Mama's Little Helper

For the past couple of weeks, I have been letting Beniah help me with some of my baking. He really enjoys the process of dumping ingredients into the bowl and helping Mama stir by singing,
"Round and around and around we go!
Round and around and around we go!
Round and around and around we go!
Round we go-o-o!"
I remember my mom singing this to my sister and I when we helped her stir food.

Beniah's all time favorite part of cooking was licking the peanut butter off of the spoon.


Our masterpiece, Chocolate Peanut butter bundt cake.


Beniah had fun putting the cheese strips onto the pepper jack macaroni and cheese.


Beniah also got to help his Daddy make wonderful chocolate peanut butter brownies.

Roadtrip Conversations

This afternoon, I had another companion in the backseat of my car. My almost 3 year old nephew, Donny, was coming home with me and Beniah to spend the rest of the day with us. On the way home, I was entertained with Donny's musings. Here are some Donny quotes.

At seeing a lot of cars on the road: "Cars, cars, cars! This is ridiculous!"
At seeing a stop sign: "Turn right at octagogagone."
After being stopped in a long line at a stoplight: "Go...Go....Go pink car, go!"

He had me laughing most of the trip home and wishing that I recorded the drive so that his mama could hear all of his comments.

The Excitement of Life.

I have been remiss on keeping you all up to date for the past couple of months. This is partially due to Tim using the computer so much because he uses it to study for his 2nd actuary exam, but mostly this is due to the busyness of motherhood and spending my time with other activities. Lately, I have taken up quilting and am working on my son's baby blanket. I have made a few blankets for my friends and sister's babies, but haven't done one for my own son until now. Here is the 1st block on his quilt. I will post the finished product at a later date (i.e. when I finally finish the project).


Beniah is definitely growing and changing everyday. He seems to do the small things that brighten up my day (like giving me a foxglove flower off of his grandma's plant).

Beniah enjoys reading his books and says, "Amen" when the book is at the end.

Beniah loves to play with the light switch in our front room.


Our cat is not safe anywhere now that Beniah is a toddler.


The fastest way to light up Beniah's eyes is to bring out his cars and the fabric with the streets on it.


The most exciting news to come to our house is as follows:


I am hoping that history will repeat itself and Tim will pass next Thursday's actuary test since I passed my pregnancy test.

Flowering

This past week, my husband built me a flower box so that I could plant some flowers that I received for my birthday.


Pansies.


Ever since I was a little girl, there has always been some heather planted at the place I have lived (except for Corvallis). So, when I saw some heather for sale, I immediately bought it.

Pi Day!

For most people, today is like any other day (other than having the time change), but to us math nerds (or those married to them) this day is something special. Today is Pi day. For those of you who don't know Pi's number is 3.14. To celebrate, I decided to make a Chocolate Mint Cream Pie. It was delicious. In spirit of this wondrous occasion, I am giving you all the recipe. I do have to admit that I received the original recipe from my sister in law and I just added the mint dark chocolate.



Chocolate Mint Cream Pie

1 Baked and Cooled 9" Pie Crust
3/4 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
2 cups Whole Milk
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
1 Tbsp Butter
1 bar Mint Dark Chocolate, chopped into pieces
Whipped Cream for garnish
Chocolate shavings for garnish

In medium saucepan mix sugar, flour, and salt. Stir in 1 cup milk and mix until smooth. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Stir until smooth and thickened, about 2 minutes, then remove from heat.

Beat eggs with the remaining milk. Temper the egg mixture with a small amount of the slightly cooled milk mixture, then blend this into the larger saucepan with the cooling milk mixture.

Return saucepan to the heat and bring to a boil again, stirring constantly. Lower heat and simmer until mixture thickens a bit more, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla. Once thoroughly mixed stir in mint dark chocolate pieces. Stir until chocolate is melted and mixed throughout. Top with whipped topping.

Happy Pi day!

New Dining Companion

Last night we decided to try sitting Beniah up at the table to eat dinner with us. He has been doing well with the fork, but we were concerned that he would dump all of his food, including his plate, onto the floor. Thankfully, he did very well and ate his meal like a big boy.

Flying Lessons

Yesterday, the UPS driver dropped off our new coffee maker. I have been planning on changing the ordinary coffee maker box into an airplane for Beniah ever since we ordered the coffee maker. Today, I took advantage of Beniah's nap time and whipped out my scissors, packing tape, and a little Elmer's glue and made Beniah's 1st cardboard box airplane.



Although I didn't get any pictures of Beniah being excited over his new toy, he was very pleased with it. He especially liked the pencil stick propellers. I would spin it for him and he would say, "Whee!"

