the post of birthdays past

Here's a bunch of pictures from birthdays gone by. For those of you who don't know, I was born on my big sister's 5th birthday. It has been so fun for us to share a birthday for 28 years now. We SO treasure the years we get to celebrate together (like last year, even though we forgot to take a picture). As you'll see, our mom did a really great job of taking pictures every year, even though she always beat herself up about her photo taking and photo keeping. I think they're mostly in order. And only a few years of my childhood are missing. As I got older I guess I didn't care as much about birthday pictures.

so...without further ado, my birthdays:

the first one:


the third one: (okay, so I just posted this, and now realize that technically, if I count my actual birthday as the first one, then all these numbers are wrong. but I"m not changing them all. so by third one, I mean when I turned 3, not technically my 3rd birthday. does that make sense?)


the fourth one:


the fifth one: (yes, I wore the same shirt two birthdays in a row)



the sixth one:


the seventh one:


the eighth one: this first picture isn't very good, but the memory is so clear. The Ulmers were visiting us in CA and we got to go to Pizza Hut. It was AWESOME!


And I think (because of my sweet bangs) this was the same year:


the ninth one:


the tenth one: a huge bday in the Smits household. we got to have a SLUMBER PARTY when we turned ten. Here I am with my friends Stephanie, Christine, Rebecca, Darcy (some of you know her!), Julie, and Kelly


We moved back to Iowa. A birthday at the Ulmer house- 710 S. Main :)


Onto the middle school years. I'm pretty sure this is my 13th bday


Check out my very excited friends. :) Aubyn, Steph, and Renee.


Birthday during a camping trip. 15 years old.


AWESOME birthday when I went to visit Ang in Chicago. 17 I think.




My first birthday in college. Mom and dad came to Fern to see me.


Last year. Not sure what I did any of the years between that last picture and this one. There is no documentation at all. weird.


And this is what I look like today! 28! (Lillian picked the smiley face cake, which you can hardly see anyway, but this was the least blurry picture.)

28 blessings

It’s my 28th birthday on Saturday. I know that some of you are saying “wow! She’s old!” and some of you are saying “wow, she’s so young still…”

I’m saying , “yeah, that’s about right.”

But I’ve been thinking lately about my 28 years of life. I feel so incredibly blessed. So I’d like to name 28 blessings specifically, in honor of, well, me! And my birthday!

(sing with me now: count your blessings name them one by one, count your blessings see what God has done…)

Okay, here we go:

1. I am SO blessed to be married to my very best friend, the man I have loved for eleven and a half years, and had a major crush on long before that. He is wonderful. He is mine.

2. I have a four year old who is healthy, creative, sensitive, brilliant, helpful, beautiful, and so so loving. She loves spending time with me (as long as it’s not to take pinkadink pictures), she thinks I’m pretty, and she must think I’m a pretty good mom, being as she does EVERYTHING just like me when she plays with her babies.

3. I have a two year old who kisses more than any kid I have ever known. Any time, any place, anywhere he can reach on your body. He does everything with all his heart. He sings, plays, hugs…everything, to the extreme. He plays ‘wedding’ almost every day. He refers to Lillian as “honey” and himself as “sweetie.” He has adorable curls. He loves his baby sister more every day, and his big sister a little less everyday. (Just kidding, but sometimes it seems like that.)  He is a sweetheart in every way.

4. I have a “baby” who thinks I’m the absolute most wonderful thing in the whole world. She is happy, healthy, and cute as can be. She loves laughing, and dancing, and almost walking. She plays ‘chase’ with her brother and sister, and she has the cutest little monkey expression on her face for the majority of every day. She brings more joy to our family than she’ll ever know.

5. I have a God who sent his son for ME. For my sins…and he took them away. He knows me, and loves me, and delights in me as I am. He died for me. And even when I think I can do things on my own, and ignore and avoid him and just get too busy, he welcomes me back. Time and time (and time and time…) again.

6. I grew up with parents who loved the Lord and loved each other. I got 25 years with my mom, and even more with my dad. I was blessed with an upbringing that I can only hope my children will get to experience. Our journey together was full of ups and downs, and always centered on Christ, with a wonderful example of marriage right in front of us.

7. I have in-laws who have loved and accepted me with absolutely no work on my part. They know me, respect me, love me. They bless me in so many ways.

