{Frozen Deliciousness}

Ok friends. Here is a recipe for you to gain a couple pounds and a ton of happiness :)
This is where I got the recipe and here is how I did it:

Ingredients:

• 20 Oreos
• 4 tablespoons butter, softened 
• 1 package (8 ounces) Cream Cheese  softened
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (Smooth)
• 1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 cartons (8 ounces) frozen whipped topping, thawed
• 15 miniature Reeces peanut butter cups
• 1 cup cold milk
• 1 package (3.9 ounces) instant chocolate fudge pudding mix

Directions

1. Crush 16 of the Oreos [I did this by placing them in a plastic baggie and rolling over the bag with a glass], and add it to the softened butter. I used 4 tbs of  butter instead of 2 because with just 2 tbs, the oreo crumbs were not sticking well together. 

2. Press the oreo crumble mixture into a 9x9 baking pan with wax paper for your crust.

3. Beat the cream cheese, peanut butter and only 1 cup powdered sugar until smooth. Fold in 1 tub [8 oz] of the whipped topping. Spread over crust. [this picture does not have the whipped cream added to it yet]

4. Chop up your reeces peanut butter cups and sprinkle on top

5. Beat milk, pudding mix, and the remaining powdered sugar until smooth. Spread over peanut butter cups
6. Use the other container of whip cream [I didn't use the full 8 oz] to spread over the top
7. Crumble remaining 4 oreos and sprinkle on top
8. Freeze for at least a couple hours before serving
9. ENJOY!

Doesn't that just look delicious! It seriously was. Oh, and to make myself feel better I used low fat or fat free of everything and it still tasted amazing :) Beware, it's very very rich!

{Museum of Science and Industry - Take 2}

The first time I went to the museum of science and industry I took the husband's sisters during the day while he was working so we of course had to go back - just the 2 of us.

Learning from last time, we got there right as the museum opened and stayed the whole day! It was amazingly fun.

Magnifier - check out that bling:

Man hand hair......hahaha

Check out these shirts in the gift shop after the body worlds exhibit -

 click on them so you can see what they say:

We also went to the U-505 Germany submarine ship - that was amazing!!! Unfortunately, we couldn't take any pictures inside of it, but it was amazing. This picture is of a contract that US troops had to sign about the capture of the U-505, it's crazy, read it!

Check out those missiles, baby!

Ship exhibit:

Crazy fun mirrors

Read this - it made me laugh so hard. It is "The Creed of the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive":

Virtual butterflies landing on me:

And of course, we spent some good time in front of the chicken hatchery:

We saw the "Bang, Flashes, & Fire" show - amazing!

This was interesting. They had a game set up where you wear this head piece that measures your brain activity. Basically it was a tug of war game with a ball that moved based off of the brain waves, but the opposite. You were supposed to think as little as possible in order to win. The husband and I played it and we were pretty well matched - the husband broke his concentration of not thinking in order to hurry our game up so others could play. So, basically I won because I have the ability to be completely empty-headed :)

And of course, cow eye dissection. The husband made me do it this time so there are no pictures of the actual process... I did not want cow eye juices all over our camera:

Being a hamster:

We of course spent a good amount of time at the Body Worlds Exhibit, but, unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside of that exhibit. Luckily, there were some similar things outside of the exhibit that we could take pictures of. These next 2 pictures are pretty sweet - This is a real human body that had a plastic liquid pumped through all the veins and arteries in the body which then hardened. Then, they were able to dissolve the rest of the body to leave the hardened veins. Crazy!!

Check out the veins!:

Great visit - such a fun museum!! If we lived here we would for sure get the museum membership so that we could go back multiple times! :)

{Summer Books}

Well, I have had a lot of time this summer to get some recreational reading done, and I have LOVED it :) First time in forever that I've actually had time to read for pleasure without feeling massively guilty about it. By massively guilty I mean pulling an allnighter to finish a recreational book in the middle of mid-term season instead of studying when I knew I shouldn't have started the book in the first place.... *sigh*

Here are some of the books that I have devoured with summer:

Love Walked In and Belong To Me by Marisa De Los Santos


I read "Belong to Me" back when I worked at Barnes and Noble during my lunch breaks and absolutely loved it. I did not realize that it was a sequel to "Love Walked In," which was fine because the story was cohesive enough to not need the first book. I seriously loved that book and was frequently in tears as I poured over it's pages while eating my sandwiches in the break room.
I recently got the audio of "Love Walked In" and listened to it as I moved into our new place in Provo. I ALSO super loved it. After listening to this first one, and remembering parts, but not all of the sequel that I had read a couple of years earlier, I NEEDED to read the second one again. So, early on during our stay in Chicago I went over to Barnes and Noble to purchase the second one.
I love this author's writing style. It's so casual, laid back, and personable. Every chapter would be told from the perspective of a different character - in the first book, it alternated between just 2 characters, but in the second there were 3 different voices. I loved that these books had no serious beginning, middle, and end... it just followed people living their lives, just giving us snapshots of how they live and how they were all connected. There was no major problem that needed to be solved, or tricky obstacle, besides those found in normal life. I loved it. I highly recommend these books for some easy reading that will make you laugh and cry multiple times over. - good stuff.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

The husband and I got the audio of this book as well and listened to it on our trek out to Chicago. Overall, it was a great story line and was fun to listen to. It made our long drive go faster and it was highly entertaining. Word of caution - there were a couple parts in the book that we had to fast-forward through due to the inappropriate happenings which I thought were quite unnecessary to the plot line. For that reason, I have a hard time recommending this book to anyone. We have yet to see the movie........

The Giver by Lois Lowry

We also got the audio version of this for the road. I have read this book a couple times and absolutely LOVED it, but the husband had never read it. It was fun to see the husband listen to this story and try to figure it out as it unfolded. He loved it, and I loved it, again. If you have not read this, SERIOUSLY read it. It's very short, very quick, but very thought provoking and makes you ask a lot of good questions. We really enjoyed listening to it together and to have good discussions afterwards.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

I picked this book that also had many other of Kate Chopin's works up a while ago [probably during my barnes and noble days where I spent the majority of my paycheck instead of saving it....] because I heard it was a classic, I had friends who had to read it during high school, and I wanted to be a well informed individual. Overall, I was disappointed in the book. I know it's a classic, and it was groundbreaking for it's time, and covered a lot of controversial issues....but I found it rather dull and not that impacting. When I reached the end, I did not realize that it was the end of the book. I turned the page and was ready for the next chapter, but it was over and the next short story started. I did not enjoy the book and felt like I accomplished or learned very little at the end of it.

Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters by Alan Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa

This was my educational sociological book that I read this summer. It was written by two evolutionary psychologists who attempt to answer some of life's interesting questions. The first part of their book was explaining their theory as evolutionary psychologists, and how that differed from the mainstream sociological thought and in the next chapters they covered various topics from dating to religion and used their theory to explain specific phenomenon. Overall it was interesting, I don't 100% agree with their theory, but they made some interesting points and made for a fun read and interesting chats with the husband.

The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

I loved reading this. It gives a very interesting perspective on Satan and some of the tactics that he uses on us. This book is a series of letters that a more accomplished Tempter to another tempter giving him advice on how to sway and tempt mortals. I seriously enjoyed this book and was grateful for the insight it gave me on some topics. This book has been quoted a number of times in General Conference and for good reason. It helped me learn a little bit more about myself and opened my eyes. I highly recommend this book.

Also, I have read dozens of children's books :) The house that we're staying at has quite a collection and I've enjoyed reading them to myself. Who doesn't love a good picture book? Also - I have bought......umm.... dozens and dozens and dozens of children's during my garage sale-ing escapades which I will share with you soon. I have stocked up on some classic children's books for our little family and read through a good portion of them before I packed them up. :)

I'm in the middle of a couple other books at the moment as well, and will post my thoughts on feelings on those as I finish them up.

The husband and I are book hoarders - for real. I think we have bought a new bookcase about every 4 months of our marriage - we cannot keep this up, friends......It looks like this is the only way that we can work with our addiction, but really, I LOVE it and would like an entire room in our house dedicated to holding all of our precious books :)

{What's in a name?}

When Caitlan, the husband's sister, came to stay with us for a few weeks, she brought over a baby present that she made. It was a beautiful little quilt and pillow with the baby's name and initials on it!! Yes, our baby has a name and we've been calling her by it for a few months just to make sure that it fits right and that we love it. Well, we do love it and I thought it would only be appropriate to introduce our little girl by her name by showing off the beautiful quilt that Caitlan made for us :)

This is the corner of the pillow with cute little eyelet lace around the edge of it - also, that little bird is just about the cutest thing

The underside of the blanket is a sweet green fabric with white polka dots

I'm loving the stitching around the quilt - so cute

And here you have it:

Isn't this the cutest?

Well, there ya go, our baby girl will be named Evette Rose McQuay. We love it. We love her. Not too much longer, my friends, until we get to meet Miss Evette Rose face to face :)

{I'm a Dinosaur}

Funny conversation last night:

I playfully shoved the husband on the bed and then curled up next to him and he said,

 "Hey! You're just like a dinosaur!"

"Hahaha!! A dinosaur! How so?"

"Well, you're pregnant!"

"Yes... I am very pregnant.......but dinosaurs lay eggs......so...."

"So... they have to make their eggs first... so they're pregnant for a little bit, right?"

"True...."

"Betcha didn't think of that, dija?"

"No, I did not think of that......good call."

Well, that logic is definitely infallible, so.... I am a dinosaur.

{Happy August}

Holy cow. I cannot believe it's August already! This year has seriously flown by so quickly - but at the same time, I cannot believe how much has happened in such a short amount of time.
Let's just do a recap real quick, k?

- At the beginning of the year we found out we were pregnant...so excited!! This first picture was taken the day we found out that we were pregnant [Jan 18] and the second picture was taken yesterday after church - big changes. Cannot wait to meet our little girl :)

- The husband went to Dallas on a business visit
- My baby brother spent his spring break up at BYU visiting campus and the such. I just searched the blog and realized I didn't blog about this!! Shame on me...

- I went to Seattle for my PSA presentation
- I graduated and parents came down for the occasion!!
- 2 year anniversary!
- We moved! We lived in our little place for 2 years and it was bitter/sweet to move
- spent the weekend in Southern Utah
- packed up and traveled across country to land here in Chicago [tons of posts about this...]
- Been living in Chicagoland for 7 weeks now and have seen a TON and have had the husband's 2 sisters stay with us for 3 weeks!!!! [Also a million posts about this]

Whew! That was a lot of stuff!

NOW - looking into the future:

- Only 3 more weeks til we leave for Provo - bittersweet....
- Scott AND Caitlan are coming up to BYU in the fall! Also - get to see my mother and mother-in-law as they drop off the kids!!
- Husband starts school, I do not :)
- We're going to have a baby!!! [9ish weeks to go...I can count those weeks on my own 2 hands :) ] that also means that family is coming into town!!
- Thanksgiving with the husband's side of the family - more family in town!
- Christmas with my side of the family - more family in town!!!


Cannot believe how full this year has been and how much we have left! Life is good friends - very good. The husband and I live a very blessed life and thanks to all of you who have been a part of it :)

Updates on a Quiet Sunday afternoon

It's been a while!  June 17th was the date of my last post - but thankfully Heidi has been doing a commendable job kueeping a record of our goings and doings so far this summer.  

She hasn't outright stated it, it may well have been inferred, but we've been rather busy so far this summer.  Every weekend has been filled with trips to visit downtown Chicago (or that one in which we visited Nauvoo), and we spent three weeks in a row entertaining either one or both of my sisters.  Having them here was a great experience, but, since we wanted to give them a good showing of the city, that meant there was little rest for us.  And then this last week, which may have provided some respite was instead filled with dozens of work hours outside of the standard 40 hour/week model.  

So that leads me to attempt to fill you in or catch you up on my job with Sears Holdings Company.  Within that conglomerate, I work for the Kenmore Craftsman Diehard-Brands Business Unit, which, like all other business units within Sears Holdings, essentially operates and competes as its own business, in loose harmony with the other business units in the company.  Within KCD (Kenmore Craftsman Diehard), I work for the Strategy and Business Development Team, working directly for the Director of Business Strategy, who reports to the CFO of KCD - which means I've had lots of senior management exposure already.

My project has been to analyze both domestic and international expansion opportunities for the KCD brands, which has left me doing a lot of market research and competitive analysis.  It's been a lot of fun and a fantastic opportunity.  These last couple of weeks have been especially busy, leaving me with roughly 60-70 hours per week of work (sorry, Choi's, I know that's still nothing when compared to Ethan's schedule...), but I really don't mind as I thoroughly enjoy what I'm doing and the experiences I've been gaining. I've also been using a lot of what I've learned in school, which is always nice validation that I'm not wasting time or money. :)

In our free time, Heidi and I have been watching Master Chef on Hulu (Heidi loves it, I'm kind of enjoying it - I just tire quickly of all of the over-hyped drama in reality TV), and we've also been spending several of our Sunday evenings with a wonderful couple in our ward, Mike and Camille.  Finding couples where Heidi and I both like both spouse and husband equally well is always a tricky thing, but we think we've found a great pair in those two (and their adorable two year old boy).  Mike is in the same business analyst program as I am at Sears - but he started full-time in February.  We're also looking forward to dinner with another young family this week.  They're another great couple who moved into our ward the same time we did (he also works at Sears).

So that's about it for the updates from my end. Sorry for shooting out so much at once, but there's just a lot on my mind!  Now it's time to go wake Heidi up from her nap...