Guilty Pleasure...and other things.

I'm reading the Twilight series through for the 2nd time. I started book 3 this weekend. Every night when I crawl into bed after a long, hard day filled with children - I just smile and pull my book off my night stand and have a few minutes of happiness reading before I can't stay awake any longer...in general...10-15 minutes!! I don't know why but I really love those books and I'm not one who normally re-reads many books. I'm enjoying it even more the second time around.

How do you get a kid to stop licking their lips? Wilson does it all the time. No matter what time of year. Now that it is getting cooler, he's going to look like he's wearing lip gloss. We give him chapstick, I smear him with vaseline, and when I'm able to find the aquaphor I use that too. But the constant lip licking is what I need to remedy...

I may have posted this before. I want DVR. Television is the thing I've given up after having child #3 (well given it up after maternity leave ended!). If we had DVR I could have that set for the two shows I like to watch and then watch them whenever I have the opportunity. It's just not working for me to have to watch them when they are on. Plus I'm way behind from missing about the last 1/3 of last season. Andy's looking into cable because we're THOSE kind of people that still live in the dinosaur age without cable. It's just that we've not had it for the almost 9 years (NINE YEARS!!!) we've been married - so to add that to our budget, that's a big chunk o' money every month...how much is it after the promotions end?? Is it worth the $ when you don't watch a lot of TV?

And the winner is...

Forgot to flip - Andy's is on the bottom, mine is on the top.

Mine are on the left. Andy's are on the right. Can you tell who the perfectionist is in our family?!

Andy! His pretzels won the bake off! We had fun making our soft pretzels yesterday. Wilson and Luke couldn't choose between us, they gave us both 10's. Then we had Poppy swing by and he tasted them and voted. When my mom and Terry stopped by we had then taste the pretzels too! Terry chose mine and my mom's words were "but I don't know which one is yours!" She totally wasn't biased or anything...! She liked both but her vote went for Andy's. I also voted for Andy's but still like the ones that my recipe makes. His are more buttery - mine are better for you! I've already posted my recipe on the blog. You can find it here. Below is the recipe for the winning pretzels from our bake-off!

Almost Famous Soft Pretzels

1 cup milk

1 pkg instant active dry yeast

3 T light brown sugar, packed

2 1/4 cups flour, plus more for kneading

10 T unsalted butter, plus more for greasing

1 t. salt

1/3 cup baking soda

2 T coarse salt

1. Warm milk in a saucepan until it's about 110; pour into a medium bowl and sprinkle in yeast. Let the yeast soften, about 2 minutes; stir in the brown sugar and 1 cup flour with wooden spoon. Dice 2 T butter and soften; sitr into the mix. Add the remaining 1 1/4 cups flour and the teaspoon of salt to make a sticky dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead, adding more flour if needed, until smooth but still slightly tacky, about 5 minutes. (Andy used my stand mixer with dough hook). Shape into ball, place in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap in a warm place until doubled in bulk. About 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 450 and grease a large baking sheet. Punch the dough to deflate it, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Roll and stretch each piece with the palms of your hands until you have a 30inch rope. Hold the ends and slap the middle of the rope on the counter as you stretch. Form into a pretzel shape.

3. Dissolve the baking soda in 3 cups of warm water in a shallow baking dish. Gently dip each pretzel in the soda solution, then arrange on baking sheet and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake 10-12 minutes.

4. Melt the remaining 8 T of butter in a shallow dish. Dip the hot pretzels in the butter, turning to coat. Place on a wire rack and let excess butter drip off.

A Good Saturday

This morning I ran my first 5K race since college! I've been running the C25K and this was my goal- to run in the Race for the Cure. It was raining and pouring but I refused to give up! I ran the whole way and finished in 34 minutes. I was proud of myself! My feet were very soggy and I was soaked but it feels good to have accomplished my goal.

Before lunch Andy, Wilson and I worked on organizing the play room. Andy put up a new shelf to hold some of the rubbermaid tubs and toys. It looks great! Now the boys can actually play in there.