8. I have 3 sisters who are my very best girlfriends. I’ve had to be very deliberate in establishing other friendships, because it’s easy to just rely on my sisters as my friends. They’re everything I could ever ask for.

9. I have a brother who, despite our distance and infrequent visits, loves and cares about my family, faithfully checks this blog, and teaches my kids how to say things like “go cubbies” at an early age. :)

10. I have sisters- and brothers-in law who so obviously follow God’s will in their life that it’s impossible not to recognize it. They are wonderful fathers to their children, and aunts and uncles to mine.

11. I was rescued from a dumpy, cockroach infested, private-parts-drawn-on-the-playground, stinky apartment , and now live in a wonderful house, which has been so much of a blessing that now we are buying it!!! (if you don’t know the whole “house story,” ask me some time.)

12. I feel so blessed to be healthy. Health is something so easily taken for granted. But last year I had a couple lumps in my breast biopsied which came out benign. There was a major rush of emotion involved in that whole experience, as you can imagine. Plus I was 2 weeks away from delivering Brielle. So to be where I am now feels good. A blessing. And knowing that so many people have to deal with sick spouses, and sick children…ugh. I am so so so blessed.

13. At this time in my life, I feel SO blessed to have the friends I do. I mentioned earlier that friendships have always been something extra hard for me. I’ve maybe not put the time and energy I should into relationships, and they kinda fizzle away, mostly. But right now I have some really great friends. I’m not gonna name any names, but you know who you are. :) And I’m so thankful for you.

14. Lately I feel a strange sort of feeling towards my college degree. Like I really appreciate it. And recognize it as a blessing. Not that you can tell from those sentence fragments and the use of the word “towards.” (actually, there’s no red squiggly under it. Does that mean that they now recognize it as a real word with the ‘s’ on the end???) anyway, I go through phases where I’m really bitter toward college. The fact that I spend HUNDREDS (yes, many hundreds. Gotta love partnership loans) of dollars a month to pay for a Spanish and education degree, all the while sitting at home speaking English to my kids who I have NO desire to homeschool, tends to get the best of me most days. But lately I realize it’s all a part of who I am. So I guess I’m okay with it. It’s a blessing…disguised as a huge monthly Iowa Student Loan bill.

15. Wow…only at 15? This is long…. I love the fact that I live close to family. I get to see one sister almost every week. We eat Sunday dinner together, we hang out at the lake together, we make crafts together. Other family members are close enough to visit spur of the moment, and weekends away without the kids are possible, all because we live close to family. Of course I DO wish that certain people weren’t across the state, or many states, or many countries…but I’m blessed to have so many ‘close enough.’

16. I’m blessed to have all my STUFF. Some of it matters, and some of it doesn’t. But it’s a blessing to have things that I care about, that I chose to spend my money on, or that I got as gifts. It’s in this house because I want it to be (well, most of it anyway). And lots of people don’t have lots of stuff they really wish they had. So while it seems really weird to say, and all non-environmental and stuff…I like my stuff.

17. And speaking of stuff, I have LOTS of it that has taken over my dining room and my kitchen counter. It’s what I call my “creation station” and it’s full of really pretty ribbons and flowers and bows and hats. And I feel SO BLESSED to have the best business in the world. I have so much fun designing and creating and burning my fingertips on hot glue. The pinkadink is a blessing that I never expected in my life. I hope I never ever get sick of it. :)

18. While the pinkadink is the best business ever…the best JOB ever is also mine! I wouldn’t trade being home with my kids for anything. I feel like it’s absolutely what God created me to do. I feel so blessed that we’ve been able to make it on one income (well, plus a little random money here and there from my businesses) so I can be home. Some days it’s so hard, but even on those days I still realize I’m blessed. Every morning, I wake up to my husband-looking and smelling SO good- giving me a goodbye kiss. And I get to roll over and go back to sleep and wake up later to the sound of my kids’ voices. It’s pure bliss (most days).

19. I’ll try make these a little shorter now…. Okay, I have been SO blessed by the MOPS program I’ve been involved with. More blessings in this upcoming year I’m sure. Yay!

20. My church has bible studies that I’ve been involved in as well. Good books, good friends, good times. I love it.

21. I happen to have the most adorable kids on the planet as my niece and nephews. I am sure most of you would agree. :) They are brilliant, vibrant, beautiful, wonderful little people and I LOVE LOVE LOVE being their “Auntie.”

