Instagram Fun

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook.  I love staying in touch with friends and long-distance family members.  I get tired of memes, I don't want to see every random article that people "like", and I loathe political rants.  I usually end up going on Facebook breaks for a few days at a time because I just get really sick of it.

Last year, a few of my friends had mentioned how much they preferred Instagram but I didn't have a smart phone at the time.  This March, two things changed:

1) My old phone just totally died and I couldn't ever hear people unless I was using the speaker phone...but then the people I was talking to couldn't hear me.  My carrier had a great, great deal on an older iPhone so I decided it was time to switch.  Tada!  Now my phone could actually handle Instagram!

2) A fabric designer I love was hosting an Instagram-based contest that I very much wanted to enter.

I bit the bullet and got my Instagram account :)

I've been using it for the last eight months now and I love it.  I share pictures of my baking, my sewing, and some of our travels and outings with the kids.  I only follow a fraction of the people I do on Facebook along with some personal interests.  It's actually fun to check it and so much more relaxing than Facebook!  These are some of the baking pictures I've shared that never made it onto this blog:

So, if you're interested in baking, sewing, or a very abbreviated blog, that's where I am :)

Pudding Face 2.0

My family has a really cute picture of my younger sister when she's about two years old holding a mixing bowl with her face covered in chocolate pudding.  We call it the "Pudding Face" picture.

Elliott is clearly related to his aunt.

Of course, since it's my sweet little disaster boy, it's also pudding shirt...and pudding pants...and pudding hands.  Moral of the story: Elliott can not be trusted with chocolate.

Saturday with Grandma and Grandpa

My parents were able to come visit us just for a day.  Since it was a short visit, I wanted to make sure it was a fun and memorable day!  My parents kindly took us to the dinosaur museum.  They have a traveling exhibit right now called Geometry Playground.  Elliott loved looking through these tunnels, and Molly and Miles loved this crazy climbing structure.

I was surprised by how much Elliott adored the museum.  I thought he still might be too young but he was delighted by the dinosaurs, fish, fossils, and especially playing in this sand/water feature.  Let's be honest, Gerrit was also entranced by this sand/water feature and ended up staying a good 10-15 minutes after the rest of us were finished.

It was a special space-themed day at the museum so we got to design planets, answer space questions, learn about asteroids, play on this giant space map, and see some little star shows.

We also enjoyed a yummy Hawaiian lunch and plenty of time to play with Grandma and Grandpa.  Grandma was a great sport for plenty of Ring Around the Rosie and peek-a-boo, and Grandpa got Miles hooked on Excel (no lie) and played a drawing game with Molly that she loved.  Elliott was just having a blast playing and laughing.

We really crammed a lot of fun and togetherness into the trip and we can't wait to see them again next time!

Three Bugs in a Rug

We have a giant sectional in our family room.  They could have sat anywhere to watch their Saturday morning cartoons, but they wanted to sit right next to each other.  This just makes me feel so happy!

Babysitting Adventures

We don't babysit often.  Gerrit and I are both the oldest sibling in our families and my sister's family lives two hours away.  Recently, Gerrit's sister had a baby so we finally have the chance to reciprocate some of the many many hours of babysitting that we have received.

Gerrit's sister watched our kids while we went to The Importance of Being Earnest one weekend, and then we watched their 3-month-old the next weekend while they went to the same play.  We started out with a very adventurous tour of the BYU bookstore and bought a periodic table placemat.

The kids loved sitting on Cosmo's lap!

Our next stop was to visit the little exhibits at the BYU Library.  The main one was the Mormons in Comics exhibit, but they also had some priceless Iranian engravings and the cool marble sculpture about the life of Christ we've seen a few other places.  We had calmly settled down to hold the baby and let the kids sit on the beanbag chair when Elliott brought me a little potted grass plant to look at.

One minute he was cradling the case, the next minute he was hurling it across the room.  Thank goodness it was a $10 Walmart vase, and not the priceless engraved Iranian ones.

Our little nephew.  So cute!  So delightfully not capable of throwing any vases!

We found someone to clean it up and left the library in embarrassment.  Our last stop was the BYU art museum.  The surprisingly big hit of our visit was watching the video of The Way Things Go.  It's basically 20 minutes of fire and explosions in a chain reaction.  Of course the kids loved it!

It wasn't too bad to have all four of them (broken vase excluded), but it was also a relief that it was only for a few hours.

Sweet Delights

Molly wants to be a baker when she grows up.  She wants to have her own bakery and her own baking show.  She loves watching YouTube baking shows like Nerdy Nummies and cooking with me, so it makes perfect sense.  One of her favorite things to do when I ask her to bake with me is to steal my phone at the same time so she can make her baking show videos.  I love watching her vidoes even if I have to delete 90% of them so she doesn't take all my storage :)

These are the caramel cookies she keeps talking about:

Spooky Season

Here's two weeks worth of Halloween activities!  I already put up pictures of the activity we went to at the Logan Zoo and don't have pictures of the Halloween party Miles went to with his friends, but otherwise, this gives a pretty good idea of what late October looks like :) I had all three costumes completely done by October 20th because I knew we would need them!