This afternoon Andy and I are going to have a pretzel bake off. I've made soft pretzels once that were deliccious and so has Andy. So we're each going to make our recipe and have a taste test! The boys are pretty excited about tasting the pretzels. It is so nice having today to do whatever we want! Looking forward to a nice afternoon!

Busy Days

5:15am- Alarm. Snooze.
5:30 (sometimes 5:45)- Get up, shower, start getting ready.
6:10- Breakfast, coffee, finish getting ready
6:50- Walk out the door with Wilson in tow to drive to school. Thankfully Andy gets up and gets Wilson dressed and gives him breakfast.
7:05- Rush into school
4:15- Leave school with Wilson to go home
4:30- get home and see my boys- hang out
5:15ish- make dinner, eat dinner, clean-up kitchen, few more minutes of play time for the boys
7:15- Wilson's shower
7:30- pj's for boys, bedtime routine, feed Tyler,
8:00- Make lunch, coffee, get ready for next day,
8:15- work around house, read small group book, go for a run, get on computer, hang out with Andy
9:15-get ready for bed, read, go to sleep around 10pm

Is it summer yet?

Consignment Sale

175 items.
A couple weeks ago I made a mountain of clothes size newborn- 12 months that we were finished using since Ty has outgrown 12 month clothes. Anything that was winter/fall went into the sale pile. Bottles, baby toys, the swing, socks, shoes, etc. Then, starting this past Saturday for each of these 175 items I have snapped all the snaps, buttoned all the buttons, put them on hangers facing just so. Pinned a tag on the upper right hand corner. Entered all the information into the computer so that the tags could be generated. Priced everything. Put non-clothing items in ziploc baggies. Labeled the baggies. Sorted by size. Somehow I started on Saturday and attached the last tags today at 5:20pm. Andy was working the set-up shift at 5:30 and taking all of our items in with him. I did it! I met the deadline. Thank you Andy for helping me last night! Thank you to my mom for getting all of the hangers! I couldn't have finished without your help. Hopefully many of our items will sell and this won't all be for nothing! :)

First Haircut

Before

This isn't really a happy face... :)

Little Tyler went for his first haircut today! He wasn't so sure about it at all - didn't like the cape, didn't like the scissors, and was quite wiggly! He looks so handsome with his haircut. What a big boy! He sat in my lap which made things better. Daddy pulled out the fruit puffs half way through to combat those wiggles!

Ty likes his new milk!

Tyler is really enjoying his whole milk now! He has figured out how to use a straw cup and a sippy cup. I am so glad he is transitioning so easily to his milk! I am working on cutting out a second feeding. Then it's just the bedtime feeding to cut. Yipee! So proud of our big boy! He is beginning to cruise around furniture. He is a big ham for the camera. As soon as Andy started to take a picture he pulled his cup out and smiled! His 5th tooth is almost through the gums. He is wearing 18 month clothes now and is such a handsome big boy!

Luke

He has said some cute things the last few days! At bedtime the boys like me to "squeeze and scratch" their backs. The last few days Luke has been asking me to rub his back by saying :
rub and scratch / the next day: scratch and scrub / and tonight: squeeze and scratch. When he said it correctly I was kind of dissapointed because the others were so cute! When he said scratch and scrub last night I almost busted out laughing.

Today after school he told me he learned that azul is blue in Spanish. Then he remembered that everyone will get a turn to be the "leader". Meaning line leader. I am SO glad we decided to send him to 3year old preschool! He LOVES school!

1 Year Check-Up

Ty went to the doctor today for his 1 year checkup. He had a great visit other than the two shots that hurt his feelings! He also had stranger anxiety which was a first - sometimes he doesn't want people to take him from his mommy or daddy but today as Dr I got near him he'd start crying! I talked to Dr. I about Ty's non-interest in any type of sippy cup so far. The I'm-not-going-to-drink-out-of-this-non-boob-thing syndrome. (Well, maybe not in so many words). He suggested trying a regular cup! Why hadn't I thought of that?! Tyler is such a determined little guy - of course he wants to start from a cup (and will hopefully then switch to sippy cups later). He tried his whole milk tonight and did well from the big boy cup. I cut the afternoon feeding today. Yay! Now just the morning and night to work out of our routine over the next 2 weeks.
Height: 31 1/4 inches (87%ile)
Weight 24 pounds, 7 oz (72%ile)
Head: 50cm (99%ile) My Tyler, what a big brain you have!!