22. I have a minivan. And it’s a major blessing. The whole story behind it, the way God plopped this wonderful van in front of us, perfectly matching the amount of money we could spend on a van, the number of times I’ve taken the seats out or folded them down, even the amount of trash that somehow makes its way in that vehicle every day….all of it is a blessing.

23. We have a great church where scripture is taught and people are loved. Where I have ten(ish) kids who let me teach them about God and life and the tabernacle. (that was a really long unit.)

24. We are buying a house in a really great neighborhood, with great neighbors, a park so close, and a huge beautiful wonderful back yard. Where I don’t have to worry about the safety of my kids. Where other kids feel welcome to hang out in our yard with us. I love it.

25. I feel so blessed that we are in the financial position we are in. I’m not going to go into details, but there have been many times in our short married life where we couldn’t pay our bills. And we had no idea why someone paid our rent for us, or why we got money in our church mailbox, or why blank envelopes would come in the mail with money we weren’t expecting, or why certain families or churches or whoever would just choose to bless us financially. People just followed God’s prompting, and it helped us survive some really difficult times. And God has provided everything we could possibly need and more. And we would wonder how He would do it, and then He’d do it, and then we’d be embarrassed that we wondered how He’d do it, and then we’d wonder again the next month, and then He’d do it again, and we’d be embarrassed again, and you know the drill. He just kept on…. And sometimes we still wonder. (isn’t that embarrassing?)

26. I feel blessed to be able to send my preschooler to a Christian preschool. It’s not THAT big of a deal. But since we live in a city, and public schools can be scary places (not that Christian schools CAN’T be, but…), and I’d love to send her to a Christain school forever, but we can’t…I’m just really thankful that we have arranged what we have arranged. And when I cry every day for the first who-knows-how-long, I’ll remember this is a blessing. And I know I’ll cry. I even cried at the open house when all the kids left and the parents stayed in the chapel. And then I had to quick pretend that I wasn’t crying and rub my eyes or yawn or do something else that might cause red watery eyes, just so the other “veteran” parents wouldn’t think I was crying already at open house.

27. I feel really blessed by memories. Good memories, bad memories, anything that makes me aware of who I am and what I’ve become, where I’ve come from and what I’ve been through. They are all what make me “me.” And one of my biggest fears is losing my memory…my memories.

28. This is probably going to sound kinda strange, but I feel really blessed by this blog. The chance for me to document the things I don’t have time to scrapbook, to share stories and pictures with people I love, to have a chance to just be “me” without worrying what other people will think, to be “me” without being “Lillian’s mom” or “Josiah’s mom” or “Brielle’s mom.” To realize there’s more to me. It’s kinda nice.

So there you have it. 28 blessings. This list has taken me a few days to compile. Little lists and notes-to-self have been created, and lots of thinking. Lots of evaluating. Lots of paying attention to what really matters. Try it. It’ll be a blessing. :)

one more thing

I love this picture. I took it on our way up to Round Lake last weekend.

If I showed it to my dad or any of my siblings, there's a good chance they would think that it was taken many years ago, my mom as the photographer. but it's me.

When I'm in the passenger's seat I NEVER sit with two feet on the floor. Unless I'm pregnant. I'm not sure when it started, or even IF it 'started' ever. It's just always been. It's in my genes I guess. :) And I get it from my mom.

Her toes were always painted. Chipped, but painted. And they were always up on the dashboard, leaving toe prints on the inside of the windshield of any car she probably ever had.

We now drive the gold car that she drove (and rode in the passenger's seat) for many years before she died. And tonight, for the first time, the toe prints are gone. I told Steve long ago that he could clean the windshield, but he never had the heart to do it. He knew that most of those toe prints were probably mine, but some of them were definitely hers. But it was to the point where the windshield was hard to see out of, just because of all the grime that gets on the inside of it, ya know? Not really because of the toe prints, but because of just not having been cleaned for so long.

Steve called to ask one more time if it was okay. and I said yes. He did it while I was gone, and I'm kinda glad. I would have struggled with wanting to be out there while he did it, but knowing that I would cry, and that would make him feel bad, and so on. So I just cry now, as I write this instead.

