April Update

Wow, I haven't posted since January, and here it is April. I don't really have much time to post a long update, but I've been wanted to put one of these on here:

Maybe I'll get it into the sidebar before September, but we'll see. (That sidebar needs some serious updating - there's no picture of Daniel!! And both boys have obviously passed their birthdays, so those tickers need to be updated too.)

I think part of the reason I've dropped off updating this blog as often is because I use Facebook so much more than I used to. Most of you reading this are probably reading it as a note on FB (and so never see the sidebar anyway. Can you see the ticker earlier in this post?). I've only recently done some updating to our photo site, and the video blog is so sadly out of date I don't even know where to begin updating it. (Again, I've been posting a few videos to FB now that I have a video capable phone).

Anyway! I just stopped by to say hi! This blog is not forgotten! But if you want more regular updates, please add me as a friend on FB! Now I'm off to enjoy some sunshine outside working in the garden with Curtis!

Quiche

I made two quiches for MOPS this morning (that is to say, we had MOPS this morning but I made the quiches last night).

The trick to non-soggy crusts (according to America's Test Kitchen Cookbook) is to blind-bake the crusts: put the crust in the pie pan, cover with a double layer of foil (I only used one layer), add pie weights (I emptied my coin purse, worked just as well), then bake for 25-30 minutes at 375.

While the shells are baking, lightly brown the onions and meat in a skillet and gather the rest of the ingredients. I made two different quiches: 1) ham, onion, spinach; and 2) sausage, onion, and craisins. I didn't measure the goodies, just sort of eye-balled it, but I think it was about 1/2 an onion for each quiche, and probably 1/2 cup of craisins. I have no idea how much meat was in each, I just kept cutting it up until the amount looked right! Also, cheese (shredded). We like colby-jack, but cheddar or monterey jack are good too. Even Swiss would be yummy if you're a fan of it (I'm not). If you use frozen spinach you'll need to defrost it first and be sure to squeeze the extra liquid out.

Ingredients I did measure:

1 cup of whole milk (you can use half-and-half or heavy cream or some combination thereof. I wasn't in the mood to use up my half-and-half (coffee drinker here), so I used Daniel's whole milk. He didn't mind).

3 eggs, lightly beaten.

Mix milk and eggs together, preferably in something that has a pour spout. (I love my Pyrex 4-cup measuring cup - I use it as another mixing bowl!)

The important thing is to fill the partially-baked pie shell while it's still warm so that the egg starts to cook immediately and doesn't soak through the crust. So, when the timer on the pie shell goes off, take it out of the oven (reduce the temp to 350), sprinkle a layer of cheese (cover the bottom, 1 cup? 1 1/2 cups?) and add your goodies (meat, onion, veggies, whatever). It's better if you try to even out the top so you don't have a mountain in the middle, so spread everything around. Pull out the oven shelf part way and put the pie pan on it. Pour the egg and milk mixture into the pie pan, then push the shelf in and close the door. Bake for 40-50 minutes at 350 or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. I think you're supposed to let it stand for 10 minutes before serving. Of course this is moot if you're making it a day ahead. I baked both at once. The ham/spinach quiche was done after 45 minutes but the sausage/craisin quiche took 55 minutes because I had put 1.5 cups milk in (I had more than one recipe I was following, but I think it only needed 1 cup)

Here's my little confession: Since I was taking them to MOPS in the morning and I didn't want to forget them, I covered them with foil and put them in the car before going to bed. It wasn't going to get above freezing and I figured that was as good a refrigerator, without the hassle of rearranging stuff so they'd fit in the fridge and no potential to forget them!

I'm sorry at how convoluted this recipe is, think of it more as cooking notes than a recipe ;-)

This one's a doozy

I haven't been using this blog much. I miss documenting what goes on in our family. I'm constantly writing posts in my head but I'm just not making the time to type them. Or when I sit down I forget what I wanted to write about.

