Nine years, two hours, and five minutes ago, our sweet little Gabrielle was born.

She has blessed our lives immensely. She is a peace maker, a little ray of sunshine. She wakes up at the crack of dawn with a smile on her face. She loves to sing and dance and play games with her brothers and parents. She is a good friend. A fabulous listener. A beautiful girl - inside & out!

We are so lucky to be called her parents.

Our family has made more homemade ice cream this last summer than Rob & I have our entire marriage. We are having fun with it. The following recipe was adapted by moi. It tastes like a Frosty. We shall call it....

Finlinson's Frosty (Chocolate Ice Cream)

1 quart ½ & ½
1 pint whipping cream
16 ounces (2 cups) chocolate milk
1 cup chocolate syrup
1 can fat free evaporated milk
1 can fat free sweetened condensed milk
2 boxes Junior Mints (not the wimpy "candy bar-size" - the size just up from that)

Unceremoniously dump all ingredients except the candy into your ice cream freezer.

When ice cream begins to set, add Junior Mints (if you want them). They add a nice little surprise in every bite - they don't get as hard as a rock, either. (ummmmm. minty-licious)

Remove whisk thingy and place in your freezer for 4-5 hours. It "cures" the ice cream nicely. It is a little thicker than a Frosty.

Enjoy. Seriously. This is really good.

Makes: four quarts

The kids were watching “Reading Rainbow” this morning. There was a really cool book about mummies that told the process of mummification. After the book, Levar Burton – the host – gave us a tour of a museum that has mummies.

During the tour piece of the episode, they performed a CT of a mummy to see the bone structure and then sculpted the head based off of the measurements that they found.

One of my children asked, “Why are they called ‘mummies’ instead of a ‘dead mom?’”

You will never guess who asked the question.

I guess when I die I will be a ‘mummy.’

We were at Target tonight getting a few items. Noah was soooo tired. He had to get into the cart because his feet wouldn't carry him anymore.

We were talking about what nail polish color to purchase when Noah told us that we needed to be quiet.

I asked him, "Why?"

He responded, "Because my foot fell asleep."

As we were eating dinner last night, our family discussed where we want to go to celebrate Rob's graduation (yes. I know that it is still three years away, but, hey. We can plan ahead, right???).

It was decided (sort of) that we want to go to Fiji or Cozumel or Cancun or even a Disney cruise (thank you Travel Channel).

I made that comment that I really don't care as long as I can sit on a beach, drink margaritas (virgin, of course....), and read a book.

Jacob was incredulous that I wanted to read. "Read on vacation?" he snorted. Laughing hysterically, he said, "Reading on a vacation is just plain stupid!"

I told him, very matronly-like, "Jacob, that is what adults like to do. They read on vacation because they have no time."

Remember the days gone by when it was pure torture to actually read. Pulling teeth ring a bell?

I make my kids read for 30 minutes a day and you would think that I was the worst mom ever!

Yeah. On another note. Rob started his nasty school schedule today. For the last month he has only had one class. WOW! Can I just tell you how nice it has been to have him around. Not only physically, but to have him able to interact with the kids and me and not off studying!

He has two months of the schedule and then he will be done for two weeks! yay!

This last month gave us a glimpse of what life will be like when he is finally done with school. I am grateful that he is going. I am proud of him. He just got his "diploma" from SLCC in the mail this last week. He left there with a 3.7 (A-) cummulative GPA. Isn't he just so STINKING smart???

Nine more semesters - 36 months left. Noah will be eight. Gabrielle, twelve. Jacob, thirteen.

Life is fantastic: Rob is still alive, kids healthy, & we are happy.

The last two weeks have been busy. Three reunions in two weekends!

I was in (co) charge of the reunion (see pics above) for the Tice family. We haven't had a family reunion-ever. It turned out to be a rousing success. However, I am glad that we are done with reunions for the year. Only 360 days left until the next...

Sorry, no pics for the other two.

Buh, bye.