Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad's 60th birthday. My dad is a pretty unique guy. I guess everybody thinks that about their dad, but he really is pretty cool.

He's not much of a talker. While I think I'm more of a conversationalist than he is, it really doesn't bother me to sit in a room full of people & not talk at all. I guess that's where I get that.

He's a people watcher. I, too, enjoy just watching people. If we're at a football game that isn't especially exciting, I usually spend most of the 2nd half doing just that. It's amazing what you see. Standing in line at WalMart is another good place to practice people watching. When Mom was taking treatments at UK, Dad got pretty good at noticing routines of the different nurses & technicians. On the times that I could go with them, he would fill me in on how they spent their day & what they did with their time.

He's slow to anger. This is one of the things I admire most about him because it really doesn't describe me very well. While I think I have marginally better control of my temper & my mouth than I did a few years ago, I can still fly off the handle on occasion only to learn later that the situation wasn't as bad as I thought it was. I think Dad does a fine job of trying to gather all of the facts before he chews somebody a new one.

He likes cornbread, white beans, biscuits & gravy, country ham, peanut butter & syrup on toast, sugar with a little bit of coffee, pecan pie and corn on the cob. He always says soups & chili taste better on the second day.

He likes to work in the yard & enjoys having a squirrel feeder & bird feeder in the winter & a hummingbird feeder in the summertime. He's kind to animals.

He doesn't mind acting like an idiot around his grandchildren. I remember one time when my oldest nephew was just about 2 years old, we were eating at Cracker Barrel. There weren't very many people in the restaurant (although it wouldn't have mattered if there were) & Will started getting restless. Dad offered to take him out to the store to look around. About 5 minutes later, we looked up to see Dad & Will come galloping through the restaurant on stick horses yelling, "Yah! Yah!" Mom asked him what he was doing & he looked at her and simply said, "Riding horses" as if it should have been the most obvious thing in the world.

He knows how to fix stuff. I hardly ever remember him calling a handyman when I was growing up because if he didn't know how to fix or build something, he generally knew someone who did. I wish I had paid more attention to what he was doing because I'm lost when something blows up or shuts down at my house.

He's an intelligent man. He thinks about things before he acts & always tries to do the right thing. He doesn't mind asking questions if he doesn't understand something--something that I think is one of the greatest signs of wisdom.

Happy birthday, Dad! I love you!

We Graduated!!!

Shawn and I know how to have a baby. We even have a diploma from our childbirth class that says so. It was a hard-fought battle to gain that piece of paper, though. There was a point where I was afraid that one of us (not mentioning any names) would not finish the class because he was about to get kicked out...by the other one of us.



Some of Shawn's wise observations from our class:



-Def Leppard would probably be good soothing music to bring to the labor room.

-Instead of counting for me during the rhythmic breathing, it might be better to communicate with baseball signals.

-He doesn't need pointers on how to give a back rub because he's already a Mac. (Extreme eye-rolling here.)

-I can control the television in the labor room...as long as I choose to watch ESPN.

-We really don't need the breathing exercises because I should probably just request an epidural with the first contraction.

I'm really not trying to paint Shawn in a bad light here...he really was supportive. I think he's decided that the best way to deal with pain during childbirth is to keep me laughing. Or at least distract me by keeping my hands busy with choking him. Let's just hope he can behave long enough so that Sam can be born before I kick him out.

Puff Pastry--My New Friend in the Kitchen

How have I been baking all this time & NOT discovered Puff Pastry? I must admit, I've shied away from using it in the past because I was a bit intimidated by it. I have no idea why--it's so easy to use!

I saw Paula make these wonderful little treats for Michael & decided to give them a try. After making them one time, I've been thinking that the possibilities are endless!

You just cut the puff pastry into squares, brush them with egg wash, put some little candy treats in them & twist them up like a little purse. Brush the outside with egg wash & bake them until the pastry is done. How simple is that?!

I used dark chocolate Hershey Kisses & added a few frozen raspberries to some of them, but my mind is already working for next time. I guess they don't really have to be sweet--you could make cute little appetizers with chicken, veggies & some cream cheese. You could do just fruit in them. You could make little pizza things with them. I haven't even glanced at the nutritional information on puff pastry because I'm pretty sure I just don't want to know. It's so flaky & fluffy that it's bound to be butter-laden. If I'm ignorant to the calories, they don't count, right?

I still need a name for these little goodies. Suggestions???

My Funny Valentine

10 Reasons Why I Love Shawn:

1. He always makes me laugh. Even when I don't want to.

2. He's going to be a great dad.

3. He understands that chocolate is usually a pretty safe & reliable way to cheer me up.

4. He has a big heart & is forever doing things that are just nice. For example, he keeps a bag of dog food in his car to feed hungry stray dogs.