So, what have you been missing? Let's start with Curtis ;-) A couple weeks ago he slipped on ice in the parking lot at his work and fractured his elbow. He didn't need a cast and can still use his hand and arm a little bit, but it's out of commission for the most part. This has put an indefinite hold on a project we started on New Year's weekend: pantry makeover. Currently, we have a "walk-in pantry" in our bedroom, which the boys love, and we have several items shoved into the pantry on top of the temporarily installed shelves. It's rather inconvenient. We keep telling ourselves that when it's all done we will have an awesome pantry with more useable space, but I can' t help wondering WHEN that's going to happen.

I re-established a relationship with FlyLady in early December. I don't remember if I blogged about our falling out some time ago, but I had gotten turned off from her after emailing for help about something and receiving a rather dis-interested reply. But I needed help getting this house clean and thought I'd give her a try again. Her website doesn't work for me, but I found an iphone app that, although not endorsed by FlyLady, was obviously inspired by her zone system. So I've said goodbye to her again but have totally incorporated her system into my life. It's a work in progress and some weeks I do better than others, but I'm definitely improving. In case you're curious, the app is "Home Routines" and it cost about $4 (I think. Maybe it was $4.99). I also use "2 Do" for my regular to do list as this one does better with due dates and any repeat interval you may need. Home Routines is better for tasks that repeat every day or every week, and of course if you divide your home into zones. No other app that I've found uses the zones.

While we're on the subject of apps, my favorite grocery list app is "Shopper". Among other features I like that it allows me to enter prices for the same item at different stores, and since C and I use the same account, if I update the app on my phone, it automatically updates on his phone. So we can both add items to it as they occur to us and neither of us is without the shopping list (we share the shopping task - he does it because he enjoys it and I do it because I can go during the week when it's not crowded).

What's Zachary up to these days? He goes to Mother's Day Out twice a week and The Little Gym once a week. His favorite place to go is the library - because he can play on the computers. His brother gave him a set of folding headphones Christmas, so we keep those in my bag and he's never without his "ears" when we go to the library. We've incorporated it into our weekly routine and go every week after school. He also gets to pick out one DVD to watch when D goes down for his nap. The library rents DVDs for only a week, so as long as nothing interrupts our routine I don't have any trouble returning materials on time. But over Christmas and then again during "snow-maggedon" earlier this month we didn't make to the library every week and I wracked up some hefty fines (hefty in the library sense). So now it's a running joke with C, who takes every opportunity to feign surprise when I don't have a fine on my account. It's okay though. He borrowed some books from a different branch to help with the pantry project and then didn't get them back or renew them on time and had some fines too. (It was a family outing to get library cards for both of us, so he can check materials out on his own account. Learned my lesson when we lived in Nashville and I was the only one with a card!)

Z has also gotten very proficient with the Wii remote and Netflix. We dropped our Blockbuster online account shortly after moving when we discovered there were no Blockbuster stores within a convenient distance. I kinda hated to drop it since we had a really sweet deal, one that wasn't even available anymore (2 mailers at a time and unlimited in store exchanges). We used to go through movies so fast in Nashville. The Blockbuster store was just down the street and between the online selection and then being able to just pop in and pick something up, it was awesome. But we just weren't driving downtown to the Blockbuster here, so we cancelled our account and joined Netflix because we could stream it instantly to the tv through the Wii. The instant streaming is almost as cool as the in-store exchanges but we use it differently: we watch more tv episodes and cartoons (Z) and only get movies through the mailers. They're shipping time is faster though. Anyway, that was a long tangent. Sorry. I was talking about how Z watches his shows on Netflix. He still watches his DVDs too, though I haven't seen VeggieTales or Franklin in a long time. When we watches Netflix I let him use the controller and when one 20min show is over, he navigates to another one.

