Wish List

I know several people have asked what we want/need for A since her birthday is coming up. I've created a wishlist on Amazon that has some stuff we think would be nice. Here is a link: AES Wishlist.

Chocolate Cake

Since it is birthday month I really want to make a chocolate cake. I have a mini oven, so sheet cakes are a bit more difficult. However, a cool thing with us being at 3000 feet is that my flours rise. Here is the recipe I used to make a chocolate cake.

3 Cups flour mix (1 c brown rice, 1/2 c sorghum, 1/2 c oat, 1/4 c tapioca, 3/4 c millet, 2 tsp guar gum, 1 tsp gelatin)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/3 Cup cocoa
1/2 cup butter
2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla
4 eggs
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup milk

Butter and flour 2 9 in circle cake pans. Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix dry ingredients together in one container, mix the cream and milk together as well. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time waiting a bit between additions to make sure the egg is incorporated thoroughly. Add the vanilla with the last egg and beat on medium speed for a couple of minutes. Slowly add the dry ingredients and the milk to the egg mixture, alternating and ending with milk. Cream until smooth. Divide into two 9 in circle cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

First Birthday month

Well since A is 1 (or will be soon) we are having birthday parties all month, and some of next month. We have family and friends visiting for the next several weeks and most want to help celebrate A's birthday or Chris's birthday. Our first visitors are the Sehorns and we are having a lot of fun showing our new green world to them. We have been to the park and played, eaten in several new restaurants and just hung out in general. Simply driving around has been fun as everything is really green from all the rain we have recently had. Here are a few photos from great-grandfather helping A open her presents, which are some great gingham outfits! Apparently this will be the summer of gingham, but that's a great thing for little girls to have.

Grandfather Mountain

We set out to explore one of the local features today. It was rather windy and quite chilly, but it was a lot of fun. We went to a place called grandfather mountain. They have a windy road that is nothing but switchbacks. Getting there we took the "long" way and coming home we went on the blue ridge parkway. We got to drive on the really cool viaduct, which is what is classically shown as the blue ridge parkway. :) We did a bit of hiking while there, so it was not the best activity for me since I needed a day off of running. There was also the mile high bridge that we hiked to, but A was asleep so once I found it I just turned around and went back to the car. It was neat hiking up to it though because with the wind, the support cables were humming. There was interesting harmony being made and it also was a gauge of how close I was. Here are the pictures.

Spaghetti Squash

We occasionally have spaghetti squash for supper. We do this since pasta for me isn't exactly cheap, it is an easy thing to cook, and it is quite tasty. It had been a while since we'd done squash and as Chris said, "I forgot how much you liked squash, baby girl" as he kept shoveling squash with sauce on it in her mouth. Here are a couple of cute pictures I was able to get.

Oxford, MS

Well, this past weekend we made a quick trip to Oxford, MS for a wedding. It was a great trip, though really quick. A did marvelously on the trip, though today she has been a super cuddly baby. She was the ham and during the reception she tried to dance with all the little boys. It was GREAT! Everyone loved her, of course who wouldn't? But I'm the mom, I'm supposed to say that. I'm about to attempt bread for the first time here, so hopefully it turns out okay.

Edit: to fix the photos and say that the bread turned out really well. I may like baking here in the mountains because it gives my denser flours less air pressure to deal with so they rise more! It is great, I can actually have airy muffins and bread. Chris now wants me to attempt a chocolate cake of some kind.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding.

The sun finally came out that day and it was bright! while waiting for the wedding to start

All of us sporting the shades

Well, the groom seems to like A, but she's not so sure about him.

 

Working on the walking thing

Playing with my hat, which she seems to love

Dancing with all the boys. The fact that she can't really walk yet doesn't stop her.

Walking at a rest stop in TN

11 months and counting

Well, as it has been about a week, I suppose I should put a little something here. We passed the 11 month mark yesterday and still no walking. She is super fast crawling and will stand there, literally just stand there, for a really long time. She will also walk with just one finger for support, and monster crawl on hard floors, but she is adamantly refusing to actually walk alone.

She got two teeth last week and is working on a third, at least we think she is by the crabbiness and drool. She isn't really drooling all over herself, but rather all over anything she puts in her mouth. We are gearing up for May, which will bring several visitors and a first birthday for us!

I finished the quilt from a few weeks back and it is going to my mother tomorrow. I ended up doing a Noah's ark theme -- an ark caught in the mountains with a few trees and some animals. There is also a sun and white puffy clouds (thanks Mags!) for the sky portion of the quilt. I think it turned out well, and I learned a lot about non-ditch quilting. :) This side is more difficult to see, but you can see the sun really well in the bottom left corner. The ark is in the middle of the quilt more or less.

We are really starting to see spring here. The trees have greened up considerably and the weather is sort of warming up. We are in the seventies during the day and the 40s or 50s overnight.

Monday we explored a new park in a nearby town. It has a lot more stuff A's size, so we will go back there I'm sure. It was also not so busy, so I didn't worry about her getting run over by the bigger kids.