Furry Sprouts

Is this normal? My brussell sprouts have already sprouted, but they are furry. It doesn't look like mold, but I'm no farmer. So it turns out you need special bread maker flour to use the quick cook option of 58 or 80 minutes in the bread maker. To use my regular wheat flour would require 3 hours and 40 minutes baking. I did not plan ahead for that long of a timeline so we had our bean soup with no bread. bummer. Reese quite enjoyed the beans though.
AND it turns out I will not be taking a class this quarter because they had 80 people register for a class that is much smaller. So I followed the instructions I was given at my advising appointment in January and waited for my registration day to turn in my form. Of course everyone who did not plan ahead apparently called when the listing said "by instructor permission" asking what's this all about? and were advised to come down anytime...so they turned theirs in before registration and the powers that be decided to make date and time of form turn in an elimination choice----so I am livid to say the least. But they assure me I shouldn't be upset because they feel about 90% sure they'll have a summer class. Of course I'll miss 2 of 10 classes because of our already planned vacation. May I take this opportunity to point out that people who do not do their job correctly--i.e. provide accurate info and instruction to everyone who needs it--really infuriate me. It's no wonder there's a nursing shortage when the schools that produce nurses haven't figured out an appropriate plan to deal with more applicants than slots in the classes. AND how can they say you really must take this class before you start the program in the fall and then have the class admit less students than the program will be admitting--doesn't make sense. Unless of course there are tons of over achievers applying this year, which I suppose is possible. But I have the maximum amount of admission points you can have as a first time applicant with a 3.83 GPA, so how many over achievers could there really be?

Meal Plan Monday

So last week got a bit off track since Kyle went to work in San Diego. This week we should be able to keep to the plan.
MONDAY: 15 bean soup (used the Easter ham bone) and the first home made bread with our new bread maker--early birthday gift from Kyle's grandparents
TUESDAY: Chicken Tetrazini (didn't have this last week due to easter leftovers)
WEDNESDAY: Quesadilla
THURSDAY: left overs---my first day of spring quarter, my class is 8AM in Poulsbo! The horror! I'm not sure I'll actually be able to function getting started so early.
FRIDAY: Spinach ravioli and pesto sauce
SATURDAY: stirfry veggies with brown rice and egg rolls
SUNDAY: beef stew (already made and in the freezer) and homemade bread from our new bread machine.
If you need some new recipes in your rotation check out Meal Plan Monday on Laura's site the Organizing Junkie.
Reese's news:
Reese is eating people food like a champ now. He has displayed an extreme dislike of yobaby yogurt...wasted $4.50 on that and also of bananas, so what's a boy to have for breakfast? he was still hungry after his baby food fruits mixed with oatmeal, so I gave him half a piece of whole wheat toast with the mommies' group canned blackberry jam from last summer. He loved it!
We picked up Daddy from the airport at 9:30 am on Saturday and hit IHOP where he chowed down some scrambled eggs, pancakes and ham. Then we went to IKEA---I have never been before. It's about as big as the mall. And it had awesome "family" parking that was very convenient. AND they provide a million little twine stations so you can tie your purchases to the roof of your car. Even better they had the outdoor furniture displayed right nearby so Reese and I could comfortably sit while he had a bottle and waited almost hour while Kyle tied the living daylights out of our purchase. We got hordes of stuff! Super prices! I'll post photos of our cool new bedroom lamps once we get them set up. Reese was so well behaved all day. He smiled at everyone and was very giggly and happy. I was surprised since he had 2 naps in the car and one while walking around IKEA. We were there for about 4 1/2 hours. We kind of abused his good nature that day. Today we visited Grandad and Candy Gram then hit Barnes and Noble where I purchased my textbook for $10 cheaper than the school bookstore! So that was our weekend.

