Audrey Update

Our sweet girl just turned one year old!  Since she didn't get monthly written updates on her progress during her first year, I'm condensing a year's worth of sweetness and fun into one mega-post.  Sweet is truly the best way to describe Audrey.  She has such a big heart and loves to cuddle and smile and play.  She is a mama's girl to the extreme, which I don't mind at all.  But she also has a feisty side that crops up every once in a while and lets me know she is going to be a strong, smart, funny girl on top of being the most beautiful little lady in the world.

Snuggle Bug

Some fun and cute stories about our girl that I want to remember:

She likes to play games, including one where I pretend to fall asleep on floor and she rushes over to kiss my face, aggressively snuggle me or climb over me in an effort to "wake" me up.  She loves to race her brother in their ride-along cars: her in the Mickey Mouse car, Ryan in the Construction one.  Matt or I will push her as fast as we can go in a circuit around the house and she bounces and smacks the steering wheel with excitement.  And sometimes, if she's feeling calm, I will scratch her back while she just relaxes and occasionally giggles and twitches.

Her favorite activity is reading books, which just makes my heart soar!  She goes to her bookshelf or to the table of books in her playroom and searches through the piles until she finds something that catches her eye.  Her current favorites are lift-the-flaps, anything with dogs or other animals, and trucks with faces.  Sometimes when she gets a new book, we will sit down to read it and once I close the book at the end, she flips it over and demands we read it again immediately, multiple times.  If I am sitting in the playroom, she will grab some books and crawl or walk them right over to me and thrust them in my face with a smile.  I hope to always foster a love for reading with her so we can exchange books when she's older :)

She's already getting good at her animal noises.  When she sees a dog (in real life, a book, on TV), she will pant and stick her tongue out.  She can hoot like an owl, and does a mean lion growl.  And she's currently working on monkey noises as well.

Speaking of dogs, Jordan has captured Audrey's affections, much like she did Ryan's.  Audrey loves to crawl over and pet Jordan's fuzzy head and pat her on the back.  She thinks it's hilarious to feed her treats,  Whenever we are snacking, she hands half of her food over to the dog.  If I tell her not to feed the dog, she will pretend that the treats are for her by putting them in her own mouth, then turning away from me and taking them out of her mouth to feed Jordan.  Such a cute little friendship that makes me grateful for our great little pooch.

Her best friend, however, is definitely her big brother Ryan.  He is so sweet to his Sissy Missy, and she just adores him in return. I will sometimes be working in a separate room of the house and hear them both giggling wildly.  When I go to see what's so funny, Ryan is just making faces at her or making a weird noise that she finds hilarious.  If Audrey wakes up before Ryan in the morning, it is a struggle to keep her away from his door - she wants to go over and knock to wake him up to play.  Ryan will hold "his" baby while they watch cartoons together, or they will crawl around on a mattress together pretending to be dinosaurs.

Her hair is getting so much lighter these days, going from a dark brown to a very light brown that borders on blonde in the sunlight.  I've already had to cut her bangs multiple times, otherwise they fan over her eyes and down to her mouth where they get in her way.  And she's now old enough to pull headbands off, so haircuts are the easier option.  Still not enough length anywhere else to style, but just so cute.

#longhairdon'tcare

In terms of mobility, she started crawling around 8 months old and got around well that way.  When she would crawl, she preferred to do so with an object in one or both of her hands (washcloths, toys, anything she could find on the floor).  She started walking fairly early, taking her first lone steps on 7/29/16 at the age of 11 months.  While she walked, she laughed and laughed, amused and amazed at her new skill.  Now, she is an incredibly persistent and determined walker.  She will pick herself up after falling again and again without getting frustrated.  And if she wants to hold on to my hands, it means she has somewhere she wants to go fast, and will nearly run with my help.

She has a love for all things music and musical, and I think she will be a lover of the arts.  She likes to play her xylophone, recorder, triangle and drums.  But what she really loves is to listen to pop or hip hop music on my phone and dance to it.  If she hears a song with a good beat, she is all smiles and bounces.  She also loves to color (although we're still working on the part where you don't eat the crayons in between scribbling).  Since I have very limited artistic ability, it is so cool to see this side of her emerge.

