Christmas at Biltmore

We tried the Biltmore today and were successful. We got to see 30 trees in the house, which is around half of what they claim is there. We finished our trip with ice cream in the courtyard even though it is cold.

Ear Check

This weekend we tried to visit Biltmore. We had some discipline issues with A and didn't get far.  We may try again this weekend or we may have to go again next year.

We went to doc for G today. He has inflammation yet again. This was a check after his 12 month appointment showed what could be an ear infection.  We will be getting a call soon regarding an ENT visit. We are looking for alternatives to tubes and really don't expect a different result from giving him yet another round of antibiotics. The first two have obviously been so helpful.

We have been working and getting ready for the holidays around here. A will tell anyone and everyone that Baby Jesus's birthday is coming soon. For our nativity calendar, the 24th is when you put the baby in the manger. She so wants to put him there but is slowly realising that it is only a few more days until she gets to. Hope all is well with you!

Alpine Village

We went to a festival today.  A local church creates a village inside a gym and gives stuff away because Jesus came and have himself away. The kids and I went as my boss could only get four tickets. We did typical Christmasy stuff while there. The favourite shop for both kids was the chapel. A wanted to tell the kids coming through about baby Jesus and her black boots. She wouldn't let G play with the doll, though he tried to put his fingers in the doll eyes.

I had to work this morning before our adventure, and Chris got the Christmas tree up and sort of decorated. The pre-strung lights are almost all gone out but the tree is good so we are having difficulty getting rid of it. We just need to get replacement lights I suppose. We have an interesting advent calendar going as A has a pig in the sky right now. I like it though and don't want it to ever change really.
G is jabbering. He is determined to talk and is doing a decent job of communicating these days.

Here are a few pictures from our village adventure.

1 Year Check-up and More!

We went for G's one year check-up the week before last.  With the party and work I haven't been able to post vital stats.  He was 30 inches long which is about 60th percentile for his age.  He was 19 pounds 10 ounces which is about 25th percentile for his age. His head was around the 50th percentile though I don't remember the exact circumference.  He's following his own pattern it seems, and doing it quite well.  He will go back the middle of December to have a follow up ear check.  This is the third time we've gone in with a possible ear infection, so we may get an ENT referral.  :( We are against tubes or anything, especially since he never shows any symptoms of an ear infection. 

A has been doing well with playing with her brother.  They are even able to entertain themselves more and more.  The new toys from G's party help I'm sure as they got a blow up car with balls in it (think small versions of the ball pit balls).  They go to the airport, to the grocery store, etc. with A driving her little brother around.  I wonder if that will translate quite so well when it becomes an actual car. She too is growing and is already in 4T type clothing, seeming to skipped the 3T stuff. She is super skinny and that's a bigger issue almost simply because if there is no adjustable waist (even for skirts really) then clothes simply will not fit. As she has decided that she MUST wear pretty dresses (and a pretty skirt with a pretty shirt does work) to church and we go to church a couple of times a week, well, giving up is not something that she will naturally do.  She unfortunately has also decided to wear pretty dresses to school and that doesn't go so well with her teachers.  We've compromised and she will wear tunic type shirts with jeans and she seems to be okay. 

Despite all the toys, sticks continue to be a favorite pasttime of G's.  He will often not come inside, or try and sneak them inside, if it means dropping his sticks. We have quite the stick collection going by our door to say the least.  He prefers to have a stick in either hand and is kind of dangerous with them. He really likes banging things, so he may become the drummer that everyone says he has to be with his wild hair. 

Chris's semester is now over so it is a semblance of a normal life again for him.  Now if we could simply get him to remember his coffee in the morning, it would be even better. 

Work for me is busy as ever. We are expanding so very rapidly that it is difficult to keep up.  We have at least one person start a week, normally three though.  We've started a second shift and that's going well. 

G Stew anyone?

Finally gutted the pumpkins and she wanted to draw instead of carve this year...

Pomegranates have become our favorite snack.  They are great toys for the kids and they eat them well

Boy + Sticks = HAPPY!!