Planting Time

We dropped Daddy at the airport and then hit Southcenter mall, just in case Daddy had any problems and needed us to come back to the airport "wink, wink" (not that we would actually want to shop or anything.) We removed the stroller to make plenty of room for Daddy's stuff. This boy is getting heavy!! So when I saw the info desk with a million strollers I got one--for free! And do you see this fascinating steering wheel--it's the coolest invention ever! Reese was pretty much riveted to the steering wheel thing for about 30 minutes. Then he was ready for a nap so we hopped in the car and slept all the way to Bremerton. Thursday was mommies' group. The babies are starting to actually play with each other. Lots of giant open mouthed kisses on the eye ball or the back of a head--so they aren't super coordinated yet, but they seem to get the idea that they are supposed to be friends. Even though it snowed Wednesday night and twice during Mommies on Thursday and again on Friday (these are the occasions I witnessed, there could have been more snow episodes) I figured it's about time to plant so I better get busy.

Here's our starters for grape tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, green bell peppers, butternut squash and brussell sprouts. We're also going to have green beans, carrots and zucchini, but their packages did not say to start them indoors. So hopefully we'll have a lot of veggies. I wanted to plant 3 rows of green peppers because we use a lot of them, but the seed packets are very inconsistent. The peppers had barely enough to do two rows, while the brussell sprouts had about a million seeds. The butternut squash had literally 16 seeds....pretty skimpy I think. But whatever, we'll see how it goes and make notes for next year. I'm hoping to have enough tomatoes that we won't need to buy diced tomatoes in a can...saving that $4 a case at costco could be a gallon of gas!!!

Please Take Me!!!

Here is Reese eating his big boy dinner. I only put a few pieces out at a time to avoid him racing to shove it all in and then choke. It seems to be working---no gagging and barfing! He had ham, rotini noodles with Parmesan cheese cut up small and crinkle cut carrots cut real small. He liked it a bunch, but was clearly thinking "must we photograph EVERYTHING?" Daddy's going to San Diego tomorrow, so he's packing his gear tonight. Reese wants to go too, but it's supposedly a short trip. They said home Friday but wrote the paperwork for Monday, so who knows. He has very few pairs of underwear and socks so hopefully they don't get extended for long. Next time they go for a longer stint we'll go too and check out the zoo and the beach.

That was then, this is Now

My friend Amy put photos of her baby from last Easter on her Easter blog....I don't know why I didn't think of that! So here is Reesie last Easter. He was at Harrison Hospital as a "feed and grow" baby. He had no help breathing, but still was not able to eat his full amount of breast milk or formula in the allotted time. He had 30 minutes from start to finish to eat about 37 mL ....a smidge more than an ounce...from a bottle. Sometimes he could do it, but when he couldn't the rest went in his feeding tube running into his nose. It was very exhausting all that swallowing! See how tuckered out he is...sleeping through his visiting time. Here is the boy getting started on his Easter 2008 feast. He had ham and a macaroni salad noodle or 2 and some cheerios. Mostly he still eats formula and baby food. BUT he is getting the hang of it.

Today we tried YoBaby yogurt---he thought it was gross. Mommy thinks so too, but Daddy likes it so I thought it was worth a try and it's pretty high in calories, while baby food is way lower in calories than his formula. We'll try it again next week. After that he practically ripped my ham and cheese sandwich from my mouth so we gave him some Easter ham and he really chowed down. Our meal plan is already thrown off because we have so much left over ham and I didn't see the point in making something new. So we had leftover Easter ham on leftover Easter dinner rolls with smoked fontina cheese----YUM! And Kyle is probably going to San Diego this week, so the rest of the meal plan will be askew too. So much for planning.

Happy Easter!!

We had Easter dinner at our house. Mimi and Poppop and Uncle Travis and Uncle Dylan came over to eat. Here is Reesie in his big boy Easter suit that Great Grandparents, Bob and Joyce gave him for Christmas. The waist is still giant but he looked awful cute. He changed into sweats and a tee for eating--just in case.

He was feeling very playful and was full of exuberant squeals.

Here's our table setting mostly ready to sit down to eat.

mmmm...these look good

This is the Easter basket from Mimi--cool cars and a super cool (not visible) 101 Dalmations lunch box that he was most infatuated with. We'll use it to tote snacks to mommies group.Sitting on the couch chillin' with Uncles Dylan and Travis.

