I Told You So!

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When I was a kid I would always put toothpaste on my bug bites.  I told my mom it made the itching feel better.

She thought it was all in my head.

Just this summer I had to treat a bad mosquito bite on Alethea’s cheek.  I felt kind of silly, but I put toothpaste on it anyway, even though I figured it wouldn’t really help much, since my mom said it was all in my head.

But look what I just found:

It’s a set of household hint books.  And do you see what is on the cover of the toothpaste book??!?!  Yes, indeed, “Take the Bite Out of Burns and Itches”!

Ha!  I knew it!  It wasn’t all in my head!

How to Candy Nuts with an Eight Month Old

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Have you ever seen a fancy restaurant salad with beautiful candied nuts and thought, “Wow! Bet those were hard to make!”  Well, I always thought so too until a friend told me the truth.  They are neither complicated, difficult or time consuming to cook.  In fact, they are so easy that this afternoon I whipped some up while simultaneously entertaining my almost-eight-month-old.

Here’s how it went:

Step 1: Distract eight-month-old with piece of lettuce

She’s a sucker for anything food related that she’s allowed to put in her own mouth, so the lettuce was a big hit.

Step 2: Combine nuts and granulated sugar in a small non-stick skillet

Use a ratio of 1½ to 2 tablespoons of sugar for every half cup of nuts.  (I went with walnut pieces this time, but it works equally well to use whole or sliced almonds or pecans as well.)

Step 3: Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally

While I wouldn’t necessarily advise trying to potty train a toddler while cooking these (speaking from previous experience, you may end up with a burned mess), they don’t need to be constantly watched.  Just a periodic stir will do nicely.

In fact, you can do this step while simultaneously completing the next one, which is:

Step 4: Take hilarious picture of eight-month-old imitating a rabbit

Isn’t she goofy!?

Step 5: Continue stirring occasionally until the sugar begins to melt

This takes about 8-10 minutes.  After sugar begins to melt, reduce heat to medium.

Stir constantly until sugar is fully melted and coats the nuts (about 1 more minute).

Step 6: Immediately remove from heat and transfer to a dish or cookie sheet

It’s best to stir once every couple of minutes until they are cool to avoid clumping.

Step 7: Clean-up kitchen, beginning with the bunny… er… baby on the floor

As you can see, the lettuce served its purpose nicely.

Step 8: Enjoy!

The finished nuts are perfect to top your morning oatmeal, dress up your afternoon yogurt, be the finishing touch on a salad at dinner or to eat anytime as a tasty treat all by themselves.

Don’t forget to store leftovers (if there are any!) in an airtight container.

Bon appetit!

DIY Map Art Meets Church Missionary Display

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It was recently decided at our church that we needed a better way to highlight the members and friends of our congregation who are working around the world in various missionary roles.  Trying to think outside the proverbial box, it was suggested that we attempt something more artistic and well, ‘cool’ than the typical bulletin board in the back hallway.  Following these fantastic instructions, here’s what I ended up with:

It’s a 2x3ft sepia toned world map Mod Podged onto 10 canvases from Michaels.  The hardest part was figuring out what sizes of canvases to use.  I literally spent an hour in Michaels trying to puzzle out what numbers added up to 24 by 36.  I had almost given up hope that anything would work out right, when suddenly, I stumbled on this arrangement which includes one 12×16, one 11×14, two 8x8s, two 5x7s and four 8x10s (two hung horizontally and two vertically).  Whew!

The map turned out so completely gorgeous that I wanted to keep it for my house (and I do think it would make lovely home decor).  However, in the end, I was very happy to see it hung in the foyer at church, because it looked even better with the missionary prayer cards hung above it on an inexpensive curtain rod.

I so admire each one of our missionaries for the work that they are doing overseas.  But I’m also glad that the good Lord can even use people like me doing fussy, putsy, paper and glue craft projects to reach others for Him.  What a mighty God we serve!

PS. Thanks to Heidi for suggesting the curtain rod for hanging the pictures, thanks to Chris for matting the cards so beautifully on scrapbook paper and thanks to Jill for sending me the link for the map project in the first place.  I wouldn’t have gotten far without it!

Blogging Irony

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One of the supreme ironies of keeping a blog is that when life is crazy, you have tons of material and no time to write, but then when life slows down, you realize that you’ve forgotten everything you meant to post about.

This week was one of the crazy ones.  Potty training, getting ready for piano teaching this fall and trying to get plans for my 30th birthday party in motion took up a lot of time and energy.  I really really really do mean to blog about these things and others, but am searching for some quiet moments to do them justice.

Fortunately when words fail, a good picture can make a poor blogging week just a bit better.  So here’s one for you.  Alethea, fast asleep in a pile of shoe boxes, wearing one pink boot, one purple boot and a diaper.  Gotta love it.

If it weren’t 11:20 at night, I’d think of a funny caption, but I’m all out of blogging energy now, so feel free to leave your own in the comments section of this post!

A Battle Won

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Here was our morning:

9:30 – Breakfast is over, Alethea’s diaper comes off

9:35 – I give her a cup of watered down apple juice, which she drinks as she alternates between playing in the living room and sitting on the potty chair

10:30 – Alethea asks for a pull-up and I know we’re getting close as I tell her, “No diapers this morning!”

10:45 – Alethea gets cranky and aggressive and I know we’re getting really close

10:50 – After peeing just a teeny tiny bit, Alethea gets to watch an episode of Clifford, but I refuse her request for a pull-up

11:10 – Alethea starts shouting, “Potty, potty!” and finally manages to really go

11:12 – Alethea enjoys the rewards of her efforts: fruit-snacks and more Clifford!