Shoveling snow Sunday before last at the coffee shop we went to

On a personal note though, we're looking at joining a church that is going through a denominational schism.  It is a good church that no longer aligns with its denomination.  The past couple of weeks have had conversations leading progressively from a "if we split" to a "when we split." We are uncomfortable with the denomination the church is affiliated with and it has been pointed out that we need to join because they will need our vote.  If we stay here very long I imagine it is where we would join, but we are having difficulty getting over the idea of joining the denomination.  Please pray for guidance and we figure out if we just continue to hang around there without joining as members, or go elsewhere. 

Birthday Week

Since this week G celebrated one trip around the sun we've had a bit of fun. We weren't really able to do anything Wednesday night, and therefore had to wait until Friday. We opened some presents then and had a lot of fun with a new steel Tonka dump truck. A decided that she could sit in the bed so naturally G tried that as well. He was much easier to push and had a blast being pushed around by everyone.

Today for the party we mainly had friends from work.  Or new neighbours and his teacher showed up though.  He was excited to see her in the sea of not so familiar faces at the very least. A liked opening the toys and helping daddy undo all the zip ties. We tried to make it into a game, but no such luck.

Here though are what everyone really wants: pictures! 

Interesting Developments

Last week was Halloween and we went out as a "Frozen" family. We had Elsa and Olaf, and A had suggested that we be Kristoph and Ana.  Since Chris and I sent always the best at coming up with costume ideas we went with it. We love repurpose-able costumes as I don't want to spend a lot of money on something the kids are going to wear one night.  I have trouble with the prices for the things kids wear for only a couple of months...  Chris and I were able to put out costumes together with stuff out if our drawers, and both the kids have at least a base outfit they can now wear.

As for our interesting development... A has started wanting to read "The Jesus Story" before going to bed. It started Tuesday and is still going strong. Chris has read for an hour most nights he is home and she just soaks up it all. She asks good questions about uncommon words. She will even pick the Bible over Narnia right now, which is weird as she adores the Narnia books.

We also have the interesting development of having G survive his first year. He needs a haircut (as does Chris) but we aren't sure when we will have either done. We will post some pictures on Wednesday, or possibly the day after. Next Saturday we are having a small party for him and hopefully it will be fun.

Fall Festival

Tonight we just got back from a fall festival. A lady from work invited me and it was a great excuse to show off the kids. A was super excited about being Elsa and taking her snowman brother with her. We had a bit of a rough morning and then took a long nap this afternoon.

The kids were the hit of the festival and G win cutest costume. I need to make a few adjustments so that he can walk. But even with adjustments the bulkiness of the costume will be a hindrance. Every Elsa that walled by G said, "It's my Olaf!" and wanted a picture with him. I was glad the costume was recognisable.

Band

Last weekend we went to a wedding reception. It was a lot of fun and GMan LOVED the band. He was their biggest fan and cheered after each song. He clapped and was very upset when they packed up for the evening.

Komen 2014

Some pictures from our day today. As always Google did a good job of piecing together the information.

https://plus.google.com/101939083253376960013/stories/bf12944a-6b9e-384d-9cfa-5255fb3c96d714925f74f6b?authkey=CMjg5tHqtZC5Wg

Biltmore in the Fall

We went to the Biltmore this past weekend and has a good time. We got to see OU beat up on Texas, even if they let them in there at the end. We also got to see the farm and all the construction they are doing at the estate. We didn't play with the baby chicks. G slept through the chick part while A was a bit to scared to actually hold one. The nice lady was willing to help her and showed her multiple times how to make the chick feel comfortable. However, A would just touch the bird and start giggling. She also wanted to check how many eggs they had that day and was highly disappointed when they didn't know.

Outside the farm there was a great fall scene. There were a couple of scarecrows, some pumpkins and a couple names of hay. G and A did well with the hay and both also loved the pumpkins. They were the realistic looking foam ones so it helped tremendously. A decided that the pumpkins needed to line up and G decided he just wanted to roll the pumpkins around.

