Ice, Ice, Baby

I made a comment to Kenta last Friday (when it was 75 degrees) about how great it was that we had thus far made it through an Oklahoma winter without a debilitating ice storm.

Well, I spoke a little too soon. About three days too soon.

Though it pales in comparison to ice storms of seasons past, I bring you

Oklahoma Ice Storm 2009

It was actually a little lame compared to last year, although school was canceled for two days. We were stuck inside most of yesterday, which I absolutely hated. I had planned on going grocery shopping on Monday before the storm got bad, but after slipping and falling on my butt on campus Monday morning, I decided to stay inside the rest of the day. That meant that Tuesday afternoon, we had to brave the elements and make the postponed Wal-Mart run. Kenta wasn't too thrilled about de-icing the car. But he looked so cute, I had to take a picture.

The way Kenta behaves in cold weather now (he's kind of wimpy) you'd never know he spent his mission riding his bike on ice and snow on the northernmost island of Japan, where it sometimes snows 26 feet in the winter. But like my dad always says, the "snow" in Oklahoma is usually not really snow. It is just billions and billions of pellets of nasty ice. Kenta compared it to Dippin' Dots. Which is exactly what was falling all day yesterday. Yuck.

That was the ice storm. Not very exciting. But I thought it would be fun to revisit a little of last year's ice storm. That was a doozy.





I hope I'm not around to see that happen again. It was so sad to see (and hear) all of those trees snapping.

In other news (baby news, to be specific): another week has come and gone and Child Hood refuses to flip his/her head down. I've gotten a little desparate, so I am going to a chiropractor (sorry, Doug!) that does a "magical" adjustment called the Webster Technique. I think it's supposed to loosen up my pelvic region, thus giving the baby more room to turn. He does that in conjunction with acupuncture. I wear these little needles on the outside edge of my pinky toenails. It's like moxibustion, which he can't do in his clinic because burning mugwort smells like weed. Along with that stuff, my mom suggested that I give swimming a try. Since I had no membership to a pool, my mom (jokingly?) suggested I give our apartment complex pool a try.

Great idea, Mom.

I decided to go to the YMCA instead. It feels good to be back in the water. The first time I jumped in, I shot right to the top. I had forgotten that pregnancy makes you buoyant. That was fun :).

Anyway, I'm trying to just relax and let nature take its course. We finished our birthing class last week and I'm continuing to read my Bradley book and practice the exercises. Kenta is even reading a book called the Birth Partner. I'm doing my part to give the baby every opportunity possible to turn. Now, it's pretty much up to the baby and the Lord. I'm a firm believer that all things happen for a reason. For some reason, I need this experience, so I am learning to embrace it. Though I have always longed to be able to experience natural childbirth (call me crazy - I know), if I'm supposed to have this baby by c-section, so be it. I'm not giving up hope, and I'm going to continue to do all I can to prepare for a natural birth, but if things don't end up going the way I would like, I'll feel better knowing that we did all we could do. The Lord knows best. Thanks to everyone for their encouragement and support! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We'll keep you guys updated.

Until next time, stay warm wherever you are.


I think Saturday's lookin' pretty nice.

The Breakfast Club

*disclaimer* this post has absolutely nothing to do with the 1985 cult classic (except for the music, which I love). Sorry to disappoint. It's just about breakfast.

I don't know how passionate you guys are about particular foods, but I happen to be a huge fan of breakfast foods. I love breakfast. And I don't mean some measly little grab-a-granola-bar-while-I-rush-out-the-door kind of breakfast. I'm talkin' REAL food. And for those of you who skip breakfast - intentionally or unintentionally - I don't understand you one bit. I will still be your friend, but frankly, you're weird. For those of you who share my enthusiam for All Things Breakfast - this post's for you (but you weirdo breakfast-skippers can read it, too).

I was raised a firm believer that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Growing up, my dad fixed us a lot of oatmeal, cream of wheat, cracked wheat, whole wheat, - basically any wheat variation - for breakfast on school days.




Saturday, Mom took over. and made yummy things like pancakes, waffles, scrambled eggss, coffee cake or sometimes cinnamon rolls (all made from scratch, of course).

Sunday, the cooks had the day off. It was "cold" (boxed) cereal day. Shredded Wheat, corn flakes and Cheerios (Honey Nut if we were really lucky) were pretty standard. On my mission, Kenta sent me a box of Frosted Flakes (my favorite) for my birthday, which my companion and I shared for dinner.

I have no qualms about eating "breakfast" foods for any (or all) meals.

Kenta on the other hand....I have to remind him to eat breakfast. If I haven't made muffins, he'll eat a bowl of cereal. Occasionally, he'll eat instant oatmeal. I have yet to coax (or trick) him into trying any cooked wheat variation - but I am hopeful some day he will. The ideal breakfast to him has some kind of meat/egg/potato combination. He's my Mr. Meat and Potatohead. I don't mind fixing this kind of breakfast. Eggs and meat aren't too hard to cook (although I can't stand the smell of bacon). But potatoes? Please. I hate peeling and slicing them. I don't have room in my freezer for frozen hash browns. I usually just omit them from the breakfast menu altogether.
Until now.

Brace yourselves.

Maybe you've heard of it already, but it's completely new to me.

Last week Kenta helped our bishop and his wife fix their computer, so they had us over for dinner and sent us home with this:

That, my friends, is a carton of dehydrated hashbrowns. Don't believe me? Check out their website.

We were excited to try them out, so Saturday night, I decided to fix brinner (I am a big fan of brinner).

I was curious to see what these hashbrowns were all about. Now, I'm a big supporter of do-it-yourself, made from scratch cooking. Shoot, I grind my own wheat and make my own sandwhich bread every week. BUT - I do believe there is a place in this world for potato pearls. And now I believe there is a place for hashbrowns-in-a-carton.

I opened up the carton

Poured some out

Then added some water and stuck it in the microwave for a few minutes.

Next, I stuck them in the frying pan (oops. I forgot to get a picture of that) until they browned.

A feast fit for a king:

If that wasn't enough, I also prepared some powdered milk (also from our bishop's wife) which Kenta placed in the picture above. For those of you who, like me, have been scarred for life by Storehouse powdered milk - you gotta give this stuff a try. It does not have a blue tint. It does not taste like dirt. It actually tastes like milk! I was amazed. Kenta even drank it. It comes in chocolate, too. Food storage just got infinitely cooler.

Next time you can't think of anything to make for dinner, might I suggest having brinner? It's fast, easy and sooooo tasty. And mark your calendars - February 24th is National Pancake Day at IHOP. Free pancakes and tasty butter pecan syrup.....hmmmmm....I think I know what I'll be doing.

Turn, Baby, Turn

Life has been pretty quiet around here. School hasn't started yet, the baby is still safely incubating in my tummy, no ice storms to report on... I've been getting a lot of questions about how the pregnancy is going. At 33 weeks, I feel great! I go on long walks every day. I've discovered that sugar gives me terrible acid reflux, so I've cut way back on that. My midwife says that my weight is on track and I'm measuring right where I should be. There's just one minor glitch in the pregnancy.

The little dude(ette) refuses to turn!

At my 28 week appointment, I was almost positive that the baby was heads up. My midwife confirmed that and assigned an exercise for me to do over the holidays. I did pretty well for about a week. Then we were up at the Hoods' for two weeks, and I just would have really felt awkward doing this at their house with a bunch of people around. Believe me you would, too. It's really not all that complicated. All you need is:

an ironing board

a pillow

something cold from the freezer (I prefer boneless, skinless chicken breasts - they don't thaw as quickly as ground beef)

Some easy listening (for the baby)

Some light reading (for me)

And a lovely (er...handsome) assistant. (DO NOT try this by yourself - you'll get stuck)

Put it together and what have you got?

One awkward looking woman trying to get her baby to turn

*Kids, do not try this at home. Also, do not try this after consuming a Grande Hazelnut Hot Chocolate from Starbucks (unless you want to be up all night with the worst heart burn of your life).


The philosphy behind this set up is that the gravitational pull will cause the baby to want to move its head towards your feet. The ice pack is placed on the spot where the baby's head is to make it want to move away from the cold. The earphones (you cannot see them) are on my lower abdomen, to encourage the baby to move towards the sound. The pillow is supposed to make this set up more comfortable. The book is to distract me for ten minutes while I feel like all of my internal organs are creeping up my throat.


Now that I am back at home, I have been doing this diligently twice a day. Kenta has been gracious enough to help me get on and off of the ironing board - not an easy task. I will be amazed if our ironing board survives this trauma without a permanent dent of some sort. So far, I feel a lot of movement, but I'm afraid the baby's head is still jammed into my ribs. No need to panic yet - I've still got plenty of time to try to encourage the baby to go bottoms up. I'm hopeful that this exercise will actually work and isn't some sort of "old midwives'" tale. We'll keep you posted!

Home on the Range

I know....I know....it's been a RIDICULOUSLY long time since I have updated the blog. I was very busy during the month of December living out my worst nightmare:



Yes, my friends. That pretty much sums up how I spent the entire month of December - barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. I guess the only nightmarish part about it is that I was in the kitchen. But now all the holiday baking (torture) is behind me. Time for a new year and a fresh start.

How does one properly ring in the new year? We really wanted to start ours off with a bang. So, naturally, we made a visit to the local shooting range. Now, if we were at home, this would simply mean stepping outside in our apartment complex parking lot. But since we are spending the holidays with the Hoods, we took a more civilized approach.

Kenta's dad is a BIG gun guy. He loves guns. He's making a gun for Kenta's sister's son - who is fifteen months old. Squirrels don't stand a chance in the Hoods' yard because Kenta's dad stealthily snipes them out of the trees (nevermind they live in a suburban neighborhood). At least once a year, he takes a trip to California just to shoot things. This man knows guns. And I know NOTHING about guns (except that they kill things). Was I a little nervous about my first shooting lesson? Ummmm...yeah. But I soon learned that gun safety, when practiced properly and persistently, can dispel a lot of fear. It was kind of awkward holding the gun at first, but with some good coaching from my dad-in-law, it started to feel pretty good. And I thought I looked pretty intimidating. You don't mess with a gun-toting, pregnant lady.

Exercising my right to bear arms and children, simultaneously (that's Kenta's dad on the right, giving me pointers)

And let me tell you about the hot accessories I was sportin'. Have a look for yourself.


Don't be fooled - that Miss America-esque sash is really a belt full of 100 rounds of .38 Special ammo. Rambo's coolness pales in comparison to mine.

Kenta and I discovered that we actually shot better while wearing the belt. Maybe it was just a psychological thing.

Kenta makes Ted Nugent look tame

I was feeling pretty good about my progress - until Kenta had a turn. He's a sharp-shooter. I guess when you have been shooting guns since AGE FOUR, you can hit a target or two.

The pictures don't tell the whole story, so we've provided a little video entertainment for you. We're at the plinking range shooting a .38 Special. Kenta's dad had a nice scope on it that wasn't working, so I was shooting blind. Basically, we were just shooting the gun because it has this awesome pumping action that you have to do between each shot. The casings fly everywhere and it's totally awesome. As you can see, some of my pumping was pretty weak, so sometimes the casings got stuck. And the fact that I hit the first target was a fluke. I also hit a plastic bottle with the same magazine.


Kendall Shooting from Kenta Hood on Vimeo.

.38 Special: it's not just a great band, it's an AWESOME gun

Unfortunately, we ran out of batteries on the camera so I didn't get video of Kenta's impressive shooting with the .22. He knocked down all of the targets and hit some of them two or three times (rapid fire style) before they fell. I feel safe with a man that can shoot like that.  Here he is witht the .38:

Kenta Shooting from Kenta Hood on Vimeo.

Long live the 2nd Amendment, baby.