A Trip and Visitors

Soon I leave for Phoenix to go see Amy, a very dear and now very pregnant friend. I'm co-hosting a baby shower there, so for now my brain is filled with thoughts like "should I make three desserts?" "I wonder if Amy has a butter knife" and "is it ok to be the only person drinking wine in the house when your friend is pregnant?" (yes, I think).

Anyway, here is Amy as a baby. Cute!

I cannot wait for the shower. One, I love a party, and I love it even more when I am in control of it. WHOO, power! Second, I'll miss my boys but I'm excited to have a weekend away. Very.

I'm not leaving you without a little narrative, of course. There's another baby coming in the family. Not saying who....but it's not me, and it's not Karen...so...I'll let you figure it out.

Anyway, this unborn baby came to visit us and brought his older brother, Evan. The three banditos played in the backyard, throwing and kicking a ball. And just being silly in general.

 And getting into dirty things, as boys are oft to do.

 And then Cole remembered we had a frisbee and he got Dada to throw it.

And Evan said throw it here!

And Cole said no way, Wee Dude, you'll have to catch me.

 Wook! Eeesa disp! (in ultimate frisbee, this is called a disk, so that's what our buddy Mike taught the boys to call the frisbee).

 Cole gave up possession to go chase a bug, and the disk was thrown again. This time Wee Dude and Big Dude went running for it.

 Little Dude watched on.

 Big Dude by far did not win the footrace to the disk, but his presence was enough for Wee Dude to abandone his trophy and run back to the adults.

Grady says why run fast when you can get someone else to get the disk for you and then bring it to you?

 Evan said what disk? I didn't want to play with a disk anyway. Ooh, is this dirt?

For Ice Cream & Power Out

First, I cannot believe I've not shared this video yet. Grady loves ice cream so much, it makes him dance.




This was from our roadtrip. Grady dug right into his ice cream, while Cole had a fit about his. He finally calmed down and that's why you can hear me ask him if he wants it in the background. Way to keep your cool, kid. And is it me, or is Grady checking out the girl walking by right at the end?

Anyways, right before our trip we had a power outtage. Never before has power outtages struck such fear in my heart. When the boys were just a few months old we lived without power for 3 days. I heated water for bottles on a camping stove, and we ran an extension cord to a neighbor to keep the fridge running. Now anytime we get a power outtage, I immediately assume we'll be without power for days and border on hyperventilating.

So this particular afternoon we had a cookie on the couch. Yep, eating and smearing it all over our faces.

 And then it went dark. For whatever reason, I knew it was coming. I was I could be so sure about winning lottery numbers, but I had a feeling a power outtage was coming, so I had already gotten some candles and matches ready, and we lit one. This candle is a PaddyWax Sahara, hmmmm....my favorite! I don't think they make it anymore, sadly.

What were we talkign about? Oh. Right. No power. So I lit the candle, and like months to a flame frick and frack came running. See little boy faces in the dark?

 Illuminated with the flash. We're trying to blow out the "cannul".

 I left them staring at the light like two little pyros and I went around opening blinds and curtains. They were shut to give us a little privacy, but when opened they were actually letting in a good amount of the daylight that was left, and that made the house interior quite pretty. See how the glow of the candle and the sunset light casts a special light on my new best friends? These guys and I have become great buddies since we've been teaching the boys how to stand and peepee.

Wait. I should say since Keith has been teaching them to stand and peepee. I was perfectly happy with the sit and deposit the peepee in a tidy manner idea.

 We played in the semi darkness a bit. And stared out at the rain.

 And then took a candlelight bath. Sorry for the blur, low light + not a steady hand =this type of picture.

 We did learn a new word during this funness (besides the word 'd*mn' Mommy uttered when the power first went out), and that word is shadow. "Wook at the sadows on the ceiwing!"

During all this Keith was still at work, and rather unsympathetic to my plight. Light more candles, he said when I called him to say that its now really getting dark. Uhhm. Thanks, Captain Obvious. So I did light more candles and due to some pressure placed on me by two little supervisors, I accidentally lit a candle that was supposed to be a gift for someone else. Oops. It sure did smell good.

Naturally the power would come on just as after I put the boys to bed, riling them back up and prolonging the time it takes them to fall asleep. I'm mostly just thankful that I didn't have to cook on a camping stove, and that the A/C came back on. This girl can sweat.

Planting for Fall

Good morning, peoples. How was your weekend? Good, we hope. We had one great day, and one not-so-great one. We'll talk about the good one later, and we'll pretend the not-so-good one never happened. I thought I'd share a little fall fun we had a few days ago. Maybe 2 weeks? Can't remember.

The air is starting to feel a little crisp on some days, and that is a great thing. A friend of mine recently said that she loves fall in the south-something about the air feels cleaner, like the cooler weather somehow filters the air and leaves it crisp and clean. Ahh. I love it.

And my hair loves it too. You have no idea how much curly hair + humidity sucks. Welll, except you, Karen. And Grady and Cole, but they don't seem to be bothered by frizzies yet. We have had several conversations about tending to our hair with product, and the most they are getting out of those conversations is "squeezing bottles is fun" or "rubbing stuff on hair is neat".

Fall usually stirs up a need to clean around the house. We've all heard of spring cleaning, but for me Fall cleaning is much more necessary-you're about to be cooped up in the house for months, so get it clean, right?

