The Little Things

I like to cook. I think I always have, though I don't really remember far enough back to be sure. I know in junior high a friend of mine was at my house and we wanted to bake a cake. The ingredients called for 3 3/4 c flour, then the first instruction was to grease and flour the pan so we tried using the entire 3 3/4 c! We had to call my friend MissJan - my answer to all cooking related problems - to ask her how on earth we make all of the flour seep into the crisco. She told us to dump it out, rinse the pan, and start over...which was probably by far the best solution. MissJan has offered me many lessons since then, and I think I'm a pretty decent cook.

In college I developed more of a love for cooking. I didn't have much money, so it was pretty rare that I could cook that extravagant of meals, but I enjoyed cooking when I could and I loved learning all sorts of new recipes, cooking techniques, lessons, etc. I won't say I was the best cook, but I enjoyed it!




I am a Type A cook though. I can't cook macaroni and cheese without measuring spoons, so if I ask you how to make something I'm REALLY looking for a specific, written-out, measured-out recipe. I've done better over the last couple years with trying to just "add a hint of this" and "throw in a pinch of that" but for the most part, I'd really like a detailed guideline. Austin is a great cook, but I would be surprised if he even knows where our measuring spoons/cups are...so in the kitchen, we take the opposite approach. Hmm, I'm pausing here noticing that in most areas of life we take the opposite approach. In the end though, both of our macaroni and cheese delights (we're talking Kraft here) taste equally delicious.


However, I've struggled since William was born with balancing my desire to be physically fit, my work schedule, his daily routine, and my want for cooking. Cooking took the backseat a lot of times as we'd do something fast or simple. Nothing wrong with tostada night or frozen pizza night, but I did grow to miss my full meals.


Enter my birthday present from my mom.

I LOVE it. Love. I don't think I've ever loved a cookbook, and usually I don't do very well with them anyway because there's a lot of sifting through to find a recipe that MAYBE you will like, and I end up with 20 cookbooks while only having tried 3 or 4 recipes from each. When I do get around to cooking I usually go to my own recipe book with a compilation of recipes from family/friends that I know we like. This book, however, rocks. I think we've already tried 8 recipes, and I think we've liked each one. The slow cooker chicken tortilla soup wasn't nearly as good as my homemade chicken tortilla soup...but given the fact that my homemade soup takes over an hour, I'll take the slow cooker recipe and maybe just modify it a bit to add some flavor. (look at ME cooking outside the box!)

The book was written for me, I think. It was written for someone who wants more than just a bowl of cereal, but doesn't have time for an hour of cooking. Most of the ingredients are pre-packaged things like canned beans, frozen broccoli, etc and most recipes don't have more than 10 ingredients. There are also tips for making it quicker. Nothing takes more than 15 minutes of prep time which is perfect, because William happily entertains himself on the floor these days for about 20 minutes before he gets mad that I'm not watching him.

So if you're like me and miss the days of having time to cook delicious meals like chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and fresh green beans, then maybe this book will be a nice fall back. Next weekend maybe I'll go back to the good ol' fried steak meal - its always a crowd pleaser - but tonight, count me in for bacon wrapped pork tenderloin over buttered grits. Yum!

**I forgot to point out the disclaimer: this book is made by southern living. southern cooking is not healthy. so go enjoy some buttered grits, some french toasts roll ups (which are heavenly) and then hit the gym on your lunch break at work. its soooooo worth it.

William Wednesday Tminus1

I've been sitting here thinking of what else to write about today besides William because it isn' t Wednesday. Then I realized how pathetic it is that even when I'M THE ONE IN CHARGE of this thing I still feel like I can't break the rules. I write William Wednesdays. It isn't Wednesday. Can't write today. What kind of lame rule is that? So I'm breaking it.

Only because William turned 6 months old yesterday. YIPPEE happy 1/2 birthday to our baby! We hadn't had a birthday party for him since his 1 week birthday, but we couldn't pass up on 6 months. :) Sunday night I made a spice cake and topped it with 6 candles and some sweet potatoes. Don't worry, the sweet potatoes were in his baby jar so they didn't contaminate the cake for me and Austin! I wanted to get a picture with William and his cake, so I inched it dangerously close to him - and he did what you'd expect, he reached for it. So the first picture Austin got was William grabbing onto the sweet potatoes as I pushed the plate away :) A little distance helped though.

