Eliza turns 2

This girl turned two yesterday. She's pretty cute. This is her post-birthday-nap hair, which is nice. She is eating her post-birthday-nap marshmallow, and wishing I wasn't shoving a camera in her face.

This shows her birthday pedicure. Orange and pink.

Pink birthday cake. That's what she asked for, except that for any and all colors she says "blu", but we're very confident that she wanted pink.

"I want presents! I want presents!"

Once again, the grandparents came through, she got a dollhouse, which she and Anna can't leave alone and a Radio Flyer Walker Wagon, which I might get pictures of if I ever assemble it, and a baby doll. I got her the popup toy pictured, which she picked out at the store, then I hid it for 3 days and she had forgotten all about it! I also made some blocks, which were promptly ignored. Thank you Pinterest.

Very excited about the candles...

...but legitimately confused about blowing them out, so sister jumped in to handle the situation.

CAKE! 

Then, of course, this picture again.

Progress

Progression is happiness. Is that what they say?

3 days 

10 days

1 month

 Today, 7 weeks

Happiness.

Straws

Today Anna asked if she could keep a straw forever. A straw from a juice box. A straw.
This must have been an unbelievable straw that she was using as a horn/animal noise maker.
She wanted to keep it forever.
Forget toys, straws are where it is at.

A few years ago when Anna was almost 3, just 2 weeks after Christmas, we were sitting downstairs watching TV and I noticed that she was playing with a big red straw, and she had been for almost an hour. She had personified the straw and created a storyline and apparently forgotten all about the dozens of new toys that we had just given her at Christmas.

Straws forever.

Operation Yard Domination

I have this problem after I have a baby of making bigger goals than I can chew. After Eliza was born, I was like, "I'M GOING TO MAKE DINNER EVERY NIGHT!" literally, like the day we got home from the hospital. That was not a terrible goal and once I mellowed out a little, I was a lot better about making dinner.
With Calvin, my overreaching goal has been "I'M GOING TO RE-LANDSCAPE THE ENTIRE YARD MYSELF!" This is obviously not a totally smart or reachable goal immediately after having a baby, but I started anyway. The goal is more grass, less maintenance. So I started chopping up and digging out some gross Oregon Grape bushes and so far it's going pretty well, I hope to have the front yard under control before snow falls. If only I could get consistent infant nap times established and a bottomless garbage can, I could knock this project out in a week. But we wouldn't want it to be too easy, would we?

So anyway, that's kind of what I'm up to. Operation Yard Domination.

More Calvin

Here are some more pictures of Calvin and...mostly Eliza. But Anna wasn't very accommodating.

These first 3 are from Aunt Robyn's photoshoot.

 We are getting along pretty well now, I think we've turned a corner and are settling in nicely together. Though, nights are still a gamble. He's gaining weight, not too fast, but at a steady pace for sure. He loves to sleep in his chair, I think because it allows him to scrunch his feet up the way he likes. Eliza still loves him and gets up in his face whenever she can. Anna always asks to see him and hold him, but never for very long.

 To make up for Anna not being in any pictures, this is a picture she took herself. Pretty handsome.

Here is Calvin modeling his cute Llama sweater that Aunt Beetle got him. It's almost too small already so it had to be documented.

Eliza also loves her Peruvian sweater so we got her to model it with him. Anna was not interested.

Projects

I feel a little sheepish about posting a blog without any pictures. They are coming. Probably. Aunt Robyn came over to visit and took pictures of the girls, they can be seen here, they are very beautiful.

Mostly I wanted to enumerate the number of projects I have undertaken in the last 3 weeks:

• Canned 9 quarts of peaches by myself
• Weeding/removing a bush from the yard
• helping prepare for a concrete pour this weekend (most of it was really my dad, but I am involved)
• remove old, install new garbage disposal
• trip to Ikea (with Beetle)
• install Dignitet hanging wire system from Ikea (with Beetle)
• moved shelves in the garage (with Beetle)

Man, pregnancy really keeps you down, you know? There I was, just staring at these projects for months, now that baby is here (and preschool has started) I just have to get things moving!

Calvin Spencer Gaines

Hello, nice to meet you. This is Calvin. He was born on Thursday afternoon. He weighed 7 lbs and was 19 inches long. He has dark black hair and dark eyes.

 just after delivery

winkin' atcha. 

 His big sisters still love him.

Today. 3 days old.

This Girl

You know this girl. She's obviously pretty cute. and funny. She's learning to say a few words, like "Yeah". She says it with great confidence. We're pretty sure she knows what she's talking about most of the time.

