Blizzard of the Month

Ah, yes, the Blizzard of the Month club returns. Although I don't seem to be having much success lately. October was Pumpkin Pie - yuck! For November, the Dairy Queen marketing folks must have taken a vacation because they repeated July's Blizzard. And December was candy cane chill blizzard - not a big fan of peppermint in my ice cream.

Here it is:

Candy Cane Chill Blizzard

"A mouth-watering combination of peppermint candy cane pieces and rich chocolate chunks mixed with creamy DQ® soft serve."

Since I was visiting Oklahoma and my brother, the other founder of my club lives there, the plan was to go to together. However, due to bad weather and horrendous holiday traffic he was unable to make it. I don't blame him, it took us 30 minutes to get home from DQ which is only 2.5 miles away from my parents home. So, I took my husband Mark, who was nice enough to agree to my silly blizzard rating game. I didn't give him much of a choice but "Thanks Mark!"

Mark said:

"I give it a 6. Too much peppermint, not enough chocolate. If given a choice to buy again I'd go back to the brownie batter blizzard."

And my mom couldn't come with us either, she got stuck at work. So we brought one to her.
Janice (Mom) said:

"I give it an 8. I loved the crunch of the mint mixed with the chunks of chocolate."

And my loyal friend Mandy from IN. said:

"I liked the Candy Cane Chill Blizzard. It had a good mix of chocolate and peppermint. I think it was fun that the ice cream was pink. It was very festive tasting--perfect thing to eat a few days before Christmas. I give it 8."

Oh yes and I did try it. I tried a bite of Mark's and I said:
"Ew, yuck, peppermint. Needs more chocolate."

Thanks to all the participants, here's to hoping for something chocolatey for next month, I need a good one. And if anyone else wants to participate, you are welcome!

Drummer Boy

My very own little drummer boy. Drumming and eating the spoons.

Getting outta town

It is official, the tourists have hit the mountain. The grocery stores are jammed with families trying to outfit an entire kitchen for the holidays, the streets are busy with people who don't know how to use a crosswalk, there are no parking places anywhere near the post office, and forget thinking that anyone from out of town knows how to use the traffic circle. So, we figured it was time to get out of town.

The original plan was to leave Monday night, drive all night and arrive to Tulsa Tuesday morning. Then we decided to leave Sunday night. THEN, on Friday we decided to leave Saturday night...so we did. We drove, Jack slept - he did great. We listened to music and stopped for lots of caffeine. We arrived (very tired) with all of us and the 2 dogs. My mom has been on a familiarization trip in Cabo (nice perk of being a travel agent) and came back to see my smiling face at the airport last night. Nice early Christmas present having your daughter arrive early.

So we are here in Tulsa, ready to relax a bit. Don't have to worry about the new house. Mark just has to finish his final in the next 2 days. And we have grandparents to spoil Jack!

Fan boy

We have slept in the new place for the last 3 nights, yeah! Our social worker came yesterday to update our home study! The renters are in our old place and it was actually ready for them. Mark and I pulled a lot of really late nights this week and were fortunate to have so many people willing to help us. It is done. We still have some (okay several) unpacked boxes but now we have set a limit to unpacking no more than 2 boxes a day.

The new house is good. It will take some getting used to. Whenever I am talking to Mark he has to remind me that this house is bigger and therefore can't hear me from every room. Darn! It's a 2-story house, that is different. And the wood floors...we now hear Macy walking around our room in the middle of the night (click, click, click - go her nails on the floor). Oh, and the garage - no more snow covered cars in the morning.

Jack is pretty adaptable and doesn't seem to care too much. However, he loves our new ceiling fan. He stares at it like he does the tv, even when it is not on (again, just like the tv). Here's our cute boy looking at the fan.

Moving Days

There isn't one moving day for us this move - it is more like moving week. We closed on the house last Friday and we have been moving ever since then. Some stuff is in the garage, some is in the new house, and a very little is still in the old house. We had most of the house repainted and that is done. We have ripped out the carpet and it is being replaced today. This is why it has been difficult to move...some rooms had to wait for paint to be finished and some for carpet...some for both. Tonight we should be able to really start finalizing things, which is great because Thursday our social worker will be visiting our new place so that we can update our home study and apply for a new I-171H (something we need in order to bring home Hannah). In the midst of all the moving we are trying to get our old place ready for the renters who will be moving in Thursday. Aggghhhh....deep breath.