Empanadas

We got some oil for fried chicken and it had a recipe for pumpkin parmesan empanades. We made them a few weeks ago with pumpkin and then tonight with butternut squash. It is easy but takes a bit of time, as all fried foods do.

Dough

3 C floor
9 TBS butter
Enough milk to make the dough stick together

Filling

Oil to sauté onions/leeks
1 leek to the green part or 1 cup onion
1 TBS Thyme
0.5 TSP salt
Pepper
16 ounces of pumpkin
0.5 C ricotta cheese
1 C Romano or parmesan or asiago (or a combination)

Make the dough and chill for a bit.

Wait the onions and spices together. Add in the vegetable and stir. (Stir while hot and evaporate some of the water since we used fresh vegetable).  Add in the cheeses while still warm to help melt and blend it all together.

Make small pouches with the chilled dough and fill with filling. Fry in oil of choice until browned on both sides. They come out super yummy. G sat here and hummed the entire time while doing his happy dance. A thought the dough alone was fantastic both times and ate more of that than the finished product. They store well and are good for a while. We had them a week and change after we made them and they were still good. A has helped roll the dough both times and G has learned to climb well enough that he helped today. Watching is the first part of learning and both kids are doing well in that regard. 

We've not done much except work and go to school lately. We are both wondering what's going on with us being here and hoping that it all works or for the better.

We seem to have found a good church for now. They do a lot of kids stuff and have several families. We're just going that we can build some relationships and survive here.

We are working with A and her being kind. She is super concerned with things and what is hers. It is starting to bother us as we are curious why the obsession is there. She isn't using nice words and it is a sign of the day care she is at because of the way they interact there. She then brings it gone. We are hoping that something will change in our situation before G gets into the 2 year old classroom because a lot of the problems seem to stem from that room. We shall see.

Here are a few pictures.  A with the butternut squash we got a few weeks ago and have made several meals of. G with an empanada. Just the yummy empanada.

Boats!

Our new church gives us a lot more time for family on Sundays. Today we went to church and were napping by noon! As this would never have happened in Boone, this is a novelty to him. Our new church has a new nursery for the kids and a new Sunday school for A. Both kids are doing fantastic on the little time they spend there. Apparently the preschool that is held at the church is a fantastic one that all the people at work recommend. Is like to put both kids there, but it is a half day program. If anyone reading this wants to relocate and be a nanny part time let me know! It would be a great part time job for anyone who wants it!  G particularly lives the boats in his classroom. His lack of separation anxiety is hilarious to me as I put him down and he speed sped off to the motorboats. He started adjusting the steering wheel and the throttle as fast as he possibly could.

Last week the volunteer who watched him was an acquaintance of mine from the pool. I didn't know she was watching him but she has a lot of fun with him apparently.

G is starting to sleep a solid eight hours or so at night. This is FANTASTIC as a sleep deprived parent.  Now if only A would also learn to sleep through the night as well.

The kids are doing well at school. We also are continuing to figure out our work situations. We have meet our neighbours and I'm looking forward to helping them with high school science stuff. They both homeschool their high school children so it should be easy enough for me.

Close the Door!

A and G have decided that this cabinet is a fantastic place to play. While we have a ton of kitchen stuff nothing really seems to for in this cabinet except children. If they close themselves in can we be held responsible if something happens?

Cooking

We made breakfast this morning and A just had to help. Since A was helping, G felt he would get in the mix.

Labour Day Story from Google

https://plus.google.com/101939083253376960013/stories/a075371f-5ff1-3599-b8a1-4d91788ecdf3148394f235b?authkey=CKajw-3prOqvDQ

Fun in the Sun!

