Cooking Day

Something about the cooler weather inspires me to cook. And thankfully my KitchenAid is back in business so I decided to bake French Bread. It is one of my favorite breads to make. Who am I kidding? I never made a bread I didn't love. And the idea of fresh baked bread inspired me to make soup. Therefore I found a Butternut Squash Soup recipe on Recipezaar.com.

What came out was amazing! I'm so glad I made this soup. And the hot bread was perfect for it.

The soup came out a bit thicker than I thought it would, but I didn't puree all of the squash. Perhaps it would have been soupy-er if I had. I didn't have heavy cream so I omitted it entirely and I don't think it was missed. I did top with bacon and sour cream. The soup cooked very quickly, within 45 minutes.

Altogether a delicious lunch for a cold day!

Again with Baby Jesus!

Once again this year I have had to remind my children not to play with Baby Jesus. My husband wanted to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving this year. The tension in my shoulders increased by ten-fold.

You see, to me, Christmas decorations mean endlessly telling my children to stop touching Baby Jesus. And that the Christmas tree ornaments are not toys. And that no, we can not watch stupid Frosty again because we've already watched it 50 million times today.

Erik accused me of being Scrooge on Monday.

Found in Backyard

We built our home here in Surprise just over 4 years ago. Since that time we have found some random stuff.

We find trash that floats in from other yards. We find nails which scare me since I let my girls run around all the time and frequently they end up outside without shoes.

But yesterday, as I was prepping dinner Reagan came in with a pregnancy stick. Totally without the cap. I kind of freaked out. And no, it wasn't mine. It came from one of our neighbors. And the finding of this particular device now lead to a whole discussion about what it is used for and Mati saying "When I grow up I will use that and a baby will be in my bell." Yikes. Way too early for me to be talking about this. And naturally I told the girls that it was disgusting. And they asked why. And I said because you pee on it. Oh man, what a conversation. And then when we were telling Erik about it at dinner Mati got up and went to try and find it in the garbage. Quite a night at the Wilhelmsens.

Which brings up another thing. The girl next door is troubled. I think she's about 15 or 16 and she hangs out with some questionable characters. And we find plastic chairs by the wall that separates our houses and the screen to what I assume is her bathroom looks like it's been pushed out and replaced. So, either she's sneaking out or someone's sneaking in.

All of this leads me to think that quite possibly the pregnancy test was hers. If so, should I say something to her? Should I mention that I found a pregnancy test in our yard (Which, who would throw it over the side of a wall! Hello? We have small children! Which you know about because you see them and we always say hello. Dude, not cool.) Anyways, Erik seems to think that I should keep my head down. But he's a guy. And from New York. You always keep your nose down over there. But this is my home. And I'm a Christian woman. I kind of want to mention it and ask her if she needs any help or someone to talk to. What do you think?

Christmas Movies

I have been enjoying a wonderful month of readings from The Queen. She's posted every day for one month. I feel encouraged to do the same this month. And since it's December 1, I thought I might as well go for it.

I can not promise anything awesome. But I do so want to get into the habit of regular blog posting. It's so nice to have a place where I can vent or enlighten.

How do you feel about the animated Christmas movies? My husband is an ENORMOUS fan of the animated 60's Christmas movies. Like Rudolph the "Red Nosed Reindeer". However, now my children are sharing in the obsession. Every day it's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Frosty the Snowman". Do you know how annoying it is to sing "Frosty the Snowman" while trying to fall asleep at night? Cause that's what I have been doing every night for the past week. Now in all fairness, my least favorite of the animated seasonal films is "The Grinch". But Frosty should be melted eternally in my opinion. I am so in favor of global warming with Frosty. (This does not mean that I believe global warming actually exists, because I don't. Anyways, another post for another day.)

I do like most Christmas movies, though. Just not the animated ones. I like Mickey's Christmas Carol. So, there's one.

My favorite Christmas movie, which is not really a Christmas movie is "Meet Me in St. Louis" with Judy Garland. It's so good. I just love it. I love the songs. I love that the climax is on Christmas Eve. I love that Vincent Minnelli directed Judy Garland and because of that they married. (Well, he turned out to be gay, but anyways, it's a neat love story.) And because of that movie my favorite Christmas song is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

My second favorite Christmas movies are a tie between "White Christmas" and "It's a Wonderful Life". White Christmas because of the Sisters number. I love the part where Bing and that other guy danced and lip synched the Sister's song to provide an escape for the girls.

And "It's a Wonderful Life" always reminds me that life is not hopeless and when we feel small and insignificant God has a wonderful plan for us. We can not know the impact we have on people simply by being alive. I love that movie. Makes me cry just thinking about it.

What are your favorite Christmas movies?

I love me some satire...

My friend Chandy sent me this link over Facebook. It is quite possibly one of the funniest things I've read. Hopefully this will help distract you from the horrendous things going down on Capital Hill today...

In Memory Of...

Have you ever seen those stickers on cars that say "In memory of..." and list of someone who had died? I honestly do not get those things. What, is the driver driving in memory of their dead loved on? Does the driver contribute gasoline fumes in honor of the person who has passed on? And if so, what kind of token is that? I pollute because I loved this person... I just don't get it.

I know this is probably coming from the insensitive-Jessica. (As opposed to the quiet, keep it to myself Jessica.) But I just wanted to get this off my chest.

To me this is just like those stupid Facebook causes. Are any diseases actually being cured by being a fan of one on Facebook? I don't think so. Just like, are you really driving like a maniac in honor of your dead loved one?

Of course I feel horrible for the people left behind. But advertising it on your car?

Growing like a Beanstalk

Jack is seriously big. Yesterday at his month appointment he weighed in at 9 lbs 10 oz. He gained over a pound in two weeks. How awesome is that?

He is the first of my womb-fruit that I am not concerned about milk-supply. Apparently I can finally feed a baby of mine sufficiently, praise the Lord! I am milk-endowed. Maybe I can pump it and sell it for money... You know, it's a hard time right now. Of course I need to keep it going for Jack so I probably won't do that.

Anyways, I know it's no big deal to you but this appointment was incredibly affirming for me. I had a very difficult time nursing Reagan and I ran out of milk with Matilyn. So with Jack, maybe we'll make it a full six months or more. That would be a huge financial blessing for us, now that I think about it. I have always figured formula would be a part of our budget, but maybe not this time. God does know what we need when we need it, doesn't he?