS- I've spared everyone my ramblings regarding the prevalence of germ warfare by foreign powers {to weaken the US people and military forces} as well as by our own 'government' {population control measures}. Paranoid I'm not, just realistic.)

Tis the Season

Despite having a winter cold and mourning the loss of daily sunlight hours, it's great to appreciate 'Charlie-Brown-Christmas-trees', the kind Holmes who appear as Santa & Mrs. Claus at the Baranov museum (for about 7 years), and playing games together on winter nights. (Only in Kodiak...can you spot the three bears in the picture with Santa and Mrs. Claus?) -R

Sophie settling in

Sophie is finding her place in our little family. Cece has fully accepted her baby sister in a beautiful and loving way. Cece will frequently want to "pet her", burp her, help change dirty diapers and will sing to her when she's crying (theme song from "Max and Ruby" show). One exception, Cece refuses to give up her crib to Sophie- except to occasionally share it for story time.

And just wanted to note how profitable it can be to be fired...as Notre Dame's recently fired head football coach can attest with a $15 million dollar buy-out. Some things just don't make sense...but then again this does involve football, so.... -R

Good times

Mike, Cece, Sophie and I had a memorable Thanksgiving/ Black Friday. Yesterday we enjoyed a fabulous meal and great company at the Saltonstalls with Patrick, Zoya, Nora, Stuey, Mary Jane and Rob. Patrick made the turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes, Zoya made a kale and red pepper stir-fry, stuffing and a chocolate-Baileys pie, Mary Jane and Rob made a sweet potato-pecan casserole and a baked brie appetizer, and Mike and I made scallop ceviche and a pretzel-ice cream pie. Need-less-to-say we all ate well.

Growing up my family always made the entire T-day meal ourselves. While the hour meal time(okay...half hour meal time) was always enjoyable, this was significantly outweighed by the hours of meal prep time and long clean-up afterwards. So its a refreshing change to share the meal prep, clean-up and have good company throughout it all.

Today, Black Friday, I was undecided if I would venture out to do any shopping but as I was already awake and up with Sophie at 4am I couldn't resist the toy store to shop for all our nieces, nephews, Cece and Sophie. 20% off everything. I returned home on a wonderful shopping high, arms full of my discounted lout. I was able to 'encourage' Mike to go to two sporting goods stores and while he found a few needed items, he was more annoyed with the shopping frenzy than energized.

Photos include: Thanksgiving dinner at the Saltonstalls, Zoya getting the kids dessert, bath time Thanksgiving day (Sophie's first time in the big tub), and the parking lot at Walmart this morning. -R

I just have to wonder why?

WARNING- may be depressing if read prior to T-day.

Yesterday, an article came out in the BBC and on the internet regarding Holiday Brides in India. There are approximately 15,000-20,000 abandoned women in India who married western men (possibly 1/3 British men of Asian descent). Many of these marriages were arraigned by the women's families with dowries given to the men. One reporter wrote that there is a strong push to get the "girls" married to anything in foreign (especially British) pants as there seems to be more "opportunities" for the "girls" outside of India. There was also mention that there was frequent hope that the bride's brothers would also be able to immigrate to these foreign lands once their sacrificed sister was abroad and 'in the marriage bed'. So once the marriage has been arranged, dowry paid, then the groom leaves for his homeland with promises to work on his bride's visa. And then the scam is complete...he is safely in his homeland with a soon forgotten bride in Indian who is helpless and powerless to follow. While the married women are free to file for divorce once they realize they've truly been used and dumped, the stigma of divorcees in Indian is strong and few get divorces. Meanwhile the Indian families are now poor after paying out their daughter's dowry and now have to continue support these ashamed "Indian brides." But this I think is worst of all...it seems this phenomen of sacrificing their daughters to ruthless foreign pigs has been going on for 10 years. Sigh. I just have to wonder WHY? WHY- would Indian families continue to try to marry off their precious young women to foreign men AND why would any human being be able to live with robbing these women and families of not only money but their futures- their dreams, children,... ?

BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION...a little invention I like to call the "commitment ring". This ring would be worn by the groom once the marriage is finalized. It would be worn not on his finger but on his "Johnson." The ring would be capable of applying constriction if not kept within a certain distance of its mate...a second ring for the bride. If the husband would try to abandon his bride the ring would be activated and pressure would result. Not too much pressure but enough to prevent an erection and cause tissue atrophy (wasting)... But the pressure would be "released" as soon as the groom returns to his mate and the matching "commitment ring." Now if the husband and wife both decide to dissolve the marriage then the "key" to release the man of his ring would be obtained from the wife's family after dowries were repaid, settlements reached, etc.

