Jaeger Brave Legatt

I guess I can look at the bright side...if I keep posting only once in a great while, then I won't have so much work to do at the end of the year when I make my blog into a hard cover book :) But I guess that doesn't make for much fun to look back on. I know I keep saying this but one of these days I'll get back on top of it...Maybe once the kids are grown.... :)

Speaking of kids....we have another one!! Jaeger Brave was born on Feb. 18 weighing a teeny tiny 6lbs even and 19 inches! I predicted that he'd be my biggest baby yet, and instead of he's my smallest by almost a half pound! (Ariella was closest at 6.7 and then Tiernan next at 7.3...Brayan was 7.7 and Caedmon was the biggest at 7.8).

Everything went well...although quite a bit different than my other ones and he was actually my first "land" birth!! That was not planned but there was no way I was willing to walk my body over to the tub at almost 10 cent dialated :) I plan to write out his birth story soon (so I don't forget the details) and post it on here. For now, here's a pic taken a few days before he was 1 month. :)



The older siblings love him...a little too much. I am CONSTANTLY saying "Don't touch him!...leave him alone!...don't poke his eyes!...quit putting your fingers in his mouth!...don't push on his head!"...etc etc A few days after we came back up here (yes, still at the condo...baby was born at our house), Ariella bit his nose. I looked at him and after making sure he was fine, said "Well, welcome to the family, I guess that was your sibling initiation" :)

Baby will be here soon!

Well, it's now just a handful of days before I go home to "wait" for baby. And since it's been so long since I've posted anything on here, I'm pretty sure I haven't even annouced my pregnancy yet! We're pregnant! :) We found out last June that we are expecting our 5th little one. After 3 consecutive miscarriages last year (2010), we were excited but hesitant all at the same time. Week by week went by and we were able to see a heartbeat via an ultrasound at 7 weeks and then confirmed by my midwife appt at 10 weeks. At 12 weeks we told family and close friends and 20 weeks I made it public via facebook.

So now here I am, just starting my 38th week and ready to meet my baby!! We did have a 20 week ultrasound to find out the sex of this baby. People seemed very surprised by our decision to know this time, and frankly, I'm kind of shocked myself...but with moving around so much and having everything so unpredidctable in our lives right now, I just wanted something I could plan for. yes, it can be wrong, but the majority of the time it is right. I guess we will know for sure soon!! We haven't made the sex public knowledge but will tell people if they ask...so no, I'm not posting it...you will either have to ask, or wait a couple more weeks :)

I saw my midwife a few days ago and everything is looking great, although I am again very "small" for being 38 weeks pregnant. But since baby is the right size, that is perfectly fine with me to be small! I measured at a 31 :)

Here are a few pics!

Isn't baby cute?? :)



20 weeks!


30 weeks


36 weeks


I know I've said this before, but I do plan to blog a little more than I have been. I have a lot of things that I want to remember during this time and blogging is the best way for me to do this! So stay tuned :)

Pull-apart Cinnamon & Sugar Pumpkin Bread Recipe!

Thought I'd post this since I already had it all written out :) I promise I'll try to do another post soon...I know it's been awhile!!

After all the inquiries, here is the recipe! Note: It is not healthy (quite a bit of sugar), but it is OH-SO-YUMMY! :)

Pull-apart Cinnamon & Sugar Pumpkin Bread



Ingredients

Bread

2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup milk
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour



Filling
1/2 cup sugar (The original said 1 cup but thought that'd be waaaay too much)
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
2 Tbsp unsalted butter


Glaze

2 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp milk
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Directions
In a saucepan over medium-high heat, brown 2 tablespoons of butter, letting it bubble up and turn a dark golden brown but being careful not to allow it burn (turn black). Once browned, remove the pan from the heat and carefully add the milk. Pour the milk and butter into a large mixing bowl (or a standing mixer with dough hook if you have one) and allow to cool so it is no longer hot but also not cool (about 100-110 degrees F). Once it has reached a warm but not hot temperature add the yeast and 1/4 cup of sugar and allow to proof (this can take up to 8 minutes, the top will look foamy and the liquid cloudy). Then add the the pumpkin, salt, and 1 cup of flour. Stir until combined then add the rest of the flour 1/2 cup at a time and knead for 6 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic and just slightly sticky. If the dough is too moist, add extra flour 1 tablespoon at a time.