When tv time is over, Zachary works on puzzles (he's scarily good at them - got some 48 piece ones for Christmas and mastered them in short order, then received a couple 60 piece puzzles and had very little trouble with them. It's really amazing to watch him. I had a 550 piece puzzle I was working on over Christmas and once in a while he'd come over to help and was actually able to put a few pieces in!!!), reads books, and picks on his brother. He also plays a game he made up that we now call "Angry Cars". Are you familiar with Angry Birds? I have it on my phone and Z has helped me play it a few times. The boys received a set of cardboard blocks for Christmas (do you know the kind I'm talking about?) and he sets those up, puts stuffed animals and toys (these are the pigs) on the towers, then uses his cars (the pull-back-and-go kind) to knock the blocks down. It's hilarious. He can set up and knock down the blocks for hours, as long as D doesn't decide to play "Baby-zilla" and knock everything down.

Okay, let's move on to Daniel. He's 14 months old now and walking. I love watching a toddler who's learning to walk. Such a darling mix of confidence and uncertainty. Once in a while he still drops to hands and knees because he can crawl much faster than he can walk. He loves shoes but his feet are still too small for the shoes Zachary got when he started walking. I have a pair of moccasin slippers that he wears but can only walk on them when we're inside. When he starts wanting to walk outside we may just have to buy him his own pair of shoes. He's only two months apart from where Zachary was (September vs. November), but there's a such a difference in size between them!! There are several things of Z's that D will never wear because they're the wrong size at the wrong season, and we were a little concerned that D didn't have enough warm clothes that fit when the weather turned cold last fall. He's finally in 18mos sizes now, of which we have tons in both warm and cold seasons. He's also starting to learn to talk. His first understandable phrase was "uh-oh" which he's been saying for a good long while now, and now he says "peek-a-boo" as clear as you can wish for. We've been working on the sign language and he picked up "milk" pretty quickly and uses it for "milk" "more" and "eat". It's so cute to see his little hands intentionally making signs!!

D-yo (as we continue to call him even though his big brother has gotten much better at pronouncing his name) does not go to any Mother's Day Out program yet - although I sometimes wish for just a half day without kiddos once in a while, I'm totally not ready to put him in something like that yet. But he and I go to The Little Gym once a week. D loves it. It's kindof a fight to get Zachary to go to class, but Daniel LOVES it. (D's class is a parent-and-me class whereas the parents stay in the lobby or run errands during Z's class). He's got a reputation in class of being all smiles all the time and is rarely hesitant or fearful about something, though that's not to say he isn't obstinate at times. One of my favorite moments recently was when we were bouncing on the springboard. D wiggled his arms out of my hands and crawled off the board, then stuck his hands inside the springs to see how it works! (Don't worry, he didn't get his fingers pinches or anything). Then he crawled back on top, bounced a little, then crawled off again and inspected. Looks like we're raising not one, but two little engineers!

Okay, one more thing and then I'll probably be out of time. We've been planning our garden and getting excited about what our yard is going to look like come spring! We have a gardening blog (here: http://blog.organizemygarden.com/) that is not worth visiting right now, but hopefully we'll be getting better at updating it as we have more things to talk about. In fact there are a couple things that could make up a post now, so maybe I'll head over there right now since C is still on the computer (did I mention that he's going to be teaching another class at his work? He's going to teach how to program apps for the iPhone.), Z is still watching shows (it's Saturday. We're indulging him) and D is still asleep (I wasn't sure he was going to take a nap this morning, but then he yawned and that was that.)

Congrats if you made it this far! I know this was a monster post.

