Chopped Challenge

Jeff and I celebrated Valentines day by doing a "chopped challenge." If you've never seen the TV show "Chopped," it airs on the food network and its a lot of fun to watch, especially if you love food like I do! Basically, they have 4 chefs battle it out to win a $10,000 prize. They are each given a basket of 4 random ingredients in which they have to make an entree, appetizer, and dessert in 3 separate rounds. They are allowed to use a kitchen full of stocked ingredients as well, but they have to be creative in how they use their "mystery" ingredients. They have 30 minutes to complete the challenge, and are judged on taste, creativity and presentation. 

Jeff and I decided to simplify and just do dessert, and instead of having to incorporate 4 ingredients,  we each picked out 2 ingredients for each other. Jeff was having an anxiety attack of sorts, because i wanted to give him really random ingredients haha. So because I am the nice person I am, and since this was our first attempt, I gave him ingredients that you would actually make a normal dessert with. 

Jeff's ingredients: Caramel ice cream topping and graham crackers

Megan's ingredients: green apples and chocolate pudding

We gave ourselves extra time, 40 minutes on the clock. It was hilarious. This was probably one of the FUNNEST dates we've ever done. I was laughing pretty much the whole time. I decided to make a caramel apple trifle. So I made a chocolate cake, and layered that with a sad attempt at a caramel sauce to go with the apples, and chocolate pudding. I layered them all in a martini glass (because we drink Martinis regularly over here!) for prime presentation. Jeff make a homemade twix bar layering graham crackers, a much better caramel than mine, and a chocolate fudge topping using chocolate chips and half and half.  YUM! I don't know that we'd ever make either of our desserts again just based on the taste, but it was definitely fun. As you can see, I clearly won! ;) Just kidding, but he probably spent half his time deciding on what to do with his ingredients....I can't imagine the dilemma had I actually given him black beans and smarties like I planned on ;) We will definitely be doing this again!

Brighton Wrestling

Battle of the Axe

Battle of the Axe

Jerry, Jeff, Luke, Mitch and Clay

I figured I would stop writing about me for once and write a little something about Jeff. Brighton had a great wrestling season taking 2nd place in their region after a pretty tough loss to Copper Hills. Even more important than a region title however, is their match against Hillcrest, or as they call it "The Battle of the Axe," in which they won and were featured on the news and in the paper. I think its pretty evident in the pictures how much Jeff loves his job! The kids are pretty crazy about him too, not just his wrestlers, but his students as well. He placed a bet with his students that if he could get 100 students to the battle of the axe match, he would come to school dressed as a tree. He had students "tweeting" and posting all over social media trying to get enough people to come so they could see him dress up. Its really cool to see him so happy with his job! And even though i'm doing a happy dance now that wrestling is over, a small part of me will miss it. Until next season!!

Boston's Cowboy Bedroom

Here are some pictures of Boston's cowboy room:

I love his little library! He loves books :)

Ready for baby Ellie!

I feel like i am so much more prepared for this baby than I was with Boston. Obviously, because now I know what to expect, but also I have been working my butt off doing things to make my life easier for when she does get here. Such as hoarding boxes of diapers over the last few months. I probably have ten giant boxes. Also, I experimented with freezer meals! Not as easy as you might think, but hopefully it will pay off when I don't have to cook! I made: lasagna, Mac and cheese casserole, four cheese ziti, chicken broccoli casserole, chicken Taquitos, honey garlic chicken, frozen pizzas, and chicken tortilla soup. One month worth of freezer meals, BOOM! The only problem was by the time I was done, the last thing I wanted to do was cook dinner! All I wanted to do was pop one in the oven and eat it haha. So we ate cold cereal on the nights I freezer cooked. Awesome, right?

As of this past Wednesday, (37 weeks) I am dilated to a 3+, and 80% effaced. Ellie is sitting low and ready to go. Dr. Langer tells me I will have an easy labor, that she is a petite little girl, and is hoping for a 6 or 7 pounder :-) What she is saying is that with these hips, and a small baby, she'll pop right out!  So now we are just waiting for contractions to start. It's so different this time knowing I could go anytime and waiting, rather than going so early and being caught off guard. I am perfectly fine waiting...I'm not extremely uncomfortable! I am one lucky girl :-) Bring on little miss Ellie, we are ready for you!

Freezer stash

Headbands I made for Ellie

Room all finished! More pics listed in previous post

37 weeks