Move dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean towel. Allow to rise in a warm place for 60-90 minutes or until doubled in size.

While dough is rising, brown another 2 tablespoons of butter. Add the sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg and mix well. Making sure sugar evenly absorbs the butter. Set aside. Next, grease and flour a loaf pan and set aside.

When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and flip out onto a clean floured surface and knead with hands for 1-2 minutes. Roll dough into a 20x12 inch rectangle. (about) Evenly sprinkle the dough with the cinnamon sugar mixture and press into dough with palms of the hand. Cut the rectangle into 6 strips. Lay strips on top of each other and cut each strip into 6 even squares (cut in half then each half into thirds). Stack strips vertically into the loaf pan. Let rise for 30-45 minutes.

In the meantime preheat an oven to 350 degrees. After rising in the pan bake for 30-40 minutes, or until top is a very deep golden brown. Turn out of pan onto a clean serving plate.

To prepare the glaze, heat the butter, milk, and brown sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to boil then immediately remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla and powdered sugar. Drizzle over baked bread.

Try to share with others :)

Enjoy!!








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We're all settled

So last week we packed up our stuff from the nasty, dirty, smelly, empty, cold trailer and moved a little more north to a resort on Cass Lake. We are in a small 2 bedroom condo but to us it's paradise! Okay, maybe not paradise, but anything coming from that trailer, would seem a little closer to paradise anyway.

Won't miss this! The HUGE mouse we finally caught in the trailer.


Yes, I can still fit 4 kids with car seats in here...pretty good huh?



It's fully furnished with 2 double beds in one of the bedrooms (which the boys share) and then a queen bed in the other (which we sleep in and ariella's pack n play fits nicely in the 'closet' spot). I am just thrilled to have beds to sleep on and enjoy making the beds everyday :)

The building is a four-plex with two condos on the bottom and two on the top. The two on the top have renters in and out, mostly fisherman, and the other condo on the bottom has one of Nathan's co-workers living in it. He has become great friends with Nathan and we've come to think of him more like family. The kids adore him (and he the kids) and he eats and visits with us every night. It's been a blessing to have someone else around that we enjoy talking with! And the cool part is that the rooms are actually connected so he can come over to our place without even going outside!

The condo


Living space & kitchen



Boys' room


Ariella's 'nook'




For the first 5 days or so that we were here, the weather was perfect. Mid to upper 70s and low 80s and sunny. Because it's a resort, it has a great beach that is just a few steps from our place. The kids and I spent most of the days swimming in the water and exploring for clams, shells, turtles and anything else that we could find that was 'cool' :)

The beach


Looks like she's having fun



There is also a mile long loop through the resort and the woods that we've been walking to get some energy out. Now with the weather cooling off in a hurry (this morning it was only 25 out!) I'm sure we'll be spending a little more time inside.

Ariella walking on the trail with her new friend "Mr. Weston" (Nathan's co-worker)


Nathan still is not working that many hours (usually around 50) so we are able to come home to the "house with 3 pottys" (as my boys refer to it as) fairly often. We are happy when we are there but also excited to find a buyer for it as we think about possible opportunities for the future.

Sure looks like paradise to me....

(we enjoyed a few quiet mins out here after the kids went to bed and before the mosquitoes ate us up)

Our date continued....finally!

So, yeah....I kept you in suspense a tad longer than I had planned to. Guess that's my life right now so you'll just have to deal with it :)

So continue our date.....

Saturday we woke up and decided to get the cheapest thing on the room service menu since we've never had room service before...and now I know why we haven't ever had room service before...the bill was $25 for two small bowls of plain yogurt with a sprinkle of granola and some fruit! Whew!



After that was done we didn't have any plans for the day so I jumped on my phone and started searching for attractions in the cities. One site lead me to another and another and somehow I came across something that was called "Segway Tours". My scrolling stopped...wait...segway tours??? What is that?! I went over to their website, looked up the number and gave them a call.

