Black Friday Zoo Trip

 On Friday we went to the zoo. It was the perfect day for a zoo trip. The weather was nice and the zoo wasn't too crowded. It was weird going on a day off. Usually the other groups there are mom groups or school groups, so there's a lot of kids and not many adults. But this day, the adult to child ratio was much higher, which lended for a much more peaceful atmosphere. :)

 Emma and Naomi looking at the "baby" snakes. Awww, so cute...

 I'm not really sure why, but they had a tiger skin out for us to pet. the kids liked it.

 Naomi especially liked the fluffy tail.

 Our zoo has a cougar, but it is almost never out. The rare times you can see it, it usually just sits there, so having the cougar out and about was a pretty big treat.

Here the cougar is passing by Daddy and Emma. Naomi and I were in an enclosure in the middle of the cage that you take a tunnel into so you can have a closer look at the cougar.

 If that glass weren't there, this would really freak me out.

 The sea lions never disappoint. They seem to be the most active animals at the zoo.

Naomi took this picture of the polar bear. And that concludes our Thanksgiving festivities. Well, except for that we have now set up our Christmas tree. We stopped by a friend's house after we got back from the zoo, and they already had their Christmas tree up, so Naomi insisted we put ours up as well. We waited until the next day since Kurt wasn't feeling well, but it's up now. Christmas is in full swing at our house.

Happy Thanksgiving

 It feels like we've had an extended Thanksgiving Break with Kurt getting so much time off for interviews.

 It's great having him around.

 Here's a few shots of Emma. Here she is enjoying the book Nana recorded for her and Naomi. Below, she is showing off her taste in shoes. This is not the only time she has chosen a rain boot with a play heel.

 I only took three pictures on Thanksgiving day. This one is the pathetic pie crust I made. It started out looking like a normal pie crust, but when I pre-baked it for my pumpkin pie, the sides fell down into the base of the crust. And I didn't have time to make another one (that and I was feeling lazy). It was kind of chewy, but it did it's job. :)

 Here is our Thanksgiving group. I was amazed we fit so many people in our house! We had 10 adults and 6 kids. The food was delicious and the company was great. Thanks everyone for coming!

Kurt insisted on taking a picture of me since I wasn't in the group one.

Pancakes and Snow!

 Tonight we tried some new pancakes for dinner. They have a surprise inside.

 Apple slices! These were really yummy and I highly recommend them! You just dip thin sliced apples in your pancake batter, then bake as normal.

 And tonight we also had our first snow! Naomi brought some inside so we could make an indoor snowman.

A Week in Review

 Last Friday Naomi had the day off from school for Veteran's Day. Since Kurt was gone, we really needed something to break up the day, so we had a playdate! We invited over the neighbor boys. Now, we don't really have a lot of "boy" toys, so I built a couch/blanket fort, which they played in for a while. I really did try. But somehow, somehow Naomi convinced these boys that they needed to help her get ready for "the ball". They were princes and they helped her put on make-up. I believe there was a proposal in there somewhere. That makes at least the second boy Naomi has proposed to. Yes, she is very forward.

 Doesn't she look gorgeous? I think the expression on her face just completes the look. And yes, those black things on her arm are tattoos from Halloween (and she still has them).

 I seem to remember a similar picture of me when I was little. Emma saw a chair by the sink and stole the opportunity to help out with the chores.

 Naomi thought it was pretty silly to put her underwear on her head.

 On our way out the door. Kurt left for two more interviews this week. The first one is a PM&R interview in St. Louis, the second is a prelim interview in Cincinnati. He gets back late Friday.

I let Naomi draw and cut out paper the other day. After a few minutes, she came over to me with a big grin on her face, like she was showing me something, but she wasn't holding anything in her hands. Then I noticed she had a lot of hair on her shirt. Oh, crap. I asked, "Naomi, did you cut your hair?" She could tell I was not happy about it, and said, "No, Emma did." Yeah, she's been blaming Emma for things lately. Anyway, I tried to explain to her that we only let people who know how to cut hair cut our hair. She protested, "But I'm very good at it!" Well, fortunately, she was actually right this time, but she and the scissors still got a time out. Now, for the damage. This picture is her, post haircut. Can you see where it's cut? If you didn't know, you wouldn't even noticed it. I know it's not the best picture, but the hair above her left hand is the cut hair (it's resting on her hand). She didn't cut very much, and it actually looks like a natural layer in her hair.