Well, yesterday we had a long day. I started the day with a half marathon. I literally ran from Boone to Blowing Rock.  The kids and Chris met me at the finish line which was a horse stable. We got to see some horsies and listen to them neigh.  A really liked that though it kind of scared G.  After that we went to our old park and played with friends. After friends we took Chris to Beer Fest. (The beer brewing science is a subdepartment of the chemistry department at ASU and so Chris has several friends who teach there) He went and sampled several local brews and helped with take down of the event.  While he was there the kids and I went to coffee at the top of the stairs (A's 2nd favorite coffee shop) and played in the park. After we got pizza we played in front of the library. It was a lot of fun -- there is a statue there and we made up stories that the girl was "reading" and we acted them out in the grass. The instructions were, "You can't go off of the grass" so A sat down on the concrete to take her shoes off (go her being adventurous!) and told me she was still on the grass since her feet were still on the grass. We acted several parts of stories for all the people walking by and just had a lot of fun.  Today we went to church in town and will see about going back.  We can easily walk there and they have a LOT of family stuff so that is enticing. We shall see.  We also went to the pool and played. A wanted to go in the big pool and since Chris was there we could split the kids up and make that happen. She did NOT want to get her hair wet and went up and down in the air several times making big splashes, but not getting her hair actually wet.  No pictures from the during, but from afterwards in the car. G liked the wading pool and tried to walk. He's fairly steady on ground, but water was a different story.  :)

Sunrise in the stadium where the half marathon started

G climbing around the first park of the day (google did auto-awesome this )

Not sure about reading with the girl at first

slowly warming to her reading

and reading over her shoulder while requesting I read the words on the page...

After the pool!

Guacamole!

What does a typical family do on Friday? Make guacamole of course. We found some fantastic avocados from Costco last weekend and they have made fantastic guacamole. A had helped mash and G just wants to eat (and eat and eat).  The mashing and stirring are great developmental skills that I'm supposed to have A do using toys...

Overall we had a decent week with it being the first week of Chris staying late to reach his Thursday night class.

We had the FDA stop by and do their audit.  Once again no major citations! That means we are doing well from a compliance stand point so as long as we can manufacture stuff I get to keep my job.

G 9 month check up

We went to the Dr last week for our nine month check. A was super helpful and read to G. G was his super wiggly self as he was prodded and poked. He is a whole 28 inches long, 18.1 pounds with a head circumference of 42cm. This amounts to him being a little underweight, a little tall and normal for head circumference. As the doctor was trying to get developmental skills G was showing them off. He crawled, creeped and generally showed off for the doctor.

A is starting preschool next Tuesday. We aren't sure how to fell about it, but the daycare has no actual daycare slots so we had to do it. She will be with some of her cronies and her teacher seems nice enough. I hope the teacher is ready for dealing with the force that is A. 

Meet Max!

Max is our turtle. He has 10 legs and swims in the ocean with us girls. Max likes to eat cereal and his favourite color is pink. He wants pink candy.

Family Time

Today we left the dreary, foggy, misty weather behind and went to the big house. A calls the Biltmore House that.  She really wanted to go to the farm and see the animals to start, but we had to go to the house as well. In leaving from our new house we discovered it takes just over an hour to get to Asheville, not bad as this means we can go more often. We left after breakfast and made it before lunch. We went to the farm first and played with some kids and chickens before going to the mercantile. A couple of the kids were around three months old, so they were the date old kids we saw at Easter. They also had some 9 well old kids there. We watched some horses and a chicken lay an egg. A was really excited about it all. We went up to the mercantile to play and A didn't want to leave. She and G played for over an hour with the variety of this there.

While out and about we discovered why G's teachers think he has a rash all the time. He gets heat rash like no one's business. It took him 20 minutes in the backpack to have it starting on his neck and chest. At least I feel comfortable saying that it isn't contagious. It also make me want to move somewhere cold.

We got to go through the top of the Biltmore house. They had the tower rooms open so it didn't take nearly as long to go through the top portion as it normally does. There were lots of pretty dresses that we got to see.  In every room A determined that she would sleep in the bed with me, Chris would sleep on the couch out chaise, and G would sleep in the bassinet since the first room had a bassinet in it. It was rather sweet.