The library puts out little Halloween games for all the story times the week of Halloween and lets kids wear their costumes.  Molly's outfit was a big hit with all the librarians!

Molly's preschool puts on an enormous Halloween program and carnival.  I was so proud of her for learning all of the songs.  It was a Harry Potter theme and I think that might have been more for the parents...It was so funny because her 20 person class had 2 Darth Vaders, 2 storm troopers and 7 princesses.

She was so excited about pink cotton candy but that stuff was terrible.

Molly got sorted into Ravenclaw!

Miles's elementary school does a Halloween parade.  He did a group costume with two of his friends from school so here are Mario, Luigi and Yoshi!

I was so happy when he told me he wanted to do the group costume.  First, it's fun for him to do it with his friends.  Second, it meant that all I had to do for a costume was pull out the kindergarten costume and add some side panels because it was too tight otherwise.

Molly was The Princess in Black.  They are her favorite books and so cute!  I modified a dress pattern into a romper and then added the side panels and the pleated sleeves.  She used her own leggings and boots, I made a no-sew felt cape, and then we bought a tiara and painted on the mask.  We tried a felt mask but it was just too itchy and moved around all the time.

Elliott was her little goat.  The princess in black saves all the goats in her kingdom from the monsters so I thought a goat would be the perfect companion costume.  I made a little sweatshirt with goat ears and horns on it, some pants, and a velcro goat tail.

This was my first time handing out candy in years!  Gerrit took Molly and Elliott trick-or-treating and Miles went with his friends.  The night started out really slow but we did get about 120 trick-or-treaters eventually.

Miles made the "museum of candy" with his haul.  It also has a "fossils" section (made of wrappers) and he made up scientific names for all of them.  He also left it in the reach of his little brother, so I had to keep his door closed for days to save it from Elliott.

The Lost Recipes

After I found out through my friend about my most recent published recipe, I started to wonder if there were any other recipes I didn't realize were published.  It turns out there were three!

This one is really special to me.  It's actually my grandmother's recipe.  After she passed away, I submitted a few of her recipes because I knew she had tried to get a few published over the years.  It has actually been in my bookshelf for a year...when the cookbook was sent to me I'd just assumed that it was only for the pomegranate crostini recipe that I'd had previously published in a different issue and I didn't notice my name on it.  Oops!  These are the best caramels in the world and my grandma used to send them to us every year in a big box at Christmas.

These are my loaded chicken and gouda calzones. They also have bacon, spinach, and roasted red peppers in them.  I had entered them in a freezer meals contest because calzones are one of my all-time favorite things to freeze.  Seriously, they freeze very, very well and are a meal on their own without any side dishes.  I had made these when I was pregnant with Molly.  They were published in a freezer meals special edition, and my best guess is that I never got the magazine because we moved shortly afterwards and they had the wrong address on file.

These are carrot cake shortbread and they are one of my favorite Christmas cookies.  I had entered them in a Christmas cookie contest and they were published in a cookie special edition.  Again, entered when we lived in the condo just for a year and then they had the wrong address.  These are great for a cookie plate because they are a little bit different.  They have grated carrots in the filling and a maple glaze, although I usually put chopped pecans on top of mine.

Three Little Helpers

Gerrit and I used to go just look at stores for fun all the time when we were first married.  We very rarely bought anything.  It was just a chance to get out of the house and look at things.  We kept that up for a few years after Miles was born...basically as long as he would stay inside the cart or stroller.

We almost never go to stores just for fun any more.

Picking up a pizza just became a lot harder :)

The amount of difficulty went up exponentially!  Let's review the challenges with taking my kids to the store:

*Endless whining on the drive to the store.
*Endless choruses of "Are we done yet?" inside the store.
*Constant begging for whatever the store sells, especially if it is treats or toys.
*Terrifying attempts to destroy expensive/breakable things that the store sells.
*The trip takes at least twice as long because people wander away or just walk extremely slowly.
*Endless whining on the drive back home.

If I just take one kid to the store, they will actually be pretty well behaved.  Especially if it's Elliott.  He loves going to the store!  If I take two kids to the store, things will be a little harder but still feel relatively vacation-like.  Three kids?  We're staying home and watching Cake Wars :)

Tomato Soup with Cheesy Ghost Croutons

Here's my latest published recipe!

I submitted it for a fall celebrations contest and it was published in a special Halloween issue!  I didn't even know it was getting published since I generally find out about anything in a special issue when they mail me the copy.  One of my friends from home posted it on Facebook and that's how I found out :)

I wanted a dish that would be a great pre-trick or treating dinner.  For me, that means good nutritional value but still fun and exciting.  I thought a tomato-based soup would look "Halloween-y" but I could pack in some carrots and roasted red peppers to make it a little more special.  I added the ghost croutons after I was just staring at my pantry wondering if anything could make it look more festive and settled on the sliced olives.

Here it is!

His Name is No

Early language development is my favorite.

