Rambling

Well, today is my due date, and no baby yet. *sigh* Hopefully it will be any day now.

Also, this Friday is the first day of August, which means that we officially go on month-to-month rent, which is more expensive, and we still haven't found a house. We've looked at almost two dozen houses now, and nothing is looking particularly promising. We were close to putting on offer on one place, but when we had some family members help us look at it a little closer it turned out that it had a lot of problems. There are a three places that we're considering at the moment, but none of them are really ideal. Maybe I'm just too picky.

Option A: Home built in the 50's. Has a great yard, but the house feels really small, only 600 s.f. on each floor. Not a big deal for me, but Adam says he feels like a giant in it. There are only two actual bedrooms, the option for the third bedroom is sort of a large closet with a tiny window in one corner. It's also a bit out of our price range, so we'd have to hope that they'd accept a lower offer.

Option B: Newer home, built 2003, just under our maximum price. Tiny tiny backyard, which I can deal with. But it's way out in Hurricane, and it's a Short Sale. Which means that we could put in an offer, and not hear back from the bank for two or three months. I'm not really willing to sit around and wait for that long.

Option C: Townhome in the Dixie Downs area. Really nice. Didn't really want to stay living in this area, but we'll consider it for the price. No yard, but there is a very large deck off of the master suite (on the roof of the carport) that we can turn into a garden area using planter boxes and such. The big problem with this place is that there are three floors. The master suite is on the top floor, and the other two bedrooms are on the bottom floor. I don't think I could deal with Anicka being that far away. And even if I could, I don't think she would be too keen on sleeping down there all by herself. Also, the bedrooms on the bottom floor have a strange layout, you have to walk through one bedroom to get to the other. I don't think they were originally supposed to be separate rooms.

Anyway. I'm just rambling. This seemed as good a place as any to try and get my thoughts organized. We're going to look at a few more townhomes tonight, maybe we'll come across another option. Wish me luck!

Catching up

Because I've been slacking with the updates lately, here's a bunch of random stuff that has happened in the last month.

About a month ago I took Anicka out and tried to get some pictures to send to the grandparents and such, but all I ended up getting was silliness. Still cute, though.





A couple of weeks ago my sisters came out and spent the day at my apartment. We spent most of our time at the pool. Here's a cute picture of Sienna, Kaycee and Anicka rowing their "pirate ship"


Yesterday Anicka came running out of her bedroom wearing underpants on her head. "look mom, it's a hat!" She was tremendously excited to find that there was more than one use for her My little Pony underwear.





Also yesterday we went out to an awesome new park in Bloomington Hills that has a huge playground a splash pad. Anicka had tons of fun playing with her cousin Ben (Alias: George).
George ( I mean Ben ) is Dusty's youngest. He and Anicka have a very funny love-hate relationship. I tried to upload a cute video of them playing together in the water, but I can't get it to load. So sad.

Memories

All right, I'll play too. :) This game is going around on my friends' blogs, so I thought I'd join in.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

You've all got me reminiscing! I think I'll go read my old journal. Ha.

Apricot Pie

That Apricot pie that I made ended up being really good, so I thought I'd put the recipe up here for anyone who is interested.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups sliced fresh apricots
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 Pastry for double-crust pie (9 inches)
• Milk
• Additional sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. In a bowl, toss apricots, sugar, flour cinnamon and nutmeg. Sprinkle with lemon juice; mix well. Line a 9-in. pie plate with bottom crust; add filling. Roll out remaining pastry to make a lattice crust. Place over filling; seal and flute edges. Brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Cover edges of pastry loosely with foil. Bake at 375 for 45-55 minutes or until golden brown.

This pie was really awesome warm with whipped cream on top. It's like a mix between apple pie and peach cobbler. So yummy.

Busy busy busy

Okay. I guess it's time for an update. We've been really busy lately! Between house hunting, getting everything ready for the baby (only three weeks until the due date!) and trying to keep my apartment clean and my little family fed and happy (increasingly difficult due to swollen feet and aching spine) things have seemed kind of crazy around here. It seems that the second Adam gets home from work we're rushing off somewhere. Hopefully everything will calm down soon.

Anyway.

Our Fourth of July weekend was really great. My dad, my sister Evie and my niece Ashley were all born on the fourth, so it's always a pretty festive weekend for us. Adam had the fourth off, so we were able to sleep in a little (yay!) and then we headed out to my parents house for lunch. After lunch we made zucchini bread, cheesecake and brownies and watched a movie. Then we moved the party outside and let the younger kids break open a piñata, spent an hour filling and tying water balloons, and then had a five minute water fight. (It was totally worth it.)
We had a delicious BBQ chicken dinner, and then headed out to see the fireworks. Nobody felt like driving into St. George for the fireworks, so we just went and lay out on some blankets at the Leeds park. (Leeds does their own fireworks now, how crazy is that?) It was actually a pretty good show, and so relaxing to lay out under the stars instead of sitting uncomfortably on some cliff in St. George. And Sienna, Kaycee and Anicka had a great time playing with some glow sticks that we bought for them(The kind that you can make necklaces and bracelets out of).

I had my camera with me all weekend, but I was having so much fun that I forgot to take any pictures!

After the fireworks we went over to Shane and Dusty's. We spent the night there to avoid spending any more money on gas than was absolutely necessary. I tried to get some pictures of their kids playing with sparklers, but my camera doesn't have a fireworks setting, so most of them came out pretty funky. Here are a couple that turned out kind of cool.



I tried to get a picture of Ashley, since she was the birthday girl and all, but somehow her face always ended up being covered.













Saturday we had a great time playing board games (Settlers of Catan! Best game ever!) and chillin with Shane and Dusty and Dusty's parents, Kevin and Lana. That afternoon my mom and sisters picked me up and we went out to shop the sales at JoAnne's. I got some really great fabric to make those babyslings, and Evie got some crazy patterns and funky fabric so that she can make herself some Evie-ish dresses. She has such a unique style, I love it. Then it was back to Leeds and dinner at Dusty's place. We didn't leave there until almost midnight. Luckily they have a bed that Anicka can sleep on when we're there, so she always goes to bed on time.
Sunday we were back out in Leeds for our usual Sunday Dinner ritual. We watched Spiderwick, which was kind of a cute movie, and got about a million apricots from my parents. Last night we made about half of those into Apricot-Pineapple Jam, my favorite! I've never made Jam before, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, just time consuming. We got seven jars of jam out of the batch we made. Don't they look scrumptious? I had some on my toast this morning, it was fantastic. Mmmm, homemade jam. Now I just need to make some bread to go with it.


Like I said, we only used about half of the apricots, so tonight I'm going to make an apricot pie that I found on-line, and then cut up and freeze whatever is left to use in smoothies and such. Delicious.
Well. I spent entirely too long writing this, and I have a million things to do. So.
Hope everybody else had an awesome holiday!

House Hunting

Ugh. Just Ugh. Who knew it would be this stressful? This one is too far away, that one doesn't have a backyard, this one needs a new roof, that one is in a sketchy neighborhood. We even saw a house with NO washer/dryer hookups. And nowhere to put them. How does THAT happen?

I am officially discouraged.