I asked what it all entailed and if they still had openings for later that day. They did!! I signed us up and looked forward to 2:30 in the afternoon!

In the meantime we ate lunch at The Melting Pot downtown. We heard it was very good, and it was, but since I have fondued every year at Christmas for the last 29 years (or at least as long as I can remember) the "coolness" of it just wasn't there for us. I ordered steak and shrimp and Nathan fondued chicken, steak and shrimp. We were told that if we wanted the typical 4 course meal, that we should allow at least 2-1/2 hrs to eat. We didn't get that but it did seem like it took forever. We were one of two couples in the place since they just had opened for the day but the waitress definitely wasn't in any hurry. It seemed rather odd to us that it took so long to get our food because it's all raw! They don't even have to cook it, we cook it! So it should be all back there ready to be portioned onto your plate and brought out to you...but I guess they had to butcher the cow first before they brought me the steak ;)



We were going to have the fondue dessert but since we were running out of time and I didn't want to be late for our segway tour, we decided to bail. And Im glad we did because we were right on time for the tour.

So we got to the tour and before they even took your money, they made you try out the segway because some people just don't feel comfortable on it and therefore want to cancel their spot on the tour. We, of course, loved them and wanted to continue. They then told us to pick out our helmets and have a seat in front of the tv to watch a training video.

Nathan couldn't even look at me in my pink helmet because he burst out laughing every time. He said I looked like I was five....and he looked so much better, right? So we watched a 15-20 min video on segway safety and it was time to take them outside to test them out again. (The first hour or so of the 'tour' was training on how to ride the segway, get off and on, etc).

Do I look that goofy??





After training, we were on our way! There was about 30 or so of us, with 5 instructors. We drove mostly on sidewalks so we had to stay in a single file line. That was a lot of segways in a row. Most people that we drove past took our their cameras and snapped a few pictures.

The tour took a total of 3 hours and it was a distance of about 5 miles. We stopped at places along the way such as the St. Anthony falls, the Stone Arch bridge, Mill city museum (where we went in and had some refreshments), Guthrie museum, and a tour of Nichollet Island.

St. Anthony Falls


Stone Arch Bridge that was built by the railroad man James J Hill


Mill City Museum


Aren't we cute?!


Part of the line of segways going down the sidewalk




At one point during our ride we crossed this small street and I saw a few cars coming. They didn't seem like they were slowing down at all, and since I didn't want to get hit by a car, I slowed down and waited for them. In the meantime, Nathan, who was behind me, didn't see me slow down until it was too late. He turned at the very last second, went off the sidewalk into the grass and jumped the curb onto the street. He mangaged to do all that while staying on the segway and regaining control and really not missing a beat. On our next stop, one of the instructors came up to him and said "I just have to shake your hand, man...I've never, ever seen someone stay so calm and regain control of the segway during and after a situation like yours. Congratulations!" It was kinda funny :)

I was sad when we came around the corner and saw our starting point because we were having so much fun. I would recommend it to anyone! Their website is humanonastick.com Clever, I know :)

After that it was time to find another hotel (we needed to get out of downtown!) and found a marriott by the Mall of America. You remember that we are partial to Marriotts right? We only liked their beds so much that we ordered one and had it shipped to our camper...now you remember? Anyway, we took their free shuttle over to the mall to grab some grub and then back to the hotel to relax. We were upgraded to a king whirlpool suite because they ran out of kings, and we were happy to oblige.

Sunday, our last morning, we booked a brunch cruise on the Mississippi on the boat called Paradise Lady. It was a relaxing time and going through the largest lock on the mississippi was an experience. The food wasn't the greatest, but we could have probably guessed that before it started. After the 2 hour cruise was over, it was time to get back to reality and go pick up our kids. Ariella was the only one who seemed a little excited to see us, the boys were having too much fun with the other kids :)

Paradise Lady


Our table reserved for us...and the other couple who was supposed to share our table never showed up so we had it all to ourselves.


Smile!


Going down the lock.