Tyler is one!

He woke up one happy boy and opened his new tugboat bathtub toy from us.

Started the day with daddy's pancakes!


Opening presents with help from his cousins.

Tyler's cake.

Realizing that this is pretty tasty!

Happy Birthday Tyler!

We had a great day celebrating our big boy! I can't believe he is one! The weather was beautiful today - we were able to celebrate with both sides of the family. We had Ty's party at lunch time in our backyard. We had pizza (one of Ty's many favorites!), dorito salad, carrots, and birthday cake. Tyler ate a huge piece of sausage pizza and a lot of his cake. I have made each of the boys their own star shaped 1st birthday cake with cool whip icing. Ty wasn't so sure about the feel of the cool whip but once he found the cake underneath he got serious! In the end he was one chocolately little boy with a blue nose. So sweet! He got a few new toys, some sippy cups, and lots of new clothes. He also got a swing for the tree house/play set that Andy is building. It has been a wonderful day celebrating our Ty. We love you T-Dub!!

Luke's 1st Day!

Luke had his 1st day of preschool today! He had a great morning and went into his classroom so easily. Andy said he walked right in to his room! He was happy and all smiles when Andy picked him up from school. He told us a little bit - that they played in the gym, had a cookie to celebrate someone's birthday for snack, and that he had fun. When I was laying next to him in bed tonight he said "When somone has something that you want to play with you have to ask for it first." So glad that something else from his day came out! It's so funny how kids process things - it seems like things just pop into their heads at times. He is precious in his first day Spiderman t-shirt and new backpack he picked out a couple weeks ago when I took him school shopping. He asked if he got to go back again tomorrow!

Soft Pretzels - YUM!

Soft Pretzels

Ingredients:

For the dough:

1½ cups warm water (110-115° F)

1 tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. kosher salt

2¼ tsp. instant yeast

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

4 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Vegetable oil, for greasing the bowl

For finishing:

Cooking spray

10 cups water

2/3 cup baking soda
1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tbsp. water

Pretzel (or kosher) salt

Directions: To make the dough, combine the water, sugar, salt and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed to dissolve the yeast. Add in the flour and melted butter and mix just until the dough comes together. Switch to the dough hook and knead on medium speed until the dough is smooth and clears the sides of the bowl, about 5 minutes. Transfer the dough to a bowl lightly greased with vegetable oil, turning once to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place, about 50-55 minutes or until doubled in bulk.

Preheat the oven to 450° F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and spray lightly with cooking spray. Bring the water and baking soda to a boil in a large saucepan or stockpot. In the meantime, divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Working with one piece at a time, roll a segment out into a 24-inch long rope. Make a U-shape with the rope and holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and onto the bottom of the U-shape in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough. Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 or 2 at a time, for 30 seconds. Remove from the water with a slotted skimmer and return to the baking sheet. Once all the pretzels have been boiled, brush the tops with the egg wash and sprinkle lightly with salt. Bake in the preheated oven until dark golden brown, about 12-14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.
From Annie's Eats

A Good Saturday!

Saturday was a great day! I hung out at home all day - ran, did some cleaning, hung out with the boys and made brownies. Then last night Andy and I had a date night. We used a gift certificate I'd gotten at the end of school and mom/dad watched the boys. So we had a free date night which is always nice! It was so wonderful to just spend time with Andy over a nice dinner. Then we went to Tar*get to get Ty's birthday presents. It was so nice to have him all to myself! I've been so tired this weekend I've gone to bed a little after 10 both nights. Hopefully the extra sleep will help. I slept in till 9am today! Yesterday Andy and the boys started work on a treehouse in the back yard. It will have a post of it's own! Stay tuned! Today we went to church and now I'm going to finish cleaning the upstairs while Ty naps. Making a new crockpot dinner for tonight and will post it if it's good! I got it off of Cara's blog. So thrilled about this 3 day weekend! I have brought quite a bit of school work home so I need to make time for that today. I'm planning to rent Twilight and watch it again since I finished reading the book for the 2nd time this past week. It was even better the second time around!