Jack Frost

We have our very own Jack Frost. Our little man is cold. He is the kid who literally turns blue in the swimming pool. This last month Jack has been attending a Tadpoles swimming class at the Rec Center. It has been fun to watch him in the pool, floating around, kicking like crazy, and wearing himself out so that he will take great naps the rest of the day. But by the end of the class, (it is only 30 minutes and it is a heated pool) his lips have turned bluish/purple and he shakes if you lift him out of the water even just a little. It is the same with bath time these days, as soon as he gets out he just shakes uncontrollably. Poor little guy. We asked the Dr. about it and he said it is because he has so much surface area and not a lot of fat.

Visitors...and Hannah Update

Nana & Papa came for a visit...

Last week Nana & Papa, Mark's parents came for a visit. Grandparents are great and we are treasuring all the time little man Jack gets with them. It is nice of course for Mark and I to see and visit with family too. Jack got lots of attention and got to show off the new things he's learned since they saw him last in September: sitting up, eating, laughing. While they were here we also did a bit of packing, Papa got to go swimming with Jack, we went to Main Street in Breckenridge, celebrated Nana's birthday, and opened a few Christmas presents. Their visit wasn't quite long enough, but it never is...

Thanks for coming Nana & Papa!

Then this week, Grandpa came on Wednesday...
My dad does quite a bit of traveling for work and he was able to drive up to see us since he was in Denver for some meetings. While he was here, I drove him by our new place, we talked, ate dinner, he fed Jack dinner, and we played with Jack. This visit was just a few hours and again, not long enough, but we are looking forward to seeing Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas in Oklahoma. Can't wait!

And, Hannah Update...
We have a court date for Miss Hannah...January 5th, 2010. Assuming we pass court on the day we are scheduled, our tentative embassy date is February 15, 2010. Mark would be with her for sure on Valentine's Day - which would be quite the present.

Rudolph Treats

Easy Christmas kid-appealing treat, for those that like coconut.
Almond Joy or Mounds.
Marshmallows for the eyes, I used edible food markers to make the pupils.
Red mini M&M for the nose.
Cut pretzels for the ears.
I used a bit of corn syrup to attach the marshmallows and the M&M's.

Happy 7 Months

7 Months

Likes:
Reading. Loves Dr. Seuss books and looking at pictures...we read a lot!
Pushing all the music buttons on the exersaucer.
Jumping in the jumper.
Smiling at everyone, almost all the time...love that smile!
Laughing. Trying to get others to laugh with him.

Dislikes:
Rolling over. He knows how to just doesn't like to do it.
Carrots.

Discoveries/Developments:
Teething like crazy.
Sitting.
Eating all kinds of new foods: cereal, banana, squash, carrots, avocado, applesauce.
Launching forward from the sitting position (although not crawling, acting like he would like to)
Touching EVERYTHING or wanting to touch everything.

Happy 7 Months Jack!!



We love you!

Hannah update

My goodness, that girl is cute. We got our monthly update today. 2 cute new little pictures and an update on her development. She seems to be right about where Jack was, doing the things he was doing, etc...at least as far as we can tell from a piece of paper. It is getting really hard to be patient. We are still waiting to find out when our court date will be.

Here are her measurements:
5 weeks - 4.8 lbs
3 1/2 mos. - 7.7 lbs
5 mos. - 10.5 lbs

She is gaining weight, which is great. At 5 mos. Jack was 11.10 lbs. Not too far off!

Can't wait to bring you home baby girl!

Scones and Sensibility

This is the title of my friend Lindsay's book. Yes, I am friends with a published author. Her book Scones and Sensibility will be released on December 22. To read about her book, go here to her website and read about her book.

Love you Lindsay....so proud of you!!!

Little man

I always call Jack "little man," but he really is. We had a checkup today at the Dr.'s and he got shots. Mark was in Breckenridge this morning and he was able to come with us. The doc said he looks great, just little. He is 12 lbs, 13 oz and 26 inches. Keep growing little dude.

Oh and the shots! Mark held him and I watched the tears from across the room. The tears didn't last long and now he is sleeping.

What happened to November?

My head is spinning. Not sure what happened to the month of November or the supposedly long Thanksgiving weekend. All this house stuff is keeping us so busy. There is always something else to do. I am a list person and my list never gets finished. But soon enough I will be asking what happened to December and we will hopefully be settled in our new place making preparations for Hannah to join our family.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We enjoyed an afternoon/evening over at our friends Dave and Tanya's new place. The food was delicious. The company was great. AND Jack slept through the meal allowing us to concentrate on eating the yummy food.