Easter Cleaning

I have just completed my easter cleaning--not a spring cleaning, just a prep for the easter dinner guests cleaning. ANYWAY, my friend, Anya, turned me on to Mrs. Meyer's. And Dr. Oz convinced my cheapskate hubby it is worth it to pay a little more for the non-toxic cleaners. So I usually use geranium scent. I just LOVE the counter top spray and all purpose cleaner for the floors and the hand soap!!!! I used the surface scrub powder (like comet) for the first time -- it is super fabulous on the ring around the tub with virtually zero elbow grease, but peee-ew......it does not smell like the liquid geranium scent. It's okay though because the lovely geranium scent from the toilet bowl cleaner fills the air , so I can not smell the icky scrub powder smell.
I just bought a cute little spring cleaning kit in rhubarb scent---yummy! It came with window cleaner which I would never have purchased because let's be frank, I just don't wash windows. But I used it on Tara's nose smudges and it was streak free and sparkling with ONE SINGLE swipe of my paper towel. I may start washing all the windows! I also used the counter top spray and like it very much, but I still like geranium best. I got a free counter top spray in Basil when I placed an online order---yuck. Kyle thought it smelled fresh, but I think it's icky doodle!

Meal Plan Monday

Okay so I realize it's not Monday yet, but I'm afraid I'll forget. I found this organizing junkie lady's blog---she has some cool ideas ---who hosts a meal plan Monday thing. So we've already discussed what we plan to eat next week and I want to write it out now. Perhaps you're thinking why on earth should you care what my peeps are eating? Well frankly I don't know but realized I have been anxiously awaiting the menu planning posts of the blogs I read that give meal plans. Since you guys are my friends perhaps you're freakishly interested too! If your not feel free to skip to the end for Reese's news. SO-- Kyle is working either 4pm-4am or 6pm-6am, so he'll only eat one meal at home and even though it will be almost as soon as he wakes up, steel cut oatmeal and blueberries will probably not be enough. So our 2pm-ish meals will be:
Monday: Chicken Tetrazini, brussel sprouts or salad
Tuesday: Spinach Ravioli with pesto sauce, salad
Wednesday: Quesadilla a la Kyle
Thursday: Spaghetti and meatballs, salad
Friday: Stir fried veggies and brown rice or quinoa and egg rolls (the frozen costco kind--don't want to cross the line into health food zealots you know!)
Saturday: Stuffed bell peppers with ground turkey and quinoa (I usually use rice, so this will be a test.)
Sunday: Rib-eyes, mashed potatoes with skins, broccoli

Now some ladies have links to the recipes for their meal plans, but I'm not sure how that works...maybe they've previously posted the recipes on their own blog and link to the old post....I'm not sure anyone would actually want one of my recipes, though I assure you they are magnificent!
Reese' s Update:
Normally we would not have so much pasta in one week, but I have decided it is time to get serious about Reese practicing eating real food. I think pasta could be eaten successfully--by successfully I mean without the turning red, eyes watering, tongue protruding choke that results in projectile vomit--which is our usual grown up food experience.
Today Reese had 2 blueberries, each cut into 8 pieces, yes you read that correctly a single tiny blueberry cut into 8 pieces is able to be successfully moved around his mouth by his busy little tongue and swallowed!! Hooray!! He also had some Amylu organic apple-gouda chicken sausage. I cut a coin sized slice (like you would with hot dog), peeled off the tougher outer edge and ripped it into about 10 or 12 microscopic pieces. He LOVED it!! BEGGED for more. (We just got these as an impulse buy from costco and they are delish!)
I bought some bananas today that he will attempt to eat for breakfast. I was going to buy some yobaby yogurt but Freddie's didn't have it. So we'll hold off on trying yogurt.

Piano Man

Reese went to Mimi's tonight while I took my final exam. I finished early so I met them at Uncle Dylan's drum lessons. Reese checked out the pianos. I like this Wurlitzer, but it's pretty spendy. I think we'll hunt for a cheaper one when Reese is ready for lessons. He really likes playing with Uncle Dylan's drums too. So, maybe we'll have a musician on our hands. When I took the "band test" to determine which instrument to play in elementary school it was determined I had no rhythm......so he doesn't get it from me.
Mimi said he was very intrigued by his pop-up toy. He twisted the knob and checked for it to pop up, when it didn't he twisted some more....he's got that cause and effect milestone down. He ate lots of rice and beans at El Sombrero tonight and guess what--NO PROJECTILE VOMIT!!! Hooray!

