Hello.

Rob's been out of town this week on business and boy oh boy have we had an adventure. Peanut has thrown up every night that he's been gone, and all over the carpet in a new location every time, completely missing the old shower curtain I put down as a splash pad. Oh and he would always wait till the middle of the night to do it. Except for today. I have a feeling with Daddy being home now there will be no incidents tonight. As my Mom often reminds me, "It could be worse." She's right. :)


So the positive. We made some killer train tracks while we've been here at the house. This is one fun toy. I like setting it up as much as Peanut enjoys running trains along it and breaking it :).  I also was lucky enough to get out one day and run some errands by myself. My good friend offered to watch my kids for a day as a birthday present. So I went and picked out paint samples (that always takes forever for me and it was nice to not have any distractions), did some shopping, looked at seeds for the garden and took myself out to lunch. Café Rio, some retail therapy and a little HGTV sure boosts my spirits. Do you like either of the bottom two blues?

Another thing that makes us happy, especially Henry and I, is our new blender! The one we got at our wedding bit the dust so we invested in a Breville and the only reason I am telling you this detail is because it's been so good. I got right to work making baby food and the purees are a thing of beauty. My green smoothies are smooth. No spinach bit is left whole and ice chunks are a thing of the past. Cooks Illustrated ranked it right up there with the vitamix, but it had a price tag that did not give me heart failure.

Ok and speaking of Henry's food. He has decided to eat it! Like all of a sudden this week. And he eats a lot. And thinks it's super fun to spit the first few bites at me, then whines when I start to put it away. He's already 6 months old! More on that this coming week.

Last update here. It was my birthday. It was a nice simple day. Rob cooked Julia Child's beef bourguignon (heavenly), and my lovely friend made me the most delicious carrot cake I have ever had. Other then that I got to just sit next to a sunny window that Sunday afternoon and have a moment to myself. Perfect. And thanks to everyone who made the day special. I was treated to so many nice things by so many people like a brunch and a girls night out and mail. I love getting mail. Email. Snail Mail.  Package Mail. Birthday's are always good. I can't complain about getting older. My body isn't breaking down and life just gets richer with age right? And I've already come to terms with the fact that aging is just the slow process of becoming my parents. I like them. :)

Well enjoy the rest of the photos. And hopefully I can get a video to upload (it's not working tonight) so you can hear Peanut's rendition of Happy Birthday. Good night!     

 

 

Continuation...Life is good!

We're back! I promised part two and here we are. That picture is my absolute new favorite. That's the most perfect green smoothie fu-man-chu I have ever seen, along with an equally perfect smile. How could you not smile looking at that handsome little devil.

Well we just spent a fun week tending for some friends of ours while they went on a cruise. We, along with another family watched their four kids, and stayed at their house for a week. It was a really great time and was cause for a pause to ponder the fact that this situation was similar to the household that both of my parents grew up in. Sans the extra set of parents. We had eight kids in the house ages, 5 months, 13 months, 2 years, 4 years, 5 years, 10 years, 12 years and 15 years old. That is ALMOST physically possible. I have no idea how I would do that as just one Mom in the house! It sure is fun to have that many people around the dinner table though. Anyways, here is a picture update and some videos, as promised!

Peanut's handiwork with no complaints from Cashew.

Brothers!

 

Puzzles at the library (this looks so serene
until you hear about the epic tantrum that
followed when I asked him to clean them up
so we could go home). The best part was I
asked Peanut to sit in time out once I finally
dragged him to the check-out counter while
 I reserved our books. I obviously was not
specific enough. I noticed the librarians
peeking over my shoulder and I turned
to see my punished Peanut scooting his
way all through the library on his butt. The
librarian so astutely commented,
"Well I guess he is still sitting."

The curtains I made. They still need to be hemmed.

Sick little Cashew in his leg warmers, stealing
the show, as usual. This little tyke has now had a
cold for over a month and is sleeping terribly.
We're exhausted but at least he keeps smiling.

And speaking of sleeping, this one still
sleeps like the living dead. Snoring up
a storm. Oh and he learned to climb out of
his crib this week, so last night we debuted
the toddler bed. Heaven help us.

