Hannah's new word

So Hannah has added another word to her vocabulary. The word is "puppy", however she has trouble with the first p so it sounds more like "uppy". It's pretty stinkin' cute. I'll try to get it on video so the whole world can know how cute our daughter is. :-D

Christmas Music

I love Christmas music. Last year I went crazy putting holds on tons of Christmas CD's at the library. To my disappoint, it was hard to find good classic Christmas music. Most of the music had extra beats, funky melodies, or songs I'd never heard of before. But just yesterday Caleb found the Martina McBride White Christmas CD on amazon (no surprise). This CD is great!! It has classic Christmas songs sung traditionally. And we were able to buy the whole CD in MP3 form so we could listen to it right away and not have to wait for it to be shipped or pay for shipping. The internet is great, isn't it?! That said, I still prefer the Celine Dion version of O Holy Night, but the rest of her "these are the special times" CD is just OK. And the Jewel Christmas CD is better than most, but still lacking compared to Martina.

Thanksgiving

Yay Thanksgiving! I love stuffing, mashed potatoes and turkey. Last year Caleb enjoyed our thanksgiving left overs so much we went out and bought a 28lb turkey to make just for the two of us. In retrospect, I would recommend buying a smaller turkey for two people, but we did have left over for quite some time. This year, I think we might just make another apple pie. We should have no problem finishing that in a reasonable amount of time.

Check out the apple pie we made. The picture doesn't do it justice!

So this year for Thanksgiving we went over to Dave & Bonnie's house. Yes, we were at a real house this year! We had a great time catching up with them and hanging out. My favorite dish (of course) is stuffing. I used Dad's special recipe, which includes bacon, and is always really yummy. Caleb's favorite dish was the cranberry sauce. Dave & Bonnie (I'm guessing Bonnie) always make the best homemade cranberry sauce. You can check out Lauren's blog if you want the recipe. (Luckily Dave & Bonnie also brined their turkey so we won't get a kicking from Lauren :-D) After we ate our gigantic meal, we went for a walk to a play ground. Unfortunately it gets dark so stinkin early, we didn't have much time to play. When we got back we ate the tasty apple pie, which was everyone's favorite dessert. The rest of the even was spent chatting and being entertained by Hannah. She was loaded with energy and was very amusing to watch. On a whole, I would say our Thanksgiving was a grand success.

The Rest of my Time

My next 3 days in Seattle were also tons of fun, but less eventful (this is probably a good thing). On Monday we made our traditional trip to Costco and then had lunch with Kim. It was a relatively nice day so we were able to eat outside. The road that use to be infront of the Starbucks Headquarters has been converted into a pedestrian walk, where there are tons of tables to sit at...and during the summer they have different bands that will perform during lunch time. On this day, we were the only people eating outside.

On Tuesday Hannah and I hung out with Celeste, my sister-in-law. We had a great time chit-chatting and catching up. The only bummer was as I reached my car to leave, I had left my lights on, and I had to call my parents to come and rescue me. This, of course, brought back wonderful memories from high school, where this was almost a weekly occurance (not calling my parents to rescue me, but leaving the lights on). It got so bad that my parents actually bought me a pair of 6 ft long jumper cables for Christmas. So if you ever need any help jump starting your car, I have plenty of experience. Anyhow, Hannah and I had fun with Celeste, and so it was kinda fun being stuck there for an extra 45 minutes.

On Wed, Hannah and I got together with Jeanette & Hannah, our Austrailian friends from Boston who now live in Seattle. We had a great time seeing the two little Hannah's interact (they are exactly one month apart). They had great fun with the toy phone and chasing each other around in circles...and of course eating. Jeanette had made some tasty cookies and fruit. We enjoyed both the healthy sugar and the unhealthy sugar. Here are some pictures. We were able to get the two girls together and somehow managed to have them (sort of) sit still for the 5 seconds it takes to get a picture.

Here's a self timer of the 4 of us

Well, that was our Seattle trip. We are looking forward to returning in mid-December and seeing everyone soon!

