Amy Scott's Thoughts

Book Report July 25, 2014

Filed under: Amy's Bookshelf — Amy Scott @ 3:27 pm

It’s been a while since I posted anything about the books I have been reading. I’ve certainly been reading a diverse mix these days. Some books are by beloved and favorite authors and some are new finds. I’m really enjoying downloading eBooks from the library, but sometimes that means hunting down the right book and waiting for it to be available. Overall, I’m trying to spend less money on books so the library is a great option. Also, in a day of instant gratification, eBooks get me what I want, when I want it. I do miss making my bookshelf look impressive as I fill it up, but lately Owen has taken to pulling my books off the shelf. Maybe eBooks are safer for a while!

Surprised by Motherhood by Lisa-Jo Baker – This book started off really funny. My favorite quote was one she wrote about looking back on mothering and saying she wishes she would have eaten more chocolate cake. This deeply resonated with me because I was in an intense chocolate phase at the time. However, the book took on a more serious tone as it went on. It’s about a woman who lost her mom and in turn decided she never wanted to be a mother. However, three kids later, she is learning and growing in motherhood despite the pain of her past. It was a good read, but more serious than I expected.
Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin – I found this book on the library website. I knew that some of my favorite authors really liked Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, so of course, I started with the squeal. Makes sense? The book is all about investing in home because it’s an important place and it greatly affects our happiness. Rubin did various things to improve how she felt about her home. It’s more of a philosophy and mind set take on home. It’s not a DIY and spend money kind of book. It was interesting, but didn’t move me to do much around my house. I figured that now that I’m a stay at home mom, I might want to invest more in the environment I’m in most of the time. Turns out my house is pretty functional for me.
Bridge to Haven by Francine Rivers – I like Francine Rivers as an author because she knows how to write a love story. It’s a romance novel and I liked it a lot because I like romance. It’s not my favorite book by her, but it is still pretty good. Worth the read for those who like her work.
Help. Thanks. Wow. by Anne Lamott – A lot of people have mentioned Anne Lamott as a favorite author. This book probably wasn’t the best one to start with. I’m currently reading Traveling Mercies by her and it’s much better. Help.Thanks. Wow. is a book about prayer. I almost skim read it because I didn’t find it super moving. But reading about prayer always sounds like a good and holy endeavor so I did finish it.
Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery- I loved it! Every book by L.M. Montgomery makes me want to read more by her. I really should make it a personal goal to read all her works. I’ve yet to be disappointed.
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin – Since I read the squeal, I thought I should go back and read the original. Gretchen Rubin spent a year improving and investing in her happiness. I loved insights like “Be Gretchen” and “What makes other people happy, doesn’t make me happy.” It was empowering to focus on being yourself and do what makes you happy without shame. So often we try to fit into other people’s boxes, I am grateful for authors who embrace who they are and encourage you to be yourself as well. I can see why this book became so popular.
Forever with You by Robin Jones Gunn – I grew up reading about Todd and Christy through the many books of Robin Jones Gunn. After a decade of only glimpses of Todd and Christy through her other stories, Robin Jones Gunn has started another series dedicated to my two favorite characters of all time. I felt like a teenage girl when I heard she was writing about them again. This book as an excellent addition to the love story I have loved since middle school!
The Nesting Place by Myquilyn Smith – Again, my interest was peaked by a book about home. The premise of this book is that home doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. I don’t have a huge interest in home decor, but lately, I’ve been thinking more about the home I am creating. This is a great book about creating a space that works for you and showcases what is important to your family. I’m thinking a lot about not just having a functional home, but a warm and inviting home. This house will be the place that Owen remembers his childhood. This will be the place that he invites friends over to. What kind of home am I creating? As a result of this book, I have the strong desire to paint and buy new throw pillows.

