Recipe

A couple people have asked about the recipe for the Puffed Rice Wheels. So here it is...


Grandma Spatig’s Puffed Rice Wheels

Ingredients
6 cups puffed rice
½ cup butter
½ lb marshmallow
1 pkg chocolate chips

Instructions
Melt butter and marshmallows in big bowl in microwave. Add puffed rice when marshmallows are melted. Cool slightly. Spread mixture on cookie sheet and sprinkle chocolate chips over. Bake in 350 degree oven for 10 minutes*. Spread chocolate evenly then roll up. Cool then cut into slices.

*This is where the accident happened. If you want to just melt the chocolate chips in the microwave and then spread them on the puffed rice it works out much better...

Penguin Tree

We decorated our apartment for Christmas a couple weeks ago but haven't put any pictures up. This is our pretty penguin tree. We didn't have room to put up our 6 footer in our living room now that we moved the computer desk into the living room so this 2 footer resides on our kitchen table with some of the penguins. The rest of the penguins are not too far away on a chair. Did I mention Sean loves penguins and that's why we have so many? You may notice we only have two presents under the tree...Thanks Heather and Stephen!

Grandma Spatig's Pinwheels

I was supposed to make my favorite Christmas treat for a get together. I had watched my mom make these and probably helped her out at some point so I figured, "No problem, I can handle this." Well, the chocolate chips are supposed to melt nicely on top of the puffed rice after being in the oven for a few minutes. Mine didn't. The chocolate sunk right on into the creation and the edges of the puffed rice burned (I cut out some in the middle to taste it, and it was not good like it was supposed to be). So I called my mom in a panic because I followed the recipe perfectly and it was her grandmother's recipe. She wasn't home so I told my brother to have her call me back as soon as possible. She called back in just a minute or two and asked if I had gone into labor! Oops, I forgot you can't call your mom in a panic at nine months pregnant or she's going to think you're having a baby! Anyway, I assured her it was only a kitchen emergency and we figured out what had happened. Apparently my oven cooks a little hot. Luckily I had bought enough ingredients to make two batches (just in case I botched the first) so we went for take two and they turned out looking like this (which, by the way is what they are supposed to look like). And they're tasty too.

38 Weeks

Ok, time for the weekly pregnancy update. The doctor was sad to report that there are no changes from the last two weeks. Looks like this little girl is staying put for awhile. I am looking quite large though. Not miserable, just large. Guess it's good I'm not too miserable since Jillian isn't in any rush to come into this world. I don't know if I would be either. It's cold out here!

Movie night

We finally got to see The Golden Compass! I've been battling a nasty cold (which is even nastier when you're pregnant as I was limited in what drugs I could take to fight it off) so when it came out on Friday we had to put a hold on our plans to go see it. But I've been feeling better today and so we went. Turns out that babies in utero don't really like loud movies. At least mine doesn't. When the movie got to really loud parts all she would do is squirm and move around so much that it made me have to get up and pee. And we weren't very smart because we sat near the top of the theater so I had to climb up and down a lot of stairs to get to and from the bathroom. I thought I was going to put myself in labor just by climbing all the stairs. I figure that this is our last movie theater experience for awhile as you can't just get up and go on a whim once you've got a baby so I enjoyed for what it was and prayed that the kid stayed put at least until we got our $12 worth (we went to a matinee, that's why it was so cheap). Anyway, the movie was good but the book is so much better. You know, the normal book made into movie senario.

Baby Shower Take Three

It's funny, when you're pregnant with your first baby everyone wants to throw you a shower. The ladies from my church decided that they wanted in on the baby shower action as well. So here we are at baby shower number three. And look at the adorable quilt with the bugs on it. My mom made that! Everyone thought it was so beautiful and laughed when I told them that she apologized for not hand quilting it! My mom is the best! I have a lot of nice women at my church and they all got Jillian such fun gifts! I got lots of blankets and cute clothes.

37 Weeks

Went to the doctor. She said everything looked about the same as last week. Although, I did notice that she marked that I was 50% effaced which I suppose is better than 0% effaced. Anyway, I'm sure Jillian is staying put for the time being. I however seemed to balloon over the last week. Maybe it's just the shirt...