Jenga!

Ethan and I played Jenga the other night and it was fun to have him actually play instead of just trying to knock down the tower! I think we played 3 or 4 times and had lots of laughs. Love this kid!! :)

"Please bless that we can go somewhere."

"And please bless that we can go somewhere."

You'd think Ethan never gets out of the house!

Let me assure you, he does.

Though apparently the bank, gas station, grocery store and Target aren't the most exciting in the eyes of a 4 year-old.

So Ethan has added this little gem to his prayers - even when it is a prayer to bless the food at mealtime! It's a good thing it's Spring and sunny days are just around the corner. I think this little dude is tired of being stuck indoors!

Oregon Overnighter

Two weeks ago Ethan and I did a quick overnighter down in Oregon. We had not been down since Christmas. I was also feeling pretty guilty... I missed every one of Lizzy's volleyball games, all of her swim meets, her winter band concert and her first track meet. Granted, some of that was just scheduling - we were down in Oregon a couple times, but her game or meet was away or the day before we could come down or the day after we had to go back.

But I made it to her Spring band concert!!

Of course, as luck would have it, I brought our camera with a fully charged battery - all ready to go. The problem? I left our SD card in the computer! Grrrr.... Happens to me way too often! But, with some careful watching and timing, I managed to get most of her solo. [She's the cute blonde rockin' her new specs!!]

Unfortunately, a good portion of the concert was not the most enjoyable. The music and musicians did great... it was Ethan. Ugh. This was definitely a "let's learn how to behave at a performance" concert. And we picked the wrong people to sit behind. Ethan swung back and forth between sitting nicely/quietly and loudly whispering/moving around. In about 1 minute intervals!! Very frustrating. But, I also know that this is how kids learn. If you don't expose them to these types of situations where they have to behave and be quiet they won't learn. It didn't help, either, that we had just been in the car for over 2 hours on the ride down and had to go to the concert within an hour of getting into town. But don't try telling that to the lady in front of us! Oh, no! It was obvious I was trying to keep him quiet when she loudly turned around and shooshed him. Really?! When there was a brief break to switch bands, she proceeded to talk about how ridiculous it was to bring kids to the concert, blah, blah, blah. Rude! Again, I'm sorry he wasn't ideal, but this is also a high school level concert. You did not pay to get in. Calm down. I was actually just getting ready to take Ethan to the back but part of me wanted to stay there and tough it out but then Ethan had to go potty, so my mom took him and then they stood in the back the rest of the time.

Rant over.

After the concert we went and got treats at Sweet Life Patisserie. Ethan got gelato. My dad got a slice of vegan German chocolate cake {did I mention he's gone vegan?!}. Lizzy got some chocolate pie thing and my mom and I shared some custard filled thing with a raspberry sauce and then she got creme brulee to take home and I got a lemon bar for later. We had happy tummies.

Lizzy had Friday off, so we got to sleep in and hang out. While it downpoured on our way down Thursday afternoon, Friday morning/early afternoon was fairly sunny. Which meant my mom insisted on a photo shoot in front of the blooming cherry blossoms. And then, of course, it started to drizzle! After our quick photo shoot, we loaded up the car, made a pit-stop at JoAnns so I could buy a paper cutter {I've been getting my crafting on - post with recent projects to come...} that was on sale and then it was off to the mall. Not my favorite way to spend my time, but it was still fun to be with my mom and sister plus I recently found a Victoria's Secret gift card with a good chunk of change on it so I loaded up on their heavenly-smelling shampoo and conditioner. Love that stuff. It smells fabulous and the conditioner is super thick and creamy... Love. It.

We ate a little dinner in the food court and then while Lizzy debated over which Hunger Games tee to buy at Hot Topic, Ethan and I left early to pick-up my Dad to go do my soda can refund. That's right. We may not pay a deposit in WA, but we save ALL our cans and take them with us to OR when we visit. Don't laugh, we hadn't gone in a while and have over $7. It adds up, baby! And we're saving it. Not sure what for, but we're saving it. :)

And that about raps it up. Just over 24 hours and we were back home again. Sorry there aren't any other pictures... The curse of the camera continues!!

I "mustache" you a question...