Comments (2)

Owen Art July 22, 2014

Filed under: Getting Creative — Amy Scott @ 3:01 pm

While, Jeremy was away at camp last week, I wanted to do an art project with Owen. I thought it would be super cute to have Jeremy come into his office and find a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork made with love by his son. I had heard of moms doing finger-painting with their babies. I thought it would worth a shot. My original plan was buy finger-paint, but then I got trapped in a classic “mom” dilemma. Even if finger-paint is non-toxic, what would happen if Owen ate some? Would a responsible mom really let her baby be exposed to those chemicals even if they weren’t toxic? I got worried about killing my kid and judgement from other parents, so I looked for another option and decided to do edible finger-paint made at home with safe ingredients. After googling a couple recipes, I settled on one that was made with flour, sugar and water (because I had all of these ready on hand). I combined the ingredients and whisked them on the stove top until they thickened. I then poured the paint into different cups and used a variety of food colors. Of course, the paint needed to cool before use and I wasn’t planning on doing the paint project the same day I made the paint, so I threw it into the fridge thinking that would keep it from going bad (if that is possible? I don’t really know). The paint thickened up even more in the fridge. When I pulled it out the following day it was a lot like pudding with a skin on the top. Lucky for me, I stirred it up and it was perfect. I used paper plates to pour the paint on. I laid a blanket down on our kitchen floor and dipped Owen’s hands into the paint colors individually. Adding Owen to the mix created some drama in a project that was going smooth up to that point. It turns out that Owen didn’t want to play with the paint. He had no clue why I wanted him to put his hands on the paper. I envisioned him making a merry mess and creating multiple pieces of artwork. I got one page done. That was it. I was concerned that the food coloring would stain Owen and the blanket, but it remarkably came out of everything. Owen promptly got a bath and the blanket got washed. No harm done. While the painting project dried, I ran some errands and got Owen some of the Crayola first markers and crayons. I thought that might be more his pace in the art department. It turns out, Owen isn’t interested in making art at all. He wanted to lick the crayons and markers. Again, he had no idea why I wanted to mark up the paper. It just didn’t click. Oh well. I now have some art supplies for him when he gets a bit older. I also really enjoyed the process of making my own finger-paint and it is a project that I wouldn’t mind doing again in the future. The project gave me something to do while Jeremy was away and I liked being able to do something that let Jeremy know we were thinking of him. I framed the artwork and put it on Jeremy’s desk with a bunch of Hershey’s hugs and kisses as a welcome home gift. Overall, it was a fun experience for me. Good thing Owen is too young to remember this escapade!

The Colors

What am I supposed to do?

Messy boy!

The end result

Redecorating the office

Leave a Comment

How the Week Finished July 20, 2014

Filed under: Family Time — Amy Scott @ 3:11 pm

Last time I blogged I was midway in my week without Jeremy. While the first half of the week went quickly, the second half flew by in the a blink! It’s been busy times as I have traveled all over Washington state. Thursday, Owen and I drove up north of Seattle to visit Jeremy at kid’s camp for the afternoon. Friday, Owen and I went down south for a play date with Cousin Nolan and Aunt Beckie. Jeremy got home Friday evening and then Saturday we all took off over the mountains to celebrate my niece’s 2nd birthday. I almost didn’t want to get into the car today to go to church. I’m so ready for some home time with my boys! I’m grateful for that today! All the travels and adventures made for an exciting close to the week. Owen and I missed Jeremy so much while he was away. We are happy to be back together! One happy family! Here are some photos from the end of the week!

Reunited for an afternoon at camp

This is how nap time happens at camp!

Play date with Nolan

Daily gifts from Jeremy

An Elmo birthday for Miss Brinley!

Swimming with Carson

Love being an auntie!

Leave a Comment

Soda Experiment & Other Randomness July 16, 2014

Filed under: Parenthood,Simply Me — Amy Scott @ 4:10 pm

I’ve passed the mid-week mark. I am now in the home stretch of Jeremy’s absence. The week has been a good one. It’s gone better than I expected. I’ve maintained my watering regime and even got the trash can and recycling can out on time. Owen has enjoyed our adventures and he has gotten some new toys to entertain himself through this week without dad. Thanks to the wonders of FaceTime, Jeremy and Owen have had daily chat times and Owen really enjoys being able to see his dad on the screen.

New toy from Grandma

Like I mentioned in my last post, its been a week full of projects and visits. Yesterday, my big project was sorting and boxing up some of Owen’s baby clothes and moving them to the garage. Owen is still in 9 month clothes, but will be transitioning to 12 months sooner than I care to admit. Owen happily played in his room while I sorted his clothes. The other project was taking apart his mobile and getting it out to the garage as well. The mobile had become something Owen tugged on and kicked when he should be sleeping. It seemed like it was time to take it down. Now his crib looks weird… Something is missing.