Read Books AND Win Prizes

There's a spring reading challenge going on at Callapidder Days. She's giving away prizes! When's the last time you finished a book? If you've been somewhat slack as I've been since Reese was born this challenge may be just what you need to get to your stack of books! I have a long list, but I am trying to make this in the realm of possibility:The Other Boleyn Girl: This is our book club selection for April about Mary and Anne Boleyn competing for King Henry's affection.

T is for Trespass: The latest in my gumshoe mystery series.

The Wonder of Boys: A developmental guide for understanding the unique needs of boys, including practical advice for raising them.

Baby Laughs: (in progress) Jenny McCarthy's funny look at birth thru the first year.

Nineteen Minutes: My favorite juicy book author!!

The May and June book club selection, which we haven't picked yet.
And the textbooks for the 2 courses I'll take April3-June 5. UGH.

I would like to read more, but I'd also like to be able to say I accomplished my list, so I'll stop here. What are you guys reading?

(added later the same night)
So I saw that lots of other folks took a photo of their books. I figured I better go ahead and add my photo. Well, while rounding up my books for a photo I thought I should take these already read ones down to the already read bookcase and I discovered there are a lot of books I want to read, so my list grew.
I added:
The Omnivore's Dilemma
America's Women
Critical- Robin Cook
The Quilter's legacy
The Kite Runner
Raising A Son
Rhett Butler's People
Book of the Dead-Patricia Cornwell
Double Cross-James Patterson

This is Funny

I'm reading a magazine while I wait for dinner to cook and I just stumbled upon an article about cloth diapers. A DAD decided to experiment with cloth diapers in an effort to eliminate the thousands of disposable diapers his family contributed to the landfill. I think it is too funny not to share. After the first poop the germophobe Dad says:
"I walked into the bathroom, holding the diaper out in front of me, and looked down at the bowl. I wanted to throw the diaper into the garbage and pretend the whole cloth experiment had never happened. I pondered grossness for a minute or so. Then it occurred to me that Isaac was still undiapered and very possibly urinating on my laptop. I emptied the diaper, flushed three times, using gallons of water - thereby almost certainly eliminating any environmental benefits of cloth diapers-Swished the diaper in the toilet bowl , dumped half a box of baking soda on it to eliminate the smell, threw it in the diaper pail, and raced to Isaac."

My mom and I discussed how I should really go the extra mile for the planet and use cloth. We decided it was too much disgusting effort, the planet be damned. After reading this guy's experience I am certain I made the right decision.

2 Year Anniversary

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Two years ago today we took a 6am flight to Vegas and got married without telling anyone. Last year Reese was in the hospital so we left UW and found our way to the Melting Pot in Seattle only to discover it was a 2 hour wait...we went somewhere else. This year we have a coupon to Red Lobster so that's where we went yesterday. Except we forgot to use the coupon, so we'll go back next weekend to use the coupon, but we'll let Reese come with us. Then we watched the 2 greatest love stories back to back....hahaha not quite the greatest. We watched the Cutting Edge 2 and 3 on abc family. You know the made for tv kind. So they were not hideous, but they certainly did not live up to our expectations since the original was awesome back in 1992.

This is a video of our baby, the cookie monster.

Today Reesie had an eye doctor appointment.

Then Kyle went to work and mommy and Reese went to baby Matthew's house to play and scrapbook. Tomorrow is our regular mommies group meeting. Then Wednesday is Reese's RSV shot, Thursday is mommies' final exam. Friday we HAVE GOT to get the oil changed. So that's our week. We have recently watched some movies we liked: 30 Days of Night---After watching this Mommy was afraid to get up with Reesie at 3 am but Daddy snored on not caring if the vampires got us or not. Dan in Real Life--I'm hoping these kinds of movies will convince Kyle we need lots of kids so when we're the grandparents everyone can come home to visit and won't it be just peachy. We also like The Invisible and Idiocracy. We watched a lot of movies in March. The writer's strike has freed up a lot of time!! It seems like ages since we had time for movies. Kyle also wholeheartedly recommends Beowulf -- I read Parenting Magazine and ignored it. Okay I think you''re all caught up with our happenings.