Tonight Anna and Ben went out shopping and Eliza and I went downstairs to watch a show and relax. We ended up with Toy Story 3. Eliza was not really coherent when we/Anna/Ben went through our Toy Story phase, but apparently a few things stuck.

Whenever Big Baby came on, she just pointed and said "Baby, Baby" repeatedly

I went to change the laundry, when I came back she had gone upstairs and found Anna's Woody doll and was waving it around, I helped her out and found our big Jessie doll. She understood immediately and we went downstairs to finish watching the show.

Recipes That Don't Work: "Sloppy" Brownies

Below I have copied and pasted the exact recipe for Slutty Brownies as seen on The Londoner and all over Pinterest. (I think it's safe to say that my Pinterest addiction has and will continue to fuel RTDW posts). She includes a picture tutorial on her blog. My picture is at the end.

My edits will appear in this font.

1 Box of cookie mix, 

1 Box of brownie mix, 

2 Eggs,

2 Packs of Oreos (double stuffed ones are even better if you can find them)

Some oil 

& your favourite ice-cream (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350°F  or 375, because I was pretty sure she didn't mention a temperature...

Line a baking tray with grease proof paper.

Follow the instructions on the cookie mix box & stir furiously until you have gooey cookie dough, I usually add a little extra water and oil to what they suggest, it just keeps it moist as you'll be baking it for longer than suggested. An extra teaspoon of each is just right. 

Squidge (technical term) the cookie dough into a lined baking tray, until it covers the bottom. 

Cover this layer with your Oreos. Don't use the broken ones, eat them as you go. This recipe is too glorious to use substandard Oreos. I did not find any broken ones and was heartbroken.

Mix up your brownie batter. Just stick to the recipe on the box for this one.

& pour over your Oreos.

Bake for 30mins.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool. 

When its still a little bit warm, use the paper to lift your creation out of the tray and rest it on a chopping board. 

As you do this, notice how the completely raw brownie on top starts to spread like hot lava flow. Panic and try to put it back into the pan, this does not work as any shape or form it may have once had is completely gone. Resolve that it simply must go back into the oven no matter how gooey you think you could handle it. Have a panicked assistant get out a cookie sheet (where it HAD been in an 8" x 8" square pan). Slide it onto the cookie sheet and place it back in the oven at 350 and keep an eye on it.

Use a large, sharp knife to cut it into manageable chunks, sections, slabs... depending on how many calories you think you can handle in one sitting. 

This is hers

 This is mine.

Take a picture, then eat, this is still edible and delicious despite our lack of ice cream.

Let them eat CAKE

I started following @honesttoddler on twitter, it's supposed to give us the hilarious insights of the toddler mind. One thing I learned right away, they apparently love cake.

One Saturday, Anna insisted we make some cake, she was mostly in it for the making and cared little for the eating. So we made two 8" rounds and ate one slowly through the week. When we got to the next Saturday and we still had a cake sitting around, I decided to let Eliza loose on it.

So I set her up in her chair with an unfrosted chocolate cake, she asked for a bowl and a spoon. She ate some, she spooned some out of the cake and into the bowl, a lot ended up on the floor, the table and the chair. It was not a long exercise, but I sure got some cute pictures.

Park City Reunion

Gramma and Grampa outdid themselves this summer and hosted a great "reunion" of sorts in Park City. We had a blast playing and eating and eating and playing. The only camera I use nowadays is the one on my ipod, hence the lack of posts with pictures and the graininess thereof. 

 Here is Anna's very amazing pipe cleaner crown. She worked at this for about an hour, using every pipe cleaner she could get her hands on. By the end of the week it was much smashier but everyone still revered it.

Playing softball at the Park City City Park. I think that's Thad on 1st, and Jethro pitching.

 Beetle on 3rd, Matt on 2nd.

 Fence, Dad at bat.

 Here are the older kids (note, anna's crown in use.) Eliza was tickling their toes and they loved it.

This is the bear statue on Main Street, we only got there once the whole week. But what can you do with 9 kids around all those shops?

Here is the most adorable picture ever. We drove up to Mirror Lake in the Uintas and Thad endlessly endured Eliza's favorite activity of throwing rocks in water. Even when she couldn't find any rocks, he would reach into the water and pull out the ones she had just thrown in so she could do it again. They are a great pair.

She didn't even fall in.

Ben was travelling abroad, we missed him terribly, but it was nice to have a lot of backup help.

Nesting Time

On vacation this week with most of the family. We are missing the Bens. But they are probably ok with it. We have 9 kids ages 5 1/2 years to 2 1/2 months and 9 adults. Every day includes at least one trip to the swimming pools and we've had more than a few chaotic feeding times.

