Sleeping in PAST Sunrise!

The past several weeks have been BUSY! Between Chris starting a "normal" schedule and me completing training for work, it seems like taking each day-one day at a time-has been the best approach.

Here are some pictures from sunrises over the past several weeks. I know most of you are blissfully curled up in bed (which would be nice) at the hour the sun rises. But here are a few pictures to show you what you are missing:







This one had the most beautiful rainbow!

Well, this morning I did sleep in past sunrise...and it was wonderful ! Chris was able to come back to town for a day and we spent it catching up and hanging out with friends. A friend of ours is moving to the DC area with his lovely wife, and we could not be more happy for them!! I had the pleasure of having dinner with them and getting to hear all about their excitement and adventures that are ahead. I jokingly told them it "must be a real job if the company moves you across the country!" : ) heheheee. We could not be happier for them.

We enjoyed Saturday of spending time with some "old" Phi Delts, joking, and catching up. It was a perfect day for us. It felt like one of "those Sundays" that people talk about when the day seems to last forever and you don't look at your watch-and, before you know it, four hours have passed and it feels like you still have all day ahead of you. It was relaxing and fun. Many thanks to Debbie (Hinnen's Mom) for allowing us to come and invade her house--and also for the wonderful hospitality and food provided. (now I know where Bryan gets his sense of hospitality from!!)

I wish I would have taken a picture of a few people floading in the pool. Delton had his floaties on while sitting in one of those inflatable chairs. He looked comfortable. (only to be splashed by a cannon-ball a short while later by Troy....! Although, they were nice enough to pull me away from the pool so I didn't get wet : )

Belly Getting BIGGER!

As many of our friends and family have been asking for, here is a post dedicated to Robin's Growing Belly. We began taking pictures around 4 months (16 weeks). I really didn't start showing until after that. Here is a picture of some of the first people we told that we are expecting (notice the skinny Robin pictured below--where are you hiding the baby?!)

Pictured Below: Chris, Robin, Bryan, Delton:

(Robin is at 12 weeks in this picture)

Doctors "set" the due date based on a 40 weeks of pregnancy. Below are picture with the weeks included for your convenience.

17 Weeks (4 months)

20 weeks

20 weeks (again)

24 weeks

28 weeks

31 weeks

...And the little one is still getting bigger...!

So far, all good reports from the Doctor. Baby seems healthy and active. Robin is still feeling good and trying to stay out of the heat as much as possible.

Weekend Visitor

On Friday, I received a call from my mother-in-law, Carol, that she was thinking about coming to Wichita for the weekend. "Oh" I said, "what for?" (not that she really needs a reason, but I figured that she didn't just want to hop in the car for 4.5 hours just for fun!) She has a friend whose mother was in the hospital and she was thinking about coming to be supportive and also to see Theresa and I, so she was wondering if she would have a place to stay. OF COURSE! There is always space!!)She decided to come and arrived late Friday night.

As you can see from my previous post about cooking on Saturday, I had plenty to do while she was visiting her friend at the hospital.

Also, Saturday afternoon I was fortunate enough to have a bed delivered! We are "borrowing" a bed from one of my good friends. Conveniently, she had a queen sized bed sitting in her garage taking up space. She mentioned to me awhile back that she was thinking they might need a place to store it. I was like, convenient-we would LOVE to store it for you-in our basement-and even put it to use as a guest bed! So, after discovering that I would have a weekend guest, I arranged to have her drop off the bed sometime on Saturday-at her leisure-so that my mother-in-law would have a nice place to sleep (and not have to sleep on the air mattresses when she comes to visit). When my friend and the bed showed up, I could not have been happier. It looks fantastic, and I'm glad to do her a favor (and she has NO idea what a favor she is doing us!)So, whenever she wants it back, I suppose we will be without a guest bed again, but then again-it sounds like it could be a good 6+ months before that happens.(yay!)