Should I be concerned?

I feel a little weird writing this post but I honestly don't know what to do about this situation...I'm hoping some of you will have some advice or experience or even just an opinion to share! I am worried about Wilson. I think I may need to call his pediatrician. He is such a worrier. To the point that I think he has anxiety - just like his mom. It is so hard for me to admit this because I believe that if he has anxiety it is my fault. I have been taking medication for my anxiety for 6 years. Here are some of the examples of why I think there may be a problem:
* EVERY day he asks me if there is going to be a fire drill at school
* tonight he was crying and worried about poison - why? because Andy saw a black widow spider at church TWO years ago. How did this pop into his head tonight?
* A couple weeks ago at school he was in the bathroom. School was already out. He was crying in the bathroom because he thought the toilet was going to overflow. The toilet wasn't full. He'd never seen a school toilet overflow. He hadn't even flushed the toilet yet...he was just sitting there crying because he was afraid it MIGHT overflow. He has only seen 1 toilet overflow is all of his 5 1/2 years
* He does not do well with change or new things
* He is struggling to walk to his class which is 3 doors down from my classroom. He has done it for 2 days- yesterday there were tears! But he did it (and earned animal crackers out of the vending machine after school)!
* He does not like share time and does not like it when attention from a group is on him. Sometimes he hangs back in group situations or listens without participating
*He has had a big fit the last two times my mom has watched (or tried to watch in the second instance) him. Sobbing, fits. He loves his grandparents...this isn't normal behavior from him.
* He has been worried about the field trip with his Wednesday night church group to the nursing home for TWO weeks. Asking about it off and on. Do I make him go? It's tomorrow...

On top of all of this he has always picked at his fingers when he is nervous to the point that sometimes they start bleeding (just a little!) and need bandaids, he is now chewing on the necks of his shirts, and he licks his lips/mouth so much they are dry and cracking. I think these are a result of his worry/anxiety. For a while I was thinking maybe sensory issues but with all of the worry in the bullets above I'm starting to think the anxiety/worry is what is causing him to act the way he is acting...

I need your thoughts. You know this is causing me anxiety!!

Still Running!

So I am still working on the Couch Potato to 5K running program. I just finished week 6!! I am so proud of myself. I ran for 25 minutes straight. Each podcast always begins with a 5 minute warm up and a 5 minute cool down. They have truly kept me from being sore after my runs. I'm so glad these podcasts are helping me get back in shape - but I've still got a ways to go! According to the podcast the 25 minute run is equivalent to about 2 1/2 miles - almost to a 5K! I just have to keep making myself run! My sister is even doing the C25K now - yea Cara!

Veggie Chili

I made Veggie Chili Sunday night and ended up being the only one in my house to eat the chili! So when I was eating it for lunch on Monday at school I told my team about the recipe and how no one would eat it in my house except for me and Tyler. We decided I should bring in the chili and we could all enjoy it for lunch the next day. So I took it in today and everyone loved their lunch! I brought shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, and corn muffins. This is a very healthy recipe: 266 calories, 12 g. protein, 52 g. carbohydrate, 14 g. fiber, 3 g. fat, 0 mg cholesterol... but this doesn't include the light sour cream or cheese!

Veggie Chili
5 1/2 cups water, divided
3/4 cups bulgur wheat
2 tsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped red pepper
2 T chili powder
2 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp cumin
1 can (28oz) crushed tomatoes
1 can (15 oz) pure pumpkin (I added only 1 cup on accident...just realized that! It was plenty!)
1 medium zucchini, diced
1 cup frozen corn
1 can black beans, rinsed
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Put 3 cups of water and the bulgur in a medium microwave safe bowl. Cover and microwave on high until bulgur is tender and most of water is absorbed, about 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, heat oil in a dutch oven. Add onion and pepper and saute 5 minutes. Add chili powder, garlic, and cumin. Saute until fragrant 1-2 minutes. Add remaining 2 1/2 cups water, tomatoes, pumpkin, zucchini, and corn. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until veggies are tender. Stir in beans and bulgur; heat through. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro.