Spring break day 6... Baby shower!

So...in addition to the cakes, I printed an ultrasound pic, one of each baby (triplet A, B, and C) to sit next to the corresponding cake. Turned out pretty cute I think :)

We had an awesome spread of food..thank you for everyone who brought stuff. It was all delicious!

And Christina made a really cute felt garland...found here.

The punch was awesome, I need to get the recipe. But my favorite part is freezing sliced citrus fruit to use instead of ice cubes. SO cute.Hung some onesies up (this will be about a day's worth at their house :) ...check out the tiny ones! Took me some looking to find them but they are preemie and SO cute. Hopefully they won't fit in them long but inevitably will be tiny at first.Opening presents...

And the crew who hung around at the end to chat... so fun to hang out with everyone.

And me and Karrie's ridiculously cute pregnant belly. She is seriously the epitome of what every woman hopes to look like pregnant (but her belly is probably going to get a bit bigger than the average person).

Thanks for giving us an excuse to party Karrie! (even though it is at the expensive of your comfort :) It'll be worth it in the end though!

Spring break day 5...CAKE!

Well days 3 and 4 were apparently not blogworthy, although I enjoyed them thoroughly. I finally started "training" for my half marathon and ran a total of 23 miles this week, babysat my friend's cute little boy, went to lunch with friends, and got caught up on some TV...

Day 5, however, was a bit more involved. Karrie's shower is Spring break day 6, so day 5 was spent in preparation. Karrie wanted to "learn" to make the cake I was doing for her shower, pistachio (yum!), so she came over and kept me company while I baked. Side note, yesterday was beautiful, and loved all the sun and having the windows open all day! Anyway...back to the cake. It is a recipe from Karrie's sis-in-law and it was delicious. Pistachio cake with Burnt Buttercream frosting (recipe below).

The ingredients... (love cake mix plus some ingredients recipes)And my favorite part...that the batter matches my mixer!

Sporting my cute cupcake apron my mom made me for Christmas :)

Rolling out the fondant... pink, for one of the girls :) I made 3 cakes in all, 1 for each baby of course...

Triplet (girl) A, triplet (girl) B, and triplet (boy-yeah Al) C.

Loving my cake stand that I bought years ago and have only used VERY infrequently. It turned out perfect for it! (more pics to come on the shower post).

And now for the recipe.

PISTACHIO CAKE
1 white cake mix
4 eggs
1/2 c oil
1 1/3 c club soda
2 small boxes of instant pistachio pudding

Combine pudding and cake mix. Add wet ingredients 1 at a time using a mixer. The club soda will make it fizz at first and then will go away. Continue to mix until uniform throughout.

Recipe is for a bundt cake, but I obviously did it in normal pans and it turned out perfect. For bundt, spray pan very well, bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 mins. Turn out of pan while still hot.

BURNT BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

3 T butter (melt until dark yellow- starting to brown)- don't burn
Add 4 T milk
Add about 3 c sifted powdered sugar (add 1 c at a time)
Add 1 t vanilla

Frost cake and enjoy. It was delicious :)

Spring "break" day 2...meals.

Today I had to work a morning and afternoon/evening shift of work, so I decided I would make this a productive day. I worked this morning, went to the gym, and then literally spent HOURS in the kitchen, making meals for us to eat the next month while I'm back at school again. In addition, I made St. Patrick's Day dinner to eat tonight, since I'm babysitting tomorrow and won't have hours at home to let it cook.

Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and rolls (dinner tonight)

And then...I made dinners for a lot of other nights...
Mexican pork, for enchiladas and to freeze for nachos, salads, or burritos

I bought some metal pie pans at Kroger and used them to separate into "dinner sized" portions. Here are 3 pans of Cheese Stuffed Shells...one of my favorite meals. And we ran out of chicken balls for lunches a couple weeks ago...so made some more of those. And 2 trays of pork enchiladas...All of this... to freeze for a later date.

And some how, I got it all to fit!

Now back at work and exhausted from my day of cooking, but excited to have lunches and dinners to eat when I'm back in class.

(And yes, my classmates have started posting pics of them at the beach...and I'm trying to not be jealous :) I got to sweat plenty this morning on the treadmill, who needs the sun anyway, right? haha.

Spring break day 1...sushi

Well since my spring break is not going to consist of some fabulous trip to the beach like my friends in my class (since I'm a "grown up" and also have a job to work)... I have decided to try and do things this week that I haven't had time to while I've been in school this semester. Today was sushi day. A couple years ago my sisters gave me the cutest Asian inspired dishes, orange dragonfly chopsticks and the supplies and cookbook to make sushi from Crate and Barrel...and I had been too chicken to actually try it all out. So I decided now was the time. Thank you Roz for teaching me how and enjoying a delicious sushi lunch with me :)

Lay out the nori and spread sushi rice (I bought it in bulk at Whole Foods) mixed with rice vinegar.

Lay out whatever you want in your sushi. Today we did avocado, carrot, cucumber and crab with "California sauce" (recipe below).

Then roll it up!

See my cute sushi plates! We have technically already eaten sushi off them, but it was takeout (I cheated). But this was seriously so easy to make that I think I'll make it fairly often.

Enjoying while we catch up on some TV :)

Yum!

California Dressing

1/2 c mayo
2 t honey
2 t sesame seeds, optional
3/4 t sesame oil

1 t dijon mustard

It's really SO easy... so if you've been wanting to try it but haven't yet, go for it! I'll let you know if I branch out to anything a little more daring :)

NSD #2

I have unfortunately been too busy to keep up on my Nursing School Diary (NSD). But fortunately, all my studying has paid off and I am doing really well in all my classes. Just thought I'd post a few of the things I've learned and am now "qualified" to do :)

-Shots! (given a couple at the hospital...sad that it's "fun" to me...but it kind of still is) I'm sure it'll get old soon but for now it's easy but somewhat significant.

-NG (nasogastric) tubes! Need to be fed through your nose? I can now help you out! Don't promise it will be very comfortable, but I can do it :) I can suck gastric juices from your stomach too...
-And today...catheters! The word just makes most people cringe. Don't worry, I practiced plenty on "snap in" male and female parts... I can successfully maintain a sterile field and insert catheter, inflate balloon, and watch the pee flow out :) Yes, I'm aware that a real person will be much harder than my mannequin man...but be alarmed at our nearest teaching hospital...there are people like me out there, just waiting for our first victims!

More random stuff... I have made over 400 flashcards already this semester (and know everything on all of them), am still working 24 hours a week, most of my shifts at 5 or 6 in the morning (yes, I struggle to stay awake some mornings), in a very nerdy way am enjoying learning all about pathopharmacology and it is making me like my job more and more everyday as I can now interpret labs, diagnose conditions from symptoms, and often prescribe meds, all before the doctor dictates it, and 1 more day til my first spring break ever!!!

PS- Test #1 was "I'd rather have chlamydia than emphysema"...Test #2, herpes beat out uncontrolled/poorly controlled diabetes... now that's just gross.

Our "Saab Story"

My parents bought a new car a few months ago and no longer had need for the Saab. It is an expensive car to fix and had had it's fair share of problems (which were all for the most part fixed), but they decided we would probably be the best fit for the car (if we wanted it), since Grant is able to fix so much on his own. The obvious problem was getting it from California to Kentucky. We thought about driving it back this summer when we go out, but also didn't like the idea of having to spend 3 of my vacation days driving, since I only get a limited number off from school.

Unfortunately, Grant and I have different Spring Breaks (yes, after so many years at BYU, not even getting Spring Break, and now they aren't even the same week). His was this past week, which even more unfortunately, was my busiest week of school yet (2 tests and so much more). We have kicked around whether we should get the car or not for a while and if we did when and how we should get it. So, Friday night we thought, why not have Grant fly out and drive it back. Thanks to Bryce and Cec, he was able to fly at a reasonable price, buying the ticket the night before the flight. Unfortunately...that also means you're on stand-by, which can sometimes cause problems ;) ...
Grant had the whole week technically to fly out and drive back so worst case scenario it takes the whole week; best case scenario it takes a few days.

The plan... Fly out Saturday afternoon (LEX-Memphis-Minneapolis/St. Paul-Sacramento) sleep for a few hours then hit the road , stop when sleepy, and make it to Bowling Green by Monday night to see some friends then wake in the morning to go talk to some Oral Surgeon offices to collect teeth that he needed for class, hangout with his dentist that he grew up with, and then be home by Tuesday evening.
The reality... Get stuck in the Memphis airport because cancellations of flights caused his flight to fill up leaving no empty seats (he even asked if he could sit in a jump seat...they originally said yes, and then someone else asked if he was a flight attendant, to which he obviously replied no, but he was willing to pass out drinks :) So, needless to say, they didn't let him ride in a jump seat and he had to wait for a flight the next morning. Luckily, he was planning on sleeping in the car during the trip so had packed a sleeping bag. So, he made a bed at the airport and went to sleep. After a couple hours, he was awoken and told he had to move his bed out to the baggage claim area since apparently you can't spend the night in the terminal anymore (they lock it down from the security checkpoint back).
He caught the first flight out in the morning and made it to Sac town just in time for lunch at In N Out before taking off. Don't judge the redneck scruff...he spent the night in an airport :)
The weather was extremely nice in CA, too bad Grant couldn't stay for longer, but he really wanted to get to enjoy a few days of his spring break just lounging at home also. He did send me this picture from my parent's front yard to make me a little jealous, even if he only got to enjoy the weather for a couple of hours.
At this point, he was only a little behind schedule, which in some ways worked better, because he could now get a good night sleep in Salt Lake, where he had planned to load up the car with baby goods that needed to be taken back to KY from Karrie and Al's baby shower in Utah. (Triplets=lots of baby stuff!)

Just as he passed an exit in Wendover, the car just died, like it had run out of gas. It was just before midnight and the car wouldn't start, so he decided to lay down the back seats and sleep in the truck, with his sleeping bag : ) He would worry about getting it fixed in the morning. In the mean time, I wake up that morning a little annoyed that he hadn't texted me when he got to Karrie's the night before (since I had told him to when I went to bed), to which he replied, "I didn't text you because I didn't make it there." He got towed into town, luckily only a mile or 2 (SO grateful this happened where it did, as there was no city within at least 100 miles on either side of him). The fuel pump was broken, and of course no one has one in Wendover had one. Saab dealer has one in Salt Lake, which they said they could have in the next day, but Grant was not going to spend another day in Wendover. Al was way too nice and took a day of his vacation to go get the part in Salt Lake and drive it to Wendover. His day in Wendover has many more stories that involve hookers in tow trucks, winnings at black jack tables, a woman yelling at him to "stay away" as he approached her early in the morning at a gas station, apparently looking rough from having slept in the car... and much more, but in the interest of not typing all day, I'll save details for another time, or let you ask Grant about the specifics.

The car was then fixed and he make it the rest of way to Sandy and spend the night with Karrie and Al at Karrie's parents house. He picked up some stuff my mom had ordered us that was delivered to Holly (really a productive trip already :) He also ate at Cafe Rio for dinner, so even though he wasn't making the kind of time he wanted to, he was doing a great job of eating foods he loves that he can't get in KY. The next day the leftovers were a delicious lunch after being warmed on the dashboard.
He left Sandy in the morning after watching the proposal episode of the Bachelor and getting a great night's sleep. He was on the road by 9:00 am, had clear skies the entire way, without anymore issues. My mom bought Grant a bunch of good treats to keep him going through the LONG trip alone. The bag of popcorn he had was about to explode since it was purchase in Davis CA elevation 52 ft and not opened till about 8000 feet.

The dash is also a great place to keep the peanut m&m's close and handy.

The rest of the trip went well. In short, he left Tuesday from Sandy at 9:00am and made it to Bowling Green at 3:00 pm the next day. Not too bad as far as timing but he was basically 2 days behind schedule. The first 670 miles took Grant 31 hours. The second 1675 miles in 30 hours.

He made it home late on Wednesday night. He had a few more interesting experiences like getting pulled over a 2 am in Missouri for tail lights out, and ended up getting himself and the whole car searched. He slept at a rest stop and slept for 3 hours, feeling fully refreshed upon awakening, and got to see a friend in Bowling Green who had recently had twins. The car is now home, safe and sound...but Grant can probably brag that he visited more states than anyone else during spring break...12 to be exact (including our trip to Cincinnati on Saturday). He's back at it now, no more good breaks til summer. I just have to get through the next couple days and then it's spring break for me next week, unfortunately I still have to work, but it will be SO nice not to have school!