A Little Bit Blue

This amazing baby girl... was three yesterday!

Starting to not be so baby-like any more.

Calista's been talking about her birthday ever since Kyler's in May. She tried to say she was three already, so we told her after she blew out a candle on her cake, then she would be three. When it got closer to her birthday, I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. "A BLUE cake!"

So, a blue cake it was.

She even "helped" me make it, mostly by excitedly repeating, "My BLUE cake! I eat it now," every step of the way and stealing the lemons to lick them ("Yummy," she said as she made a face).

But she couldn't eat it yet. She had to wait until her after her presents!

What a haul this little girl got.

 More train sets, movies, bubbles...

Life is good when you're three!

Especially when you get to have all your favorite foods and play at parks with Daddy, Mommy, and Baby Craig!

But don't worry, Calista eventually got her BLUE cake.

And it did not disappoint.

 Once she blew out the candle, it was time to dig in.

Yum!

Happy Birthday, (not so) baby girl!

Drool... chocolate...

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. While I'm not Catholic, the idea of fasting from something, and trying to increase my spirituality while I do so, is intriguing to me. So, this year, I am fasting from chocolate. That's right: my goal, from Ash Wednesday (today) until Holy Thursday (April 5, the day before Good Friday), is to not eat chocolate. Wish me luck.
And, in typical Fat Tuesday fashion, last night, Kyler and I made this.

Happy Lent, everyone.

Something to sink her teeth into

Calista's opinion of apple slices:

For Calista's opinion of just about everything else (including apple puree, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and carrots), see the previous post.

Silly baby.

Let the mess begin!

Calista is ready to eat!

 Here, Mom, let me help you.

Yum?

Time for solid food?

Namely... fish!

Calista has started grabbing at just about anything, including my hands while I'm trying to change her diaper. Changing a diaper while a baby is trying to suck on your forearm is not easy, so I gave her a fish to hold on to instead.

Yummy rainbow trout. Who wouldn't want some?

Japanese stuffing

A week ago Monday, it was Canadian Thanksgiving. Why on earth they have it on a Monday, and not a Thursday which basically guarantees Friday off (and thus a four day weekend), I don't know. Crazy Canucks. Not really the point, though, I suppose?  P.S.: Blogger says "Canucks" is spelled wrong. Is it not a real word in the Google-universe? Weird. The point is, we went down to Raymond and spent a some time with friends and family, which was nice. Definitely one of the perks to living so close to Kyler's family.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, we spent time with Kyler's friends and also went to the Japanese Gardens in Lethbridge. Kyler's mother had passes, but she wasn't going to use them before they closed for the season, so we decided to walk around. It was beautiful! Not terribly huge, but pretty. There was even a wedding party taking pictures... I'm sure they got some good ones!
Calista had been enjoying the sling-carrier earlier in the day, but she was not liking it while we walked around the gardens. So, we (mostly Kyler) carried her instead and she was much happier.

She and I in front of the pretty waterfall.

Kyler and Calista with the Friendship Bell.

Baby profile with pretty background!

Absolutely beautiful, with all the fall colors! Wow!

Sunday and Monday we spent hanging out with family, and of course, eating really good food, including the best stuffing I've ever had. Maria did a good job!
Two random pictures of those two days:

She is wearing a bow and nothing else! Okay, so she has a diaper and is all wrapped up in a blanket, but still... Funnily enough, the bow didn't actually make it to church... she kept pulling it into her eyes and then getting mad that it was there, so we decided to nix the bow.

Baby toes! Who doesn't love baby toes?

I'm not nesting, just making messes.

Today, I...

• Took Kyler to work
• Went grocery shopping
• Ran the dishwasher
• Made two pans of enchiladas
• Made two pans of lasagna
• Made the apparently now-traditional Canada Day "trifle"
• Cleaned the kitchen
• Ran the dishwasher (again)
• Took out the trash

...all before noon.

I think it's time to sit down for a while.

Who needs McDonalds?

So, it's been a little while since I updated, mostly because Kyler reformatted to laptop and I was too lazy to reinstall the picture downloading stuff, but since that excuse is pathetic at best... let's just move on to the first of the bite-sized chunks.