It's just one more thing gone...

give or take a little

Okay, so here's the recipe I was raving about in my last post. But before you make it, and love me forever, you have to know one thing--I'm not sure if it matters if you use the recipe or not. I made it incorrectly (in a couple different ways) and it still turned out. That's my kind of recipe! :)

You will need:

a sleeve of Ritz crackers (give or take a little)
a stick of butter, melted (give or take a little, or a lot)
2 Tbsp of sugar
a half gallon of vanilla ice cream (give or take a little, or half)
a half gallon of raspberry sherbet (give or take a little, or half)
frozen (but thawed) or fresh raspberries

What to do:

Smash the sleeve of crackers. Add the melted butter and the sugar. *I wish I made the crust a little thicker, because it was SO good. So I might double this part next time. AND, I messed up and made it with HALF a stick of butter and it still worked out, so that might be a "fat-friendly" way to do it.*

Make cracker mix into a crust in a 9x13 pan.

Leave the ice creams out til they are soft enough to mix with a mixer. and then mix them! *I was told first to use half gallons of each, which I did. Then the friend who I got the recipe from said she woke up in the middle of the night in a panic because it was actually supposed to be half of a half gallon. But let me tell you, ours was good. It barely fit in the pan, but it did. And everyone loves a tall dessert you know....*

Pour the mixed ice cream onto the crust. Then refreeze it.

Serve it with raspberries on top...or not. It's AWESOME either way.

Sorry, that wasn't very copy-and-print friendly, but it's easy enough to remember. And you don't need to follow the recipe anyway! It'll still be so delicious!

lots of kabobs, lots of emotion

It was a busy weekend at the Hydeen house.

Friday started out with me babysitting I and H again. (I feel like on every other blog I read, people use the first letter instead of the name. So even though I don't think C&A would mind if I use their children's names, I'll join the "cool bloggers" and call them I and H. and on a different note, why does blogger think that children's is not a word? it has that red squiggly under it.)

So, I'm babysitting I and H, and realizing very quickly that the lack of naps on Thursday and inexplicable late night talking/laughing/playing for Lillian and Josiah is about to kick me in the butt.

And sure enough.

H is still getting used to her mommy being back at work, and is struggling a bit with the whole bottle thing. But I figured out a way to get her to eat a little at least. And just as she's going strong, I hear blood curdling screams coming from the bedroom. I put H down, much to her dismay, and head to the bedroom. Josiah is in MY bedroom screaming his head off, and I is in Josiah's bedroom screaming his head off. H is mad in the kitchen that I quit feeding her, and screaming as well, while Brielle has no reason to, she decides that it's all a little much for her, and if you can't beat 'em, join 'em or something. SO, if you're following all this, that means 4 out of 5 kids screaming. And I'm not exaggerating.

I get the gist of what happened in the bedroom from police-woman/rule-follower Lillian. Josiah first hadn't been letting people in the bedroom with him, so when he finally did, and I got inside the room, my sweet little J-man decided to SLAM the door in his face and not let him out. So I (the kid, not me) was freaking out and banging on the door, which probably scared Josiah so much that he started crying and screaming, and then they just continually triggered each other's screams. So I had Josiah stay in my room for a while (if you can't play nicely with other kids, then you have to play in here by yourself) and gave I a few big hugs to calm him down. Then I headed back into the kitchen to feel H again, and tossed a few Cheerios in Brielle's direction, and suddenly, it was close to quiet again. wow.

So I survived the major catastrophe, but for the rest of the day, my blood pressure remained at a higher level than healthy I'm sure.

At about lunchtime (well, it wasn't actually lunchtime, but I decided that after that morning my kids needed an early nap, so we did a very early lunch), my sister and my niece came, and I and H's mom was soon to be arriving. I passed my kids off to Maria, who put them down for a nap while Hazel, H, and I played until Mel came and grabbed Hazel. Soon their mom came and took the kids. Maria, Mel, and Hazel left to do some shopping, and I was all by myself!

ahh, the perfect time to take a nap.

except for the fact that my house was in shambles and I had 6 extra people sleeping here, and 3 others just for dinner. SO, I got my butt in gear.

I did the dishes, etc and tried to make the kitchen look presentable. Then I cleaned the dining room and even mopped the floor on my hands and knees. Let's just say it hasn't been cleaned like that for, well, when did we move in here again???? But it looked good. So I decided to take a break from cleaning and do the fun stuff instead. I got my cricut out and make a bunch of letters to decorate the wall. "ADIOS Christa y Sarah. Dios les bendiga" took a little more time than I thought to cut out, but it was fun.