When Carol came back to the house that evening, I was excited to show her the new sleeping arrangement. (I think she was excited too) My parents were just finishing up church about the same time-as my brother had an event Saturday evening on the West side, so they swung by the house to visit and for coffee before the event started. They liked the new set up in the basement too. After they left, Carol and I had a quick dinner and decided to watch a movie. We were going to go to the theater, but there was not much that looked interesting or had a good showtime for us to see, so we opted to stay in. We had a good time. We made "real" popcorn out of one of those pop-corn makers and enjoyed just sitting on the couch and chatting as we watched a movie we had both seen that happened to be on TV.

Sunday morning we had waffles with fruit. (one of my personal favorite breakfasts! There used to be a place in Wichita called the Garden Cafe which served breakfast, lunch and dinner--and was known for their delicious deserts. This restaurant had one thing on the menue called the "Grand floridian" which was a Belgium Waffle topped high with fruit and whipped cream. DELICOUS! So, we made our own floridian waffles and they were sure delicious.)

After breakfast, I finished some cooking and decided to relax. What a nice weekend. Visitor, good food, and relaxation. Now that I have that relaxation thing out of the way, time to find my way through a few more boxes...(and find that quilt I need to finish...! Maybe that will be next weekend's project. PS: Clint, don't get your hopes up-I hate to dissappoint again... I know Christmas was a good 6 months ago...!)

To top off the evening, we had dinner at Olive Garden, one of my favorites-and best of all, Chris made it home safely. What a fun, blessed weekend.

Productive Weekend

With the air conditioner getting fixed this past Wednesday, I feel like I have been ten times more productive--I even cooked yesterday and today!

(last weekend Theresa, my sister-in-law and I went to my parents house to prepare meals for the week for ourselves. We made lots of delicious things, including salads, tuna noodle casserole, sloppy joe's. We also bagged up some pineapple, strawberries, and veggies so we could have quick grab n' go meals for the week, as we both have crazy schedules and my darling husband (who often cooks while I'm at work) has been working himslef, we had to find something to eat for the week. So-last weekend, we cooked several meals, with the idea that if we got ahead one weekend, we would then be able to always have something in the freezer to grab for lunch--or dinner, if we didn't have time to make anything or were too tired.)

SO: This weekend, in an effort to cook at least 1 meal for the week to freeze, and keep up the lunch supply, I decided to make some soup. My friend, Jourdan, made some delicious wild rice soup last week. So, this inspired me to break out the ole cook book (Better Homes and Gardens...it's got some delicous recipes that I have neglected to cook--so I figured it was ABOUT TIME to try them out).

First recipe: Potato Soup. Yeah-I'm sure many of you have made it, but not me. Why ? I have no idea. I really like potato soup-just never made it. So, as I was parousing the soup options, I also came across a recipe for corn chowder. Hmm-THAT sounds good too....bacon, corn, potatoes...yup, I'm sold. So off I went to the grocery store to collect a few more ingredients for the soups and food for the week.

After a pleasant experience at Dillons I was back at home, ready to get to cooking.
(not that grocery stores are usually un-pleasant, but I was in and out of there in 30 minutes!! AND there were lots of people to direct me to a few supplies I was having a hard time finding, not to mention a friendly cashier accompanied by a nice "bag boy" (what else do you call them?) that was kind enough to help little ole (ok-big-bellied baby-Robin) to my car. It was so nice to find FRESH produce and delicous deals on fruit--yesterday blackberries were $1 !!! Shall I tell you I was pretty excited, so I stocked up and froze them. Whenever Karen decides her "strawberry plantation" needs some harvesting, maybe I can make a trip up to visit and put some of those in my freezer too....)

When I arrived home, mom was there to just "hang out." That is just fine with me : ) It's nice having family in town again--and she was more than happy to be put to work. I think she chopped, sliced, and bagged nearly all the fruits and veggies I got while I started getting the ingredients for my soups ready and cleaned up the dishes so I would have room to cook. THANKS MOM!!

