Guessing Game

You know me. . .I don't do things half way. That's why I wanted to initiate this guessing game.

Can you guess what this picture is?

Irrelevant fact: it was constructed out of Skittles

Hints:

• it resembles the original pictures (or at least I'm hoping it does)

• the B&W effect is supposed to emphasize the subject of the picture

You probably just want me to get to the point, don't you? Okay, then I'll give you one more hint:

You're still not sure? Well, then I guess I'll just tell you. . .

The Tiner family is about to become a little less teeny because we are expecting a baby on September 25th!

I am 13 weeks pregnant, and although you might not guess it by looking at me, I have a bit of a baby bump. I can't wait until it's big enough that it doesn't just look like I'm chubby!

Sorry my guessing game wasn't a very good one, but at least now you know the big news!

(And I just noticed the excessive number of exclamation marks used in the last four sentences. That right there should tell you just how excited we are.)

It's My Birthday!

Or rather, yesterday was, and let me tell you, it was a good one!

We recently asked our Primary kids what their favorite part of their birthday was, and every one of them said cake. I, on the other hand, enjoy the ice cream (but with the last name Tiner, I'm sure that doesn't come as much of a surprise to most of you), so we ended my birthday festivities at Coldstone.

Another great part of my birthday was meeting Millie. Most of you probably remember my post from October announcing our friends Buck and Niki found out they were having a girl in March. Unfortunately, their little girl decided to come early, and she's been in the NICU since November. Because of the strict visitor policy, we've been patiently waiting to meet her.

(You can see Millie's full story on their blog here)

And what do you know? Niki and the hospital decided to give me a great birthday present when the visitor policy changed the day before my birthday!

She got all dressed up in her new hot pink dress to meet me, and she managed to stay awake the whole time I was there. She's got adorably chubby cheeks, and she is so cute! Thanks again, Niki :)

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. I had a great day!

Neighbor

We moved into our new apartment almost 4 months ago, but unfortunately, it was around the time I decided to take my blogging sabbatical. It was last week after I decided to visit the blogging world again that I realized I haven't introduced you to our new neighbor yet.

The view from our apartment includes a large dirt field, lots of power lines, and one giant Ikea store! The first time anyone comes to visit they always ask, "so how many times have you been to Ikea?" I'll have you know we do frequent that store, but you can only look at furniture so much.

We are loving our new apartment, and for those of you who haven't been to see it yet, come visit soon! I mean, how can you pass up a view like this?

One-Minute Bread

Our greatest discovery of the weekend: this recipe from lifehacker.com.

Because who doesn't love bread? Especially when it's homemade? And it takes almost no effort?

Ciabatta bread with less than one minute of prep time and only four ingredients.

• 4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 2 cups of warm water
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of granulated yeast (or equivalent)

Pour the warm water into the medium-size mixing bowl and stir in the yeast with a spoon. Add flour and salt to your bowl of yeasty water. Stir into a heavy batter and cover your project with a hand towel or plastic wrap and set in a safe place for a few hours. After the dough has rested for 8 to 12 hours, it will have nearly doubled in size. Preheat the oven to 400F, and prepare a baking stone or cookie sheet with cornmeal or flour to prevent the bread from sticking. Check after 25 minutes. Take out when it is golden brown, and let it cool for 10 minutes.

The finished product? Amazing.

The original recipe post is a little more entertaining, so if you're looking to kill some time, check it out here.

Thanksgiving Update

Here it is, a week and a half after Thanksgiving, and I'm finally getting around to posting about it. I had big plans for this post, but none of it worked out and I'll tell you why.

We started driving to Oklahoma Tuesday night after Matt got off work, and we were almost to the Wyoming border when it hit me. With the trip we were taking to Missouri for the weekend, Matt and I would be traveling through 7 sates in 7 days. How often does that happen? (hopefully not very because that is a lot of driving...)

During the trip we were able to drive through Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri. So, since I am always looking for pictures to take and things to blog about, I had every intention to take a picture by each state sign. Bad news: I didn't take a single picture the whole trip, but this is largely the fault of those states. They either have really stupid, small state signs, or none at all. What is a blogger supposed to do with that? Just write a post I guess, no pictures included.

So there you have it. Thanksgiving was good--we ate dinner early (at 11:30 AM!), and promptly left for Branson, MO, where we caught a few shows and did more shopping than I've ever done in my life. They have an outlet mall that opened at midnight on Black Friday, so we have the luxury of shopping late, and sleeping in late the next morning instead of waking up at 4 AM. After our late night shopping trip, we proceeded to shop all day Friday, and most of the day Saturday. Needless to say, I returned home with a few more things than I went there with.

We hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving as much as we did, and you can look forward to another post soon about our big move this week (and when I say "big" I mean 30 miles north of where we are now...).

Cousin Baby Shower

I recently threw a baby shower for my cousin, Rebekah, with the help of my awesome cousin-in-law, Becky. We had a great turn out, and of course we had a lot of fun. Becky and my Aunt Lynn made delicious soup, and then Becky made lots of desserts (because that's what everyone likes best!). We played the infamous "Which melted candy bar is in the diaper?" game (my personal favorite), and then Rebekah's sister, Hannah, brought string so we could all guess how big we thought Rebekah's stomach was. Oh, the joy of baby shower games...



Rebekah was a pro at the diaper game


Measuring her stomach for Hannah's game


Opening presents. Of course I had to include a shot of the awesome diaper cake Kimberly, Megan, and I gave her. But she got lots of other great stuff too.


"The girls." We love Rebekah!

And the shower came just in time. She had her baby a week and a half later. Congratulations James and Rebekah!

It's a Girl!

I know what you're thinking (and that's exactly why I posted this picture haha), but alas, I am not the one with good news to share! My good friend and neighbor, Niki, is having a baby in March, and she found out the gender yesterday. Being the awesome friends that we are, we bought them an ice cream cake to celebrate. Nothing says congratulations better than Coldstone!


Congratulations Buck and Niki! We can't wait to meet Baby Bagwell!