Fun at Home

 Since Emma threw up this morning, we needed to find something fun to do inside today. So, thanks to the wonderful internet, we found a recipe for this. Anyone remember Gak?

 Well, I don't think I made it quite right, but the kids seemed to enjoy it all the same. This picture kind of cracks me up. You'd think Naomi hated it. I promise she was having fun.

This stuff was so messy, but we played with it for about an hour, which is pretty awesome considering these kids' attention spans. It actually was pretty easy to clean up from the table, since it likes to stick to itself, but hair and clothing were a little more difficult. We definitely took a bath after this.

Good Weather

 The weather has been great here lately. We've enjoyed temperatures in the 60s this week. But I guess the squirrels know what's coming next. This is the reason we don't put out our pumpkins until the day of Halloween.

 We've gone to the museum. It's a nice bonus that Daddy is home all day lately. :)

 Last Saturday we went to get ice cream cones. BOGO free at Burger King. Not a bad deal! The girls loved it.

 Some of the views.

We've been playing outside while we still can. Emma really wants to ride a bike and gets frustrated that she can't do it.

I thought of a few more words that Emma knows: she can say her name, and "nana" for Naomi, and Nana (although they do sound a little different). She also says "ew" and "ow". She says "whatsat?" and "whereditgo?" with a little shrug. She loves to imitate any animal noise I make. She is very opinionated. She wants what she wants, even if she's not sure what she wants. She might want down from her chair, but the moment you go to get her, she screams at you. I'm looking forward to her talking so she can just tell us what she really wants.

Only 4 Months and 6 Days To Go

Right now Kurt is in Milwaukee. This is his second PM&R interview. He had his first interview in Rochester last week, and he felt really good about it. So far he has 10 PM&R and 9 preliminary year interviews lined up. Interview offers have started slowing down, so this may be it, or we may get a few more. We're not really sure. But we feel good about the number of interviews Kurt has gotten. The numbers show good odds that we'll match*. Match day for us will be on Emma's second birthday, March 16th, 2012 (I just looked it up, and it's on a Friday, not a Thursday as I previously thought).

But in the meantime, not knowing where we'll be next year is killing me! I probably obsess about it a little more than I should. I want to know where we'll be so I can figure out what life will be like for the next four years! But alas, I must wait. Only 4 months and 6 days to go.


*For those not familiar with residency matching, I'll explain. After Kurt finishes all his interviews, he will rank those spots in order of what we most want to what we least want. Meanwhile, the residency programs also compile a list of which medical students they want, and in what order they want them. All medical students competing for residencies, as well as the residency program directors, will send their magical lists to the medical computer in the sky which decides the fate of all people. The computer will sort through all the information it receives and try to line up students with the programs they want and programs with the future residents that they want, with preference given to students' wishes.

To give an example, let's say Denver is our top choice, and let's say Denver has 3 residency spots open. If Denver interviewed 30 people for those 3 spots, they will rank them in order of how they want them. If Denver listed Kurt as their first, second, or third choice, he is automatically selected for Denver, end of story. Everyone's happy. If he is not one of their top 3, then it gets complicated. It all comes down to how many of the other interviewers ranked Denver as number 1, and how many of them are above Kurt on the list. Let's say of the 30, 7 of them listed Denver as their number 1. If only two of them are above Kurt on Denver's preference list, then Kurt goes to Denver. If there are three ranked above him on the list, then those 3 get spots, and Denver is wiped off Kurt's list and is no longer a consideration. Now here's where it gets really complicated. The computer then acts as though Denver was never an option on Kurt's list, and it looks at his number 2. Let's say it's Rochester. Rochester is now his number 1. The whole process starts over again. If you're still following me, kudos to you. Now imagine that Kurt did match with Denver in this first round, but he was number 5 on the list. Now that some people have their first choice wiped as an option, maybe those who didn't have Denver listed as number 1 suddenly do. So if any of those are above Kurt on the list, Kurt may now get bucked off. Are you still following? Anyway, this process goes on and on until (hopefully) everyone has matched somewhere. We are then notified if we matched or not and a few days later find out where we matched.