So the cooking began:

I had black beans in my cabinet that I have been thinking about cooking for a long time. One of my favorite Food Network shows is Ten Dollar Dinners with Melissa d'Arabian. The host, Melissa d'Arabian was the winner of last summer's Next Food Network Star. So, as I watched the show religiously to try to come up with some easy, creative things to cook, Melissa caught my eye. With her show, she always cooks DELICOUS food for four people using only $10 or LESS! Even though she has never met me, I feel like we are on a first name basis, as I like her tips and ideas for cooking, not to mention they are pretty reasonable and inexpensive dishes. So often times, I will tell Chris that "Melissa does this...or Melissa said that" : -) in regards to cooking ideas and helpful hints for easy, cheap meals. ALSO, Melissa often talks about adding beans into your diet-as they are a cheap protein. So, began my thinking about black beans.

When I eat at Chipotle, I like to add black beans to my burritos, so why not try to make them? Sure, the cans are not THAT expensive, but according to Melissa, you can get a bag of dried beans for "not a lot more money" and then you can cook, freeze, and use them at your leisure.

So yesterday was my first attempt at beans of any type-I just happened to have black beans. I read the directions, and set out on my first adventure of the day. I followed the "quick soak" instructions, followed by setting the beans to simmer for the required time. As the beans cooked, I went on with my soups. After several hours (I stopped counting after 4) I decided that either the "quick soak" instructions were not such a great option, or I really could not cook beans. Unwilling to admit defeat, I let the black beans simmer all afternoon. FINALLY they were done cooking by about dinner time. After much releif of these relentless beans being cooked, I washed and stored them to freeze. SUCCESS. Then I though to myself: I don't like babysitting beans-I wonder if I can cook them in a crock pot? So, there I went-again-being adventurous with a new type of bean: Garbonzo beans. This time I skipped the "quick soak" instructions and soaked them for several hours (well, actually I decided mid-day that I would cook these new beans, so I started soaking them early with the intention of putting them in a crock pot to cook overnight on low). This morning: VOILA! perfecto! I ended up using 2 crock pots-a large one and a small one, but regardless, they were DONE and I was excited to have successfully cooked them while I was sleeping. Ah, I could get used to this! (but not the smell, I am not such a fan of that aspect of cooking them)

Oh-back to the soup recipes:
I made potato soup: Mom was kind enough to bring her food processor over for me to borrow while making the soup (and later hummus from the garbonzo beans). I made the soup, no problems. However, after babysitting the black beans all day, I decided that I was done cooking and put off the corn chowder until today.

This morning, after freezing the garbonzo beans (I think I will save hummus making for another weekend), I decided to get started on that 2nd soup. And it smelled WONDERFUL as i began sauteeing the vegetables ! Add in some bacon + potatoes + broth....delicious. Then the corn, milk, etc....yum!

I don't know why I haven't really made soups before. They are not really that hard. And they taste fantastic! I also have been wanting to try to make and freeze soups since last fall when I read an issue of Better Homes and Gardens where they discussed making soups when you have time, then freezing the soups flat on cookie sheets in freezer bags, labeling the bags, then storing the frozen soups like a "file" that is easily accessible when you want them. Ingenius! So today I got to give it a shot. So far, I'm loving it! It saves freezer space AND I like the idea of having a few options to pull out of the freezer when I need them. I can't wait to add to the collection.

Also, I decided to make a few roasts *(yeah-few-I made 2: one to eat for the week and one to freeze)* So now we will have delicous food for the week. yum yum. Can't wait until my wonderful husband gets home to enjoy the food (well, he will try the soups-don't know if he'll like them, but more for me if he doesn't!!) and hear all about his travels over the past week.

SO, if you see one of these:

With lots of these seats:

And the handsome man who looks like this:


Then I have a date with him when he returns this evening. I will even try to talk him into posting some photos and a short blog on his fun travels. Stay tuned!

Moving, Graduating, Jobs….!

So I see the last post was on April 17, and now it's nearly been 2 months....WHAT have we been up to?!

