Christmas Cookies!

Well, St. Nicholas came on Thursday night and filled our stockings (I don't like the shoes) but we haven't opened them because A has to let mommy and daddy sleep enough so they have the energy to open them. Part of the tradition we are trying to create is also making cookies. We make graham crackers, but since they are rolled we can use cookie cutters and make "mans" and Christmas tees! We also made some jingle bells, but they aren't pictured here.

A few funny things from this week courtesy of A:

•  <person> you have 2 options, go to time out or go set- up church
•  "Why are you up?" asked Chris, "Because the sun is," was the response before 7 one morning. (However, because the sun is down is not a good reason to get ready for bed)
•  Um...just not yet. We hear this when asking to go potty, clean-up, get ready for bed, so just about everything.
•  He has a pooooopy piaper.

G is starting to be awake more, though he still sleeps a lot as he is growing a lot. He is really getting control of his head, so that's a good thing. He is kind of panicky and we think it is from the crushing hugs he gets courtesy of his big sister. She also really likes to give him kisses and often tries to pick him up, not realizing he weighs about half as much as she does.

We managed to not get a lot of the ice predicted in the storm today, it was just a bit wet with some ice, but nothing appreciable and no accumulation except on random trees.

Pediatrician Visit

We all went to the pediatrician today for G's 3 week appointment. He is now weighing in at 10 lbs and is 22 inches. He's grown a lot, and put on a fair amount of weight. The nurse was kind of upset when I told her that he sleeps on his stomach, but since they only theorize that SIDS is caused by stomach sleeping I don't really care. I'd rather be honest and get my hand slapped then lie to the docs. The doc was good about getting A involved in the check-up. He asked her name and his name and let her listen to the stethoscope.

Miss A is doing better with it just being the three of us at home. We try and do one excursion a day and take a nap. She is getting a lot more sleep so I'm sure that helps with the attitude. We also have worked on our Christmas tree a lot this week and are getting ready for St. Nicholas Day, which is Friday. A is getting into St Nicholas Day, so we're excited about that. She also has opted to give honeybees as her Heifer gift this year, but says her little brother can't give anything.

Thanksgiving

I made jerk baked beans modified from the recipe here. I used what bacon we had, agave nectar for sugar, no garlic, but 2 shallots in place of garlic and onion. I also didn't make the seasoning separate. I just put everything in the crock pot. In the seasoning part of the recipe I substituted paprika and some cumin for the cayenne. I also used an entire bunch of green onions up to the greens as opposed to just 2 tsp. Cooked in the crock on high for 6 hours, stirring occasionally.

Overall we had a good day. We played outside in the sunny snow some, cooked some, cleaned some, played some. A woke us up early and was already dressed. Hopefully she won't do the early bit tomorrow, but the self dressing would be nice. We are slowly getting over the jealousy thing, and hopefully will be able to put it behind us soon.

G is doing well. Eats, sleeps and makes diapers. Is overall a pretty chill baby at this point, and hopefully that will last.

As both kids are sleeping I should be too. Hope everyone had a great turkey day and enjoyed a tryptophan nap.

Sheer Exhaustion

A has decided that sleep is for the weak. She has started waking up every 2 hours (max) and not going back to sleep really. Consequently, she has been up since around 3 this morning and kept us up as well. This morning she and I went to the library, grocery store and then out for coffee. We have tried putting her to bed anywhere from 745 to whenever she falls asleep and nothing seems to make a difference in her sleep quality or amount.

G sleeps like a champ currently and we wake him up changing the diaper he inevitably filled. Then he is also inevitably hungry, so he'll nurse himself into a milk coma. The process then repeats with him not quite coma-ing himself in the late morning and early afternoon.

Well, since everyone else here is napping peacefully I think I'll join them.

Interesting Week To Say The Least

This past week has been interesting to say the least. We got to go for a 1 week check-up for G, and he is doing well. He has up past his birth weight already, so we're good to go there. He is slightly jaundice, but that's to be expected from breast fed babies. All measurements look good apparently. :)

A has decided that she wants to be a holy terror. She is very unsure of her place in our new family, but very much loves her little brother. She is finally calling him a little brother, not a little sister. She told everyone that she was having a little sister while I was pregnant, and she seems to want to continue the trend now. She loves to give him kisses and let's us know when he has a stinky diaper. Nothing like a 2 year old to help out on that front. We try and express to her that all of us are unsure of our new place, but that it will just take some time to figure it all out. Hopefully we figure it out sooner rather than later.

Really other than the whole new baby thing not a lot is new here. Here are a few more pictures though. 

Meet G

Welcome our newest addition, G.
8 lbs, 2 ounces, 20 inches long, born 1900 11-12-13

Homework

A has liked doing homework for a while. Last weekend I brought a few pieces of work home to attempt getting ahead for the week and ended up with a chipmunk on my lap trying to help. It was interesting, though I'm glad she can't read quite yet so it didn't break any confidentiality clauses of my contract.

