Raking leaves

Here are the obligatory pictures of raking leaves. Eliza just learned how to smile on demand, she's got a big cheesy, toothy grin that I can't resist.

3 months

Little Calvin is getting so big. Seriously, the biggest baby yet. Ok, that's not saying much.
I took some pictures with him today with the big camera but he wasn't really smiling. Then I got my iPod out and he had a better outlook. So these are those pictures.
He's quite a looker.

You can't go home again

This is a favorite picture of mine. I want to put it up so I will always have it (until the Internet explodes). This was my yard growing up, my playground, work-ground and imagination laboratory. We played and slept on the trampoline, we kicked field goals through the cherry trees, we hooked a zip line up to the big tree and tried not to die (ah, Toni?! Ah Toni!?) as it connected to the second cherry tree. I played catch with my dad and football with brothers and cousins. We irrigated in the sunshine and in the moonlight. We tried (more than once) to turn the gazebo into a swimming pool.

I wish I had a picture of the massive driveway behind the photographer. That is where we played basketball, jumped rope with cousins using giant 50 foot jump ropes. Where we rode bikes and fixed cars.
It was great place to grow up. This picture reminds me how good we had it.

Recipes that, inexplicably, work

I found myself with 2 surplus pomegranates today which yielded almost 2 cups of pomegranate seeds. What's more, the seeds were a little too tart for me, so I set about looking for some baked good I could incorporate them into. I found a chocolate chip pomegranate muffin recipe that looked easy enough so I got started.
I decided to double the recipe so I wouldn't have any seeds left over. My first substitution, instead of 4 cups of flour I decided to do 2 cups oatmeal, 2 cups flour.
Next I remembered that we were completely out of milk- animal and vegetable. But I had some dry milk powder, so that was resolved easily.
After that I realized somewhat panicked that we had no chocolate chips! A travesty, I know, but I stopped buying them the 5th time I found Anna in my closet with a bucket of chocolate chips. So, after searching the cupboards I did find...Halloween candy! So I worked out a deal with the girls, and they let me take all the M&M's and sixlets - which wasnt much.
At this point I decided to just go for it and shoot for an excellent Recipe That Doesn't Work. So I did the ole' half oil, half applesauce trick. And instead of two muffin pans, like I thought I had, I found one regular muffin pan and one pan with 24 mini muffins. I guess we downsized during the move.
At this point the batter looked surprisingly good, considering what I had done to it.
I tried a few as they finished baking and they were not terrible, then I had one that was lucky enough to catch some of the chocolate, and it was Delicious! So next time, more M&M's and we'll be all set!
Thus concludes an unsuccessful unsuccessful baking attempt. Thank you for your time.

Halloween!

Just in case my kids don't make it to your house to trick or treat, here's a shot at their adorable costumes and faces.

Snowy day

Here's what we woke up to today. Anna was immediately ready to jump in the snow, but I convinced her to at least eat breakfast first. After breakfast we tracked down all the snow gear and suited up. Eliza still needs gloves and Anna still needs boots but at least we took an inventory. Eliza didn't last too long but Anna was dying to throw snowballs. She helped our neighbor clean off his car (?) and she ran back to the house, ecstatic, saying, "he said we could have all his snow from his yard!" she insisted on a broom to accomplish this, so I opened the garage and she marched back out to move all his snow into our yard.
Luckily the snow was all gone by noon, it was a good trial run for winter.

Halloween candy house 2012

Here's the first look at our candy house this year. Anna is still putting the finishing touches on as I type this. While Eliza is spilling the last of the Reese's pieces all over the table.

the back angle 

she got so messy from the black frosting

front view

I broke down and bought a kit this year, so much easier than cooking our own. But I did trace all the shapes so we could bake it again next year. This Wilton kit was pretty intense, we had to mix the frosting - black and gray - and they included 2 piping bags. It was easy to put together and held strong during our decoration marathon.

Calvin 2 months, Eliza 2 years

We went to the Dr. yesterday for Calvin and Eliza's well checkups. It was exhausting, Eliza hates the doctor so I was mostly wrestling her the whole time.

Calvin weighs in at 11 lbs and 22 inches. pretty average, they said. He seems so big, I think this little afghan must be shrinking. He has outgrown all his newborn clothes, is sleeping well at night and eats great. I am getting a little desperate for a daytime nap schedule though.

I don't have any cute pictures of Eliza but I want to put up her stats. She is in the 1% for height 30.5 inches, and 16% for weight 24 lbs, this makes her BMI (which they start tracking when they turn 2) at like 87%. She is sturdy.

Rainy Day Walk

It is a rainy Friday today, we are already on our second movie. And I'm ok with that.

After lunch I sent Anna next door to drop off a sweet, she said she would stay out and play in the rain for a while, I said that would be fine with me. So she suited up with her leopard rain jacket, her red umbrella, and flip-flops and headed out.

About 20 minutes later she rang the doorbell to come inside. She was put out because the wind had turned her umbrella inside out and she couldn't fix it. The second thing she said, somewhat annoyed, was that someone had stopped to take her picture. That made me laugh. So if you see a picture of her in her rain gear on the internet, send me the link.

Driving

As I drove up to Sugar House tonight to meet a friend, and as my children were generally making a ruckus in the back of the car, the DJ on the radio reported that drivers with young children in their car are 8x more distracted than drivers on a cell phone.

8 TIMES

So if you are one of those proponents of getting rid of cell phones in cars. Please ban my children from being in my car while you are at it.

Testing, testing.

So I just downloaded the blogger app. It doesn't have great reviews but it's free and it might allow me to put pictures up from my iPod so I don't have to upload them, then post them. But so far I am having trouble navigating the app. So this is a test run.
Hopefully their upgrades will be swift and mighty

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.