five pounds of potato salad

Last time I was pregnant I found myself sitting in the parking lot at Sam’s eating potato salad from a huge, monster of a tub with a tortilla chip.  It was exactly what I wanted, and I was happy.  This time was no different.  I remember thinking as I scooped: “Nicole, you know you’re pregnant when…”

foot

And like last time, about two and a half pounds of potato salad were eventually thrown out because the wonderful glow of the moment had passed, and it’s just not as good as that time in the parking lot, and really it gives me heartburn to be honest.

 face

So I’ve moved on to pickles.  You might remember Nick starting a blog entry with a random picture of claussen pickles recently – that was your first hint.  Pickles save better and I have until the 26th of September to polish off the 2.5 quarts in the fridge.

profile

All this talk of pickles made me need one.  Now I’m typing with one hand. 

We wanted to wait until we found out the gender to announce our new MP kid to the world.  I am currently 18 weeks along and to those of you who thought they saw a  little baby bump but didn’t say anything: I thank you.  You did the right thing.  And please, don’t tell me if you did think you saw a bump, I don’t want to know…unless I ask you.  Oh, but if you’re totally surprised, please do let me know.  That’s more fun.

So, without further dawdling, we’re expecting a baby girl this January.  woo hoo!

look alike

Everyone says the boys look like me. 

  

They might, but they’ve Nick’s charm.

the grill

and the answer is

the toaster.  Yes, it was accessible to them and is now no longer.  We realized that the toaster needed relocating when I melted a purple plastic spoon with my bagel.  We laughed, took the spoon out, threw it away and continued on our toasting adventures.  However the burning plastic smell never went away.  Nick finally made inquiries and found the doomed fake phone.  Annnnd, we moved the toaster.

Oh, and the ‘special’ hamburger was from Only Burger in Durham.  On Saturdays it parks at the Durham farmer’s market.  Check out their website.

Quiz Time!!!

start your engines

our 2 year contract with AT&T mobile ran out at the beginning of June. we've been pretty put off by our samsung phones for quite some time now, so we decided that it would be a good idea if we paid the ol' AT&T store a visit (i feel like AT&T should pay me for every time i say AT&T on our blog/AT&T store). while there, the nice service lady told our boys that she could give them something. she disappeared into the back room and came back with display versions of our samsung phones. this morning we found this:

the question we pose to you is, “What in the holly hox happened here???”
in my best car talk voice: please post your answers on a 3x5 note card inside of a Weber® Summit® E-620^TM grill with 838 sq. in. of cooking space and the Snap-Jet^TM individual burner ignition system for its 6 stainless steel burners. address the label to us and stick it on the porcelain-enameled shroud with polished handle and trim postmarked by yesterday.
actually, posting your guess in the comments will suffice.
we also found this yesterday:

“the special”

in a roundabout way, i was watching an episode of vendr.tv, and they profiled a burger truck up in durham. they make what they term “the special” on saturday mornings. the truck parks right near durham’s central park during the farmer’s market hours. they get all the ingredients from the farmers, then they put together a hamburger that includes a butter toasted bun, the patty, a fried egg, 2 fried green tomato slices, and a pimento cheese sauce. we decided to make a morning of it.

we drove up to downtown durham. lo and behold right in front of where we parked was the truck. we ordered 2 “the specials”. behold:

i’d do it again. the tomatoes are what drive this sandwich. the cheesy sauce is reminiscent of a big mac, but you won’t be confused. the egg for the most part blended in with the patty to me, but it was nice to know that i was getting more cholesterol per bite than a normal burger. you know, gotta have that cholesterol…

the boys seemed to have fun, too.

i’d go there again.

adjacent to the market were a couple of other open air vendors. one was selling children’s books for 50 cents, so we picked up a few, our favorite of which was a book called Rosies’s Walk. Our copy has Spanish and English translations of the story.

here are some other june goings on. the boys got dummy phones from samsung. and they like to hang out naked now that it’s so hot outside.