New toy from Dad - Jeremy has left Owen a herd of new toys this week!

New toys from Dad – Jeremy has left Owen a herd of new toys this week!

I had an odd experiment that I wanted to try for a while and today seemed like a good day to do it. I used to be addicted to Dr. Pepper (very hardcore in high school and college). Once I decided to stop drinking my calories, I couldn’t switch to Diet Dr. Pepper because if I couldn’t have the real stuff, I didn’t want a knock off. That is how my addiction transferred Diet Pepsi. It’s been years since I had any Dr. Pepper product and I got curious. Do I still like Dr. Pepper? Is Diet Dr. Pepper really has bad as I think it is? Is Diet Pepsi better than Diet Dr. Pepper? So I set out on an experiment. I poured each of the sodas into a cup that was labeled on the bottom. I mixed the sodas around until I wasn’t able to remember what soda was what. I then did a blind taste test. I was able to figure out which soda was what instantly. The verdict was surprisingly the same as the past. I still think Dr. Pepper is the best. Diet Dr. Pepper is a sad version of the good stuff, but it’s not as bad I remembered and well, diet pepsi…. It’s my second love, not my first. Now I won’t start drinking regular Dr. Pepper again because it has a lot of calories, but it was an interesting experiment to see my taste buds had changed over the years. Turns out that they haven’t. Also, I should mention that I couldn’t let the sodas go to waste once I opened them. I’ve now had double the caffeine I usually have in day (it’s still less than a cup of coffee). I’m hoping it will give me a little extra get-up-and-go as I finish out the day. We’ll see!

The experiment

Since it’s Wednesday, I have church tonight. Half of my class is summer camp with Jeremy, so I’m expecting it to be a quiet night. For the girls that do come, we’ll have outside play time, a card game and root beer floats. We’ll take a night off from the serious stuff since it will be a small dynamic. Breaking routine is fun every once and a while and hopefully it make the absence of our classmates a little more bearable.

That’s the update. Jeremy should be reunited with us soon and we are looking forward to it with great anticipation!

PS – This little girl is 2 today! Happy birthday to niece, Brinley!

Comments (2)

Holding Down the Fort July 14, 2014

Filed under: Family Time,Parenthood — Amy Scott @ 5:34 pm

Owen, Toby and I are keeping on eye on the homestead while Jeremy is away for 6 days at Kid’s Camp. Jeremy had an overnight commitment in April and I had my sister come spend the night with me. That makes last night my first official night alone with Owen. Obviously, we lived to tell about it the next day. Only 4 more nights to go! While I miss my hubby terribly, I have packed my week full of projects and outings to keep myself and Owen occupied. Yesterday, Jeremy took off after church so Owen and I had the afternoon/evening to fill. We went up my parent’s house to have dinner and play with their exciting toys. After dinner we came home to finish off the evening with DVR’d television, laundry folding and book reading. We’re an exciting bunch.

The mystery bags! I’m trying to patient and not open them all at once!

Jeremy left 5 bags of surprises for us while he is gone. Today Owen and I got to open up the first bag! Jeremy got cookies for me and a toy for Owen. At least, I assume that was the gift breakdown. He didn’t say. I do love little people so maybe the toy was for me. I’m not sure I would like to see Owen on an Oreo sugar high. I’ve already dug into the cookie stash today!

Monday’s surprise goodies!

Apart from keeping Toby and Owen alive, I am also responsible for watering Jeremy’s many plants while he is away. There are two planters in the front of the house, the flower beds, his garden and the green house. Lucky for me, Jeremy has most of these set up with sprinklers and drip hoses. All I have to do is remember to turn on the water… and off. I’m two days into my watering commitment and so far so good. If these plants die, it’s not for a lack of water.

Trying to keep the green things green

Today, Owen and I have worked on a couple of projects (I will blog about these next week – they are a surprise for Jeremy, who reads this blog). I ran some errands while my mom watched Owen and we have a meeting with a family at church. Tomorrow we have MOPS in the park in the morning and we’ll be stopping by sister’s house to check it out. We haven’t been over since moving day, so I am excited to see how she’s settled in. I have packages to get into the mail, baby clothes to sort, my regular house chores to do, root beer floats for my Wednesday night class and a new book to finish. I even have a soda experiment to perform this week. Never a dull moment! I hope all this activity helps us to sleep hard at night and makes the days fly by so we can be reunited with Jeremy sooner! I sure miss that man!