Yesterday we explored the Blowing Rock. My mom is in town and she wanted to go, so we went and had fun. The colors would have been significantly better two weeks or so ago, but you can still get a glimpse of the reds we enjoyed as they are the last to go from the trees.

Happy Halloween!

Happy All Hallows Eve all! Off for candy and to save China. "Show us your war face!" And this is what we got...

Biltmore in the Fall

We decided to take a quick day trip to Asheville and visit the Biltmore during leaf season. Here in the mountains we are in the peak or slightly past the peak of leaf season, but down the mountain some there are still mainly green trees instead of the brilliant oranges, yellows and reds we have up here. It was interesting to drive down the mountain yesterday and see it. I see it every day, but Chris doesn't so it was different. When we went to Biltmore in September A was upset with us because we didn't "go to the big house." She really wanted to go and we just wandered the gardens and the village on the estate. It was funny when we got to the estate because there was another couple with a little girl about A's age, who also referred to it as the "big house." We wandered through the rooms upstairs and the basement because A wanted to see it all apparently. There were a lot of people there so we had to wait in line several places and A wasn't sure about that. Normally when we go we don't have to wait in lines to see rooms or get down stairs or anything like that. They were putting up Christmas trees in the different rooms, so she was excited to see those. I suppose we'll have to go back once the Christmas trees are really being shown off and see them then. I think we'd like to try a candlelight visit this year, but we'd need to have an early showing.

After visiting the big house we went and walked around the trails at one of the ponds. It led to a waterfall. The waterfall scared A a bit (we're at the age where lots of things are becoming scary to her and we can't figure out why) but she had her Daddy so knew she was safe. We walked and met a puppy named Zeus and had a family of five mallards follow us around. Since one of A's favorite songs right now is about ducks (5 little ducks went out to play, over the river and far away, mommy duck said, "Quack Quack Quack," and 4 little ducks came waddling back. Repeat until you get no ducks coming back) she really liked the ducks following us around.

Once again, a few pictures are posted below, but a majority of the pictures are posted here.

A took this one, but I think it turned out well.

Pumpkin Carving

Well, after the horrid loss to Texas (it happens occasionally) we carved pumpkins. We sat out on the deck and carved away. A was NOT fond of gutting the pumpkins, and lost interest immediately after she was told to stick her hand in one and pull the innards out. NJ just dug in and we all had a blast. I even attempted to get A to help me by pulling the innards out, but no dice. A and I made a puppy while Chris and A made a "Jack" from "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Isaac and NJ made jack-o-lanterns, and a fun time was had by all. Here is a link of some of the fun pictures from the weekend. A lot of them are found on the previous two posts, but some of the pumpkin carving time are found on this site. :)

Today we had to say good-bye to NJ, and A went around the house looking for her. A was a bit cranky and very upset that NJ left. A did follow NJ around most of the weekend, so NJ was probably glad to leave since she is not used to being a "big sister." Yesterday when I took both girls to the store we were asked if they were sisters, and NJ declared them to be cousins. A then echoed her. It is interesting to see how they interact right now because A is undoubtedly the more dominant personality. However, since NJ is older, A chooses to do what NJ does and follow NJ. Chris and I imagine this will change once A grows a bit and has a sibling.

Anyway, it is time for me to take a shower so I'm going to go. Here is one picture of the carvings from yesterday though. :)

Pumpkin Patch

We went to a pumpkin patch today since it was beautiful outside! We also did the corn maze, which was surprisingly very good and long. It took us 20 or 30 minutes to get through it all and we didn't find half of the stuff they said was there. :)

Park Day in October

NJ and A moving beds inside

Hiding

Lately hiding has been a fun thing for A to do. We regularly have to find her in places. This morning while I was doing dishes,  A unpacked and repacked the bag with herself. It is fun to see exactly how small of a space she can take up.

Rainy Saturday

What do you do when there is nothing but rain forecasted and no OU game on? Well, we packed up the car with raingear and set out for Biltmore. We wandered around the gardens and A actually seemed kind of upset to not visit the house. We will hopefully go back in a few weeks and see the house decorated for Halloween, or at least once fall sets in and we have some pretty leaves to see. Here are some pictures from our wet Saturday.

A was uncertain about the topiary not eating her. We couldn't convince her to get any closer than this!

I do my homework!

This is what we regularly get told when asking A what she's doing. We have no idea where she learned the phrase, but are kind of disturbed by it. I mean, what 2 year old needs to do homework? She basically just sits at a computer and pretends to type or something along those lines, and it is really cute, but disturbing. I know that my work has recently instituted a "homework" policy, which I attempt to do, but let me tell you, I missed out by doing homework in school! I didn't realize that if you didn't do homework then you had time to do other things, you know this may be why I went to school forever.

I think that we are finally getting over our cold/allergies/sinus infection throughout the house. We are thinking it is more allergies, but because we can't get the load of gunk out of our sinuses it is turning into a sinus infection for each of us. We had a rather wet summer and so apparently the mold and ragweed count is astronomical. Who knew!?

