European History

I happened upon this today and thought it was worth sharing. It's a good place to go if you wonder what happened in Europe in 2500 BC.

BBC Interactive Timeline

A Story About Little Spike

*Note* I have been trying to decide whether or not to put the whole “labor story” on this blog. Of course, at the end of the day...it is my blog, and I can post what I want. I’ll keep it short. If you would like to hear more about the labor or hypnobirthing call me…if you would like to hear less about the labor don’t read this post. Just look at the cute pictures.

Little Spike was “due” to make her appearance on January, 31, 2007; but, like her mom and dad, she seemed to like putting off major things that she didn’t feel like doing. After almost being induced on Sunday, February 10, she caught a break and was given a 24 hour extension to come into the world on her own….within three hours of that extension, her mom went into labor.

Spike’s mom labored at home for about 12 hours and then headed into the hospital. After six more hours in the hospital, Spike still wasn’t too keen on coming out. Her mom decided to take advantage of the medical intervention available (an epidural and Pitocin) to hurry her along. Another five hours and it was time to push…but Spike had one more idea. She had always loved having her hands in her mouth and next to her face while she was in her mom’s tummy so she thought, “why not on the way out?” Unfortunately, that made it so it was impossible for her mom to push her out, and after 2 ½ hours of pushing, Little Spike and her mom were rolled into the operating room for a C-Section. At 5:57 AM Spike entered the world and became Azalea Lois Walker. When her mom saw the little cone on her head she felt awful for the pushing she had done. (Seriously, Zayley, I’m sorry about the pushing…I’m glad your head has corrected itself)

Although Zayley took a while to make it here, her parents are so happy to have her (and don’t even get me started on the grandparents). She is a sweet and adorable baby. Definitely worth the wait.

And the winner is.....

Well, as you can see by the next post we have finally had our baby... 12 days overdue. Some of you may recall that we had a contest to see who could guess the birth date/time. Unfortunately, even the most conservative of you guessed 4 days too early. Of course, there will always be someone who was the closest, in this case, Makenna, who guessed about 87 hours early! Contratulations, we'll get you your prize asap.

On a side note, Miranda guessed that her due date was going to be 02/12/2008 a cople of days after we found out she was pregnant! She would have been the winner but was disqualified as she was too closely involved in the birthing process.

Also, you can see the final birth poll spreadsheet at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pErgDkdqjjvt8s0Aqfa1meg

Look at the Baby

Her name is Azalea Lois Walker. She was born on 02/12/2008 just before 6:00 am. 8 pounds 5 ounces and 20 inches long. Miranda'll put up some more words later if she has anything more to say. Until then, enjoy the pictures.


No more of this:

Dear Arrested Development,

I Love you.
However, I have a request. I'm not sleeping well these days and when I have dreams about you it is even worse. My dreams that feature Arrested Development characters are...too weird. I promise to do all I can to finish watching the 3rd season before the baby comes but regardless, I need you to stay out of my dreams.

Thank You.

This Will Work For Sure

I'm assuming that anybody who has been pregnant knows that by the time you're 41 weeks along, you're sick to death of your maternity clothes. So today I decided that I'd like to buy this pretty new sweater to add some newness to my collection.

I also think that buying a new maternity shirt will make me go into labor just because Little Spike won't be able to resist the irony.

Making Minestrone

Now that I am not working, I suddenly have some time on my hands, so last Monday I decided to:
1. Practice taking pictures with my sweet camera while there was natural light
2. Make some Minestrone

Nate and I both really like Minestrone but I've never made it. I have not idea why not, since it is basically vegetable soup...but I digress. I knew I wanted to make it in the crock pot, so I found a recipe in my new crock-pot cookbook that my brother gave me for Christmas.


I got all of my lovely fresh produce at my new favorite (and almost exclusive) grocery store, Sunflower Market. Here's a picture of all the ingredients "mise en place" which is French for "set in place" and basically means that all of your ingredients are ready to go, preferably measured out/chopped/prepared before your start cooking. You read about doing this all the time in cookbooks but I basically never do it (shocking)...but I'll be darned if it doesn't speed things up in the end.

One thing you should know about me is that when I cook from a recipe (especially for soups) I rarely follow the size recommendations for vegetables. If the recipe calls for a medium onion chopped...I chop an onion...regardless of size. If it calls for two small carrots...I put in two carrots. Sometimes it occurs to me that I may have over chopped one thing in particular so I might try to decrease the amount of something else...say Zuchinni in this case (you're welcome Nate). Buuuuut...usually I think to myself, "it'll be fine, it's not like we're going to think there's too many onions in this soup."

Remember I'm practicing my photography skills...hence all the artsy angles.

Anyway, I'm thinking that my generous use of vegetables is why most of my "soups" turn out to be more like "stew." Because...you know...I follow the recipe exactly when it calls for the amount of liquid.

This recipe called for a dry red wine. I used to use cooking wine, but a few of the articles I've read about cooking with wine made me feel like I might as well be cooking with toilet water. So I lugged my pregnant, Mormon self to the liquor store to purchase these cute little single serving bottles of wine. They come in packs of four...isn't that great!


And here is the final product. Made complete with fresh parmesan and sourdough bread. Mmmm. It was delicious.

**I'd now like to put in a plug for Laurel's friend's new blog. Grant has some pretty hilarious posts about his new slow cooker. I'd also like to say that if Grant happens to read this particular post, he needs to know that I do not recommend this cookbook for him because I think the recipes require more preparation than he's willing to do...but I could be wrong.