The Grand Cake Canyon

Last night i was looking at pinterest and came across another post about insulating cake pans with wet towels to help them cook level. My evening had been filled with MANY exhausting pleas to my kids to get pjs on, clean up toys, brush teeth... approximately 465,732 pleas for each task. I needed cake. Almost every evening is the same, but most nights i am far too tired and unmotivated to bake, especially considering my kitchen is usually a disaster zone. I HATE cooking in a messy kitchen. 

So i cut up an old rag towel to experiment with insulating my cake pans. It totally worked! My cake layers baked up perfectly level; however, they both had huge cracks in them. Behold, the grand cake canyon currently filled with frosting. It runs far deeper than it looks. Good thing im not too concerned about looks. Good thing a bit of extra frosting is never a bad thing.

Monday was our 8 year wedding anniversary. Most people at adam's work are surprised to hear adam has three kids, which always leads to "how long have you been married?!" "8years!!!" Yeah we are solid veterans now ;) I don't tell them about all the families i know that have 5, 6,7 kids and have been married for 15 years and are still in their 30s. 

Adam made me a steak dinner at home with cheesecake for dessert and gorgeous red roses as a centerpiece. My contribution was a candle holder from Savers and candles from Target. The candles were a bit of a splurge. Fortunately, my love for Adam far exceeds my contribution to our dinner. 

Lucky for Adam he gets to continue to celebrate how wonderful I am with my birthday on Saturday and Mother's Day the week after that. April and May are really great months! 

Tessa-bo-bessa

Tessa gets a lot of nicknames around here. Tessa-bo-bessa, Messy Tessy, Tessanator(this one legit)...

We love her.

When i give her a peanut butter sandwich (or any sandwich) she opens it up and eats the peanut butter with her fingers.

I put her down for a nap this afternoon with a fruit snack still in her hand.  I figured she'd pop it in her mouth and then fall asleep.  When i got her up she still had the green fruit snack clutched in her hand (and a smile on her face), but now it was warm and sticky. 

One of her front teeth is turning gray. She hit it on something when she fell off the bunkbed a couple of weeks ago. Tessa is actually a very proficient climber. She normally climbs the bunkbed several times a day with ease.  This time she found Shane's reading log and the colored pencil he uses to mark it.  Tessa really loves coloring. She hit the jackpot. However, climbing down the ladder was not nearly so easy when each of her hands was full. The result was blood and tears. Dr. Mom came to the rescue with milk and snuggles. I'm just glad she didn't poke her eye out with the pencil! 

P.S. Today Adam and i have been married for 8 years. I'm happy to report we still love each other. A lot.

Life As We Know It

Playing in the rain - visit from Grandmas and Grandpas - soccer in the fall - Makenzie's "girl" mohawk - trick-or-treating with friends

Visit to the LDS temple in Washington D.C. to see the light festival

Breakfast with Santa at Dad's work.

Father/Son hike up Camelback Mtn.

Visit to Butterfly museum with cousins and grandma and grandpa.

Making cinnamon rolls with Grandma.

Christmas morning in Arizona.

August Whirlwind

August gets its own post because we actually did stuff that had nothing to do with unpacking, organizing or running errands. It was great.

The kids and I went on a short trip back to Ohio. We stayed with some of our best friends. It was so nice to see so many good friends again, to catch up, let the kids play, and just enjoy being back in such a wonderfully familiar place. It was actually really nice to say a second good-bye too, one that wasn't hampered by the commotion of moving. It really helped me to let go. 

(That doesn't mean I like my tiny apartment in Baltimore though. I'll be so grateful for a larger place next year if we stick around.) 

Bonus!! : we got to drop in on some more of our best Ohio friends who had recently moved to Pittsburgh. It was so good to see them! 

We went hiking to the Gunpowder river with some friends where the kids all "slid" down a waterfall. There was a bigger one and then a little one. Shane did the big one with his floaty a couple of times while I sat at the bottom to catch him, but he loved the little one and went down it over and over again. Makenzie didn't really care too much about getting in the water. Her and her new friend sat on the rocks for most of the time just chatting away. It was one of the most blissful days for us since moving here. Exactly what we needed to start feeling more at home.