I like to try and have fun in my Primary class. I teach the 10-11 year olds. It's a good group. On Sunday we studied Abinadi in the Book of Mormon. I had different objects to represent different parts of the story between Abinadi and King Noah. Mosiah 12:1 talks about Abinadi being in disguise... We had the most fun with this part. First, I had a couple students come out in the hall with me and we all put on sunglasses and scarves or bandannas and then went back into the room. After reading the first part of chapter 12 we discussed Abinadi being in disguise and then I told the rest of the class I was kind of bummed none of the kids that went out in the hall wanted a finger mustache and I drew one on my index finger. Well, 2 of the girls that had stayed in the classroom immediately jumped on that idea and both said that they would have done it. That was all it took. EVERYONE decided they wanted finger mustaches! It was hilarious and even though it took longer than I would have like, they had fun with it and I'm sure will remember this lesson for a while! {Even if it takes a little bit of thinking to remember what the finger mustaches had to do with the lesson - hopefully they'll eventually get to it Abinadi and his story!!}

February Recap

Kinda hard to believe we're already into March of 2012... And that the official first day of Spring is tomorrow!! Of course, we're still getting snow here and there. Not much. Just a dusting that lasts a few hours. And the next day it is beautiful and sunny. And the next day it is torrential downpour. Typical Pacific Northwest valley weather. I just have to keep reminding myself that that's what keeps everything so green and beautiful!!

* No date-night-movie-of-the-month. We had other stuff going on every weekend and did several group dates with some other couples. We both had movies we wanted to see, though... Sean wants to see "The Woman in Black" and I've been wanting to see "The Vow." This weekend is already pretty booked, but hopefully next weekend we can finally have our date night!

* 50s Stake Dance: I still can't really believe that we went to this! It's not really our "scene" to go to dances any more. Not that I don't love to dance, but I know it's not Sean's thing. But we decided to go check it out and it wasn't too bad. Sean and I even dressed up. I wore my jeans rolled up, Converse shoes, cardigan, pearls and my old letterman's jacket [go SHS!!] and Sean wore jeans and a white shirt with a deck of cards rolled up in the sleeve - he caught flack for that all night! The decorations were cute and there was bubblegum blowing contest, limbo and couples dance promenade. They had root beer and orange floats, but it was ALL 50s music - not going to lie, that got old after a while. Check out our good-looking group from the ward, though:

[Picture of a picture - original courtesy of Picture Perfect Photography]

It was the after-party that was the most fun, though! We went back to Tellez's house with some other friends, cranked up the music and had a real dance party!! Ha ha! It was awesome. Nothing like a bunch of 30+ year-olds {with the exclusion of me!} dancing in the living room. :)

* New Stake Presidency: We had our stake conference the second weekend in February and got a brand-new stake presidency. Nobody we knew, of course, because we don't really know anyone in our stake outside of our ward. And we stayed for all of the Sunday session. We couldn't believe how many people got up and left after the announcement of the new stake presidency. Wow.

* Lizzy got glasses!: My sister, Lizzy, finally got her eyes checked which revealed that she does, in fact, need glasses. We had suspected this for several years so we were not surprised! Here she is in her cute, new frames. Very stylish.

* Girls movie night: Even though Sean and I didn't get out to see a movie, I was able to meet up with some friends to go see "This Means War" with Reese Witherspoon. Hilarious.

[http://teaser-trailer.com/movie/this-means-war/]

* Visiting Teaching luncheon: My visiting teaching companion and I are less-than-stellar when it comes to doing our visiting teaching. I have never been good about setting up appointments and I blame myself more than my companion - she has 5 kids with another on the way. So, to make it a little easier, we decided to have the ladies we visit teach come to us and we hosted a luncheon! We all have young non-school-age kids, so we let the kids play while we chatted and then ate lunch together. PB&J with fresh fruit for the kids and chicken salad on croissants, broccoli salad and fresh fruit for the adults - with lime tarts for dessert. We had a wonderful time and I think this will become a semi-regular thing.

* Coca-Cola Cake: I discovered this little gem on Pinterest a few months ago. Here's the cast of ingredients:It goes together really quickly and uses just one can of soda. Of course, any flavor of cola can be used. Just before it comes out of the oven, you make the icing and then pour it over the top of the cake while it is still warm. I think the icing portion makes more than you need, but it seeps into the warm cake making the cake very dense and moist and also giving the top a nice glaze. Sorry, no picture of the finished product, but you can get the recipe here: http://mayflaum.com/2011/06/08/the-chocolate-cola-cake/

* Oscar night: We had our Coca-cola cake while we watched the Oscars at the Colemans' house. We may or may not have put 20 cent bids on the major categories. We had fun seeing Octavia Spencer win Best Supporting Actress for The Help {read my review of the book and movie here}, couldn't believe how many Oscars Hugo won and decided to add Best Picture winner The Artist to our must-see list!

