Milestones

In the last couple of months, we've reached a few milestones with our kids. The first being that Kayla turned 5 in August.  I can't believe it! We had a party at the Scera pool in Orem. It was a lot of fun, and it looked like everyone had a good time. Kayla wanted a heart shaped cake with strawberries, so that's what she got.  It turned out pretty good I thought!

Soon after her birthday bash, she started Kindergarten. Here's the first day of school:

It was a rough first week.  It's something new, and sometimes she has a hard time adjusting. But I think once she gets used to it, she'll learn to love it. And then there were a couple days that I wasn't at the school right when she got out (I was late maybe a minute), and she was crying when I got there.  I understand it's a little frightening not seeing mommy, and for some reason she feels like I'm abandoning her if I'm not there.  I talked with her about it and reassured her that even if I wasn't right there when she got out, that I WOULD BE THERE. She felt a little better and promised to try and wait a minute before starting to freak out. Such a brave girl!

Since Grayson is about 17 months now, I decided to make a list of all the things he can do now. First, the words he can say relatively well (some better than others):

• Bubble
• Uh-oh
• Dada
• Bye-bye (also the same word for night-night)
• Hi
• Bock-bock

I'm really sad that despite all the time I spend with him, and the work I put into raising him, he still has yet to call me Mama or any other variation of that word.  I think he thinks that to get my attention, all he has to do is scream at an eardrum throbbing volume.  Unfortunately, his method works.  But I'm still working on that.  I keep hearing from everyone that he will grow out of it.

Now for the list of all the funny things he does at this age.  I feel like I need to make this list so I'm reminded that he can be very very cute when he's not being a tiny monster (tiny as in his actual size, not the ability of this guy to make a disaster happen in a short span of time, hence, MONSTER is the perfect word to describe him). So at 17 months Grayson likes:

• Putting on shoes
• Climbing
• Playing in water
• Light switches
• Making car sounds with his toy cars
• Pushing chairs/strollers
• Mimicking Kayla
• Pointing at things for us to say the word for them (especially a wall art piece that Grandma gave us from Hawaii)
• Shoving his whole hand into daddy's stomach through his mouth (only a slight exaggeration) 
• Helping mommy cook (or just take the spoon to try and stir the pot of food himself)
• Cuddling stuffed animals, pillows, and blankets (especially the fuzzy kind)
• Hugging babies and small animals
• Jumping and running
• Being outside
• Making the biggest mess he can with his food

 

 

In other news, Brandon is almost done filming his web series, Unsung Heroes. Yay! We're expecting to have his first episode out on Oct 10. So be on the lookout for these two goofballs. It's been really fun watching them put it all together.

Prego Moment

I know I've been lapse on updating events since November, but I'm working on it.  I just had to write down my silly experience I had the other day.

I don't feel like I really have a lot of prego moments. Brandon may disagree.  His memories of my previous pregnancy and mine seem to vary, but I feel like my functionality and capabilities, although limited due to my growing belly size, aren't completely gone. I still go into work and can do my job.  I cook and clean the house when I can. And though I don't have the energy my daughter wants me to have, I still get down on the floor and play with her. Yesterday tested my belief in my cognitive reasoning. (And now I'm compensating by using a lot of big words in this blog.)

We had some ripe bananas that I wanted to make into banana bread.  I found a good, simple recipe and decided to make it before picking up Brandon up from work.  It called for 1/2 cup of butter.  Now I know that one stick of butter is 1/2 cup.  I've been cooking a long time and I love to bake.  I use butter a lot.  Butter is a staple in the baking world, so I know nothing has changed when I see a stick of butter, it will always be 1/2 cup.  Well I looked at that stick, just to make sure my knowledge was correct, and saw 1/4 cup on the wrapping.  My mind instantly did the calculations.  I quickly came to the conclusion that to get my 1/2 cup of needed butter, I'll have to grab another stick to cream with my sugar. So that's what I did. 

I put the two sticks of butter on the counter to soften them.  I pulled out a bowl and put all the dry ingredients in.  In a small bowl, I mashed the bananas into a baby-food like consistency. The butter wasn't completely soft yet, but I have a Kitchenaid now; it can cream that butter nice and easy.  I put the butter and sugar in the bowl and creamed it up.  I put the requisite number of eggs in and watched it all blend together.  As I was about to put in the 1 cup mashed bananas, I was looking at the consistency and my baker's subconscious finally worked it's way to my active brain. That's when I FINALLY realized that I had put in too much butter.  I remembered the long-standing unit of measurement: 1 stick was 1/2 cup butter.  I had just doubled the butter without doubling anything else.  

I had no more bananas to mash to make another cup.  Doubling everything else wouldn't be a problem, but I needed the bananas.  I called a friend to see if she had any.  No answer.  I quickly did a search to find mashed banana substitutes. I read that applesauce was a good substitute, but it's sweeter than banana puree so add less sugar.  Great.  But I didn't have a cup of applesauce. I had one of those single serve cups I give to Kayla for a snack. There's 1/2 cup in there, maybe. More searching.  Another site says that Greek yogurt was another good substitute, but it's not as sweet as bananas so I'd have to add some sugar. Serendipity! Brandon went grocery shopping and got Greek yogurt. Had I gone to the store I wouldn't have touched the stuff.  Problem: I only had flavored yogurt and in the single serving sizes.  Kayla had half eaten a cherry flavored one. Cherry is a mild enough flavor. I measured what was left and there was about 1/2 cup.  Great! I'll just use 1/2 cup applesauce and 1/2 cup Greek yogurt and they balance the sweetness out so I won't add or subtract any sugar which is good because I already added all the sugar I needed.  So in went the yogurt, applesauce and more eggs.  Consistency looked normal-ish. Added the extra dry ingredients to the bowl I had set aside earlier.  Mixed and added to the banana (mostly) mixture.  It looked like banana bread dough! Crisis averted. Hallelujah! I added some chocolate chips just in case because who doesn't love chocolate in banana bread?

At this point, I should have been done with the whole process and picking up Brandon.  It still needed to bake for 50 minutes.  So I saran wrapped the bowl and stuck it in the fridge, got Kayla in the car, and went to pick up Brandon from work.  The bread could wait until I got back.  With the way my luck was going, if I had put the bread in the oven while I left, we'd have nothing but a pile of ashes to come home to.

Now I had twice as much banana bread dough than I was planning on making.  The good thing about making more than necessary for your family is that you can share it with others...assuming it still tastes good. I ended up making 2 loaves and 12 muffins.  I couldn't taste the cherry yogurt or the applesauce.  The banana taste was a little more subtle than in normal banana bread but it didn't taste awful like I feared.  The muffins were gone by the next day. Brandon and Kayla loved them! And we dropped off the extra loaf at a friend's house. 

So everything turned out alright, but really, the crisis could have been avoided if my prego brain would stop making the rest of my brain so muddled.