Kyler went and had a birthday! I know, it's shocking, but this kind of thing seems to happen every year... so we celebrated it.
We went to tasty Tucano's, where Kyler did not actually eat himself sick, surprisingly. Then we went to the movies and I got to oogle Chris Hemsworth while Kyler got to enjoy a super hero/comic book movie. For the record, Thor is a fun movie and we enjoyed it.
The most important part of his birthday? His present. Kyler told me he wanted a toaster that cooks eggs. That's right, he wanted something because of an internet meme. But, I humor him, and so he got his toaster. And, oh yes, he's enjoyed it so far:The breakfast of champions!

Happiness is... breakfast.

So, last Saturday, when we were planning meals for the coming week, Kyler and I decided we want to have breakfast-for-dinner one of the nights. "Kyler," I say to him, "do you want pancakes, french toast, waffles, breakfast burritos, breakfast casserole, or something else?" He pauses, thinking, and then answers, "All of them!" So, we decided to have breakfast every day this last week for dinner... and it was fantastic! I think my personal favorite were the waffles, because we bought fresh strawberries to put on them. YUM.
What you should learn from reading this: Kyler is a genius, and breakfast is tasty!

Any other theme meal ideas that would be fun?

Who needs to grow up? Who needs to know their future? Over-rated!

As previously promised, this episode of Kyler and Jeanette features a healthy dose of pretending to be seven, a fair amount of wishing for phone calls, a little disappointment, some decent food, and something to look forward to. But I can't spoil the plot so soon! You must be patient!

First, Kyler and I pretend to be seven years old. I realized that in the entire eight months we've lived in this apartment (such an eternity!), we hadn't made a fort. This thought immediately shamed me, and the planning began. Cookies were made, furniture rearranged, and movies netflixed. As a result, Kyler and I had a fort to be proud of:We even spent the night in it, and it wasn't too bad. We used all the couch cushions as a mattress.

Second, the days were accomplished that Kyler should hear from grad schools, offering interviews, and giving us a definite future instead of the unknown. Days came and went, and no phone calls, no emails, no letters... no known future. Interview weekend for at least one of the schools (if not all) has now past, and Kyler has heard nothing. Needless to say, he was a little disappointed. However, we did as I promised: we'd go out to dinner wherever Kyler wanted, whether in celebration or in consolation. In this case, it ended up being the latter. However, the consolation food appeared to have worked:

Before

After

(Okay, so he's really bad at looking sad, or even happy, when he's told to for the camera. Use your imagination a bit.)

