Stanley

Maybe my sisters can provide some insight here.  My childhood is filled with memories of Stanley Fudge Cookies.  (I have no idea where the Stanley part comes from.)  They are made from sugar, butter, oats, milk, and cocoa.  Maybe there is another minor ingredient in there, but those are the basic ones.  Melt the butter, mix in the sugar and cocoa (and milk?).  Then mix in the oats.  Stick them on some wax paper on cookie sheets and toss them in the refrigerator.  Once they set up a bit, eat!

But the issue is that whole "setting up" part.  My childhood memories are of cookies that come off the wax paper nicely and have some internal cohesion.  You could break them in half.  But these days, we seem to end up with puddles of viscus goo.  They still taste excellent, but they don't seem to solidify.  What is going wrong?  Is this yet another social blight I can blame upon the deterioration of margarine in America?  Do we need to work on our stirring techniques?  Ideas?

Running

I haven't mentioned my recent running escapades much. Maybe for fear that, like past attempts to get back in to running, it would go out with a whimper after a few weeks. Maybe because it's fun to casually throw in statements like this:

Gosh, I'm tired today. Maybe it's because I ran 16 miles yesterday.

And those statements work better when the other person is unsuspecting. In March I ran the Rex Lee Run as always (at perhaps my worst time yet for the race) and our stake had a not-quite-5K race in April. Then, somewhere around the first of May, under the influence of a few friends, I did something stupid. I signed up for the St. George Marathon. As a Washington County resident, I'm guaranteed a spot in the race. So, I've been running ever since. In the last 3 months I've run 215 miles. And spent somewhere north of 30 hours doing. Once you add in the stretching time, the cool down time, and the lying-prostrate-on-the-grass-in-a-state-of-exhaustion time, that number grows quite a bit. So, it's finally time to start blogging about what I've been doing with myself.

I've been quite surprised, really, at how easily I've been able to run longer distances. (So either I'm awesome, or I had expected it to be much harder than it really is.) Before this year I had never run further than about 7 miles. I hadn't run more than 3.1 miles in several years. Now I've topped 10 miles 7 times. As expected, the hardest part is just getting out the door in the morning. (Oh, and the heat. Let's not forget that.)

Today we ran from Veyo to St. George which is part of the marathon course. There was a head wind most of the way, and it was cloudy, so we traded heat for humidity. The first 14 miles went really well, and the last 2 seemed to have way more hills than I remember. Felt like it took forever. But I made it. 63 days until the marathon.

Butter

Time for a whole blog post about butter.

First off, when I was a kid, "butter" meant anything that came in stick form and was used for cooking.  "Margarine" was whatever came in the tubs that was used for "buttering" toast or other things.  (At least, that's what I remember.)  I recognize that it was all margarine, but that's what we tended to call it.  (I now live in fear that my sisters will all comment and refute this claim.)

My other memory of butter is that back in the day, it was a solid.  Our tubs of blue bonnet margarine could sit on the counter for hours and it was fine.  It softened up a bit and was easier to spread around, but it was still solid.  These days, not so much.  The various brands we've purchased over the years (personal favorites: "A Change for the Butter" and "Butter It's Not") are all very similar.  They are very, very soft.  Even right out of the refrigerator they are quite soft and easy to move around anywhere.  But if you leave them out for more than a few minutes (particularly on a hot St. George day) look out!  They melt and get very soft.  It just starts soaking into your dinner roll.  And by the end of dinner, it's turning liquid and separating.  And once that happens, it's just yucky.  It never quite solidifies up the same.

I suspect that the problem is caused by the progressive move away from anything that is partially-hydrogenated, or mono-unsaturated.  The world is so afraid of certain types of fat, that we've switched to butter substitutes that don't have them.  End result: runny butter.  I just want my regular Blue Bonnet back from 20 years ago.  Something soft enough to spread even when right out of the refrigerator, yet firm enough to be identifiable as a solid.  At the rate things are going, I'll just be squirting some vegetable oil on my toast in another decade.

(Oh wait, we already have that, it's "I Can't Believe it's Not Butter Spray")

The Pink Stick

We went swimming tonight with my family who is in town. One of my sisters had some sticks that sink to the bottom of the pool for diving fun and Julia was playing with the pink one. She still had it when we left the pool, but it vanished by the time we reached the hotel room. We searched the pool area, the halls, the rooms and both elevators. We even checked to see if someone turned it in at the front desk. But no pink stick.