13 months old

This video is from march 15...the day before 13 months. He did this squeal business for quite some time. I asked Kyle do you think he'll keep it up long enough for me to get my camera...nah! But he kept going so I got the camera. It started as spontaneous squeals I think because he was pretty impressed with his skills of pulling himself up and standing at the ottoman. By the time I'm recording I think he's doing it for effect, but it's still kind of funny.

This is his official 13 month old video, riding the tonka.

BIG FUN

I really hate the gate. It's a nuisance if you want to pass into the kitchen quickly and even though he's WAY taller than me Kyle almsot always bangs his foot on it. So I thought I'd try a different barrier.Reese got a little stuck. So it did barricade him from the kitty litter in the kitchen!

Daddy's team finished their work early and were offered the option to take some vacation hours so he came home early and we planted some flowers. Then we went to Big Apple Diner. Reese was very excited to hang with Daddy.

Crawling on the table was fun too.

Did you know they give you a magical paper kid's menu FOR FREE? It is SO MUCH fun!!!!!



mmm yummy pickle.

The boy went solo

Last night the boy went largely unsupervised while I prepared my oral presentation for school today. We had to present a journal article about our assigned topic within anatomy and physiology. I had selected an article awhile back, but Tuesday my teacher turned me on to a much more interesting one. So while I did read the article I had clearly done NO work on it yet. Luckily he was relatively cooperative once evening came (afternoon not so much). I did jump up to see what was going on when I heard the horn of his ride on toy. He was diligently playing without attempting any dangerous acrobatics. I did hear him opening and closing the door that is supposed to keep him away from the electronics for a good long time. I checked it out when I heard a thump only to find that he had grabbed my candle and I guess was banging it on the track of the tv stand door. It has some nice little digs in it now. grrr! He seemed to spend a significant amount of time playing with the phone. He kept hitting the talk button and the next thing I knew it was making that "eh eh eh eh" sound telling you to hang up. At any rate he entertained himself quite sufficiently while I worked out my project. Once he went to bed I worked some more of course. Finally went to bed about 1:30am----I know you're thinking that's our normal time, BUT while Kyle has been working 4pm-4am I have actually gone to sleep BEFORE midnight every night. I even went to bed at 10:30 one night. Reese has been waking up erratically. Tuesday night he got up 4 times---unacceptable!! Last night I guess he was pooped because he went to bed about 11pm and got up at 8:30 am!!!! Of course I woke up at 5:30 thinking he must be dead in his crib, but he wasn't. Hooray! I slept rather lightly the next 3 hours which is not ideal for sure, but so much more restful than the last week or so.
New tricks: He just LOVES pulling himself up to stand and then hanging out for a super long time. He is really excited by the phone and remote control and magazines. He's also discovered how fun it is to pull the mouse cord from under my desk top so it goes flying off my keyboard rest. ha ha very amusing!

Anya's Shower

I snatched this photo from my friend Anya's blog.I think my friend, Amy, who always not only remembers her camera but actually takes photos with it , provided this photo. All the way to the right is Anya. On her lap is 1 1/2 year old Masi. To her left is her mom's cousin, then Anya's grandma and Anya's mom....4 Generations of girls in Anya's family! Anya and her husband just adopted 3 children from out of our foster system. They had been home a whole week when we held a shower for them. The two big kids and Anya's 2 biological kids all stayed home with Dad, but we got to meet sweet Masi. We all had a great time, some yummy food and family stories from Anya. There was a huge turn out to celebrate the new additions to Anya's family. Luckily or unfortunately, depends on how you look at it, even though they've adopted a 10 year old and 7 year old, Anya says there are a surprising number of "firsts" she'll still get to share with her children. It's quite heartbreaking all the little things we take for granted from our own childhood and with our own babies that tons of kids are missing out on because they don't have a loving family of their own. Luckily these 3 are now part of Anya's family.

