Sweet Deals

A nearby neighborhood had a big multi-family garage sale this morning. We got up early and were there by 7:20.

Our mission: fill in the baby gaps and look for useful storage items.

Our finds: a fabulous filing cabinet, an army hiking backpack, a bottle warmer, a baby gate, and some happy little kids books.

It was fun to walk around a neighborhood and mingle with other deal snatchers. Lots of folks had food out that they were selling: everything from cupcakes and lemonade to customizable breakfast burritos.

Right now, Scott is trying to get one stubborn long screw out of the bottom of the filing cabinet. The other three legs were flimsy, but this fourth leg wouldn't come off without a hammer, which then revealed a LONG screw that he is attempting to remove. What a guy. What a garage sale.

Memorializing about Memorial Day Weekend

On Saturday, two of my non-roommate-roommates (friends that were like roommates cause I never really left the placein Provo where I used to live once I moved to Orem) came to visit. We had a fun time catching up and seeing each other and it was great to eat good food with familiar faces. How nice to have a little history with people! Nicole and Shelley and their husbands seem to be doing well and it was sure fun to have them.

Shelley, Nancy, Nicole

34-Week-Pregnant-Nancy and Scott

The menu: barbeque chicken sandwiches on homemade French bread, green salad, homemade fries, homemade cheesecake (that had been frozen then thawed for the occasion). I'd eat any of it again right now.

The bread spent a lot of time rising and was HUGE!

It was a super social weekend, overall. Saturday was the non-roommate reunion. Sunday was a till-midnight visit and desserts with American Studies couples. Monday was a picnic with a bunch of ward members. I like being with people. Especially the fun ones.

Scott ran with the kite and nearly got it flying

That cute little Annie

We watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on Monday with all our spare Memorial Day time. What a let down. I like Harrison Ford, and the parts I remember from other Indiana Jones movies were NOT like this. It was plotless. Just a string of "action scenes" interspersed with cheesy little Chinese boy and a blonde screamer. Bummer.

On a much more fulfilling note, I went to Goodwill on Tuesday with Coralee. Wow. Way too fun! This table runner is one of my favorite purchases. And it motivated me to dust, even. That's some powerful 90 cents. Other fun finds: a green wool suit to cut up for cloth diaper covers, a super cool linen tea towel with a print that explains how to make cider, and I can get credit at least for the two SWEET pairs of Express pants I found for Coralee (one in tan plaid, the other in coral pink and both nearly brand new).


The flowers on that nice table runner were gifts from my visiting teaching companion. She's so nice and has a lovely garden.

Cotton Candy Flavored Dryer Lint

Our washer and dryer have been going non-stop since yesterday. Load after load of tiny pink and white things. I think we're nearly finished now. Everyone has been so generous and kind to us! Thanks for the gifts, the hand-me-downs, and the double hand-me-downs. We love it all.

Something else I love: going to a doctor who will actually give you samples of medicines. The pulmonologist I have been visiting is so good about this. I came home with two inhalers (the expensive ones) and a nasal spray. Free stuff that keeps you breathing is WONDERFUL!


Last night we tried our hands at homemade Oreos. Not the cakey chocolate cookie with some frosting inside type, but some truly crunchy little butter/chocolate cookies with just the right amount of cream filling. Turned out pretty good! They're cute, anyway, I think. You can get the recipe here.

New Semester

I started my new class last night. Yes, I'm taking a six week class during the last six weeks of my pregnancy. Some of my classmates are a bit freaked out, I think, but I have some friends there to ensure that if anything dramatic happens, I'll get to where I need to go.

It's a class on Material Culture (the stuff we make, use, consume, interact with and why) and I think it's going to be super fun. Which reminds me, I better start doing the reading for tomorrow's session!

Yesterday Scott and I took a nice little mini-vacation with our pals Brant and Coralee. They were hanging out at Coralee's folks' house for a while while the folks are out of town, and they invited us to come and check out Gettysburg with them. They made excellent tour guides and planned stops with restrooms, just for me. I don't really know anything about the battle there, but it was crazy to imagine what it would be like to have to bayonette someone on such green green fields in the middle of the summer.

This is Brant, Coralee, and Annie


We did make a fun discovery as we searched for some food after our little adventure. Ruby Tuesday is having a buy-one-get-one-free deal on their meals. From 3:30–5:30 p.m. on weekdays (maybe weekends too) if you order one entree from their specialties, ribs, seafood, or steak you get your second entree of equal or lesser value for FREE! Um, that's a good deal! I got ribs, and Scott got a ginormous burger. For under $15 we even had leftovers. Talk about a date night, people! Of course, you have to share the dining room with old couples who similarly like to eat early and cheaply, but we still had a great time.