This is not a great picture, but there are legitimate excuses for that. The point is, Grampa and I were graciously left behind at the condo to watch Eliza and her cousin Myra, both nearly 2. Grampa was ready for his nap and decided they were too, so he got them both their napping pacifiers and made this little nest for them to sit still and watch tv. So cute.

Recipes That Don't Work

Yeast and I are frenemies.

Friday Night

I spent an hour and a half sitting at my kitchen table reading this blog and have rededicated myself to pointless blogposts where I can whine and brag and pontificate and not care if anyone is reading it or pointing fingers.

Ben took Anna to see "The Avengers" tonight, she left smiling and came back smiling, so I guess it was a success. Also, popcorn and lemonade for dinner. She has been watching "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" the cartoon series every morning on Netflix. I had to call her "Wasp" all day.
Wasp is not in the movie, but she was one of the founding members of The Avengers in the comic books. Her regular name is Jan. So I could refer to Anna as "Wasp" or as "Jan".

I did the grocery shopping tonight with Eliza while they were gone.

I bought one of those 1 gallon buckets of chocolate peanut butter ice cream. I predict I will eat it all within 10 days. I'll keep you updated.

There is a large fire on the other side of the lake, the smoke has filled the valley. I have felt sick most of the day. They call it "The Dump Fire", does that mean it's burning up all kinds of unsavory garbage and the smoke is poisoning me?

How was your friday night?

Pet Store

No other experience has simultaneously made my kids super excited and me super uncomfortable as taking them on a recreational trip to the Pet Store. I will not allow them to have a pet so I thought it would be fun to go see some cute little puppies or something. Well, it was not like that, but the girls still loved seeing all the different fish, hermit crabs, frogs, birds and etc. The cats were gigantic and freaked me out completely. They didn't have any puppies but there was an observation window into the grooming which was...eh.
To top it off, on our way out I was stopped by an old woman with a thick russian-bloc accent who said, pointing to Eliza "Hey lady, you should keep her right with you, I have seen them whisked away in a second when the mom is not looking and they are gone."

So I'm pretty much never leaving the house again.

Oh! There's a Home Depot!

Ok, so this one is mostly for Ben and me to remember how ridiculous kids are.
Yesterday we tried to go furniture shopping, and it was very disappointing. Also, Anna was bad (disobedient) all night and spilled soda in the car etc... So on the way home nobody was talking and we were all quite gloomy.

Anna started squirming and screaming, at one point I guess while kicking my seat, she also accidentally kicked her foot, so she started whining and did not stop. She was just looking for attention and I was just waiting for her to cry herself to sleep. So she whined and whined "OWIE! MAMA!" and then, very randomly, she leaned forward and in a perfectly happy, chipper voice, said "OH! There's a Home Depot right there!" Then she went back to whining right where she left off.

I couldn't hold it in, I just started laughing, then Ben started laughing. We eventually got to tears, driving down the freeway, unable to control our laughter. We laughed until it hurt, all the way home.

Then Anna got put to bed.

Of Late

What?! I still have a blog? that's crazy... ok, well we  I have been a bit AWOL but I'm sure you aren't heartbroken over it.

We moved! back to Utah. Connecticut didn't work out, so Onward and Upward. We are excited to get back to our house in a few more days, for now we have been at my gracious and wonderful parents house soaking up all their attention.

 This is a picture of Eliza helping, that is a bin full of food storage, 25 lb bag of wheat on top. She's a trooper.

 Here is Eliza borrowing her cousin's trike, safety first of course, she insisted on the helmet.

 This was some fingerpainting we tried, I made it from a recipe I found on pinterest. It wasn't super paint-like. more glob-like. The girls didn't last very long.


We had a great adventure last week, two of my dear cousins and their mom were in town, they wanted to have some adventures with their kids before they both have new babies this summer, so they invited us to go to the Zoo! So, for those keeping track, that was 3 very pregnant moms, with 8 kids under the age of 8 plus an amazing grandma all trying to stay together amidst hundreds of field tripping kids at the zoo. And we didn't lose anyone...for very long.

 Above is Abish and Anna and Ellyn trying to all get on the bronze rhino for a picture.

 This is Anna and Bo and Ellyn all 4 year olds holding hands on the way to the gorillas.

 Ellyn, Abish and Zeb as big as the gorillas.


Also, last week was my birthday! Ben took me out for the night while my parents watched the girls. So I didn't get to blow out my candles, but that's ok, because I have been feasting on birthday cake (angel food with strawberries) all weekend. It's amazing.

Now I'm all caught up. So there.