At the bottom of the lock....and I've decided that I like going up rather than going down. It takes 8 mins both ways to travel through the lock.


Our food.

Our getaway

Wow...the weeks fly by...and the minutes now that I think about it. I sat down to do a post 'quickly' while I waited for my bread to get done and had 17 minutes to do it in. Then Ariella started crying. By the time I got her all situated for nap time, I had 12 mins. Then I jumped over to facebook quick to see if a lady I knew had her baby yet. And now I have 1 min and 58...57...56...seconds. Guess I'll be finishing this post when the bread is out of the oven. ahem.

So during the past couple weeks, I have been doing everything I can think of to make my extremely long week days go a little faster. Each week we've been able to make a trip to the Walker beach so that takes up a few hours which is nice. The thing I am mostly excited about though is that we are moving!!! Yes, AGAIN!!! But this should be so much better than where we are currently for most days during the week.

(The bread turned out wonderfully, by the way...I was kinda worried since it has been forever since I've made my loaves with the Bosch, I kinda forgot how to do it!...but they are wonderful...just so you know)

So where are we moving to? To a little condo in a resort up north. It's small (820 sq ft...please don't complain about your "small" house...we have 4 children remember and this will do us just fine, almost 3 times the sz of the camper!) but here's the good part....it's fully furnished! We will have a couch to sit on, a bed to sleep on, and yes, a table to eat at!! It's real crazy now when I feed the kids, I get their plates ready, set them on the floor and tell them to come and eat! I feel like I'm calling the dogs. I just tell them we are having a picnic for every meal and they could care less where they sit. But for us, it will be nice to have a table! The price also includes all the utilites so that will be nice to not have to worry about what the cost of heating it in the winter will be, etc.

We will be 'moving' there after labor day. And I saying 'moving' because we're not really moving...just moving to work...if that makes any sense...

Anyway....onto the fun stuff.....

Last weekend Nathan and I went away for a much needed date! Some friends of ours we willing to watch the kids for us for a few days while we relaxed and did whatever! We decided to go down to the cities to find some stuff to do there. Before we left, there were only 2 things that I had booked for us...1) a twins game and 2) a brunch cruise on the mississippi. The rest of the weekend we were going to take on the fly.

We dropped the kids off at about 9:30 Friday morning and headed down to the cities. We stopped first at the Christian bookstore in Maple Grove while we waited for Don Pablos to open :) Nathan bought a book about Tim Tebow (which he says is awesome) and a Tenth Ave No CD (which we will see in concert on sept 15!). After lunch, we were off to find the James J Hill mansion in St. Paul.

Wow! Is that place huge!!! 36,000 square foot house...can you image??? It was built in the 1800s which makes it even more amazing. The detail in the woodwork was phenominal and all the nooks and crannys...wow. It was definitely worth going to tour..and it's a guided tour so you learn some more stuff about how life was lived back then and a little more details about the family. For those of you who don't know, James J Hill was the founder of the Great Northern Railroad and a bazillionaire...the richest man in the world at his time.



Some of the interesting tidbits I remember from the tour:

1) The are 427 keys for the doors in the house
2) The built in organ in the music room has 1200 pipes.
3) There was a safe behind a secret door in the formal dining room.
4) All the dust collected by the women cleaning was put down a shute and taken out by the men.
5) There are 42 rooms (largest one being 1500 sq ft alone), 13 bathrooms, & 22 fireplaces.
6) It cost just over $500,000 to build (just under $1 million with all its furnishings and land, etc)....today that would be over $16 million. (After seeing it you would think it's even more than that)

There are really so, so many things and I could go on and on...you just have to go visit for yourself. You can go over to this link http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/55/v55i06p234-249.pdf and see a pic of the outside (and read the article if you want, actually I would recommend it as I'm reading some of it now...very detailed about the house and shows the floor plan as well) It really is amazing.

After the mansion tour, we were off to the zoo! We made a swing through the Como Zoo and enjoyed looking at the animals at our own pace instead of 4 kids pulling us in 4 different directions...it was a nice change of pace :)



After that we checked into our hotel....The Westin...in downtown Mpls...just a stones throw from the Target Field, to which we headed at about 6:00.


