Sucked In

I've been a bad blogger lately. I blame Pinterest. And life. I seem to have gotten quite sucked into both of them.

Yesterday B's dad had his retirement luncheon. We tried to take pictures outside. As usual, the only times Squish was smiling, Bubs was looking at the ground and vice versa. There were many, many attempts. This is about as good as it got:

Activity Bag Swap

Anyone else have a toddler that needs to be entertained? Anyone else who doesn't always have the time to do the entertaining?

My friend Brittany is trying to start a toddler activity bag swap. Basically it's a bag (or box, or whatever you want) full of activities, games and little things that your toddler can do to entertain himself. (Okay, you might have to supervise occasionally.) Just imagine the possibilities: on planes, in church or at the doctor's office (or, you know, trying to make it through a Midwest winter), an automatic bag full of things to keep your baby happy! Anyway, the idea is that each person makes a bunch of one type of game or activity and then sends out the copies to everyone else participating and we all end up with a bunch of fantastic activities!

The best part: you don't even have to come up with these activites on your own. You can look at the link here:

http://therigneys.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/toddler-busy-bag-swap/

or here:

http://engagingtoddleractivities.wordpress.com/tag/busy-box/

to get some ideas. If you're interested, let me know! I can get you in touch with Brittany and get you in on the fun! I, for one, am excited!!

Fun-Filled Days

Lately, we've been doing lots of stuff. I've only taken pictures of some of it, so here is that part! Sorry for the lame captions and general lack of effort in this post, but like I said, we've been busy.

At the dolphin exhibit at the Brookfield Zoo. Bubba loved the "big fish!"

Snacks, crocodiles, snakes and seals at the zoo--basically a little boy's heaven. 

Playing with water at the Morton Arboretum. 

Ooooh, lots of fun at the Arboretum! 

I happened to enjoy the gorgeous vegetation. 

Lots of daddy/son time. 

And this guy: lots of smiling and looking around, not to mention some napping. 

My favorite part of the Arboretum: the crocheted trees! 

Splashin' it up at the splash pad!

Deep Thought* of the Day

If you drop a plastic measuring cup in your Kitchenaid stand mixer while running, it will break the cup into several pieces that you will then have to fish out of your pizza dough. Turns out it is better to follow manufacturer's instructions and turn the mixer off when pouring anything in. Go figure.

*When I say "deep thought," I mean a Jack Handy-style deep thought as opposed to Kant or Nietszche. Obviously. 

Ta Da!

Our random dabbling in woodworking continues... behold our storage bench! We created it from this plan from Ana White's site (yes, this is the bench we started back in January--don't judge!) and I finally stained and sealed it. I love having a good place to put the boys' shoes, hats and gloves, not to mention my piano music and our manuals for Sunday. It's the perfect thing!

What's For Dinner?

After I had Bubba, dinners got scaled back at our house but I still made time to menu plan and try to make good meals. After I had Squish, they got scaled back even more, and I don't even pretend to have a plan most of the time. But with this cute new board, I might be a little more motivated to get back into menu planning.

I made the turquoise one for a friend and the brown one for me... I'm just hoping my plan for newfound motivation works!

Beet Cake

That's right, I made a cake with beets. Sounds strange, yet you've probably heard of this particular cake by it's more common name: red velvet. Yes! There is a reason for red velvet cake! It's not just some quasi-chocolate cake into which someone decided to throw heinous amounts of food coloring. In fact, my own personal opinion is that this was the original "deceptively delicious" concept: throw a vegetable in a cake, cover the very slight odd flavor with a bit of chocolate, give it a pretty-sounding name and voila! Kids will eat their veggies. Anyway, on to the cake.

I found the recipe here at Sophistimom. After having made it, I don't think the recipe is perfect. For me it yielded an incredibly heavy cake and I could taste the lemon too much and the chocolate not enough. I made some modifications (though I warn you, I haven't tested them yet) and you can find my version of the recipe here. I'm excited to try it again with the changes; it was good enough the first time that I think a second try will be fantastic!

P.S. Special thanks to my sister-in-law Katherine for coming over to make the cake with me, and particularly for peeling the "beets from h*ll." You're the best!

Food Nerd

Last night: pickles.

Today: apricot-plum freezer jam.

