400 and a hodge podge

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Time to pass around the cake and ice cream (or ice cream looking cake in this case) because this is my 400th post!!  Yippee for me!  And yippee for you for sticking with me!! :)

We've had a happysadcrazy week around here that's gone by very fast!  Here are the bits and pieces:

Happy:

DENNIS IS HOME!  Having him around has increased the happiness and peacefulness quotient of this home exponentially. After the last three months, I don't have any idea how single parents do it, and I have appreciation anew for the sacrifices of military families while their loved one is away.  Raising kids is a lot of work!!  We are also toilet training around here and taking each little success as it comes.

Sad: 

Dennis' great aunt Emma passed away yesterday.  She was 91 and it was a small illness that started the snowball which took her away from us.  She was a strong little Lithuanian and we are all going to miss her very much.  Now we are trying getting all of our things together for the trip.  Why does it take an army's worth of things to bring an infant anywhere??  :)

Crazy:

Saturday night we threw a dinner party for Dennis' employees at our house.  I was cooking for the thing so I put together a fancy menu: spinach artichoke dip, chicken crostina over linguine with a creamy garlic sauce and chocolate filled meringues for dessert. So the logistics of the party were tricky because we were going bowling before dinner so a lot of the prep needed to be done before we left.  Not a problem, I got the dip and dessert done before bowling and just needed to make the chicken and pasta while the guests were nibbling appetizers.  Sounds like a good plan right?  Well as I was beginning to sear the chicken, my oven stopped working.  As in completely. As in stovetop and oven (which was needed for the chicken also).  I called Dennis into the kitchen and politely flipped my lid. (I guarantee Dennis would disagree with the "polite" part, but at least I was quiet enough that his employees didn't hear me :) )  Luckily for me, one of our guests has worked in restaurants his entire life so we made the chicken in the toaster oven and the pasta and sauce in my 12 inch, 8 year old skillet.  Lovely.  I was completely mortified that a guest was helping prepare the meal, but everyone had a great time and I ended up learning a LOT of new cooking tips from the aforementioned guest!  I can't wait to have our new oven delivered on Friday though.  It can't come soon enough.  Good thing we love cereal around here.

In other crazy news today (since I started writing this post this morning): Dennis' sister Ellen had her baby boy this afternoon!  She wasn't due until next week, but he decided to arrive early and in a quick fashion like his older brother!  I'm talking like Ellen had a few contractions, got to the hospital at 3:08 and baby was born at 4:14 quick.  Congratulations to the Young's and we can't wait to meet him!