Oliver was gracious enough to volunteer as the model for my Peep Show prize. Well, gracious in the sense that he didn't scream like he did the last time I put a dress on him. Not so gracious in the sense that he did spit up all over the skirt the second I had him in it. Don't worry, I'll wash it.It is supposed to be 1-3 month dress for a little girl. As you can see, it is possible to squeeze a 15-ish pound, 5-month-old little boy into it, but only if it is late and he is procrastinating going back to bed. It's amazing what kids will do to stay up with Mom and Dad for a few more minutes. The little bird was kind of an experiment -- a successful one, I believe. After I wash it, it will fray around the edges a little more and give it a nice feathery look. At least that was the plan. Okay, so it evolved into the plan after I realized that my zig-zagging skills need some work. Still, it turned out well. Micah even says so and he's picky about these things.
I hope somebody who is having a little girl, wants to have a little girl, or knows someone who is having a little girl, chooses this dress as their prize. If not, no worries. I'm sure one of the other 7,539 pregnant girls I know will be interested.
. . . we thought we would remind you. Peep Show entries are due to us a week from tomorrow night. April 4th. We hope your plans are coming together nicely and we can't wait to see what you all come up with this time around. As for prizes, we have four probable donations so far: Heather (a felt crayon roll), Jodie (a tote -- I think, correct me if I'm wrong), Summer and Will (undecided), and us (undecided). If you would like to contribute a little something, let us know what you will be donating by next Saturday so we can post the prizes as well as the entries. And yes, it looks like you won't know what you are competing for until you have already submitted your entry. Not ideal, but kind of fun nonetheless. If you are into that sort of thing.
Once again, happy peeping. And Happy Palm Sunday, too.
This has been kind of a rough week. Nothing big, just a few pebbles in my shoe so to speak. But I thought I'd try to focus on the good things, you know, find the silver lining and such.
So . . . I was finally tired enough of the mess in our living room that I cleaned it up. Imagine that! (Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out that the reason stuff isn't getting done is that it is MY job. Better earn my keep.)
And also, I've made a lot of progress on the "special project" I've been working on for Simon (and eventually Oliver). If all goes well, I'll have something fun to show you all in a week or so.
In 2 hours I will have completed my visiting teaching for the month, which is something I've been really bad at and really trying to improve upon. Pardon me while I pat myself on the back.The hood. Simon loves it. He won't go outside without his sweaterhat on. He's usually wearing a read sweatshirt with a hood, but this picture is all I had. I'm reminded of the black sweater I had when I was 4 years old(ish). I wore that thing every day until even I could smell its . . . scent. And it made me want to hurl. We have a new grocery store nearby. On Monday we were looking at the basil, all of which was looking old and kind of purple. The produce man saw me searching and told him to give him five minutes and I could have some of the new stuff in the back. He brought me a large, fresh bag of basil. I no longer feel quite so guilty about abandoning the other nearby grocery store. Simon and I danced in the living room this morning. Well, actually, I kind of danced and he mostly wanted me to help him jump. Even if I've been a slacker runner lately, at least I'm getting a bit of a workout anyway.
Yesterday I talked to my sister on Skype. She was listening to the Taylor Swift station via Pandora. I was listening to the Taylor Swift station via Pandora. We must be sisters.Oliver. Bless his little heart. He loves to hear himself talk. I feel like I'm always saying Oliver is a good baby, but he screams a lot. Both of these things are true. It's a game for him, I think. He'll scream and smile and laugh and it makes my ears hurt and I just have to love him for it. I'm sure those lungs will make him very successful somehow. Also, he's a second child; he smiles if I look at him.
Everyone I know is pregnant. Or just was pregnant. This is only a slight exaggeration. It makes me happy. There are few things I love talking about more than pregnancy/childbirth/child-rearing and I'm thrilled to have more people to share the joy with. May you all have chubby babies with three chins by the time they are three months.
You know your meal plan was a spectacular failure when the thing that pops into your mind as you are serving dinner is the scene from "Better Off Dead" in which Lane's mother serves his father boiled bacon ("I know how you hate the grease from fried bacon . . . .") and it migrates off his plate and onto the floor. (I tried to find a video clip or a picture for you to enjoy, but was unsuccessful, so you'll have to be satisfied with the rockin' hamburger from the same film.) I ate two bites and turned it over to Micah to make something edible out of it, which he did. And, naturally, Simon couldn't get enough of it. It was the first time in recent memory where the first words out of his mouth when he saw dinner were not, "I don't like it," and the first time in which he not only asked for seconds, but also thirds and fourths.