Since this hotel used to be a bank, which they converted in 2007, the bank vault is now a wine cellar.


The weather was absolutely perfect and I don't think we could have even asked for much better! The twins lost to the Yankees horribly but it was nice to see the new stadium in person. When the game first started, there were 2 completely annoying people in front of us...in 2 different groups of people. One of them was a 9ish yr old girl who kept screaming and demanding food from her parents and they left the game before the 1st inning was even over...yes, it was that bad. The other was a drunk indian who kept yelling obsenities and who was just obnoxious...and he got kicked out of the stadium. So after that, everything was clear sailing!




At one point in the game, we looked over and to our surprise, this camera was right in our face...uh...do we wave? Why is he here? Since we haven't been to a game before, we had no idea was the "kiss cam" was until the camera man came out from behind the camera, looked at us, and said "Kiss!" Ohhhh!!! ***smoooooch*** So yes, we made it onto the jumbo screen :) Guess the camera man knows a cute couple when he sees one.

After the game, we returned to the hotel to eat a burger and fries at the hotels restaurant....completely horrible, awful food. Shoulda complained but we didn't.



On a weird note...twice I found valuable stuff in that hotel that I turned into the front lobby. One was in our room, on the desk, there was this jewelry box sitting by itself with a note to someones name that was not us, with a silver pocket watch in it....the other time was a womans wallet (with a bit of cash in it) left on one of the chairs in the lounge area. Hmmm.....

...Ok, I was going to finish our whole weekend on this post...but I'm actually getting tired and I have waaaaaay too much stuff to get done this weekend for me to be sleepy, so I'm going to stop here and hopefully finish tonight or tomorrow. The best part of the trip is coming up next so don't miss out! What we did on sat was unbelievely fun...can't wait to tell!! :)

the beach

Well, it's the weekend again...and again we are getting ready to head back up north to work. This will be a short week though as Nathan has class in the cities on Wed and we'll get to come home just after a couple days.

I'm getting more used to our 'cabin' but I'm not used to the packing and cleaning and unpacking and then packing and cleaning and unpacking and...and...and....and... Going back and forth, back and forth is a little challenging but what do ya do? I bring all the dirty clothes back with me to wash at home, and then when i'm home, I do all the shopping and meal planning and bring that back up there.

Last week I desperately needed something to do as the 14 hr day of sitting in the cabin was enough for me. I saw on the map that Walker had a city park. I had no idea what kind of park or how big it was or anything but I thought any park was better than no park, so even though it was sprinkling out, off we went exploring. Well, to my surprise, it was awesome! A huge city park with tennis, basketball, volleyball, playgrounds, and even a sandy beach!

I told the boys they could 'wade' in the water and not get wet. Well, that lasted about a whole minute and in the water they were! But, boy, was it fun!! I'm not sure if I've heard so many giggles come out of all my kids at the same time. It was super windy coming off the lake, which made for huge white-cap waves. They sat in the water and let the waves knock them over. Or they stood up and jumped over the waves as they rolled in. Because of the wind, they got cold quick outside of the water but we ended up staying there a good few hours, even had a picnic on the picnic tables!

(Sidenote about the picnic, I forgot to pack food for me (duh) so I thought I'd just go one block over from the park to the DQ and get a chicken strip basket. I pulled thru the drive thru and they say "We don't have chicken strips." Uh..... "Ok, just give me a burger." "We don't have hamburgers...we have hot dogs and grilled chicken." SERIOUSLY?!!? What Dairy Queen doesn't have hamburgers?!? So I kindly said "Thanks but I'm going somewhere else"..and drove next door to Hardees!)







Few quotes from the week:

"Mom, I almost sank but I saved the day myself."--Caedmon in the water at the beach

"Mom, I'm looking at the sun with my eyes closed." --Caedmon laying in the grass at the beach

"What are you going to make for supper in the morning."--Caedmon

And once Brayan realized that we were getting close to our actual house last week, he says very excidely "We aren't going to the house with the mouse poop, we are going to the house with three potties!!" --That just shows the tiny difference between our two places :)