Back to Work again!!!!!

So I made it thru my recovery and I headed back to work yesterday. It was a quick day and really busy..... I spent a good portion of it reading e-mails and getting familiar with all the systems again. It was weird to be back at first but by the end of the day it was getting better. Hopefully today will be a little easier, plus there were a lot of people gone so maybe today will be a less busy.... I guess we will see.
Skinny is a free man...so to speak, he has graduated and is now just on parole, which I thought would be a lot harder than it is..... he met with his P.O. last week and doesn't have to go back till the end of July. Granted he still has to go back to the Fort on Thursday nights for aftercare, but it is nothing compared to having to schedule every moment of our lives. It was strange when we decided last minute where to go to dinner on Saturday night and then after dinner when we decided to stop a few places before heading home. For the last 9 months we have had to be on a time line and not change it at all. Not to mention that Skinny was constantly having to call the Fort to check in.... that is all over now. Actually on Saturday night we had a little scare though.... when the Fort called our place at 11;30 at night. I guess one of the R.O. was going thru old paper work and didn't realize that Skinny had graduated, so he call us to see what was going on. Granted we were sleeping and were woken up, but Skinny handled it just fine, by telling the R.O. that he made a mistake and needed to take Skinny off the call list now. It just makes you think though, that Skinny was in that place for so long and now they can't even get it right when he leaves.... Oh Well, maybe it will be a one time things. We are still getting used to each other, now that we are back together 24-7. It has been a long time since we both have been getter ready for work in the morning together and sleeping together every night. But I'm sure after a couple more nights it will be old hat.
So now that the babies are here, it is excitement everyday almost... and getting ready for the big event on Saturday, we spent a good part of last week and the weekend baking all the sweets, so there will be little for the Mother today to get ready, granted Rands and I will be around to help with everything but The Mother is still healing from her surgery too and there will be a lot of people there on Saturday. Also to add to the excitement, my dad and Aunt are coming tomorrow from AZ. It should be an interesting rest of the week and should make for some good blogging.

C.J. is here too now!

So last week it was all about baby girls... this week is is all about baby boys. My Nephew C.J. was born on Monday, he gave us a little scare there for a little bit, but in the end he is here now. Big L. went into the hospital on Sunday night to start her induction.... and on Monday morning the doctors broke her water and started things along. By the time I got there at 10 am, she and the baby were having a little problem with their blood pressure and heart beats, so the doctor decided it was time to get the baby out. The nurse came in had Big L. sign some paper work and off to the O.R. they went. Within 1/2 an hour C.J. was born. It was amazing how fast they can do those C-Sections. So on Monday June 12th at 10:45 am we got another addition to the family. It was kind of funny that C.J. weighted the same amount at birth as Izzie and also was just a quarter on an inch longer. At first we thought they looked alike too, but as both baby start to change a little they really don't look that much alike. A.B. and Big L. was able to head home form the hospital today also, so we will see how they all do at home. It's hard to believe that in less then a week, I was an aunt 2x over.
Changing the subject..... it is GRADUATION DAY.... for Skinny. After 8 months and 23 days Skinny is getting out of the Fort for good tonight. I can't wait, we are trying to hold our excitement till we are actually walking out the door, but it looks like everything is going to go off with a hitch. Last night he even cleaned out about 99 % of his room and I hauled it all home. We want to get out of there as fast as we can tonight, plus there are 7 other people graduating, so it will be a mad house there tonight. Tomorrow Skinny goes to see his parole officer and we start the last phase of this process before he will be totally free. I'm just hoping that his P.O. is nice and gives him a lot of freedoms, but we will see on that too.

Izzie is HERE!!!!!!

It's been a busy week this week already. My sister finally had her baby. The baby's name is Izzie M. and she is the cutest baby ever.... well I think she is... maybe that is cause she is my niece, but she really is something to look at. Her trip here was a long one though, starting on Monday night when Rands went into the hospital to start the induction. The doctors gave her some medicine to get things started at about 9 pm and then Tuesday morning they broke her water and started giving her Patosin, which really got things moving, but at noon she was still in a lot of pain and only dilated to "4", so the doctors gave Rands an epidural and finally she was able to relax and get some rest for the big event later that day. They check Rands about every hour and she was progressing along, then about 4 pm the baby just stopped moving and the nurse thought it would be time for a C-section, but the doctors thought differently and let her go another hour. At 5pm the nurse checked her again and she really thought a C-section would happen, but the doctor again said "NO" and Rands started pushing. So at 5:55 pm on June 12th, little Izzie was born....... we couldn't be more excited. Now we are just waiting for A.B.'s baby to get here..... should be here by next Monday night...... I guess we will see.
Skinny is now heading into his last furlough before he graduates, so only a couple of more days to go.... I can't wait till we don't have to plan every weekend out..... starting next weekend it looks like that will come true. I'm almost done healing and I have 1 more week off work... it seems weird that I have been off for 5 weeks already... the time has just flown by. I'm sure next week will too... with another baby coming and everything.

Hat cookies and marshmellow Brownies

So for a while I have been talking about other things then FOOD... but that's cause there is so much else going on in my life. I'm still healing and have just under 3 weeks till I go back to work. Skinny will be graduating in a little over 2 weeks and we are still waiting on babies to come. That brings me to the subject of this installment of the blog. Where to begin????.......
Since most Jewish holidays or events include food why would we make an upcoming event any different. So about 20 years ago (actually 20 years ago last month) I had my Bat Mitzvah....... my parents had just gotten divorced and my mom needed a lot of help getting ready.... so my grandmother decided that she would make all the sweets ( or about 90 % of them). Anyway about 6 month before she started baking.... every couple of weeks she would send boxes of sweets to us so we could keep them in the freezer for the big day. She made cookies, lemon bars, all sorts of different cakes and pies... plus HAT Cookies. Now you ask what are " hat cookies", well they are really 2 sugar cookies places on top of each other, the top one is a little smaller then the bottom one. You put a little frosting between them to hold them together and then decorate them to look like little sun hats or bonnets. They were really cute. So as I said my grandmother made all this stuff for my party. Let's jump ahead almost 4 year exactly... to my sister's Bat Mitzvah... again my grandmother decided to bake.... but this time she didn't make as much and refused to make hat cookies.... now she tells us she never made them in the first place for me 4 years before. We tried to explain to her that she must have forgotten... cause we ALL remembered the cookies and even have pictures to prove it. Still she protested she didn't make them..... so to keep family peace we just let it go. But for the 15-20 years we have been joking about it..... so this brings us to now. Rands and A.B. are going to have a big baby naming at the end of this month... it is a Jewish thing. So The Mother, Rands and I have been trying to come up with a menu.... they have decided on a brunch-y type buffet plus sweets. Anyway we were taking about the things we can make in advance and have figured that most of the sweets can be made now and then frozen. Rands and I were talking the other day and decided to have Hat Cookies.....since they are cute and a good memory for us. Maybe when my grandmother comes she will finally remember that we had them 20 years ago and she made them. I guess we will see and I hope we can do just as good of a job as she did 2 decades ago.