Greek Festival

On Saturday (after a ridiculously long, yet ultimately successful stake enrichment), Scott and I drove across the Susquehanna river to attend a Greek Festival. We watched some awesome Greek folk dance, ate a lamb/beef gyro (pronounced yeero and meaning round), got a history lesson on the Greek Orthodox church, and topped it off with a baklava sundae. SO TASTY! I want more baklava, and I'm tempted to make some, but I'm sure that once I saw how much butter I would have to use I would be cured of making it for another long while.



Speaking of making things, we tried our hand at making donuts last week. We used Bakerella's recipe, and were mostly successful. I would suggest using more milk than her recipe calls for and not flouring the surface as much as she said to. Maybe it's our magic silicone sheet that kept the dough from being too sticky, or maybe we're just used to doughs, but the extra flour made them a little dense. Overall, quite tasty. Now we just need to find a recipe for crumb donuts!

On a silly note, we tried the baby-face-simulator (that Shaun and Lanette used) to create a crazy picture of what Baby Jones might look like if the facial features of just her parents were morphed together. I'm not sure it looks like either of us, though. What do you think?

free coldplay album

Just a heads up. Coldplay is offering a free live album download on their site (just today). Just go to their site at www.coldplay.com and there's a link for it:

http://lrlrl.coldplay.com/leftright.html

It might take a while to work because a lot of people are getting it. It works better on firefox than safari, go figure.

Enjoy

Baby Baby

People have been asking me what I still need for the baby. I keep telling them that it's a good question.

I'll ask you: What do you really need for a baby?

So, all you mommas out there, would you please list the top 3 or 5 items you use/used with your baby? Please?

Folks have given us a lot of clothes, a bassinet, a stroller and car seat, a baby bath, a changing pad, some hats and onesies. We have a crib and Babies R Us gave us a bottle and a binkie. What am I missing? Socks? Sleepers? Burp rags and bibs? Winter stuff?

Thanks for your input!!!

Oh Yeah

And here are a few random updates from our recently uploaded picture files.

Our trip to the temple two weeks ago.



Hmm, what else?

Oh yeah, the baby shower Scott's lab threw for us. Such nice folks, such a fun time.


We pulled lots of cute pink things from bags. And, they got us a pack-n-play and a happy pink umbrella stroller!


I made some baby stuff for people who are having babies. That second one is a bib for my cousin, Taylor who just had her baby this past week! So nice to have ridiculous amounts of fabric at my disposal for such times.


Our friends Alan and Lyana came to visit us this past weekend. It was lovely to see them again, and we just had a sweet sweet weekend. Like, we had donuts, visited two chocolate factories, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Here's the one picture we took. We'll have to figure out how to post some of the video. Scott's really into taking videos lately, so that will be fun to incorporate.


Notice the cute haircut? I finally got my hair cut! After months of dealing with less than ideal hair, I can wear my hair down comfortably. HooRAY!

Wedding Video Rediscovered

Here's something fun that's online. I'm so happy I got Nancy.

Ta Da!

I'm done with the semester!!! WAHOO!!!

Well, I still have some things to finish up for my assistantship/work responsibilities, but that's easy peasy compared to those mondo papers. I got an unbelievable amount of pages written yesterday. One paper went from like 9 pages to 21. And, I wrote a whole 'nother paper on top of that (7 pages). It was a little gross. But, I'll never take that many classes at once again, so everything after this should be less huge even if I do end up putting it off until the eleventh hour.

Scott took a big test yesterday, too. It definitely was a day of accomplishments.

Today, my group and I finished our documentary film project. Nothing serious, just some fun stuff about American Girl dolls. Also, great to have that done.

Oh, and how cool is it that my summer class doesn't actually start until the week after next. That means an entire week of getting some Nancy stuff done. On the list: finish a baby blanket I started in high school, finish our 2008 blog book series, design a sample book or two for Nancy Jones Design, try out some different baby bootie patterns, maybe even vacuum all the carpet. I'll let you know if I finish any of that stuff, for sure.

Meanwhile, HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!!

Those blossoms at the top are shedding their petals in our front yard. I finally got around to getting some pictures of em.

Weirdest music videos

So my posts are never quite anything autobiographical, but I wanted to show you one of the weirdest music videos that I have seen (though I really like the song):

I think if the ease, my college band would have taken the route that Dave and I imaged, we would have turned into a band like this (I would be the curly hair guy that isn't really singing but acts like it anyway).

What are your weirdest music videos?