And its a good time to change out some seasonal items. Our pretty summer annuals were looking a little rough, so all four of us went to buy mums for the front porch containers.

And then I got the camera to document so I could have an excuse for not getting my hands dirty.

 Cole was very entertained by a "wittle stick" he found. "Wook, Mama! EEESA WITTLE 'TICK!". We are very into pointing out the relative size of an item. Big, small, wittle, bery wittle.

 Grady found some "wabels" that he later decided were "signs".

 And he really wanted me to see.

 Meanwhile, Keith is doing the heavy lifting. I'm afriad of being drafted into service, so I keep taking pictures.

 Grady sits with me.

 Cole looks on. And fiddles with the plant. In Afrikaans there's a word "froeter". It means to fiddle, constantly fiddle or mess with, but its so much more descriptive. We like to say that Cole is a Froeterer. Hy froeter baie. Any South African reading this can let me know if I spelled that right.

 But then Grady takes pity on Dada and goes to help.

 Cole still sits and looks.

 But he eventually gets off the front steps to supervise. Not sure what Keith is talking about here. Making a note to himself to sweep all that dirt off the walkway so it doesn't get tracked into the house, I hope. I just mopped in there! Hahaha. It's useless trying to keep the floors clean at this point.

Randoms

It's amazing how much a person gets done when the three boys in the house take a nap. Seriously, I'm a machine. Pictures are uploading, blog posts are ready for a week (you excited?), laundry in progress, crafting for a baby shower, spreadsheets are updated, and dinner is in progress. We're having summer corn chowder, if you're wondering. No recipe to post, it's all up here. (taps head). And parsnip and green onion fritters. That's a new recipe, I'll let you know how that turns out.

Meanwhile, things are being cleaned that are very, very dirty. Yes, we're talking about you, Be-ah. Or should I say, Harpuh?(he named Bear the other day. Harper is our dear Sessy's sister's daughter. Follow that? We're going to visit Sessy soon and will hopefully get the boys and girls together).

Oh! I found this picture. This is how far our roadtrip was. 1711.6 miles, door to door.

 You know what I've been very excited about? Our new coffee maker. She is doing a beautiful job. I set her up every evening to make our coffee for the next day. Look how eager she is to be programmed and brew. I love her.

What I don't really love is our current coffee selection. I got the big donut store chain brand because I've heard its good. It's just ok. Do you have a brand you really like? It needs to come in whole beans, we grind our own round here.

Let's see. What else... oh. The boys have been loving going to pools. During vacation, at grandparents' houses, etc. And now in our bathtub! When they resist bathing we just say "let's go swim!" and everyone runs to lay side by side in the tub. The downside is that kicking produces a lot of splashing, but I don't mind. I should note that I'm also not the person on bathing duty, so that could be why I don't mind.

 Aren't they just CUTE? Love the farmer's tans.

 After-bath cuteness is just as good. There you can see Keith, in his just-home-from-work-and-is-exhausted position. He's in his weekend version of that position right now, but on weekends it on our bed. Toddlers are exhausting.

 And lastly, I have two thoughts. One-they are now actually posing and smiling properly for the camera. And two-people are still amazed at their size difference. A common question is "how much older is he?", while pointing at Grady. Which leads to the following:



Me: One minute. 
Them: Oh. It seems he's a little bigger than his brother, am I right?
   -or-
Them: Does he eat more? 
   -or- (my favorite)
Them: Do you feed that one more? 

Me: Yes, a little bit. 


And I go about my day.

Later, peeps! I've got chowder simmering.

This Weekend I'll Be Baking

I've decided that if I don't get to bake anything, I go crazy. I've been cutting back on making baked goodies because Team Ellerman is amidst a shape-up mission, but this weekend I'll be throwing caution to the wind and will be baking something. I can always send it to work with Keith on Monday, right? Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

For sure I'll be making some of these. I got a new leaf cookie cutter, some colored sugar sprinkles, and we'll be talking about how the leaves turn colors. I am slightly concerned about them not understanding that the cookies needing to bake for a few minutes after we shake the sprinkles on. Wait no. I know they understand it because they boss..er...tell me all the time that the chicken needs to "go cook", I'm really more concerned that they will not tolerate the cookies being taken away. Hmmm. Need to work on a solution for that. As a sidenote, are the boys too young for me to teach them that its an oak leaf, and oaks' genus name is Quercas? Or should I wait until later to turn them into science nerds?

I've also been DYING to make this.  I won't, though, because there will not be any left to send to Keith's work. I mean, it's cookies. It's brittle. It's chocolate and buttery goodness. Pretty sure just thinking about it made my ass grow bigger.

Might also do a practice run on a few recipes I'm making for a baby shower, but none of those involve sugar, butter or confectioner's sugar so why bother sharing, right?

And I've been craving something Hazelnut. So I'll either be sticking my finger into a jar of Nutella, or I'll make one of these: Hazelnut Cake  or Hazelnut Blondies. Or just talk about it a lot until Keith turns the volume on the TV up to drown me out.

Other recipes I've got my eye on for next month: somebody has a birthday and will be needing a cake. Will it be this, this or should I try making Nana's caramel apple pie again? I just doesn't taste the same when I make it. Sort of like how a sandwich tastes better when someone else makes it, you know?

And, now that I'm drooling onto my keyboard, I'll sign off and go sign up for a spin class. Good weekend, everybody!