It is amazing to me how quickly things happen. Here’s a quick re-wind of the past few months:

January:
-Chris began training at Omni Air International for his 757/767 Type Rating
-Robin began last semester of Graduate School classes

February:
-Chris and Robin announced expecting baby in August
-Chris began phase 2 of training—in Atlanta, Georgia
-Robin went to Aviation Conference in Florida

March:
-Chris COMPLETES 757/767 Type Rating! Yay!
-Robin interviews for job in Wichita, KS (and gets called for a 2nd interview!!)
-Chris and Robin begin looking for a house to buy in Wichita, KS
-Robin officially gets job in Wichita, KS at the Wichita Mid Continent Airport (yay!)
-Robin puts in 3 weeks notice at OSU in order to begin new job in Wichita

April:
-After looking at nearly 40 homes, Chris and Robin FINALLY put a bid down on a house…and it is ACCEPTED!
-Move in date: End of April
-Robin starts job at airport
-Final walk through before closing (are the current home owners REALLY moving?! It doesn’t look like they have started packing…..eik!)
-Close on house (yes, they did pack and move, as promised)
-MOVE: Friends/family were gracious enough to help us move both from Oklahoma and into our new house in Kansas. Thanks everyone! (I soon discovered that my growing belly was getting in the way…so mainly I pointed to
where things were supposed to go and directed people
-Chris works hard on and around house, making it a home for his new family (gardening, garage, kitchen……the list goes on!)
-Chris still waits patiently for IOE (aka on the job training with his company before they let him go fly internationally)

May:
-GRADUATION! FINALLY !! We graduate with our Masters Degrees from Oklahoma State University (officially titled: Masters of Applied and Natural Science: Aviation and Space Option)
-(time to start cleaning out the old school files….and donate LOTS of paper to the recycle bin!)

Pictured below: Robin, Delton, and Chris:

(Delton is a close friend who made it possible for both Chris and I to start working for Oklahoma State. Thanks Delton for your connection and being such a great friend!!)

Family pic:
Back row: Carl, Kathy, Wayne, Terry, Carol
Front row: Robin, Chris, Theresa

-Chris still waiting for IOE (yet making SO much progress on our new home…..it looks fantastic darling!)
-Robin getting used to early morning schedule of starting work at 5am (apparently when kiddo comes I will see all hours of the day….so I guess starting work at 5am is good training!?!)

June:
-Chris GETS CALLED FOR IOE!! (traveling to Hawaii, Nevada, Texas, Washington....and a few more states....just to name a few!)
-Air Conditioner gets fixed...Welcome to being homeowners!
-Baby Laws is becoming MORE active...it's alive....! And kicking lots!


As you can see, it has been a quick and busy spring….and we are looking forward to this summer and fall.

2nd Sonogram: Video!

Life has been SO busy lately, I haven't been able to post this previously. My apologies. I think you will all enjoy this, if you haven't already seen it.

My favorite part is actually seeing the little baby yawn! (For those who are not experts--the baby head is on the right and the legs are on the left. You can see it's spine in a few of the shots too!!)

Here is a video of our 2nd Sonogram, just a couple weeks ago:

So many changes all at once

Tomorrow is my last day of work at Oklahoma State. It seems the past couple of year have gone by so quickly! We began here at OSU in August of 2008 and just under 2 years later, we are off on another adventure! We have about 2 weeks left before we close on our house, (We are moving to Wichita, KS !!) I will be starting a new job at the Wichita Airport (for Operations), and Chris will be finishing his last bit of training in May before flying internationally.

As we speak, Chris is flying over the ocean on what I like to call a "backseat" flight. Look how handsome he looks in uniform:



He is observing what he will be doing "for real" here in a few weeks. I think he just wanted to go play in Vegas and Hawaii...but can you blame him?! ( I was hoping I could tag along, but it didn't quite work out ) See him there? I think he's waving!!


So, while he is away-I am enjoying a beautiful, peaceful evening. I just made one of my new favorite chicken recipes Chris came across....! Lemon Chicken.
(basically, you just warm up a little butter on the stove on medium heat, put thawed out chicken in the pan, sear it on one side-flip it over---and add a bit of lemon juice to the chicken as it cooks the other side. When it is cooked all the way through, it's done! and OH so delicious!)

So, here are a few pictures from Easter.

Easter, all dressed up!



Here is a "Lamb Cake" that Grandma Alice always used to make. Now Mother Mary makes one in her honor every Easter.



Mother Mary also makes the cutest place settings, including dyed eggs with our names on them. It was quite a treat to see that she even remembered our little one, whom she seated at my dinner place! (hehehhe)