Third, the Olympics are just around the corner! In less than a week, we will be heading out to Portland, and then a few days after that, up to Vancouver, British Columbia! Who needs silly sporting events like the Superbowl (especially when you don't have TV) when the OLYMPICS are so close?
And, as a bonus, here is a description of a less-than-typical,-but-not-altogether-strange day at work:
9:55 AM - Get to work (I'm working the later shift today). Paulette is not at her desk, and I put my stuff down and am about to go see if I can find her or if she needs help with anything.
9:56 AM - Get a page that there is blood in the clinic. Instead of finding Paulette, I decide to go pick it up.
9:56:30 AM - Jan calls. "Jeanette! You're here!" "Yes." "Did you get that page?" "Yes." "Are you going to go pick it up?" "Yes." "Great! Paulette's in the OR, call us if you need any help." "Okay."
9:58 AM - Start processing blood.
10:45 AM - Get paged by gross room. A surgery that had been a mastectomy yesterday and today is a lumpectomy creates a rather large piece of tissue, and the staff doesn't want to get in trouble.
10:50 AM - Get to gross room. The lumpectomy is rather large; the tumor is not.
11:15 AM - Come back to the lab empty handed.
11:16 AM - Continue processing blood.
11:30 AM - In between blood spins, embed some polyps in paraffin.
11:35 AM - Continue processing blood.
12:15 PM - Tell Paulette to go to lunch. She might never get the chance otherwise.
1:10 PM - Meet Kyler for lunch! Yay!
1:50 PM - Continue processing blood.
3:15 PM - Paulette changes out of scrubs and goes home.
3:30 PM - Get called into the OR at the University.
3:32 PM - Leave Lab Aides in charge of blood processing; change into scrubs.
3:40 PM - Wander around University Hospital, trying to find OR 4.
3:45 PM - Find OR 4; collect tissue.
3:50 PM - Get paged by Huntsman OR.
3:51 PM - Get patient information on University OR patient
3:52 PM - Get paged by the Lab Aides.
3:53 PM - Leave University OR; call Lab Aides
3:55 PM - Head to Huntsman OR 4.
4:02 PM - Meet Lab Aide at Huntsman OR Front Desk; trade tissue from University OR for collection equipment for Huntsman OR 4.
4:05 PM - Enter Huntsman OR 4.
4:15 PM - See blood splatter all over the surgeon's neck and face mask.
4:25 PM - Breast is removed.
4:30 PM - Enter gross room with breast.
4:40 PM - Receive tissue from staff.
4:42 PM - Get paged by Huntsman OR 1.
4:43 PM - Freeze cancerous breast tissue.
4:44 PM - Get paged by Lab Aides.
4:45 PM - Freeze "normal" breast tissue.
4:47 PM - My boss enters gross room: my favorite surgeon needs me in the OR.
4:48 PM - Grab cryotubes, a pen, and liquid nitrogen.
4:50 PM - Enter Huntsman OR 1.
4:51 PM - Inform my favorite surgeon that Thais no longer works here and hasn't for 10 months.
4:52 PM - Start freezing vials of polyps.
4:55 PM - Freeze "normal" colon.
4:58 PM - Thank my favorite surgeon and leave OR.
5:00 PM - Realize I've been away from the lab, on my feet, and constantly moving for the last hour and half.
5:01 PM - Collect my equipment that I left in the gross room.
5:02 PM - Head back to the lab.
5:10 PM - Enter lab; Aides are hard at work finishing/starting several patients worth of blood.
5:12 PM - Weigh tissue from University Hospital.
5:20 PM - Start entering tissue from University Hospital into the computer tracking system.
5:30 PM - Weigh breast tissue
5:40 PM - Start entering breast tissue into the computer tracking system.
5:50 PM - Check on Lab Aides
5:55 PM - Decide to change out of scrubs.
5:59 PM - Colon can wait until Monday to be weighed and entered into the system, right? As long as it stays frozen...
6:02 - Log off computer.
6:05 - Lock up drawers with patient information.
6:06 - Check on Lab Aides.
6:12 - Head out to the car.
6:15 - Thank heavens that Kyler is picking me up.

Oooh, the incident!

Thanksgiving is fast approaching, for which there is much rejoicing in the Rasmussen World. Days off of school and work, lots of food, and time to relax. Hallelujah.

For my birthday, I got a couple of fun things:From my mother, the new pie plate. I think she noticed my comments here, and decided to fix it. Isn't it pretty? She got me a scarf, too, but it didn't look good on my fancy-schmancy table. I can't wait to try out Thanksgiving pie in it, too!

From Kyler, I received a gift card... for Dress Barn. Included in this gift was the offer of him coming with me, helping me shop as long as I wanted, and not complaining. He did a great job! Here is a picture of one thing I bought, and maybe someday I'll get the skirt I bought up here, too.
In case you were wondering, the dress in navy blue. I might be hard to tell in this picture.

And, now, we will discuss "The Incident." Last night, Kyler called me at about the time I was expecting him home and informed me he was stuck on the freeway. He's done this before, and always said there's an accident or really bad traffic or something. This time, though, his voice is shaking a little, and he goes on to tell me, "I lost a tire. Can you call AAA?" I'm freaking out a little, but I ask him all the good stuff, like which exit he's near and stuff. However, my freaking out is probably nothing to his freaking out, since he's still sitting in the middle of the freeway, and can't really move because a) there are cars driving fast around him and b) his tire is a hundred feet in front of him, not firmly attached to the wheel as it should be. Exciting.
AAA was really nice and got him a tow to our apartment (since I have the AAA membership, not him), and then I got to hear the whole story from Kyler. He's driving at, like, 70 MPH when suddenly the car starts to want to turn (like the front tire is flat and it's trying to pull that direction). He's trying to get over to the right side and off the freeway when he starts hearing weird/bad noises, and then he sees his tire rolling away in front of him. This all happened in, like, a minute. Now the boy is stuck in the left lane, and doesn't make it over to the side until a cop comes and helps him. There he stays until the tow truck gets there. The tire is still on the side of the freeway (the opposite side Kyler ended up on, he decided not to try to get it). And now, a picture or two of the carnage:There is no tire there! Just a little bit of rubber. The prognosis appears mostly good, though: Kyler didn't die. The car is completely fine. The rims appear undamaged. The tires are under warranty, though discontinued, so they gave us a used one to use until they order another one for us from some special place. All in all, things are well. Scary, though. Definitely scary.

Ooooh, the incident!

Life=Good, as simple equation

A little more than a week ago, I went to the doctor's office. No, I am not sick or pregnant; I was given a clean bill of health, actually, and I was there to make sure I stay that way. The doctor asked me some about Kyler and if he was nice to me, how work was, if there are any huge stresses in my life... basically, he just wanted to know if I was okay. I told him, "Life is good." I realized just how true that sentence is. I am loved by family and friends, I have a job that allows me to sustain myself and Kyler, and the world is generally a happy place for me. Life is good.

In other news, I got my passport! I am now free to move about the world. I have to wonder, though, why I was required to send in two identical pictures with the application. They sent the second one back to me with my birth certificate, so why not just send in one picture in the first place? What in the world do I want with a second photo that is not terribly attractive? Eh.
So, Canada is officially an option for Christmas for me! Yay! We'll see if it's an option for Kyler, though...

Kyler took me to the opera yesterday, The Tales of Hoffman, performed at BYU. Strange opera, quite entertaining, but strange. Kyler's had to go to a few things for a humanities class he's taking, and he's brought me along. I can't say I've minded so far, and the one thing left for him to go to is the Utah Symphony... fun!

There's more going on, but it's all the same: I work, Kyler works and goes to school, application deadlines for grad schools are fast approaching, and we enjoy eating tasty food. Yum.A homemade pot pie. That's right, folks, I made this, crust and all. The crust recipe has been handed down in my family for generations......Doesn't it look tasty? Kyler ate half of it for dinner. And, yes, it's in a round cake pan instead of a pie pan. I don't own a pie pan, but this does deep dish very well.

Like I said, life is good.

As seen on TV! (Or, in my apartment after graduation)

And now, I proudly present to you for your viewing and gustatory pleasure, the Chicken Corn Sauté! I will list the recipe as it is in the book, but also make my comments about how Kyler and I do our own thing.
Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cut into bite-sized pieces (about 1 pound)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
• 1 cup chopped onion (Kyler and I never measure, we just use a medium sized onion or so. I like onion.)
• 2 medium green bell peppers, cut into strips
• 1 medium red bell pepper, cut into strips (A few things about the bell peppers: 1) Kyler and I generally only use one because it works fine. 2) If you don't like green or red peppers, kind of like me, try the orange or yellow/gold ones. They're not as contrasting in color, but they taste better in my opinion.)
• 1 package (10 ounces) frozen whole kernel corn, thawed (Kyler and I just use a can of corn. We drain it and call it good)
• Hot pepper sauce (optional)

Kyler and I like to eat it on rice, but that is also optional, and not mentioned in the recipe.

Directions:

1. Combine chili powder and salt in shallow dish. Add chicken. Turn to coat. (This does not make it as spicy as it sounds like it will! It's just really good!)
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in large skillet on medium-high heat. Add chicken. Cook and stir until no longer pink in center. Remove to serving dish.
3. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in skillet. Add onion. Cook and stir 2 minutes or until tender. Add bell peppers. Cook and stir 3 to 4 minutes or until crisp-tender. Add corn. Heat thoroughly, stirring occasionally. Return chicken to skillet to reheat. Season with hot pepper sauce (and serve over rice?) if desired.

Enjoy your tasty, tasty meal! Approved by Kyler, Jeanette, Maria, Karina, Richard, Debra, Loradona, and Maurine, to name a few!