The day after Turkey Day, Black Friday if you will...we did a marathon shopping trip. Walmart, Target, down to Denver for Kohls, SofaMart, American Furniture Warehouse, and Walmart again. Both my boys did great. Neither Mark or I particularly enjoy shopping but we saved a lot of money and were able to get some things for our house that will soon be a rental.

The rest of the weekend was spent packing. We are trying to get as much done as possible so that we can enjoy our time with family this weekend and avoid a repeat of the last move. We packed virtually nothing since we were only moving 2 blocks and it was a disaster. We are going about a half a mile this time and WE ARE PACKING.

Shelter

I am thankful that I have a place to live and call home. It provides shelter as well as a place for my family to call home. I woke up this morning incredibly thankful to have heat that keeps me warm inside my house. We are entering the season of incredibly cold mornings here in Breckenridge. Mark said earlier this week it was -6 when he started his car, yikes! Thankful for the place I live.

Thankfulness

I have so many things to be thankful for and will post every day for the rest of the week on something I am thankful for. Today I was grocery shopping for Thanksgiving preparations and kept passing carts that were filled to the brim with food. The store was absolutely packed with people, the parking lot was full, and there were empty shelves. There is a lot of food that will be consumed here in America over the next month with the holidays. We live in a place where most of us do not go hungry; we not only have food but we have an abundance of food. I am so thankful that I go to bed each night without hunger.

Moving

Mark and I are definitely feeling the stress here around the Hubbard house. We are moving! Mark and I are under contract on a house and our closing date is the 15th of December. We aren't going far, just right up the road, less than a mile. But it is coming soon.

We finally have all of our loan stuff worked out, we had the inspection, etc...now we find renters for our place, start packing, and try to remain calm sane people in the midst of moving right in the middle of the Holidays.

We weren't exactly looking to move, especially because we love our current house. We put a lot of work into our place and we love it. The new place just happened to come up and it has some things that we feel like our great things for our family. Such as an extra bedroom, a garage, a yard with grass (not rocks like our current place), AND we will be even closer to many of our good friends.

Aunt Jemima

Last night I spent a good deal of time in the kitchen. It is actually one of my favorite places to be. I made some baby food; I made our dinner; and I made some pumpkin pie bites (thank you Bakerella). As I was working in the kitchen, Mark told me I am like a white version of Aunt Jemima. I wasn't really sure what he meant by this. I am assuming it was some kind of compliment. She seems cool to me ~ I really love pancakes and her syrup... and like me she is probably the "Boss" in the kitchen.

(This is the picture Mark left for me on my computer desktop)

I googled her and found out that the first woman, to represent "Aunt Jemima" was Nancy Green. She was born on this day, November 17 1834. Pretty neat. I also found the Aunt Jemima website complete with recipes listed on their site. The Banana Bread Pancake Recipe looks particularly tasty. Also, another interesting fact is that the Aunt Jemima Brand spans all the way back to 1889, when the first ready made mix was put on the market.

I am off to make pancakes, because all this talk of them is making me hungry!

Jack meets Rice Cereal

Jack patiently waited for 6 months to try food. Actually, he didn't know. But we figured he was ready for food based on the fact that he is super interested in our food and drinks.

Saturday, was the BIG day.

He liked the box, but as for the cereal itself...

The pictures kind of speak for themsleves.

At least the dog was interesting...



AND...Day 2 went a little better...

Our daughter

Almost 2 weeks ago, Mark and I saw a picture of the little girl who will be our daughter. We have been waiting on more info, praying, and thinking about her non-stop. This last Friday, we got the info we felt like we were waiting on...this solidified in our hearts that she is no doubt the little girl that the Lord has picked for our family.

Because she is legally not our daughter yet I cannot post a picture of her and I won't be referring to her with her given name. But, the name we will be calling her will be Hannah. This was her birth mother's name. Her birth mom gave her to an orphanage when she was just 12 days old and now she is 4 months!! While I can't post her picture I can tell you that we think she is beautiful. She has a head full of dark thick curls and eyes that captivate you when you look at her picture. Mark and I constantly find ourselves staring at her picture. We have already printed her picture off and even put one in Jack's little photo album, so that he can see her every day. We have also started praying for her by name when we do prayers with Jack. We know it will be exciting but a definite adjustment for him too when we finally get her home.

It will definitely be 2010 when Mark goes to Ethiopia to pick her up. Our next steps are to be assigned a court date, pass court, then get an embassy date - Mark goes for this one.

It has been so hard for me not to write about this on here but we felt we needed to wait until we had the papers signed and sent before we could share the news with everyone. We are so excited and LOVE that our children will be so close in age. They are 2 months and 1 day apart.

