Little Mouse's First Birthday!

Also, while Mom, Dad, & Grandma were here; Little Mouse and I had our birthdays!  Mine's not a big deal, but Little Mouse's first birthday is!  

 We all enjoyed some yummy frostingless cake and sang to the birthday girl.

 I didn't have any normal candles, just a "7". So I just broke the top off to make a "1".

 Four Generations in this photo!  Gotta love it.

Cameraman and his little 1 year old. 

The first year baby cake isn't nearly so messy when there's no icing.  Bummer!

Like I did for the other girls, I'd like to take a moment to record some observations on Little Mouse on this, her 1st birthday.  At this point in her life, these are her favorites:

Favorite Color: Whatever crayon is in her hand (and thus in her mouth) at the time.

Favorite Toy: Whatever toy Banana Girl is currently playing with; or whatever electric device that Mommy or Daddy have forgotten and left within her reach.

Favorite Foods: Ice cream, chocolate, cream of wheat with blueberries, Doritos, & Momma's milk.

Favorite Movies: She really likes watching the slideshow of pictures of herself and her sisters.

Favorite Music: Momma's lullabies.

Favorite TV show: none

Favorite Activities: getting into the cupboards and drawers and pulling everything out; pulling all the movie boxes off of the shelf; playing with her sisters; getting thrown in the air by Daddy; getting tickled by Mommy;   Being held by anyone; taking a bath; and climbing, climbing, climbing (esp on the dishwasher door and the computer table.)

Favorite Clothes: her birthday suit.
What I Want to Be When I Grow Up: Bigger.

Little Mouse is a big people person.  She is happiest in life when being held; most preferably with Mom, otherwise Dad is great, and if neither of us are available then by anyone else who will pick her up.  She also loves to be anywhere her sisters are; especially if they will pay attention to her and try to make her laugh.  Outside the family though, she may take a little warming up, as she's a little shy around strangers.

She's also got a very healthy appetite.  Ever since she discovered that there was more than just milk in the world, she's been wanting to try anything she can get her hands on.  (That includes crayons, marker tips, and erasers.)  And she likes most everything.  I just caught her in the fridge, gnawing on a piece of kale.  If you want to break the ice and get in her good graces, just feed her something.  

Being a third child though, I'm afraid that too often she doesn't get responded to as soon as she would like, and as a result has developed quite the harpy screech that she uses whenever she's not getting enough attention.  We've been trying to train her out of it; and it's not as much as it used to be; but I'll sure be glad when that phase is over! 

She's learned how to really cover some ground when crawling, and at the time of her birthday she is experimenting a little with walking.  I should say, she can do it just fine, but she won't; not without something to hold on to.  She's just being super careful, and doesn't want to fall.  But you could tell that the balance and ability to do it were there all the same.  I wonder if that carefulness is going to carry over into other aspects of her life as well.  She just doesn't seem to be as adventurous as I remember her older sisters being.  

Overall, Little mouse is a pure joy to have in our family.  We all just adore her, and you can tell that she loves us all right back.  It's so fun watching her grow and learn and discover this new world around her.  

Happy Birthday Little Mouse!!! I love you very very much!!!

Dancing Princesses

So I've gotten really far behind and have been too overwhelmed to catch up on everything until now.  I'm determined to record everything before the end of the day.  I'll break it up over a couple posts so that it's easier to read though.

First off, about 3 weeks ago, my Mom, Dad, and Grandma came to visit us for just a couple days.  School was on spring break, so the girls were able to have their grandparents attention all day long every day.  They were usually found dressed up as princesses, like this:

Or as ballerinas, like this.  This one time was while Alex and I were out on a date, and apparently, Mom, Dad, & Grandma were treated to a ballet show from the girls the ENTIRE time we were gone.  They went through an entire CD of Christmas music as accompaniment to their impromptu ballet show.  

All I can say is that Grandparents must be very patient angels!

If at first you don't succeed...

sometimes it's better to quit the first time.

3 batches (large batches) of dough, all ruined.  That's 6 potential loafs of french bread, 3 potential pizza sized rosemary flat breads, and 8 potential dinner buns for shredded beef sandwiches.  All ruined!  Here's two of the batches of dough in my trash can.  

It breaks my heart to throw it all away, but they just wouldn't rise.  And who wants to eat a brick?  Each batch was prepared a little differently to try to overcome the problem.  Maybe I over kneaded the dough in the mixer and the gluten broke down.  Maybe it's because I was kneading the dough on too high a speed in the mixer.  Maybe the water I was using was just too hot, and killed the yeast (no matter what Chef Brad says about adding the yeast last to be safe.)

Or maybe I should have paid attention to the bottle of yeast:

I guess 3 years after its expiration date, yeast just stops working.  Go figure!  I was doomed from the start.  

Well, I'm certainly rotating some food storage today.  Although I think it's preferable to EAT the food you're rotating.  

I'll try again tomorrow... after I buy some new yeast.

On the bright side, I was successful at making some colorful rice for the kids to play in (sandbox style.)  Thank you pin interest for the idea.  I found some sand toys and carrot shaped plastic Easter eggs to throw in there and the kids have loved it.

Pretty isn't it?