She's got 3 little teeth right now - 2 on the bottom and one that just came in on top.  But that hasn't stopped her from trying every food we offer to her.  From the time she cut her first teeth, pizza has been her favorite meal to eat.  She also loves spaghetti, gnocchi, potatoes of any kind really, and mac & cheese.  Her favorite food overall is probably just whatever fruit we have that day, be it grapes or blueberries or mangoes.  If she sees fruit coming, she tosses everything else off of her high chair to make room for it.  (We affectionately call her "The Tosser," as she likes to walk or crawl around and toss anything she sees in her path off to the side or behind her.)

I'm sure there are a million more little things that I'm forgetting right now, but those are just a few fun things about my girl.  She brings so much joy to our lives and just completes our family in a way that I could have never expected.  I feel so lucky to be her mama, and I'll try to do a better job of jotting down the cute stories about her so she can read them someday if she'd like!

Bumper Repair

Accidents Happen...

This sort of minor damage to a car is common and happens eventually if you own a car for long enough.  The annoying part about it to me is that your options for dealing with it are limited and often times less than ideal:

1. Take the car to a dealership or repair shop to get it fixed properly.  This is the easiest method and will bring the car back into perfect working order but it seems that no matter what the problem is it will always cost ~ $500 or whatever your insurance deductible is.
2. Shop around to find the appropriate bumper part yourself and attempt to remove and replace the piece on your own.  By buying the parts yourself you can save about half the repair cost but you're then on your own to figure out how to fix it.  The repair could take half a day or more to complete and that's if you do it correctly and don't damage other parts while trying to remove and replace the one broken part.  
3. Live with the dent/scrape/damage.  This is undesirable for many reasons, but it's undeniably the cheapest and easiest solution of the three.

Before going down one of these paths I figured I would try a different solution.  I would use some of my home improvement troubleshooting skills and see if I could apply them to our car.  After assessing the actual damage it seemed to be limited to a few plastic rivets that had come out and a broken attachment point on the end of the bumper (pictured).

Broken Bumper Attachment Point

So I found and ordered a bag of the appropriate retainer clips and ordered some JB Weld epoxy putty on Amazon.  For $10 I had the supplies I needed to try the quick repair.  If it didn't work I was only out a few dollars and I could still go down one of the 3 usual car repair paths.

Repair Supplies

I popped the plastic clips in place along the edge of the bumper where they had come loose and used the putty to help create a new attachment point for the end to keep it in place.  Afterwards I used some adhesive remover to help wipe off the paint that had transferred to the bumper and finished it with a fresh coat of wax.

Put Back Together

The finished repair is almost as good as putting on a new piece.  You would have to be looking for it to notice any difference.  Definitely good enough for a 7 year old car; 2009 Toyota Camry.  Still looks and runs great.  

Plastic Rivet Clip

JB Weld!

Before

After

Repairing Wooden Shutters

Now that we're blogging again, I figured I would start posting about some of my home improvement and repair projects.  I've still been working on the house, but less often with the kids around.  It seems that Pamela and I would rather hang out with the kids than take on a new repair or remodeling project.  Also, we're running out of things to repair or update with this house.

Repairing Shutters
A few weeks ago I noticed that a part of the wooden shutters in our bedroom had broken off.  It didn't really affect the operation of the shutters, you could still close them up or open them but that one slat would sort of hang crooked.  Last week it finally was bothering me enough to do something about it.  This was a fairly easy and quick repair once I had a plan in mind for how to fix it.  I didn't want to have to take the entire shutter assembly apart or find/make a whole new slat.  To save time and money, I decided I would use a sort of wooden plug and stick it in place to repair that section.  I fashioned a small piece of wood roughly the size and shape of the piece that had broken off.  Then I used some JB weld epoxy putty I had leftover from another project to stick it in place.  The epoxy putty is some pretty strong stuff once it sets up.  I figure it'll hold the shutter well enough.  It doesn't have to support much weight or stress, it just needs to hold that slat onto the pin so it can rotate.  I let it dry for a day and then I painted over the repair using some old white paint I had leftover from Ryan's room.  Total money spent on the repair: $0 and it operates and looks almost as good as new.

Broken Shutter Before

Broken Shutter Up Close

Wooden Plug

Fits Just Right

JB Weld

Wood and Expoxy Putty in Place

Painted Up to Match

Shutters After

Audrey's Birth Story

Now that we're coming up on Audrey's first birthday, seems like a good time to finally get her birth story written down so I don't forget it.  I wrote about Ryan's birth story here a few years ago, but round 2 was a completely different experience for us all.  We were very happy with our midwife we used for Ryan's delivery (Tiffany), so we followed her to her new group practice called MomDocs.  Fortunately, we really loved all of the midwives that we met, so we felt confident that no matter who was on call the day of delivery, we would be in good hands.