* Already covered:
- Valentine's Day
- Cinder-Ethan
- Rash Wednesday
- Leap Year

* Sorry, no random pictures. It was kind of a slow month on the picture-taking front.

3, 4, 5... An Ethan Update

Three: the number of shots Ethan had to get today and the age he was when he last had a wellness check.

Four: The age Ethan currently is and the wellness check we were supposed to do almost a year ago.

Five: The age Ethan almost is and what will go in his chart as being done, just a little early. I prefer to look at it as his 5-year wellness check was done a couple months early as opposed to his 4-year wellness check being almost a year late!!

Other than the shots, Ethan’s check-up went well! Height, weight and blood pressure and then also a hearing test {Ethan loved it!! It was like a game to him, getting the ear right that the beeping was in – even when the nurse tried to “trick” him} and vision. Good marks across the board.

Height: 42 ½ inches (right at 50^th percentile)

Weight: just over 38 pounds (about 35^th percentile)

He passed the hearing and vision checks with flying colors. After the rest of the check-up it was time for the shots. Two in his left leg, one in his right. It was a battle and not fun. We attempted to do arms, but it was nearly impossible to get his shirt off – so we had to do legs and it took both the nurse and I to get his pants off and Ethan to lie down on the table. He wanted nothing to do with it! Once we wrestled him down to the table, the nurse was quick about getting the shots in and the band-aids on. Bonus: No breath-holding spells! And luckily, Ethan had been promised both a sticker AND a prize. He did not let me or the nurse forget!

The night before his appointment I had promised Ethan a treat of his choosing after his doctor’s appointment, knowing that he would be getting shots. Slurpee?? Ice cream?? Milkshake?? Nope, Ethan specifically wanted a doughnut from Krispy Kreme {I seriously don't remember the last time we went there!} So Krispy Kreme was our first stop after his appointment - we got some doughnuts for the family and also a chocolate milk for Ethan. He was a happy camper... temporarily at least...

By dinner-time Ethan was absolutely miserable. He had a fever (101+), no appetite and his legs were sore. We put in a movie and Ethan was out cold, asleep on the couch before 8pm. At 8:30pm I got him in jammies and he went right back to sleep on the couch. Sean got home from choir rehearsal at about 10:30pm and Ethan woke up shortly after - temperature was even higher (102+) and his legs were really bothering him. We moved down to our room where we made up a bed for Ethan on our floor (sleeping on his old crib mattress) and he started crying from the pain in his legs. Broke my heart. Unfortunately he wanted absolutely nothing to do with any fever reducing/pain relieving medicine. Flat-out refused! So some "powerade" was offered instead. Powerade that Mommy laced with a full dose of the clear fever reducing/pain relieving medicine! Ethan drank it all up while we snuggled in bed and watched Wall-E for a little while. He even told me how good it tasted. And by the time it was gone you could tell he was finally feeling better. I like to think it had more to do with the Mommy snuggles than the medicine, but whatever!

He slept through the night, ate a little breakfast this morning {so glad he finally got some food in his belly} and is now snacking on some crackers and apple juice {spiked with another dose of medicine}. I don't really like be sneaky and dishonest with him about the medicine, but it gets the job done. In the past I've tried giving him something to drink when he knew the medicine was mixed in and it took forever for him to drink it and he whined and cried and complained the whole time that he could taste it.

Finally, as if this post isn't already long enough, I thought I'd give a little update about Ethan in general because I think it's been a year and a half since I last did one!

Favorite Foods: Pasta, cucumbers, pickles, fruit (just about any kind - bananas, apples, strawberries, mandarin oranges, pears, peaches, mangoes, grapes, watermelon, etc.), crackers (goldfish, cheez-its and wheat thins), hot dogs, yogurt, string cheese, pizza, mac-n-cheese, fruit snacks, carrot sticks and cold cereal.

Favorite Books: Anything silly or that has to do with monsters, cars/trucks or easy-readers that he can read part of.

Favorite Movies/TV Shows: Movies - Cars, Cars 2, Despicable Me, Transformers, Megamind and Wall-E. TV - Octonauts (a new favorite from Disney channel), Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Phineas & Ferb.

