Here’s my sweet baby niece, all ready to open presents in her Santa outfit! She’s about 5 1/2 months old.

Comments(2)

I love music, and I’m all for toy musical instruments that allow babies to start discovering music at an early age and get their little creative juices flowing. However, they need to be made right! Take a look at this Fisher Price 2-in-1 Crocodile Keys:

It’s a xylophone/keyboard thing, but the problem is as you go from left to right, the notes go from high to low! Now that’s just gonna mess a kid up. I’m wondering, was there not one person with just a smidge of musical background at Fisher Price who could have said, “Um, guys, I think this is backwards…”

Comments(0)

Since I like to cook, I think a lot of my posts will be about food and sharing recipes. Here’s what we had for Christmas day:

Breakfast

• Breakfast casserole (a plain sausage/egg/cheese variety, since someone in this household who shall remain nameless won’t eat it with mushrooms, veggies, etc.)
• Cinnamon crumb cupcakes (like little individual coffee cakes)
• Sautéed apples

Dinner (with my parents)

• Roast beef and gravy (my mom)
• Hashbrown potato casserole
• Green beans (my mom)
• Homemade oat dinner rolls
• Frozen cranberry salad and 5-cup salad (an orange/pineapple thing) (my mom)
• Cranberry-apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake with whipped cream

As you can see, I ended up supplying the carbs. That seems to be what I’m best at!

The recipe for the Cinnamon Crumb Cupcakes came from a Penzey’s catalog, except I added the apple. David and I are big fans of Penzey’s spices. All you have to do is smell supermarket cinnamon and Penzey’s cinnamon side-by-side, and you’ll be hooked too. When you’re making this recipe, it may seem like too little batter and too much streusel, but it comes out just fine.

Cinnamon Crumb Cupcakes

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 apple, peeled and finely chopped

Streusel topping:

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) cold butter, cut in 1/4-inch pieces

Preheat oven to 325°. Spray 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray.

In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla and eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine flour and baking powder; add to rest of ingredients. Mix on low speed until well-blended (the batter will be very thick). Fold in chopped apple. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

For the topping, mix together the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles coarse crumbs. (If you have a food processor, it works great for this; use about 8-10 1-second pulses.) Sprinkle streusel evenly over muffin batter.

Bake for about 18 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in pan, then remove to a wire rack.

Comments(1)

… and I’m not ashamed to admit it!

It’s an apple corer/peeler/slicer gizmo. I know it looks like one of those gadgets you might see on a late-night infomercial that’s just made to sell, but it works, really! And it’s fun to use. It’s not worth it to do just one or two apples, but if you are making a pie, for instance, and need to do six or seven, it’s quicker. And did I mention fun?

Comments(2)

Actually, that’s not an exclamation; it’s short for “Ornament Of the Year.” It’s a tradition my parents started with me and my brother when we were little. So when we started our adult lives, we already had 20+ ornaments to put on our first Christmas trees. (I think I actually wound up with many more than that; I had a thing for Christmas decorations and somehow managed to accumulate more than one ornament a year.) I’ve continued it into my adulthood, making sure I secure at least one new ornament each year, usually purchased, but sometimes received as a gift. I’ve decided that since our tree is already getting quite full, the tradition had better stop with me this year since it will start with Anna next year. So here’s my last official “OOY”:

I like birds, so I chose this little goldfinch. This doesn’t mean I won’t get any new ornaments ever, just that I won’t intentionally look to add one every year.

Comments(1)

Here’s the tree, for anyone who’s interested:

I’m a procrastinator and never have any presents under the tree until just a few days before Christmas, so I always put stuffed animals under the tree when it goes up so it won’t look so pitiful and empty under there.

