Easter

Hope you all had a great Easter! We had a good Sunday,
took a bagillion pictures of Delaney so to spare you all I'm only posting this one! It was a miracle we got any before she started spitting up. Sorry if that's tmi, but the girl's a pro. Ryan and I were ushers at church and I helped with the egg hunt afterwards. Tons of little kids scrambling to grab as many as possible, pretty hilarious! Our Easter dinner was untraditional, Ryan requested lasagna. To pass the afternoon we watched some basketball (Ryan's pick) and a very interesting PBS special on a piece of linen considered to be what was wrapped around Jesus when he was placed in the tomb (my pick). In all a great day, He is risen indeed!

New Pictures

Can I borrow the car?

Seriously, more pictures?

Shameless plug......Go Carolina!

Really Random

It's no secret the price of groceries is going up, so to offset the cost I've been trying to be a smarter shopper by clipping coupons and looking for sales. There are several really good websites where you can search for and print grocery coupons: www.couponmom.com, www.eversave.com, and www.coolsavings.com. I was looking for a deal on pop (that's soda to some of you) and discovered there are people selling coupons on eBay! Madness! They must be clipping them out of their local newspapers and the bidding starts at a few pennies. Who knows if, in the long run, it's worth it to go to so much trouble to save 50 cents. More power to those folks, I'll be sticking with the Sunday ads and my scissors.

Cookies!

I found this on http://www.allrecipes.com/, and it makes the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had! One of the reviewers suggested a couple of changes, so this is the altered version of the original. If you're baking for just a few people, half the recipe.
4 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 (3.4 oz) pkgs instant pudding (any flavor works, I like vanilla)
4 eggs
2 T plus 2 tsp vanilla
4 cups chips

Preheat oven to 350. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together and set aside. Cream butter and sugars. Add pudding mix, blend. Add eggs and vanilla, blend. Slowly add flour mixture until blended. Stir in chips. Drop spoonfull (or use cookie scoop) onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Trip to the Hospital

Last week we had a little scare from Miss Delaney. I was changing her diaper and noticed her lips and hands were blue! After calling her pediatrician and Ryan we headed to the E.R. They did blood and urine tests (an iv and catheter, frickin horrible), and a chest x-ray and couldn't find any problems. The doctor started using words like S.I.D.S. and acute life threatening event and wanted to keep her overnight for observation. We were transferred to Nationwide Children's Hospital by ambulance, where she was admitted and hooked up to an apnea monitor for the night. The next day an E.K.G. was ordered and Ryan and I attended an infant C.P.R. class before being released. Diagnosis: not really sure what happened but we can't find anything wrong so if it happens again call the doctor. Blah!! Nothing is worse than fearing something is seriously wrong with your child! Good news though, she's doing great.

Good Parenting

Delaney and I just returned home from Kroger, where I witnessed a slightly disturbing exchange between a little boy and a store clerk. While waiting in line to pick up Ryan's dry cleaning (domestic much?) this boy and his mother were in front of me. He dropped the toy he was playing with, and when the clerk picked it up and handed it to him the reply was "Hey gimme that." His mom completely ignored the rude comment and went about her business. Not earth shattering drama, but his disrespectful attitude got me thinking about teaching my daughter good manners. I don't want her just to be able to recite "please" and "thank you" when appropriate, she should develop the heart to really feel appreciative and mean those words.

This seems like a daunting task, raising an empathetic, caring child. There are certainly numerous messages directed at children that promote a more selfish attitude. But if Ryan and I can model such characteristics and surround her with others who do the same, we stand a good chance of hearing those magic words. I didn't mention before that while the little boy was being a stinker, his mom was on a rant of her own. Maybe all kids need is a good example!