Ten on Tuesday

1. I'm going to start this "Ten on Tuesday" thing and really try to stick with it so, at the very least, there will be one new post each week.
2. I have a paper cut on my pinky that is making typing rather difficult.
3. Today was our second to last Bible study for the semester. I'm sad that it's ending because I've really loved getting to know the book of Revelation a little bit more (and we only just scratched the surface), but I'm really looking forward to getting my Tuesday mornings back!! I've already decided not to attend next semester's study because I need this morning time at home.
4. I found a bin of clean clothes that the cats have apparently been using instead of the cat box. Eew. On the bright side: I found the source of that musty smell and am so glad to be getting rid of it!
5. WARNING: potty-talk ahead. While we're thrilled that Zachary has been going tinkle by himself (okay, it's just so he can have candy, but whatever works!) I'm not so thrilled to discover that when no one helps him, he takes care of his business standing up and does not put the seat up. He prefers to do this in the master bathroom. Thanks kid.
6. Daniel currently has 5 teeth and will have a 6th any day now.
7. Today is Curtis' second day of having an employee under him at work (directly! reporting TO him!). He's only been with the company a year.
8. We have been taking the newspaper for the first time since we got married. We only take the weekend paper and sometimes don't get to it until Tuesday or Wednesday.
9. We finally got some major furniture pieces out of the garage and put in their permanent locations, so it feels like we just now starting to really move in. We've been in the house since the second week of September.
10. I really hope I remember to make notes all week for this post next Tuesday, because it took forever to think of 10 interesting things to tell you (and I think I cheated on a couple. See #2 and #10. Don't tell me if you didn't find anything interesting in this post).

We Voted!

You know what I just realized? If I took all the time I spent reading other people's blogs and spent that time writing in my own blog, I'd actually have a blog worth reading. Seems like a no-brainer, but I hadn't seen that before. So, I've turned off my phone in the middle of reading about how someone else's child celebrated their recent birthday and am going to put up a post before Z finishes his lunch.

Today is Election Day, so Daniel, Zachary, and I headed to the polls after bible study this morning. (So convenient to be already out of the house. Getting two little ones in the car is such a hassle, it's nice to get two things done at once. Not that I ever regret having two little ones, but I like to combine effort wherever possible.) Thankfully D fell asleep on the way and slept the whole time. I had the single stroller with me, so no seat for Z (can I just tell you how much I like having two different strollers?? One with two seats and one with one, depending if I anticipate Z needing a seat or not. Love it. Except for the days I forget what's going on and have the wrong stroller in the car. Oh well.) I spent a fair amount of time while driving explaining to Z what behavior I expected from him. I often forget to do this and regret it later. Toddlers and preschoolers do so much better when they know your expectations! I know this sounds like another no-brainer, but as a parent I often forget that children don't yet know what behavior is expected, especially in a new situation. And today's talk worked! Z did very well - there was no running around, no yelling, no sword-fighting (a recent favorite). I confess I did bribe him with goldfish. Those little golden crackers are my children's favorite currency (yes, D has eaten his fair share of goldfish already, and he's not even 1! Brothers like sharing is all I can say.)

We had paper ballots and Z wanted to "color" too, so I found some paper for him (not a ballot!) and we "colored" together. He told me he wrote his name and my name. I wish I could have taken a picture, but no cell phones allowed and taking pictures with my ballot right there would probably have been frowned on too.

When we left, the exit official gave Z an "I Voted" sticker too, which he loved. Later, someone posted something on Facebook about bringing your kids to the polls to educate them about the importance of voting. I'm sure it makes an impression on them, but what I started wondering about was how other parents respond when they bring their older child(ren) who may have questions about what's going on. You're not supposed to discuss the issues while in the middle of voting, but how do you respond to your child without sounding like you're indoctrinating them or trying to influence those around you who just can't help but hear your conversation? (Ignore them I suppose. Don't like that option either.) Z is at least a year, if not 2 or 3, away from really wondering what's going on at the polls and wanting to know how I'm voting and why, but I'd be curious to know how other moms and dads have handled this situation? I suppose once your kids are in school (and I mean full-time, not the 4 hours that Z does now), you vote while they're in school and the issue is completely avoided. So then who is targeted by articles talking about taking your kids to the polls? Stay at home moms with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers? Of course we're going to take them to the polls! What else are we going to do? The whole point of going during the day is to avoid the after-work rush, and I bet there are very few of us going to pay a babysitter just so we can vote without little ones hanging onto our legs and trying to push the stroller and wake up sleeping siblings.

