New skill?

Everett has been a rather unreasonable child recently. He likes waking us up in the middle of the night with a scream, followed by midnight milkies. He gets like this before he learns a significant skill.

Lately, he's taken to removing his pants, running to the bathroom, sitting on the potty, and doing his business. So, he may be partially potty trained at just under 20 months. Not bad.

The bad part is that he's seen daddy pee standing up. So every once in awhile, he'll strip, run, and stand in front of the potty with his hand on the wall, and get about 50% in.

Well, it's a start.

We're still here!

Happy New Year.





Hahaha, yes, that is all.

Carrot and Raisin Muffins.

Carrot and Raisin Muffins ingredients list:
1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour.
2 teaspoons of cinnamon.
1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder.
½ teaspoon of baking soda.
½ teaspoon of salt.
3 medium eggs.
½ cup of melted butter.
½ cup of milk.
¾ cup of granulated sugar.
1 ½ cups of shredded carrots.
½ cup of raisins.
Glaze:
 2 tablespoons of milk.
1 tablespoon of melted butter.
¼ cup of cream cheese, softened.
½ teaspoon of vanilla.
1 cup of powdered sugar.

Instructions for Carrot and Raisin Muffins:
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Combine the all-purpose flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Beat together the eggs and the granulated sugar.
Add the shredded carrots, raisins, ½ cup of milk, and ½ cup of melted butter; mix thoroughly.
Add the flour mixture and stir until the dry ingredients have moistened.
Spoon the batter into twelve greased muffin cups.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Glaze:
Mix together cream cheese and 1 tablespoon of butter.
Stir in the powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons of milk, and vanilla, then drizzle over top of the cooked muffins.
Optional: eat hot with sunbutter.
source: muffinrecipes.net

Breakfast

Kyle made very yummy carrot and raisin muffins this morning for breakfast. And they were perfectly done, they didn't even stick to the pan or anything. Curses! I'm supposed to be the baker in this family!

Maybe he will post the recipe...Kyle...?

We are off to church in about a half hour. Unfortunately Everett is napping. We'll see how this works.

An Update

I suppose it's about time I posted another update on Everett. We went for his 15-month checkup about a month and a half late, and he is 19 lbs. 4 oz. Teeny teeny tiny. The doctor said that we forgot to put the quarters in his diaper before getting him weighed so that we could turn his carseat around. He is in 1% or less for weight, 1st or 2nd %ile for height and 33%ile for head circumference! So he has a BIG head, lol. And he is doing fine. The doctor was impressed by how many words he knew. (I told him 10-15 that he (the doctor) would be able to understand. Mostly prepositions and adjectives.)

Just in the last couple days he has started repeating words and saying and signing a lot more words too. His signs are really crude but I can usually tell what he's trying to say. He even signed two signs together yesterday...unfortunately I forgot what they were! :( It was either more something or all done something...I think more something.

He is also teething his top molars. So he has been a PILL, especially at night, for the last week or so.

Baby Zombies

So Kyle wants me to post about baby zombies. I'm not sure why he can't post it. He has a blogger account. Anyway...

We did our part of the monthly babysitting swap on Saturday, and realized that babies are kinda like zombies. They see something move and go after it with their little zombie toddle.

It's cute.

I need to make pumpkin stuff! I am in the mood for pumpkin pie, cheesecake, bread, sugar cookies shaped like pumpkins, anything Halloweeny. Lol. And almost done attaching the legs to Everett's (tada!) spider costume.

The Mall

So Everett and I went to the mall today. Yes, the Foothills Mall, home of the Sears that doesn't sell socks...and not much else. But it was nice to get out. I let Everett run around and explore a bit, walked around the mall about three times, and made a number of ~$5 purchases that made me happy. Chicken strips and salad for lunch from Chick-fil-A, chocolate nummies from the chocolate store, Barrel of Monkeys (for Everett, really, not me, I swear), and three pairs of black men's socks (for Everett's Halloween costume, can you guess what he's going to be?). Then on the way home we stopped for a few groceries, pumpkins to make pie, and our Halloween candy! I have hidden it high in the pantry already. No opening until October 31st...maybe.

Step into Africa, etc.

We had a nice long weekend because Kyle had Columbus Day off. On Sunday I volunteered at the Step into Africa exhibit. It was interesting. I got to stamp people HIV-negative or positive (not for real, don't worry). It is going to Fargo, North Dakota next. Wooo.

We are rearranging our living/dining room, or trying to. It is so awkward. This house is awkward in a way that you don't realize until you try to put your furniture in it, and it makes it seem a lot smaller. Not just the living room/kitchen but also all the bedrooms. :( We have our dining room table upstairs now and we are actually eating off it. Next we are going to see if we can bring our futon upstairs so we can have more than one comfortable place to sit, or if the logistics involved in that will bring our living space to zero.