Favorite Things to Do: Ride his bike (weather-permitting), play outside, play Transformers, play cars/trucks, play with friends, "practice" piano, dress-up (pirate, fire fighter, knight), go to Preschool and play games on the computer (parents-permitting).

Friends: Coleman kiddos, Dahl kiddos, Owen, Jason, Jody, Thomas, Scout, Sam, Ben and his cousins (which he doesn't get to see very often).

Things He Knows: ABCs, capitol and lower case letter recognition, letter sounds, counts to 100+ (with a little help), shape and color recognition, counts objects, gets dressed head-to-toe by himself, reads/writes his own name, sounds out/reads simple 3-4 letter words and much more!

Cultural(ish) Night: DENMARK

Sorry for the week-long break between posts. It was kind of a rough week around here - in an emotional, stressful, hubby-sick, 4-yr-old-angst sort of way. Let's just say that after Sean coming home from work on Friday and going to bed at about 4pm and sleeping/resting for a full 24 hours, it's a good thing he was feeling better because I had "had it up to here!" with Ethan. Love the little guy, but there has been no middle setting with him lately - super sweet and nice or grumpy, whiny and headache-inducing. Ugh. But more about that in the next post. For this post I want to focus on Danish Aebleskivers!!


Never heard of or had an aebleskiver {pronounced "able-skeever"}, well you are missing out! It is basically a hollow pancake ball that you split open and fill with jams, applesauce and/or powdered sugar. The batter is made up of the same ingredients you see in pancakes, waffles, crepe - milk, eggs, flour, a little sugar, etc. But, just like it is a necessity to have a waffle-iron in order to make your own waffles, it is also a necessity to have a special aebleskiver pan to make aebleskivers.

Cast iron is best. I was lucky enough to inherit mine last summer. See, my danish heritage comes from my dad's side (Toftdahl). My grandma has (at least) two aebleskiver pans and my parents have one, so when my grandparents got another pan from the estate of some friends (the husband and wife passed away within just a few months of each other), they gave the pan to me. Don't be fooled by the "pancake puff" pans. They are not the same!

Anyway, it takes a little practice {I think I had two full batches of botched "practice" aebleskivers} and sometimes a phonecall home to talk to Dad to make sure the stove setting, oil amount, technique, etc. are all right but eventually you will get perfect, round, little balls of aebleskiver goodness! Here's a little look at the process:

After making the batter and getting your pan hot, you make sure to brush the whole pan with some oil, but especially the wells where the batter goes. Note: it does NOT take as much as the recipe says!! And your aebleksivers will turn out gross and greasy if you do. I learned this the hard way. And had to call and double-check with my Dad! You're not deep-frying the suckers - you just don't want the batter to stick to the pan. Lesson learned. Ignore recipe. Or make notes. You fill up your pan with batter and let it cook for a minute or so {I really don't remember!}


Then comes the fun/tricky part. Using a crochet-hook-thing {that I'm sure the people of Jo-Ann's would laugh about if they knew I had purchased it for cooking and not crocheting!} or knitting needles, you have to start moving the cooked part of the aebleskiver in quarter turns so the uncooked part of the batter goes into the pan and you start creating your sphere. This picture was after the first "flip".


And this is after they are all cooked and just about to come out of the pan.


And then, like I said, serve with jams, jellies, applesauce, powdered sugar, etc. We usually have breakfast for dinner with aebleskivers, so we also had scrambled eggs, sausage and some fruit. Not quite as authentic as our Brazil night, but still super tasty and the aebleskivers were definitely the star of the show!

Valentine's Day 2012

Valentine's morning started a little rough in our house. Ethan came into our room demanding a "Valentine's dinner" (meaning breakfast) EARLY in the morning. Rude! I don't remember what time it was, but it was definitely not the way to wake this mama up! So I forced a compromise. I let Ethan go watch cartoons in the living room, made him promise not to bug me for a little while and I went back to bed. In exchange, Ethan got his Valentine's breakfast. It did not disappoint. Heart-shaped pancakes, scrambled eggs and attempted-heart-shaped bacon. All of Ethan's favorites and worth the wait!

If you'll recall from last year's Valentine's Day post, Sean and I try to keep it pretty simple for the holiday of love. I have told Sean {on several occasions, just to reassure him!} that I am perfectly happy with the cliche flowers or chocolates or both. That's just how I roll.