There was a boy I went to high school with at my ward today. I only barely recognized him, and I actually asked Micah to introduce himself and confirm my suspicions before I waltzed up and asked him if he graduated from Bountiful High in 2002. It turns out I was right, it was who I thought it was. And he didn't remember me at all. At least not my name. Micah told him that it was okay, I'm the kind of person that remembers and recognizes people from way far back, which is true. I didn't necessarily expect him to remember my face because I don't think we ever had any classes together, but I kind of thought he could have recognized my name. I wasn't popular in high school, but I thought my name at least got around because I was a good student and all of the things that entails. Apparently, I was wrong. And he was just visiting (all the way from Manhattan), so I may not get the chance to jog his memory any time soon.
I'm only mentioning this because this is at least the 4th time that someone that I knew from high school, or someone that was well acquainted with my family (as in, we're neighbors) did not recognize me when our paths crossed. One of these people I had counted as a friend in high school (if only in a loose sense), but when I ran into him a few years later, he didn't recognize either my name or my face.
I guess being completely forgettable could be a good thing. Especially since I was such an awkward nerd until . . . hmm, until I met Micah? Or maybe I'm still an awkward nerd, but being with him makes it seem okay (as in, yes, I'm an awkward nerd, but look at this fine specimen of a man I managed to seduce anyway -- having such a handsome husband does loads for my confidence level).
Then again, it is kind of deflating to find that I have left such a negligible impact on the lives of people whose names, faces, voices, laughs, random quirks, life stories, I can recall in a moment.
It was recently brought to my attention that these exist. And have existed for almost as long as I've been alive. (I know essentially it's a breakfast corndog. But why do corndogs exist? And with chocolate chips? Really?)
I told Micah about them. His response: "It's amazing the things people aren't scared of."
I had one of those moments the other day. We'll call it a "senior moment." I walked into the grocery store and started perusing the apples just as the intro of a song I liked started playing on the radio. Then the DJ came on and said, "It's the Saturday night 90s where we bring back all your favorite songs from the 90s. If you have a request, give me a call and let me know . . . ." blah blah blah, you know the drill.
I stopped in my tracks. "Bring back"? We're to the point where we're bringing things back from the 90s? Really? I can't be that old. The 90s were practically . . . a decade ago. Wow. Funny how that happens. It's been 10+ years since I was riding around with my sister and her friends, music cranked up loud, singing along at the top of our lungs, driving by all the cute boys' houses every day after school.
It's good to be reminded of those times. Let's bring the 9os back more often. Make me feel young again. ;)
(I'm winking because I still think I'm pretty young . . . even if no one else does.)
Hello everybody. Two weeks ago I wrote a post about a product development contest my company is running. Our good friend, and super creative and talented guy, Brad entered the contest and has made it to the final five. His idea is really great and I think he should win. In the final round the winner is chosen from those five by the votes of our facebook fans. Brad is doing really well on his own, but if he is to win we need everybody to spread the word and go and vote for him (you only have to do it once). Here are the super simple steps:
1. Go to the UncommonGoods facebook page. 2. If you are not a fan already then become one. 3. Click that you "Like" the Brainy Blocks post. 4. Blog, email, & tweet all of your friends and family to do the same.
That's it. The winner will be the person who gets the most "Likes."
Hey, I just had an idea. Just for kicks, let's make this a contest too. If Brad wins and we develop and sell his blocks then I will send a free set to the person who managed to get the most people to vote for him. Just leave a comment on this post when all is said and done letting us know how influential you were. Just remember, honesty is a virtue.
We spent the other night in the ER with Simon, learning about febrile seizures the hard way. Simon is fine now, a little lethargic, but I'm still kicking myself over it. He'd had a fever since the previous night. I gave him children's Tylenol once during the day but I hadn't been monitoring the fever very closely and I hadn't been consistent in giving him medicine. I keep thinking that if I'd done those things, we could have saved ourselves the drama of a 911 call, an ambulance ride, a wait in a crowded ER, the pain of finding out he was up to 105 degrees, and the embarrassment of thinking that if we had been more diligent, it might not have happened.