So, that was our Election Day 2010 and now we get to complain about how our country is governed because we voted (j/k, sorta). And if there are any SAHMs and SAHDs in the area who would also like to complain but would prefer to vote without said little ones, we're home the rest of the afternoon and would love to have friends over and so be absolved of doing any housework for the rest of the day!

Don't fall over: I'm blogging again!

I am sitting in the car in my driveway with the engine running, surfing the internet on the laptop because D is asleep in the back and there's not enough time to take him inside for a nap before The Little Gym, but I want him to get as much sleep as possible. I'm curious what the neighbors think.

I wouldn't have been here at all except that a potential host family I spoke with last night asked me to call this morning between 8 and noon. I agreed without thinking about how busy my morning was going to be: drop off Z at school, go to the chiropractor, The Little Gym with D, get some groceries, fit lunch in there somewhere, and pick up Z by 12:30. Crazy! So when D fell asleep I figured I could make the phone call from the car using the laptop because our router is in the front room and we can get internet from the front yard and driveway. I felt rather clever :-) Of course, the guy didn't answer the phone. All that effort to have the materials, the computer to take notes, the sleeping baby who wouldn't interrupt, and no one answers the phone! I left a message, but, honestly, how many of you return sales calls? Yeah, me either.

As it turns out, it's a good thing I came home real quick instead of heading straight to the grocery story or another errand. Apparently it's "that time of the month", early, and without warning. Ugh. Starting back up after baby is the worst. Everything's off-schedule and completely unpredictable. I guess it explains the mood swings earlier this week (Sorry C!).

You didn't really want to know about that, did you?

Let's see, what else? We're enjoying our house very much, though half the bedrooms are being used as storage and we don't have much more livable space than we had in the apartment. It'll be so nice when everything is finally in its place! As soon as we figure out where those places are... We still haven't painted everything we want to paint: the kids' bedrooms, our bathroom, and we've discovered we need to paint the wall near the eating table with something washable (can you imagine??).

If you're wondering about the outcome of my diaper stripping experiment, I was thinking I'd put it in its own post when I had something definitive, but since I'm here I might as well talk about it before I forget what's going on. So I soaked the covers in water and dish soap for 1/2 a day (because we're busy, not because I thought it needed that much time) and then rinsed about 3-4 times (so that's actually 6-8 rinses because I have that "extra rinse" option on the machine), until there were no more bubbles that I could see, then tumble dried on low. Then I didn't think about what I was doing and put all the covers in the basket on the changing table, mixing together the ones I had stripped with the ones that hadn't (it's absolutely impossible to get every single article belonging to a child clean, because they're always using/wearing/playing with at least one or 5). So now I have no idea which ones were stripped and which ones weren't. Some of them are still leaking and some of them aren't, but they weren't all leaking to begin with, so I kinda feel like I'm back to square one except I don't want to strip them all because some of them don't need it. Does your head hurt yet? I explained some of this to Curtis and we traced all the problems back to the covers/pockets I bought off Craigslist. After we had bought them we discovered that 1) we didn't get much of a discount from new 2) all the elastic was shot because 3) they had been stored in the garage. I wish we had just bought new. I probably wouldn't be having all these troubles. So, anyway, that's where I am with those. And Kate - I did get your message about CD and just haven't sat down to write a book back! ;-)

Okay, it's about time for me to head off to our class. Thanks for killing some time with me :-)

Washing Cloth Diapers

I know I haven't been blogging much, and this really isn't an amazing post to convince any readers to come back, but I'm experimenting and need some place to record what's going on.

The problem: Daniel's cloth diaper covers are retaining odors and not keeping his clothes dry (it's not so much leakage around the sides as that the waterproof barrier is failing).

Probable cause: detergent buildup.

Discussion: I already use very little detergent on the covers, but I'm not sure that it's getting all rinsed out in my high efficiency (HE) front loader (FL). For those familiar with HE FLs, you know that their whole reason for existence is to use less water. This is fine in almost all circumstances, unless you're trying to wash cloth diapers (and, for the record, I'm not talking about prefolds - those I have no trouble with. It's the pockets/covers that have the problems).

Let me run through my normal wash routine real quick (again, for pockets/covers):

1. Cold rinse, no spin (this means they're good and wet for the next cycle = more water)
2. Warm wash on delicate (read somewhere that delicate cycles use more water; also, hot water not hot enough to sanitize and is harsher on materials, warm is sufficient), medium spin (no particular reason, not sure what's better), extra rinse on cold
3. Rinse/spin with extra rinse, cold.
4. If bubbles are visible, another rinse/spin with extra rinse, cold.
5. Tumble dry low (if sun is out I'll lay them out in the grass and am looking forward to a laundry line!!)

Steps taken to solve the problem: I add a sopping wet towel to the load to trick the machine into adding more water. I don't know if it's working or not, but it makes me feel better. I did manage to get the odors out by adding baking soda to the wash and vinegar to the rinse. Info I found online said to add 1/4 cup of each. When I went to add the baking soda, 1/4 cup looked like waaaay too much, so I only added about 1/2 of my scoop (for the math-impaired, that would be 1/8 cup). I did add the full 1/4 cup of vinegar. By the way, I love having a spot for fabric softener because it makes adding anything to the rinse so much easier!! The machine I had at the apartment didn't even have a spot for bleach, let alone fabric softener. Note: if your machine does not have these nifty compartments, you can use a Downy ball to add vinegar or fabric softener to the rinse. Haven't tried it myself, but I read that somewhere and thought I should include here.

So now the covers don't smell as soon as D takes care of business, but they're really failing in the waterproof department.

Today's experiment: stripping the diapers. The purpose of stripping is to remove detergent or urine buildup. (In my case, since my covers smell clean when they come out of the wash, I know it's not a urine buildup problem.) According to the mighty internet, there are several products on the market that can be used for this purpose. I have had success in the past with dish soap. Most CDing (cloth diapering) mommas would have said "Dawn" instead of "dish soap" in that last sentence, but I have not found any definitive explanation on why that particular brand. If you know, please fill me in! All I could glean was that you need to use plain soap, without any moisturizers or other additives because they'll just make the problem worse.

How to strip diapers: First, your diapers need to be clean, so wash them as usual first. They don't need to be dry, or even spun out, just clean. Then, wash again without any other detergent and add dish soap (just a couple drops!!) to the wash cycle, then rinse, rinse, rinse, and rinse some more until there are no more bubbles. The last time I stripped the covers, I was using a TL (the one without any extra bells and whistles) and it took 5 rinses on a medium load setting. This time, I have a HE FL. Some things I read online said not to put dish soap in your FL, especially if it's HE. Others have used it to strip diapers without any trouble. I'm actually rather torn on this one. As I type, the covers on their wash cycle, so I haven't stripped them yet. I'm thinking I shouldn't put dish soap in the washer, at least not yet. So I'm going to follow the alternative method: soak the covers in the sink with dish soap for 30-40 minutes, then throw in the machine and rinse, rinse, rinse, and rinse some more until there are no more bubbles.

In case you're wondering, whenever I say "I read online", I mean that I typed some search string into Google and clicked a few links to blogs, forums, detergent companies' websites, CD manufacturers' websites, and who know what else. I cannot tell you where I got a specific piece of information. If you're looking for answers to similar questions I hope this has helped, and if you have a tip to share, please leave a comment!! I will say that one of my favorite places to ask questions are in the forums on diaperpin.com, but I do a lot of other searches to try to get as much info as possible. Washing cloth diapers is a pretty broad topic because there are so many different brands and types of diapers, brands and types of detergent (incl. homemade), various additives (baking soda/vinegar, tea tree oil, etc.) and washing machines. So glean what you can from as many sources as you want and put together your own system that works for you.

As I said, this is where I'm recording my notes, so I'll put this post up and will hopefully make time to write a follow-up post when this experiment is done! Thanks for bearing with me :-)