So now it is 10:30 at night and Julia woke up sobbing. After 5 minutes she finally managed to get out the she wants the pink stick. 15 minutes of crying so far. All this over a pink stick.

This is why we can never have pets.

Ella Update

No pictures today, because while our baby is adorable, any possible square inch of our house that might appear in the background would be unsuitable for others to view.

There are so many little things that are so easy to forget when you don't have a little baby.  So, I'm making a list.  For those who remember some that I've forgotten, feel free to add on.

1: They tend to come out all mixed up between day and night.  So what few hours a day Ella does spend awake tend to be at 3am.

2: Somehow, they can tell the difference between walking and anything else.  I have never found any bouncing, swaying, rocking or swinging motion that is a successful imitation of walking.  So while Ella is awake at 3am, she wants me walking (stumbling), and simply won't stand for anything less.

3: Babies are so little.  They roughly triple their weight in the first year.  Even tiny little PJs are just so big on her.

4: Babies are yellow.  Well, at least my babies are.  As with Julia we were back doing another Bilirubin test.  Whereas Julia's was low enough that they were satisfied, for Ella we will be going back tomorrow so they can siphon yet more blood from her feet.  So, she is kinda yellow.  Of course, any pigment added to the naturally white pallet she inherited from her parents would be expected to show up pretty well.

5: Beware the post birth hormones.  (In mom, not the baby.)  I'll be ok posting this because Shannon recognizes that she's kinda all over the place the last few days, crying every time a hat drops.

All in all, things are going reasonably well though.  Julia is always super excited to do anything to help out baby Bing.  Yeah, she primarily calls her Bing still, and we aren't fighting that.  She at least doesn't object to us calling her Ella, and will sometimes call her Ella, too.  She said today that she was waiting for Ella to say "binkies, binkies, binkies" and then she would bring her binkies.  All day long she is fetching burp clothes, diapers, toys and blankets, whether we've asked her to or not.  And she loves to hold her little sister (though her attention span for that is only a minute or two).  It's all really quite adorable.

Ella Joy

We present to the world

Ella Joy Blockburger

Everyone wants updates on the baby, but other than finally having a name, there isn't a whole lot to say. She's got a cute hat, which is covering up her blonde hair. Some people have still tried telling us there is some red in there, but we're too smart to fall for that trick twice. If anything, it is just her red scalp shining through. She doesn't cry much, and seems to be eating and pooping about on schedule. Julia bounces back and forth between being excited and nervous. She really wants everyone to come home, but woke up this morning saying "I don't want to be a big sister" and "I don't want to hold any babies."

Pictures of Baby "Bing"

I'm not sure how, but the blog post pronouncing the birth "baby!" somehow passed up the previous entry. I can see how that could be confusing. It's a good indication of how quickly everything happened. We can tell stories about it later. I know that everyone wants pictures.

We are now a family of four. We had to take a break so everyone could eat, because I'm the only one who had eaten more than toast today. The hospital meal was tasty.

Our little girl looks great. She seems to have long fingers, but not long eyelashes. (We can't remember if Julia had long eyelashes birth. She sure has them now.) She had her first bath, so we can say that her hair isn't obviously red. It looks mostly blonde, but who knows on that front. She's had a go at eating, which worked reasonably well, I think.

Shannon is doing great. They are keeping us in the labor/delivery room, possibly over night. As long as she is here, they can have her heart monitor beamed over to the other hospital campus in town (babies in St. George are all born in the "old hospital") where someone continuously monitors the heart patients. Julia will be coming over soon to say hi.

The pediatrician just got here to check her out. Things look ok, except for that nasty tar spill that seems to have happened in her diaper.

19.5 inches. 7lbs 6oz.

4:10pm -- She's got the shakes and is going to try the first push just to see what it's like. Contractions are certainly more substantial in the last 5 minutes.

The nurse is very confident that there will be a baby before she gets off her shift at 6pm. And that was before the last 5 minutes. So, things look very promising. And the blogging may get fast and furious. Right up until the point that it stops completely because I've got more important things to do!