Grandma's birthday presents

Here's a video of Kevin opening his birthday present from Grandma (Marcelaine's mom):

Kevin always wants to play with our phone, and unfortunately that isn't an option while we're using it, even if we use speaker phone, because he loves pushing the buttons and tends to hang up on whoever we were talking to. So if he is awake and we are talking on the phone, he is screaming very loudly through the entire conversation because he wants the phone. Hence the phone from Grandma. We'll see if that will appease him.

And here is sporting his new tie from Grandma, which I think is so cute. (The rest of the clothes were good finds from the consignment sale.)

I know the next two are very similar, but I can't decide which one is cuter.

a visit from a friend

Kevin had a friend come over and play for a few hours while her parents went to the temple. He was ecstatic to see another little person and had a great time, although I think she was feeling quite overwhelmed by him by the time she left. It made me realize that K would really benefit from having more friends come over to play. I hope she's not too traumatized to come over again sometime!

For some reason Sepia was the only edit that seemed to work for this picture.

recent developments

This has been a week of developments. I feel like K has reached a lot of milestones lately.

He's started to walk. He still mostly crawls, but he will frequently let go of the couch or wall and walk for a few feet without help or support. It's kind of hard to believe it's happened. When he was born it seemed like walking was such a long time away.

Today he figured out how to climb onto the chairs that go with our table. He went straight for the salt and pepper shakers and RT's laptop. He was rather upset with me when I turned all the chairs on their sides, an idea I borrowed from RT's sister Eliza. I'm not too thrilled with the prospect of having chairs on their sides most of the time, but it's better than the alternative.

K knows what "no" means, and now that we've found that out, we are using it to our advantage to try to get rid of some of his bad behaviors (pulling hair, hitting, and playing with the computer keyboard and mouse, to name a few). We are finding that if we tell him no, he will protest quite loudly but does stop. It's interesting to be the one doing the disciplining. It didn't generally occur to me that it was just as unpleasant for my parents as it was for me. I'm sure I have much more to learn.

Kevin has also started feeding himself with a spoon or fork. I used to think I would be excited when he could finally do that, except what I didn't realize is that it doesn't make life easier. It just means that I have an even bigger mess to clean up. But I'm still enjoying seeing him learn a new skill.

We think he tried to sign "eat" once. I was in the kitchen and Ryan and I both looked down at Kevin and realized that he was very purposefully tapping his palm against his mouth. So we rewarded him for communicating with us by feeding him, of course! It's nice to know that the things I've been trying to teach him are actually sticking.

Remember this changing pad, and these changing pads? Today I had the one with the dogs in the diaper bag. During Relief Society K grabbed the bag and was pulling everything out one at a time and throwing it over his shoulder. When the changing pad went flying, it made me think about my thoughts when I made the changing pads before he was born, especially the ones with the dinosaurs and the dogs.

I had conjured a beautiful scene: a sweet little boy sitting happily and contentedly in my lap, pointing at the pictures on the changing pads and saying, "Look, Mommy, a doggy!"
 "That's right, Kevin. What color is it?"
 "Blue!"
"And what color is this one?"
"Brown."
And then I would grin proudly, feeling like the best mom in the world because my son was so intelligent and cute. I had to laugh at myself as I remembered that, because that scene is not going to happen, at least not quite like I imagined it. I'm sure K will learn his colors and such and we will identify colors together, but the part about sitting quietly in Mommy's lap? Hahahahahahaha . . . . I just think it's funny that I had no idea what kind of child was coming into my life.

It's always interesting to see people get to know Kevin. When K was only a few months old, a sister in our ward asked to hold him, and after a few minutes of him constantly wriggling she turned to me with an amazed look on her face and said, "Is he always like this?" Yes, always. I also had a friend who babysat him for a couple of hours, and she told me that she was amazed at how active he was and that she could see why we got a gate. I need a gate. It's a relief to me to hear these comments because it makes me feel like it's okay that sometimes his energy level and his persistence make me really stressed and frustrated. It's because he's a particularly active baby, not because I need to get a grip or I'm doing things wrong or something. And even though sometimes he drives me crazy, I wouldn't change him for anything. Once there was a comment in Relief Society that made me think that those very traits are probably the same ones that in the future will be the talents that he will need to serve God.