Comments (1)

Celebrating 8 years of us & 9 months of Owen! July 8, 2014

Filed under: Family Time,Parenthood — Amy Scott @ 12:37 pm

Celebrating 8 years!

Today is a very special day. Two things coincide on this one day. Today is Jeremy and I’s wedding anniversary. We are celebrating 8 years of wedded bliss! I’m grateful for the 7 years that Jeremy and I had together before having Owen. Our marriage has been built on a strong foundation. It’s been an adventure figuring out our lives as parents. I’m so glad that I get to be on this adventure with Jeremy. He has the ability to make me laugh whatever mood I am in. He is giving and caring. He does little things often to show me he loves me. He is a wonderful provider for our family and I am blessed by his strong work ethic. It’s been fun to watch Jeremy with Owen. They are good buddies. Owen is lucky to have a father who is so invested in his life. The last 8 years have been filled with ups and downs. Jeremy has been by my side for all them. I’m so excited that this is still just the beginning of our love story!

9 months

The other fun element of the day is Owen is now 9 months old! Somehow our little boy has reached the 3/4 of a year mark! How? I do not know. Owen continues to grow in personality. He loves to laugh and talk. Our baby is not a quiet baby. I know I say this monthly, but I am amazed at how vocal he is. He now says Dada and Mama in a way that makes me think he understands what he is saying. Another big milestone is Owen got two teeth this month! With the addition of teeth, Owen has shown slightly more interest in finger foods. He is still cautious, but he seems more willing to lick things and try to put them in his mouth. If you hand Owen something, he will immediately hit it on something to see what sound it makes. He loves to make noise. Other random Owen news, he now likes to hang out on the wood floor. On the floor, he has the ability to scoot. Owen isn’t crawling, but he is moving. He knows how to get around in a very makeshift kind of way. He loves to hit the bins on our bookshelves and he enjoys laying under is jumperoo (weird kid). He also loves to walk while holding our fingers. He can practically run! We did have our mishap where Owen let go of Jeremy’s fingers and biffed it. The couch leg caught his fall and cut his eyebrow. He handled it well, but there goes that modeling career! Overall, Owen is a happy 9 month old baby boy! It’s been so amazing to see the changes month to month and I am excited for the little boy he is becoming. He is a sweetheart who now gives hugs and kisses. I could keep sharing tidbits endlessly, but alas, all blogs must come to an end. I will leave you with some recent photos!

Hanging with Grandpa

The socks totally go with these jammies, right?

Pool time with Daddy!

New favorite spot

Leave a Comment

4th of July Weekend July 7, 2014

Filed under: Family Time,Getting Creative — Amy Scott @ 6:02 pm

Happy Independence Day from the Scotts!

It’s been a great long weekend! Anytime you have the words long and weekend in the same sentence, it’s a good thing! Friday was the 4th of July and we celebrated with friends and family. We got a visit from our favorite Californians. It was a fun morning of playing games, chatting and munching. Friday afternoon was spent at my parent’s house where we had steaks to celebrate Independence Day. Our evening was a quiet one spent around the house. Owen went down just fine despite the firework noise. Our Toby dog was freaked out as usual. He ended up in sorts of unique places in our house. His favorite spots were under Owen’s crib and tucked behind the toilet in our bathroom. Poor pup. I always feel for him as he shakes in fear. A lot of people asked how Owen liked the fireworks. I’m sad to admit that Owen didn’t see a single firework this year and neither did I. The last few years, Jeremy and I have decided not to blow up our money. Jeremy watched some of the neighbors fireworks through the trees. I hung out with Toby and went to bed. Very exciting stuff, huh? Maybe next year we’ll do a small show for Owen.

Saturday was my dad’s birthday, so it was back to my parent’s house for another round of celebrating. This time there was furniture rearranging and pulled pork sandwiches on the agenda. My dad makes yummy pulled pork and he made a ton of it. We were sent home with leftovers and we’ve been enjoying them the last few days. We also stopped by Home Depot on Saturday to do some daydreaming/research for future house projects. While we were there we purchased the supplies to re-stain my dresser. I didn’t realize it until I started cleaning my dresser on Saturday night, but my dresser is as old as I am. My grandparents gave it to me as gift. One of the top drawers has an apple painted in by my grandma and the other drawer has a note on the bottom saying it was given to me on June 12, 1986. I figured that a 28 year old dresser really was in need of a touch up.