Cheese!

About a month ago, Tim received a bobble head Spock for his birthday. Beniah has now laid claim to it and tries to shake Spock's head so that he will say, "Live long and prosper." "You are, after all, essentially irrational." and "Fascinating." Yesterday, I tried capturing Beniah playing with Spock, but instead, I captured his first cheesy camera smile.

Great Grandma Corl

One of my fondest memories as a child was visiting my family back in Pennsylvania. My grandparents lived across a pond from my Great Grandma Corl. Almost everyday my sister and I would race across the path to the other side of the pond and visit with my great grandma. She still used her wood burning stove even though it was well into the 1990's. I loved eating her crispy pancakes and drinking hot chocolate in her warm kitchen. There always seemed to be a quilt in progress on her dining room table and quilts hanging from her wall and in trunks and the fun closets that connected rooms together. I used to pretend that this old house was a stop on the underground railroad (in spite of the fact that the house was built after the Civil War) or that the Holocaust Jews would hide from the Nazis in those secret closets (Polish Jews could hide out in a closet in Pennsylvania, right?).
For the past 3 weeks, I have been cutting, pinning, and sewing my first quilt. It is for a friend of mine who is due to have a little girl at the end of this month. Now I am not arrogant enough to say that I am as good at quilting as my great grandma, but I am pleased with how my first one turned out. I think that Great Grandma would be as well.

Time To Get Dressed

Have you ever wondered what a 14 month old would choose to wear to church if he got the opportunity to decide for himself? Well now you know!

That's right! Brown sweatpants and a gray GAP shirt. This morning, I was getting ready for church and Beniah was being...helpful. So, I went to his dresser and opened the shirt drawer and the pants drawer and told him to pick out a shirt and a pair of pants, expecting him to pull out all of his clothes leaving me with the time to finish getting ready. Instead, he pulled out 1 pair of pants and 1 shirt. He then shut both drawers and went off to play elsewhere. While I wouldn't normally dress my son up like this for church (or anywhere else for that matter), I thought "What the heck! It's the 1st time he chose an outfit for himself. So he'll wear it!"

We also had the pleasure of watching the kids in nursery this morning where Beniah successfully figured out how to crawl in and out of the toy box. When it was time to put toys away, he wanted to stay in there and have us put the toys in the box with him.

Christmas Past

With the Holiday season and the flu that followed now behind us, I feel that now is a good time to reflect over the events of Christmas 2009. Another contributing factor was that one of my best friends told me to "update your blog already!" Without further ado, here are my musings of this past Christmas.
Last year (2008) was, technically, Beniah's 1st Christmas, but this year actually felt like his 1st Christmas. He was very interested in the Christmas lights and would literally demand that they be turned on the minute he was taken upstairs to eat his breakfast. Beniah would go to every Christmas decoration that lit up and would say, "ight!" and blow on it (yes, we taught him to blow on lights to turn them on) until we turned on the decoration.
Beniah had a ton of fun playing with his cousins during Christmas.


Tim had a ton of fun teaching Beniah and Jeshu to juggle.


I had a ton of fun dressing my son up in his suit. Beniah didn't seem to appreciate it though.


Watching Beniah unwrap presents was another delight of ours. When we celebrated with my family, Beniah was very diligent in unwrapping his gifts, until he got to the large lego set from Grandpa and Grandma, then he wanted nothing else to do with gift opening.

At the Whittaker celebration, he just opened the apple (only part of a gift from Auntie Jo) and wandered around eating the apple for the rest of the gift opening.


Beniah and his Whittaker cousins all received Chinese kung-fu outfits from their Auntie Jo.



Sad, but true gifts that Tim received.


I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a happy New Year (it still counts if you say it in January).

A Very Crafty Christmas

For Christmas this year, Tim and I decided to make homemade gifts to help with the cost of giving to 16 people. We had a lot of fun planning and creating our gifts and just might make this a tradition in our gift giving.

Our nephews each received wooden blocks that spelled out their names.

Our nieces each received a pillow with their names on it (I don't have a picture of Katie's pillow though).


My mom received a silhouette paper cut out of her wedding picture.


My mother in law received a candle in a teacup (I made the candle not the cup).


My sister received a wall hanging of India.


Tim's sisters each received a tea light candle holder.


My dad received a garden stepping stone that had leaf imprints on it. I chose the leaves for their pretty color. My dad, the tree lover that he is, started naming off all of the trees that the leaves came from.

Tim is 25 and a College Graduate

December has been an exciting month. Tim finished up and passed the last of his college classes and turned 25! We are now looking forward to Tim finding a job and lower insurance premiums.