Tomorrow: the world! ...Okay, just kidding. But if you think today's post makes me a nerd, just wait until tomorrow. It'll blow your mind.

Recent Facebook Statuses

I did this on my other blog and liked it so much I'm bringing it over here. For those of you on Facebook, you can skip this post. It's all stuff you've read before. For anyone not on Facebook, here's a smattering of what I've said yesterday. Mostly, though, this post is for me so that I can keep a record of the little things that make it to Facebook but not to the blog.

April 18: Rainy day nap? Yes, please.

April 29: Suddenly, I'm feeling so stylish. Kate and I = wedding day hair and earring twinners, except I pulled it off 5 years in advance.

May 3: Craigslist, I love you.

May 22: I'm sad my neighbor found out she's allergic to almonds... but I'm not sad to inherit her Almond Roca!

May 28: Great date with B at let them eat chocolate.

June 6: Love is pulling an all-nighter at the machine shop to help your husband make a deadline.

June 6: Puke always puts me in panic mode.

June 7: Night 2 of no sleep. Turns out I prefer commercial ovens and forming tables to sick baby boys.

June 8: Night #3 of no sleep. Now it's my turn...

June 17: Roadtrips are like childbirth. You don't remember how terrible they are until you're in the middle of one again.

June 23: My son is officially uninsurable. Thank you, Obamacare.

July 2: Turns out ATVs are really fun and thin mountain air leads to sunburns very, very quickly.

July 4: Best. 4th. Ever.

July 12: Heaven on a plate — at Cafe Rio (Ogden).

July 13: On the road again. In wyoming. Thank goodness for a laptop and a Blurb book to create.

July 14: Turns out there are some beautiful parts of Wyoming. Too bad none of them are on the I-80.

July 19: Eye surgery a success. Hoping that anasthesia keeps him drowsy for the rest of the day.

July 20: Duh! Why don't I always put onions in the food processor rather than slicing and dicing by hand?!

July 23: Trying to sleep through this lightning storm is like trying to sleep in a discoteca. Somebody make it stop!

Our New Favorite State

On our long, long drive back from Utah, we decided to take a slight detour and see Mt. Rushmore. We enjoyed it, but what we really liked was the state of South Dakota! Who knew it was so beautiful?! If it weren't for the fact that it's missing all three of our "important" criteria for where we permanently settle someday (airport, temple and family) we'd be seriously tempted to move there! We've decided it's our new favorite state and we want to go back for a week of camping and fun someday.

Views from the Top

The Fourth

We had the best Independence Day that I can remember. It was full of American flag waffles, country breakfasts, potato salad, mutton bustin', greased pig chasing, trout catching (no rod and reel required--just two hands!), caterpillar train riding, seat drop wars, chicken chasing, ATVs, zip lines, fireworks, nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters, sunsets, mountain views, smiles, laughter, trout eating, bacon jalapeno burgers, raspberry lemonade, American flag trifle,swinging, trout cleaning, sprinkler mishaps, and plenty of fun family time. There were too many great moments to pick just a few photos and since I want to remember as much as our day as I possibly can, I'm including lots and lots of pictures. Deal with it. :) Oh, and happy birthday, America!

A Change

While at BYU, I (repeatedly) said that I never ever wanted to live in Utah. Views like this out my front door might be enough to change my mind.

Seeing as how these pictures came from my less-than-stellar camera phone, you can only imagine how gorgeous it is in person. 

Flashback: 2007

I am still loving re-archiving our old pictures. Apparently we had a lot of fun in 2007--a trip to NYC and Connecticut, visits from friends, lots of fun with our house, lots of trips to downtown Chicago, etc. I also rediscovered the beautiful flowers we had in our backyard (yes, we had a backyard once) and a favorite skirt that no longer fits me.

I think my favorite thing to look at were our pictures from the Illinois Railway Museum. We enjoyed it at the time, but knowing how much a certain toddler that I love (and often refer to as Bubba) would love to go, it makes me excited to plan a return outing in the future!

Tomorrow it's time for a flashback of another kind: roadtrip! Pray the boys and I survive. 

Unconquerable

That's what the laundry becomes when 3 of the 4 members of your household have had a stomach virus for the better (actually, worse) part of the last 4 days.

6 loads down, several more to go....