St. Patty's Day Bash!

St. Patrick's Day has always been a pretty big deal in my family. There is a bit of Irish heritage in our family, so we always have a big St. Patrick's day dinner. Growing up, we would have dinner at my Grandparent's house, because she lived really close to us in St. Louis. Since I moved away for college and my Grandparents moved from St. Louis some years ago, I've just celebrated with whatever family was around. Well, my Grandparents and my aunt Debbie, along with her kids, just moved to Utah. We got to have a St. Patrick's Day bash just like the good ol' days when I was young.

Grandpa and Grandma Blank

Debbie and her kids, plus my kid

This was an extra special day because my little brother Joseph got his mission call. He waited until we were all together for dinner to open it.

He called my mom and dad so they could hear as he opened it, even though they were far away.

He is going to the Micronesia Guam Mission!

He will be speaking English (although it's possible he'll learn a local dialect when he gets there) and he will report to the MTC on May 19th. I'm so excited for him. I'm sure he will have many wonderful experience as he shares the gospel with the people of Guam.

We had a fun St. Patrick's day. It was full of fun, food, family, and a fmission call.

Luck o' the Irish!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's gonna be a good day.

How could it not be with a face like that?

Pecan Pi

Yesterday was Pi Day so I made a pecan pie to celebrate. I have never made pecan pie before so I wanted to try it. The pie turned out pretty well. I learned 2 things about pecan pie while making this one.

1: Pecan pie is really easy to make. I always had this idea for some reason that it was a difficult pie. I think this was because we always had pecan pie on Thanksgiving, when my dad was making 15 other pies at the same time. So it looked like a long difficult process because he was working on many pies at once. It's actually a very easy pie. You start with a basic crust and then whip up a simple sugary pecan mixture for the filling.

2: The pretty pattern of pecans placed on top of the pie will sink and become covered in goo as the pie bakes and bubbles in the oven. I made a pi symbol out of pecans on top of the pie before baking it. When the pie was finished cooking I removed it from the oven to find that my pi had disappeared into my pie. As a result, the pi you see in the picture was added post baking.

Our dinner also celebrated the irrational number.

Notice the garlic bread? I thought a circle shape would be fitting.

When we tried to explain Pi day to Dallin, he seemed confused.

And when we told him we would be celebrating this day every year, he didn't seem very excited.

Poor Dallin. You'll have to get used to life with nerdy parents.

Lonely Weekend

Mckay is in Indiana this weekend touring the Purdue campus, meeting with his potential professors, and being wooed by them so that he'll want to go there. Mckay told me that there is a Chipotle Restaurant close to campus so I think he's already sold on moving there. Since he's gone, it's just me and the babers at home until Sunday. It's very weird not having Mckay here. The days are pretty much the same because he's always gone then for school and work, but he's usually home at night and it's weird knowing he's not even in the same state! We haven't been apart this long for over 2 years and never in our married life. In case you couldn't tell, I miss him.

I've been trying keep myself entertained. I made some French Toast for breakfast.

The bread was a rosemary and olive oil bread. I know that doesn't sound like a breakfasty bread but it actually gave it a nice savory flavor to cut through the sweetness.

Luckily I have this little guy to keep me busy. We had fun playing with the mirror.

Dallin started doing this new thing. When he is playing with a piece of sting, a cord or something similar, he'll put it in his mouth and pull it back and forth like he's flossing his teeth. It's good to start proper dental hygiene when you're young! Here he is flossing with my headphone cord.

Today I'm going to hang out with my wonderful sisters and do girly things. It should be fun!

Memories

Not only is today Mckay's half birthday, but it's also an important date in "The history of Mckay and Sheri." 5 years ago today, Mckay and I went on our 3rd date. We ate pizza here:

and watched this movie:

in the Morris Center.

On this amazing date, we held hands for the first time.

It was a good day.

Cardiologist Follow-up

As many of you know, Dallin had some heart issues when he was a few months old that were resolved. The cardiologist wanted to do a follow-up with Dallin 6 months later to see how he was doing, and yesterday we went to said follow-up appointment. The nurse started by doing an EKG and Dallin did not like it at all. He had one when he was 3 weeks old and he cried then, but he was too young to squirm and try to get away. He did not like having all these little stickers on his skin that were being pulled. And he had to sit still long enough for the machine to take an accurate reading of his heart. He did not want to sit still.

And then he would stretch out his body like this:

and it would rip the stickers off and the nurse would start all over again.

Finally we got him calm enough to get a good reading. The cardiologist came in and said that the EKG looked good. She then asked me some questions about how he's been doing. I told her about his eating habits and his slow weight gain, and I showed her Dallin's growth chart. (Dallin's pediatrician was especially eager for Dallin to see the cardiologist again because she thought Dallin's weight issues might be related to his earlier heart issues.) The cardiologist listened to Dallin's heart with a stethoscope for a minute. Dallin really like her and stared at her calmly while smiling the entire exam. After listening to his heart, she said that she could still hear a heart murmur and the narrowing in his pulmonary valve. This information combined with his low weight led her to suggest a blood test. She wanted to do a chromosomal analysis for a particular genetic mutation that might explain these problems he's having. She said the lab could take about 3 weeks to come back and then she would let me know the results.

I was surprisingly calm through all of this and a little relieved. I'm glad that someone is really exploring his weight issue instead of saying that I'm just not giving him enough calories. Obviously, I'm not happy that his heart problems are still there since I thought his heart was just fine now, but I'm glad that it might be a sign to indicate what could be going wrong. I don't think it's really anything serious. He's been living fine, happy and relatively healthy these past 11 months. But if we know specifically what is going on, then we can know how to go about helping him gain weight (possibly through growth hormones) and fixing his heart. Regardless of the outcome, he's still my sweet little boy. For now, I'm just going to keep doing what I've been doing.

Welcome to March

Let's start the new month with a picture!

This is what happens when I leave a plate of cookies out on the table.