Elliott says so many words now and tries to imitate even more.  He's also started putting words together, mostly "Want ________" variations.  Here's some of the cutest early talking stories:

*Elliott's stuffed animal is a little green dinosaur.  He sleeps with it every night and carries it all over the house.  The way that he says dinosaur is "No."  It's pretty adorable to see him crying for No and saying "Want No!"  It's one of those things that would be confusing unless you have some background :)

*Elliott loves looking at the pictures on our kitchen calendar.  One of the pictures has a baby elephant holding on to it's mother's tail.  We were practicing saying "baby" and "mama" when Elliott pointed to the elephant next to them and yelled "Dada!" completely on his own.  I really do love seeing how much Elliott loves Gerrit and sees "Dada" when there is a baby and mama :)

101 in 1001: Update # 4

I've finished 400 days of the goal period now.  It's funny to see how far I've gotten on some goals and how little I've done on some others...Here's what I've completed or is in progress so far:

Completed:

8) Finish the second round of Personal Progress

I finally finished my Divine Nature and Virtue experiences and I am all done!

29) Volunteer on Miles's elementary school literacy committee (Amended to Carnival committee)

It turns out that the literacy program is mostly run by the librarians.  I volunteered to help with the carnival and was in charge of the food trucks.  It all went really well except we're having a very hard time getting one of the trucks to pay us...

59) Make homemade doughnuts

I made passion fruit with cocoa nib and maple bars with peanut brittle as my birhtday cake this year.

64) Make roman shades for the kitchen

These took about forever to finally get hung up but I love them!


99) Buy flowers "just because"

Aren't they so beautiful?

In Progress:

1) Read the Standard Works

I completed the Book of Mormon and now I'm reading in the New Testament and just finished reading Acts.

2) Attend the temple 10 times
Brooke watched our kids so we could go to the temple. Thanks, Brooke :)

11) Read 5 childhood favorites to Miles
We read Charlotte's Web.  He loved it but was shocked and sad when Charlotte died.

38) Make ten freezer dinners before the semester starts
I did ten dinners before Molly and Elliott were born, but realized that's not particularly necessary for the semester.  I made 3 specific things just for the freezer and then I've been doubling or freezing leftovers when it's convenient.  I love having something easy for days when I really can't cook!


42) Catch up on the Economist and read weekly for 3 months
I'm still trying to get caught up but I really made some good headway...I'm only 5 months behind now.  They really do have such good material for work.

91) Try ten new restaurants

We tried Around Eatery in Lehi and did not really like it, and then tried Cupbop in Provo and loved it.  I was really impressed that they will give you little free kid's bowls with rice, noodles, and chicken!  We've tried eight new restaurants now and just have two to go.

Fall Break

It's still a little weird to me that we have a big five-day weekend after school has only been going for two months.  I tried really hard to put some fun activities into our fall break this year.  A lot of their friends go on big vacations, but with Gerrit just starting a new job that wasn't going to happen.  A lot of other friends do big day trips, but I couldn't really balance that with work responsibilities.  Instead, we did a big fun thing in the morning, came home so Elliott could take a nap and I could work, and then headed back out in the evening.

Thursday: Playdates and Playgrounds

I have two good friends that have kids really close to all of my kids in age, so we went to one of their houses in the morning and let the kids play.  Molly and Miles love to play with the four kids that are close to their age, and Elliott is learning to have fun playing with other toddlers:)  Mostly he was instantly in love with my friend's dog :)

When Gerrit had Webelos, I took the kids to the brand-new all-access playground.  It's designed to be comfortable for anyone, no matter if they need a wheelchair, have sensory issues, or any other disorder or disability.  We all thought it was fantastic!

Friday: Baking and Boo

We made some sweet potato bread in the morning.  We had an albino sweet potato!  These looked completely identical before I peeled them.
                                         
                                         
Gerrit came home for lunch and then we drove up to Logan to hang out with my siblings and go to my cousin's wedding reception.  We went to the little zoo in Logan for their Boo at the Zoo.  It was a nice little outing, and Elliott really liked the monkeys and birds.  Molly is still terrified of goats, though.

Molly and Will are such good buddies! And yes, he's two years younger than her and basically the exact same size.

Molly and Miles loved the games!

Saturday: Chemistry and Comics

There were some great events at the Provo Library!  Our first stop was a bunch of chemistry experiments put on by BYU.  We loved trying all of the different activities!

We had a little time to kill before the graphic novel art exhibit opened, so we saw these neat photos.

The graphic novel art exhibit introduced us to some fun new books for Miles and had art from Squish, one of his favorites.

Molly loved the open access to art materials at the end!  They've both been writing their own graphic novels ever since.

The library had a bunch of graphic novels available to read.  We lost Miles to Lunch Lady for a while :)

Monday: Movies and Mammals

I took the kids to see The Secret Life of Pets.  Elliott loves dogs and all three kids liked it.  It wasn't my favorite but I don't think I'm the target audience :)

 That night, we headed to a Halloween event at the Bean Museum.  We did some little crafts, looked at the exhibits (oh, taxidermy), and went to a fun "spooky animal" show.  Did you know that pikas are actually kind of vicious?

Don't be fooled.  They eat brains.  Ick.