5. We make a great team in the kitchen. I chop & he seasons. He cooks & I bake. Dishes? Ummm...

6. He does more than his share of the housework now that I'm carrying a basketball under my shirt.

7. He tells me I'm pretty, even on days when I feel decidedly UN-pretty.

8. He could carry on a conversation with anyone.

9. He can keep me focused when I'm having an ADD day.

10. Just being in the same room with him makes me a happier person.

Happy Valentine's Day, Shawnie!

We've been busy!

With Sam coming soon, Shawn & I are trying to get most of our home improvement projects finished up as we will probably have neither the time nor the inclination to do them after he gets here. Our basement was a hideous light blue color (think North Carolina) that Shawn just absolutely could not stand. As his man-cave is in the basement & most of his UK memorabilia will eventually live down there, we felt like a color-change was in order. The color he chose is a gray-ish blue.


Let me just explain the difference in how men & women operate: When I was choosing the color for Sam's room, it took 3 trips (and I thought that was pretty good) to look at color samples. I had to bring the samples home & look at all of them in the light of his room, take them to Babies R Us to compare them to his bedding & obsess for several days before I could make my decision. Shawn walks into Lowe's & literally stands in front of the paint samples for 30 seconds, picks up two different shades of gray, puts one down & orders 3 gallons of the other one. But, I have to say the color he chose looks really good & I think it will make the perfect background for his UK prints.




We've also been busy getting Sam's room ready. For some reason, I have an aversion to traditional white walls. Sam's room is almost a cocoa color, and I think it looks great!





We couldn't really decide if we wanted to go with an animal theme or something sports related. Shawn found this bedding, and we both immediately knew that it was perfect. I can't wait to get everything in there to see how it looks.






We finally went to order his crib this week. We're well on our way to having a place for our little guy!

Shawn's Valentine's Treat

Shawn loves chocolate covered cherries. I honestly don't care for them all that much; it never really tempts me to have them lying around (unlike other sweets). While they are really not one of my favorite treats, these cookies kick some serious butt! This recipe is originally from allrecipes.com, but I altered it just a bit. I think next time I'll use frozen raspberries instead of cherries. Oh my...

Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 (10 oz) jar maraschino cherries (juice reserved)

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat the butter & sugar together. Add egg & vanilla & beat until smooth. Add flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda & baking powder. I added about 1/4 cup of maraschino cherry juice to make the dough more manageable. It was still very stiff.

Roll the dough into 1-inch balls & place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press center of each ball with thumb. Tip: roll all of the balls out, then spray your thumb with cooking spray & make the indentation because the dough is a bit sticky.

Drain the cherries & place one in the indentation of each cookie.

In a saucepan, heat condensed milk & chocolate chips until the chips are melted. Stir in a bit of cherry juice. The recipe calls for 4 tsp but I ended up using about 9 tsp. Just get it to a spreading consistency. Spoon 1/2 to 1 tsp of this mixture over each cherry enough to cover it.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. This makes a soft, chewy cookie. For a more firm cookie (although I'm not sure why you'd want one), bake for about 2 minutes longer.

As an aside, the glaze makes way more than you'll need for the cookies. I kept the extra & am saving it for an ice cream sundae at some point. Just a thought...

Are you kidding me?!

How is it that a cat always knows the most inconvenient place that they could possibly get & that is the exact place they want to be?


This is our typical morning routine: Ollie comes into the bathroom while I'm showering & waits patiently for her turn. After I get out, she sits in the shower or tub for a few minutes, then gets out to pace back & forth along the counter top. Sometimes, about the time I'm ready to brush my teeth, she decides she needs to rest in the nice bowl-shaped bed we have just for her.

We were also very considerate to make a nice, comfortable bed for her in our linen closet. Notice how she has rearranged the towels to suit her needs.

The Kong--World's Greatest Dog-Sitter

The Kong is Maddie's favorite toy. It's also our favorite because it allows us to NOT give her our undivided attention for a few minutes each night. Basically, a Kong is a rubbery dog toy with holes in it. You can put dog treats or, better yet, this Easy Cheese-like substance (that smells just lovely) in the holes & it provides hours of entertainment to pudgy little dogs who are strongly motivated by food.

What's funny about watching Maddie is that she's figured out how to get every little morsel of treat out of it. She gnaws on it for 20 minutes or so until she can't get any more out of it on her own, then she takes to throwing it to dislodge any of the goop that might be stuck in it.

Some things you just have to see to understand: