We had a wonderful week long trip to Maine to visit Matt's family's camp that they call "Naguibagua." His family names everything, apparently this name has a Native American meaning which I've now forgotten, but Matt says was probably made up anyway. Its a great name though and we got Ellen to start saying it which was awesome. The sad part of our week was on Saturday, we attended a memorial service for Matt's Uncle Arch who died this spring. It was a really sweet, sad service. He had fought a long battle with bone marrow cancer and amazingly had several bone marrow transplants. He was a big strong extremely smart man and he will be missed!! The positive to the funeral being in Maine was that it brought Matt's entire family together, and most of his cousins stayed at camp Naguibagua with us the whole week which was a blast.
There were 6 girls under the age of 6 at camp (including Ellen) and wow was that awesome / crazy. Ellen was inducted into a club by her oldest cousin Jane (6) called the Dragonoses club. I'm not sure how much of this she understood, but she loved saying Dragonoses and then growling and making funny noises. I'm guessing she understood more than I'm giving her credit for! (According to Jane a Dragonoses is a dragon like creature that snorts, growls, and breathes fire)
Ellen loved the time with her cousins and each morning when she woke up the first thing she'd say was: "Cousins? Downstairs!" Most of the time her cousins were still sleeping since Ellen got up every morning at 5:30....not that I blame her - the sunrise was super early in Maine and our room faced east with nothing but windows. So, by 5:30AM, it was essentially as bright as noon in our room. So of course she woke up early! She also went to bed early and took good naps. Thank goodness.
We made an awesome eight layer casserole to share for dinner - gluten free!!
It is essentially a lasagna but without the lasagna noodles. It is a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens which is actually not a gluten free recipe, but I easily converted it by using gluten free rice curly noodles. Here is the recipe:
http://www.bhg.com/recipe/beef/eight-layer-casserole/
(from the better homes and gardens website so I'm not stealing it)
It was an amazing casserole - I think what makes it amazing is that the cheese layer consists of cream cheese and sour cream. YUM. As an added plus the spinach layer gives you some good veggies too - and Ellen actually ate it!
Here is a picture of the final casserole:
**BTW, I am no longer eating gluten free, it just got to be too much with being pregnant and hungry all the time. I still like to cook gluten free and will continue to share my successful dishes, though this blog is probably going to mostly transition to a baby blog :)**
Lastly, the babies have started kicking!!!! This makes me so happy. I have felt them a few times today, especially when I've been sitting still. In fact I've been feeling them kick as I write this post. What a wonderful, reassuring feeling that they are doing OK! And, in 10 days we will find out if we are having girls or boys or one of each! I am excited!!
And here is a picture of Ellen combing her monster's hair (Philly Phanatic)
And I haven't gotten any pictures off my camera from Maine yet, but when I do I'll do a camera dump and share.
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