And I managed to figure out how to make home-made cream of wheat.  At first I thought, "How hard can it be?" But my first attempt turned out to be a nasty texture of pasty flour.  

After a little research on the internet, it turns out to be a common problem to make cream of wheat from your own wheat.  Turns out it has to be ground from Hard Red Wheat (my first problem) and it has to be ground on the largest grind that your grinder can go.  That was my second problem.  My grinder just doesn't have a large enough grind for cream of wheat.  It still ended up too fine and not enough grit.  

So I was sitting there with a pot of cream of wheat ready on the stove for breakfast and after trying it, knowing that no one would eat it, because of the texture.  So in desperation I pulled a quick one on my family.  I added corn meal to the pot.  And voila, cream of wheat!  And they all ate it, and liked it! 

So after several minor adjustments to the recipe to create a truly easy, just add water mix; here is my recipe for cream of wheat mix:

3 cups ground wheat (Hard red, on the coarsest setting)

3 cups corn meal

1 Tbsp salt

3 Tbsp butter powder (opt.)

Mix them all together and store in an airtight container.  Cook in a 1:4 ratio (mix:water) on the stove top until thickened.  (you can cook it in the microwave, but it softens the cornmeal more, so you lose some of the grittiness.)  If you don't add butter powder to the mix, you must add butter to the cooked mixture, or it just won't taste right.  

So I guess I did something right, in the end.

I'll try the bread again tomorrow.

Feb 2012 Events

I can't believe Little Mouse is already 11 months old!!

She is an absolute joy to have around (although I could do without the high pitched, ear splitting screach.)

She got her first goose egg this month.  It was very, very sad.

She also had her very first hair do.  There was just enough hair to gather into a tiny pony on top of her head (kind of like a top knot.)  Then we clipped a butterfly onto that.  It was super cute! 

Banana Girl in her hairdo for church.

On our way home from Pheonix, both girls slept most of the way home.  Made for a quiet ride.

Banana Girl had her second dentist appointment.  She loved the sun glasses and she had no cavities.  Yea!

Princess M had a blast performing with her Kindergarten class in their choir concert last Friday.  Whenever, I thought I had a good shot of her, and would push the button, they would turn, or someone would get in the way by the time the flash finally clicked.  This was the best shot I could get of her in concert.  It was, however, a really good shot of her cute hair do.

The concert was focused on being healthy.  Some really cute songs by all grades.  Princess M's class sang the Body Boogie.  It was great!  Here's her after the show with Banana Girl.

Yep, it's real!

Here's a snip from the AZ Daily Sun website:

That's right, folks.  Uncle Wayne is on the Republican Ballot for US President here in Arizona.  Don't you all wish you were registered here so you could vote for him?  

We were in the Pheonix area this past weekend to spend some time with them, and visit the Mesa Temple.  We had a fabulous time!  And while there Uncle Wayne released his official campaign poster:

He says you may interpret that any way you like.

Just a little update

Here's a few things that have happened in February (so far.)

Didn't do much for Groundhog day; but we did make fun treats for dessert.

Little Mouse is a whopping 11 months old!! And is so close to walking on her own.

And I found this at a thrift store.  

I've wanted a piano forever, but there has always been a reason not to get one yet.  Well Princess M is now 6 years old and the perfect age to start lessons, so I've been on the lookout for something cheap.  I finally walked into the Re Store and saw this sitting there with 2 signs on it "$400" and "1/2 off".  So I asked if half off meant it was originally selling for $800 or if it meant they were selling it for $200.  She said it meant it was on sale for $200, and then the lady behind the counter said she'd sell it to me for $150.  That was about as cheap as I expected to find anywhere.  And on top of that, they were going to deliver it to my home.  So it was all moved in before Alex even got home from work and could talk me out of it.

We brought the piano tuner in and after tuning it and fixing all the sticky keys, he informed us that we really lucked out; because most pianos this old are not worth buying at all.  However this one has had all the keys refurbished as well as several other refurbishments inside that left this thing in fairly good condition.  Hooray!

And then when I was sitting down for the first time and playing a little tune, Princess M came and sat by me and asked if I could teach her how to play.  And I thought, "why not?"  I had never even considered teaching her myself, but to save around $60/month, it was worth looking into.  So I contacted my best friend, "Google", and found all kinds of free information on how to teach your kid to play the piano, which the best lesson books were, and some good sales on books at Amazon.  So I dropped over a hundred on books and am now teaching my daughter to play.  She's taking to it very well.

To make things even better, Alex expressed an interest in learning to play as well; and we stumbled upon a fantastic plan.  I give Princess M a lesson, and then when we're done, she turns around and teaches her daddy what she just learned.  Alex isn't progressing as fast as he could on his own, but what a wonderful gift he is giving to our daughter, by solidifying her lessons as she is teaching him.  And boy, does she LOVE being the expert, being in charge, and correcting his mistakes!  It's working out great so far!

A Dedication

This is just a really cool video a friend of mine posted this week.  It reminded me of you, Don.  Good luck on your audition!

(Be sure to scroll to the bottom of my blog and pause the site music before playing this.)

P.S. I keep watching this video over and over.  I love the music and there are so many fun little nuances that I didn't catch the first time.  What a treat!