We got to play in the gardens today. I find it interesting that we spend less and less time in the house with each visit. With our children getting older and no longer content to just be carried they prefer to run. Hopefully this fall we will get to do bikes.
Here are some fun pictures of us playing around the estate today 

Scotchies

Well, I'm waiting. In waiting on Chris and A to get in from the lake and for cookies to be done. I've been thinking about how to increase my oat consumption and cookies my grandmother and I used to make seem to be perfect for the job. They are called scotchies.  Basically barely enough flour, a couple of eggs, a lot of oats and as many chips as the mixture will hold is what it ends up being. So using my grandmother's cookie sheets, Google, and my new kitchen I put together a passable recipe. We will know more once Chris gets home. I've had a couple of the rejects from the first sheet and I think they are yummy. Here is the recipe and a couple of pictures.

1.5 cups of flour
1 heaping teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 cup butter
.75 each of brown sugar and white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups butterscotch chips
3.5 cups of oats

Cream the butter. While creaming the butter, mix the dry stuff together. Add in the sugars and cream some more. Add in the eggs. Beat on high and add the vanilla. Add the dry stuff to the moist stuff. Add in the oats and chips by hand at the end. Bake at 375°F until browned. 

Stuff I did faithfully as my grandmother taught me:
- Measured out the cookies on the sheets using tablespoons ensuring each was the same size so they would cook the same
- put the cooked cookies on paper to cool on the cooling rack after checking the bottom to make sure the cookie is done
- freeze some for later
- eat some dough
- I enjoy baking with A, since she isn't here I notice that she is gone

Stuff I realised I changed since baking with grandma:
- I'm willing to experiment (more of this and less of that type of things) more than my grandmother would
- I make larger cookies even though I use the same spoons
- I use parchment paper instead of wax paper. I even line the sheets to bake so that they are easy to clean

I'm sure there are lots of differences in the end, but my cookies are well on their way to being done and I have a few more dishes to do before my travelers get home.

Everyone here is doing well.  G is taking unassisted steps if he wants to. Normally he lunges at things. He eats a ton and is working on eating is out of house and home since the day care doesn't like any food brought on to be house prepared.

We Moved Again

Well, we moved last weekend. We now live closer to work for me and school for the kids. We aren't sure about our routine as now we all leave around the same time. It just make it interesting. Hopefully this week will be a bit easier.

We went to Charlotte yesterday to see if maybe the Costco there was better than the one in Winston. We also went to IKEA to find some of the needed organisation things for our new house. We managed to see a few things and got a couple of them as well. We will have to go back and get some more things, but we have a good start.  Here is a fun picture of the kids playing with some of the toys.

Rockstar?

Not often do I write G centered posts, but how much does this make him a rocker? Or is it a sumo wrestler? I think he looks like A, but Chris says that is because we put her hair up like this for so long. We have to figure out what to do with his hair as G has decided that food is fantastic. He particularly loves cheerios because he can put them in his own mouth. He also likes some pear/cherry puree that they actually had as samples from school. He really likes the couple of sample things that we tried.

This week has been troublesome for us. A has asked about football as we've been watching the world cup religiously. We are having a blast and the drama is intense! I've made a few coworkers football fans, so that's exciting! Chris is getting into this one too, really getting into it. We kind of set a boundary though with A tonight. She wouldn't nap all afternoon and then wanted our attention throughout the match tonight. As it was going into extra time and penalties we told her she could watch with us or go to her room and occupy herself.  She tried a few times to really push us, but we kind of ignored her so she went to her room and watched a movie. She then fell asleep on her floor. She is currently asleep and I'm trying to decide if I want to wake her up or not.

Hopefully the US will blast Belgium out of the World Cup Tuesday, but A is once again in for a rude awakening. I'm going to go in early so that I can be home in time for the match. With so many of the teams we regularly play doing so well it is giving us lots of hope that we can succeed, maybe if the USA does well then we will have a new national sport.  Chris was discussing with me how the US/Portugal game had more viewers in the US than the Superbowl! Go us!!

Anyway, I need to get stuff together for work tomorrow. Hope you have a good week.

USS Wisconsin

We got to visit the USS Wisconsin today. It was a lot of fun to stand on the deck of a floating fortress that served in our military for six decades. Here are some of our pictures from the Wisky and the accompanying museum.