Bridal Shower

Another highlight of my trip to Seattle was hosting a bridal for my best friend Melissa, who is getting married on New Years Eve. It was an awesome shower (in my humble opinion). Everything came together perfectly. My mom & I hosted a brunch (most of the food was made by my dad, master chef) and we played some fun games and opened presents. It was great to see & catch up with a bunch of my high school friends. Here are some pictures of us hanging out:

Here's a most of the group picture (we didn't think of taking a group pictures until some had already left)

Here we are with Mt Rainier in the background. Melissa, Kendra, Diana, Elaine, & Amanda. Mt. Rainier is inbetween my head & Diana's. You can see the mountain better in the picture below

So Hannah napped for most of the shower. I couldn't have planned it better if I wanted to. Anyhow, she woke up during the last game. This is how I found her when I went down to get her.

She managed to unsnap her pants and then she attempted to pull them over her head and got stuck. Isn't she cute?

Why I love Seattle

Seattle is gorgeous! Saturday morning when we woke up (the second time) the sun was shinning and Mt Rainier was out (FYI: I know that mountains are stationary and that it is the clouds to come out and disappear, but that's the expression in Seattle, "Oh look, the mountain is out today"). The mountain was so clear we (Hannah and I) could even see it from the basement window. Then while we were driving over to my sister's house, we had a clear view of the Cascade mountains. The silhouette of the mountains behind the colorful trees was beautiful (not like I"m biased or anything).


At my sisters, we spent the morning playing in leaves and catching up. Then Kim and Ben took us to the salmon fish hatchery that is near their house. Check out some pictures that Ben took:

Here's a picture of a salmon going over the last step of the fish ladder.

You can see this fish had alittle bit more clearance. :-D

Salmon always go back to where they were hatched to lay their eggs, and then die. So at the end of the fish ladder there were too big hatchery tanks. Here's a fish jumping in the tank.

While Kim & Ben were watching the fish jump, Kim saw one actually jump out of the tank. They ran over and threw the fish back into the tank. Here are some action shots of my brother-in-law Ben, the fish hero!

Here's Hannah, Kim and myself.

After the fish hatchery we went up to the New Castle Golf Course to get a view of the Seattle skyline. We arrived just as the sun was setting. Here's Hannah and I in front of the sunset. Aren't the clouds incredible?!

Pictures obviously don't do the real thing justice, but here's Hannah in front of the Seattle skyline. You can also see a silhouette of the Olympic Mountains behind. (FYI: Seattle has 2 mountain ranges, the Olympics and the Cascades. On a clear day like Saturday, you can see both. And yes, they are REAL mountains!)

Can you find Hannah?

After New Castle, my parents came over for dinner and then we sat by their wood burning fire place (it seems likes these are disappearing) and hung out. It was a great day!!

Plane Flight

So Hannah and I flew to Seattle on Friday night. We left Boston at 6:00pm and arrived in Seattle at 9:15 (12:15 EST). Here are some highs (+) and lows (-) from the flight:

+We had a whole row to ourselves (3 seats)
+ Hannah's ears were fine for take-off and the landing
+ The Dog Whisperer was on TV and that kept Hannah entertained for about 30 minutes
- Everone around had to listen to Hannah say "doggy, doggy, doggy" everytime a dog came on the screen (which was quite often during the show)
- Hannah had 3 poopy diapers in just 4 hours.
+ I am now an expert at changing diaper in the plane bathrooms. :-D
+ Hannah fell asleep for part of the flight
- Hannah didn't fall asleep until 10pm (EST) (she normally goes to bed at 7:30), and she only slept for 2 hours
- I didn't get any sleep b/c Hannah was taking up the prime sleeping seats (the window and middle seats)
+ Hannah didn't cry much
+ Hannah self entertained for most of the time
- Hannah woke up at 4:00am the next morning
+ Hannah fell back asleep from 5:30-7:30am (probably because I was laying in bed and no fun to play with)
- Hannah fell asleep in my bed horizontally leaving me with a body width of room to sleep and little feet in my ribs...but I suppose if she had fallen asleep with her head at the pillow end of the bed then I would have been worried that she would roll off.

I'll write more soon with what I'm actually doing here. But let me reassure you that I am having tons of fun!

Legos

Last weekend we went out and bought Hannah some Duplos (the big legos). Caleb decided we could not wait any longer...she needed to have something she could build with. Anyhow, so we bought the duplos and she really likes them. She carries the lego box around the house and wants you to open them. The other day one of our students stopped by and started playing legos with Hannah in the hall. The next day she stopped by again to chat and Hannah immediately brought out the box of legos for them to play with again.