Everett is doing well. He has been enjoying the playground and the cooler weather, walking, and being in our way when we try to rearrange.

My grandma had a checkup for her cancer today. The spots have hardly grown at all I guess so that is great! They recommend no treatment and no change in her lifestyle for now and hopefully they will continue to NOT GROW! She has another checkup in four months and she could always use continued prayer.

Ow!

Everett just fell against the corner of the end table and got a giant nasty purple bump on his head. It looks like he is trying to grow a Triceratops horn. Poor baby. I will try to take a picture tomorrow but hopefully it won't look as bad then. He is sleeping now.

It sounds like he enjoyed the Farm with Daddy on Saturday. He knows that chickens are food now. Great fun.

Not much else going on. Everett has been confused about when to take naps lately. He thought it would be a good idea to switch down to one nap a day but didn't think through that so well so sometimes he takes two, sometimes one at an odd time, and by the end of the day he is SO tired. He needs to plan these things better. Lol.

Ahhhh

I am relaxing at a coffee shop. I left Kyle and Everett at home about an hour and a half ago and when Everett woke up from his nap Kyle was going to feed him lunch and then take him to the Farm to show him the animals.

We've had an interesting week or so, just doing some new things. On Tuesday we went over to help out a friend who had recently moved and she has an almost 2 year old and a 3 month old. I took them and Everett to the park so she could unpack a little, clean her bathrooms, and take a shower. Taking three kids to the park was challenging!

Then on Friday we had a "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" mommy and me class. It was for 15-18 months old. I think Everett was the youngest kid there. He was completely overwhelmed with all the other kids and parents and music and parachute and everything. About the time it was over he was starting to warm up and enjoy himself. The class goes for three weeks so hopefully he'll remember it next week and get into it faster.

Everett has a Lot to Say

Ok, first, the winner of the "when will he walk" contest is Granny, because I guess she was closest. She wins...respect. I officially classify Everett as walking. He still doesn't walk all over the house, but he walks for short distances, he starts out long journeys walking before reverting to crawling, and he can stand up without holding on to things to begin walking, as well as stop walking without falling over. He is just a really cautious kid apparently!

He is saying a lot these days and getting more opinionated. He complains loudly when he doesn't get to touch something. He makes all sorts of animal sounds now - dog, snake, monkey, chicken, sometimes cow. And you know that my secret talent is animal sounds so he makes him like I do, not just saying "woof." Hee hee, it's very cute.

Some other things he says...tent, daddy, mama, end (at the end of books), Amem (after prayers), hat, hot, bopbop (boppy), all done (he doesn't say it like that but he does it with the sign so we know what he means), ahhhhh for drinking water, numnumnum. And he goes around saying "What's this?" "And that?" "This?" "That?" all day. Haha.

He also does a couple signs: potty, all done, eat, fish. And he made up his own signs for sad and ant. Yeah, what? I don't know, the kid is weird.

So that's part of what's new lately.

An update

Sorry I have not been blogging lately. I just haven't been feeling like doing too much, and Everett has been keeping me busy.

Plus we had company for the weekend! Everett actually did pretty well with the "strangers" that he hasn't seen since May. He read books with Auntie Alisha, was pestered by Crazy Grandma, and fed squirrels with Grandpa. We went to Beau Joe's and Cold Stone and I got to ride on the motorcycles. Everett also got to play with the motorcycles and he loved them.

So we had fun.

Then the early part of this week we did a lot of nothing. Oh there was a Laporte Night Out at the firehouse on Tuesday so we went and ate lots of food and met some neighbors and got rained on.

And today we visited the animals at The Farm and went to the playground. SOON Everett will be able to walk and thus actually use most of the playground equipment. Right now we're pretty much limited to baby swings and small slides, and letting him walk across the bridges holding on to my hands.

Tonight we are both (me and Everett) getting haircuts!

It's SO BLASTED HOT! Summer used to be my favorite season when I lived in North Dakota...yeah, not anymore.

Some New Skills

On Tuesday Everett took one and a half or two steps all by himself. And he learned how to crawl down the stairs backwards, although I have to remind and supervise that he needs to stay going backwards.

Today is my and Kyle's anniversary! We are going out to eat.

And then get ready for the weekend! Grandma and Grandpa and Auntie are coming! Yay!

Weekend

We had a fun weekend, camping in Nebraska. I got two ski rides, the second on Sunday morning when the lake was almost glass. It was great. I had a rather spectacular fall though and have a really huge, ugly bruise on my leg. I'm also still really sore, although better than yesterday.

Kyle went tubing and he is also sore.

Everett enjoyed playing in the water, in the mud at the water's edge, and in the sand. He also enjoyed eating the sand. He even let the pastor hold him and walk around with him for a few minutes. Amazing. And he also enjoyed the boat, although every time he got in it he fell asleep.

