Viscosity

The store-bought egg is on the left, the farm egg is on the right. Notice the yellow color of the store egg and the orange yolks of the farm egg. (The farm egg was a double yolk.)

Store egg on the left, farm egg on the right. The store egg is a "large" size, so you can see how big the farm egg was!

Experiment: To determine if there is a taste/texture difference between free-range farm fresh eggs and store-bought eggs.

Procedures: Obtain one of each. Cook them over-easy. Compare taste, viscosity, texture and appearance.

Results

Appearance: As you can see from the pictures, the farm fresh eggs (the double yolk) are definitely a bright color. This is from the hen's diet of bugs, greens, a little chicken feed and whatever else they can find. The hen who laid the store-bought egg is fed a diet of corn and soy feed, which is not a natural chicken diet.

------------------------------------------------------------------------Viscosity: The farm-fresh egg had a clearer, thicker white. The yolk didn't break as easily. The store-bought egg was runnier and the yolk broke when I flipped the egg over.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------Texture: The farm-fresh egg was easy to chew and smooth. While cleaning the prep bowls, I noticed there was less residue on the bowl in the which I had cracked the farm-fresh egg. The store-bought egg had a more rubbery feel to the white while I was chewing and more residue in the bowl.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------Taste: The taste was comparable. The farm-fresh egg was a little "eggier", but I don't know if, were I give several plates to identify of farm-fresh and store-bought eggs by taste alone, I could do it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------Summary: The farm-fresh egg came from my in-law's Comets. The store-bought egg came from Wal-Mart. I won't disgust you with how the hens in mass-egg-production farms are treated; you can look that up for yourself. Even though the taste wasn't amazingly different, I liked the way the farm egg felt in my mouth and my body after eating it. I have research the difference in nutrition between these two types of eggs and the farm egg is definitely healthier. So readers, find some farm fresh eggs and try this for yourself!

Daddy doesn't get to spend a lot of time with us. During the school year, between classes, clinicals and work, we usually get Sunday afternoons and another afternoon during the week. But when he does spend time with us, it makes Emily's day.

This is their "secret handshake" that Daddy uses to get hugs from Emily. She won't give him hugs outright. He instead has to work up to the hug as you'll see here.

This is a typical Emily/Daddy activity, which is why she often prefers playing with him to playing with me.

Daddy and Emily

Daddy doesn't get to spend a lot of time with us. During the school year, between classes, clinicals and work, we usually get Sunday afternoons and another afternoon during the week. But when he does spend time with us, it makes Emily's day.

What's been happening...

Not a lot. We're just getting back to normal life after a couple of weeks of going everywhere. It's nice to sleep in your own bed again and not be continually packing and unpacking a suitcase. Here are some pictures of our life. Today Emily was playing with paper plates and I thought "why not make a mask?" She had a great time and kept running to the mirror in our room to see herself.

Nathalie after a bath. She loves bathtime, except when Emily splashes her in the face.

My handsome husband. I love Sundays!

Emily and Nathalie sharing some sister time. Climbing on the couch to sit next to Nathalie is one of Emily's favorite things to do. Nathalie loves it, except when Emily pushes her between the throw pillows.(There are a lot of "except when Emily" statements in her life.)

Matt finished the semester! Go him! Now he has 3 weeks until he starts school again. His first day of school is on our anniversary. Yay.

Our car is still in the shop. The auto part store has ordered the wrong part TWICE! Needless to say, I'm starting to get a little grumpy. Unfortunately, I don't have as good an attitude about not having a car as the mother in the Ensign article from last month. Hopefully we'll get the car back this weekend. So maybe I should read that article for a little humbling!

I know, I know...

You probably don't want to see more pictures of Emily and Nathalie. Too bad! So here, for your forced viewing, are my two beautiful daughters! Mmmmm....

So pretty!!!

Emily on Uncle Mike's shoulders at the zoo.

Emily's "camera" smile. It's so cute!

Hypermiling and other such stories

I feel like I've spent half the summer in the car.

Matt and I are trying to be more frugal. One of the ways we are doing this is by hyper-mile-ing. In other words, stretching the gas in our car. Matt read an article on it and here are some of the suggestions.

--Park in a spot where you can pull through. Cars use a lot of gas in reverse.
--Put the car in neutral when coming up to a stop, or coasting downhill.
--Don't exceed over 2000 rpms when you are accelerating. It takes longer, but saves a lot of gas.
--When driving long distances, pick a large truck/semi and sit behind it the whole way. The larger vehicle cuts the way for you, so your car isn't having to push as much air out of the way.
--Take the route that has the fewest stops. Stopping and starting takes gas.

With these techniques, Matt and I have been able to get our car to 22 mpg. Considering our 16-year-old Volvo typically gets 19 mpg in the summer and 17 mpg in the winter, this is a great achievement!

And speaking of our good ol' Volvo, we had a new experience today. Our Volvo has 258k miles on it. The back seat passenger window doesn't work, the passenger seat doesn't adjust, there is no a/c, the gas flap has fallen off (but we have it), the leather is starting to peel, the trunk doesn't stay open in cold weather, the rotors need to be replaced and the antenna fell off last week. Today the blower went, so we also don't have heat. And then on the way home from Columbus, the car just lost power. Matt thinks it's the fuel pump, since we've had issues with it before. That is good news-- a fuel pump isn't too expensive and Matt can do the labor himself.