Tonight Caleb and Hannah were playing with the duplos and here is what they (Caleb) built.


There is a hole in the middle that they were putting blocks thru the middle. Hannah was having a great time (and so was Caleb). I still haven't figured out which of the two likes the legos more...

Snugly Day

Today was a close call. It rained all morning and I thought we would have to spend the whole day inside, a first for us. Normally rain is not a problem. Hannah has a snowsuit, Iris has a fuzzy stroller bag she sits in, and we have a stroller cover (for rain, snow and wind). The problem was I hadn't brought my rain coat, or any coat for that matter. I had assumed it would be a sunny day, like yesterday. We all know what assume makes out of u and me.

At one point in the morning, Hannah got into the stroller and refused to get out...so we strolled around the house (exciting, I know). Anyhow, it cleared up in the afternoon, so we went out to the park. Everyone was super warm, except for me who was only in her fleece...but it was much better than being in the house with two cranky** babies who wanted to be outside (**Note: Neither of them were actually cranky, they just were 100 time more enjoyable as soon as we went outside)

So here are some pictures of the two girls all snugly snugly:

It's hard to actually get a picture of Hannah on my phone that isn't all blury. She doesn't really like to be still, so this is the best I have. Isn't she a wonder in pink?


Here's Iris chillin' in her fleece bag in the stroller with her super warm hat. She was definitely the warmest of the 3.

36 rolls

How long does it take your family to eat a bag of 36 rolls? It takes ours only 1 week. That's right folks, 1 week! We were at Costco last Sunday and we bought one of those big bags of tasty rolls...and come this Sunday they were all gone. So let's see here; 36 rolls, 3 people, that's 12 rolls per person. However, as much as Hannah liked the rolls, I don't think she ate her 12. This means that either Caleb or I went alittle overboard on our roll consumption. I'll leave you wonder who it was...

1.5 years

So Hannah had her year and a half doctor's appointment yesterday. And I must say, she is growing nicely. Her head size is still off the charts (aka in the 99% for her age), and her weight is slowly catching up (23.7 lbs). But considering the fact that she is by far the fastest baby at the playground for her age (and more often than not is just as fast or faster than babies several months older than she is) I'm not concerned. We just keep feeding her non stop. (for those interested, she is 32.5 inches long)

So let's see, what are Hannah's new "tricks"

Hannah has figured out that it is fun to go down the slide backwards

Hannah can also get into the stroller by herself. Here you can see she is ready to go. And since Iris was sleeping, she put Ug in the empty seat.


Hannah also likes to sit in the bumbo. Normally she's pretty good at getting in, but apparently this day she was having a couple of issues. Sorry for the poor quality of photo...I took the picture with my phone.


And sometimes Hannah gets jealous of the fact that Iris is in the bumbo...and so she immediately wants to sit in it. Iris or no Iris, she doesn't seem to mind. I love Iris's face in this photo...she's like, "what's going on here? I was here first!" (note: Hannah is not sitting on Iris, I would never let that happen. Hannah is actually sitting on one of the high parts of the bumbo)

Hannah still loves the every thing that rolls, whether pushing something, or riding it

Here's a really cute picture of Hannah and Noah in their PJ's. Note that Hannah's wearing a purple outfit and has a purple water cup, and Noah has a blue outfit and a blue water cup. I swear I did not plan that. :-D

Hannah now can pull her pants down, and she does it often. It's alittle counter-productive because she can't pull them all the way off because of her shoes and she has trouble pulling them back up. Thus she ends up taking baby-baby steps everywhere. Good thing we own overalls.

Oh, we bought Hannah some new "big kid" shoes. She now has tennis shoes, keds, and boots (the boots are a size too big because I got them for free, but they are super warm and Hannah has no problem walking in them)

She also likes the teeder-todder.

showing bear the ropes

So Iris got this new bear in the mail. It didn't take Hannah long to realize that there was a new stuffed animal in the house. She started right off showing bear everything.

Here's bear enjoying the exersaucer. Unfortunately bear has alittle bit of a cookie belly and doesn't really fit.

