too much and too many...

so we went to our second prenatal class on thursday night...and the best way i could describe it is there was "too much and too many" of several things:

1. too many diagrams
2. too much personal info shared by the instructor and students in the class (i wanted to yell "TMI!" many times)
3. too many awkward silences...where i felt like i should either get up and leave or burst out laughing...both of which would have been really inappropriate
4. too much talk about how pushing in labor resembles having a large bowel movement. yeah.
5. too many tools used for "demonstration" and "visual aids"
6. too many videos. enough said.
7. too many women on the videos who looked like they were going to die rather than give birth.
8. too many times to get up and go to the bathroom. luckily, i was informed by debbie, our instructor, that this is normal. i apparently suffer from a TWB at this stage of pregnancy: a teenie weenie bladder. thanks, debbie.

look forward to more updates next week. i know the anticipation is killing you as much as it is killing me.

the name game

so, after toiling and grueling over many thousands and hundreds of thousands of names, M and i have finally agreed and narrowed our list down to three.

[your help needed here].

my question to you is: which is your favorite? do you like these names? i think they're really cute..so if you really hate them, well, keep it to yourself. (just teasin). the names are (drum roll please):

1. Elizabeth Marcia Chapman

(we'd call her Ellie)

2. Annie Lynne Chapman
3. Kate _____ Chapman
(middle name still undecided)

can't wait to hear your input!
xoxo

from my point of view...

this is what i see every day:


today, i saw through new eyes:

we attended our first prenatal class.

it was...interesting. informative. funny (i know, weird, but it was). descriptive (beyond necessity at points). and actually pretty exciting (got me all anxious, nervous yet really happy and stir crazy).

we have three more to go- so i'll be sure to give you weekly updates....since i know you want to know all the details of labor just as much as i do.

p.s. we're less than 50 days away now...48 to be exact. holy smokes.

the chair.

spring break has brought many wonderful surprises. thanks to my mom, we got the greatest surprise of all today. let me introduce you to my new, most favoritest member of our family:

the chair.

isn't it beautiful?

dear the chair,

i look forward to many days and countless nights and hundreds of hours in between that we will spend together in the very near future. you are lovely...and comfortable beyond description. welcome to the chapman family.

love,

marci

p.s. i apologize in advance for the baby barf and explosions that will inevitably come in days ahead.

side note: i was so anxious to take a picture that we assembled the chair and took one right in our living room...and it's not the best. well, this will obviously be in baby chappy's room..so watch for more pictures to come. my question to you: do you like it??

spring break has begun.

well, my initial goal was to blog every day of spring break (because i'd have all this free time). well, it hasn't worked out that way, though i now pledge myself to blog the rest of the days. that's right, for once, you will not get ONE post a week...but rather, a POST A DAY. (yikes, do you want to hear from me that much?)

first thing: to start of spring break, i got myself some new lovely deodorant. i knew i'd be going a million miles an hour, so i'd be needing the ultimate anti-antiperspirant out there. i prefer MITCHUM because it really knows how to do the trick. well, my favorite Mitchum Scent is Shower Fresh.
it's so nice, it really smells like you just got out of the shower (or it may just be the fact that i put it on right after i get out of the shower....hmmm). well in my hastiness at the store this weekend, i neglected to by Shower Fresh, but rather Flower Fresh.
Let me tell you a little something about Flower Fresh: it wreaks. no joke. i hate it. it smells like this body wash i got once that i wanted to vomit everytime i soaped myself up. as you may know, Mitchum is not the cheap stuff...so now i'm in this dilemma: do i continue to use this horrible scented deodorant, whose sole purpose is to make me smell better? or do i fork out the 5 bucks for a my Shower Fresh smell that I deeply miss? i just don't know...

hey brother

"better late than never" has rapidly become one of my favorite phrases. i just wanted to give a shout out to my brother Sean who just turned 24 this weekend! Sean is one of those people who are one of a kind...irreplaceable. all of my favorite childhood memories have my big brother sean in them. i remember growing up and following him everywhere he went. i remember driving to school together in the snow and getting in many fender benders. i remember him getting mad at me for taking so long getting ready in the bathroom. i remember him coming to my room many mornings before school started to make sure he looked ok...and if not, to pick out a winner outfit. i remember him making me play catch with him...even when he would pitch really really hard and fast and hurt my hand. i remember him defending me to my parents every time i got in trouble...from the time i was a little toddler. he still is my protector. happy birthday brother; i'm so glad you were born! hope you had a wonderful birthday.

