Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday, lucky guy. I know my dad won't see this, but my mom probably will and hopefully she'll pass along the message-

Happy Birthday Dad!

I always thought 7/11 was a great day for a birthday. Anyone know if 7-11 still gives away free slurpies on 7/11?

Anyway, my mom and dad are officially on their missions in Chile as of today! I'm so proud of them! My mom plans to keep everyone informed at their new blog. Check it out!

10 months old!

The Frog turned 10 months old on Thursday! What a great month it has been! He can now open any drawer or cupboard he wants. He has knocked over Jay's night stand on top of himself twice now (luckily it's pretty light weight). He enjoys pulling all the ziplock bags and dishtowels and scattering them on the kitchen floor. He is getting extremely coordinated with his little scooter thing and is very good at steering. He can walk around when I'm holding his hands and he goes really fast! He loves riding on shoulders... he always does a big grin as soon as he's up there. He's discovered that Jay's ears make great handles (and so does hair on occasion), so most of the time he holds on to them while Jay walks around. It's soo cute.



I think my favorite accomplishments are these- he gives hugs!! :) and he sleeps through the night!!!! (finally!) After a week of him waking up many times a night, and Jay getting up with him and staying awake until The Frog cried himself back to sleep (I just couldn't do it. It's too hard on my heart), last Sunday The Frog finally slept all the way through the night for the first time EVER! The Frog has continued doing it ever since. He often wakes up quite early in the morning- between 4:30 and 6am, but often I can get him to fall back asleep if it's before 5:30am. YAY!\



He's also really good at entertaining himself for pretty long stretches of time. As long as I'm in the room or if he initiates the separation, he can go minutes on end. If I get down on the floor, though, he'll be right over to climb all over me.

Here's to the best 10 months ever :D

Recipe Fail, Part II: glass is not a secret ingredient

So, as I mentioned earlier, I made Jay's mom's famous Pineapple Upside-Down cake for his Jay's Birthday this week. The very first instruction states:
"In large square corningware pan, melt 8 Tbls butter (1 stick)"

Simple enough, right? After that you are to:
"Stir in: 2 c brown sugar
Continue to stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves"

Ah, oh, ok. So if this is over low heat, I can just put this right on the stove, right? Okay, okay... so I don't own any shmancy Corningware. Big deal. Pyrex is where it's at, fo sho.

So I put my glass pyrex pan on the stove with the stick of butter on low. Meanwhile I start measuring out the dry ingredients. I turn around, finished, and the butter is only about 1/3 melted.

I'm on a schedule here people! The Frog plays contentedly by himself for only so long! How 'bout I turn it up a little? Yeah, a 4 oughtta do it...

Now I measure the wet ingredients. I turn around to check on the butter and

BLAM!
BANG!
POW!
CRASH!
ZOT!!
(anyone else watch the old Batman?
The tights one?)

My beautiful pyrex dish literally exploded all over the kitchen!! Big shards, little shards, tiny microscopic shards you cannot see but can only feel digging into your feet when you walk. Not only that, but these were greasy shards. *shudder*

Did I mention, they got all over the kitchen?

Needless to say, I decided to play it safe for round two and melt and mix in a pan. It's true that some of the buttery, sugary goodness was probably marooned in the pan after transfer, but we all know now that

Glass Pyrex pan + stove = disaster

My First Pie!

I've never made an entire pie,
crust and all,
from scratch,
until now.

Doesn't it look scrumptious?!


It was fun to do, though remind me next time to buy a cherry-pitter. Pitting all those with a chopstick was not exactly my new favorite hobby, and my dyed fingernail-beds feel the same way.

Dirt from mouth to toe and falling asleep by himself!

Since the weather has finally become nice (it's been raining sooo much here lately!) the Frog and I have been spending a lot more time outside... which means he's been spending a lot more time in the dirt.

I was weeding the other day and constantly looking up to make sure he didn't eat any more rocks (a favorite of his) and one time he seemed very busy with the neighbors ivy, creeping through our fence. Though his back was turned, I wasn't worried about rocks, since there are none over there. Nonetheless, I didn't know if this particular ivy has any poisonous properties when ingested, so I thought it a good idea to be sure he wasn't eating any of that either. I called to him a few times to see if there was anything in his mouth but he didn't turn around. Finally, after approaching him, he turns around and gives me a great big grin (not shown) with dirt all around his mouth.

If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought he had gotten into a pan of brownies...

A few days later, I thought he might have some fun finger-"painting" with water on some colored construction paper outside. He seemed to be more interested in sucking on the sponge of water, dragging it around with him through the muck while he crawled exploring, sucking on it again, etc. I just couldn't resist snapping a shot of his cute little feeties before we went inside to wash them off. The tops of his feet are always dirty, too, from dragging while he crawls. It's very cute.



So he's no Van Gogh. On the bright side, hopefully that means he'll keep both his ears. :)

Other news:
We've started letting the Frog cry himself to sleep. Well, really, I've tried many times before now but my heart couldn't take the crying. (Even 10 minutes feels like hours!) But Jay convinced me to try it and he did it with the Frog on Thursday for bedtime and then again Friday morning while I was at ballet, and it seemed to work. (Warning: long boring details. Probably only interesting for other parents of little kids) The first night he cried 30 minutes before Jay went in to comfort him. As soon as Jay picked the Frog up, he settled down and almost immediately fell asleep in his arms. The next morning for his nap, he cried 20 minutes and slept an hour!! That is a loooong time for our little one to sleep. I'm just grateful to get him to go 40 minutes! Friday afternoon, I thought I should continue doing it, while the Frog was getting used to it, and I stood outside his room, watching him through a little crack for 30 minutes. For some reason, I decided the crying isn't as bad as long as I can see that he's ok. Now, when we put him in his crib, he doesn't stand up clinging to the side, like he used to, and he stays lying down, cries for about 3 minutes, and he's out. YAY!!! Sadly, he still wakes up several times at night, but I'm hoping this will be baby-steps to teach him to fall back asleep on his own. Sleep-filled nights are finally on the horizon- for all of us!