The rest of the weekend, I’ve been in dresser project mode. Saturday, I got it all cleaned up and the old hardware removed. Sunday, Jeremy helped me sand it and I started the process of applying two layers of stain. Today, I did some touch up spots and one last layer of stain. Once that dried, I added the new hardware! It looks like a completely different dresser. I said that if the dresser went well then I might stain our bookshelf to match it. After tackling this project, I will leave the bookshelf alone. Jeremy might tackle that. I am too much of a perfectionist. I like how the dresser turned out, but I’m not extremely handy so it stretched me. We are letting it dry one more night before bringing it inside from the garage. It will be nice to get the contents of my dresser put back in order. Right now our room looks like a giant closet. For those of you who know me, that is not my style! I can’t wait to see the whole room put back together.

That was our weekend in a nutshell. Hope you had a great holiday weekend as well!

Before

After

Leave a Comment

An ER Trip & A Zoo Trip June 30, 2014

Filed under: Family Time,Parenthood — Amy Scott @ 4:12 pm

This last weekend was an exciting one. Owen experienced many firsts – his first trip the ER on Friday and his first trip to the Oregon Zoo on Saturday. Friday was my grandma’s 81st first birthday. My mom, Owen and I drove up to Puyallup to celebrate with the birthday girl. We got there and socialized with my grandma and great-aunt and great-uncle. My cousin, Charlotte, stopped by for a few minutes. Owen got to play with his 3rd cousins, Forrest and Lincoln. Forrest and Owen are 10 days apart so it was fun to see the two babies together. After all the socializing, we went out to a yummy lunch at Olive Garden. Owen had moments of fussiness at the restaurant, but he held it together pretty well for a baby who needed a nap. My mom offered to stop at Starbucks on our way out of town and this where the day went downhill. Since the drive thru was crazy busy my mom decided to go in and place our orders. I was sitting in the car with Owen who was sleeping and breathing a bit funny. All of the sudden the sound of a puking baby could be heard. I got out of the front seat and opened the car door in the back to see Owen covering himself in puke. It was bad. Very bad. Puddles… Anyway, I got Owen out of the car seat and started to clean things up as a best I could. Thank God for baby wipes. I had to clean the car seat and the area surrounding it, I had to wipe down his toys and then proceed to clean Owen with my mom’s help. My mom’s vehicle has a nice spot in the back so we laid Owen down and gave him a baby wipe bath and a fresh diaper and outfit. Mom questioned putting him back into clothes, but I thought this was an isolated incident (rookie mistake). We reloaded and took off for home until… the sound of baby puke could be heard again. We pulled off in a local church parking lot and started the process of cleaning up Owen again. And then Owen threw up twice more. This time it was all over my lap. Yep. Good times. At this point, we decided to wait out the bug and return my grandma’s house since we were only a few minutes away. Once we got to Grandma’s, Owen was asleep so we decided to turn around and head back for home. However, Owen’s breathing got weird and his color was super pale. He threw up a couple more times and we finally made the decision to take him to the nearest ER. As you can tell, there was a lot of driving and stopping and puking. I made many phone calls with Jeremy and our doctor’s office before finally making the decision to go to the ER. The 15 minute drive to the ER was one of the scariest in my life. Owen was so pale and I was scared if he closed his eyes that he wouldn’t wake up, so I kept him awake (more for my sanity than anything else). We arrived at the ER and Owen perked up. It was crazy. I’m fairly certain it was an answer to the prayers our family had been praying for us. It was a tough call but we decided to stay and have Owen seen by the doctor just to be on the safe side. This led to us spending over two hours in the ER waiting… for no real reason. We were seen by the triage nurses and told Owen was fine but if we wanted we could go back to the waiting room and continue to wait for a room to open up and a doctor to see us. Jeremy arrived after this conversation with the nurses and we decided it was time to go home. Owen was doing much better and had stopped throwing up. He had no fever and seemed to be his normal self again. We took our chances and signed him out of the hospital. At this point it was now 5:30pm (we originally started to leave for home at 1:00pm) and I was exhausted from the day. It was so challenging to me to make these decisions regarding Owen’s health all on my own. I’m so grateful that my mom was alongside me for this adventure. She really helped me keep it together. We were both so grateful when Owen perked up. He was a totally different baby by the time we took off for home.