I think my husband has been body snatched

At Costco Kyle chose these himself while I ran down a frozen aisle to find chicken bakes. Not only are they veggie burgers but they are vegan! And we ate them tonight and he loved it! I was fairly shocked if I must say so myself. Reese is very happy we got rid of the coffee table and got the ottomans instead. Daddy's ottoman is for his feet because he has been roughing it for 2 years now unable to put his feet up...as he takes up the whole couch. Mommy's ottoman is flipped to the tray side to hold some of the stuff that would normally be on the coffee table. It is the perfect height for Reese to pull himself up and get stuff. He is particularly happy with the rubbery top of the tylenol bottle.

comment response

I don't know how to respond to comments if I don't have your email address. I must talk with some friends in the technological know. In the meantime my response is here:
Oh Dorothy during the February sick out we became most egregiously remiss in our spectacle wearing. Now he just rips them instantly from his face and stuffs them in his mouth. When we (and I use the term we very loosely because I can not recollect a single occasion when Daddy has put the boy's glasses on) try to return them to their rightful perch he screams a ferocious "I will not tolerate this!" sort of shriek. So, no, actually he really doesn't wear them enough to qualify as wearing them. We go to the eye doctor on the 17th so we'll see what he has to say about it.

And as an aside, Mommy, the evil beast accidentally stepped on the beloved bell in the ball toy and it CRUSHED under her enormous elephant-like weight.

New Toy and Yardwork

I do not know what the issue is with Reese's eyes...maybe the lashes fluttered but I got a slew of blurry photos. This is the least crappy of the crappy pictures of Reese with his new favorite toy. He has quickly realized that his personal toys that are all his-no need to share with anyone-are not nearly as fun to play with as everything else. He enjoys electrical cords and anything that arrived in the mail, the pinecones in the basket behind him, the stack of recordable cds and the high pressure air blower on the lower shelf of the computer desk....but his MOST favorite thing that is not his own is this snazzy cat ball with the bell inside. It is super fun to chase and bat around as well as the mighty fine taste. The cats clearly exhibit some uptight anxiety-riddled behavior while this toy is in use, but so far they haven't reclaimed it. This is the view from my kitchen window...bark dust and rocks for our landscaping! I'm sure the neighbors are super happy with the big trucks in the alley blocking passage.

This is the view from the front window...we're getting a snazzy row of evergreen spurts. Eventually they'll grow together and taller to create a sound and visual barrier between us and the road....but we'll have to wait because big fat ones cost a lot more than these smaller ones.

We're getting our flower beds prepped and ready (no flowers though--we'll do that ourselves at some point), the grass is getting thatched and reseeded and some driveway gravel out back for people to park on. They also built me a raised vegetable garden bed. It's gigantic, but not easily photographed from inside the house. I'll take a picture once the guys leave. Hopefully I'll have a ton of our produce come canning time. We're growing tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, carrots, bell peppers...i think that may be it. I may be able to stop buying cases of diced tomatoes from costco!! We shall see the how the growing goes. Candy Gram ordered a banana tree/bush/plant for us so maybe we'll have bananas too.

Carnivorous Boy

You have to watch beyond the initial whine. He really goes to town on this beef jerky.

We had a guest lecturer come to my school to discuss nutrition. We really eat too much crap and you literally are what you eat. So we began our good eating today: steel cut oatmeal and fresh blueberries for breakfast, stir fry cooked with expeller pressed safflower oil (since olive oil is ruined when heated above medium-low) and brown rice. Then Kyle went to work...I think he took the homemade 15 bean soup. I ate about 7 girl scout cookies....hooray for healthy eating!! I have started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma about food and eating habits as well as a whole foods cookbook.
Anyway, this video is after a significant amount of inconsolable whining and crying and generally icky, noisy behavior from the boy. Then we gave him a few inches of spicy beef jerky (made from 100% beef, no chemical preservatives)...I believe the boy is going to be a carnivore!