 

Hidey, Hidey, Ho! The elephant is so slow!

Peanut has been walking around our house saying this and a variety of other catch phrases and punchy lines that he's picked up. This is a particular line from his Zoo book. We have been spending ample amounts of time in the tipi postponing bedtime with books. That Peanut is a sly one. He is also saying other equally amusing things like, "Mommy, tomorrow see friends and eat broccoli?" and "Thankful for potty, party, Grandma and Daddy. Amen.".  I even listened to him sing the phrase "choose the right" for at least 30 mins straight in his bed one night.

Well we've been busy with life lately. It's fun. It's exciting. Life and the pursuit of living, that is. So here's a rather long list of what's going on around our house. And per some requests, there will be videos included in the continuation of this post. I guess I have more readers than I realized and some say they even check daily to see what's new. Gasp! I haven't posted more than twice a month for who knows how long. Sorry to disappoint. I'll see if I can satiate any appetites.

1) Cashew rolled over by himself for the first time today! I was fearing he had no desire. That he would be hairless on the back of his head forever. He sure fooled me. He also tried his first solid food. It went as well as bottle feedings have gone. Absolutely, positively a failure. All subsequent tries have fared equally as well. So much for listening to the Doc on that one. She wants him eating proteins by 6 months. Ha!

2) Everyone's caught a cold. I'm going to blame the play place at the mall. Mommy's have to walk somewhere when it's cold out and I can't keep Peanut locked in the house forever. And speaking of the mall, I found Peanut scaling the shelves of gumball machines they have conveniently placed next to the little'uns playground. It's like he was scaling the barricade getting ready to battle for a quarter that I obviously was not going to surrender. I wasn't quite quick enough to snap a picture but I'm sure you can all do one up in your brain just fine with all you know about Peanut.

Our budding artist showing off his masterpiece.

3) I am a rock star. Yes I'm going to toot my horn about a feat which many other women have accomplished before me. I watched 4 children, ages 3, 2, 1 & 4 months, from 6:30am to 5:00pm last Wednesday (yes two were my own).  No one died, we didn't have any real tears, everyone got fed at the correct hours, they napped, I got some laundry folded, the house was not destroyed, we were all dressed before lunch time, we didn't watch movies all day and I did not hate children by the end of it. In fact I quite enjoyed it, except for the part where I was absolutely exhausted by 8:30pm.  My mother once described my babysitting philosophy as "taking the path of least resistance, in order to simply endure the experience of tending children. Boy have I grown! Kids I am not afraid of you anymore! Good thing, since I have two of them. I felt amazingly accomplished and absolutely spent. So I demolished an entire Café Rio salad in one sitting to rejuvenate. Hats off to all you Mothers who dare or dared to have over three children and three in diapers at the same time.

And as an aside, quote of the day from the 3 year old:

Her: "Oops, I tooted."
Me: "Yeah that was crazy."
Her: "Mmm hmm. It was like it was talking."

4) Which brings us to other great and important news, we have a Café Rio, now located just 3.2 miles from my doorstep. Bless that Tex Mex goodness!

5) I am making curtains. I am sick and tired of having to put clothes on to come down the stairs to grab something from the fridge (don't you love my motivation), so a fabric decision was finally made. Much to Rob's relief. As much as I know he loves pouring over fabric swatches and decoration ideas.

6) And speaking of the fridge, I made Neopolitan cupcakes. I tried a recipe from pinterest...Awful! So I changed it. I found this excellent recipe in my Cake Bible (thank you Tiffany!), for a checkered cake (vanilla and chocolate) and then made a buttercream frosting and laced it with strawberry jam. Oh mama were they good! You should all give it a try. Here is the unfrosted version. I think they look like cows.

7) We went to a Superbowl party. Any favorite Superbowl commercials anyone? I love living in the state with the winning team. There is a lot of Raven pride around here. I'm just a fair weather fan though, let's be honest. I was just excited to say that I knew two whole players on team. One from BYU and one thanks to that excellent movie the Blind Side. Oh boy do I sound like a girl.


TO BE CONTINUED...