William was MESMERIZED when we lit the candles. It took Austin jumping up and down and waving toys in the air to get him to look up for the camera. Good thing we had already moved the cake away because I'm pretty sure he would have grabbed the flame in half a second. Little did we know, Austin didn't need to jump up and down - we just needed to start singing happy birthday. We sing to him every night, whatever random songs we can think of, but we don't sing much during the day. I'm thinking maybe we should! He thought it was the funniest thing. After we sang to him we gave him his birthday presents. I'll admit, he did get boring things like diapers and wipes but he also got a new outfit and a bath toy. On my birthday he loved playing with the tissue and the bags, so I figured he'd just like to open presents. Austin is more protective with the tissue paper than I am - I guess he's worried that he'll choke himself or something. I just think he's cute when he's stuffing the paper in his face...oops. So, Austin interfered at times while I just looked on and smiled. Then, once the presents were opened, candles blown out (I'd like you to think he blew them out himself because he's a genius), and he powered through his sweet potatoes it was bath time...where he got to play with his new toy!



Other than his 6 month birthday, William had another great week. I have a digital picture frame on my desk and a picture of him when he was a few days old just popped up. He was swaddled in his blanket from Miss Beth with a pacifier in his mouth - the thing was as big as his face! It is so incredible how tiny and helpless he was and a quick 6 months later I have to fight him off of a cake!

He never was one for the pacifier, speaking of - we tried it for the first few days, then grandparents (especially Yaya and Pop) gave it a try periodically to see if it would help but he was never enthralled. The way I see it - that's one less thing to have to worry about later. If it had served its purpose and pacified him, I wouldn't have denied him the comfort - but he'd much rather have a blanket in his fists to stuff in his mouth than a paci, so that's fine by me.

In an effort to make William's diet healthier, make the food taste more appealing, and be a little cost conscious we have decided to make William's baby food. It's actually lots of fun! So far we've made him sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, and butternut squash - but he hasn't tasted the squash yet. That comes tonight! He didn't love the apples at first taste, but now he's a pretty big fan. We bought a cute little baby food maker that steams and then purees the food, so I'm not sure we're actually saving any money all together...but it's still worth it for the other reasons. Have you ever tasted jarred baby food? I used to eat it when I babysat and it all tasted like the same bland cardboard. This homemade stuff rocks - tastes, well, like sweet potatoes! And bananas! And applesauce! Who'da thought? We have some trays of little jars that we use to freeze the food in serving sizes, then just pull a few out and let them sit in the fridge to thaw out...good to go! I'm a pretty big advocate :)

Friday night Kaila and I went to a place called Canvas and Cocktails while Austin got some daddy-baby time with William. He said they had a blast. He picked him up from Goddard which is rare, so I think it was equally special for both of them. Then they went home, played with Layla (who William is growing more and more fond of), played with his favorite balls, jumped in his jumparoo, took a bath, and then daddy got to play some video games. He says his time with William was the best part of the night, but I know he was thrilled to play video games too. He does that about as often as I scrapbook these days, so I'm sure he enjoyed his time.

And one more example of how time flies: when we first took William to Goddard he was one week older than the youngest baby in his class. So basically he and Ethan were the babies. Well, now there are only 3 babies older than him and one of them is out for a few weeks. So he's one of the big dogs! There are 3 new baby girls in the room, so Ethan, William and Diego are now outnumbered 5 to 3. Poor guys :) Miss Kim told me that Helen, Diego and William are all scooting and turning around on the ground - all eager to finally figure out how to move forward but none are there yet. Helen is 9 months and Diego is 8 so I'm guessing one of them will figure it out first, but the way Miss Kim said it generally works when there's a group of them working on the same milestone is that one of them finally gets it and the next day they've all got it. Nothin' like a little competition to spur growth :) It's fun to watch them all trying SO hard to move - I can't wait until the day that I walk in at 5:00 and see them all chasing each other on all 4's :) Little friends are so fun!

Soapbox

Ok. I have a few things that just really have been irking me lately, then my mom mentioned something she heard on the radio this morning that sent me over the edge. So I'm going to throw all of these annoyances in your face today, because you really care to hear it.

First of all, and I'll keep this one short, why is my generation so lazy and demanding? I'm embarrassed to claim it as "mine" sometimes! Why do we think that our parents owe us anything? Or our teachers? Or politicians? What happened to getting what you earned? Or hard work? If parents can afford to send their children to college that is wonderful. It is a valuable investment and one that will spur their kids' futures like nothing else can. But where did the idea come from that the parents OWE it to their kids? It is, after all, the child's future. It will be THEIR degree, THEIR career, and THEIR life. So why can't they step up and take responsibility of it? Same can be said for our teachers, our government, our employers, etc. Get off your butts and work for what you want. You'll probably appreciate it more anyway.

Second of all, people who constantly talk about how ridiculous it is that our country cares so much about meaningless things yet they perpetuate it themselves. Case in point: my morning radio show DJ's with Lindsey Lohan. First, I'd like to point out that I do not like the morning radio show that I listen to, but I don't like any of them in Denver so I'm stuck. I used to have a morning show that I LOVED. Then the 2 DJ's got fired out of nowhere because the station had the opportunity to have a "really good" DJ from their sister station come manage the entire station. His only condition was that he be on the morning show. So - enter Jonathan Wilde mornings. After a month or so I think they realized he needed a counterpart, so bring on Mudflap. Mudflap is a professional comedian, and the only hope for entertainment on the show...but even he is lacking most mornings. Cheese, cheese, cheese. But - that's not my point here. So they have a girl on the show with them who does the blogging, facebooking, tweeting, and does "brooke's buzz" with all of the hollywood gossip. So, one of the hottest topics lately has been Lindsey Lohan. Two days ago Brooke was talking about how Lindsay has hair stylists and make up artists scheduled to come get her primped before she exits the building when she gets released from jail. Mudflap commented, "How does she even have any money to pay them?" Brooke said, "I KNOW! She hasn't done anything in YEARS! but she has sold her first post-jail interview for $1million already" Then mudflap went on "WHAT? a million dollars? what is this country coming to that we care so much about her jail experience that it is worth $1million?" I DON'T KNOW MUDFLAP, TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR RADIO SHOW. Brooke goes on and on every morning about (in my opinion) useless hollywood gossip. Mudflap is always intrigued, and so are most listeners. If you think its ridiculous that things like that elicit paychecks like that, then do your part in the entertainment industry and don't highlight it. Don't talk about Lindsey Lohan. Don't mention her name. Don't buy the magazine. Don't post her picture on your site. Encourage other entertainment industry employees to do the same and squash the bad side of Hollywood - then maybe she wouldn't be making a killing for breaking her probation.

And while we're on the topic of radio DJ's, this is what my mom's radio station discussed this morning: the cult of apple users. Really? Ok, I will be the first to say that I am obsessed with apple products. I love them. I think they're cool. I think you know this already. However, I also love purses. And shoes. And scrapbooking. And baking cookies (like the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies I baked last night) I don't know that I love any one of these things more than the other - and I am not a member of a cult for any of them! For some reason people love to hate Apple like people love to hate the Dallas Cowboys. Why?

So Steve Jobs is a genius. So he makes products that appeal to consumers so much that they are willing to pay twice as much as they pay for microsoft products. Does that make him the next David Koresh? I don't think so. No more than my mom's radio DJ's are themselves. People are addicted to their morning shows like they're addicted to their morning coffee. Look at me, I listen to the same show every day and I don't even LIKE them. Why are iPhone users so obsessed with their phones? Same reason Droid users are obsessed with theirs. They ROCK. Why aren't other phone users as obsessed and dependent? Because their phones just aren't as all encompassing.

Before I had my iPhone I had a smart phone that microsoft had designed to try and compete with the blackberry. And let me tell you - it was awful. It was supposed to have 3G internet, yet I couldn't ever be on the internet longer than a couple minutes before it froze. Texting was awful, reception was awful, customization was minimal - the phone was a dud. Before that I had a "normal" phone...the kind that just made phone calls you know? Remember those? And it served its purpose wonderfully. But when your phone is designed to be your grocery list, calculator, weight tracker, weather alert system, scrabble board, email portal, among many, many other things - and it does so beautifully - its hard NOT to become dependent.

So maybe it isn't an apple cult that I am supposedly a member of so much as it is a cell phone cult. Nothing good comes without a price, and the revolution of cell phones in our nation has made us dependent on technology, expected to be available 24/7, and disconnected from face-to-face relationships. That's the price we are paying for the coolness. Maybe my mom's radio station should focus on THAT cult instead? But they won't. Why? because as much as people love to hate apple, they also love to TALK about apple. As Jerry Jones (the owner of the Dallas Cowboys) says, no publicity is bad publicity. So all you Steve Jobs haters out there: your despise for him and his rule over the entire universe is only furthering his control. Job Well Done.

I think that fulfills my ranting for the day. And I feel much better, thank you. Hope you have a fantastic weekend and don't hate me too much for my opinions :)

A Year Later

Last year I told you about my plans to participate in Denver's Light the Night walk. I'll keep this brief as I have already posted today and I REALLY need to get to work.

If you've read my post from last year you know all about the walk and its cause. My company sponsored a team last year, and when I inquired if they would be sponsoring a team this year I was told they didn't have a team captain. Well, I didn't want that to be the only reason the company didn't have one! So, I have volunteered to be the team captain for Western Union this year. Our team name is WU Wired for Fun, which is the organization here that puts on most of our events and social activities.