~Praying that God continues to protect her and love on her while we are waiting to bring her home. ~

Happy 6 months

Oh, how lucky we are...to be Jack's parents. This has been the most wonderful half of a year, EVER! He is growing up and becoming his own little man, here is what he has been up to...

Likes:
our phones
people
the jumper
reading books
Loves the dogs, especially Tanner. Oh if I could count the number of kisses he gives Jack each day.

Dislikes:
NAPS

Discoveries/Developments:
1st tooth
sticking out his tongue so that he can feel his tooth
getting better at rolling over, rolls back and forth all day long
sitting up by himself without immediately falling over

Happy 1/2 Birthday Little Man Jack!

Pink

Real men can wear pink.

Monday Sickness - Part 2

After writing post 1, I managed to pick up the house a bit before Mark came home. I quickly showered and my friend Tanya arrived to pick me up so we could drive down to Denver to see the Pioneer Woman. Who is one of my favorite bloggers - fantastic recipes! We ran an errand, stopped for dinner, and then headed to the Tattered Cover, the bookstore where Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman was speaking and signing copies of her newly released cookbook.

When we got there we were in for quite the surprise - the room downstairs was completely full and there were lines coming up the staircases and out into the main part of the bookstore. Tanya wanted to see if she could go down to get a peek and I told her I was just going to sit down, I was starting to not feel so great. I was starting to feel hot, dizzy, and nauseous and it came on suddenly. Tanya went down heard a few questions, came back up, and we left. By this time I knew I was probably getting sick with whatever Jack had. We left and my health or what was left of it continuted to deteriorate.

To cut out lots of details, the rest of the story goes like this: Tanya drove and I proceeded to get sick over and over for the next 2 hours. We stopped at many gas stations and several places along the side of the road (I-70). Tanya is my hero. She was thoughtful, compassionate, and very understanding. She offered to stop at every gas station, which I pretty much took her up on. I know she reads my blog, so... Tanya, THANK YOU!

p.s. I never got to see the P.W. but I didn't care. And, Jack feeling better and me too.

Monday Sickness Part 1

(Wrote this on Monday, around noon - just now posting)

Little dude is sick. Slept like crazy Friday night - 16 hours, took good naps on Saturday. Why? Probably because he was getting sick. Mark and I woke up to a scream Sunday morning. I rushed in to Jack's room to find him covered in green diarrhea and choking on his vomit. Scary stuff. He has been sick from both ends ever since then and still going. Hoping he feels better soon.

This is Jack watching a baby einstein so that I could change my clothes, start what must be the 10th load of laundry, and attempt to disinfect our house. I'm not even going to bother with a shower, I know he has more for me!

Halloweenie

This year Jack was a giraffe for Halloween. Knowing that he is way too young to go trick or treating, we dressed him up and proudly took our little manimal with us to the Donut shop for breakfast. Later in the day he got to go out again all dressed up to our friends house who are kind enough to let anybody/everybody stop by their house while out and about on Halloween night. We ate some yummy soup, said "hi" to a bunch of friends, and returned home to put the little guy to bed. We had all had Fun!

(Tanner as Santa, Jack as giraffe, Macy as a Princess)

(Dad and son...cute!)

National Donut Month

Did you know that October is National Donut Month? Yeah, yeah, I know it is the last day of October but I just now got around to getting Mark to go to Daylight Donuts with me. This morning we all went to Daylight (one of my favorite local breakfast places), even Jack in his little costume (pictures of this to follow later).

I love donuts and I'm finally ready to eat them again. Donuts are one of the few things that didn't make me sick while pregnant. And so I ate them, a lot of them.

In doing a bit of research about these sweet cakes cooked in oil, I found a few interesting things:

• America's favorite donut flavor is glazed. Followed by chocolate, powdered sugar, and plain.
  
• Americans eat close to 10 billion donuts a year.
  
• Louisville is the city where the most donuts are consumed.
  
• In Ethiopia the signature donuts are called lagaymat, which are balls of fried dough drizzled with sugar.
• A chocolate cake donut is the last food I ate before Jack was born.

So, go get a donut and Enjoy!

Brrrrrrrrr

(Jack all bundled up)

Yes, it is Winter weather here. The Hubbard family was out of town for the weekend and returned Sunday afternoon to snow, snow, and more snow. It was coming down pretty hard, at least 6 inches. This morning it was 0 degrees in our area around 7 am. Downright cold. Winter is making an entrance here in Summit County. Hoping for several more nice sunny days before the snow sticks.