Overall besides for working and attempting to keep a household together we haven't done much this month. We've been too drained on weekends to go many places. We also haven't really had the need, so we attempt to catch up on sleep. A even seems to go along with this plan often. Our other weekend activity has been watching football. A is quite intent on watching football and will often ask to starting about 9. As an OU ex-pat we were able to watch the OU/TU game last weekend on the internet. We should be able to get most of the games so we are excited.

Anyway, it is about dinner time so I need to go help Chris get that together. Hope all is well by you.

Why my daughter is dangerous

A has been pretty intent on fixing stuff lately. Last weekend Chris scraped a computer and she handed him the parts in correct order and told him where they went as she wasn't exactly happy to not put the computer back together. Today I was working on the tablet and turn around to find this. She has opened up her puppy to expose the battery box. She has also retrieved a set of micro drivers that Chris uses to take stuff a part. She find the correct Philips head for the puppy and starts trying to open up the battery compartment. I don't know why she wants the batteries out, but she seems quite determined to make it happen.

In other news, we had a 2.9 earthquake last Sunday. It was shortly before 4 pm and it sounded like an explosion. We got the house shaking, explosion sound and the concussive wave almost all simultaneously. Apparently we were less than 3 miles from the epicenter, so it makes sense. We didn't immediately think earthquake, but tried to think of what else could do that. Later it was all over the news, so fun fun. I love moving to all these places that aren't supposed to have earthquakes but actually do.

We also finally got some sun. The plants in the garden that haven't drowned or been eaten by slugs are starting to thrive. If I can get enough basil to make some pesto I'll be happy.

Chris found out this past week that his co-manager of the stockroom is leaving in a few weeks, which means Chris gets to work close to 55 hours a week until they bring in someone else. He had kind of worked out a schedule of noon to nine on Mondays and Tuesdays, but now he'll get to go in at eight. He isn't super happy about this and I'm left wondering why he has to pick up the slack because the uni won't replace the guy immediately. We will have to see how A does with this too. This past week when he worked until late she was not a happy girl. They described her as a holy terror at school in fact Tuesday and Wednesday, so we will see what this does to her (and to me as I'm exhausted from work and all).

Well, we are moving on to sewing pins so I should go tame A before she makes a real mess.

Peanut Butter Scones

So peanut butter has been a big deal lately. A loves it and will eat spoonfuls of it these days. She has always had a thing for it. Since it isn't quite pumpkin season (that's next week as next week is September and September is when I get rid of last years frozen pumpkin if we have any left) and we wanted scones for this wonderfully cool mountain morning (it is about 50 outside), I made peanut butter-oatmeal-chocolate chip scones. I made a variety of scones actually all with a peanut butter-oat base.

Recipe:

2 c flour (I used 1 c sorghum, 1 c brown rice, 1/2 c oat, 1/2 c arrowroot powder + 1/2 tsp gelatin + 1 tsp gum)
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 c oats
1/4 c cold butter in cubes
3/4 c buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 c peanut butter
add ins: chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, whatever you want really

Pre-heat oven to 400F. Mix the first five ingredients well. Add in the butter bit by bit until you get a cornmeal consistency. To the buttermilk add the egg and whisk together. Add the buttermilk mixture to the dry mixture.  Add the peanut butter. As you shape the scones put your add-ins in and work them in well. The original recipe called for doing this all by hand, but I'm a lazy baker and used my kitchen aid. On a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, shape the dough into a circle that is about an inch thick. Cut the scones, but do not separate them. Bake until done (they bounce back, a toothpick comes out clean, however you can tell something baked is done) which for us was about 20 minutes. Should make around 8 scones.

As you can see, my math was a little off as I grabbed the wrong measuring cup for the flour. I used six half cups as opposed to six third cups. Thankfully I realized it and was able to adjust the mixture so that I really made a 1.5 recipe. I ended up with a lot of scones, so the freezer will get some. I did a few plain, a few with raisins, a few with raisins and chocolate chips, and some with just chocolate chips. Here is a picture of what they looked like when they went into the oven (and there is another wedge on a 2nd cookie sheet):

And one of what they looked like when they came out:

After they are done do let them cool and re-cut them.

I apparently need to get the recipe book they came from, Baked, so I added it to my Amazon wishlist.

Happy Baking! If you decide to try this recipe please let me know what you think!

Sandbox with Chris

This week we have had a few more dry days. I say dry, but it is still 94% humidity and overcast most of the time. I just mean it isn't raining. Here are some great A pictures that Chris took at the park this week. A and Chris love the park, and she never seems to go and play as much with me. They go several times a week if we get dinner done in time and there are several other families they have met and play with at the park. As you can see in the pictures -- A has decided that the sandbox rocks. We're working on building stuff with sand, but she seems to enjoy just shoveling and stomping it too. With it being so wet this summer it has been difficult to get in the sandbox to play, so these are some rare pictures.