As I did last year, I will be walking in memory of my dad. Weather and army permitting (and William's temperament of course) Layla, Austin and William will all join me this year. It is really a fun time, and makes me feel like I can do something to possibly help alleviate someone else going through what my family did. Because I received an overwhelming amount of support last year, I have set my goal this year at $500. Last year I started with $300, increased it to $400, and received over $600! I was taken aback and extremely touched.

If you are interested, my personal webpage for the walk is here. Check it out if you want - or you may have already received an email (in every email inbox you have) hitting you up for support. Your support, whether it is financial or personal, means the world to me and I am so grateful. Maybe I'll try to post updates to my personal page this year - I didn't realize it works like a blog and you can keep posting. And as always, I'll be sure to keep you posted on here after Sept 30!

iNeed

Two months shy of two years ago I was out to lunch for work and I mistakenly left my cell phone on the table of chili's. I always had my phone out no matter where I was because I wanted to be able to see if Austin got online. I know that it was absolutely a mistake because I relied on that phone as my only way to communicate with him while he was in Iraq. I went back in Chili's about 2 minutes after we walked out of the door to see if they had found it, but the table had already been cleared and the busboy "never saw it". I find that very hard to believe because it was sitting right next to the ketchup bottle, which had been moved, and it was a sizable phone. I had been at lunch with coworkers so it took every ounce of energy I had to pretend I wasn't 2 seconds from falling apart as we went back to work and worked the rest of the afternoon. After work I stopped at the at&t store to get a new phone. I looked at all of the different smart phones and thought I'd give the iPhone a try. The newer model, the 3G, had just come out and was supposed to squash all of the complaints from the previous model - but I hadn't heard any reviews yet so I wasn't sure if it would be all that Apple cracked it up to be.

And it was. Phenomenal! I never knew I could feel that way about a PHONE. Or any piece of technology for that matter. It was cutting edge, it was fast, it was sleek - it was my new best friend.

Austin still jokes that I purposely forgot my Motorola "smart" (stupid) phone at Chili's because it sucked and I just wanted an excuse to get a new one. I promise that's not the case, but now I'm racking my brain for a way to turn my new fascination with the iPhone 4 into a need. I can't just leave my current phone on a table somewhere, that would be too obvious.

Last night we went to the apple store (as you learned last month, this is always a mistake) to see if they could help troubleshoot a problem Austin's phone was having. This time rather than 4 tables of iPads they had 2 of iPads and 2 of the new iPhone. I know that the new iPhone comes with its criticisms - well, really just one. The antenna apparently has an issue and can be blocked by your fingers if you hold it a certain way, which can then cause dropped calls. For now, the resolution is to put your phone in a case. Because I don't ever have my phone without a case it seems that the problem wouldn't be an issue for me, but its still hard to spend $200 on a product that you know has its shortcomings. Apple has set a date of September 30 when they will no longer offer free cases, so my hope is that they are working on resolving the problem in the actual product and just don't want to make this announcement because they don't want sales to slow down in anticipation of the fix. That issue ignored, I CAN NOT BELIEVE the incredible changes from 2 years ago to now! My phone seems like it could have come from the stone age compared to this one.

I don't know what the iPad can do that the new phone can't, other than it has a larger screen for viewing movies, playing games, reading books, etc. So maybe this negates my "need" for an iPad? Doubtful. But Maybe!

As I said with the iPad, I can't seem to justify a reason why I need either one. But if my phone were all of a sudden gone, I would wouldn't I? So now I just need to come up with a scheme to make that happen. Or just bat my eyelashes in Austin's directions a few times...

What Day is Today?

Did anyone else LOVE Full House 15 years ago? Who am I kidding, does anyone else love Full House now?!

There was an episode towards the end of the series when Uncle Jesse was trying to teach Nicki and Alex a song to sing to Aunt Becky for mother's day. The song went:
What day is today? Today is mother's day. What day is today? Today is mother's day.

I'm not sure what, if anything, that has to do with William, my blog, or anything for that matter. But anytime I think or hear the phrase "what day is today?" I instantly hear the little boys singing in my head. And at about 1:15 this afternoon I thought to myself, "What day is today?". After singing the jingle through twice, I realized it is Wednesday and I, therefore, can't skip out on blogging because Wednesday = William Wednesday = the most important blog posting of the week.

I won't start by telling you that William had a busy week. Or that William is getting so big. Or that I'm amazed by how smart he is. I won't tell you how incredible it is to watch a baby learn and grow. Or how I beam with pride just because he recognizes my face. I won't go into detail about any of that, because I'm sure you're sick of hearing it all. *Although I did still manage to sneak it in here now didn't I?* I'll just cut to the chase of our week. In an attempt to keep this short so I can get back to work, I'm going to use a bulleted format. Maybe that will force me to be less wordy, because Mrs. Hartman (Mrs Harshman) taught us in 11th grade that bulleted points are to be kept short and boring. (She didn't think anything was sweet.)

~at the landing on our staircase we have a mirror hanging on the wall. Since William was about 2 weeks old I've paused at this mirror before turning to finish going up/down the stairs. I smile really big and say "AHH! Is that my baby?!?! Is that my precious William?!?!" or some other exasperated phrase about how thrilled I am to see him. This past week he has started seeking out the mirror. Once we take the first step onto the staircase his eyes are glued to the mirror, waiting for us to pause and smile at each other. Austin does this too, so I think if anyone ever comes to our house we'll have to let them know they MUST do this or he may lunge towards the mirror himself.

~William LOVES his new found skill of sitting up that I told you about last week. He can turn his body around in circles, reach forward for toys and pull himself back up, and can lean on his arms instead of fall to the side (sometimes)

~He's been very good at scooting his body around, usually in a complete circle, for awhile but just yesterday he scooted his body backwards. frontwards must be coming soon!

~MissKim is back at school after being gone since June 25 due to knee surgery. William didn't seem to recognize her at first, but then when he heard her voice he got SO excited he was nearly jumping out of my arms.

~Speaking of jumping, we had to move his jumparoo up to the second notch so his feet hardly touch ground because he was getting SO active in that thing I was afraid he'd knock himself over. He absolutely loves it. He especially loves if we watch him and cheer him on, which is fine by me because he amazes me and I'm glued to him.

~His ribs are getting very ticklish. last night he was laying in his diaper and I was nibbling on his ribs - he could hardly breathe he was laughing so hard. I had to give him breaks to catch his breath!

~Miss Jennifer told me that William really started to roll around to get what he wants this week. They have a foam pit and he was playing in it for 30 minutes yesterday - rolling around and shoving toys all over the place. She said she went to change a diaper, then when she went back he had leaned his head on a pillow and was sacked out.

~With his new found ability to move, he is getting creative with how he arranges himself in his sleep. One morning he was flipped on his stomach, and his head was on the opposite end of the crib. Another morning he had scooted himself sideways and was all the way at the end of his crib. Today he had grabbed his aggie pillow that missjan and maize bought for him and had one arm wrapped around it!

I'm glad I opted to use the bulleted format for this because going into this post I really had no idea all of the little things that he'd done this week for the first time. And in all honesty, I thought it had been one of his less busy weeks. Funny how that works out huh? Guess even without major milestones he's still learning at light speed. Have I mentioned that its a blast?

Pray for your Husband Daily

When I first read the topic for week 3 of the marriage challenge, I thought to myself, "what kind of challenge is that? that's ridiculous,". Not because the concept of praying for your husband is ridiculous, but because I just assumed that it is something we all do automatically.

Until I realized that I don't.

Sure when he's sick I'll pray for him, or when he's having a really rough day, or if he has something major going on in his work life, family, or just in his brain. But do I remember daily to pray for him, for his well being, to be thankful to God for having him in my life? Every day? Sadly, I have to admit that I do not. There are occasions when the idea will pop in my head and I'll stop, take a second, and pray for whatever it is...but to make it a part of my every day routine is something that I've had to try to train myself to do this week.

In preparation for that, I thought about all the areas of his life. I would add "that need prayer" to the end of that sentence, but then I realized that there isn't an area in any of our lives which doesn't need prayer. So I made a list of things to pray for:
~his job
~his fatherhood
~his temptations
~his role as a husband
~his faith
~guidance for his life

As you can see, my list consists of 6 things and a week consists of 7 days. So then I got brilliant, as a true numbers-nerd would. I decided I would pray on each of these items, one per day, and on the seventh day I would pray on an item that he specifically asks me to. Day 7 for me is on Thursday, so tonight I plan to ask him what he has going on that he needs extra prayer for. I was amazed a few years ago when he told me that he prays multiple times a day...I guess I just didn't expect it. So given this, I assume he has an idea of what he needs most. If he selects one of the items above, that's ok - can't ever have too much prayer can we?

Then as this week's challenge ends and I move on to the next one, I'll make it a point to try and remember every day to pray for the topic of that day along with just his general well being. I didn't realize that it would require such a conscious effort on my part, but I'm glad that it does. It makes me conscious of his needs every day and aware of my ability to support him even when I have no idea how.