Here's Hannah showing bear how to play on the mat. She even tried to feed bear some crackers and water. It was really cute


Hannah also likes to make sure that Ug, the stuffed dog, has some fun too. Here Hannah is helping Ug go down the side. She is so caring. :-D

Driving an SUV

So today I took the babies out to the grocery store. Unlike Costco, Shaw's carts only have room for one baby...unless you take the car. Observe what I was driving at the supermarket.





I felt like I was driving an SUV. As hard as it is to maneuver the beast around the isles, I would probably do it again since Hannah was having tons of fun in the little car.

Swimming

I went swimming the other night and it was awesome! I love swimming, but somehow I seem to forget this because it's been about 2 months since I got in the pool. For most of the summer I had a swimming buddy, and we went twice a week to the pool. And then, wouldn't cha know it, she got up and moved to Sweden. The nerve! And since then I just haven't made it back...until Monday, and it felt great. My goal is to swim again on Friday. We'll see if it happens...

Reading

I know, you're thinking, "where does she find the time to read? Doesn't she take care of two children, one husband, and 32 students?" Yes...yes I do, but I've been reading this book called "48 Liberal Lies About History." It's great because each chapter is independent of the previous one. And the chapters are about 3-6 pages long. So if you don't feel like reading alot, you pick a short chapter...and you can skip the boring chapters. Not only that, the book was pretty interesting. It was published in 2008 so it has more recent information than alot of other history books. It had some interesting facts about the cold war, that have recently come into light now that the cold war is over and has been for a while. Some of the lies that were more surprising were, "women had no rights in Early America", "Muslim terrorists are poor and uneducation and hate us because we support Israel", and "Prohibition was unpopular from the beginning and failed in all its objectives." There were also some pretty silly lies, like "FDR knew about pearl harbor," "Columbus was responsible for killing millions of Indians," and "9/11 was a government conspiracy." I wouldn't have even believed that text books would include such unsubstancial material, but at the beginning of each chapter the author quotes 2 or 3 common used text books on the subject. It's interesting. So I read 32 of the 48 chapters...2/3 of the book, I think that's pretty good for 2 kids, 1 husband and 32 students. :-D

Mosquito bites suck

Yes, I really hate mosquito bites...and mosquitoes for that matter. I can't figure out why God created them? Any ideas? My best guess is that they are the result of some random mutation or something. A fruit fly that's gone bad and now likes to hover around flesh instead of fruit.

Anyhow, I think the worst place to get a mosquito bite is right underneath your eye, in the soft spot. Not only is it a really tender spot, but anytime you rub your eye you inadvertently scratch it, thus making it itch more and swell more. Then your eye swells and your husband makes some sort of stupid comment on how it looks like you have a black eye (hypothetically speaking, of course).

Anyhow, I suppose it is all worth it if you received this previously mentioned mosquito bite while apple picking. And thus you tasted several scrumptious apples, had a great time with family and friends, and managed to bring the two right people along: one who carried the 20+ lb baby, and the other who carried the 20 lb bag of apples. Thanks guys!!

Here are some pictures from our apple picking experience.

Notice all the apples on the tree.

Andrew, Caleb, and Hannah

BTW, no one tell Mrs. Wright about this post, as she will inevitably remind me that nothing sucks, it's all just a difference in pressure. :-D

Fall Brunch

So this past weekend our friends the Benesh's had a fall brunch. Lauren made these super tasty pumpkin pancakes, and everyone else brought something to share. Here's a spread of the food we had:



So, I took more pictures of the food and of people. Sorry guys, I just love food. Anyhow, here's the group shot I took.

So my contribution was a super tasty oatmeal casserole. Normally I"m not a huge oatmeal fan, but the candied ginger in here really makes the dish super good. Thanks Els for passing along the recipe. Here it is:

-1 cup steel cut oats
4 T butter
4 cups water
3 cups old fashion oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1.5 cups peeled & diced apples
1/2 cup diced dried apricots
1/4 cup crystallized (candied) ginger
1 t salt
2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 t vanilla

1. Pre heat oven to 350 F and butter a 9x13 baking dish
2. Place steel cut oats and butter in large bowl. Bring water to a boil and pour over oats. Cover and let stand for 20 minutes
3. AFter 20 minutes, stir in old fashioned oats, brown sugar, apples, apricots, salt, ginger, and spices.
4. In separate bowl wish together eggs, milk, and vanilla. Stir into oat mixture and transfer to backing dish
5. Bake for about 30-40 minutes...until center is set.

