Kissin' Cousins

Kristen will be 20 months old on Friday (in 2 days).

Kinzie (the red head) is 2 months older than Kristen.  I think she's like 22 months old as of yesterday.

I babysit Kinzie (Derek's sister's baby) on Wednesdays and sometimes other days of the week.

These two girls get so excited when they can play with each other.

See?????

Meoooooow!

This is what Pinterest has done to me.

It makes you think of home organization in a whole new light (my light consisted of patterned duct tape and empty cans). 

Voila.

My girls LOVE these.  Derek kept arching his eyebrow suspiciously when he saw me working on this project (I just sometimes have to MAKE something, doesn't he understand that?!).

I love the patterned duct tapes.  You can find them at Walmart and probably several other stores.  I think it's an uber-fun way to spend less than $4.

Sous Chef

In case anyone hasn't heard the story yet, it goes something like this:

Derek had made repeated comments on how he loved to cook, and he thought he was good at it.

I didn't disagree with him, except for the fact his cooking typically encompasses breakfast food and grilling.  I challenged that if he were given a recipe he would be lost.

So he told me he was going to cook a 5-course meal for me on his day off last Friday.  I said I would be delighted to eat his meal.

He spent about 8 hours Friday preparing this feast, and I was gone most of the day so he really did do it by himself.  He even did the shopping.

We're not food bloggers, so if the food looks weird, get over it. We're just point-and-click in this house.

First course, dijon-basil devilled eggs (which when we ate we topped with sliced grape tomato).

 

Second course, spinach strawberry salad with sesame seed and poppy seed vinaigrette.

 

Main courses:  super delicious Italian meatballs and (I know I'm going to write this wrong) spaghetti carbonara.

 

Meatballs before cooking: 

Dessert:  white chocolate raspberry marbled cheesecake (he had a complication with the marbling process)

Everything was delicious, and he and I both learned lessons.  I learned Derek can indeed follow recipes and create an amazing meal.  Derek learned that it's harder than it looks and there's a lot of kitchen know-how that he wasn't aware of.

I welcomed him to cook for us one night every month from now on.  He wants us to cook together (hahaha). 

Before she was Kristen....

Derek and I had the most difficult time naming Kristen.  We were hoping for a boy to name Hyrum Barton (Hyrum Smith was one of Derek's great-something-grandfathers and Barton is my father).  But the facts are we didn't get Hyrum Barton, we got another female child to name.  We had about 4 rounds of creating a list of names we liked, combining them, systematically eliminating them, then disagreeing on each other's favorite selection, scrapping those names, and starting over.  I was gunning for Joanie (my mother is Joan) and Derek was gunning for almost anything else (sorry, Mom).   Derek did leave it to me, however, at the final moment when that nameless girl was being brought to me to hold, to name her.  But really, if you know how much your signifant other dislikes a name, would you still use that name if you had the ultimate choice?  I knew he'd give me grief over it for the rest of the child's life (that's a long time) of I chose Joanie (I literally prayed for months that he'd suddenly wake up one morning and tell me he thought Joanie was a wonderful name for a girl.  (I don't care if any of my readers like it or not, it was all about changing Derek's mind.)).  That's when I shouted "Kristen" across the room to the nurses (I think I shouted due to post-labor shivers). 

The above is a simply complicated and wordy introduction to the list I unearthed last week and would like to record for memory's sake.

Our top, much debated names for our fourth child, third daughter, in alphabetical order:

Evelyn

Hallie

Joanie

Kayla

Kendra

Kristen

Lacy

Lillian

Lorraine

Macy

Olivia

Valerie