Pizza

We made homemade pizza for the first time the other day. Well we've made pizzas from french bread and bagels before, but it was the first time I made the dough myself. I used the recipe in Martha Stewart's Baking Book and added a few spices of my own. I grabbed the camera and asked Mary to show me her hands and show me how messy she was and this is what she did:

It looks like a mix between her surrendering and a mug shot. I promise she was smiling and having fun before this! And for the clean up:

Mary's Class

We are taking a toddler class at the community art's center in Fairfield and some friends from our church are taking it too! Mary and Eli are becoming good friends. He really likes holding her hand for ring around the rosy:) Here they are making masks a couple weeks ago:

Bread:)

We loves carbs around here. A lot. Lately I've been getting back into cooking meals that take a little more time and making my own bread (yes...it took 2.5 years after having a kid). Anyway, recently I have found some great bread/roll recipes. My friend Pat shared her beer bread recipe with me:
3 Cups Self-Rising Flour
3 Tablespoonds Sugar
12 ounces of beer

Mix those three things together and pour 3 T melted butter over it, bake at 350 for 45 minutes and you have a winner. I also found the BEST biscuits. I am told they're like the ones at Red Lobster, but I've never been there. And finally I found some dinner rolls that I think are amazing. I always bought the sister shubert's frozen rolls at Kroger because they are seriously awesome and I couldn't make anything that tasted that good. Enter this dinner roll recipe. I usually don't like Martha Stewart's recipes because there's always one pretentious ingredient that costs a lot and you only use for that one recipe. But not this time:) I like her baking book because it's detailed, but I'm cheap so I don't use half the recipes in that book! The Parker House Rolls will for sure be a staple in this house from now on.

ice cube fun

Tired of being stuck inside? Don't know how to keep your toddler busy while you're busy cleaning or feeding a baby? Put some food coloring in some water and make colored ice cubes. She loved it. They melted in the sink a little too fast for my liking, but I didn't want to use cold water and make her little finger freeze off. But it's a real winner.

8 months

Noah is getting closer to 1 every day and it seems so crazy to me. He is crawling like a champ and has his two upper front teeth now as well. I love this stage because he can show us when he wants us. He will crawl to whoever he wants and reach up to them with one arm and start to whimper a little. It's so special because before this point you never really get that sense that they want you. Now you know:)



She is definitely choking him in this picture. Didn't realize that until I was looking through the pictures. Ooops! Don't worry, within a year he will be bigger than her and he'll be able to love on her equally.

belly laughs

My kids make me laugh all the time. Like deep laughter. Here are two moments recently. I was washing dishes the other day and I heard a sucking noise. I looked over and this is what I saw:


He was sucking on her fingers and actually holding on to them most of the time. And she thought it was hilarious. Then Noah got stuck under the table. It was fun trying to get him out of there.

This is happening

I grew flowers! I notoriously kill plants of all kinds. Even the ones that the guy at home depot called "hearty" and "impossible to kill". Oh, he hadn't met me yet. But sitting on my kitchen table right now is a vase full of paperwhites that I grew! I read about growing them indoors during winter on the raising homemakers blog. I bought some from a lady on etsy and she sent me 5 bulbs along with instructions on how to force them to grow. It was super easy, even for me. I did find a little tip about using a solution of 5% alcohol to keep them from growing too long and falling over. I think I started using that too late though because one of the stems did fall over. But I'm still pumped that they are blooming and beautiful.


If you are ready for spring you should try it!

Getting nice out!

It's getting warmer! We busted out the sunglasses the other day.

getting dressed

I have a book called Slow and Steady Get Me Ready! It has one activity each week for the first five years of life. The claim is that if you do these activities and also work on letters, phonics, and numbers, it is a solid preschool program and your child will be ready for kindergarten at age 5. We'll see!

The first activity we did is pictured below. I had Mary lay down and I traced her body outline onto a large piece of paper (the packing material from a recent amazon purchase). Then we embellished the face and I had her "put clothes" on the drawing Mary. She really liked it. I found myself getting frustrated with her a couple times and had to monitor my response. I want her to see these things as fun (which she did), but not be stressed out by my own impatience. She kept asking me to help her with the clothes but she hadn't really even tried. So I'd tell her to try again but I did have to help her some. I don't want her to get frustrated with the first activity. Overall I think it was good. She actually asked to do it again later in the day and went to get some clothes:)

Little mama

This may be too weird for you blog readers, but we think it is HILARIOUS!

On the move

Noah started crawling about a week ago. He went from rocking back and forth constantly to just crawling one day. It's like he decided to take the plunge.



He's gotten a little better since this video but I wouldn't say he's a pro yet:)

3 seams

At church we are collecting cereal boxes for the apParent project. You should check out their site! But basically a large portion of Haiti's orphans are not actually parent-less. They are children whose parents cannot afford to feed them and take care of them so they take them to the orphanage. This project helps women make money for their families so that they can keep their children. They make these awesome beads out of cereal boxes! Check them out.
Well a friend from church told me about this other organization called 3 seams that does something similar but with clothing for girls. You buy one dress and they send an identical one to a child who needs it. I bought the one in the picture for Mary last night. Part of me cringed as I hit the button to pay $50 for ONE dress. But then I thought about it and really I was buying two dresses. And I thought about it more and realized that it didn't matter how much we are going to get out of that money. That money is going to support people who really need it. Anyway, if you have a little girl or know someone you need a gift for...go buy something cute! They have skirts too that are much cheaper:)

ps - the jewelry from the apParent project is really cool too! I saw some at church and it is cute!