Apparently the head of all graduate programs for Medstar Hospitals (where Adam works) is a Buckeye fan. Who knew? Well, the first game of the season just happened to be at the Ravens stadium in Baltimore where Medstar owns a box suite. The head of graduate programs got special permission to open it up for the game and invite anyone she wanted so she searched the database looking for OSU Alumni. Score!! I was so sad when we left Ohio that I had never made it to a Buckeye football game. But now I got my chance. It was so spectacular watching our beloved buckeyes in person and spending the whole day with Adam! I couldn't stop smiling or touching Adam's arm. I think he might have gotten a little annoyed, but to his credit he had just come from working the night shift and had only slept a couple of hours. He was so exhausted. 

Shane is 6 years old now! It doesn't really seem weird to me, but maybe that is because I've been telling people he is 6 for the last couple of months. 

A most wonderful friend came to my rescue and watched the kids for a bit so I could go buy Shane's birthday presents. I don't know what I would have done without her help! 

The cake ended up tasting kind of gross, but the kids couldn't tell. Tessa LOVED it (if you can't tell from the picture). 

The Saturday after Shane's birthday was when we wanted to celebrate since Adam had the day off. Course he is on the night shift so he was sleeping during the day. Makenzie had a party to go to, so with some help from another friend I was able to take Shane on a special birthday day trip while Makenzie was gone. We went down to Inner Harbor to tour the USS Torsk (WWII Submarine) and the USS Constellation (Civil War Sail Boat). Shane LOVED it! He also really liked listening to the audio tour. He would always keep his eyes out for the numbers so he could punch them in to listen. I loved taking him on a special trip just me and him (ok Tessa tagged along, but he didn't mind). It meant so much to both of us.

School started this month! Shane and Makenzie are both so excited! Shane is in 1st grade this year and Makenzie started Preschool. Makenzie is over the moon excited to be a "school kid" now and Shane is in heaven to be reunited with his best school bud! Shane and his friend met each other last year in Kindergarten as Shane finished out the year in Baltimore. They aren't in the same class this year, but they ride the bus together and play everyday at recess. 

I'm not looking foward to all the driving I'll be doing with dropping off and picking up at preschool, but I'm really excited for Makenzie to feel like a big kid and to get some one on one time with Tessa.

Here's to hopefully more frequent posting now that we are settling in more.

Later.

Hello Again!

No, we have not dropped off the edge of the earth. Yes, sometimes it feels we have. ;)

Remember a couple posts ago where we were debating between 3 places? Yeah, forget all of that. Adam didn't match, so he scrambled to apply to the last few open positions (CRAZY process). He got an offer in Baltimore, Maryland at Union Memorial hospital. Totally not on my radar! I was shocked and might have had a panic attack or two. We took the offer and are now living in Baltimore! Small clincher: it is only a preliminary year which means our contract is up at the end of the year and we head back to the match process to try to match to a permanent resident position. So, we are in limbo land again. However, I personally think this limbo is much better than the last.

Anyway, Adam is in full swing with his job at the hospital and busier than ever in his life, physically and mentally. He carries a lot of responsibilities and pressure everyday, but he seems to be handling it well. Pretty much he works and sleeps and occasionally eats, squeezing family life somewhere in between all that. Other than having to earn the paycheck, I'm pretty much on my own with everything (even church on Sundays). I thought having Adam work through medical school was hard, which it was, but not as hard as this. However, I've decided I am grateful for Adam working through school because it has made me more prepared for this portion of our life than I otherwise would have been. With all that is going on though I can gladly say that we still love each other and no one has killed anyone...yet. ;)

We are still trying to settle in, make friends, and explore the area. Each month gets easier. We've done some hiking, biking, museum hopping, etc. I have to admit I am really excited about seeing the strong history in this part of the country. In fact one year is definitely not long enough to see everything, so I'm kind of hoping Adam will match here next year (he'll at least try) so we can stay put. Although we miss what we called "home" in Ohio, we are really enjoying it here in Baltimore so far. There is a slight culture shock here because it is dramatically different than any other city I've lived in, but we like it.

Since I haven't blogged in FOREVER. I'm going to do a "best of" picture marathon. Ready for this?

December

Christmas Jammies

January

February

March

April

May

Mexico and Graduation

June

Playing in the rain

July

Trip to D.C.

August gets its own post.

Later.