Cinnamon Muffins

Today I tried this recipe with half whole wheat flour, and it occurred to me that this would be a great recipe to use if you're just getting started using wheat. I think the cinnamon and brown sugar help to mask the whole wheat a little bit so that the wheaty taste isn't too overbearing. I couldn't really tell that I had added whole wheat.

Mix together:
1 cup sifted flour (or 1/2 cup white flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
pinch of salt

In a separate bowl combine:
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup melted shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar (I actually only used 1/4 cup today, and they still tasted great)

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir together with a spoon. The batter will be a little lumpy. Spray a muffin pan with cooking spray and spoon the batter into the pan. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes. This recipe makes about 9 muffins.

You could also add chopped fruit. Apples or peaches would be very good.

appliance review: Nutrimill

I just used my Nutrimill for the first time, and I just wanted to say what I like about it.

Before I bought the Nutrimill, I was using the ward's Magic Mill II. The Magic Mill was a good mill, but it was really noisy, and the noise was at just the right frequency to make me feel almost sick. It's also built so that the motor sits on top of the metal pan that catches the flour, so when you're done grinding wheat you have to lift up the heavy top and then set it on the counter to get to your wheat. The top would also be covered in flour, so it got a little messy and it was hard to clean it all off. It was convenient because after you're done milling you could just flip the grinder part over and store it in the metal pan, which made it pretty compact, but cleanup was such a pain that I didn't care if it was compact. Like I said, it's a good mill and I appreciated that it was available to me, but those were some things that were a little annoying about it. (The Magic Mill is very similar to the BlendTec mill. If you want to understand better what I'm talking about, you can watch some videos here that show how it works.)

These were some of the reasons I thought that the Nutrimill was the grinder for me. The grinder has a plastic bowl with a lid that slides under the wheat grinder, so when I'm done milling I just have to slide out the bowl and clean that and the lid, instead of having to lift up the heavy wheat grinder part. I just used a new paint brush to brush off the flour that coated the lid. It was much easier and not very messy. The trade-off is that the wheat grinder is pretty big, but for some reason that doesn't bother me as much as having to wrestle with the heavy top of the Magic Mill. I'm storing it in our closet when it's not in use. It's not very heavy, so bringing it into the kitchen isn't a big deal. It was also a lot quieter than the Magic Mill. It was about as loud as the vacuum, so it didn't really bother me. I think it took longer for the wheat to grind, but I always try to do other stuff in the kitchen while I grind wheat, so that didn't bother me either.

So anyway, I'm glad I bought it. I hope it will last me a long time, and I think it will be enjoyable to use. It will also grind many other grains and also beans, so I'm excited to try that out.

sorry, no fancy cake pictures

Ryan's family is very talented. One of the talents that at least a few of them have is decorating cakes. I remember before we got married, RT's oldest sister invited us to her son's birthday party, and she started telling me about the fire truck cake she was making. It was really cute. I was a little intimidated by her creativity, and I wondered, "Are they going to shun me when they find out that I can't do that?" Well, I quickly learned that they are also all incredibly nice, and they're not the sort of people that think less of someone just because they don't make creative and fancy birthday cakes for their kids. I know that I could probably learn some basic cake decorating techniques and make cute cakes like that, but right now I'm a little more interested in investing my time elsewhere. So that is why I haven't posted a picture of a cute birthday cake. There wasn't one. And I appreciate that I don't have to feel bad about that.

a birthday week

Our ward has been having a Park Day every week during the summer. I normally haven't been coming because I don't like Kevin to miss his morning nap and I didn't think he'd have much fun at the park anyway, but I decided to go this week because I've been needing some contact with other moms. We had a really good time, and I think we're going to start going regularly. It's worth it to me to get some time with my friends and to get out of the house. Kevin had a good time on the swings. He laughed and laughed and clapped his hands because he was so excited. While at the park I did learn a couple of things:

• Bring lunch to the park so that when you go home you don't have feed everyone when you're exhausted.
• Put the kids in shoes. I didn't have any shoes for K at the time and I wasn't terribly excited about him being in the bark barefoot, but he just had to get down and play.
• If it's rained recently, bring a towel for the slides. Kids can slide down the slides sitting on the towel without getting all wet.
• You can put two babies back-to-back in the baby swings so that they stabilize each other.