As long as it keeps going forward and backwards (safely) we're hanging on to this car!

For my mom

This post is for my mom. Mom, these are pictures of her talking on the phone to you. She loves it every night.

I threw this in there because I wanted you to see Nathalie's face. Not pleased that Emily is "helping" Mommy change her diaper.

Duck Hunting

We didn't actually go duck hunting. But it sounds more exciting.

I have been promising Emily that we will go feed the ducks, so I made good on that promise. Monday we let Daddy sleep in and went to feed the ducks. We had lots of fun and the ducks even ate out of her hand! Nathalie in the stroller. She is super duper cute. And that hat only cost me $1.

I promised Emily we would make it an extra special morning, so after feeding the ducks we got chocolate milk.

The duck's nest we found. We didn't get too close because Mama duck was nearby.

Emily looking cute, feeding the ducks. I had to show her how to tear the bread apart because she tried throwing a piece whole into the pond and the docks wouldn't go after it.

Fun in July

Here are some pictures from last week. I went to Cincinnati to visit my friend Liz (and, coincidentally, to go shopping at the Gap Outlet). Matt and Emily stayed at his parent's house where his cousin Kaylyn, her six kids, his sister Becky, her three kids, his brother, Mike, his sister-in-law, Kristen, and their four kids (read: 5 adults, 14 children, lots of chaos) were having fun. Here's documentation. Some of the kids watching Kristen do a song before bedtime. 8 of the 14.

My nephew Ben, about to chase chickens down and squirt them with water. What are the squirters, you may ask? Large medical syringes. Ben, being a boy, put 7 syringes in his "gun holsters", a.k.a his pants.

Matt holding "Sally" the rooster. Sally likes to attack children and adults. We believe his demise is soon at hand.

Liz and I after eating a yummy ice cream at UDF, treat of Liz's mom. Thanks Kellie! We had a grand old time, got some great new clothes and enjoyed each other's company.

We have this print of Christ in our living room. As we're trying to teach Emily about the Gospel, I always look for teaching moments. Yesterday, Emily said something that sounded like "towel" and pointed to the print. I asked, "Do you know who this is? It is Jesus." She pointed to the print again and said, "Picture of Jesus. Wear towel." Confused, I asked, "What?" She replied, "Jesus wear towel. Take a bath. All clean."

Oh well!

10 weeks old...

Nathalie turned two months on the 27th! She had her Dr's appt Wednesday. Here are the stats: 14 lbs 3 oz and 24 inches long! And don't you love the thighs?

She's so cute. Whenever she wakes up she smiles at me and makes cooing noises. Granted, I'm still very sleep deprived and figuring things out so it's not all kicks and giggles but we're slowly getting there, but there are definitely kicks and giggles there.

I can't seem to get enough...

of sister pictures. Perhaps it's because in my heart-of-hearts, I always wanted two girls. I sure loved having sisters growing up, and I still love having them (I love you too, Bryan!). Perhaps it's because I can't wait for little matching outfits. I have told Matt that we can have all boys after this, because I got my little girls. So here are a few pictures just for my benefit. At my wedding with my lovely sisters.

Matching outfits and we're super cute.

My sister Amy, left, and I got our YW Recognition together. Kelsey had just barely started YW so she wasn't quite there yet.

Just because she's cute.

Emily loves to give Nathalie hugs. She usually ends up squishing her.

Reflection...

As I read the previous post, I realized I sounded a tad bitter. Perhaps I was. But who doesn't have days like that?

Wait.

That's not what I'm trying to say.

I just held Nathalie as she fell asleep. And then I went in and rocked a crying Emily to sleep. And yes, I'm about to go to sleep myself. But before I do, I want to share what I was thinking while I was mothering.

I realized that even though I'm a far-from-perfect mom with a borderline-terrible-two toddler and a cuddle-bug baby that we're going to make it. Granted, the weekend was rough, and I foresee many rough days in the future as Emily and I work out how to deal with the twos. But I also saw a little baby who just loves to cuddle. And a little girl who needs her mama's love, even when her mama has been impatient with her all morning. I see a mama who needs her girls' love as much as they need hers, and somehow, together, these three (and Daddy too) are hanging in there.

And maybe that will make up for the weekend.

My holiday weekend? Horrible.

Saturday Emily and I were cranky. She hadn't gotten enough sleep. Whenever Emily slept, Nathalie was awake and vice versa. So at 9:00pm Saturday when I got ready to go to bed, Nathalie woke up to the neighborhood fireworks and was awake for 2 1/2 more hours. To top that off, we had been stuck in our house all day with no festivities because it rained and rained.

Sundays are hard and Emily took a short nap. She was cranky in the evening. We put her in bed at 8:30 but she called for us and we had to go in 6 times before she decided to go to bed. Nathalie fell asleep at 10pm, hooray!

Then the fireworks started. A few here and then as people would shoot them and run since fireworks are illegal in Ohio. They got a little more frequent as it got later and, I'm sure, as the alcohol started to flow freely. But around 11:30, a nice large (and somewhat drunk) family across the street decided to set up an entire store of fireworks. For an hour. At half psat midnight, they finally stopped. Matt and I didn't sleep until one. Nathalie woke up at 3 and wouldn't go to sleep again....so she and I went to sleep together on the couch to not disturb Matt. Matt left for work at 6:45am....and Emily woke up.

That was my holiday weekend. What about yours?