Valerie's Birthday in 2010

I'm only 3 months behind on this. I actually started writing this post before. I just never actually got it finished and posted. Oops.

Jamie had the thought to give Valerie a real birthday party. We let her invite people but we provided the place, the gifts, and the food. The real reason for throwing a party was to play with fondant and cake. We'll get there.

As always, there is a story about the food. This time, there are two or three stories... just about the cake. I'll try to get them right.

Jamie was going to make 2 12 inch cakes and I was going to make 2 8 inch cakes. Chocolate, of course. The day before the party, Jamie tells me that she made her cakes. One fell into the dirty dish water. One was stepped on by Grace. Since there we were going to be few in number, we decided to just make two cakes total.

So those from down south arrive at my house around 11am. I get home around 11:30 (shopping, I think?) to see my sisters milling about. Where's Mom? Shopping. For why? Well, see. Jamie remembered about 20 minutes from my house that she left her cake in her jeep which was still south with Kevin.

Mom also was getting some last minute ingredients for the fondant.

Lessons learned. Fondant can be made before hand. I think. Also, fondant needs to be kneaded lots. And lots. And lots. And lots. We did not knead ours as much as we should have because we ran out of time. (We started the party almost 45 minutes late.)

And use Jamie's cake recipe next time. It tastes better than the random one I pulled up.

And pineapple tastes better almost a week after you buy it.

And now, let us look at all the pictures. Well, not all of them. But a lot of them.

I asked Jared to take pictures and.... well, he doesn't really take pictures. So you can't see everyone here like I wanted. We're all working on the fondant.

Painting the cake.

Stuffed mushrooms.

Fruit salad. My first watermelon basket! I forgot to scallop the edges though.

More painting of the cake. I made the lines, Kimmi made the big black spots. Jamie put the purple dots on.

This is not a turkey leg, people.

Ta da! Since this was Valerie's birthday cake, we made it music themed. Kevin made the music stand and did a great job.

The guitar is {attempted} coloring like Valerie's guitar. It is fondant-covered cardboard.

Kimmi doesn't want me to show this picture because she looks like she has to go to the bathroom.

So we move over here so I can look like I need to pee.

The yummy food. We had bagels and something to go with them. Salad, yum. Salmon, gross. Mushrooms, yum. Fruit salad, yum. Lemon and limeade that Jamie even put soda in (gasp!).

Valerie sees her cake. (We wouldn't even hint at what it would be.)

Oh! It's a piano!

And a music stand!

Sniffles. My guitar.

Kimmi presenting her gift.

Uh..... it was a promise to buy something but I don't remember what.

My present. FiberWise! Yum. Everyone needs more fiber in their diet.

She wasn't even going to open it! She even shook it and apparently didn't notice that it sounded different than packets of soft bars.

Despite my intense dislike of glee, I knew Valerie and her girls love it, so I bought them the first season CD.

A Year with Kaelyn

Happy birthday, Kaelyn! It is so hard to sum up the joy that Kaelyn brings into our lives. She is a wonderful addition to our family and a really good first child for Jared. ;-) Her one-year appointment and party is tomorrow, but let us take a trip through the last twelve months. There may or may not be way too many pictures. We'll see.

A few days after her birth.

Kaelyn in her unsightly disposable cloth diaper.

One of my favorite pictures of her first month! So sweet and asleep.

We blessed Kaelyn on our last Sunday in Oregon at 3 weeks old.

Two months and one of my favorite outfits!

Three months. Back when Kaelyn was smaller than Lara.

The first picture I got of Kaelyn sucking her fingers while awake.

Four months with one of her first cloth diapers on!!

Five months and Kaelyn can roll over. She never was much of a roller. I would never find her across the room due to rolling despite many warnings of "just you wait".

Five months was also when Kaelyn started being interested in water bottles and foods although we didn't feed her until six months.

We discovered Kaelyn's love of chocolate a little bit prior to her sixth birthday. She had excellent accuracy when grabbing my hand that was holding that cookie... and yes, she really does love chocolate. And really, anything sweet.

The "official" six month picture. She wouldn't smile on her own so I really don't have a good picture.

We also started giving her baths. In her own tub.

There was a brief portion of time around seven months when Kaelyn would lay around like this.

At eight months, we tried a new bed style. I really love the cradle hammock. I can't wait to use it with my second child.

Kaelyn was crawling at nine months so we got a play yard.

We started folding Kaelyn's arms when she was 3 or 4 months. At 10 months, she voluntarily folds her arms. Sometimes. And not for the whole prayer.

She also learned that she can crawl up the stairs at 10 months.

At 11 months, Kaelyn showed us that she knows what cell phones are for. "Hi! Hi! Hi!"

And she let us know that she wasn't interested in sleeping in her own bed anymore.

A few weeks ago, Kaelyn showed us that she can blow her nose too.