I think next time I make this, I'm going to do a half a recipe in an 8x8 dish.

Anyhow, thanks Lauren and Nathan for hosting. WE had a great time!

Fruits and Vegetables

Yum, food. We like food in this house. The other week we went berry picking with our friends Bethany and Carey and we had a great time. Caleb, of course, picked more berries than I did, but I maintain that I ate more than he did, thus we probably picked the same amount (if anything I picked more…not like we are competitive or anything :-D). Not to mention I had the Hannah factor working against me. Hannah quickly realized that it was much easier to just grab a handful of berries out of my bucket than it was to pick them herself. I only let this mistake happen a couple times before I started to move the bucket away from her when she would reach for it. However, she soon realized that I would allow her to put berries into the bucket. Thus she would pick a berry or two, put it in the bucket, and then grab a handful out. The difficulties I face with having a smart baby. :-D Alas

Well, here is our loot. I’m not sure on the exact numbers, but I know we picked 8+ pounds of blueberries. The crazy thing is that it took us less than 2 weeks to eat them all. I think I’m the big culprit here; putting a handful on my cereal every morning, eating a handful every time I open the frig, etc. They are soooo tasty. The peaches and raspberries were also good.

In our garden things are going OK. Here’s a one of our hot peppers (that actually didn’t turn out to be hot, but it was still tasty, and looks really professionally grown!)

Here are some of our carrots.

I picked some really good looking ones the other week, but forgot to take a picture of them. You will just have to trust me that they, also, looked quite professionally grown (and were super tasty).

Also on the garden front, I made some tasty tomato soup from a bunch of our tomatoes. And here is plate of onions, tomatoes, and pepper that I still have yet to use. Also my broccoli and zucchini plants are still producing. Yay for fresh veggies!

Funny Video

Once Hannah finds something that's fun to do, she just does it over and over again. Check this out:

17 months

So Hannah turned 17 months on Friday. She just keeps growing. It never ceases to amaze me how much she knows. I guess because she doesn’t say any words yet, I expect her not to understand anything…BIG mistake. She understands tons. When she wants her diaper changed she’ll pull out the mat and lay down on it. When I’m done changing her diaper she’ll run to the door, point and say “ahh, ahh”, because she knows that diapers go down the trash shoot. As a side note, I don’t understand how parents survive without a trash shoot for diapers. When we move into a house, this will be the first thing that Caleb will install into the baby’s room! Of course Hannah’s understanding is selective; she has trouble with “come”, “no”, and “we need to pick up our toys”…again, problems that you deal with when you have a smart baby. :-D

She still enjoys sitting in baskets

Hannah loves to eat. If she knows you are making food for yourself, she will run over to the couch, sit on it, and pat the place next to her (signalling that you need to sit next to her). Here's Caleb feeding her some dinner. (note the huge drool spot...we think she's getting some more teeth)

Sometimes she'll get alittle aggressive and you have to do everything you can to make sure her hands don't get into your food!

Here she is cooperating a little bit more.

Hannah also just recently figured out how to get up on the glider. Things that move are exponentially harder to get on, but she's conquered it, and enjoys moving the chair back and forth.

One of the most entertaining things yesterday was when Caleb and Hannah were playing with the tennis ball. Caleb, somehow, stuffed the ball up her fleece and then asked her, "where's the ball?"

Poor Hannah. She was so confused. She looked everywhere for the ball and couldn't find it. It was the funniest thing ever! Finally Caleb helped her find it. She thought it was so amusing that the ball could be "hidden" under her fleece. So for the next three minutes or so, she would put the ball under her fleece, put her hand out as to say "where is it" and then reach under her fleece, grab it, giggle, and then repeat the whole thing. It was very cute!

Here's a picture of Hannah and dad chillin on the couch.

And here's Hannah putting her cell phone (the favorite toy) up to daddy's ear. She's not always the most gentle...we're working on that.

Oh, and Hannah likes balloons. The other weekend we got together with some friends for Damien’s birthday and there were balloons. Hannah had a great time playing with the balloons and beating people with them…I guess there would be worse things to beat people with. She’s a tad bit aggressive…we’re working on that. Anyhow, here are some pictures from that.

So this isn't Hannah, but it is the super scrumptious strawberry cake that Lauren made. YUM!!