Comments(1)

I was up from 3 A.M. to 6 A.M. night before last with Sasha. That’s right, our dog. She’s scared of thunder, and for some reason her solution for this is to jump on our bed. (She’s not allowed on the furniture, and she’s very good not to get up there unless she’s scared.) I would almost give in and just let her just stay up there (against my better judgment) so we could get some sleep. But she doesn’t want to sleep with us. She wants to pace around and tromp all over us and roll around on our heads. How she thinks this is going to help the thunder situation, I don’t know. So anyway, one of us gets up with her so at least the other one can get some sleep. Since David has to go to work, I have Sasha duty on weeknights.

Let’s see—I finished a load of laundry, thawed some chicken and got it marinating for dinner, drank a cup of hot cider, and caught up on my internet goofing-around. I went back to bed when David got up to get ready for work, and I slept until 9:30.

Comments(0)

Today I’m 3 months away from my due date. So I guess that means I can say I’m 6 months pregnant? I’m starting to get quite a belly now, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting the day I can say I’m 6 months, because that sounds like I should be getting big. 5 1/2 months just doesn’t sound like I’m that far along, but 6 months sounds ok to start getting huge. Yeah, I know that’s silly.

Comments(1)

David and I took the Infant CPR class at the hospital a couple of days ago. My parents also joined us, and we were the entire class! And the instructor was a nurse I knew from church. It was great to have private instruction, and I feel like I now have the knowledge to handle an emergency, although I hope I never, ever, have the opportunity to use it. I would highly recommend this class to anyone who is going to be caring for a baby. Even if you know adult CPR, things are different for a baby.

Comments(0)

I’ve finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and start my own blog. David has had one for quite a while, and while he’s graciously put up with my communicating with our friends via comments on his blog, it’s probably time I start my own. So, here’s a little bit about me:

I’ve been married to David since June 1, 1997. We met as students at Hendrix College. We’ve been living in Conway, Arkansas ever since.

I’m pregnant with our first child, Anna Elizabeth, who is expected to grace us with her presence around March 21, 2008. So far, everything is going great with both of us.

I like dogs; I do not like cats. We have a dog, Sasha, whom we adopted from a rescue organization called Last Chance Arkansas. She is such a sweetie and we love her very much. I am also a bit of a rescue-dog snob. I echo David’s feelings in his mini-rant, so I’ll just let you read that.

I worked for several years at Conway Christian School, but I quit a few years ago to be a full-time homemaker. I love it. Do I get bored? Nope! There’s always something to do.

I like to play music. I have played piano since I was a child, and a few years ago I picked up Irish pennywhistle. I would like to learn fiddle some day. I am part of the Arkansas Celtic Music Society, and I enjoy playing Irish music in our monthly sessions. I also play occasionally in church.

I like to cook. My cooking lies about halfway between what I call “cream of mushroom soup cooking” (like those recipes you clip out of the coupon section of the paper that call for a bunch of canned or boxed convenience foods) and gourmet cooking (with ingredients you’ve never heard of and that you can’t find at grocery stores in Conway, Arkansas anyway). I really like the Cook’s Illustrated/America’s Test Kitchen model; they make basic food that real people eat, and they make it from scratch using fresh ingredients. They explain why they do things a certain way; it’s not to make life hard on you—there really is a good reason! And if you follow the directions exactly, it will come out wonderfully, the first time. Thanks to David for getting me hooked on them.

I do not stamp. I do not scrapbook. I think most of my friends do. But hey, they can’t play pennywhistle.

I sew a little, occasionally. I made a quilt for my niece Addison when she was born, and I intend to make one for our baby Anna and one for our bed as well. I also made a small diaper bag for Anna. I’ve made curtains and throw pillows before—basically things with straight lines and right angles. I do not make clothes or anything round.

I wish I could say I love to read, but I really don’t. I do read books from time to time when a good one grabs my attention, but I’m just not the kind of person who gets lost in the latest bestseller and can’t put it down. Since reading is more something I do because it’s good for me, I usually prefer non-fiction books, or at least fiction books that I feel have some value to them.

I like Macs. While I don’t have the technological expertise to explain why like David does, it makes sense when he explains it. I just know Macs are way better than PCs, and that’s good enough for me.

Comments(3)