It's possible his temperature would have spiked anyway, that the Tylenol itself wouldn't have been very effective, that there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. The seizure was relatively harmless (for him if not for us); Simon is fine and he should have no lasting effects or be in any danger of suffering more seizures. But I can't stop thinking that it's so hard to know what to do sometimes. He'd had a fever a few weeks ago and we took him to the doctor -- he had a bit of an ear infection, but the doctor said he would be fine, that kids bounce back from these things quickly, and so I didn't think another comparable fever was a big deal. On top of that, I'm the kind of mom who is hesitant to give medicine too quickly or too frequently.
I'm trying to chalk it up to experience and hope that next time I'll be more prepared. I'm trying to tell myself that these things happen -- to anyone, to everyone. Still, I can't help but blame myself and wonder what would have happened if the seizure hadn't stepped in to wake me up to the seriousness of the situation.
The Peep Show. And prizes. Last year we had prizes donated by various people and that seemed to work out pretty well. The winner got a logo designed by Micah, second prize got a scarf, and next time we're in Utah we'll be getting backflip lessons, I believe.
And so we're thinking of doing that again. We already have someone willing to donate a handmade felt crayon roll, so you can keep your crayons nice and organized while you doodle during sacrament meeting. I mean, your kids can keep their crayons nice and organized . . . . :)
We'll come up with something to donate as well. And we invite anyone else who is feeling crafty or generous to donate a prize. And we'll have as many prizes as there are donations. The winner of the Peep Show will get to pick first, second place picks second, and so on down the line. Good idea? Bad idea? I'm all ears.
Also, we're thinking of extending the deadline through Sunday, April 4th for the simple reason that sometimes General Conference is a good time to work on projects and a Peep Show might be a fun conference project. What do you think?
This is the part when I start having to be careful about what I expose my child to. Because you never know what kind of fearsome beasts are lurking in your recent issue of The Friend.
Yes, The Friend. The church's magazine for children. You think you can just flip it open and read any story to your toddler and it'll be fine. But no. I learned this a few weeks ago as I was reading Simon the article by Pres. Uchtdorf -- "A Banner of Faithfulness." A lovely story. It's about John Rowe Moyle, a stonecutter who worked on the Salt Lake Temple. His leg gets broken by a cow. His leg is then amputated so he doesn't die. And then he carves himself a new leg from wood and eventually works up the strength to walk the 20+ miles to the Salt Lake Temple every week (and then back home on the weekend) where he carves the stone that says, "Holiness to the Lord The House of the Lord."It is a lovely story, one that I've heard often in my 26 years. But if you are 2 years old, you may not make it to the part about him getting better and accomplishing this amazing feat. You may be hung up on the "broken leg" and the "amputation" bit at the beginning. Which I only realized when I finished the story and asked Simon what he thought. He was staring wide-eyed at nothing, looking slightly horrified. Then he asked me to show him where it said "broken leg." And that is when I realized my mistake. We talked about it. I tried to explain that things like that can happen but bodies can heal. The next morning he wanted to look at his "new magazine" and he flipped straight to the broken leg story. We talked about it again. I summoned Charlie and Lola to help me via the episode "Charlie is Broken." He was clearly still troubled. It's been about 3 weeks and he still flips straight to that story and wants to read about the cow and the broken leg. (The amputation was more frightening at first, but he seems to have gotten over it.)
If you ask him about it now, though, he'll tell you that a man got his leg broken by a cow and then he got better and went and built the temple. So, all's well that ends well, right? And in the meantime I'll hope he doesn't develop bovine-phobia or some other such dreaded condition.
Today is the 4th anniversary of my first blog post.
We are now announcing our3rd annual Peep Show. Entries are due to me (heiseltea at gmail) or Micah (heiselt at gmail) by April 3rd. I'll re-post the rules and come up with prizes later this week. If I feel like it. Or remember.
Thing2 is no longer screaming.
Which is good because if it had gone on for 1 minute longer, he might have lost his voice. Poor Thing. (And also poor Mom and and poor Dad, but mostly poor Thing.)