artsy?

i've been skeptical to get "artsy" on my header...mostly because it's time consuming...and because, well, i'm a plain jane sorta gal.

but, my friend lea inspired me....and i decided it was time to branch out. i know it's baby steps...but what do you think? i really like it. i'm excited to continue to beautify this work-in-progress i call my blog.

traditions: ice ice baby

so this conference weekend, M and i decided that we were going to start a new conference tradition: making homemade ice cream.

the ordeal started on friday night when we went to bed bath and beyond with our nifty little 20% off coupon to purchase the ice cream maker. M was so excited! there were all these different varieties of makers...so of course we had to ask the official opinion of the bb&b employees. we settled on the traditional (yet modern...no manual cranking for us) RIVAL ice cream maker.
well, upon reading the handy manual, which is chuck full of authentic recipes, we realized that this was going to be quite the process. i mean, who knew that you had to cook the ice cream mixture, then you have to chill it for 2 hours, and then you can begin the churning process which would take an additional 20-40 minutes. this was going to take a long time.

so we went to the store to buy our ingredients (heavy whipping cream, eggs, milk, ice, rock salt, etc) and got everything prepped for the next day: ice cream day.

the anticipation of ice cream day was pretty overwhelming. was 8:00 am too early to begin the ice cream process? how about 10:00 am? well...we settled on the notion that ice cream is probably a night time treat...but that i'd start the cooking process after the afternoon session was over...promptly at 4:00 pm.


behold! the ingredients being cooked away. did anyone realize that milk and eggs and sugar thicken hardcore in only 15 minutes? it's really weird.

after the thickening/cooking of the eggs, we put the little delightful mixture in the fridge to cool off. M went to Priesthood; i went grocery shopping.

we picked up where we left off at about 8:15 pm. by this point, M and i were anxious. we took out our cooked mixture and mixed in the whipping cream (i whipped it good), dumped it into the freshly cleaned can and assembled the maker to its proper functioning form. then, we got our ice and rock salt all ready. i had the rock salt, M had the ice. we had heard from various sources that we needed to be generous with the rock salt or else the ice cream wouldn't get cold enough. boy was i ever generous. the thing began crankin, M began dumping the ice, and i began shaking that rock salt away. there was rock salt everywhere: all over the floor, inside the bucket, on the table (must have jumped up there since the stuff was on the floor)... and then the sides were filled with ice and salt.

not 5 minutes went by....and errrrrrrrr...the machine came to a halting stop.


(this is the machine churning away...for two minutes). me and M were so confused. we moved around the ice, thinking that an ice chunk got stuck. when that didn't fix it, we took the metal can out...and for some reason the outsides were all hard, but the insides were still runny. what the?? so we mixed it up real good and put it back together...and it started churning again.

not two minutes later did we hear that halting "eerrrrrr" again. dang!, we thought. so we repeated the process, checked the manual, repeated the process again, re-read the manual again...and decided we had better call for back-up. M called his mom, an ice cream master, and she informed us that we may have been a little too generous with the salt...that it got too cold too fast. i felt my head hang low. i was the one getting fancy with the rock salt.

our only option was to dump out the whole ice/salt mixture and start over again (insert SCREAM here!!) M had to go to the store to get more goods. by this point it was after 10:00 pm and i just wanted some dang ice cream!

so my knight in shining armor returned with lots of ice (just in case of another mishap) and salt. we restarted the churning process...instead this time, M was in charge of the generous salt business.

we heard the purring of the churning begin...and it continued for a good 24 minutes (yess!). when it stopped, M and I looked at each other. we grinned. we went to check out our creation....and it was....

A MASTERPIECE!!! isn't it beautiful?

M was so proud of that swirl...and so was i. the next test...THE TASTE TEST. (drumroll)

let's just say...it was well worth the wait.


who am i kidding? it was DELICIOUS! DIVINE! LOVED EVERY BITE!

the best part of ice cream day is that we now have 5 quarts of ice cream in our freezer to enjoy for the next couple of weeks (if it lasts that long). SO! if any of you would like some homemade ice cream delight, let me know! if this post wasn't convincing enough, perhaps the following picture will be...

in my crazy mind, anything with fruit is irresistable...

my crazy plea: do any of you have any fantastic homemade ice cream recipes?? i'm sure we'll be needing several for our new conference tradition! i'd love for you to share.

xoxo