Today I tried to teach him to go down the stairs backwards. He has it figured out, he just needs to remember to go BACKWARDS. Lol. He also has been enjoying walking up the stairs, one foot on each step, while holding on to me. He is so small he can hardly do it and he must be totally worn out by the time he gets to the top, but that is the way he wants to do it.

I think he will be walking by himself soon. Kyle is betting August 6th I think he said. I guess August 12th. Anyone else?

He is sleeping right now and he is SO CUTE! :)

Church Update

Ok I was asked for a church update. Hmm.

Well for the past three weeks we have attended Hope Community Fellowship. It is a small church but the people are incredibly friendly. There is a church campout this weekend in Nebraska that we plan to go to (I am very excited to get a ski ride!).

Apparently Hope Community is an "emerging" church. There is no clear definition of that, so don't even ask me what it means. I've been trying to figure it out myself for a couple of weeks. It's not really a denomination, but more of a movement within Christianity. Here is the Wikipedia article. I read "A New Kind of Christian" by Brian McLaren and it was so good I had to read it twice. But that book is more of a story with lots of scattered points than a coherent description of emerging theology.

We also visited Revolution, which is not really a church but a very small coffee shop discussion group of sort of emerging-type Christians. Not sure how else to describe it. We've only gone once so far but it was neat. The coffee shop format is not too easy with a baby though, plus it meets right around naptime in the afternoon (as most churches do in the morning - the perils of reproducing). So I'm not sure how often we'll be able to attend, but at least we've sort of made connections to a few other similar-minded people.

Anyway, that's where we're at right now. I think we've found a church for the time being that we can attend and find community, and at least we won't have to affirm a long list of doctrinal statements we're not so sure about. And we have found at least the opportunity for a meaningful discussion and study. If we feel like great worship music we can always go back to Mountain View for a service, or Faith. We are still looking for ways to get involved in the area of service.

Update

Haven't posted in a while. Last week we were in a hotel in Denver and didn't have Internet, and just stuff going on too.

Everett has been doing well for the most part. He likes to point stuff out and remark on it. He's been crazy at night though. And a diaper cannot hold the pee he's putting out at night.

We enjoyed Denver. We visited the zoo and all the animals wore Everett out. We also toured the Coors brewery. I personally enjoyed the free time obtained from not having to do cooking or housework, and from not having Internet! :) I got to exercise in the health club in the hotel! We also spent a lot of time in the pool and enjoyed our free appetizers and desserts daily. Yay.

Hopefully I will be able to continue to keep this blog updated now, after this break.

Pow!

We took Everett to see the fireworks last night and he liked them for the minute and a half he was awake to see them.

Tomorrow it's to Hope Community Church.

Oh almost forgot

Good news (finally) from the doctor yesterday. My iron levels are a little elevated, but my iron storage is fine. I just need to get a blood test every year to monitor it, and shouldn't take iron supplements.

Speaking of WHICH - I found out this hemochromatosis mutation is the most common genetic disorder among people of European descent. It's something like 1 in 150 - more that are heterozygotes! These people should not take iron supplements. And we know that in general people don't need to be taking iron supplements unless they have a good reason, like being pregnant or anemic. Americans generally get plenty of iron from their diet.

So...WHY can't you even find a multivitamin without iron, even in large vitamin stores?

This boggles my mind.

Recipe: Whole-Wheat Crackers

I got my homemade crackers to work, and figured out an easy way to roll them! These are not as good, I must admit, as say, Kashi crackers, but I think they are at least as good as Club.

Mix together:

1/3 cup canola oil
2 t. honey
3/4 c. warm water
2.5 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1 T. wheat bran
1 T. oat bran
1 T. cornmeal
(1 t. salt
1 T. sesame seeds
1 t. paprika
1/2 t. anise)

Those last four ingredients are what I used this time, but all are optional, and that is the part that you can mess around with and add or subtract whatever you want. I've made sweet crackers with cinnamon and nutmeg, cumin-and-garlic powder crackers, cayenne pepper, etc. You could probably even add some cheese. Just make sure you have at least 1/2 t. salt or they'll be really bland.

Ok, here's my method for rolling them out. I know everyone probably already knows how to roll things, but this might be helpful for those like me who can never get it thin enough. For crackers you have to get them pretty thin.

First I roll the whole lump (or half at a time) out just until it's flat, doesn't have to be too thin, then tear it into pieces. Each of these pieces I then roll out really thin (you have to use flour to keep your rolling pin from sticking). I don't bother to cut them, I just rip cracker-sized pieces off and put them on a greased baking sheet. Make sure to poke each cracker with a fork.

Then bake at 300 degrees F for about 20 minutes, give or take. They should be crispy.

Woo!

I put Everett down on the floor on his feet, and he stayed that way, standing up all by himself!