I know that some people dislike meal planning as much as I do, so I thought I would share the results of last week's plans just for kicks. Maybe it will be useful to share ideas/methods/recipes, etc.? Maybe? I don't know. Also, I did not remember to take pictures of everything we ate. Sorry. But please enjoy the pictures I did take.
First, how I plan. (Some of these may seem really obvious, but I know that it took me a while to figure things out -- and I'm still figuring things out -- so I am sharing them anyway.):
I like to try new recipes, so chances are about half of the meals I make on any given week are things we've never tried before.
If we have things left over from the last week (a half carton of sour cream, some spinach, some olives), I try to incorporate those into the next week's meals so they don't go bad.
I try to use a variety of everything: carbs (potatoes, rice, bread, pasta), proteins (beans, meat, cheese, eggs), veggies (tomatoes, broccoli, peas, carrots), soups, salads, Mexican, Italian, oven, stove, pressure cooker, rice cooker, blah, blah, blah, etc. etc.
I usually do not have many side dishes. Our family is small enough at this point that a main dish will feed us and usually produce leftovers for lunch. If the main dish isn't colorful or vegetable-y, I'll add a salad or a vegetable to keep us healthy. :)
We often have things come up and one of the planned meals won't get made, at which point it goes on the next week's list.
I don't really shop the sales or use coupons. Too much work. I would end up going to 7 different stores and I don't have a car . . . not worth it. If something is a good deal at the local store, of course I'll get it, but I usually don't see the sale items until I'm actually at the store, so I don't plan a meal around it until the next week.
So, this is what we ate last week: Monday: Poached Chicken Breast with Peanut Sauce and Noodles from The Everything Thai Cookbook. I made this two weeks ago and had a ton of sauce leftover. The second time around I fried the chicken instead of poaching it and I served it with broccoli instead of snow peas like it calls for in the recipe. Sorry, no picture. It didn't look that great anyway. But it tasted good.
Tuesday: Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup with muffins. I made this soup several weeks ago and we froze the leftovers. At Micah's request, I made some lemon-poppy seed muffins to go with it.
Wednesday: Cheese and Potato Layer Bake from SuperCookery Potatoes and Vegetables cookbook. I was looking for a way to use a leek I had leftover from a previous week and decided on this. It was a lot easier and tastier than I expected. Don't ask me why I made it when I didn't expect it to taste very good.
Thursday: Olive Cheese Bread and salad (which I threw together at the last minute -- arugula, grape tomatoes, feta, salmon from a can, and capers). We've had this before as well, only without the salad. It is very tasty, but note that it contains 1. butter 2. mayonnaise 3. cheese. The only way I can feel good about it is if it is served along side lots and lots of leafy greens. :) I used some of our homemade bread instead of a store-bought loaf.
Friday: Spinach and Feta Pita Bake. This is a new recipe. I wanted to try making pitas with the bread dough we use and came across this when looking for a way to serve them. I really wish I had remembered to take a picture because it looked -- and was -- super tasty, but I didn't. Sigh.
Saturday: We ended up being invited to a friends' house, so I didn't have to cook and our Saturday meal became our Sunday meal.
Sunday: Pancakes. I was in the mood for pancakes after reading several posts about Fat Tuesday and pancake traditions on various blogs. I wanted something a little bit healthier than our normal breakfast pancakes. These are topped with frozen blueberries that I heated up and added a wee bit of sugar to.
And that is that. Feel free to share anything you feel like sharing. Tips, tricks, favorite meals, food aversions. The grossest thing you ever ate. The grossest thing you ever made. Confessions from the middle school cafeteria. You know, whatever.
Oliver was gracious enough to volunteer as the model for my Peep Show prize. Well, gracious in the sense that he didn't scream like he did the last time I put a dress on him. Not so gracious in the sense that he did spit up all over the skirt the second I had him in it. Don't worry, I'll wash it.
It is supposed to be 1-3 month dress for a little girl. As you can see, it is possible to squeeze a 15-ish pound, 5-month-old little boy into it, but only if it is late and he is procrastinating going back to bed. It's amazing what kids will do to stay up with Mom and Dad for a few more minutes.
The little bird was kind of an experiment -- a successful one, I believe. After I wash it, it will fray around the edges a little more and give it a nice feathery look. At least that was the plan. Okay, so it evolved into the plan after I realized that my zig-zagging skills need some work. Still, it turned out well. Micah even says so and he's picky about these things.