The boys tried and enjoyed lemons (for 3 bites).

we encountered this monstrosity on our door frame.

the boys turned 1 and celebrated with some ice cream.

the boys ate bananas…and liked them…a lot.

we went to the pool! (sorry about the lack of actual pool pictures…we really did get wet from pool water.)

we made a softbook for the boys. here a few of the pages.

and while this didn’t technically happen this june, it is all too good to keep to myself. nicole may argue, but then again she has the power to remove this. enjoy the choreographed styles of november nicole and the combustible edisons. (for real, though, the music was added later. there was absolutely no music playing when nicole was dancing.). And...something messed when it uploaded, but the video is supposed to end with the girl singing "bliss". Again, Nicole, you can take this down if you want. ;)

Exclusive behind the scenes look: Father’s Day Fiasco.

It all started when I was born.  I’ve just had struggles since.  Today, Father’s day, was no different.

I made myself proud by planning a delicious Father’s day meal ahead of time.  I even made a special shopping trip just to get the ingredients.  It’s a great recipe from my excellent and stylish friend Kristi.  I’ve made it before.  And let’s just say, despite this recipe being tasty and all that, I think it’s cursed  (If you can’t remember what happened last time, go ahead and check out that ‘I’ve-made–it-before’ link).

So there I am in the kitchen and I’ve gotten everything that can be made ahead of time ready so that I can take my regularly scheduled Sunday nap and still get dinner made later.  I reach up onto the highest shelf into the cabinet to get a lid to cover the sauce and all of the sudden *crash* a glass jar explodes all over the counter.  I didn’t see it coming, nor did I see it happen.  Unfortunately, oh so unfortunately, all my carefully pre-prepared ingredients are now sprinkled with shards of glass.  Since I actually harbor Nick no ill will and want him to have a good Father’s day, I have to throw it all out.  *Sigh.  And, ANNNND, I had completely used up three of the necessary ingredients, so I couldn’t even start over.  *sigh.  I came up with something else to make after a bit of grumbling.

Tomorrow I will be throwing out all glassware.  Allllllll glllaasssswarrre.

I also planned ahead a delicious (and easy to make) dessert.  So after my nap, a last minute dinner, playing around with the boys and then putting them to bed early (the cranks) I embark on another adventure in the kitchen.  A mint Oreo ice-cream sandwich cake.

I’m a classic at starting into recipes before I’ve looked at all the ingredients.  I’m just excited to go, you know?  So, anyway, there I am mixing a half cup of milk into chocolate pudding and then I see I have to add crushed cookies next.  Of course, I’ve crushed no cookies.  So I get out the cookies and start mashing them.  Then I realize I don’t have a dish out yet to put this on, so I dig thru the cupboards to find the fancy platter I’m looking for.  Now I’m ready, I go back to the pudding ready with my cookies and whipped topping, and it’s (the pudding, that is) …in a solid state.  Solid.  I mean, I thought this might happen, but why I did it anyway, I don’t know. 

I decide to “fold in” the whipped topping anyway.  I plop the whole thing of cool whip into the bowl and start mashing around.  So there’s the solid ball of chocolate ‘pudding’ and this solid disk of still frozen cool whip and I’m stirring them around and you’d think there were magnets repulsing each other or something.   Here I thought this was an easy recipe.

I pull out the big toys now.  I get out the electric mixer and there’s no stopping me.  Luckily, this works.  I’ve sort of blended the two together.  I add the cookies.  Again, it works.

Now you’re supposed to line up a bunch of ice-cream sandwiches and so I start in on that.  I’ll keep this short, but you would have thought I was a four year old or even a three year old trying to get those things unwrapped.

I line them up and then get ready for my second layer of the pudding mix and suddenly I remember that this thing is supposed to be frosted with cool whip.  White cool whip.  I don’t have any of that any more.  Yeah, I missed that whole “thawed and divided” part in the ingredients list.  ‘Well’, I say to myself, ‘it’s been like this ever since you were born so just plod along honey, plod along.’ 

Here’s how it’s supposed to look:

 

Here’s how mine turned out:

ha ha ha ha ha. 

They’re about the same.  Luckily they taste the same despite their looks, and Nick, bless him, is not picky.  Unless it’s tuna or mustard.  He’s picky about those.  And, he only likes Sweet Baby Ray’s barbeque sauce -- don’t try to substitute.  But really, he’s not picky.

 

p.s. We have pictures of the boy’s birthday to put up…it will happen someday.  I promise.