Smiles and Cookies

Yup that's good old Clark D smiling there. I just put him on his belly on a whim the other day and he loved it. Curtis always hated being on his belly as a baby, but then again he was a pretty miserable baby anyway you put him. Clark D, on the other hand, is so happy and smily most of the time. "They" say you should give your baby "tummy time" to help strengthen neck muscles and such for a few minutes every day.

Curtis and I made some more cookies this week. These are Martha Stewart's ice box butter cookies. I made the dough on Saturday and then on Monday I cut them up and let Curtis place them on the parchment lines cookie sheet. These are one of my husband's favorites. Very easy to make a bunch of dough a head of time so you get almost instant satisfaction come baking time.

Right now I have Paula Deen's banana bread in the oven. I'll let you know how it turns out. I seem to have manifested a lot of her recipes into my life lately and they are all good. A neighbor made this and shared a slice with me yesterday and since I had the ingredients and a craving and both boys are napping I figured I'd try it. It was really easy to make and true to Paula Deen style uses butter instead of oil. I had to tweak it a little and I'll let you know how and why later when we see if it's any good or not. The big reason I wanted to try it was that Curtis ate a piece and said he really liked it. With any other recipe I've tried for banana bread he's always said no. Of course maybe it was just because some other mom gave it to him. We'll see.

T

Infant Gemstome Massage etc.

Just wanted to share something. I've been sitting with Clark a lot now-a-days on the bed giving him belly rubs. Lately his stomach is very gurgly (if thats a word) and he seems to have tiny periods of fuss and pain. So this afternoon I felt it gurgle and I took him on the bed with my collection of gemstones. I don't have many that aren't in bead form, probably less than a dozen. So I took them one by one and rubbed them in clockwise circles on his belly. I've been told clockwise circles help digestion. So he seemed to really calm down a lot and get peaceful for citrine and yellow topaz. I looked these up and liked what they were for and then noticed that they are both considered birthstones for his birth month of november. Pretty cool that he seems to already feel connected to his birthstone(s). He's now sound asleep and I keep catching him smiling in his sleep. Another funny thing I found on that website is that Clark has yellow topaz as a birthstone and Curtis has blue topaz as a birth stone. Next chance I get I'm going to try to get a blue topaz from the gem shop and see how Curtis reacts to it.

So today started rocky because I was a little tense about this photographer coming. See I won a raffle for a free photo shoot and a disc with 25 best pics on it. We had her come this morning to do baby and family portraits. I always get tense about pics because I've felt like I take a terrible picture and never really have many that capture the good moments in our lives (until now). There is a negative story about my wedding which we have about 3 good photos of that I still have bad feelings about. But I won't get into that. So I took some rescue remedy but Curt and I were still snapping at each other and I was stressed about Curtis' pants not fitting and my hair being frizzy and the weather being cold and almost rainy. Well, the photographer was great and we got a bunch of great shots and as we finished up the first few rain drops fell. I'm expecting some great pics and I'll be sure to share when they come in 2 weeks.

Now I'm looking forward to an evening of bonding with Clark as Curt is taking Curtis to the monster truck show. Funny thing is a friend got them tickets and was going with them and his son who is 6 months older than Curtis but he backed out at the last minute so now it's just DH and Curtis going. It's a little drizzly so we got them ponchos and I'm wondering how Curtis will do with all the noise, but they are going to try it out for a little to see how it all goes. So Clark and I are getting to spend the whole afternoon and evening together bundled up inside on a drizzly cold day, and honestly I can't think of anything else I'd rather do right now.

Off to make some tea.

T

Cookies

Here's what Clark D looks like now.

So I picked up a gingerbread man kit at an after Christmas sale for really cheap. I thought I'd try letting Curtis bake cookies with me and didn't want to invest too much money since I figured more would get on the counter and floor than on the pan. I've heard all these stories of women baking cookies with their toddlers but wondered how my little tazmanian devil would do. Last weekend we let Daddy go to the movies with a friend and once Clark D was asleep Curtis and I had fun making and eating some of these. He had lots of fun stirring the dough and also enjoyed using the cookie cutter. The dog also enjoyed it since she got to lick all the dough off the floor that Curtis spilled.

Florida vs. California

We have them on the citrus but unfortunately I have to admit that they have us on the avocado. These Florida ones are not nearly as good and flavorful and buttery as the California hass variety I get at the Publix.

Stay tuned for info on sweet potato pie. That will be my next challenge but I'm not sure when I'll accept it. I'm still trying to shake this cold that hit us all hard here. Hence the wonderful fresh picked and squeezed orange juice day in and day out right now.

T

Pumpkin Pie

So it all started on thanksgiving. I became obsessed with pumpkin pie. See we went to my IL's house and Clark was only something like 3 weeks old. So they did the whole thing and we just showed up to eat since we were all still pretty disheveled from the birth and all. Dinner was good but there was no pumpkin pie! I was devastated, but being the polite person I am I ate the apple pie they served with a smile.

That week I had seen Martha Stewart make a Libby pumpkin pie on her show and it seemed simple enough. So I waited until my Mom came to visit and I bought all the ingredients and I planned to make one while my Mom was here figuring she could help me distract little ones if they woke from their naps mid pie making. Well, that pie turned out great. We all ate it happily with whipped cream on it every night until it was gone.

Now, this beautiful pie I made about 2 weeks ago when I continued to crave pumpkin pie. It was so easy the first time that I knew I could do it alone. Plus I still had a pie crust left, so there you have it. Isn't it a thing of beauty? I am drooling now just looking at it.

T