That brings us to today. She wore a dress that we're borrowing from Aunt Valerie. It has snowflakes on it which was very appropriate for the snowfall of today.

I tried to take some pictures...

Kaelyn walks with assistance. She is mastering her balance and can walk while only holding onto one of my hands. She has taken a few steps on her own but nothing more.

She has no teeth yet and although she will eat many different foods, she won't eat lots at one time. She also does not like cow milk. 

Her first words were dada, mama, and turtle (although I can't get her to repeat it now).

Her first signed word was milk.

Her first sentence was "Mama! Baby! Up!"

Her favorite phrase is "Hi kitty cat!" while waving.

Sometimes she makes me want to get a dog because she loves animals.

She loves music and dancing. She also loves looking at her books.

She's beautiful. She has a very happy disposition. She can be very sweet and cozy when she is a happy girl. Her daddy loves her very much. Happy birthday, Kaelyn! (This was Jared's answer when asked to tell me about Kaelyn.)

We love watching her grow and seeing her personality come out.  Here is to a happy first birthday with a hope of many more to come! 

Rolls in the making

Back in October, I made rolls using a recipe I hadn't used before. The recipe didn't exactly say how many rolls I would end up with. So after I let the dough rise, I wasn't expecting this...

Or this (which is just a different view of the above).

Or this.....

Doesn't that look like... I don't know. Such a big blob! It was huge!

True to its claim, however, these were good rolls. Although... they came out huge. This picture doesn't not do it justice. They were the size of two rolls. But they were very light and oh so very yummy. The missionaries who stopped by my house to pick up some pants (or maybe they were dropping them off) benefited from some fresh rolls as I was just pulling them out of the oven. They also declared them delicious.

Although I don't have a picture of them, only half the dough was made into rolls. The rest were made into cinnamon rolls. Yummy. Of course.

The next time I made this recipe, I knew a little better what to do. I halved the recipe, for starters. I made the roll chunks smaller so that I had smaller rolls. When they were rising, I forgot to put them in my oven (the warm spot) and so they weren't quite as light as the first time around. However, they were still quite delicious. 

Warning: This recipe is not the easiest roll recipe out there. There are more steps and dirties more dishes.

Turkey Trot: My First 5K

My family went to Branson, Missouri for the week of Thanksgiving. One of our planned activities was whoever wanted to could run in a Turkey Trot  in Springfield (45-60 minutes away). Since I had been aiming on running a 5K in the beginning of December (which I am no longer doing), I figured Thanksgiving wasn't that much sooner so why not.

Tuesday's run went very well. I ran for 35 minutes although not always at my regular stride as to stay with my youngest sister. There were even hills which I haven't ever run on so I was pretty proud of myself. Anyway. Tuesday was really nice. Sun. Warm enough for shorts and no winter running things. This is important because Thursday was only two days later.

Thursday was cold. Cold, cold, cold, and cold. 29 degrees when we were running, if I remember correctly. And, oh my goodness, there were so many people. The announcer said over 7000 people were registered. Everyone got t-shirts, goofy orange turkey hats (which we did not have to wear but my dad insisted on getting them for Valerie's girls who weren't present nor were their parents), and a shoe tracker. Only just over 5000 people wore their shoe trackers. Luckily, it did not rain the entire time we were running.... it started somewhere between miles 2 and 3. I personally had a goal to run it in under 40 minutes. To date I hadn't run 5K at all and since I would be in pants and a jacket ... I didn't know how I would do.

I began the run with Kimmi and Josh. I made sure they knew where we would meet up afterwards since it was likely that we wouldn't stay together. Jared and Kaelyn were waiting inside the building for us (I am told that Kaelyn got many compliments and enjoyed a doughnut). Mom and Dad started after us. I tried running without my iPod and it didn't work out for me. I got too bored. So on it went! Some interesting costumes. A pilgrim and a pumpkin and a boy with super skinny legs and a cape. I was expecting a turkey but didn't see one (not that I saw all 7000 people present). Close to the end of the race, Dad caught up with me. I walked for 30 seconds twice during the race because my nose was causing trouble (and my foot and knee were trying to cause trouble). Other than that, I ran the whole time!

Of course I wanted to know my official time but there were so many people surrounding the printouts hanging on the wall. As was our luck, some tall guys talked over our heads about how the race results were online. Bwahahaha! So we didn't wait. We got breakfast! At IHOP!!! Mom picked it out just for me. Yay! Thank you, Mom!

Here are the stats from the race because, come on, you gotta know them.
Time: 38:05 (average race time was 37:25)(fastest time was 15:25)
Place: 3124/5318
Gender place: 1459/3007
Age division place: 165/266 (ages 20-24)(fastest time in my div was 18:32 and was the 2nd fasted overall female running time)

My dad: 35:38
My mom: 41:23
(Shout out to my parents who ran the whole entire thing without stopping or walking!)
Josh: 40:00
Kimmi: 40:02

Go family!

