Year end

Dear Bella,

I have been very negligent about writing to you girls this season. Since Daddy works seven days a a week now with no days off, it's all I can do to keep up with you and my business and personal thoughts. I have yet to recover from the Great Editing Crash of 2010. It took me months to edit all those photos since Lillia was born, and I don't have the heart to start over.

You and Lia are starting to play together a bit more. Sometimes you will laugh hysterically for a half an hour just because Lillia loves it so much. You are very doting and will pile toys on Lia's lap up to her chest, just to be sure she is content. Of course, that is not to say that we haven't had a few mishaps, such as when Lia fell over because your boot hit Lia's head... while it was on your foot. Hm. However could that happen? Good thing you told me about it. What a mean boot.

We're about to get into trouble with door locks, too. So far I have been able to appeal to your independent side with, Open this door or mommy will do it. Alas, I tried one day and realized the doors will not unlock. Time to get new knobs, I think, before you get wiser. (May I just say, a month later in hind-sight, you wizened up that same day. We had to remove all the knobs from the doors until Grandpa made us a key...)

Bella, what can I say about you. It has been a really rough month for sleep. I'm sure I will never understand what is so defeating to you about falling asleep. I'm sure the trip to Oregon (and the ensuing cold) did not help, but we had so much fun. We sing lullabies at bedtime, and you now request your favorite verses. You like the twinklesky song, the achyricefishisnice song, and the appsybetsy spider. You also astounded us by running through the entire ABCs one day.

You have had so many miniature grown up moments this month. You say whatever and sigh and roll your eyes at me. No clue where you might have gotten that from. The one I hope to never forget was the train incident when (in a Voodoo Doughnut sugar high frenzy) you spilled my entire water bottle on our table and then stood up on your seat in the quiet car and shouted with delight, "Oh shit! It's raining!"

There are so many little things I wish I recorded that escape me when I sit down to write. It has been an immense change to have you every single day without a break, and I will confess I have had a short temper lately. I find that my attitude ripples and the shorter I am, the more unmanageable you become. When I get in over my head, you come to me with kisses and ask, That better? Mommy's happy now. After that, I always am.

I'm trying to be the bigger person, I promise. I have never been a peaceful person and to start learning as a parent is a challenge. You are my favorite crash course in personal growth and I'd never want it any other way. :O)

Love, mama

P.S. 6 gazillion pictures and not one of us together because you refuse to admit you like me, especially in front of the camera. (Except in those sweet moments when you tiptoe quietly up to me and say, Mama, I love you somuch. You know all the right words.)

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makes mouths happy

making cookies with bella. i told dave what i had in mind for this shot, and he did pretty good, i think :O)

we've been down and out with a cold. lillia is a sloppy nurser to begin with, but add a stuffy nose and we've been miserable. she and i are on the mend and bella is just starting her run of it.

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Unplugged #8: Kitchen

In this little apartment, the kitchen plays a huge roll. It's the hood fan above the stove that shushes Bella to sleep each night, the dishes in the sink that occupy her when she doesn't want to be put down, and the every day cooking that she assures us we couldn't possibly do without her. So of course, this week's theme of kitchen at Unplug Your Kids sounded wonderful for us!

First of all, I want to point out the wonderful interview at Chocolate & Zucchini on how the blind cook. It is so fascinating and inspiring, and makes me realize my unorganized life style would probably cause many fires, spills, burns and bumps in the kitchen. (Notice my "busy" countertops and open cabinets in the photos below.)

We tried many things in the kitchen this week, but let's just say that we managed to make our usual bread, and I even cooked up some more apple sauce, but the family kitchen project was more like a kitchen snafu.

When I get the munchies, sometimes the only thing that will kick my sweet tooth is cookie dough. Dave personally hates dough, but I can sit down and eat a whole bowl if the mood strikes. So I make dough, he makes cookies, all is well with the world.

I started with this recipe for Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies, my favorite! I subbed out the eggs with apple sauce so I wouldn't feel guilty for eating raw eggs while wearing a very grabby Bella. (Please pretend not to notice that I stay in my PJs all day when I've worked a night shift the night before...)






When all was mixed and doughy, I snuggled up with Bella and my bowl of yummy and left the rest to Dave, expecting the scrumptious smell of fresh cookies to permeate our apartment. However within a few minutes I started smelling burgers. Dave assured me that he used a clean pan and that the smell could have been from dinner, so I pushed snooze on the alarms going off in my head. But when I smelled burning just moments later, I had to check it out. As I peered in at the cookies, (sorry, I accidentally deleted the photo of them cooking!) I realized that the pan in use was in fact the broiler pan, the one dotted with handy little holes to allow the grease to fall through.