After all the drama of Friday, you would assume we had a quiet day to lay low and just recover? Nope, wrong. It was Family Zoo Day for our church. Jeremy felt awkward about going to the Zoo without his family and I totally understand. As the leader of this event, he really couldn’t stay home. So we all went to the zoo on Saturday. Owen had no fever and hadn’t thrown up since the whole ER ordeal. We decided we would greet the families at the zoo and then leave whenever depending on how Owen was feeling. The whole day had me a little nervous, but it turned into a really great family day. Jeremy and I enjoyed taking Owen around the zoo. Owen clued into the animals and loved to watch them. The weather was off and on rainy so the zoo was kind of quiet. After the drama of Friday, it was just nice to be together as a family. I was so glad that Owen was feeling better and that we could have that time together. I wasn’t sure how the day would go down, but it turned into an family memory that I will never forget. We had a really good time. The contrast of the day before only made it sweeter. I really appreciated it!

Cousin Time

Family Zoo Day

Flowers from my hubby after all the drama

Feeling better and ready for the week ahead!

Leave a Comment

Celebrating Summer June 22, 2014

Filed under: Simply Me — Amy Scott @ 4:39 pm

Yesterday was the first day of summer and I spent it in the best way possible – celebrating the coming arrival of Summer Taylor Boone. My long time buddy and forever friend, Maggie, is expecting a little girl at the beginning of August. I’m so excited for her and her husband as they enter this new season of life. It will be fun for Maggie and I to have babies close in age. I see many play dates in our future. I really hope Summer and Owen can be good buddies. I enjoyed watching Maggie be spoiled by her loving family and friends. Baby Summer is one lucky lady with a lot of cute stuff. Little girl stuff really is the cutest.

Jeremy was gracious enough to drive up with me to the baby shower since it was a long way from home and I knew it would be nice to have a second set of hands to help me with Owen. I started off with my little man attending the shower with me. Owen thought the room was so loud that he needed to scream above the noise to be heard. After a while of screaming (happy, but loud), I sent an SOS text to Jeremy asking for him to take Owen so I could actually focus on the shower. I was so blessed to have my hubby on hand to help me out. I really appreciate him.

Since the baby shower took us to the big city, Jeremy and I decided to hang out a little bit before heading home. We had lunch and dinner at two of our favorite places – Chipotle and P.F. Changs. YUM! We wondered the mall and enjoyed the sunny weather. It really was a great first day of summer. Lovely all around. Even though the baby shower was the main event of the day, I’m glad that it turned into a family day as well. Any time that I get to spend with my boys is time well spent. They are two very special dudes!

Summer the season is officially here! And Summer Boone is almost here too! Exciting times!

Celebrating Summer

Ordering at dinner overwhelmed him. Too many choices!

Leave a Comment

Cooking Marathon June 20, 2014

Filed under: Cooking Experiments,Family Time — Amy Scott @ 6:53 pm

Jeremy and I always talk about how we want to be more intentional with our meal planning. We often look at each other just before 5:00pm and ask what the other wants for dinner. A lot of times we go for quick fixes because we are too hungry to wait for anything to be prepared. Owen was super sick yesterday (he is doing much better today) so we knew today was going to be a home day so Owen could rest. We made a quick run to the store and stocked up some cooking supplies. We proceeded to spend the afternoon making freezer meals and other goodies! We made pulled pork sandwiches for dinner, Jeremy made a loaf of cinnamon apple bread and I continued to perfect Pioneer Woman’s baked fudge recipe. Our freezer is now stocked with five 9×13 pans of yummy meals that will each feed us for days. I made an enchilada casserole from Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist. Jeremy made 2 lasagnas, an egg bake and chicken spaghetti. I’m super excited to pop these in the oven over the next couple of weeks. I’ve heard of people taking a day to make a bunch of freezer meals and I always thought it sounded like too much work. After today, I am amazed how much food can be prepared in just one afternoon. I’m positive this won’t be the last time we do this. Plus, it was so much fun working side by side in the kitchen with my hubby. We’re so domestic!