Bells will be Ringing

My little brother's getting married! He and his fiance Tracy are officially tying the knot August 26 at a Chapel 7F Ranch in College Station, TX. JP, if you send a more recent photo of you two I'll post it.

Becki's Ratatouille

Potluck's at work are so great....mmmmm.

1/2 eggplant
4 carrots
2 small yellow squash
2 zucchini
1 can diced tomatoes (reserve juice)
1/2 small can tomato paste
1/2 an onion
red bell pepper
5 garlic cloves whole
1 pkg. spaghetti seasoning mix
1 can chicken broth
romano cheese

Coarsely chop all the veggies and put into the crock pot. Mix the pkg. of spaghetti seasoning with 1/2 of the can of chicken broth and the reserved juice from the can of tomatoes. When this is thoroughly combined pour over the veggies in the crock pot. Cook on high for 5-8 hours. After a couple of hours add the remaining chicken stock. The last hour add fresh basil. Heap into a bowl and serve with grated romano cheese. Delicious and nutritious.

It's a baby...

girl! She is approximately the length of a football, has long legs and fingers with chunky thighs. We saw clearly the four chambers of her heart and the development of her brain. She seemed to be sucking her hand the entire time we were watching. By the measurements we're back at a due date of the 21st of December. We couldn't be more grateful for a healthy and fully developing baby girl. In the words of Samuel's mother "for this child, I have prayed".

Boy or Girl

Today's the Day we find out the sex of our baby! Our families are coming with us for this exciting time and we're all headed for brunch afterward.

Anyone care to make a guess as to what it is?

Harry Potter Release Tonight

Just a few short hours until the epic final in the series is officially available for purchase. Walker and I plan to pick one up at 12:01 tonight/this morning and I'll be burning the midnight oil reading until the sun comes up. I've got to work tomorrow but at least I won't be tossing and turning all night wondering what's going to happen. Tony, don't worry about Walker...he still has to read 4 more before catching up so you'll get my copy the minute I'm finished.

Expect a full blog posting within a few days of reading and digesting this....

Chickfila Grand Opening

Forney, TX

The first 100 customers received free food for a year! Annie, Tony and I camped out in the parking lot overnight until 6:30 this morning when they opened. Annie was # 98 and I was #99. Tony was ineligible because of his age, but he was a good sport about it all and went to Walmart across the street several times through the night to fetch items for us. (One of those necessary items included the kiddie pool so we could lounge poolside and cool our feet.) Thanks, Tony!

Chickfila went all out. They fed us dinner, had a DJ with loads of games and dances, had midnight ice cream for us, and topped it off with breakfast along with our complimentary 52 meal tickets and a t-shirt. What a way to start a grand opening!

Baby Plagge's 2nd Sonogram

Here's baby. 13 weeks and 3 days old. New due date is December 16, according to measurements of the baby. If they keep moving up the date, I'll be delivering in no time!

JP home for weekend

John Paul came home this weekend and brought his girl Tracy Hernandez for us all to meet. We went out for italian food at a new place called Joe's in Forney and then bowled at Big Town Bowlanes in Mesquite. JP turns 20 in a couple of weeks and he's not going to be able to come into town again, so we celebrated early with this guitar cake. (handcrafted by yours truly)

Buttercream Icing for Wilton Class

2 cups crisco
2 lb bag of powdered sugar
2 tsp. clear almond extract
2 tsp. clear butter extract
2 tsp. clear vanilla extract

(can use creme bouquet instead of almond)

add water to extracts to make 1/2 cup of liquid total. Use kitchenaid to cream mixture for about 5 minutes. Will be the consistency of peanut butter. Keeps in airtight container for about 2 weeks.

Camping, Feeding Ducks

Pictures soon to come...I left my camera over at mom's house this weekend.

We arrived at the Vineyards Campground at Lake Grapevine Friday night around 6:30 and Walker and Tony had the tent set up by sundown. The campground facilitators deliver firewood for a nominal fee and we arranged to have some delivered to our site. The man who delivered it informed us we needed to add a few more stakes to the tent because we were under a tornado watch. We didn't have any more stakes to put in and just decided to build a fire and keep setting up camp. The weather was perfect until about 10:00 when we started seeing a lighting storm. Walker's dad called to give us updates on the weather. We weighed our options...pack up and get a hotel for the night, pack up and go home or sleep in the cars until the storm went through. Both of our vehicles were packed to the brim with camping equipment...in fact Tony barely had room to breathe on the drive there....Ken also informed us there would be two more storms the next day, one in the morning and one at dinner time. So we started packing up around 11 pm and left by 11:30. Tony stayed the night with us and Annie drove back to mom's. We met up the next day to exchange Tony and went to feed the ducks at City lake in Mesquite. Not the relaxing weekend we had all envisioned, but an adventure none the less.

Wilton Cake Decorating Class

This first lesson we decorated a clown cake. We learned the basketweave line (in pink down the side), the squiggle across the top (in yellow using a star tip), the star, the shell (the bottom border in yellow) and how to construct the body, arms and legs of a clown. It was so much fun and turned out better than I expected. Next time I'll use a thin crumb coat to ice the cake before adding the actual thick layer of icing. This will help prevent the crumbs from being distributed throughout the cake icing.

Baby Plagge's First Sonogram

Today is the day for our first sonogram. Walker has permission from work to be present at every doctor appointment, so he's taken the morning off. Hopefully by the end of the day we'll be able to show a picture of our little teddy graham.

We weren't quite sure how far along I am, but the doctor confirmed that Baby is 10 weeks old and set a different due date of December 19th. In the sonogram pictures you can see the head, body and arm nubs. We saw a strong heartbeat too.

Frisco Crime

Frisco Crime is up quite a bit from last year and we found that out the hard way this morning. I had a 6 am shift at work today so when I was going out the door at 5:30 this morning I apparently caused a thief to lose interest in nabbing my cd player from my car. They tore my console apart, looking for anything of value, rummaged through several bags, the glove compartment, etc. The face and part of the plastic securing the cd player were taken off and left in the front seat but thankfully the theif didn't get to accomplish his mission. I waited for a few minutes for the police to show up and filed a report. Unfortunately there's nothing really that can be done, but I'll be parking in the garage for sure from now on and Walker plans to install and motion censored light in the back. Good thing they didn't get the whole cd player because my Sound of Music cd was in and living without that would be unthinkable.

WE'RE PREGNANT!!!

Cake Decorating

I've got 2 years to get into shape to be able to have a submission in the next Sugar Wonders Cake Show. Becki is taking classes at the Cake Carousel in Richardson. I signed up for the Basic Cake Decorating, a five week class meeting once a week starting May 24th. It's going to be a bit difficult taking 10 hours worth of classes over summer school and having time to make and decorate a cake each week, but it will be worth it I'm sure.

Andrew's Oatmeal Cookies

By request and word for word, except for the chocolate. That's my ancient family secret I made up last week.


1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 pound unsalted butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups rolled oats
1/2 pound of chocolate (a Symphony bar in this case. I froze it and grated it in a food processor for a fine powder. Could also bang it with a hammer for chunks.)
Preheat oven to 350 and prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk flour, salt, and baking powder together in a medium bowl.
Either by hand or with electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. Add sugars; beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time.
Stir dry ingredients into butter-sugar mixture with wooden spoon or large rubber spatula. Stir in oats and chocolate.
Working with generous 2 tablespoons of dough each time, roll dough into 2-inch balls. Place balls on parchment-lined cookie sheet, leaving at least 2 inches between each ball.
Bake until cookie edges turn golden brown, 22 to 25 minutes. (Halfway during baking, turn cookie sheets from front to back and also switch them from top to bottom.) Slide cookies, on parchment, to cooling rack. Let cool at least 30 minutes before peeling cookie from parchment.
Makes about 18 or 20. Have fun.

Comfort Food

I've started reminiscing about foods mom made frequently when we were kids. Dorito Pie came to mind and then I almost started to drool just thinking about it. Not at all a healthy choice of a meal, but definitely a quick, filling and yummy dinner.

Dorito Pie

1 bag Dorito regular corn chips
2 small cans chili
chopped onion-maybe 1/2 onion
cheddar cheese


Open the doritos and place them in the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. Add the two cans of chili on top of the dorotos, then the onions then finish with the cheese. Cook at 350 for about 20 minutes or until bubbly.

Note: This is traditionally made with Fritos corn chips. I've come to like it better with Doritos because they're not as greasy.

Truffle knows...

A couple of additions to her word base include "kitty kitty" and "home". We've started the habit of walking her every day after we get home from work. The cat across the street, in all it's curiosity, follows us for blocks...sneaking up on Truffle and stalking like a panther. Today she actually followed us to our door step and let us pet her.

Zipporah

by Marek Halter. This was my book for commuting to and from school the past 2 weeks. I borrowed this from the Frisco Public Library after discovering their extensive audio book collection. This is based on the life of Moses' wife, Zipporah and fictionalized by the author. It was an interesting story full of twists and turns. Zipporah has dark skin and is ultimately rejected by the jews as Moses' wife. She returns to her father, Jethro's domain until hearing word that Moses has led the Hebrews out of Pharoh's land. They have 2 children before they are married, and Zipporah uses marriage as a tool to convince Moses to go to Egypt...."I won't marry you 'til the day you start for Egypt." This took much convincing for Moses and he did not believe he was called to this until God appeared to him in the burning bush. Although not based on biblical events, this is an interesting take on what could have happened.

Passover Celebration at Preston Trails

Tonight Preston Trails invited a Messianic Jew to come and demonstrate how the last supper would have traditionally taken place. I'm estimating roughly 200 people attended. He explained the meanings behind the different foods on the table and the symbolism each holds. I can't remember them all, but I'm sure I can have Walker jog my memory, because of his reverence for Judaism he has studied up on it quite a bit. Experiencing this passover definitely changed the way I view Easter, just considering everything that led up to the crucifiction of Christ. Yes, today is Friday...but Sunday is coming.

We only recieved an abbreviated version of Passover. The "Papa", as Walker would call him, that led us satirically told us we would be there until Easter if we did the unabridged version. So, this is as much as we know:

First the wife lights the Shabbat (Sabbath) candles and blesses God for his commandments. Why does the woman light the candles when the husband, or Papa as Walker would say, is the man of prayer and instructor of the Seder (or celebration)? For our purposes it celebrates that a woman gave birth to Christ, the light of the world. Pretty cool.

Upon the table there is a boiled egg, shank-bone of a lamb, parsley, horse raddish, diced apples mixed with pecans and cinnamon, motsi (unleavened bread) in a special motsi holder. a cup of wine for each family member, a fifth cup belonging to someone else (more on that later!), and a cup of salt water (heavy on the water).

First the Papa takes the parsley dips it in the saltwater, placing it thereafter on everyone's plate, and everyone eats it. It represents the hyssop that was taken to spread the passover lamb's blood on the posts and lentels of every Hebrew's home so the Lord's plague would Pesach, or Passover. The salt water represents the tears that were shed over the hardships the Hebrews faced in Egypt.

Then the Motzi (unleveaned bread), which is sitting in a special three-compartment napkin, is taken out of the middle layer and broken in half. It is then placed in another napkin. This broken piece of bread is called the "Afikomen". After it is placed in a napkin, it is hidden from the children, whom will search for it after the celebration. Whoever finds it gets a nice prize. The beautiful forshadow this portion represents is magnanimous! This is, supposedly, the part of Pesach where Jesus (Yeshua) said, "This is my body...".
No one really knows, not even the Jews can agree, where the three compartment napkin came from, but Messianics would venture to say that the Lord gave this commandment to them to celebrate his three in one Godship.
The middle or 2nd Motzi(the Bread of Life) was taken from its home (Heaven) and broken by human hands (See the relation?!) and hidden in another place (a tomb and ultimately Heaven). Children search for it and what a prize they recieve when they find it!

Then the Papa will take the other motzi and break it and place the horse-radish (bitter herb) between two pieces for each member at the table. They eat the bitter herb sandwich (Thank God that this was not the part where Christ said, "Do this as often as you gather to remember me"!). This is literally the empathy expressed to the Hebraic ancestors...and you do cry, trust me! Walker's eyes were watering for the rest of the service!

Then the Papa makes another sandwich with horseradish and adds the apple/cinamon mixture and all partake. This is to remember that our sufferings (more so the Jews')though painful are a sweet thing because of the love and grace of God.

Now we get to the four cups that celebrate God's four "I will..."'s upon the Hebrews' exodus. The cups stand for: Sanctification, Deliverance (or Plagues), Redemption, and Restoration. Sactification is taken before the bitter herbs, the cup is refilled for Delieverance. Everyone then takes their finger, dips it in the cup and on their plate 10 times phyically and verbally expressing each plague. The third cup is supposedly the one our Savior used to express his New Covenant. The fourth cup is then the final cup praising God for restoring the Hebrews to their land (and now us to God).

Walker says there a great prayer that can be said to conclude:

Hebrew: "Baruch attah Adonai Eloheinu melekh haolam, asher natan lanu et derekh hayeshua baMashiach Yeshua, baruch Hu. Amen"

English: Blessed are you Lord God, King of the Universe, who gave us the way of salvation through the Annointed Salvation (Jesus Christ in greek), blessed is He. Amen (I confirm, or believe).