Soon Tom and Carla (Steve's parents) came, and Erika and Christa (Steve's sisters) were not far behind. They helped me get my house in shape, and Erika even gave my kids a lesson in NOT touching the windows and doors after they were clean. It didn't stick with them. :(

The house was soon bustling with activity again as the kids woke up, my sisters came back, and kabobs were being made. Since the kids were taken care of, I could sit at the counter and lovingly prepare about 50 kabobs with my sisters. We had eaten kabobs at our neighbor's house on Sunday, and since they were SO good, we decided to have them again with our guests on Friday.

Eventually Christa and the kids went with Erika to get her boyfriend Will from the airport, and Steve came home from work. Long story short, once we started grilling the kabobs, we realized that the grill was just going to burn the veggies and only partially cook the meat. So we UN-did all the hours of skewering and made a big old pot of stir fry. and, although I'm a big fan of stir fry, it just wasn't the same.
and I couldn't get those hours back....

But the rest of the meal was a hit. :) and so was the dessert. I'll post the recipe sometime soon, so you can all make it before the end of summer.

Speaking of the end of summer, the REAL reason all the people were over this weekend was because Christa was leaving for Honduras early Saturday morning. So after an evening of just being together and meeting Sarah, (one of Christa's roommates in Honduras, who just happens to be from Sioux Falls, and just happened to go to Dordt for a short time) it was time to say goodbye.

If I were going to give awards to my children's aunts, Christa's award would be
BEST AUNT EVER FOR PLAYING AND PLAYING AND PLAYING WITH THE KIDS

I'm an aunt too, and let's just say that I don't always feel like playing with my nephews and niece when we're together. I like to sit and have grown-up talk with my sister, and watch the kids play together. But I don't do a lot of playing. And I think that's why I so appreciate Christa's relationship with my kids. And so do they.

So we say goodbye and get all teary, and then as soon as I'm in the hallway away from the rest of everyone, my tears flow a little more freely. I know I'll see her at Christmas, but it still kills me, even with skype, and facebook, and emails, and all the other wonderful indulgences of modern technology. it's still not the same.

Okay, so then by Saturday at lunchtime we're "all" (except Christa) sitting at Red Robin, unable to hear each other talk, but enjoying a few last minutes before Erika and Will leave for a super long road trip.

And soon enough, it's down to just us and Tom and Carla. Steve and I took their van to Bellevue (SO glad we don't live there anymore, by the way) to buy ourselves a dining room table. Craigslist has redeemed itself. I absolute LOVE the table, but I'm not a huge fan of the color. If it gets the best of me, I might consider restaining it. anyone done that before? is it worth the work???

And then...sure enough, Tom and Carla left as well. The kids were so upset that I"m sure they heard them crying around the block and down the street. But man, it was an emotional weekend for all.

Sunday we even went to church at the Fort St. site, which is the "home base" of our church we attend now. We regularly attend in Gretna, in a middle school cafeteria, so to walk into the church building and worship there involved some emotion I wasn't expecting either. It was good.

So all in all, a wonderful, bitter-sweet weekend.

I don't feel the greatest, but it probably has more to do with the food I've been eating than the lack of sleep or the excessive emotion of the weekend. Carla's way of blessing (or, is it CURSING?) :) us when she comes is by bringing a VAN full of food and milk and treats and meat and all-around goodness for us to enjoy together and then keep here! The suggestion is always made to freeze some of this and some of that, but for some reason it never makes it to the freezer! :) Thanks Carla for the delicious food!

Okay, time to be done. Is anyone even still reading??? :)

I thought I'd just end this post with a few photos of our weekend, only without the photos. Because I didn't take a SINGLE one! :( I'm very sad. but not sad enough to express emotion over it. I've had enough of that for a while....

How to mow the lawn with 3 (awake) kids, ages 4, 2, and 1.