Apparently, cookies do not broil well. Little stalactites of dough were forming in each hole, occasionally releasing miniature cookie fireballs. We did our best to salvage the cookies with some tinfoil protecting the oven, but our attempts were in vain. Indeed, after much inspection, we decided meatballs had last been cooked on this tray, and the two flavors were not meant to coexist in one mouthful. There is a reason no one cooks burger cookies.

And here's our second kitchen goof up for the week: Whole wheat bread that we set to rise during our afternoon bath, but then decided that a nap sounded more appealing after a warm bath, so the bread over rose and has a splat-top.



And a peek into the normal messy status of our kitchen, in case anyone needs a little reminder that messy is normal. :O)

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Superhero Challenge: Kitchen Counter

So, over at Shutter Sisters today, the challenge is to capture ordinary magic on the kitchen countertop, a reminder that to take great photos we don't have to be off on adventures traveling the world.

The picture above I love because that's our you-pick veggies and cheesy bread that Dave and I made together (from scratch! no recipe!), which turned out mmmm-azing.

And then one I took this morning after breakfast:

Bella never wakes up before 10am, and there it was 8am and I rolled over to find her having a chat with her hands. She must have known it was a sunny day and we were missing the great morning light, so we got up and made Amish Baked Oatmeal (like a cookie! for breakfast!). As I was grating the nutmeg it struck me how gorgeous it would be in the light (the look of fresh nutmeg is almost as intriguing as the taste). So there you have it. I am officially a superhero today.

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Savoring: a week in review

Things I'm thankful for this week:

1. Roasted Kale Chips ARE better than potato chips**

2. Absentee ballots arriving in my mailbox automatically

3. You-pick farms (I dug stuff up!!!!)

4. The colors of autumn

5. Cousins who don't shy away from a family walk

6. A Wave of Light that remembered

7. Knitting around the fireside

8. Starbuck's Sea Salted Caramel Signature Hot Chocolate (so worth typing out the full name)

9. Just in time for her 6 month bday tomorrow, Bella's starting to sit on her own :O)

10. Mom's in town. (Okay, so this is really like 10-2,000 because it means free entertainment for Bella, guitar chords filling the house, trips to the grocery store, a new fall wardrobe for Bella, Mmmmmswedishmeatballsmmmmmm, my occasional appearance in photos, an extra pair of eyes when Bella manages to kick off her entire legging.... the list goes on.)



**dude, seriously. so good. but as an addendum to the recipe on the link, make sure that if you rinse your kale, it's not wet when you toss it in oil, because if it lies limply on the pan it won't crisp up and you'll just have chewy (albeit yummy) kale. and salt and pepper it before it's toasted.

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Ten things to savor this week

Ten things I'm loving right now:

1. Fresh butter on fresh bread. Dave's found the ease and marvel of Homemade from Scratch. It makes me smile inside to see what inspires him.



2. Isabelle napping on me.

3. A camera with an Interval Timer mode.



4. Writing October on paper. Let the landslide of holidays begin.

5. Giddy anticipation of my mom's visit.

6. Skype so I can share Bella growing up.

7. Health and happiness, in all their intangible forms.

8. Me Ra's Tips for Moms archives.

9. Slowly compiling my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days.

10. Finally casting on this hat.

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This week in Bella

May I just mention, prior to writing this post, that the Blue Angels are dancing back and forth just a few miles north of me. I have been listening to them practice every afternoon, the rumble of the jets echoing off the clouds, for Sea Fair. Today is their last day here, and I sit here longing to see my favorite spectacle. They're teasing me. Days like today I miss living in DC.

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Kitchen masters: Oh we're really getting the hang of baking now! Bella in the wrap, follows my hands, watches scoops scoop and mixers mix and spoons spooning gobs of batter onto pans. We'll be a masterful team soon, having now put scones, cornbread, muffins (x2!) and cookies under our belt. Or wrap. Whatever it is we wear these days.

Sadly, I cannot share the food with her yet, but come Christmastime we'll be tasting right and left. I promised her, as her eyes tracked the arc of my steamy muffin from hand to mouth and back (the fruit of OUR hard labor, no doubt she was thinking), that she can have as much pumpkin pie as she wants this winter. That means I have until then to learn to share.

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For Mommy's birthday, we went out on the town:



Bella is quickly becoming a daddy's girl, as they all eventually do. She saved her first giggle for the faces he made while taking our photos.

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Back in the game!

I made scones! Yay! Okay, so it's not bread that needs kneading or cinnamon rolls that need rolling out, but I haven't baked since Bella was born, and I feel a sense of victory! And I made them with fresh raspberries and tayberries from my first visit to the Renton farmer's market. Isabelle is very interested in the kitchen, and hopefully she'll take an interest in cooking some day!
Obviously photography with an infant strapped to me is not my forte.

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