On Thursday I started making a can rotator out of a cardboard box. At first it was really overwhelming, but once I got going making it, it was pretty easy. (Here is where I found the instructions.) I'm going to make a few more so that I can have a better system for rotating through our food and so that I can use the space a little more efficiently. I can fit a lot more cans on my shelves this way than if I have them in rows, and I don't have to reorganize it all every time I buy a new can. Fortunately, I have an endless supply of free cardboard boxes because there are a ton of people who live in our apartment complex who think it's okay to leave enormous piles of boxes by the recycling bins rather than flattening them and putting them through the slot where they belong. (How's that for having a positive attitude about something that drives me nuts?)

On Friday K and I went to a big kids' consignment sale. I had a list of what I wanted to get for him, mainly toys, and I found almost everything I wanted. I was hoping to get a bunch of size 2T clothes for Kevin (yes, that's probably the size he will be wearing this winter), but we were too tired by the time we had found all the other things we wanted, so I gave up and got in line, although I did pick up a few size 2T clothes that people abandoned while they were waiting in the long line. While we waited in line, K had a great time playing with one of the toys I had picked out for him--it was great to have some reassurance that it was something he would have fun with!

Saturday was Kevin's birthday. The three of us got up early and went to the farmers' market. We found peaches, potatoes, and cantaloupes for really good prices. After we were finished there, we went back to the consignment sale because it was nearby. We got plenty of clothes for Kevin, and we also found three pairs of shoes that are really cute. It was really nice to have RT there with me this time. Let me just say, I am a huge fan of consignment sales now. We have saved a ton of money by buying K's things at these sales. I'm grateful for all the people I have met in this ward who have taught me so much about how to save money.

Kevin had a nice birthday. He got some fun new toys and he got to eat a chocolate brownie and lots of peaches.

You may also notice our new outlet covers in the previous picture. A friend hired me to clean her family's apartment for them after they moved, and they left their outlet covers as well as a couple of those wire keys that you can use to unlock the doors that have a hole (make sense?). I'm often amazed at how observant Kevin is. I often notice him staring at the keys above the door frames (which you can barely see poking over the edge), and he went straight for the outlets the first time he saw that they were different. That was when we discovered how cheap the faceplates are. They're really flimsy/bendy, they only have one screw in the center to attach it to the wall, and they never actually got glued to the wall. As soon as K noticed the new outlet covers, he went straight for the nearest plugs, dug his fingers behind the faceplate so that it bent, and pulled enough that the top outlet cover came off, and then he promptly put the outlet cover in his mouth. We were really impressed with how smart he is, but not too excited at the prospect of our kid getting his fingers into all the wires and things behind the faceplate, and we couldn't stop him from doing it over and over again! The outlet covers are great--they fit quite snugly, and Kevin can't get them off. It's the faceplates that are the problem. So we superglued them to the wall. Problem solved, apparently.

 I was debating about whether or not to get a toy like this because I knew he would love it, but I was worried that it would only be used for a short amount of time before he starting walking. But I'm glad I got it. He thinks it's an awesome toy. It also folds down so that it's one of those little bikes that they can scoot with their feet, and I think he'll also be able to use it when he's a little older to do role-playing games, like mowing the lawn or going to the gas station.

 


K is a good kid. I'm starting to learn to be content with him being a little crazy during church, and I'm learning new ways to keep him occupied so I can get something out of the talks and lessons. He is a very fast crawler and has figured out how to get into rooms even if they are closed.


K's top teeth are growing in, and it's cute. Sometimes we catch him grinding his top and bottom teeth together. Apparently he likes the sound and the way it feels. It's kind of unnerving, but it still makes me laugh. I don't think it will become a habit as long as we don't make a big fuss every time he does it.

What's wrong with this picture?

I'll give you a hint:

This is why we bought him new sleepers at the consignment sale.

Eating spaghetti:

Standing on his stool by the window:

Dancing to La Vida Loca on the keyboard. I think he is so cute when he dances. He's having so much fun.