My goal now? To beat my dad.... (Dad, DO NOT READ THIS.)

Here we are in our shirts, not right after our race but before we showered.

And I just had to show this picture to help show how Josh kept foiling our picture taking efforts.

What a fantabulously awesome day!

Everything and everyone must just adore me today. Look at me beam. Okay, never mind. My camera is out of arms reach and so is my camera cord. It's my lazy time of the day so just imagine me beaming. WARNING: Excessive use of exclamation marks (!) will be used throughout this post.

Bread
I made yummy whole wheat bread. I have never made whole wheat before. I have always done a mix of wheat/white/other random flour that I have on hand. They've never really come out good so I've been doing a little bit of reading and learning.

Lesson 1: Whole wheat is denser than white. Therefore, you must lighten whatever you are cooking. In pancakes or waffles, you would increase your baking powder. In bread, you use vital wheat gluten. I haven't done in depth reading on vital wheat gluten so I can't explain what it is or how it works exactly. I bought mine at Whole Foods in their bulk section (awesome bulk section, by the way) because Meijer's (my regular grocery store) doesn't carry it at all. Bread recipes labeled as "basic" don't usually use vital wheat gluten so I hadn't heard about it before. Or maybe I was just looking in different places. It was pricey so it's a good thing that you don't use very much.

Lesson 2: Bread machines are nice sometimes. But if you want really good bread, don't use it. I guess that is a personal preference. I have recently made rolls, cinnamon rolls, and bread without the bread machine. I think I still enjoy the dough setting on the bread machine. But I prefer to cook bread in the oven. My bread machine over cooks. Light crust really isn't light crust.

Lesson 3: Whole wheat bread makes really super yummy grilled cheese sandwiches. Really. Yummy. Yummmmmy.

Jared's assessment: "Chewy. Flavorful."
Lindey's assessment: "Yummy!" with eyes rolled towards the ceiling. I've noticed that she does that just about anything she eats something she likes and so it is not an indication of how much she likes something.

C25K W6D3
In case you don't know, I have picked up running. I choose the Couch to 5K program (C25K) because it laid everything out for me. It was measurable. I found a podcast that had music put together so I didn't have to deal with that. It told me when to run and when to walk so I didn't have to deal with that either. Each week you run intervals for approximately 30 minutes. The first week you ran for 60 seconds and walked for 90. Each week is different. You run each session 3 times except for weeks 5 and 6. W5D3 was the first time you run for longer than 10 minutes at one time. I was ecstatic to make it through 20 full minutes.

I debated on whether to rerun days 1 and 2 of week 6 because I felt like I struggled through both days. After looking at the calendar, I decided to push on. I needed to finish the program before Thanksgiving which is when my first 5K will be. So today I ran 25 minutes (!!!) straight (!!!) and only the last 2 minutes felt difficult.

The podcast pacing has me at a 13 minute mile and the aim of C25K is to have you at 10 minute miles. The pacing will pick up over the next few weeks to get me there. No more intervals in the program! I'm running 25+ minutes now! Check me out! I definitely couldn't do this when I started.

Goodwill
After picking up Lindey from her second day of work (which worked out much better than picking her up from her first day of work), we went to Goodwill which is on the way home. She needed some dress pants. I needed something to wear to youth night tomorrow. We both scored.

The dress I found is almost entirely modest and a shrug will take care of that problem. The best part? It's a size 4!! I fit a size 4!! It maybe a large size 4, but it's still a size 4.

I also got 3 shirts all of which I really like.

And. All clothing was 50% off. Apparently, Goodwill is moving locations next month. Closer to me! By a few blocks...

Oh, and they were playing Christmas music. Christmas, people! I love Christmas!

Old Time Pottery
We stopped by Old Time Pottery on the way home because it was right next door to Goodwill. Contrary to its name, I don't think I saw any pottery inside. But it landed itself on my list of favorite stores. And I didn't even buy anything.

They have large clocks which fit exactly what I've been keeping an eye out for. They have large frames for not that expensive which I have also been looking for. They have rugs. They have a clearance section. They have a super clearance section. They have home decor fabric in small yardage.

Kaelyn
She has been saying "uh oh" lately. It is quite cute even though she will drop things on purpose just to say "uh oh". This morning, as I was cooking waffles, she was trying to stand up to see herself in the lower oven. I must have left the drawer underneath open a little bit because she started saying "uh oh! uh oh!" to tell me that her fingers were smooshed in the drawer and she couldn't get them out.

Giveaway
Last of all, I just got an email saying that I won a giveaway! $20 to a cloth diaper shop called Abby's Lane. Score! I'm not sure what I'll get with it yet though... So many choices!

There's this cute Blueberry Minky One Size Pocket. Or maybe a BumGenius Organic One Size AIO. I should consider a diaper sprayer. Or just get some SuperDo inserts because I love the LoopyDos that came with my Knickernappies.

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I had a great day. :)