The pregnancy itself was fairly uneventful, except for a bad bout of "morning" (all day) sickness in the first trimester.  The thing that stinks the most about that is that you haven't told co-workers or acquaintances about the pregnancy yet, so people just think you just look tired and sick for no good reason.  This time was even worse than with Ryan, because it included some nasty vertigo as well.  Which meant that for about a month, I couldn't even drive my car for fear of getting dizzy when I turned my head to check my blind spot.  Thankfully, that faded after the first 12 weeks and it was smooth(ish) sailing after that.

In our mid-way ultrasound appointment, we found out that we were having a girl.  Although we would have been happy with either gender, we were maybe a smidge happier that we would now have a boy and a girl.  Best of both worlds and all that.  The due date that we had been given was August 20th, but friends, family and co-workers kept reminding us that second babies tend to come earlier and come faster than the firsts.  I was hoping that she would come on the 15th so she could share a birthday with my sister Liz, but no such luck.  The 20th came and went and still no baby, but I didn't feel too anxious waiting a little longer.  I could still remember how much work and how little sleep you get when you have a new baby, so I savored the extra few days of rest and relaxation.

On the 21st, my sister Kim came into town from Las Vegas for a long weekend to stay with us.  Our hope was that the baby would be born while she was here so she could meet her and also help out with Ryan while we were at the hospital.  It wasn't looking promising, though, and Kim had to go back to work on Tuesday the 25th.  On Monday the 24th, Matt went to work per usual and I was planning to go in as well.  But around breakfast time, I started having some light contractions.  I messaged Matt to let him know, but told him not to rush home and that I would keep him posted on progress or lack thereof.  We had also hired a doula this round - a wonderful woman named Michelle who we both really clicked with.  Her role would be to help us with pain management, relaxation and moral and physical support during the labor.  I texted her that today might be the day, but to hang tight until I knew.  I casually woke Kim up to watch Ryan while I got some laundry done and tried to ignore the contractions (deny, deny, deny! in the early stages of labor, so I was told)

But the contractions started to pick up in frequency and intensity really quickly.  I messaged Matt and told him to think about coming home.  Then I messaged him again soon after and told him to GET home.  By the time he got here, I was in full-on focus mode.  Matt drew a bath for me and ran around trying to get loose ends at the house tied up.  But that proved hard to do, since every few minutes, I would yell for him to come help me work through another contraction.  He called Michelle and asked her to get over as quickly as she could.  When Michelle arrived, it was a big relief to both of us.  She was able to help me with my pain management while Matt gave final instructions to Kim on Ryan care.  I didn't know it at the time, but I guess when Michelle got to the house, she quickly excused herself to text her home birth midwife to say she didn't know if I would make it to our (sort of far) hospital and to stand by.

Thankfully, we didn't end up needing the home birth midwife.  We packed our stuff into our car and Michelle drove separately in her own car to meet us there.  The car ride was unpleasant to say the least.  Contractions are hard enough at home when you can move around to find comfortable positions and have a support person massaging your back and hips.  When you are strapped in a car seat and your support person has to focus on, you know, getting you there alive, it makes for a pretty miserable 20 minutes.  I remember that as we were getting close to the freeway exit for the hospital, Matt said, "Don't worry, we're almost there!  Probably only 1 more contraction in the car!"  4 or 5 contractions later, we finally parked in the LAST remaining spot in the emergency room parking lot, which also happened to be the furthest from the entrance.  Which meant that we had to walk across the entire lot, stopping to break for contractions, in literally 115 degree weather (which feels even hotter when you're on asphalt, if you can believe that.)

Finally made it into the hospital and started the check-in process.  Had to first stop in triage, where they hook you up to monitors and check you to make sure you are really in labor.  Good news - I was dilated to 7cm already and the contractions were rocking and rolling!  This was a super big relief to me, since with Ryan I came in at a 3 and then made no progress and got really tired and discouraged.  It was nice to know that we timed it better this round.  They quickly transferred me to a labor and delivery room that had a huge laboring tub in it.  They strapped a fetal monitor to my belly and helped me into the water, which was BOILING hot, but felt great.  Then, for the next 30 minutes or so, I just labored that baby down.  With each contraction, Michelle would pour hot water over my back or belly, fan me with a hand fan, remind me to loosen my jaw and keep my moaning low.  Matt would give me sips of juice in between contractions, let me squeeze his hand during them, and offered great verbal support.

The midwife on call was Ramona, and we were so happy to have her calm presence with us.  The nurse, Frances, was actually one of the same nurses at Ryan's delivery, so it was fun to have a familiar face.  They kept reminding me that I could labor in the tub, but once I needed to start pushing, I would need to get out of the water (water births are not allowed in the hospital.)  Which was fine with me, only I didn't know how to tell when the pushing needed to start.  Everyone kept insisting that I would know, but I was skeptical.  Finally, Ramona suggested that for my next contraction, I should flip over to my knees instead of sit/laying in the tub and I remember saying "I do NOT like this!" during that contraction.  They said that it was time to get out of the tub, then, and everyone helped me  to climb out and walk over to the side of the hospital bed.

Ramona coached that when I felt my next contraction coming, I should lay my torso on the bed for support while squatting down and bearing down as hard as I could.  So I did just that, and my water broke (all over Ramona, apparently, though I didn't realize that at the time.)  Next contraction, I did the same thing, and out popped the baby's head.  They said to give one final half push and the rest of that little girl came right out into Ramona's waiting hands.  That was it. - 2 and a half pushes (vs. an hour and a half of pushing with Ryan.)  They handed that sweet girl to me and helped me into the bed so I could get a look at her.  She was the most beautiful little thing ever - SO much dark hair and big blue eyes.  She was so tiny and squishy and looked a lot like her brother, but also a lot like me as a newborn.  We were absolutely and immediately in love with her.  The birth stats:

Audrey Brooke Hesselbacher
Born 8/24/15 at 3:09pm
8lb, 12oz
20.5in long

The total labor was only 6 hours when all was said and done, which is actually a totally manageable amount of time!  (And I'm not just saying that with a year under my belt - I think I said at some point that day, "that wasn't so bad!" - haha!)  I was happy to have had a drug-free labor this round since my body really does not like pain killers and reacts poorly to them.  My recovery with her was SO much easier than it was with Ryan.  She slept really well to start with - everyone from the nurses to the pediatrician told us that we had to wake her up every 2-3 hours at night to eat, but she did NOT appreciate being woken and would refuse to eat in protest.  Once she was ready, she would always wake up on her own and happily eat, so we rode that sweet ride the entire 6 weeks it lasted :)  Being a seasoned parent actually made most things easier - we already had a pediatrician we knew and trusted, we knew what products we loved, and we had a general idea of how to care for our new babe.  So even though she gets our often-divided attention and I don't post her monthly baby blogs like I did for Ryan, she gets happier, more relaxed parents who know what the hell they're doing most of the time.

So a bit belated, but welcome to the world, baby girl.  We love you more than you can possibly know, and we feel so eternally blessed to be your parents.

She <3 getting="" hair="" her="" s="" td="" washed="">

Life with two

Ryan's Big Kid Room

I loved decorating the nurseries for both of my kids.  It's a fun chance to flex my decorating skills with softer and cuter detail than I can use in the rest of the house (since I share the rest of the house with an adult man...)  But now that Ryan is 3, he has his own tastes, likes, and dislikes that he can clearly articulate.  So I was super excited to re-do his bedroom decor to make it his own.  You can see the original Nursery Design here.

First move was changing his crib into a full size bed with the conversion kit we had purchased with the crib.  Basically, you keep the long sides of the crib and use them as the head and foot boards and replace the short crib sides with rails.  We were lucky that he didn't start climbing out of his crib until he was much older, so the transition to a big kid bed and the freedom it allows was easier.  No issues with him leaving his room or hopping out of bed or typical toddler shenanigans.  He didn't even have issues falling out of the bed, thankfully :)  Some new sheets from Pottery Barn Kids courtesy of his Nana - one set of cars, one of assorted vehicles and one of alligators.

Next step was to take down all of the cute elephant and giraffe details I had put around the room.  Sad to see them go, but they were very babyish and not well suited for my big guy.  After that, I took his yarn-wrapped letters that spell his name and yanked all of the yarn off of them.  We painted them red - his favorite color - and stuck them right back up in their place, but they give it a totally different feel.

Audrey loves Ryan's new bed, too

Then we took down the alphabet art and replaced it with some fun vintage pictures of cars I found on Pinterest.  Got the frames at Hobby Lobby and just printed the car pictures at home.  For matting, I used construction paper that I already had at home, so a very affordable project.

Lastly, we took down the paintings that Kim and I had made and replaced it with a fun vehicle ABC array that I bought on Etsy.  There is a different car/truck/etc. for every letter of the alphabet, which is really helping him as he learns his letters and sounds better.  I got some mini clothespins on Amazon and Matt painted them the same red as the name letters.  Then he drilled some anchors into the wall and strung up thin rope to hang the letters on.  It ended up taking up much more of the wall than we anticipated, but it looks amazing.

Ryan loves his new room and I love that it is a place that reflects his tastes and the things that he loves.  It will be interesting to see how his style evolves over the years, but for now, we are all digging his red vehicle room!

Shout out to Aunt Jody for providing (literally) hundreds of big kid books for the new room!

What are the Best Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Flavors? - A (somewhat) comprehensive rating system

A few years ago, one of my co-workers told me how he and a group of friends got together every year and went on a Pizza Tasting Tour of a fun city.  A lot of times it was in New York, sometimes in Chicago or Philly.  But they would go to 5 or 6 pizza places over the course of a long weekend and try a pie and a pitcher of beer at each to find their favorite slices.  I LOVE this idea!  And I love pizza too, so maybe someday I will steal it verbatim.

But in the meantime, I mentioned to Matt that I would love to do this for something that we both love a lot, like an Ice Cream Tour!  He pressed me for the logistics of it, and I said maybe we could fly out to Vermont to Ben & Jerry's headquarters where they do tasting tours.  He pointed out that the flight to Vermont alone would probably cost us more than if we were to just buy every flavor of B&J's they offered at the grocery store.  So that's just what we did.  Over the course of a few months, we bought every flavor of Ben & Jerry's at the Fry's by our house and kept a rating scorecard up on our freezer to keep track of our favorites.  The results were delicious and sometimes shocking - flavors that sounded insanely good ended up being so-so, flavors that sounded strange ended up with high marks across the board.

Here's where we landed:

Top Flavors (Loved By All):

• Half Baked: Chocolate & Vanilla ice cream with Fudge Brownies and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.  First place goes to this amazing flavor.  This was no surprise to anyone with a pulse and some taste buds.  This is commonly known as the most delicious flavor of ice cream in the universe.  During the rotation, we tried it 2 or 3 times just to be sure.  Yup.
• Everything But The...: Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Creams mixed with Peanut Butter Cups, Fudge-Covered Toffee Pieces, White Chocolatey Chunks & Fudge-Covered Almonds. I'm not sure why this one surprised me so much. Looking at the ingredient list, everything sounds great. Somehow when they're mixed all together, they're even better. The whole being better than the sum of it's parts and all that. Great flavor, we will add this one to our normal rotation.
• The Tonight Dough: Caramel & Chocolate Ice Creams with Chocolate Cookie Swirls & Gobs of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough & Peanut Butter Cookie Dough. The flavor profile on this one is so similar to Half Baked, that it's no wonder we ranked it 3rd place among all the contenders. Delicious and balanced flavors. And seeing Jimmy Fallon's face made us want to watch Hashtags on YouTube all night - can't beat ice cream and a laugh!
• Brownie Batter Core: Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Creams with Fudge Brownies & a Brownie Batter Core. If there's one thing I love more than brownies, it's brownie batter. Lots of chocolaty deliciousness here, but not overwhelmingly chocolate.
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: Vanilla Ice Cream with Gobs of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Matt's favorite ice cream flavor overall is chocolate chip. So it's no surprise that when you give him super gourmet cookie dough ice cream, he loves it. I didn't think it was too bad either!
• Mint Chocolate Cookie: Peppermint Ice Cream with Chocolate Sandwich Cookies. Mmm - the cookies in this flavor were even better than Oreo's if you can believe that. If you were to add brownies to this pint, it may very well move up to first place for me. Can someone make that happen? So good.
• Karamel Sutra Core: Chocolate & Caramel Ice Creams with Fudge Chips & a Soft Caramel Core. The caramel core really worked with this flavor. I liked the simplicity, but Matt (the king of caramel) really loved all of the caramel. Surprise, surprise.

Great Flavors (Liked By All):

• Cake My Day: Vanilla cake batter ice cream, vanilla cake pieces, buttercream frosting and raspberry swirls. This is part of a limited batch release that we were happy to find. Cake is my favorite dessert, so I thought this one would shoot to the top of the list for me. Although the flavor was solid, it just doesn't compare to real cake, so I couldn't put it in my top.
• New York Super Fudge Chunk: Chocolate Ice Cream with White & Dark Fudge Chunks, Pecans, Walnuts & Fudge Covered Almonds. Nice and nutty, but had to mix this one with vanilla ice cream so it wasn't so overwhelmingly chocolate.
• Peanut Butter Fudge Core: Chocolate & Peanut Butter Ice Creams with Mini Peanut Butter Cups & a Peanut Butter Fudge Core. Yum to the mini PB cups, and the core on this one was pretty good too. If I were in a really peanut-buttery mood, I would go for this one again.
• Brewed to Matter: Coffee Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks & a Brownie Batter Swirl. This one was a Target exclusive flavor that Matt was happy to find. Coffee and fudge made for a good overall flavor, but we happen to like the coffee flavor of Breyer's a bit better.
• Empower Mint: Peppermint Ice Cream with Fudge Brownies & Fudge Swirls. This one had the brownies I was looking for, but not the cookies! Why can't Empower Mint and Mint Chocolate Cookie team up and make a sweet, sweet, baby for me to eat? Empower Mint is supposed to remind everyone to get out and vote this election season - DO it!!
• Americone Dream: Vanilla Ice Cream with Fudge Covered Waffle Cone Pieces & a Caramel Swirl. This is another one where the flavor is good and we have no REAL complaints. Except that the Frys/Kroger brand waffle cone ice cream is just as good to Matt. And I would prefer if they added nuts to this flavor to remind me of Drumstick ice cream - yum!
• Phish Food: Chocolate Ice Cream with Gooey Marshmallow Swirls, Caramel Swirls & Fudge Fish. I remember eating this one a lot in college, but my tolerance for chocolate must have been higher then. Love the yummy marshmallows and the large chocolate chunks, but had to cut this one with vanilla ice cream to avoid being overwhelmed by chocolate.
• Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch: Coffee Ice Cream with Fudge-covered Toffee Bar Pieces. I thought I had struck Matt gold on this one, since he loves coffee and toffee. But he said that their toffee is just not his favorite (he likes the Caramel Butter Toffee Kroger brand the best and eats it almost every night, so that was the measuring stick it was up against)

Mixed Reviews (Some Likes, Some Dislikes):

• Boom Chocolatta Cookie Core: Mocha & Caramel Ice Creams with Chocolate Cookies, Fudge Flakes & a Chocolate Cookie Core. Matt and I liked this one well enough, but Tori gave it a sad face. Seems like the cores can be a bit polarizing, which makes sense given there is a dominant flavor center that you have to enjoy in order to love the whole pint.
• Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core: Chocolate & Cheesecake Ice Creams with Chocolate Cookies & a Cheesecake Core. Case in point on the polarity: Matt and Tori really liked this flavor, but I was lukewarm on it! I think the word cheesecake threw me off because it was just the essence or flavor of cheesecake without any of the awesome texture.
• A Swirled of Difference: Peanut butter ice cream with a crunchy peanut butter swirl & a raspberry swirl. Another Target exclusive. I actually thought I liked this one the first time we ate it - it is VERY reminiscent of a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. But we didn't finish the carton night one, and I never found myself wanting to go back to it. So just meh.
• Cherry Garcia: Cherry Ice Cream with Cherries & Fudge Flakes. This is one of the only flavors I ever tried as a kid, so I have a soft spot for Cherry Garcia. But Matt doesn't like cherries, so he knew he wouldn't love it going in. I happily finished this one on my own after his research taste test.

Total Duds:

• Spectacular Speculoos Core: Dark Caramel & Vanilla Ice Creams with Speculoos Cookies & a Speculoos Cookie Butter Core. Man, this one was super disappointing because we really like the Speculoos Cookie Butter from Trader Joe's. Ryan will eat that stuff by the spoonful directly from the jar. It's a cinnamon or gingerbread-like mashed cookie paste. Very holiday and very good. But the ice cream tasted dry and crumbly and not at ALL like the cookie butter. Bummer.
• Chunky Monkey: Banana Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks & Walnuts. I actually don't like anything banana flavored (except for actual bananas) since they remind me of the dentist. That was the flavor novicaine that my dentist always used, so banana flavors make me ill. Matt wasn't wild about it either and we only begrudgingly ate this one.
• Chocolate Therapy: Chocolate Ice Cream with Chocolate Cookies & Swirls of Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream. Ugh, WAY too much chocolate on this one. Not even cutting with vanilla ice cream could save this one. I couldn't even taste the particulates since the chocolate flavor was so overwhelming. Did not finish.
• Coconuts for Caramel Core: Caramel & Sweet Cream Coconut Ice Creams with Fudge Flakes & a Caramel Core. The caramel half of this ice cream was great. But the other half was TOTAL garbage. Initially, I thought that maybe it was in a weird part of the freezer that was causing the sweet cream side to be frozen solid. I couldn't even get a spoonful out without flinging it across the room. And it didn't even seem ice-creamy in flavor. Just like cold coconut shavings. Threw out that half.

So there you have it!  These are all of the flavors at our store (and then some extras, thanks Target!)  We have had such a fun time trying all of these new flavors and learning about what this brand has to offer.  I think Ben & Jerry's is such a fun company, and looking at their other flavors online makes me so hungry!  We are going to try to find the other flavors at different stores near us, so stay tuned for updates on this one :)  

And if anyone at Ben & Jerry's wants to make our Vermont tour dreams come true...let me know! ;)

First bite...not sure what to think...

Delicious! She was totally obsessed!

Our seasoned ice cream eater giving his input

Girls' Night - Tutti Santi and Splitting Checks

We're bringing back the blog!  Most of the posts will probably be quick, but just want to keep a record of fun places we go and things we do on the weekends.  This past weekend was #girlsnight, which my bestie Claudia set up.  The crew included the core (me, Claudia, Jody), as well as a few other friends that I've met a few times (Shannon, Scrapper, Sam) and one new friend (Liz).  Since half of us have kids, we planned for a late dinner so everyone could get their little ones settled before heading out for the night.  Shout out to Matt for putting Baby Girl to bed for me so I could get out of here on  time :)

The restaurant Claudia picked was Tutti Santi - an Italian chain I had never been to before.  The food was ok, but I struggle with Italian restaurants unless they are super high-end.  Simply because I feel like I could make most of the dishes at home pretty easily and just as well (not to mention frozen Stouffer's meals and Trader Joes gnocchi)  I typically love the bread served at the restaurants, but Tutti Santi was lacking here, with basically just room temperature sliced bread with a ton of garlic in it.  The food turned out pretty tasty - I had the Chicken Della Casa (chicken with prosciutto and asparagus in a Brandy sauce) and all of the other girls got either the Ravioli or Fettuccine Alfredo with Shrimp.  I'd say 7 out of 10 stars for food itself.

We had a great time catching up and chatting, rehashing old, hysterical stories, and offering advice on everything from breakups to babies.  It's always so nice to get out of the house, but especially so with a group of smart, fun women to laugh with.

The damper on the night was our weird waiter, who seemed suuuuuuuper annoyed that we wanted to split the check among the 7 of us.  I get that check splitting is a pain in the butt.  And if it is restaurant policy not to split checks, I can respect that (although I wouldn't eat there with a group since everyone carries cards instead of cash these days.)  Side rant: I also despise when restaurants charge a split plate fee (like this one did). So we ask the dude to split the check for us and he says it is a pain and it takes him a long time and he just did it for an 11-top table and it took him forever and wah, wah, wah.  So I tell him he can bring us one check, but I'll be splitting out how much everyone pays on their respective cards, so he's going to have to run them all anyways.  Then he failed to bring back cash change for one person (put in $40 for a $21 tab), and avoided us the rest of the night.  When we asked for change on the cash, he stomped over and dramatically gave Jody $15 change and then held up 4 singles and declared "that only leaves $4 for me!"  Then I reminded him that we all tipped him individually on our cards as well, bringing his tip well above the standard 20%...  I think he felt embarrassed by his toddler-style pouting, because when we left, he ran out to the door to yell a polite goodbye to us.  Weirdo.

All in all, a fantastic night with the ladies, even though we forgot to snap a pic until almost everyone had gone.  Love these girls forever!  Until next time -

#girlsnight #blogworthy #croptopsrompersandpoofysleeves