For Sean, I tend to lean toward the corny, but cute. Last year I went the candy bar card route (see link above) and this year I wanted to do something similar. This is what I came up with:
The "You're Da Bomb" was an idea I found on Pinterest and loved the moment I saw it! So cheese-ball and funny, I couldn't resist. Just took Rolos and wrapped them in red construction paper and then added a black pipe cleaner to complete the dynamite look. Originally I had hoped to find some Crush soda in glass bottles for the "I've got a major CRUSH on you", but they didn't have any at Winco when I went, so I settled for cans. And finally, Reese's Pieces is a favorite candy of Sean's and from there it was easy to add the "I Love You to Pieces" tag. Corny. Cheap. Cute. Love it!

And it looked great on Sean's desk when we went and delivered them {in secret spy mode so we weren't caught!} at work. I'm hoping it was fairly unexpected since I had sent him to work with a huge plate full of triple chocolate chip cookies to share!

I also made/gave him this:

"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone's whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."
- Dr. Seuss

Back in December, I found this quote on Pinterest and thought it was cute and pinned it to my "Inspiring" board. Not more than a week later Sean posted the same quote on Facebook and tagged me. It was meant to be, I tell ya!! So I downloaded a "Dr. Seuss" font, printed the quote on cardstock and printed a picture from the day we were sealed for eternity in mutual weirdness. :)

Now, in past years, I have also told Sean that he can even wait on doing flowers until the day-after when they go on sale. This year he surprised me, though! With a beautiful bouquet delivered to our door on Valentine's day. {I had horrible lighting when I tried to take these pictures, though, which doesn't do these flowers justice!} I LOVE the dark fuchsia roses!
Throughout the day, Sean sent me texts saying some of the different things he loves about me - they were so sweet and really made my day. And that night, after he got done with work and piano lessons, he surprised me again with a box of chocolates - which we shared.

I had to laugh a little when I opened the card from Sean... Notice any similarities between the one he got me and the one I got him?? Apparently we had a love bird theme going on. It's the mutual weirdness. ;)

I attempted to do "fancy" with dinner that night... Steak, twice-baked potatoes, green salad, crusty bread and sparkling cherry juice. Ethan got FM deli mac-n-cheese. I figured it was a holiday and he should get to eat one of his favorites, too!

I am so in love with these two boys of mine and I loved our low-key, fun Valentine's day!

Leap Year = Bonus Day

Leap year every four years is just enough time for me to forget about it in between. It seems so foreign, even though we have been doing it every four years for a long time! And, I don't know, it kinda feels like a "bonus" day - you know, like getting an extra hour of sleep in the Fall for Daylight Savings when you "fall back" an hour. Let's see four years ago... February 29, 2008...
Sean and I had been married for just over 2 1/2 years. Ethan was almost a year old. We had just bought the Explorer (only one more year until it's paid off... yay!). Our nephew was born a couple weeks earlier. Three weeks later I started this blog. And I have NO IDEA what we did on that particular day! Oh, well. I did try looking for a picture around that time, but early 2008 is right in that scary time-frame of pictures I'm pretty sure are lost (before I started buying a new SD card once one was full instead of relying on the computer for the uploaded images). I'm praying they're on a picture CD somewhere, but I'm afraid to know for sure that they're gone forever.

Anyway...

So how did we spend our "bonus" day this year?? Ha ha! Nothing exciting at all. Typical chores were done... cleaning the kitchen, sweeping the floors, picking up around the house and making dinner. I did bust out two new blog posts: Cinder-Ethan {the funny tale of Ethan's shoes being accidentally dumped in the recycle bin and lost forever} and Rash Wednesday {the funny title, but sad tale of Sean's allergic reaction to something, though we don't know what!} And also trimmed up the mop that was sitting on top of Ethan's head!

Before

After

Dinner resulted in an empty milk jug, so I went to the store while Sean finished getting Ethan ready for bed. Glad I went to the store last night as opposed to this morning, because we woke up to this:

SNOW... On March 1st... in the valley!! Crazy!!

Driving conditions were fine - our school district wasn't even put on delay - but I still prefer to stay in, turn the heat up and enjoy the quiet whiteness from inside our home. Of course, it's already melting away, but I see some baking, snuggling and movie-watching in Ethan and I's day today!!