But an even better solution...protect our precious daughters and sons. -R

Kitchen in progress

Since this past Spring, we have been slowly working towards renovating our house. We replaced our boiler, installed a new heater in our master bedroom, finished installing wood flooring throughout the house, replaced our roof and remodeled our main bathroom. Now we're working on our kitchen/ family room. A local man, who does beautiful woodworking as a hobby, has been making our new kitchen cabinets out of oak with walnut trim. Since October we've painted the kitchen/ family room, torn out all of the cabinets, have had 3/4 of the new cabinets installed, and Mike has torn out most of a divider wall/ island. It's so nice to see this project coming together...knowing that its almost complete. We have a few more cabinets to install, then on to the countertops and reinstalling the electrical outlets that had been located in the kitchen island. Maybe we'll be done by St. Patrick's Day. -R

Sleep

With a new baby in the house and our 33 month old still waking up from 2 to 4am every morning, sleep is a very important subject in the house. Check out our sleeping beauties. The last photo is Cece sleeping in one of the new kitchen cabinets...not yet installed. She set up her 'bed' in the cabinet by herself, crawled in and promptly fell asleep tonight. She has yet to sleep one night in her new firetruck toddler bed that she picked out this last Spring...sigh. Sweet dreams, -R

Sophia Janelle Pfeffer

Sophia Janelle Pfeffer was officially welcomed into this world on November 5th, 2009 at 2:42 in the morning. She was 8 lb. 14 oz and 21 inches long. More postings to follow. Love to all, -R

Weirdness in the World

Surfing the net this morning I read the following:

1. Ellen Degeneres to replace Paula Abdul and join American Idol this Fall. What? In what universe does Ellen (who I'm sure is a lovely person) have any experience or expertise in the music industry? Sure she'll be "fun" to have on the show, but as a 'judge'... Good for ratings but probably not as good for the auditioning singers' careers.
2. In an article regarding some women being 'superbreeders', they reference a Russian woman, Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev, who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for giving birth to 69 children (16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets). Can you imagine their diaper and grocery bills?
3. In Caen, France, a preschool teacher was fined $1450 for biting the cheek of 4 year old student. What????
4. And finally, a man was arrested when he returned to the home of a woman whom he and a few friends had robbed earlier that night. He was asking her out on a date! The woman recognized the man and called the police. He's probably a Republican!

Sigh... Sometimes the news is just too weird. -R

Roof and other news

Mike has been hard at work on replacing our roof and 2 sky-lights over the weekend and this week. In his younger days, Mike was a roofer and has been progressing well on our roof...despite being ~20 years older. Unfortunately Mike wasn't a truck driver in his younger day and we had a bit of trouble getting a borrowed flat bed truck into the front yard. So next spring, our home projects will include landscaping.... Second picture is of Cece in the front window watching her Dada progress with taking the truck to the dump.

This morning I read how Michelle Duggar and her family are now expecting their 19th child! Well congrats to her and her family...I hope she has good mental health coverage with her insurance. Their son and daughter-n-law are expecting their first child in ~6 weeks. I'm delighted to say that we have 23% and 62 days (approximately) left in this pregnancy. -R

Sleeping beauty

Cece asleep on our bed...peace at last. And accessories can really 'be' your outfit...per Cece.

69 days and 25% left till baby #2 arrives. Mike recovering fairly well from food poisoning Monday night and a late night trip to the ER. Jury duty for me on Tuesday...four hours + later I was free to leave and quite happy not to have been randomly picked. Time to get back to morning chores... -R

Mystery solved

Cece never seems to have matching socks...despite buying packs and packs of them from our local shopping mecca (Walmart). So on Wednesday night, Mike solved the age old question of where do all our matching socks disappear to. Down the suction hose of the washing machine. Can you see one of Cece's sock in Mike's left hand? Found after a few hours spent pulling apart the washing machine when it stopped working. -R

76 days and 29% left

That's how long (approximately) I have till we get to hold and greet the newest member of our family.

Pics include Cece after a romp in the front yard while I was mowing grass. She quickly eliminates all those pesky flowers from the yard. Hou, our cat, has made a home in my sock drawer. And finally, Cece being silly after eating blueberries- one of our favorite foods. -R