Siena has the sniffles and for some reason whenever she is sick I feel the need to make her soup. I can't lie- I love soup any time, in any weather so it was a good excuse:) I didn't make it exactly by the recipe since I didn't have a few things, but it still came out great. Who knew a recipe from a kid's cookbook would be so good!

Alphabet soup

3 green onions

2 carrots

2 stalks celery

handful green beans

2 tbsp veggie oil

1 can (15oz) stewed diced tomatoes

4 small bouillon cubes

4 cups water

1/2 cup alphabet noodles

1 can cannelloni beans

garlic

*you can substitute 4 cups chicken or veggie stock for the water and bouillon cubes*

1. Heat oil in soup pot over med heat. Chop and add veggies and garlic. Saute until tender (about 10 min). Add tomatoes, beans, water, bullion, and noodles. Cover and turn to low- cook 30 min stirring every once in a while. Salt and pepper to taste. Delish!

Intelli-what?

Ever heard of IntelliGender? Me neither until lil sis told me about it this weekend. Apparently it is suppose to be able to determine the sex of your baby as early as 10 weeks. The 90% accuracy claim had me a little skeptical but we decided it might be kinda fun to try anyway. Brandon picked one up at the drugstore this weekend and the results are in...anyone care to guess? We are keeping it a secret until we can do the 20 week ultrasound and get the "real" results... it's only 6 weeks away. Come on- you can wait a little longer right? Brandon thinks I'm evil. I agree.

Lazy days

We finally had a day cool enough to actually leave the house and enjoy the outdoors!
We took a picnic lunch and Siena's "soccer ball" to kick around a bit.

We had such a great time...and Siena burned up so much energy (yeah for us)!

Her face cracks me up in this one! And her little "orphan Annie" pig tails!

Bump

Baby bump at 13 weeks! I was definitely not already showing at this point with Siena. The other thing that is "showing" earlier this time around if the disaster of a house we've been living in (as if you didn't notice in the picture). Last time around around I don't think it looked like this until month 8! This may be a long 9 months....

First day

Thursday was Siena's first day of school! Granted it's just preschool, but I am still convinced this is the beginning of the end. She wasn't too sure about the whole idea at first... this is the "fake

smile because mom told me to look happy" face right before we left.Once we got there and she saw all the other kids she started to get excited.

After I got back to the car I called Brandon and blubbered like an idiot about how the next thing we know she will be getting married, and moving away, and we will hear from her once a week (if we are lucky). He was a little more level headed about the situation and convinced me that this is just the next exciting chapter for us... I agree but I can still cry if I want to.

baby morph

Anybody ever done any picture morphing? It' s a wonderful way to waste time on the Internet when you don't feel like cooking, cleaning, or doing anything else that would be considered "responsible".

I started with this handsome fellow...

and added this lovely lady...

and apparently our kid should look like this!

I'm not putting much stock in this whole morphing thing since Siena looks nothing like that.

I also morphed Brandon and myself into old people but it was the scariest thing I have ever seen...so no pictures of that!

oops

So I completely tanked on my list for last month. I know, I know- so unlike me right? Well I thought of about 10 excuses that would probably get me off the hook but what's the point.. I can't believe I failed!!!!! I guess the bright side is I did mange to do 15 things that I'm sure I wouldn't have accomplished if not driven by the dreaded list. A few things that actually got done...

• we grew something....
• did something spontaneous...(here is Brandon's action shot)
• I made a new friend (no picture- that would be awkward).
• made gazpacho (Spanish style cold soup) and it was terrible. Brandon compared it to drinking salsa and I even caught him slurping it up with a tortilla chip!
• made chocolate bread pudding from scratch. Came out pretty good- I don't know, the whole "bread pudding" thing still kinda weirds me out.
• actually pulled off the "exercise 30 min everyday". I really did not think this was going to happen but it was easier than I thought. Especially when you count walking around stores as exercise. (just kidding... or am I?)

Most notable things I failed at:

• putting together an emergency kit- the only thing on the list that actually is a really good idea, which is probably why I didn't do it.
• learning anything on the guitar- although I did spend a ridiculous amount of time learning how to re-string and tune it. By the time I finally got that done the desire to play was gone. In fact I felt more like bashing it into the wall...although then I would have had to re-tune it.