Dory

Memily -n- Mr Craig

Got MARRIED!!!! Saturday in Jamaica. WOOT!!! We so wish we could have been there with them, but alas...


Congradulations and Best Wishes to the new Mr. & Mrs Snow!!!!!! We love you guys!

Babe in Toyland

Only one foot free.....

You put your... left foot in... you put your... left foot out

And then you shake it all about...

The Bus

We were all on it yesterday. You would think that the shorter trip to Statesboro (Savannah) would have gone so much better than the drive to Ohio.... WRONG!!!! The whole day was one huge catastrophy. Right down to our reservations being canceled, or frozen fish thawing and milk freezing... stoller was left behind and so were cooking things. *I* had to go to Wal-Mart!!! Yes, the Earth shook. Bad, bad, bad day. Really glad it is over.

Cake & Birthday Highlights!

Dory had her 1st dress-up birthday party on Saturday... you had to come dressed up somehow under threat of a pink boa... Poor Clay.

And the Cake is in the Oven

Yep. It's 11:30 the night before Dory's first real birthday party. Sure she has had others, but she will hopefully have a few friends at this one, even if they just drop in. This is her actual first birthday cake... and I really hope that I don't screw it up. Who knew there were 3 zillion different recipes for Carrot Cake? I had no clue, as this is my first. That said, in true Jenny style, I had to tinker wih it... could no for the life of me stick to just one recipe! I instead followed 3. Yes, that's right... 3.
~http://www.cooksillustrated.com/article.asp?articleid=28
~http://www.joyofbaking.com/CarrotCake.html
~http://southernfood.about.com/od/carrotcakesandcookies/r/bl30409k.htm
I now have NO CLUE how long it should be in there... I guess I will just check it obsesively.

The Jenny version is as follows:
1.5c Og All-Purpose Unbleached Flour
1c Og Whole Wheat Flour
1.25tsp Og Cinnamin
1.25tsp Og Baking Powder
1tsp Baking Soda
.5 tsp Sea Salt
1c Og Cane Sugar
.5c Dark Brown Muscadavo
4 Og Free Range Amish Farmer Eggs
.75# Og Carrots, finely grated
1c Og Chopped & Toasted Pecans
1c Og Raisens
1c Og Unrefined Coconut Oil
.66c Og Applesauce
2tsp Og Pure Burbon Vanilla (Neilson-Massey Madagascar)

All mixed up and baking right now. The batter tasted good.... I sure hope the cake does. Or I will still be up at 4am making the next one.


UPDATE, 12:36am: YUM.

Co-sleeping buddies

...and the flash didn't even wake them!

A Jack Attack

Poor Weeble didn't stand a chance.

Musical Dory

Great Grandma Marcille taught Dory how to play the Autoharp. She was entranced for about an hour.

Someone looks like a carbon copy of Grandpa!

My Dream Car

So, everyone always wants to know, "What's your dream car?" I finally have an answer.
The GM EV1.
Saddly, GM took it off the market. :(
Well, that's why it is a Dream car.

The Middle Wife

The "Middle Wife" by an Anonymous 2nd grade teacher

I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids
myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own
second-grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few
sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and
usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles,
model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I
never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they
want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they're welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very
outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the
class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. "This is Luke, my baby
brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday."

"First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then
Dad put a seed in my Mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate
for nine months through an umbrella cord."

She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm
trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids
are watching her in amazement.

"Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going,
'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!' Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. "She
walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!"

Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.

"My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she
doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my
Mom to lie down in bed like this."

Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.

"And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there
in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the
bed, like psshhheew!"

This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water
flowing away. It was too much!

"Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe,
breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then,
all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff
that they all said it was from Mom's play-center, so there must be a
lot of toys inside there."

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to
her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when
it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case
another "Middle Wife" comes along.

_____________________________________________
That was just so cute that I had to share it. :)

So it's a food type day.

Food article from Time Mag.

Second food article

Great Grandma Dorothy's House is Rockin' & Rollin'

There is just SOMEthing about babies and rolling over at Great Grandma Dorothy's house. Dory did it on her first visit at 3 months, and Jack apparently was just waiting to follow his sister's lead, as he, at 4mos and 1 week, waited until just now! Go Jack!! :)

TTM & TMI

Well, it is pretty safe to say, Dory has completed Potty Training. She holds it longer than I thought she could when out and about and does a really good job of letting me know when she has to go. Tonight after we put her to bed (still in a diaper with panties on top) she started yelling that she had to potty. John finally heard her and went upstairs to check and she had removed her panties just in case we didn't get to her in time an she had to use the diaper... LOL. She made it to the potty and she went, apparently a lot.

But, on to the real story here. Dory had all of her hair cut off on Wednesday at the Aveda Institute. She has Toddler Trichotillomania and it has become much worse since Jack has been born. I could write a book on this right now, and to a certain extent, do paln to... but right now I must get to bed. Bottom line it, she's bald and fine while Mommy is a little bit traumatized and ready to punch the lady at the grocery who kept gushing over my sons and how handsome he was, when she was in head to toe PINK. And NO, she was NOT talking about Jack. >:( But, so far, so good. No hair to pull so no pulling. Here's to hope that the cycle will break.

Reading Material

From Reading Material

So potty training is going well... and Dory was determined to read a book like we do while doing her business.... she was super tickled with the 'Flip-n-Flush' that we installed on the downstairs toilet for her. Bye-bye Fisher Price Royal Potty!

Jack

Bud is finding all sorts of new things to play with right now! Some of them he really likes....

Stepping back now.

Well, Tuesday night went really really well! Dory wanted to wear her panties to bed, and since we have never had a flood free night, I insisted on a diaper. We compromised. We put on a diaper and pantie over that.

I woke up Wednesday morning to a little girl calling out, "Mommy! I have to go peepee in the potty!" I ran her to the bathroom and sure enough, she had a DRY DIAPER! I was floored.

We went out around town yesterday in the panties... and she never had to pee once, and never had an accident. I kept asking her! So proud.

So, last night we tried the diaper compromise again.

Nope, didn't work. She took off the panties, the ones she has had for some time now - not the brand new ones she had been wearing - and proceded to peepee in her diaper. Oh well. We will try again tonight with the newer ones and see if it was just the ones she was wearing and didn't like...

So, on to today... she did really well in the morning... went several times. Then we had to head out to help another Mommy... and then we went to the grocery. See where I am heading? Yep, we were in front of the salad dressing when Dory said, "Mommy, I'm going peepee." It was too late.


Oops.

Puddle clean-up on aisle 3.


Luckily they didn't seem to mind, I had a change of clothes in the car, all the ladies that passed us seemed like they had all been there before and Dory did not seem too traumatized by it. She knew it wasn't good, but se didn't seem to feel shamed or overly embarressed by it. I guess the Bing Bunny book helped with that one. (Bing gets dressed and then has an accident... and it's no big deal.) It was everywhere though. Her tutu, her babylegs, her crocs... yep, she was swimming in it since I didn't put socks on her. Luckily, or unluckily depending on viewpoint, when we went back out to the car it was raining and I 'washed' them off in the rain as we changed clothes in the back of the car.

This evening we had one half-miss here at home, but it was very well contained.
We'll see how tonight goes!
Whew.