The war is by no means over, but this was a big battle.  And I won!!!

Extreme Potty Training

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about when the best moment would be to potty train Alethea.  She recently started showing interest in it again and since that happens to coincide with these few weeks when my piano teaching load is at a minimum, we’re going for it!

Today was day one.  We’ve discovered that Alethea has a bladder of steel.  After breakfast (during which she drank half a sippy cup of milk), I offered her an entire cup of watered down apple juice, which she promptly guzzled.

Then we went to the bathroom were we talked about the garden, looked at flower pictures, played with the toilet paper holder and discussed the fact that if she went potty she would get to eat fruit snacks, use toilet paper, flush the toilet and watch Clifford the Big Red Dog. (Talk about incentives!)

Fast forward an hour!!!! later and that girl still had not gone even one little bit and was showing no signs of desperation.  We heard a knock at the door and put her pull-up on to go answer it.  (I’m sure you can all guess where this is going…)  Within a minute of going to the door, Alethea had wet her pull-up and in the course of the next ten, it was filled to the bursting point.

So, we are officially giving up on the concept that if we just get her to the potty when she needs to go that she’ll will, in fact, go.

New plan (Extreme Potty Training here we come)!

The living room rug is up.  Tomorrow we are going diaperless in the house.  She’s either going in the potty or on the floor.

She will choose the potty… right?!!??!

Age is Just a Number

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Or is it?

Tonight at dinner Peter asked Alethea how old she was.

Her response?

“Big!”

I’m turning 30 years old in just over a month.

Am a little tempted to throw numbers out the window myself and come up with a new answer to the “How Old” question.

Maybe…

“Fabulous!”

Or

“Never been better!”

However, as funny as it was, I don’t think I will be borrowing Alethea’s “Big!”  At my age, that’s just adding insult to injury, don’t you think?

Lydia’s Seven Month Update

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Lydia turned seven months old on the fifth of this month.  Happy birthday, my Sweet Girl!

The thing that stands out to me the most about the past month is how much Lydia seems to be learning every day.  We’ve discovered that Lydia is a lot happier if you don’t give her toys that she’s recently played with.  She quickly grows bored with them and wants something new to manipulate and explore.  Perhaps it is too early to tell, but I think she’s going to be very analytical (a scientist maybe?)

Lydia analyzes people too, especially Alethea.  She’s a little copy cat!  It’s almost scary just how much Lydia sounds like Alethea in the way she laughs and the silly little noises she makes.  Sometimes when my back is turned I can’t tell who is making a particular sound.  Undoubtedly there will be days to come when Alethea will be annoyed to have a shadow, but there can be no denying that Lydia’s motives are pure.  She thinks the sun rises and falls on Alethea’s command and wants so badly to be noticed by her.  It’s gotten to the point that I’m having a hard time teaching Alethea to play gently with her sister because even when she smacks Lydia with a toy, she’ll receive an adoring smile that says, “Wow, my sister is paying attention to me!  So cool!”

Although she is not the least bit assertive with Alethea, she is becoming increasingly more so with everyone else.  Currently she is very interested in feeding herself finger foods, will not ever drink out of a bottle under any circumstances, hates to be put down for a nap if she hasn’t been recently fed and is positively insulted if you offer her a nuk when she’s crying.

She sits up for longer and longer periods each day and no, she isn’t crawling yet, but she’s gotten to be quite a pro at rolling, pivoting and stretching, so that she can generally reach anything in a two food radius around her when she’s on her tummy.

She still doesn’t have much hair and even though she acts like a little beaver, chewing on everything in sight, there is no sign yet of any teeth poking through.  Despite the fact that she is almost certainly teething, she takes two solid naps a day and sleeps reasonably well at night.  Hurray!

The highlight of Lydia’s social calendar this past month was that she got to meet all three of her living great grandparents.  Naturally, they thought she was as delightful as the rest of us do!

Keep growing and learning, Lydia Grace!  We just can’t get enough of you, our happy, assertive, analytical little girl!

Which Post to Write…?

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I’ve got about half a dozen posts in my head right now and I just can’t decide which one to write.

Decor post?  Handy laundry tip post?  More landscaping photos?  Birthday party planning post?

I know I ought to write Lydia’s 7 month update, because she’s actually almost 7.5 months old, but since I haven’t taken the pictures yet, that post is going to wait another day.

Maybe I’ll just ramble and throw in gratuitous cute kid pictures and hope no one notices my lack of blogging focus.

Here’s a life lesson for you: if you are trying to think of funny words to say to get your kid to smile for the camera, avoid the word ‘booger’ or you might just get a shot like this!

Here’s another life lesson: When going into a ‘pick-your-own’ field with a raspberry-aholic two year old, carry the basket yourself, or it may be empty every time you go to toss another berry in it!

Happy Monday everyone!

And We’re Done!

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Today we finished up the bean project!  Just as a reminder, here’s where we’ve been…

August 2009 –
No picture available, because I was just trying to survive Alethea’s early months of life.  The bean was covered in knee-high weeds and had seven oak trees in it.

April 2010 –
Weeds pulled and two trees removed

August 2010 –
Lots of mulch and a few plants later

August 4th 2011 –
More plants were added in the spring and the path was marked out

Add some boulders, lay a flagstone path…

And finally the moment I’ve been waiting two years for…

The Bean – August 10th 2011

I’m tired, my feet hurt and it was dirty, dirty work, but it was so worth it!

The Bean has officially gone from the eyesore of our yard to the highlight!