My Crazy Kids

I sure love my husband, in all his geekiness. :) I thought it was time for a kid update (all of which are taking afternoon naps right now - it's a miracle!)... here we go.

Ellie - Ellie and I do 'school' every day (usually), which means we do a worksheet or two, and fun projects. She is one smart cookie. She's writing her letters and numbers and sounding out words. She loves playing with her friends, playing games on the computer, and making crafts. She is a good big sister (usually) and loves to play with Maren and make Everett laugh. She is a great helper and is a go-getter for mom and dad. Maren - She is our little comedian. She is always doing things to make us laugh, such as this:Every night she puts on her pajama shirt so her face is sticking out and declares, "I'm a flower!" She came up with this all on her own. Or, how about this: What a silly girl. She is talking in complete sentences (and has been for awhile now), and her speech is clearer every day. She loves her babies and is always carrying or strolling them around and especially putting them to bed. She tries to take care of Everett (yesterday I found she had put Snow White to bed with him, after she had put his plug in his mouth). She repeats everything her big sister says and does, which is cute, most of the time.

Warren Everett - The last two nights, he slept all the way through, like from 8 to 7 (or later). You go, son! He is not crawling yet, but that doesn't stop him from getting what he wants. He's rolling and scooting in circles. He grunts and growls and is starting to 'talk' to us. He loves to eat real food, as evidenced in the photo below, taken at Grandpa's house:Oreos count as real food, right? He is a content boy, thank goodness. These little munchkins sure keep me busy, but man, I love my job.

Egg shells

I've been annoyed lately whenever I try to make egg salad. Those dang shells stick to the egg whites more tightly than a balding man to the last remaining hairs of his comb-over. I've asked Google, and she referred me to several web sites that have varying opinions.
A common idea was that fresh eggs always stick (I can attest to that from back when I had some hens). However, these recent boiled eggs certainly are not all that fresh. I'm thinking the eggs I've been getting are some new breed of chicken or from chickens given feed that makes their egg shells stick no matter the age of the egg.
Another site said that fresh eggs have a pH around 7.9 when fresh, and over time, the pH increases to around 9, and something about that causing carbon dioxide to exit the egg, and the membrane becomes thinner and sticks less. Others said to lightly crack the eggs after boiling, and then put in cold water to cool, and then peel.
Other sites said a trick is to put a tablespoon of vinegar into the water. This one seemed to contradict the pH explanation, since vinegar has a pH of somewhere between 2.4-3.4 -- if I wanted to raise the pH, it would seem I should be adding baking soda, which has a pH of around 8.2.
So, being the stats nerd that I am, I decided to try an experiment, albeit not really all that scientific -- I didn't want to mess with more than 2 pots and 4 eggs. So we'll say the control group was the eggs I boiled last night, and the experimental eggs I boiled tonight had a terribly low sample size. Anyway, to one pot went 1 tablespoon of vinegar and two eggs, to the other, 1 tablespoon of baking soda. I brought both to a boil, and set the timer for 10 minutes. Afterward, I removed the eggs, labeled them, and made a small crack at the top of the shell on the large end of one egg from each pot. They immediately went into a bowl of ice water for 20 minutes, and then were peeled.
The results:

Cooking Method	Peeling result
Baking soda, cracked shell	Peeled cleanly, but shell was a little difficult to remove.
Baking soda, uncracked shell	Lost lots of white due to heavy sticking.
Vinegar, cracked shell	Peeled fairly easily and cleanly.
Vinegar, uncracked shell	Peeled cleanly, fairly easy shell removal.

So there you have it. Add a tablespoon of vinegar to the water, and then lightly crack the shells before cooling in cold water.
And before you say I'm such a geek, remember that you'll most likely be trying this technique too!

Vacation, Part II - Happiest Place on Earth

So, since Nick and I have been married we've wanted to do a Disneyland vacation, but the timing was always off - I was pregnant, our kids were too little, it was too expensive, etc., etc. Well, a couple months ago we decided there would never be a perfect time. We were just going to do it and make the most of it. We made our reservations and looked forward to it all summer long. Well, I'm certainly glad we did because it was an awesome vacation. We all had a great time, and if we could go again tomorrow, we would. That was a lot of italics, just so you know that we had some serious fun. We had 5 day park-hopper passes, and used every day about to the max (well, minus a little siesta in the afternoons). On day 4 and 5 my brother's family joined us, which just added to the fun. So, photos...lots and lots of photos...

Day One: We had no idea what time the parks opened, so we were wandering Downtown Disney to waste some time. Well, it wasn't really a waste, as we found a new favorite treat: beignets. Yum. Autopia:

Day Two: We spent the day in California Adventure. Our first stop was Mickey's Wheel. We chose the swinging gondolas. Bad choice. It totally freaked the girls out. Like, big time. I've never seen such fear in their eyes. It didn't help when Nick says, "I'm kind of scared, too."

This photo is fuzzy, but I had to include Mr. E's sweet smiling face.

This is Ellie and Nick on the Grizzly River Run. We were very impressed with Ellie. She was very brave and rode on just about everything she was tall enough for. The fast, jerky roller coasters scared her, so by the end of the week she passed on those, but I was proud of her for trying. She loved Splash Mountain and rode it three times.

That night we attended World of Color, which was pretty amazing, as Disney does.

Day Three: We spent the morning back in California Adventure.

And the afternoon at the beach.

We went back to Disneyland that evening and had a much-raved over Dole Whip, which, by the way, we didn't find all it was talked up to be, unfortunately.

Day Four: Accompanied by my brother and his family (actually, he took most of these photos...we only brought our little snap-shot into the parks) we headed back to California Adventure.

Later in the afternoon, we headed back over to Disneyland. Here, Everett is enjoying a Mickey sucker.

That night, we had to stop and get more beignets before heading back for a promised dip in the pool. Double yum.

Day Five: The opening day of Disney's Halloween season, which meant we got to ride on Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion (both of which were closed beforehand in preparation).

A classic: It's a Small World (the girls loved it).

Cyn and Madison took Ellie and Everett while the rest of us waited for about an hour for the Haunted Mansion. By the way, that was the longest wait our entire trip. Most of the rides we walked on all week long, almost no waiting at all. Anyway, they visited with Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore (Ellie apparantly wanted nothing to do with Eeyore).

And this one was taken while Nick, Madison, Ryan and I did Space Mountain:

Lookin' good at the end of the day...

That night we stayed for Fantasmic and Fireworks. No one does fireworks like Disney does. Did I already say we had fun? Man, we had fun.

Sweet Baby

Did you check out the photos of this sweet baby on my photography blog? I'm just a tad bit proud of how well they came out. :)

Vacation, Part I - The Beach

Last week, we went on vacation. Oh man, how I love being away from home, just with my little family. It was so nice. The main event was Disneyland (photos to come), but you can't bring a Utahn to California without hitting the beach. In fact, after settling into our hotel we tried to get the sunset (at Sunset Beach, no less), which we missed by just a few minutes. Behold, the beach...

I loved Everett's silhouette in this one.

In the middle of the week, we took a few hours away from Disney to enjoy some more sand and water, this time at Huntington Beach:

Everett has always been fascinated by different textures, so he was in heaven letting the sand run through his tiny little fingers.

I love my mountains, I do, but there is nothing like sitting on the beach and listening to the waves crashing and watching your kids dig and dig and dig. Love it.