1. Make a plan with the kids, telling them you are going to mow while they play outside.
2. Run to catch them before they head across the street to ask the neighbor if she can play with them.
3. Be the most horrible mom ever by making them wait to go out while you put your socks and shoes on.
4. Put the one year old in a stroller to watch. Be sure she has toys.
5. Pick up the sticks in the front yard while contemplating how on earth the tree could possibly lose that many freaking sticks since the last time the lawn was mowed, which wasn't THAT long ago.
6. Begin mowing front section.
7. After two rows, tend to an owie tummy. Encourage pooping.
8. Resume mowing.
9. After two more rows, wipe a poopy butt. My children have OPPOSITE bowel issues, and it baffles me daily.
10. Resume mowing.
11. After two more rows, wipe the poopy butt again.
12. Thank messenger for relaying all the messages of his sister's poopy butt.
13. Remind said poopy butt owner that pre-school is just around the corner and pre-school teachers don't have time to wipe poopy butts. But thank her for not just making her underwear all dirty and letting mommy help, even though we DO have a functioning washer and dryer...but that's another story.
14. Resume mowing.
15. Complete the front section.
16. Stop to dump the bag of grass. Curse at all the grass that falls out while you detatch the bag.
17. Move stroller to next section.
18. Explain to older kids how much lawn you have left to mow.
19. Resume mowing.
20. After about two rows, stop mower to pick up dropped toys for baby.
21. Resume mowing.
22. After about two rows, explain to older kids that NO, you are not done. See all the long grass? Please just let mommy mow for a while without stopping.
23. Resume mowing.
24. After about ten rows (yay kids!) stop mower to dump bag of grass. Curse at all the grass that falls out while you detatch the bag. again.
25. Resume mowing.
26. After a few more rows, stop mower to move stroller, and wonder to yourself why you didn't just to that when you were dumping the bag.
27. Take note of how croaking hot you are, even though it was chilly when you came out. Much time has passed.
28. Remove t-shirt and pray that no one notices your weird tank-top thing with some form of bra insert that...well...just doesn't do much.
29. Resume mowing.
30. **TMI ALERT! READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION** Reminisce about the time in your life where you could just mow in the front yard of your Orange City house in your swimming suit and not feel inappropriate about it. That time is not now. Birthing and nursing three babies has taken it's toll, and real bras are forevermore necessary. *my apologies for the visual image I just created. :)
31. Mow directly next to the house and watch all the millions of crickets jumping for their lives.
32. Notice how you don't even slow up for them. Keep right on mowing and almost laughing at the little critters. Then feel suddenly sad at your lack of concern for God's creatures.
33. Stop mower to dump bag of grass. Curse at all the grass that falls out while you detatch the bag. again.
34. Resume mowing.
35. Finish final section of lawn by the garden. Use all your will power to not stop the mower AGAIN to grab a handful of jellybean tomatoes that are tempting you to stop and have a snack. KEEP ON MOWING.
36. Finish mowing final section.
37. Stop mower to dump bag of grass. Curse at all the grass that falls out while you detatch the bag. again.
38. Place mower back in garage.
39. Save the trimming for your husband. :)
40. Go enjoy a nice cold diet coke. (gotta go...)

40 steps, huh? I guess I'm not surprised. I could have easily titled this post "How to do ANYTHING with 3 (awake) kids, ages 4, 2, and 1."

I love my life. :)

a "super" cut

So, Josiah's curls were getting a little out of hand. And since my confidence in Super Cuts drastically decreased from little to NONE last time, I went with Renee of course!

So before you purse your lips at me and say, "WHY did you cut those lovely locks..." just check out these pictures. It was needed. Although, I WAS devastated.

BEFORE:







AFTER:





Thank you Renee for doing such a fine job.

Even though it was very sad for me, and I wondered for a few days if I had made the right decision, I now realize it was. It's way cuter now than it was in the picture. His curls have figured themselves out once again, and it's only a matter of time before it's back to "perfect." :)

seriously? who thought of that?

The following is a real conversation:

"Hi. Welcome to Fatburger. Can I take your order?"

"um...yes. I'll take a... fatburger combo, with a regular fatburger." (I can barely say the words.)

"Would you like cheese on that?"

"yes....?"

"okay, would you like fat fries or skinny fries?"

"um...fat fries."

"Okay, so that's a FATburger combo with a FATburger with cheese, FAT fries, and a drink?"

"yep. that's right."

and off I go to eat my FAT meal. I still can't believe we went there. our choices were limited. and it was very good.

but for some reason I still get grossed out when I think about it....